Updated Nov. 20, 2023. Two hundred and fifty-five lies and counting.
More than two and a half years into President Joe Biden’s White House tenure, his fabulism is on repeat. He’s told more lies than anyone could ever quantify, but we’ve done our best to document his serial falsehoods. Here is part four of The Federalist’s rigorous coverage designed to hold Biden and his administration accountable with substantive fact-checking throughout the rest of his presidency.
You can find part three of “The Full List Of Every Lie Joe Biden Has Told As President” here.
255. Biden Claims He Was Going To Play Football At The Naval Academy
During a “Friendsgiving” event at the U.S. Naval Academy, Biden claimed he originally planned to play football for the institution, but decided against it and went to the University of Delaware after discovering several high-profile football players would be attending the former.
“By the way, I’m all Navy. But I was appointed… I was gonna go play [football] at the Naval Academy until I found out the other guys in the backfield were a guy named Roger Staubach and Joe Bellino,” the president said.
Contrary to his claim, there is no evidence to suggest that Biden — who has told variations of this story several times before — was ever appointed to, or recruited to play for, the Naval Academy.
254. Biden Repeats Amtrak Conductor Yarn
During a trip to Delaware to promote his “Vision for World Class Passenger Rail” via billions of dollars in his expensive infrastructure legislation, Biden told a crowd that an Amtrak conductor told him he traveled 1.2 million miles by train during his vice presidency.
The trips, Biden claimed, were primarily to visit his dying mother who passed away in 2010.
“He used to be number two on the road and he walked up he would go ‘Joey baby’ and he’d grab my cheek,” Biden said.
Biden said the unnamed man calculated the miles during a “retirement dinner up in Newark.”
“He said ‘You traveled over 1,250,000 miles or 300,000 miles,’” Biden continued.
“How did you figure that out, Angie?’” Biden allegedly asked. “And he said ‘Well, it’s about’ — I forget the exact number, but I think it’s 280 miles round trip. And he said, ‘The Senate’s in an average of 117 days a year. You did it for 36 years almost every day. Then you did it as vice president, so that’s how we figured it out.’”
Biden said he shouldn’t disclose the name of the conductor but previously told crowds that his name was Angelo Negri. Negri’s obituary claims he retired in 1993, nearly two decades before Biden’s supposed story took place.
253. Biden Says He Saw Two Men Kissing as a Child
While speaking at the 2023 Human Rights Campaign National Dinner, Biden repeated a baseless story about seeing two men kissing when he was a child in Delaware.
“As I got out of the car … [I saw] two men … lean[] [over] and kiss[] one another, and I had never seen that before,” Biden said. “I turned and looked at my dad, and he just looked at me and said, ‘Joey, it’s simple. It’s simple, Joey. They love one another.”
Even The Washington Post begrudgingly admitted there is no evidence to indicate the story — which Biden has been telling since 2014 — is true.
252. Biden Says He Convinced Strom Thurmond to Pass Voting Rights Act, Again
In a sit-down interview with ProPublica, President Biden repeated the false claim that he convinced former South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond to pass the Voting Rights Act upon leaving the Senate. Thurmond, however, died in 2003. Biden left the Senate in 2009. The landmark legislation was passed years before Biden’s first election to the upper chamber.
The interview published on Oct. 1, 2023, marks at least the third time in just more than a month that Biden has made the same claim. The Associated Press even fact-checked the president on the issue with an Aug. 30 post.
BIDEN: "When I left the Senate, I was able to convince Strom Thurmond to vote for the Voting Rights Act."
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 1, 2023
Thurmond died in 2003, while Biden didn't leave the Senate until 2009. The Voting Rights Act passed in 1965, before Biden was in office. pic.twitter.com/0Xg95MWyVN
251. Biden Claims He Convinced Strom Thurmond to Support a Civil Rights Bill
During a Sept. 28, 2023, speech, Biden claimed he talked former South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond into supporting a civil rights bill during the waning moments of the former’s Senate campaign.
“Toward the end of my Senate campaign, I convinced Strom Thurmond to vote for the civil rights legislation! Not a joke!” the president said.
While it may not be a “joke,” Biden’s claim is most definitely a lie. For starters, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act on June 19, 1964, meaning Biden would have been 21 years old at the time. Biden didn’t run for Senate until years later and was elected at age 29. Moreover, Thurmond voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
250. Self-Professed Catholic President Claims He Was Raised in Synagogues
In a call with Jewish faith leaders on Sept. 14, 2023, Joe Biden claimed he was “raised in the synagogues” in Delaware.
“I — you might say raised in the synagogues in my state. You think I’m kidding. I’m not,” Biden said during his greeting.
Just like Biden was not raised in a black church or a Puerto Rican community, Biden was not raised in a synagogue. Instead, he grew up in a Catholic home and attended an all-boys Catholic school.
“I’m as much a cultural Catholic as I am a theological Catholic. My idea of self, of family, of community, of the wider world comes straight from my religion. It’s not so much the Bible, the Beatitudes, the Ten Commandments, the sacraments, or the prayers I learned. It’s the culture. The nuns are one of the reasons I’m still a practicing Catholic,” Biden wrote in the first chapter of his biography “Promises To Keep.”
