Former President Joe Biden said Friday that he was upset that US politics are “so divided” in his first speech since being diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer — saying that “I get really angry” over people calling for cuts to veterans benefits.
Biden — who called President Trump a fascist and a threat to American democracy during last year’s campaign — bemoaned political divisions during remarks at a war memorial near his Wilmington, Del., home, while showing no obvious new signs of physical infirmity despite the cancer spreading to his bones.
“My friends, Memorial Day is about something profound. Our politics have become so divided and so bitter — all the years I’ve been doing this, and never thought we’d get to this point, but we are,” said the former president, without pinning any of the blame on himself.
“Our troops don’t wear a uniform that says ‘I’m a Democrat’ or ‘I’m a Republican.’ It says I’m an American, I’m an American. That’s who I am. I’m serious about this. I’m not joking. And folks, our politics has become, as I said, so divided.”
Biden, 82, swiftly transitioned to one of his favorite rhetorical crutches, saying that the US was “the only nation in the world founded on an idea.”
“The idea that America was founded on,” he said, “is ‘we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men and women are created equal, endowed by the creator of certain inalienable rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We mean it. That’s who we are. That’s what makes America most unique nation in the world, literally, not figuratively.”
Because of military members, he said, “American democracy has endured for nearly 250 years. Every generation, every generation, every generation has to fight to maintain that democracy.”
Biden said America’s war dead are “asking us to do our job, to protect our nation in our time now, to defend democracy, be part of something bigger than ourselves. So today, let’s renew our pledge to honor our heroes.”
At one point in his speech he said “I get really angry when I hear about veterans are seeking too much” — without providing any context about whether he was referencing historical or present political circumstances.
Biden spoke on the 10th anniversary of the death of his son Beau, who served as Delaware’s attorney general before dying of brain cancer in 2015.
