Joe Biden used an offensive term for African-American people during his first speech since exiting the White House.
During a keynote speech at a Chicago conference on Tuesday night, the former president reminisced about his childhood and the divisive forces that propelled him into public service decades ago.
“I’d never seen … hardly any black people in Scranton at the time, and I was only going to fourth grade,” he said during his speech about social security.
“And I remember seeing the kids going by at the time, coloured kids on a bus going by …”
The term “coloured” may have been commonplace when 82-year-old Biden was growing up, but today it is considered deeply offensive for the way it reflects a world of white people and everyone else.
The faux pas will likely remind Democrats of why he was forced out of the 2024 election.
The term harks back to a time of segregation, when drinking fountains would be labelled “coloured only”.
The word was quickly seized on by Mr Biden’s opponents online to ridicule his return to the stage, almost three months since he left the White House.
The speech was billed as his first major intervention since Donald Trump took office and a chance to fire a warning shot across efforts by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to slash the federal workforce.
Joe Biden pictured with Donald Trump before Mr Trump’s inauguration ceremony in January this year – Reuters
“In fewer than 100 days, this new administration has made so much damage and so much destruction,” he said. “It’s kind of breathtaking.”
The 27-minute speech contained all the hallmarks of a Biden set piece, alternating his voice from booming to soft, mumbled or slurred words and a self-deprecating joke about his advanced age.
Mr Biden railed against tech titans for their “move fast, break things” mantra, and Republicans for trying to fund their tax cuts by taking money from Social Security, which pays out $1.4 trillion to 73 million elderly and disabled Americans each year.
“Social Security is more than a government program. It’s a sacred promise we made as a nation,” he told his audience. “We know just how much Social Security matters to people’s lives.”
Even debating its future, he said, was causing “devastating” psychological pressure.
Mr Biden has kept a low profile since leaving the White House.
Joe and Jill Biden at the opening night of Othello on Broadway in March – XNY/Star Max/GC Images
The White House mocked the former president ahead of his return to the limelight
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “I’m shocked that he is speaking at nighttime
“I thought his bedtime was much earlier than his speech tonight.”
She also tried to upstage his speech, by announcing that Mr Trump would sign a presidential memorandum preventing illegal aliens from obtaining Social Security benefits.
He is blamed by many Democrats for staying in the election race too long, delaying the inevitable handover to a younger, more vigorous candidate and creating the conditions for a second Trump term.
When CNN asked one long-time supporter and donor whether they had heard from the former president since January 20, they said: “No. Thank God.”
He has spent most of his post-presidency at his home in Delaware, emerging only occasionally for public events.
He appeared at a model United Nations conference in New York and a St Patrick’s Day brunch near his home.
And aides claim he travels to an office in Washington once a week, sometimes travelling by train, just as he used to when he was a senator.
His friends explain it as time to reconnect with family after a life in politics and a chance to begin thinking about the focus of a foundation to defend his legacy.
