Biden speaks at National Bar Association gala in Chicago

CHICAGO (WGN) – Former president Joe Biden was in town Thursday speaking at the National Bar Association convention gala at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Chicago.

The National Bar Association is the oldest and largest network of predominately Black legal professionals in the county.

There have been several notable speakers during its 100th annual convention this week.

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and Chicago Bears President and CEO Kevin Warren were all on the agenda.

Biden was last in Chicago for a speech in April, his first speech since leaving office.

This is the former president’s first Chicago visit since revealing he had been diagnosed with Stage 4 Prostate Cancer.

WGN-TV did not hear Biden mention President Donald Trump by name, but his message about the state of the government was clear nonetheless.

“Judges matter, courts matter, the law matters, the constitution matters. A lot of Americans are starting to realize that the pressure we’re under now with this guy we have as president. Get ready, folks. This is just starting,” Biden said.

The former president addressed the hundreds of members of the National Bar Association and accepted an award at its gala.

Much of his remarks focused on the law and the people who work to uphold it.

Biden’s appearance Thursday night comes amid ongoing Republican-led investigations into the former president’s mental state and what they allege was a cover up of his cognitive decline.

One top Biden aide told the House Oversight Committee on Thursday the claims are baseless.

On Thursday night, he lamented what he described as an erosion of checks and balances under Trump.

“He seems to be doing his best to dismantle the Constitution….they’re doing it all too often, with the help of a Congress sitting in the sidelines and enabled by the highest court in the nation,” Biden said.

He closed with motivating words for the crowd of lawyers, telling them the fight for democracy starts with them taking the cases of people who can’t necessarily afford to pay high legal bills and signing on to legal briefs that may upset people in power.