President Biden, like many politicians, likes to tell stories — stories that attempt to connect his life story with his audiences and make up an essential part of his persona.
Speaking to survivors of the devastating Maui fire on Aug. 21, Biden recalled how lightning had once struck a pond outside his home, sparking a fire. “To make a long story short, I almost lost my wife, my ’67 Corvette and my cat,” he said, adding, “all kidding aside.”
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But throughout his career — most famously in his first presidential campaign, in the 1988 election cycle — Biden’s propensity to exaggerate or embellish tales about his life led to doubts about his truthfulness. Contemporary news reports on the house fire do not match his telling of it, fanning criticism that he had lied to a vulnerable audience.
“Joe Biden shared his life — or his version of it — continuously,” wrote Richard Ben Cramer in his 1992 book, “What It Takes,” about the 1988 campaign. “He confided it, displayed it, spread it profligately, even expanded it to connect it with your life. He would settle for nothing less.”
Sometimes the stories turn out to be largely true, such as the one about a confrontation as a 19-year-old lifeguard with a gang leader named Corn Pop. But others fall short. As president, Biden has continued a tradition of embellishing his personal tales in ways that cannot be verified or are directly refuted by contemporary accounts.
“President Biden has brought honesty and integrity back to the Oval Office,” deputy White House press secretary Andrew Bates told The Fact Checker. “Like he promised, he gives the American people the truth right from the shoulder and takes pride in being straight with the country about his agenda and his values; including by sharing life experiences that have shaped his outlook and that hard-working people relate to. And as Americans know, there are countless moments from every person’s own history that are not covered in local newspapers.”
Here’s an accounting of some of Biden’s favorite tales.
At least six times as president, mostly recently in comments to Hurricane Idalia victims Wednesday, Biden has exaggerated the extent of a fire that occurred at his house in 2004.
“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,” Biden said at an infrastructure event in November 2021.
In March this year, speaking to a firefighters conference, Biden said: “Lightning struck in a pond behind my house, went up underneath the conduit, and caught the — caught fire underneath the floorboards of my house. And it was during the summer. Air conditioning was on. Smoke that thick all three stories.” He added: “My fire company was there to go in and save my wife, get her out; the cat; and my ’67 Corvette.”
Speaking to a summit on fire prevention last October, Biden said: “We almost lost a couple firefighters, they tell me, because the kitchen floor was — the — burning between beams in the house, in addition to almost collapsed into the basement.”
