Former President Joe Biden joked about his age and shamelessly bragged about his record on illegal immigration during a rare post-presidency speech on Friday.
“I’m getting pretty old,” Biden, 83, told the crowd in South Carolina, after he needed to pause his speech to cough. “Forty times two, plus a lot more.”
Biden repeatedly insisted that voters shouldn’t be concerned about his age in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election.
The former president dropped out of the race about a month after a disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump – which he blamed on a cold and not his age – amid mounting concerns within the Democratic Party about his mental acuity.
Friday’s event was billed as a celebration of the six-year anniversary of Biden’s 2020 victory in the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary – a win that marked a turning point for his then floundering campaign.
The former president used the forum to tout his record as commander in chief, even in the policy areas where voters gave him his lowest marks.
“Despite everything you read, despite the fact that COVID drove migration to record levels all around the world, the day I left office, border crossings into the United States were lower than the day that I entered that office” Biden said.
“That’s just a fact,” the former president argued.
An average of about 2.4 million migrants poured into the country every year of Biden’s only term in office — most crossing into the US illegally.
In the first three months of Biden’s stint in the White House, the surge in border crossings had already surpassed any record from the previous Trump administration.
The former president only moved to shut the border near the tail end of the 2024 campaign.
In his speech, Biden further claimed that on the day he left office he “handed Trump the strongest economy in the world … That’s not hyperbole. That’s a fact.”
The rosy picture Biden painted of his administration didn’t fly with many on social media.
“The sad part is he either actually believes it or is too senile to know it’s a lie,” Greg Price wrote on X.
“Delusions,” read a post from another user.
Conservative Kris Kinder blasted Biden as a “shameless liar.”
Similarly, radio host Tom Steele described the former president’s comments as “peak disingenuity.”
One X user bluntly wrote: “I’m sorry, but this is f—king insane.”
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