8 times Joe Biden made exaggerated and false claims about himself and his family members

8 false and misleading claims Joe Biden made about himself and his family members

President Joe Biden has often repeated several made-up stories about himself and his family. The 81-year-old incumbent's imagination about the difficult situations he had to overcome and the way his close family members lost lives were debunked by fact checkers over time. Here are eight instances where Biden misled people with exaggerated, false claims.

1. Elder son's death in Iraq

Speaking to the parents of a fallen service member who lost her life in the recent attack on a US base in Jordan, Biden reiterated his claim about his elder son Beau Biden's death. While informing the parents that their daughter was being promoted to sergeant posthumously, the President said, "My son spent a year in Iraq; that's how I lost him," as per Fox News. He added, "He [Beau Biden] was living near a burn pit in Baghdad. He came down with stage 4 glioblastoma brain tumor, and we lost him too." The President's older son served in the military and toured Iraq from 2008 to 2009; he died from glioblastoma, a very common type of brain cancer, in May 2015.

2. Circumstances of his uncle's death during World War II

Biden came up with a shocking story about the death of his uncle Ambrose J Finnegann during World War II while speaking at a campaign stop in Pennsylvania. "He got shot down in New Guinea, and they never found the body because there used to be — there were a lot of cannibals, for real, in that part of New Guinea," he claimed recently, according to NBC News. However, according to the Pentagon's Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, the plane crashed into the ocean for unknown reasons after both engines failed. The bodies of three men who died in the crash were never found. Contradicting Biden's baseless assertion, the military records have no mention of cannibalism.

3. Being shot in Iraq

In 2007, Biden falsely claimed he was "shot at" in the Green Zone during his Iraq trip in December 2005, as per The Hill. Weighing in on redeploying US citizens and troops from Iraq, the President, who at the time was seeking his White House bid, said, "You take all the troops out — you better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone, where I have been seven times and shot at. You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die, number one." In reality, the mortar was fired several hundred yards away and only shook the building where Biden was staying.

4. Being at Ground Zero the day after 9/11

During an anniversary speech in 2023 commemorating the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack, Biden falsely stated he was at Ground Zero after the fall of the Twin Towers in Manhattan. "Each of us – each of those precious lives stolen too soon when evil attacked. Ground Zero in New York – I remember standing there the next day and looking at the building. And I felt like I was looking through the gates of hell, it looked so devastating because of the way – from where you could stand," he said. As per the New York Post, his 2007 autobiography 'Promises to Keep' contradicts his claim. According to the book, Biden arrived in Washington on the morning of 9/11 and returned to the Capitol the next morning, i.e., September 12, 2001.

5. Helicopter 'forced down' near Osama bin Laden's lair

In 2008 Biden made a false statement that a helicopter he was traveling in was "forced down" in Afghanistan near Osama bin Laden's lair. However, according to former Washington Examiner reporter Alana Goodman, the incident was not as the President claimed; instead, it was waiting to end a sandstorm.

6. Exaggerated house fire story

Biden's yet another inflated story is about a fire at his Delaware home in 2004. Speaking to a group of firefighters in Philadelphia in December 2023, he claimed the fire was due to a lightning strike that came through the basement and three storeys of his house and almost killed his wife, Jill Biden. According to Fox News, it was a minor fire "contained to the kitchen".

7. Took part in civil rights marches

During his 2020 presidential bid, Biden said he participated in the civil rights movement during his youth days. Speaking at an event in February 2019, he claimed, "I came out of the civil rights movement. I got involved in the civil rights movement as a kid," as per Washington Examiner. However, there is no evidence to prove that he had no part in any such movements in the 1960s other than being a spectator as a college student, becoming an attorney, and then starting his long public service life.

8. Coming from a family of coal miners

In 1987, when he first entered a presidential race, Biden claimed that he came from a family of coal miners. He said his "ancestors … worked the coal mines of Northeast Pennsylvania and would come up after 12 hours and play football for four hours." However, in reality, Biden plagiarized the words of British politician Neil Kinnock to attract American voters to support his White House bid.