Joe Biden, now 82, re-emerged on the public stage this week—and in typical Biden fashion, he brought with him a signature mix of verbal gaffes, outdated terminology, and political misfires. Speaking at a conference in Chicago, Biden delivered the keynote address at the Advocates, Counselors, and Representatives for the Disabled (ACRD) event. But what was supposed to be a moment to highlight Social Security quickly turned into another entry in the long list of Biden’s greatest hits of cringe.
Early in his speech, Biden launched into a nostalgic anecdote about moving from Scranton to Wilmington as a child—only to refer to African American children he saw as “colored kids,” a term that has been outdated and offensive for decades. “I remember seeing kids going by, at the time called ‘colored kids,’ on a bus,” Biden recalled. He insisted that moment “sparked my sense of outrage,” but the damage was already done.
The term may have been intended to reflect the language of the era, but the former president’s habit of stepping on his own message overshadowed any moral point he may have been trying to make. And it didn’t stop there.
The speech began awkwardly with incoherent mumbling over the intro music, and then spiraled into Biden’s familiar pattern of unsubstantiated political attacks, particularly on President Trump and Republicans. Despite offering zero evidence, Biden claimed Republicans were preparing to “cut and gut” Social Security—an old scare tactic that’s grown stale and less believable with each use.
“Who the hell do they think they are?” Biden growled, before catching himself: “I will not go further. I’ll get in trouble.” Classic Biden—rant first, regret second.
The former president also mocked findings from President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which recently uncovered evidence of widespread Social Security database errors—including records listing recipients as being over 200 years old. Biden sneered, “Those 300-year-old folk getting that Social Security, I want to meet them.”
DOGE head Elon Musk responded to the findings by comparing the database to a lost civilization’s records, noting the presence of entries aged 360+ years. But rather than take fraud seriously, Biden played the clown.
If this speech was meant to mark Biden’s return to the national spotlight, it mostly served to remind voters why he left. The gaffes, the distortions, the unfiltered meandering—it’s the Biden brand. But at a time when Americans want clarity, strength, and truth, it’s looking more like a relic of the past than a vision for the future.
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