INTERNACIONAL
Biden returns to podium for first time to slam Trump’s Social Security plans: ‘Wreck it so they could rob it’
Former President Joe Biden took shots at the Trump administration’s Social Security policies in his first major speech since leaving the White House on Tuesday evening.
«Seriously, people are now genuinely concerned for the first time in history, for the first and only time in history, that Social Security benefits may be delayed or interrupted,» Biden said from the Advocates, Counselors and Representatives for the Disabled (ACRD) conference in Chicago on Tuesday evening.
«In the 90 years since Franklin Roosevelt created the Social Security system, people have always gotten their Social Security checks. They’ve gotten them during wartime, during recessions, during the pandemic. No matter what, they got them. But now, for the first time ever, that might change. It would be a calamity for millions of families, millions of people,» he added.
The ACRD conference was billed as the 46th president’s first public speech since leaving the White House. Biden, however, has delivered other public remarks since Jan. 20, Fox Digital found, including speaking before the National High School Model United Nations in March, which received little media attention, as well as joining an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers event this month.
ACRD is an advocacy organization that works to equip «disability professionals with the tools, technology, and training to lead the industry forward,» according to its website.
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President Joe Biden speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Sept. 15, 2023. (Chris Kleponis/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Biden’s keynote address, which ran less than an hour, overwhelmingly focused on his accomplishments with Social Security when he was president, taking aim at how the Trump administration is allegedly keeping the elderly up at night with worry over their Social Security benefits, as well as cracking a few jokes about his decades in politics.
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Biden had a disastrous debate performance against Trump in 2024. (Getty Images)
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«Why are these guys taking aim at Social Security now?» Biden asked, referring to the Trump administration. «Well, they’re following that old line from tech startups. The quote is, ‘Move fast, break things.’ They’re certainly breaking things. They’re shooting first and aiming later.»
«The result is a lot of needless pain and sleepless nights,» Biden said.
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The Trump administration has cut about 7,000 Social Security Administration staffers since taking office as part of its mission to cut government fat and bureaucracy and realign agencies with «America First» policies. Democrats have slammed President Donald Trump over the cuts, claiming he will cut Social Security benefits to seniors.
The White House has repeatedly rejected claims that the Trump administration will cut such benefits, vowing to «always protect» Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits.
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden greet President-elect Donald Trump and Melania Trump at the White House on Jan. 20, 2025. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
Biden continued that the Trump administration is allegedly looking to «wreck» Social Security to «rob it.»
«My friend, [Maryland] Gov. [Martin] O’Malley, knows what they’re really up to. He says, and I love his quote, ‘They want to wreck it so they could rob it.’ They want to wreck it so they could rob it. Why do they want to rob it? In order to deliver huge tax cuts to billionaires and big corporations and keep it going. They want to make permanent the 2017 tax cuts, which overwhelmingly benefits the wealthiest Americans and the biggest corporations. That’s going to cost $5 trillion. Where are they going to get $5 trillion to pay for when they continue to run the deficit up?»
«What they always do … by running up the national debt, No. 1, then by taking the money from someplace else. What are the two big pots of money out there in raw numbers? Social Security and Medicaid. … Republicans, these guys are willing to hurt the middle class and the working class in order to deliver significant, greater wealth to their already very wealthy [friends]. Who in the hell do they think they are?» he said.
President Joe Biden is shown at the White House on Nov. 27, 2023. (Michael Reynolds/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Former Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and former Democrat Social Security Administrator and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley joined the event. O’Malley presented Biden with ACRD’s «beacon of hope award» for his accomplishments as president, including his leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic and fighting for the «dignity of every person.»
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Biden added that the nation is «divided» under Trump and can’t continue on the same path.
«We can’t go on like this as a divided nation, as divided as we are. I said, I’ve been doing this a long time, it’s never been this divided. Granted, it’s roughly 30%, but it’s a 30% that has no heart,» he continued.
The Trump administration’s official Social Security X account hit back after the speech that «Biden is lying to Americans» before providing a detailed list of «facts,» including that Trump has repeatedly pledged to protect benefits and that no field office has been closed since Jan. 20.
«SSA is taking commonsense steps to transform how we serve the public – last month, we spent $16.5 million to modernize telephone services nationwide. We’re developing cutting-edge, AI-powered tools to streamline simple tasks,» the thread continued. «SSA Inspector General report released while Joe Biden was President found $72 billion in improper payments from fiscal years 2015 through 2022.»
The event comes as political books investigating the 2024 campaign cycle hit the shelves, including «Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History» and «FIGHT: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House.»
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Excerpts from Chris Whipple’s «Uncharted» reported that White House staffers allegedly kept Biden from socializing with others, including close allies and friends, out of fear the 46th president «might say the wrong thing or might feed the mental acuity narrative.» He also appeared «absolutely exhausted» ahead of his ill-fated debate against Trump in June, according to the book, which opened the floodgates to public concern over Biden’s mental acuity as he tripped over his words and lost his train of thought during the debate.
President Joe Biden (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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Biden has been spending his days in both Delaware and the nation’s capital since his Oval Office exit, with the 46th president working on his own book while also meeting with various Democratic Party leaders, NBC News reported in March.
Joe Biden,Social Security,Politics,Donald Trump,Chicago
Welcome to the Fox News Politics newsletter, with the latest updates on the Trump administration, Capitol Hill and more Fox News politics content.
Here’s what’s happening…
-Gabbard announces RFK files released months after Trump’s order: ‘Light on the truth’
-Top Dem asks Noem how TSA will prevent ‘major disruptions’ as many travelers still lack REAL ID
-Biden’s vax-focused COVID-19 website obliterated by White House, replaced with ‘true origins’ virus guide
‘We are not the same’
The White House released a splitscreen image overnight to underscore the stark contrast between where Republicans and Democrats stand on illegal immigration.
One image featured distraught Angel Mom Patty Morin being comforted by President Trump in the Oval Office. Morin’s daughter, Rachel Morin, was savagely beaten, raped and killed in Maryland by an illegal migrant from El Salvador in 2023.
The other image showed Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., sitting and talking with deported illegal alien Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 29, in El Salvador…Read more
The White House released a splitscreen image overnight to underscore the stark contrast between where Republicans and Democrats stand on illegal immigration. (The White House, Sen. Van Hollen via X)
Abrego Garcia
HOMELAND SECURITY REPORT: Kilmar Abrego Garcia suspected of human, labor trafficking in Homeland Security report
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White House
POLL POSITION: How Trump’s approval rating compares to his presidential predecessors
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CROWN OF THORNS: LGBTQ Christians crusade against Trump’s religiously ‘hostile’ policies during Holy Week
A group of LGBTQ+ Christian leaders gathered outside the U.S. Capitol to reject President Donald Trump’s «anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, with one religious leader telling Fox News Digital the Trump administration is «the most hostile administration to religion in recent memory.» (Fox News Digital)
‘BIG HONOR’: Trump announces a conservative media star, a GOP governor, and others for Homeland Security Advisory Council
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World Stage
‘NEVER ALONE’: Huckabee visits iconic holy site in Israel, delivers Trump’s prayer for peace
HAMAS CASH CRISIS: Hamas terror group reportedly buckling under financial strain amid Israeli military gains and growing unrest
Palestinian Hamas militants gather at the site of the handing over of the bodies of four Israeli hostages in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza on February 20, 2025. (Photo by EYAD BABA/AFP via Getty Images)
‘UNACCEPTABLE’: Chinese firm aiding Houthi attacks on US vessels, as airstrikes kill 74
HOLY WEEK OUTREACH: Pope Francis visits Rome prison during Holy Week
‘MOVE ON’: Rubio says US ready to ‘move on’ within days if no progress on Russia-Ukraine peace deal
Capitol Hill
DEMOCRATS IN DISARRAY: Confidence in Congressional Democrats hits all time low in new poll
The New York Times Editorial Board accused the Democratic Party’ of being in «denial’ over why it lost in 2024. (Getty Images)
PINK ALERT: Top GOP senator calls out Code Pink, The People’s Forum allegedly pushing CCP propaganda in US
Across America
UNMASKED: Anti-Israel agitator charged in violent hate crime attack on two Jewish college students
GLOVES ARE OFF: Top GOP lawmaker, Hochul trade barbs amid speculation Trump ally is jumping in gubernatorial race
‘SAFER TODAY’: ICE arrests over 200 illegal aliens in New York City’s ‘most crime-infested neighborhoods’
GATHERING INFO: ICE and DOGE seek sensitive data in crackdown on illegal immigration, waste: report
ICE agents in Los Angeles are frustrated with sanctuary city policies. (Fox News)
UNHEALTHY: HHS probing hospital over firing of nurse who blew whistle on minors getting gender treatments
‘WIDE FISSURE’: Federal judge temporarily restricts DOGE access to personalized Social Security data
Get the latest updates on the Trump administration and Congress, exclusive interviews and more on FoxNews.com.
Elections Newsletter
INTERNACIONAL
Three tourists among 4 killed after Italian cable car crashes to the ground near Naples
Three tourists were among four people who were killed when a cable car crashed south of Naples, an Italian official said Friday.
A British woman and an Israeli woman were among the three foreign victims identified since the accident on Thursday, said Marco De Rosa, the spokesperson for the mayor of Vico Equense. The fourth victim was the Italian driver of the cable car.
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Four are dead after a cable car crash in Italy. (Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico)
According to initial information, a traction cable snapped and one car crashed after both the upward and a downward-going cable cars came to a halt as they traversed Monte Faito, in the town of Castellammare di Stabia.
A fifth person, who is also believed to be a foreign tourist, was seriously injured and is being treated in hospital in Naples, officials said. Sixteen passengers were helped out of the other cable car that was stuck mid-air near the foot of the mountain following the incident.
The accident happened just a week after the cable car, popular for its views of Mount Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples, reopened for the season.
Local prosecutors have opened an investigation into possible manslaughter, which will involve an inspection of the cable stations, the pylons, the two cabins and the cable, local officials said Friday,
The emergency services, including Italy’s alpine rescue, more than 50 firefighters, police and civil protection personnel, worked into the evening in severe weather conditions, which made the rescue operations difficult.
«The traction cable broke. The emergency brake downstream worked, but evidently not the one on the cabin that was entering the station,» Luigi Vicinanza, the mayor of Castellammare di Stabia, said on Thursday. He added that there had been regular safety checks on the cable car line, which runs 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from the town to the top of the mountain.
SCHOOL BUS FLIPS ON SOUTH CAROLINA HIGHWAY
Rescue workers recover a body at the scene of a cable car crash in Italy. (AP Photo/Salvatore Laporta)
The company running the service, the EAV public transport firm, stressed that the seasonal cable car had reopened with all the required safety conditions.
«The reopening had taken place a week ago after three months of tests every day, day and night,» said EAV President Umberto De Gregorio. «This is something inexplicable.»
De Gregorio said technical experts believed there was no connection between the severe weather and the cause of the crash. «There is an automatic system. When the wind exceeds a certain level, the cable car stops automatically,» he said.
The Monte Faito cable car opened in 1952. Four people died in 1960 when a pylon broke.
Italy has recorded two similar fatal accidents involving cable cars in recent years.
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A cable car crash in May 2021 in northern Italy killed 14 people, including six Israelis, among them a family of four. In 1998, a low-flying U.S. military jet cut through the cable of a ski lift in Cavalese, in the Dolomites, killing 20 people.
INTERNACIONAL
El líder del grupo terrorista Hezbollah rechazó el desarme y tensa la relación con el presidente del Líbano
El grupo terrorista Hezbollah “no dejará que nadie lo desarme”, declaró el viernes el líder de la milicia chiíta libanesa, Naim Qassem, mientras Washington presiona a Beirut para que obligue al movimiento respaldado por Irán a entregar sus armas.
Hezbollah, durante mucho tiempo una fuerza dominante en la política libanesa, quedó debilitado tras más de un año de hostilidades con Israel desencadenadas por la guerra de Gaza, incluida una incursión terrestre israelí y dos meses de intensos bombardeos que diezmaron la cúpula del grupo.
El alto el fuego de noviembre puso fin en gran medida a los combates, pero no antes de que el líder del grupo y predecesor de Qassem, Hassan Nasrallah, muriera en un ataque aéreo israelí.
“No dejaremos que nadie desarme a Hezbollah ni desarme la resistencia” contra Israel, declaró Qassem en declaraciones a un canal de televisión afiliado a Hezbollah. “Debemos eliminar esta idea de desarme del diccionario”.
El presidente libanés, Joseph Aoun, dijo esta semana que quería “hacer de 2025 el año de la restricción de armas al Estado”, y añadió que esperaba lograr ese objetivo mediante el “diálogo” con Hezbollah.
Qassem dijo que su grupo estaba dispuesto a dialogar sobre una “estrategia de defensa”, “pero no bajo la presión de la ocupación” de Israel.
“Israel debe retirarse (del sur de Líbano) y cesar su agresión, y el Estado libanés debe iniciar el proceso de reconstrucción”, añadió.
Sus comentarios se produjeron horas después de que otro funcionario de Hezbollah dijera que el grupo se negaba a discutir la entrega de sus armas hasta que Israel se retirara completamente del sur del Líbano.
“No se trata de desarmarse”, declaró Wafic Safa en una entrevista con la emisora de radio Al-Nur de Hezbollah.
Safa, que según los expertos pertenece a la facción más radical del movimiento, afirmó que Hezbollah había transmitido su postura a Aoun.
En su entrevista, Safa preguntó: “¿No sería lógico que Israel primero se retirara, luego liberara a los prisioneros, luego cesara su agresión… y luego discutiéramos una estrategia defensiva?
“La estrategia defensiva consiste en pensar en cómo proteger a Líbano, no en prepararse para que entregue sus armas”.
Analistas han afirmado que la idea, antaño impensable, del desarme de Hezbollah puede haber dejado de serlo e incluso resultar inevitable.
En virtud del alto el fuego de noviembre, Israel debía retirar todas sus fuerzas del sur del Líbano. Pero a pesar del acuerdo, tropas israelíes han permanecido en cinco posiciones del sur del Líbano que consideran “estratégicas”.
Israel también ha continuado llevando a cabo ataques casi diarios contra miembros de Hezbollah en el Líbano.
En virtud de la tregua, Hezbollah debía retirar a sus combatientes al norte del río Litani y desmantelar cualquier infraestructura militar restante en el sur.
El ejército libanés se ha ido desplegando en el sur a medida que las fuerzas israelíes se retiraban.
Hezbollah afirma que el alto el fuego no se aplica al resto del Líbano, a pesar de basarse en la Resolución 1701 del Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU, que exige el desarme de los grupos no estatales.
Hezbollah fue el único grupo que conservó sus armas tras el fin de la guerra civil libanesa en 1990, que duró 15 años, alegando que eran para la “resistencia” contra Israel, que siguió ocupando el sur hasta el año 2000.
La enviada especial de Estados Unidos para Medio Oriente, Morgan Ortagus, que visitó Beirut este mes, declaró que Washington seguía presionando a Beirut “para que cumpla plenamente el cese de hostilidades, y eso incluye el desarme de Hezbollah y de todas las milicias”.
En sus declaraciones del viernes, Qassem afirmó que Hezbollah rechazaba “el control estadounidense sobre el Líbano”.
Safa afirmó que tanto Hezbollah como el ejército libanés estaban respetando los términos de la tregua. “El problema es Israel, que no lo ha hecho”, afirmó.
El sábado, una fuente cercana a Hezbollah declaró a la AFP que el grupo había cedido al ejército libanés alrededor de 190 de sus 265 posiciones militares al sur del Litani.
(Con información de AFP)
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