Pinocchio, baby!
President Biden on Monday repeated a false personal story about an Amtrak conductor who allegedly declared, “Joey, honey!” while praising Biden’s train passenger mileage — even though that story has been repeatedly debunked by fact-checkers.
Biden told the mock anecdote twice on Monday during a pro-commuter rail event in Delaware, bringing his total to at least 12 since he took office as president.
The first iteration Monday was heard by pool reporters as the 80-year-old president spoke to Amtrak workers shortly before the speech in Bear, Del., near Wilmington.
After taking the stage, Biden told the long story again – adding details that made the version even more removed from the established facts.
“When I was vice president, I flew over a million miles on Air Force Two, but I traveled farther than that on Amtrak for many years,” Biden said as he touted rail spending in the bipartisan 2021 infrastructure law.
Workers look on as President Joe Biden delivers a speech on his “Bidenomics” economic agenda on Monday. AFP via Getty Images
“I went home to see my mother, and I just – she’s alive at the moment, my father has passed away. And I get on the train on Friday, and I’m not going to get it [the Amtrak conductor] in full trouble, I’ll only tell you his first name, but I’ll only tell you his first name. He is No. 2 in seniority at the time, Angelo,” Biden said.
“And Ang came up to me as I walked in, and he said, ‘Joey!’ and he held my cheek, and he said, ‘Joey, Baby!’
President Biden greets attendees during his tour of an Amtrak maintenance facility in Bear, Delaware on Monday.REUTERS Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg listens as President Biden delivers a speech Monday on infrastructure during an event at an Amtrak maintenance facility.REUTERS
“They just put it in the press that I’ve traveled 1,200,000 miles in an Air Force plane as vice president, they publish it regularly,” the president continued.
“He said ‘Big …’ — I won’t quote it exactly — but he said, ‘Big deal, Joey!’
“And I said, ‘What does that mean, Ang?’ And he said … you know how many miles you’ve traveled on Amtrak?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘A million… [and] 320,000 miles.’ And I said, ‘How do you think about that?’ And he said, ‘Well, 180 days a year, almost 300 miles a day, 36 years.’ “
Biden told the bogus anecdote twice at the event.AFP via Getty Images
The story was rated “False” in 2021 by CNN’s “Facts First” reporter Daniel Dale, who noted that Biden did not reach one million miles aboard Air Force Two until September 2015, shortly after Angelo Negri’s retirement from Amtrak in 1993 and death in May 2014. Biden’s personal daily schedule as vice president includes a note about how many Air Force miles he has logged.
Biden, who turns 81 this month, is retelling that story as polls show most voters think he is too old to serve another four years, with a New York Times poll released Sunday finding 71% of swing state voters said so.
The oldest commander in chief also has a decades-long penchant for embellishing personal stories and was forced to drop out of his first presidential bid in 1987 due to plagiarism of speeches and law school papers, in addition to exaggerating about his academic performance.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
