President Joe Biden will speak on August 15.
washington CNN—
President Joe Biden made three false allegations about his past on TuesdayStory in Milwaukee.
The speech focused on the economy and the Anti-Inflation Act, which the president signed into law a year ago Wednesday, and his economic arguments were almost entirely accurate in the prepared speech. But he also broke three false personal anecdotes, two of which have already been debunked, and continued his habitan inaccurate riff on his biography.
In addition, Biden repeated the previously disavowed false political boast. as he didearlier this yeariDuring the 2022 midterm electionsHe falsely claimed to have dramatically reduced the national debt, which in fact rose dramatically during his presidency. Again, he confuses debt with deficit. The White House made a correctionofficial records, as previously done in the February transcript when Biden did the same.
Here's a fact check on what he said on Tuesday.
Another look at Amtrak history
Biden has long been known asamtrak enthusiast, the train service he used during his 36-year tenure as a U.S. senator between Washington and his home in Delaware. As president, he told at least nine times the vivid and personal story of a conversation he claimed to have had with an Amtrak conductor named Angelo Negri while he was vice president.
except asCNN points to 2021, that conversation could not take place - because Negri was dead when it was supposed to happen.
In the version of the story Biden told Tuesday, he said that in his sixth or seventh year as vice president, a newspaper headline announced that he had flown nearly 1.2 million miles in an Air Force jet. He said that when he was "coming home on the train to visit my mother who was ill and was in hospice with me," a man he called "Ang" (his nickname for Negri) "walked by, walked by." , 'Joey, baby', and grabbed my cheek. Biden said he believed the Secret Service would have shot Negri.
Biden continued, "I said, 'No, no, no, no.' I said, 'What's going on, Ann?' He said, 'We're just -- I read this article... The Air Force has flown over a million miles in airplanes.' He said, “Gee, do you know how many miles you've driven on Amtrak?” I said, “No, Ang. I don't know." He said, "We just had dinner at a retirement dinner in Newark." He said, "You've traveled a hundred times—an average of 117 round trips a year, 300 miles a day, 36 years. That's 1,285,000 miles. I don't want to hear any more about the Air Twing!"
The crowd laughed and clapped, and Biden said, "That's a true story, I swear to God." But it was not a true story.
facts first:The Biden story is wrong for two reasons. First, as CNN and others have previously pointed out, it is impossible for him to have such an exchange with Negri: According to Biden himself, Biden did not fly a million miles as vice president until September 2015.right now Comment, but Negri hasDied more than a year ago, in May 2014. Second, as CNN previously pointed out, Biden's mother was not home sick when he reached the million-mile milestone. She really wasdied more than five years ago.
Negri's stepdaughter, Olga Bates,2021 he told CNNNegri and Biden are really friends. She said Negri "adored" Biden and said Biden was "very attentive and nice to the conductors; they knew all their names." She also provided a 1993 photo of Biden in Negri's Senate office. Organize a photo shoot of a party for retirees.
Still, Biden told false stories about his late friendmore than two years. We wrote in 2021 that Biden may have misremembered details of some actual conversations he had with Negri before his death in 2014, or confused Negri with another Amtrak employee he spoke with in 2015 or 2016. However, after much fact-checking in the media, now he has enough time to correct himself.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this article on Wednesday. When is the current press secretary in the White House Karine Jean-Pierre (Karine Jean-Pierre)2021 InquiryAs for Biden's inaccurate coverage of Negri's story, she said, "I haven't seen it. But the president's long history with Amtrak and his appreciation of hard-working employees is well known."
Biden's birth and grandfather's death
Biden also repeated his version of the family anecdote.said in April. He said on Tuesday that his grandfather, a former oil company executive, had died in the same hospital days before he was born.
"By the way, my grandfather Biden died very young, he died in the hospital where I was born, and I was there six days later, I think before I was born," Biden said.
facts first:Biden's claim is wrong for two reasons: The conservative mediahe pointed out in AprilWhen Biden said his grandfather "died two weeks before I was born in the same hospital I was born in." His grandfather, Joseph Harry Biden, worked in the oil industry,Died September 1941 in a hospital in Baltimore, MarylandMore than a year later, in November 1942, the president was born, and in another hospital,Scranton, Penavanija.
Biden's maternal grandfather, Ambrose Joseph Finnegan, died at a hospital in Scranton, where the president was born, butin 1957, when the president was 14 years old.
Biden and the collapse of the bridge in Pittsburgh
He quoted Biden2022. A bridge collapses in Pittsburgh- and claimed to have witnessed the collapse of the bridge.
"Many of you were with me when I was in Pittsburgh. By the way, Pittsburgh is the 'City of Bridges.' Pittsburgh has more bridges than any other city in America. I've seen a bridge fall. Here, there, I've seen collapsed. More than 200 feet off the ground, over the valley, and collapsed," Biden said.
First the facts:Biden's claim that he "goes over there and watches it fall apart" is not true. The landslide happened earlier 7 on January 28, 2022 and lasted for more than 6 hoursBefore Biden arrives in the Pittsburgh areaTake a scheduled visit that includes presentations on the economy and infrastructure. hevisited the accident siteThe day after in
Therefore, Biden can rightly say that he witnessed the damage caused by the collapse. But his claims of "I got there and saw it collapse" were not true.
Biden and the national debt
Biden claimed: "Unlike the previous president, in my first two years in office, even though we did everything, I was the first person to reduce the federal debt by $1 trillion ($700 billion)."
facts first:This is wrong because the White House implicitlyUConfirmed by official transcriptsDelete the word "debt" and replace it with "deficit". CNNrecorded in FebruaryBiden doesn't interrupt as he makes almost identical claimsnational debt(accumulation of federal debt plus interest); in fact, the national debt has risen from about $27.8 trillion in 2021 to Biden's first day in officeAbout $32.7 trillion today, but it is worth noting that the increase in debtThe current president is not the only one to blame. this is relateddeficit– The one-year gap between spending and revenue – narrowed by approximately $1.7 trillion between fiscal years 2020 and 2022, from approximately $3.1 trillion to approximately $1.4 trillion.
Confusing the debt with the deficit isn't the only problem with Biden's claim.
As CNN has repeatedly reportedknownIt is highly questionable how much Biden should have contributed to reducing the $1.7 trillion deficit, which was largely due to the planned expiration of emergency spending due to the pandemic after the end of President Donald Trump's administration. In fact, independent analysts say Biden's new laws and executive actions have significantly increased current and projected future deficits instead of reducing them.
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