During one of his rare post-2024 election speeches, one that came on Friday, February 27, former President Joe Biden declared that it was he, not President Donald Trump, who closed the US-Mexico border and shut off the flow of migrants into the country. The former president also joked about his age, which he had claimed was not an issue during the election itself.
As a reminder, former President Biden’s presidency was not characterized by his closing the border. Rather, it was characterized by millions upon millions of illegal aliens of various sorts, many of them pretending to be “refugees” or “asylum seekers”, pouring into America under his watch.
At some points, his administration was in a legal war with states like Texas in an attempt to force them to open the border. So, when he told the crowd on Friday that he had been the one to close the border, he was met not with applause but with what amounted to stony silence from the crowd.
That came when the former president was speaking at a South Carolina Democratic Party event that was meant to commemorate the 6th anniversary of his 2020 primary victory in South Carolina, which ended up propelling him into the presidency by pushing him ahead in the primary race, with the South Carolina win widely seen as a turning point in the race.
During the speech, the president at one point joked about his age. After pausing his speech to start coughing repeatedly, sounding like he was going to hack up a lung, the president said, “I’m getting pretty old.” Continuing, the 83-year-old said, “Forty times two, plus a lot more.”
Bizarrely, the former president then insisted that he had fixed the border situation, leaving out that his time in office was dominated by a flood of migrants into the United States, saying, “From around the world, despite everything you read, despite everything you read, despite the fact that Covid drove migration to record levels all around the world, the day I left office, border crossing the United States were lower than the day that I entered an office inherited from Trump.”
For reference, an average of at least ~two and a half million migrants poured into America every year of Biden’s presidency, with many suspecting that the real number was far larger. During his first three months in office, the massive surge in border crossings was well larger than any number seen under the first Trump Administration.
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But Biden wasn’t done. Getting in a jab at President Trump, he said, “He is…I won’t say it.” That was met by a smattering of laughter. The former president then added, “That’s just a fact.” He concluded, “On the day I left office, I handed Trump the strongest economy in the world. In the world. That’s not hyperbole. That’s a fact.”
Watch him here:
As could be expected, he was skewered for the nonsensical talking points by conservatives on X. Leading the charge was Greg Price, who wrote, “The sad part is he either actually believes it or is too senile to know it’s a lie.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video