Biden takes departing jab at Trump, says he was a 'genuine threat to democracy'

Ahead of the anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, Biden was asked if he still thought Trump was a threat to democracy.

"We've got to get back to establishing basic democratic norms," Biden told reporters in the White House East Room on Sunday. "I think what he did was a genuine threat to democracy. I'm hopeful that we are beyond that."

"The bill I'm signing today is about a simple proposition. Americans who have worked hard all of their lives to earn an honest living should be able to retire with economic security and dignity," he said. "That's the entire purpose of the Social Security system crafted by Franklin Delano Roosevelt nearly 90 years ago."

The president said that the signing "is the culmination of a four-year fight."

"As the first president in more than 20 years to expand social security benefits, this victory is the culmination of a four-year fight to provide security for workers who dedicate their lives to their communities, and I'm proud to have played a small part in this fight," Biden said.

The bill ends a pair of provisions - the Windfall Elimination Provision created in 1983 and the Government Pension Offset devised in 1977 - that curtail the social security benefits of some U.S. retirees receiving retirement benefits from another source, such as a local government or state-funded pension.

In the House, 327 members and 76 Senators voted to stand with around 3 million retired firefighters, police officers, teachers, and other public sector workers who also receive pension payments, Mick McHale, president of the National Association of Police Organizations, told Fox News Digital. 

Biden also discussed his plans to visit New Orleans on Monday to grieve with family members of victims and meet with officials after the terrorist attack in the city on New Year's Day.

"I've been there. There's nothing you can really say to somebody who has had such a tragic loss. And my message is going to be personal to them," he said. "They just have to hang on to each other and there will come a day when they think of their loved one, and they'll smile before a tear comes to their eye."

The visit comes after 14 people were killed and dozens injured after police said 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar rammed a rented pickup truck into pedestrians on bustling Bourbon Street early Wednesday morning. Police fatally shot Jabbar after he opened fire on officers.

"We established beyond any reasonable doubt that New Orleans was a single man who acted alone. All the talk about conspiracies with other people, no evidence of that, zero," Biden said.

"He had real problems in terms of his own, I think, mental health, going on. And he acted alone in the same way as what went on in Las Vegas," Biden said. "But there is no evidence, zero evidence of the idea that these are foreigners coming across the border, but they worked here, they remained here."

Fox News Digital's Louis Casiano Jr. contributed to this report.