In his second post-office visit in Chicago, former President Joe Biden stopped to accept an award from the National Bar Association, blasting President Donald Trump without ever saying his name to the crowd at the Hyatt Regency in the Loop Thursday evening.
The annual gala was hosted by the National Bar Association, the country’s oldest and largest national association of predominantly African American lawyers, judges, law professors and law students. The group awarded him its highest honor, the C. Frances Stratford Award, named after the group’s founder.
In a 22-minute speech, Biden focused on praising Black pioneers in the legal field such as Stratford before lambasting his successor.
Without uttering his name once, Biden said Trump was “dismantling the Constitution” and harped on Trump’s actions in office.
“Judges matter, courts matter, the law matters, and the constitution matters,” Biden said. “I think a lot of Americans are starting to realize that under this president. … Get ready folks, he’s just starting.”
Biden’s remarks were largely in line with the ones he made in April at the 2025 annual conference of Advocates, Counselors, and Representatives for the Disabled, a national gathering of advocates for people with disabilities focused on protecting Social Security, which was his first public rebuttal of the Trump administration after leaving office.
There, he warned that America is a country where “nobody’s king” and blasted Trump’s early actions, while also warning about how Social Security cuts could affect millions of Americans.
Biden Thursday decried the abduction of immigrants from their families and communities while highlighting attacks on civil rights and voter access.
“There are moments so stark that they divide all that came before and everything that follows,” Biden said. “We are at such a moment in American history, reflected in every cruel executive outreach, every rollback of freedoms.”
“We’ve got a lot of work to do folks,” Biden added, before stepping back from the microphone.
Biden disclosed two months ago that he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, though Thursday, his energy was high aside from staying still while singing along to “Lift Every Voice and Sing” with a swaying crowd.
At a press conference ahead of Biden’s speech, National Bar Association President Wiley Adams said he wanted to hear from Biden how he was navigating his health struggles and if he was doing OK. However, the former president never addressed his health.
“Our prayers go out to him,” Wiley told a small group, including Rep. Jonathan Jackson, D-Ill., and Rev. Jesse Jackson Jr. “He’s done a great tour of service for this country.”
The National Bar Association’s gala, which caps off its 100th annual convention, had featured other headliners — including U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, among many others — a Lollapalooza of its own for liberal movers and shakers.
