Was this before or after his grandfather worked as a coal miner? How about his own arrest in South Africa for trying to sneak into a prison to see Nelson Mandela?
The “he” in these instances is fabulist-in-chief Joe Biden, who believes the best way to forge a bond with a group of constituents he is meeting is by inventing “facts” about his past that are easily refutable. (RELATED: The funniest eight words ever spoken: ‘I give you my word as a Biden’)
It happened again on Wednesday. The setting was a Mack truck plant, where during one of his unscripted moments, Biden blurted out, “I used to drive an 18-wheeler.”
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
At least that’s what many claim to hear him say when they play the very short clip that follows. (There is a good bit of cross-talk, which makes it hard to pick out exact quotes.)
To my ear, it sounds as though he is saying, “I used to ride an 18-wheeler,” which as W. James Antle III notes at the National Examiner has a small germ of truth. Antle cites a fact-checking tweet by the RNC’s Zach Parkinson, which concedes that Biden did once ride in a truck. It was for “one night in 1973 (he made sure to return home by plane though).” Biden is quoted as having written at the time, “I made the trip because I wanted a firsthand account from the truckers, who say they carry 50 per cent of all the goods shipped within the United States.”
