‘Uncle Joe’ Biden appears to have told another of his tall tales.
Last week while speaking on a bridge in New Hampshire touting his infrastructure plan, he told those assembled that one of his houses burned down with wife Jill Biden inside before attempting to clarify and correct himself, which added to a lengthy list of other personal stories that he has ’embellished’ through the years.
“Without this bridge, as I said earlier, it’s a 10-mile detour just to get to the other side,” Biden said.
“And I know, having had a house burn down with my wife in it — she got out safely, God willing — that having a significant portion of it burn, I can tell: 10 minutes makes a hell of a difference,” he added.
That wasn’t the first time Biden told the story. In 2013, he said that a fire “destroyed a significant portion” of a home he had in New Hampshire.
“I was down here doing a Sunday program, and lightning struck my home and destroyed a significant portion of it, and you got my wife out,” Biden noted at a Washington dinner for first responders in May of that year.
“And in addition to my wife, you got my second-best love out of the house: my ‘67 Corvette. So thank you all. So I owe you. When I say I owe you, I mean I owe you,” he joked.
Only, the incident he spoke of wasn’t actually that harrowing.
According to a 2004 report by The Associated Press, which Fox News said was archived by LexisNexis, lightning did indeed strike the Biden home, igniting a “small fire that was contained to the kitchen.”
The AP went on to report that responding firefighters managed to get the flames under control in about 20 minutes and that they managed to also keep the blaze from spreading beyond the kitchen.
Biden has a long history of exaggerating or falsely recounting stories about his personal life.
Before the latest gaffe, Biden recently recounted — for the fifth time since becoming president — a “factually challenged story about an Amtrak employee during a speech in New Jersey,” Fox News noted. The employee Biden always references actually passed away about a year before the story was supposed to have occurred.
And last year during his campaign, he was forced to recant repeated claims that he was placed under arrest in apartheid-era South Africa as a U.S. senator attempting to see Nelson Mandela. Later, he admitted that no, he hadn’t actually been arrested, but only “stopped” by authorities.
A few weeks after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, a video clip of Biden, circa 2007, being interviewed by then-late night host David Letter surfaced in which he said he was arrested at the age of 21 for illegally entering the U.S. Senate chamber.
“You know, I walked in when I was 21, and I got arrested,” Biden said. “It was a Saturday, I was down visiting some friends at Georgetown University, and I come up on a Saturday morning because I was always fascinated with the Senate. They had a Saturday session.”
“In those days, no guards stopping you everywhere. And they just got out of session. I walked in the back, all of a sudden I found myself in the chamber. I was stunned. I walked up, sat down in the presiding officer’s seat, guy grabbed by the shoulder, said: ‘you’re under arrest,’” he added.
It’s not at all clear, however, that the incident actually happened.
Jon has over 30 years' worth of reporting experience, as well as an author and U.S. Army veteran. He has a BA in political science from Ashford University and an MA in national security studies/intelligence analysis from American Military University.
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