He did it three times in a single speech last month – falsely claiming to have witnessed a bridge collapse in Pittsburgh in 2022 (he actually visited the site more than six hours after the collapse), falsely claiming his grandfather had died just days prior to his own birth at the same hospital (his paternal grandfather died more than a year prior in another state), and again repeating a long-debunked false story about a supposed conversation with an Amtrak conductor who was deceased at the time the story would have had to take place.
In 2021 and 2022, he falsely claimed to have been arrested during a civil rights protest (he had previously said merely that an officer had taken him home from a protest), falsely claimed he “used to drive an 18-wheeler” (the White House said he once had a job driving a different vehicle, a school bus), falsely claimed to have visited the Pittsburgh synagogue where worshippers were killed in a 2018 mass shooting (he had spoken to its rabbi by phone but had not gone), falsely claimed to have visited Iraq and Afghanistan as president (he made repeated visits as a senator and vice president but not as president), told a false story involving a late relative and the Purple Heart, and falsely described his interactions decades ago with late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.
Hmm. Most of these seem like fairly minor inaccuracies. Some are more inaccurate, but all seem to have some bearing on real events he was involved in. I’m not really seeing an intentional weaving of untruth like I see in many other politicians at this time. I more see the unscripted memory recall of an older person.
i see it as more of an example of why we shouldnt want septuagenarian or octogenarian politicians of either party.
Be probably just meant to say “week” instead of “day.” Such a minor screw up. I do shit like that all the time, and I’m half his age.
It’s called confabulation, and it’s not “normal” aging, it’s a sign of memory loss. Dementia is a common cause.
I find it staggering that the democratic party are going with him as their presidential candidate. Feels like a mix of the sunken cost fallacy and a fear of turning away from someone who is currently beating Trump in the polls.
Arguably Trump confabulates too but it gets dismissed as he’s been a liar for so long no one notices.
2024 is looking like an election with two elderly men with dementia vying for the whitehouse, and another one as senate leader. That’s how extreme US politics has become - you could put up a literal monkey now and as long as he’s in the right party he would get nearly 1/2 the vote.
It’s all a sign of how dangerously broken the US electoral system is.
I hate it. I’ll still vote for the puppet with dimentia that’s commanded by Democrats over the one commanded by Republicans if that ends up being my only choice to fend off fascists.
They’re not even puppeting him very well if they’re letting him make all these inaccurate statements in speeches.
I think, citing recent presidential history, we can let a few innocuous inaccuracies slide. When you are used to a fire hose, a slight dribble causes no concern.
I’m not sure you can puppeteer away being a bad public speaker with dimentia. You can puppeteer policy though, which is what actually matters.
If the speech was written down and he read it as it was written then that’s on his staff as much as him. But yeah bad situation all the way around.
These are such weak facts to check. I can sense the saliva seething through OPs teeth as they wrote this.
Im laughing at the people blaming his Asia trip like this isn’t exactly the kind of flubs Biden makes usually. This is just him guys, he’s fucking old and he’s gonna keep being old.
To be fair, he’s been flubbing for decades.
ROFL…. Let’s compare presidential lies, shall we?
All of these sound so minor.
The question is whether it’s a memory thing, or if this is the standard politician thing where they’re focused more on the impact of the story.
I think it’s just a “I said the wrong word” thing.
Now if he starts recanting about the time he met Elvis on the moon, then I’ll be concerned.
Or his speech writers played some stuff up and he embellished a bit as entertainers are prone to do.
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Kellyanne Conway would’ve been there too, but she was busy helping relief efforts of the Bowling Green Massacre
Ok
Why should I care
Dude gets back from a whirlwind Asian trip, with a 12 hour flight home, and accidentally said a day later instead of a week later.
Talk about a slow news day.
Considering the absolute bullshit his most likely opponent says on an hourly basis, this seems minor.
Grandpa forgets details sometimes. Not his fault.
Not just grandpa. How much of what we remember of 9/11 is accurate? How can we be sure? Is anyone fact checking our memories?
I have no idea at this point what I saw on 9/11 and what I saw repeated days later.
My good friend and I both very clearly remember watching the Challenge explosion happen live on TV in 6th grade science class… it happened when we were in 4th grade at different schools.
It was 1986, so I was 9. That might have been 4th grade for me too.
Dude just zipped around Asia in a couple days then took a 12 hour flight home. Is it really that weird that he accidentally said the next day instead of the next week?
I’m half his age, and travel like that makes me completely incoherent.
It’s not like he was flying in cheap economy seats. Grandpa got plenty of nap time on his flight.
So you never had a jetlag, got it.
I’ve worked flexible work shifts, which is basically the same thing. One day work starts at 3:30pm and goes till 12am, another it starts at 12am and goes till 7am, it’s bullshit.
If you get enough sleep it’s fine. Old people struggle a lot with disrupted sleep schedules, though, so there’s no way I could do that shit if I was eighty god damn years old. Why do y’all pretend he isn’t ancient?
