Biden warns of a ‘very, very dark moment’ as he hits out at Trump

Former President Joe Biden lashed out Friday at his successor, delivering an impassioned address in which he warned that the country was in a “very, very dark moment” and said President Donald Trump had acted “in a way that embarrasses us as a nation.”

Biden, speaking at a Nebraska Democratic Party fundraising dinner in Omaha, condemned Trump for “deliberately making hunger worse for America” and accused him of taking a “wrecking ball” to the White House, the Constitution and the rule of law while enriching his own family.

“The American people are sending a message, are sending the message — message to Trump and to his crowd,” Biden said, at times shouting or meandering as he often did during the later years of his presidency. “I just want you to know, you work for us, Mr. President. We don’t work for you.”

In his first overtly political speech since leaving office, Biden warned that the nation had slipped into difficult times — but said this week’s elections were a reason for optimism.

“Folks, look, this isn’t a golden age,” Biden said. “The fact of the matter is that it is a very, very dark moment. But you know, the fact of the matter is, we’re in a situation where we had something very special happen just last Tuesday.”

A White House official did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Since Biden left office, many Democrats have appeared eager to move on from him. He was absent from the recent campaigns for governor in New Jersey and Virginia, even as former President Barack Obama was invited to appear at arena rallies last weekend in those states.

In his 30-minute remarks in Omaha, Biden, 82, cycled through some of his greatest hits. He spoke about how unions had helped build the middle class, exaggerated (“I was on the Foreign Relations Committee when I was 24 years old”) and sprinkled a dozen instances of “folks” throughout his remarks.

He called for reopening the federal government and ending the shutdown and spoke movingly about his experience battling prostate cancer. He saved his harshest criticisms of Trump for his cuts to funding for cancer research and other health care.

“I think it’s immoral, it’s un-American, it’s flat out wrong,” Biden said. “You have to ask yourself: Why? Why in God’s name are they doing this? Why? Well, I’ll tell you why. They give away an additional $4 trillion in tax breaks to the benefit of the wealthiest people in America.”

Biden has not been a regular on the party’s chicken-dinner or fundraising circuit, where donors are far more likely to be attracted by Obama or members of the vast field of potential 2028 presidential candidates.

The former president’s remarks Friday night were preceded by a speech from Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, who has made little secret of his ambition to run for president in 2028.

Nebraska is a rare spot where Biden is welcome, and he received a warm reception from the local Democrats, who waved “Jomaha” signs from the crowd. After he finished his speech, Biden remained onstage and was wrapped in a blanket by Native American tribal leaders from Nebraska.

While Vice President Kamala Harris lost the seven battleground states, she carried Nebraska’s competitive 2nd Congressional District, which includes Omaha. Before Biden spoke, Nebraska Democrats played a clip in which cable networks called him as the winner of the district’s electoral vote from his 2020 election night. Nebraska is one of two states that award their presidential electoral votes by congressional district.

While the former president has been spotted on occasion riding Amtrak, he has had few announced public appearances in recent months. In May, he sat for a poorly received interview on ABC’s “The View” as he sought to beat back book revelations about his mental and physical decline while in office.

The same month, Biden’s aides announced that he had an aggressive form of prostate cancer. In September, he had surgery to remove skin cancer lesions from his forehead and began undergoing radiation therapy at Penn Medicine Radiation Oncology in Philadelphia.