Former President Joe Biden was the keynote speaker at a conference for the Society for Human Resource Management, an HR trade organization, in San Diego, California, on Wednesday. Biden’s remarks to the group of roughly 20,000 HR professionals lasted for more than an hour. The speech itself was unremarkable. He is still capable of reading from a teleprompter.
It was during the Q&A session with SHRM President Johnny C. Taylor Jr., afterward that things went downhill. Speaking in his now-familiar subdued and slightly slurred manner, he made several striking — and questionable — statements.
Biden expressed frustration that some of the most significant accomplishments of his presidency had been reversed by the Trump administration.
Biden told the group, “Many of the things I worked so damn hard [on], that I thought I changed in the country, are changing so rapidly.”
First, Biden himself was incapable of working “so damn hard” on anything. But the small, unelected group of progressives surrounding him was both willing and able to act in his stead. The policies they advanced on his behalf set America on a path of decline. Another four years under either Biden or former Vice President Kamala Harris would have cemented those policies.
There is a reason why President Donald Trump won a decisive victory last November: a majority of Americans wanted to see the damage his administration inflicted on the country reversed. From his first day in office, Trump set out to do exactly that.
Biden’s next claim was pure delusion. Since leaving office in January, he said, European leaders have reached out to him for advice. He noted that “a number” of them would like to see him “get engaged” in politics again.
“How can you just walk away?” Biden asked. “You don’t see me out there publicly doing a lot of this. But I’m also dealing with a lot of Democrats and Republican colleagues, all of them, wanting to talk, not because they think I have the answer, just to bounce things off me. I’m seeing a lot of officeholders. … I’m not looking for them. They asked to see me, I see them.”
“I stayed engaged because I really cared about what I was doing,” he said.
“We strengthened NATO in a significant way,” he explained. “I’m getting calls — I’m not going to go into it, I can’t — from a number of European leaders asking me to get engaged.”
“I’m not,” he said. “But I’m giving advice.”
As I recall, the last time Biden was among European leaders, they were seen guiding him back to the group after he’d wandered off.
The Wall Street Journal reported that while Biden never mentioned Trump by name, he warned about the dangers of the U.S. stepping back from global leadership and highlighted his administration’s efforts to strengthen NATO. He repeated his worn out talking point that NATO had been “in shambles” when he took office.
Taylor asked Biden what he would most like to be remembered for. He replied, “Being a good father.”
He boasted, “Every single day, I contact every single one of my grandchildren.”
Taylor didn’t ask him if that included Hunter’s youngest daughter, Navy Roberts.
The Daily Beast reached out to the White House for a comment on Biden’s remarks. Spokesperson Anna Kelly replied with the following statement:
Absolutely no one is calling Joe Biden for advice because his disastrous foreign policy left America weaker than ever before. Thanks to President Trump, NATO allies have made a historic five percent defense spending pledge, Iran’s nuclear capabilities are obliterated, and our country’s standing on the world stage is restored.
Whether Biden received his reported $300,000 asking price for public speeches remained unclear.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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