Former President Joe Biden called President Donald Trump “a loser” in a Saturday-night speech at a Maryland Democratic Party fundraiser in Hanover, Pennsylvania, criticizing Trump on multiple fronts including his administration’s renovation projects in Washington.
Biden’s 10-minute address touched on Trump’s remodeling of the White House East Wing to add a ballroom, the court-ordered removal of his name from the facade of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, plans for a triumphal arch, and a $14.7 million renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool that was plagued by an algae bloom. The federal government awarded a $1.7 million no-bid filtration system contract for the pool to a Trump donor who is a neighbor of the president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, according to The Guardian.
“It’s not just his vanity projects” in the nation’s capital, Biden said. He invoked the administration’s efforts to compensate people convicted of — and later pardoned by Trump for — roles in the violent January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“Whoa! What a loser,” Biden said.
The refurbished reflecting pool, Biden continued, “reflects something even worse than the narcissism and incompetence at the core of this administration. It’s the corruption — the corruption, the brazen, blatant corruption. Corruption on a scale never seen before in American history in any administration.”
Biden also criticized Trump’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and accused Trump of “deliberate distortion and destruction” of the NATO military alliance, which Biden said has been strained by the war that the U.S. and Israel started in Iran in late February.
“He’s diminished our standing in the world more than any president in history has,” Biden, 83, said of Trump, 80.
Saturday’s speech came exactly two years after a televised debate with Trump that preceded Biden’s decision to drop out of the November 2024 presidential race. Trump won a second term by defeating Biden’s endorsed candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris.
The event also highlighted the Biden family’s increasing visibility since leaving office. Former first lady Jill Biden published her memoir “View from the East Wing” on June 2, in which she said her husband’s cancer diagnosis announced in May 2025 “really puts life into perspective.” Biden’s son Hunter Biden has gained attention through self-deprecating social media posts about politics, mental health, and addiction recovery.
Prior to the gala, Biden released a statement reading, “I’ve always believed democracy isn’t a spectator sport,” praising political organizers for “knocking on doors, making phone calls and putting in the time nobody sees but everyone benefits from.”