After months in political hibernation, Joe Biden stepped back into the spotlight Tuesday with a speech in Chicago about Social Security—and it went about as well as you’d expect.
Instead of calming concerns about his party’s messaging, the former president delivered a meandering, occasionally awkward address full of doomsday predictions, outdated references, and whispered warnings aimed squarely at President Trump. If Democrats were hoping Biden could still serve as a credible voice, this speech should’ve put that fantasy to rest.
Biden’s first major public remarks since leaving office focused on blasting Trump’s approach to Social Security. “They’re taking a hatchet to the Social Security Administration,” he declared, claiming the Trump administration had pushed out 7,000 seasoned employees and left millions of Americans worried for the first time in history that their benefits might be delayed. “It would be a calamity,” he warned.
But let’s get real—Social Security has had structural problems for years, and Biden himself did little to fix it during his presidency. The idea that Trump is suddenly singlehandedly threatening the program’s stability is pure fear-mongering. As is often the case, Biden offered no real solutions, just soundbites designed to frighten seniors into believing a Trump-led government will rip away their safety net.
And of course, no Biden speech would be complete without bizarre detours. At one point, he joked about wanting to meet “those 300-year-old folk getting that Social Security.” This followed his comment about making sure benefits go “to people who, actually, they belong to,” which only highlighted the confusion.
He also, once again, dredged up an awkward racial anecdote—something about “colored kids on a bus”—as part of an off-track memory from his youth. It was the kind of line that might’ve made sense in the 1970s but now only reinforces concerns that Biden’s grasp of modern political discourse is slipping.
Even with the stakes supposedly so high, the event itself felt low-energy. The crowd was tepid, the message muddled, and the optics weren’t much better than they were during Biden’s listless 2024 campaign.
And here’s the kicker: Biden’s own party doesn’t even seem to want him front and center. Democrat leaders have been scrambling to reinvent themselves as a new, more moderate force, desperately trying to shake off the baggage of Biden-era failures. Meanwhile, Biden’s appearance felt like a relic of a party that still believes government programs are the ultimate psychological balm for Americans.
Yes, Biden said Social Security brings “psychic calm” to the American people—a phrase that sounds like it came straight out of a yoga retreat, not a serious economic policy discussion.
What’s really at stake here is more than just one shaky speech. This was a preview of what Democrats might try to roll out heading into the midterms: resurrecting Biden as a moral voice, even as polls show the country has moved on. Instead of inspiring confidence, the speech highlighted just how out of touch Biden—and the party clinging to him—really is.
The Democrats are rudderless. Their progressive wing is alienating working-class voters, their establishment figures are unelectable, and now they’re wheeling out Biden to warn about Trump’s supposed “calamity” while ignoring their own failed economic policies.
This wasn’t a rallying cry. It was a whimper.
If this is the best message Democrats can muster—more government dependence, vague threats about Republican villains, and a nostalgia act in the form of Joe Biden—it’s no wonder voters keep walking away. Biden didn’t reignite any fire in Chicago. He just reminded Americans why they turned the page.
