Former President Joe Biden, speaking to Democrats in Nebraska, criticized current President Donald Trump’s administration for focusing on “billionaires and millionaires,” rather than working for “the American people.”

Biden, 82, spoke to the 2025 Ben Nelson Annual Gala in Omaha, Nebraska, an event to honor the state’s former governor and senator, on Friday night, Nov. 7. He used the occasion to condemn Trump’s policies, demolition of the East Wing of the White House, and the ongoing government shutdown, now in its sixth week.

The former president also celebrated Democratic victories during elections held earlier in the week. “The Democratic Party is back. That is not hyperbole,” Biden said. “The fact is that we had a great night in Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, New York City, Georgia, Mississippi, even in Mississippi. Look, the American people are sending a message. They’re sending a message, message to Trump and to his crowd.”

The message, Biden said: “Mr. President, we don’t work for you. You work for us, not just billionaires and millionaires.”

“You better get the damn government open,” Biden said.

Omaha resides in an important Democratic blue district within a traditionally red state – Nebraska assigns its electors using a proportional system, unlike most states – where in the 2024 presidential election Vice President Kamala Harris won 54.4% of the vote, with then-former President Trump getting 44.2%. State-wide, Trump won 59.6% of the vote.

Biden calls Trump administration’s SNAP policy ‘immoral’

During Biden’s nearly half-hour speech, he also referenced his administration’s efforts to combat child hunger and ability to get more Americans signed up for health care coverage through the Affordable Care Act.

“Now we have a president who is deliberately making hunger worse for Americans. Today in the United States of America, one in five children,” Biden said, raising his voice. “One in five children go to bed hungry every night. …. It is a disgrace. It’s immoral. It’s wrong, simply wrong.”

About Trump’s Great Gatsby-themed Halloween party, Biden said, “you can’t make this stuff up.”

After Trump was elected, Biden said he knew “Trump was going to take a wrecking ball to the country, but I had no idea, I have to admit, I didn’t know it was going to be an actual wrecking ball,” he said, alluding to the East Wing demolition. “It’s a perfect symbol of his presidency. Trump is taking a wrecking ball, not only to the people’s house, but to the Constitution, to the rule of law, to our very democracy.”

Beau Biden ‘should have been president, not me,’ Biden says

Biden spoke about the importance of cancer research, which is among the areas hit by Trump administration budget cuts. “We made cancer research a priority, and now Trump is cutting government funding for cancer research,” he said. “Folks, I know what cancer research means. Cancer hits every family. It hit my family hard.”

His son, Beau Biden, who died in 2015, two years after being diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer, “should have been the president, not me,” Biden said. Beau Biden, who was aged 46 at his death, was a two-term Delaware attorney general who planned to run for governor.

Biden himself recently began getting radiation treatment for an “aggressive” form of prostate cancer and wore a bandage on his head – as reported by several media outlets. “When I finish this round of treatment, you get to ring that bell, at the end of a year of treatment. Well, I thank God for the doctors and nurses and the incredible breakthroughs we’re making in cancer research,” the former president said. “Now Trump and his Republican friends are cutting government funding for health care and making it more expensive for virtually everyone.”

Cuts will result in the closure of 300 rural hospitals across the U.S.,. including two in Nebraska, he said.

While the country is in “a very, very dark moment,” Biden said, “something special happened just last Tuesday” in the elections.

Calling Democratic gains “a good start,” Biden said, “We can’t give up. … “We’re the only nation on Earth that has emerged from every single crisis we faced stronger than when we entered that crisis. Every single one. Mark my words, we’ll emerge stronger from this crisis as well. The American experiment is not gonna end on our watch.”