Biden Liar Liar

Contrary to what CNN wants you to believe "at this point," Biden has a long history of lies.

Last week, a video featuring CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale gained attention. If you're unfamiliar with Danny, he frequently appeared on CNN programs and wrote fact-checking articles during Trump's presidency. Interestingly, Danny's presence was less frequent during Biden's first two years in office. Even when he did fact-check Biden in the past, he often provided weak justifications and tended to emphasize that Biden wasn't as problematic as Trump. His recent posts mainly focus on fact-checking Republicans, except for one article about Biden and his lie regarding 9/11.

The video went viral because many were surprised to see Danny on video, highlighting that "this president has a pattern at this point of either inventing or embellishing stories about his own past." This fact-check stems from Biden's recent false claim while speaking to service members at a military base in Alaska, where he asserted that he was at ground zero the following day. However, Biden wrote in his 2007 memoir (which I've read) that he "headed back to the Capitol" on September 12, 2001, and spoke that day in the US Senate.

There is considerable speculation about why CNN is suddenly taking a critical stance on Biden. In addition to this recent fact-check, CNN reported on the White House's attempt to influence media companies' coverage of the recently announced impeachment inquiry and a CNN poll that showed unfavorable results for Biden.

Whether the media is shifting its stance on Biden because they don't want him to run again, these stories can't be disregarded, or they are trying to mend their reputation for bias is a topic for another discussion. However, I want to emphasize that this "fact-check" is incomplete. It's as if they are attempting to restore their journalistic reputation without being too harsh on Biden.

In Danny's fact-check of Biden's 9/11 claims, he also addressed several other statements made by Biden within a week. These included claims of witnessing a bridge collapse in Pittsburgh, participating in civil rights protests, and driving a tractor-trailer. I will provide more details on all of these in this article. However, it's worth noting that Danny didn't mention some of the more serious claims, such as Biden's personal family tragedies and others. The main point here is that contrary to Danny's statement that "this president has a pattern at this point," it's crucial to recognize that Biden has a long history of making false statements, which I will explore further in this piece.

What I won’t be including today are Biden’s many falsehoods surrounding Biden Family corruption and how he, along with his family, have leveraged Joe’s political influence to benefit them financially. That is a series on its own.

Instead, I am going to be focusing on his smaller, most persistent lies. Biden's history of falsehoods extends across his entire political career, ranging from benign alleged conversations with an Amtrak conductor to elaborate tales of involvement in civil rights arrests and even false accounts of family tragedies. The last one personally gives me the most ick. What makes Biden particularly intriguing is his insistence on sticking to these lies even when presented with evidence to the contrary. And he can’t blame old age because he has been doing this for decades. It's as if he believes he's immune to the scrutiny of reality, which shouldn’t be a shock considering how the media runs cover for him.

Biden's Amtrak Tall Tale

Amtrak was a large part of the “Biden Brand” over Biden’s long 30-year Senate career. He regularly traveled on the train between D.C. and Wilmington, Delaware. It was so much a part of his brand that he launched his first presidential run from the Wilmington train station.

George Widman/AP

So, it is unsurprising that one of his common and recently repeated lies revolves around a supposed conversation with an Amtrak conductor named Angelo Negri towards the end of his vice presidency.

Biden told this tale multiple times while on the 2020 presidential campaign trail and at least five times in 2021 while touting the $1.2 trillion Senate-passed bipartisan infrastructure bill that boosted funding for Amtrak. Even after CNN pointed out that the story was false, it was his attempt to strut his 'everyman' persona by telling a lie using his real-life friendship with Amtrak conductor Angelo Negri. This is how Biden told the story during a speech at the NJ Transit maintenance facility in Kearny, NJ.

“When I was vice president, I used to like to take the train home because my mom was very sick and dying. And I’d come home every weekend,” said Biden, whose mother died in 2010.

“I’m getting on one Friday and then one of the senior guys on Amtrak, Angelo Negri … walks up to me and he goes, ‘Joey baby!’ He grabs my cheek. And I thought the Secret Service was gonna blow his head off. I swear to God, true story.”

Biden continued: “I said, ‘What’s up, Ang?’ He said, ‘Joey. I read in a paper. I read in the paper, you traveled 1,000 — 1,200,000 miles on Air Force planes.’ Because they keep meticulous tabs of it.”

“You know how many miles you travel on Amtrak, Joey? … 2,200,000 miles … So Joey, I don’t want to hear this about the Air Force anymore.”

Biden's tale is rife with inconsistencies. First and foremost, Angelo Negri retired from Amtrak over two decades earlier—making it impossible for the recounted cheek-grabbing celebration to have occurred. Adding another layer of skepticism, Negri had already passed away a year before Biden chose to bring him back to life in this fanciful tale.

Biden not only claimed that he resurrected Negri from the dead but also miraculously brought his mother, Jean Biden, back to life. He mentioned that he was commuting to Delaware because of his mother's illness. However, Biden's mother passed away in 2010, several years before he supposedly accumulated the 1.5 million miles on Amtrak that he proudly touted.

It's worth noting that Angelo Negri and Joe Biden were indeed friends, as confirmed by Negri's stepdaughter, Olga Betz. Biden even hosted a retirement party for Negri back in the day. Nevertheless, to take that friendship and use it as a basis for a series of false stories after his friend's passing, all for personal branding, is gross. And it’s a pattern that we will see repeated.

Where was Biden Born?

In April, Biden stood before the audience at the North America’s Building Trades Unions Legislative Conference in Washington. It was his first public speech since announcing he was seeking re-election, where he told another false tale, this one about his grandfather.

And, by the way, when you do, think about it this way: My grandpop, who I never met -- he died in the same hospital I was born in two weeks before I was born. But my grandpop was from -- as they say in Maryland -- from Baltimore. [Pronounced in Baltimore accent] [Laughter] And he worked for the American Oil Company. And his job was to open up new gas stations around the country back in the late -- of the '20s and '30s.

Let's dissect the facts or lack thereof.

Joseph H. Biden, Biden’s paternal grandfather and an oil executive, did not die "two weeks before" Biden was born. Nor did he pass away in the same hospital where Biden was born. Joseph H. Biden died on September 26, 1941, in Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins Hospital. The president, Joseph R. Biden Jr., was born more than a year later at St. Mary’s Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Why did Biden tell a seemingly harmless lie that can be easily fact-checked? It's because he prioritizes projecting his "working-class Joe" image over being truthful. During this speech, he addressed a room filled with union members, a significant Democratic voting base, and donors, many of whom hailed from Baltimore. He believed that establishing a personal connection to Baltimore, even through a verifiable falsehood, would make him more relatable in that moment. The priority is to curate an image that he believes makes him relatable and electable.

Biden, "I watched that bridge collapse.”

Biden takes the stage for a speech in Milwaukee on August 15, 2023, touting the great benefits of “Bidenomics.” Which is a lie I am not going to get into today. But another focus of his questionable storytelling? Pittsburgh's Fern Hollow Bridge collapsed in January 2022—a serious incident that resulted in ten injuries.

Biden took the opportunity to proclaim in Milwaukee, "I watched that bridge collapse. I got there and saw it collapse with over 200 feet off the ground going over a valley. It collapsed. Thank God school was out."

Um, liar, liar. President Biden wasn't even in Pittsburgh when the bridge collapsed. The timeline alone debunks Biden's tale: The Fern Hollow Bridge fell close to 6:45 in the morning, but Biden wasn't due to arrive until that afternoon.

Yet, that didn't stop him from suggesting he was there and implying that he was somehow a witness to the tragedy. NPR reported at the time that Biden stopped at the collapse site in the afternoon, but breaking news to no one, it doesn’t mean he was "watching" it collapse. When he did arrive, he had difficulty even viewing the wreckage, obstructed by concrete barriers and yellow police tape, as per the Associated Press.

By the way, at this same event he retold the false Amtrak story.

Biden’s arrest record, or lack of

Biden also loves to tell tales of civil disobedience, social justice crusades, and a youthful fascination with American governance. The purpose of these tales is to add a luster of heroism to his persona to acting as allegorical lessons in a morality play about the virtues of democracy. I suppose if your not truly a virtuous person you have to make up stories about your virtue.

However, when you scrutinize these tales they often unravel faster than my mental health after a TikTok binge.

Take, for example, Biden's claim during a 2007 TV interview with David Letterman. The President recounted an engaging tale of a 21-year-old Biden who was so "fascinated with the Senate" that he trespassed onto the hallowed ground of the U.S. Capitol, sat in the presiding officer's chair, and was promptly arrested. Then miraculously as if Biden was destined to sacrifice himself for the sake of civil service, Biden’s story came full circle nine years later when he entered the Senate as an elected official and was greeted by the very same officer who had arrested him and just so happened to be due to retire the next day.

In his memoir, "Promises to Keep," released alongside his 2008 presidential campaign announcement, Joe Biden tells the same story with some minor differences. In the memoir, Biden mentions that he was detained to “put a scare in him” rather than being arrested. Also, the identity of the officer involved is never mentioned, and coincidentally, the officer had passed away at the time the book was published. Therefore, it is not possible to confirm the accuracy of this tale.

How convenient.

His other arrest tales are to demonstrate is virtue when it comes to the battle for civil rights. For example he claimed he was arrested while trying to visit Nelson Mandela in apartheid-era South Africa.

Biden's story revolves around two key incidents: his arrest in Soweto and a heartfelt encounter with Mandela in Washington, D.C. However, a fact-check reveals significant inconsistencies in his narrative.

First, let's address the Soweto “arrest.” Biden's recollection of being arrested while trying to see Mandela is, to put it mildly, false. Andrew Young, the U.N. ambassador at the time, has unequivocally stated that neither he nor Biden were ever arrested in South Africa. Young, a civil rights icon who worked closely with Martin Luther King Jr., recalls no such incident—a claim that was debunked and Biden later clarified he was detained.

Biden's second assertion, that Mandela thanked him for his arrest, is another falsehood, especially considering he was never arrested. In 2013, Biden merely mentioned Mandela expressing gratitude for his efforts to end apartheid, not for getting arrested.

Furthermore, Biden's own memoir, "Promises to Keep," makes no mention of any arrest during his Africa trip. His wife, Jill Biden, also references a trip in 1977 but gets the year wrong. News reports confirm that Biden traveled to Lesotho with Young and Charles Diggs in late 1976, not 1977.

“I did not walk in the shoes of generations of students who walked these grounds. But I walked other grounds. Because I’m so damn old, I was there as well. You think I’m kidding, man. It seems like yesterday the first time I got arrested.”

Then there's the fluctuating narrative of Biden being arrested as a teenager at a protest, a story that seems to change in age, location, and details with every retelling. The story was always some variation of his mother reminding him of the time protest erupted because a black family had purchased a home in a white neighborhood and he was ultimately arrested standing with he black family on the porch of their home in Litchfield.

A newspaper search does reveal a protest in Carrcroft, not Litchfield. However, this event occurred in 1959, not in 1956 or 1957 when Biden was 13 or 14 years old. But the most significant issue with this story is that this supposedly influential experience, a substantial part of his civil rights involvement, is noticeably absent from Biden's own memoir, "Promise Me, Dad," published nine years before he recounted this narrative.

Biden tells lies to relate to the Jewish community

Biden claimed in September 2021 that he visited the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, where 11 worshippers were tragically killed by a White supremacist gunman in October 2018.

During a 16-minute teleconference speech to mark the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Biden stated, “I remember spending time at the, you know, going to the, you know, the Tree of Life synagogue, speaking with them.” Yet, Barb Feige, the Executive Director of the synagogue, directly refuted Biden’s claim. She "firmly" told the New York Post that the President had never visited the synagogue since the mass killings. Meanwhile, then-President Donald Trump, along with several top Jewish advisers, had visited the synagogue just three days after the attack. The White House, conspicuously, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

But that is not his only tale aimed at the Jewish community. During a White House menorah lighting celebration for Hanukkah, Biden muddled his Arab-Israeli history, confusing the Six-Day War of 1967 with the Yom Kippur War of 1973. He claimed, "I have known every prime minister well since Golda Meir, including Golda Meir." Elaborating, he added that he had been invited by Meir to act as a liaison between Israel and Egypt during the Six-Day War.

The problem? Biden was only 25 and still in law school when the Six-Day War occurred—far from being a political liaison.

Moreover, Biden has recounted a 1973 meeting with then-Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. He depicted a dramatic exchange where Meir supposedly revealed to him Israel's "secret weapon": having "no place else to go." Interestingly, Israel's Channel 13 reported last year on a classified senior Israeli official memo regarding this very meeting. The official described Biden as lacking diplomatic experience, signaling "a fervor" that contrasted his claimed role as a learner in the conversation.

It's as if Biden feels a compulsive need to insert himself into historically significant events, inaccurately recasting himself as a pivotal figure. I would say he remind me of Forest Gump but I don’t want to insult Forest.

The Ever-Shifting Narratives of Joe Biden on Afghanistan

During the summer of 2021, President Joe Biden found himself in the eye of a political storm due to the disastrous withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. To save face Biden made a series of false claims.

On August 2021, Biden made the audacious claim, "What interest do we have in Afghanistan at this point, with al Qaeda gone?" In saying this, he not only distorted the reality on the ground but contradicted his own Pentagon spokesperson, who acknowledged that same day that al Qaeda had merely been degraded in Afghanistan, not eradicated.

“We do not believe it is exorbitantly high, but we don’t have an exact figure for you… our intelligence gathering ability in Afghanistan isn’t what it used to be because we aren’t there with the same numbers that we used to be,” Kirby said.

The pattern continued. In a subsequent interview that week, Biden tried to distance himself from the concept of nation-building, stating it "never made any sense to me." This statement contradicts his earlier stance, where he had advocated for nation-building efforts in Afghanistan and beyond.

Then in July 2021, when Biden was under increasing pressure to evacuate Afghans who had assisted U.S. troops, he claimed that "the law doesn’t allow" Afghan translators to come to the U.S. to await visa processing. This statement was quickly debunked by experts in immigration law, who pointed out the administration's authority to grant "parole" for such cases. In a stunning turn, Biden later did exactly what he had claimed wasn't legally feasible, utilizing the parole mechanism to bring Afghan translators to the U.S. This is the same tool the administration has used to allow migrants from Venezuelans, Cubans, Nicaraguans and Haitians to enter the country. Interesting his reluctance to parole Afghan translators and not illegal migrants.

The icing on this cake of misinformation came in December, when Biden asserted that he had "been against that war in Afghanistan from the very beginning." Yet again, this claim is a lie. Fact-checkers were quick to remind the public that Biden was initially supportive of the war in Afghanistan.

Biden's Fabricated Tales of Valor

During a campaign stop in New Hampshire August 2019, Joe Biden presented an emotional narrative to a crowd of over 400. He vividly recounted pinning a Silver Star on a reluctant Navy captain who, according to Biden, had heroically rappelled down a 60-foot ravine under fire in Afghanistan to rescue a fallen American soldier. Biden tell the story that the soldier had shouted, "Sir, I don't want the damn thing! Do not pin it on me, sir! Please, sir. Do not do that! He died. He died!" Biden, to emphasis the true tale then said, "This is the God’s truth. My word as a Biden."

While this story may have moved the crowd, there was one glaring problem: the event, as told by Biden, never happened. This was confirmed by the Washington Post, which revealed that Biden had conflated three separate events into a dramatic but inaccurate story. According to the Post, "In the space of three minutes, Biden got the time period, the location, the heroic act, the type of medal, the military branch, and the rank of the recipient wrong, as well as his own role in the ceremony."

But this wasn't the first time Biden has peddled this fictional tale. He had told a similar story during a World War II memorial event in Australia in 2016, and again while campaigning for Hillary Clinton that same year. These weren't just innocent mistakes; they were calculated distortions.

Biden did witness a medal ceremony during a 2008 trip to Afghanistan. Major General David Rodriguez pinned a Bronze Star on a young soldier who had attempted to pull a wounded comrade out of a burning vehicle. Biden, however, was not the one presiding over the ceremony.

The Pentagon, as noted by the Post, has no record of a U.S. Army captain receiving a Silver Star during the period Biden describes. The audacity to construct a story that could easily be debunked again suggests a willingness to put image over integrity. When the crowd hears "This is the God’s truth, my word as a Biden," you can be sure that it’s not the truth.

Frankly it is gross to have a leader willing to capitalize on the valor and struggles of the military for his own emotional and political gain.

Charlottesville

One of Biden's favorite falsehoods is the claim that Trump referred to the white supremacists involved as "very fine people." However, no amount of fact-checking seems to deter Biden from repeating this lie.

Let's set the record straight. Examining the transcript of Trump's remarks reveals a very different story. He explicitly clarified, stating, "I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists because they should be condemned totally." Despite this clear statement, Biden has persistently perpetuated the falsehood.

Back in mid-August, Biden even took to Twitter to propagate this misleading narrative as part of his campaign theme, asserting that "we are in a battle for the soul of our nation." This prevarication made its way into his Democratic National Convention speech, where he recounted the events in Charlottesville, painting a picture of white supremacists with torches and violent clashes. He then quoted Trump, saying there were "very fine people on both sides."

Top of the Class & Plagiarism

One of Biden's earliest and most obvious instances of untruthfulness is his assertion that he graduated in the top half of his law school class, accompanied by numerous other claims aiming to bolster his intellectual prowess, even if false.

Recent admissions by the Senator himself confirm that this statement was, in fact, inaccurate. His academic records show that he ranked 80th in a class of 100 in his first year of law school, hardly a top-tier performance.

Furthermore, Biden's assertion that he attended law school at Syracuse University on a full academic scholarship has also been debunked. His records reveal that he attended on a half-time scholarship based on financial need. While financial assistance is commendable, the exaggeration of the scholarship's magnitude raises questions about his transparency.

Similarly, Biden's claim of being named the outstanding student in the political science department during his undergraduate years at the University of Delaware has been debunked. He admitted that his name was put up for that award by a professor, but he did not receive the award.

These lies came to light during his first presidential run in 1987. He was exposed for plagiarizing a speech from UK Labour Prime Minister candidate Neil Kinnock during the 1987 Iowa State Fare Debate. Additionally, it was revealed that he had also plagiarized a law school review article.

Family Tragedies

One of he worst lies in my personal opinion was Biden repeatedly perpetuated a false narrative surrounding the tragic 1972 car accident that claimed the lives of his wife Nelia and baby daughter Naomi. For years, Biden claimed that the other driver involved in the accident was drunk, but this assertion has been debunked by both the state official overseeing the investigation and the driver's own daughter.

From 2001 to 2007, Biden made at least two public statements suggesting that the tractor-trailer driver, Curtis C. Dunn, had been drinking before the accident.

In 2001, Biden delivered a speech at the University of Delaware, just a week after the 9/11 attacks. He expressed, "To the loved ones of the victims, there's really nothing we can say to erase this tragedy. And for those of you who may find it presumptuous of me to say this... in a different situation, I received one of those phone calls... I received a phone call that said, 'Your wife's gone; your daughter's gone.' I've only shared this publicly three times before. But I'm mentioning it here because it's crucial for you to understand. I received one of those phone calls. It was a careless driver who chose to drink instead of drive, and they collided with a tractor-trailer, taking the lives of my children and my wife."

He recounted this story once again in December 2007. While campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination in Iowa City, Biden shared the following while responding to a voter's question about negative campaigning: "Allow me to share a personal anecdote," Mr. Biden addressed the crowd at the University of Iowa. "I was elected at the age of 29, precisely on November 7th. And on December 18th of that same year, my wife and three children were out Christmas shopping for a Christmas tree. A tractor-trailer, driven by an individual who, allegedly (and I never pursued this), chose to drink rather than eat his lunch, collided with my family. This tragic accident claimed my wife's and daughter's lives instantly, and my two sons were left hospitalized with injuries initially believed to be permanent and profound."

It's worth noting that these allegations of drunk driving only surfaced after Curtis C. Dunn had passed away in 1999. The first time Biden told this untruth was to add a more tragic element to his family's tragedy, aiming to connect with those who lost loved ones during the 9/11 attacks.

It is deeply troubling that he would continue to perpetuate a false accusation against the truck driver, despite evidence to the contrary. At the time of the accident it was determined that Dunn acted responsibly at the scene of the accident and was not under the influence, as confirmed by multiple sources. Ultimately, Pamela Hamill, Curtis C. Dunn's daughter, called on Biden to issue a public apology for his deceptive statements, which he did.

"I say this as a father of a man who won the Bronze Star, the Conspicuous Service Medal, and lost his life in Iraq. Imagine the courage, the daring, and the genuine sacrifice — genuine sacrifice they all made".

But that is not the only time he has lied about a family tragedy. The great Father in Chief has on multiple occasions falsely claimed that his son Beau died in Iraq. Beau Biden did serve honorably in Iraq, winning a Bronze Star and a Conspicuous Service Medal, but he actually succumbed to brain cancer in 2015—six years after returning from his deployment.

The worst part is that he made these false claims during visits with U.S. troops, families who lost loved ones, and in public speeches. While he has speculated that Beau's cancer could be linked to exposure to toxic burn pits in Iraq and Kosovo, no definitive evidence supports this theory. Fact-checkers have repeatedly corrected these lies yet he continues to repeat them.

Conclusion

Throughout history, many politicians have often been tempted to, let's say, 'enhance' their personal narratives. This practice is commonly referred to as propaganda. Daniel Dale of CNN, a network not widely known for conservative leanings, asserts that Joe Biden "has a pattern at this point" of doing precisely that. However, he might be understating the reality by using the phrase "at this point" because the truth is that Biden has a long history of inserting himself into historical events, like a Forrest Gump-like narrative, or embellishing personal stories generously. In the journalism world, there's a term for this—it's called "disinformation."

Why does Biden do it? Because this pattern serves a purpose: to make Joe Biden seem more relatable, to inflate his importance, and to bolster the "Biden Brand" of being 'Honest Joe,' the empathetic dad, and the blue-collar worker. These embellishments serve as a political sleight of hand to manufacture an image meticulously curated for public consumption.

But here's the kicker—if that image were genuine, there'd be no need to color outside the lines of truth. For all the emphasis on honesty, the façade cracks with each false narrative and we are long pass the date of catastrophic sink hole. His long history of falsehoods are not just a betrayal of public trust; it's a deliberate effort to manipulate the American public.

And where is the Fourth Estate in all of this? Much of the media acts more like PR agents than watchdogs, either ignoring these 'Biden-isms' or giving them the journalistic equivalent of a slap on the wrist. (Yeah, he said it but maybe he was confused or he didn’t mean it, or he was just wanting to relate.) In doing so, they're not just failing to hold a public figure accountable; they're complicit in crafting an image that's more mostly fiction and little fact.

So, the next time you hear Joe Biden recount an emotional story or share an anecdote about his past, and he concludes with "This is the God’s truth. My word as a Biden," you might want to take that with a grain of salt. Because, by now, the pattern is evident: when the narrative gets tough, the tough get fictional.

Got a lie that I missed? Leave it in the comments!