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Former President Joe Biden took a number of potshots at President Donald Trump addressing the National Bar Association’s100th annual gala at the Hyatt in Chicago Thursday evening, saying his successor’s administration is engaged in an “existential” fight with minority communities.
“Not since those tumultuous days in 1960s has this fight been so existential to who we are as a nation, with marginalized groups so dramatically under attack,” said Biden, who spoke before being presented with the organization’s C. Francis Stradford Award, named for a co-founder of the historically Black legal association.
“My friends, we need to face the hard truth of this administration, and that it has been to ease all the gains we’ve made in my administration,” Biden went on. “To erase history rather than making it. To erase fairness, equality, to erase justice itself. And that’s not hyperbole. That’s a fact.”
“Get ready folks, this is just starting,” he added.
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Raising his voice, Biden said, “Folks, in all our lives, the life of our nation, there are moments so stark that they divide all that came before from everything that followed, moments that forced us to confront hard truths about ourselves, our institutions, and democracy itself. “
“We are, in my view, at such a moment in American history, reflected in every cruel executive outreach, every rollback of basic freedoms, every erosion of long-standing, established precedent,” he said.
Biden also cast himself as a long-time ally of the civil rights movement, touting how his administration appointed more Black women to U.S. courts of appeals “than every other president in American history combined.”
He called for resistance against the Trump administration, especially emphasizing the role of the courts.
“Judges matter, courts matter, the law matters and the Constitution matters. I think a lot of Americans are starting to realize that under the pressure under now with this guy we have as president,” he said.
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He also took jabs at Congress and the Supreme Court, saying, “they’re doing it all too often with the help of a Congress that is just sitting on the sidelines and enabled by the highest court in the nation. The rulings they’ve made, my god.”
“He seems to be doing his best to dismantle the Constitution,” he went on. “These are dark days, but you’re all here for the same reason I left that prestigious law firm to go to the defender’s office years ago. It’s because our future is literally on the line and we must be unapologetic of fighting for the future.”
The former president’s speech was free of major gaffes, though he slurred and stumbled over his words at several points.
At one point in the speech he joked, “When I was elected, I had the dubious distinction to be elected the youngest senator in American history and the oldest president in American history. It’s hell turning 40 twice.”
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Among the featured speakers were a host of high-profile Black lawyers, including far-left Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, MSNBC pundit Joy-Ann Reid and New York Attorney General Tish James.
“President Biden’s life and leadership reflect an unwavering commitment to the rule of law and the promise of justice for all,” National Bar Association president Wiley Adams said in a statement.
“[I]t is not only historic but also deeply meaningful to have the 46th President of the United States join us in honoring the transformative power of the law—and the enduring fight to protect our democracy,” he said.
The former president’s address comes two months after his son Hunter agreed to a voluntary disbarment stemming from drug use and alleged gun law violations.
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The president took the stage the same month his son has made waves in the public eye.
Earlier in July, Hunter Biden sat for a marathon interview from the Delaware Valley, in which he attacked President Donald Trump and many top Democratic figures, including David Axelrod, and spoke about his former addiction to crack cocaine.
In a case that occurred in the same area where the interview took place, a gun registered to Hunter Biden had been found in a dumpster a short distance from the A.I. duPont school in Greenville, Del.
Hallie Biden, widow of former Delaware Attorney General Joseph Beau Biden III and then-girlfriend of Hunter Biden, discovered the gun in her boyfriend’s possession and disposed of it there.
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Edward Banner of Newport, Del., had been rummaging through the dumpster for bottle deposits to cash-in and discovered the gun. He was later called to testify in the case.
During the registration of that weapon, Hunter Biden swore on a federal form that he was not actively using controlled substances – a declaration that led to a criminal case in Wilmington that eventually led to his disbarment.
In June 2024, District of Columbia Judge Anna Blackburne-Rigsby signed an order automatically suspending his license to practice law in Washington.
Hunter Biden filed a sealed affidavit in April consenting to his disbarment, which avoided a court hearing on the matter.
The speech also came just hours after longtime Biden aide Michael Donilon testified to the House Oversight Committee investigators that he could have been paid a total of $8 million if the former president won his 2024 re-election bid, a source familiar with the conversation told Fox News Digital.
Amidst allegations that close Biden allies covered up his mental decline while president, Donilon told the committee that “every President ages over the four years of a presidency and President Biden did as well, but he also continued to grow stronger and wiser as a leader as a result of being tested by some of the most difficult challenges any President has ever faced.”
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The National Bar Association, now based in Washington, D.C., was formed in Iowa at a time when the predominant American Bar Association barred Black attorneys from joining its ranks.
Its approximately 66,000 members advocate for civil rights, diversity in the legal profession as well as equitable access to the law.
The National Bar Association said Biden’s appearance “underscores his ongoing efforts to strengthen the rule of law, defend voting rights, and support historically marginalized communities.”
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