Former President Joe Biden warned on Thursday that the country is facing \u201cdark days\u201d under President Donald Trump\u2019s watch, saying the executive branch \u201cseems to be doing its best to dismantle the Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey\u2019re doing it all too often with the help of a Congress that\u2019s just sitting in the sidelines and enabled by the highest court in the nation. The rulings they\u2019ve made, my God,\u201d Biden said as he spoke at the National Bar Association\u2019s annual gala in Chicago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFolks, in 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 truth about ourselves, our institutions and democracy itself,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden never mentioned Trump by name, instead referring to him as \u201cthis guy,\u201d and argued the American people are beginning to realize the need for judicial checks on the executive branch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJudges matter. Courts matter. The law matters and the Constitution matters. I think a lot of Americans are starting to realize that under the pressure we\u2019re under now with this guy we have as president,\u201d he said. \u201cOh, get ready, folks, this is just starting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden called out \u201claw firms bowing to pressure, bending to bullies, instead of staying rooted in justice and the law,\u201d along with some of the biggest news outlets in the country. He also scorned \u201cthe apparent glee some of our politicians express\u201d at the administration\u2019s aggressive approach to immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden said the current administration is intent on working to \u201cease all the gains we\u2019ve made in my administration, to erase history, rather than make it, to erase fairness, equality, to erase justice itself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFolks, we can\u2019t sugarcoat this. These are dark days, but you\u2019re all here for the same reason,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s because our future is literally on the line. We must, we must be unapologetic of fighting for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden\u2019s latest speech comes the same week two senior aides appeared for interviews before the House Oversight Committee as part of the Republican-led panel\u2019s intensifying investigation into the former president\u2019s cognitive decline and possible efforts to conceal it from the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his speech in Chicago, the former president joked about his age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI have the dubious distinction of being elected the youngest senator in American history and the oldest president in American history,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s hell turning 40 twice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The former president, who continues to undergo treatment for an aggressive form of prostate cancer, has kept a relatively low profile since leaving the White House, giving only a handful of speeches. He spends most of his time at his homes in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, and is working on a forthcoming book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As he closed out his speech, Biden encouraged Americans to \u201csummon the courage\u201d to stand up for what\u2019s right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt means take the client who can\u2019t write a big check, but needs protecting their basic fundamental rights. It means signing onto that brief that may draw the ire of people in power, but you know it\u2019s the right thing to do,\u201d he said. \u201cIt means standing firm against unconstitutional actions, designed to intimidate you. It means write the article, give the speech, lead the protest, defend the ideas your country is founded on, to protect your institutions, to fight for the soul of the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former President Joe Biden warned on Thursday that the country is facing \u201cdark days\u201d under President Donald Trump\u2019s watch, saying the executive branch \u201cseems to be doing its best to dismantle the Constitution.\u201d \u201cThey\u2019re doing it all too often with the help of a Congress that\u2019s just sitting in the sidelines and enabled by the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":334,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[115,154,149],"class_list":["post-333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-biden","tag-dark-days","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":335,"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333\/revisions\/335"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hkg01.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}