President Joe Biden on Wednesday mischaracterized the circumstances of his uncle’s death during World War II while he criticized Former president donald trumpcomments about the military.
“He was shot down in New Guinea and they never found the body because there used to be – there were a lot of cannibals, really, in that part of New Guinea,” Biden said during his remarks invoking his uncle Ambrose J. Finnegan.
However, US militaryrecords about Finnegan’s death do not mention the aircraft being shot or discuss cannibalism.
“For unknown reasons, this plane was forced to crash into the ocean off the northern coast of New Guinea,” the records say. “Both engines failed at low altitude and the nose of the aircraft hit the water hard.”
The three men who died in the crash have not been found, records say.
White House spokesman Andrew Bates did not directly address the apparent distortion. He noted in a statement to NBC News that Biden was “proud of the military service of his uncle, who lost his life when the military plane he was traveling in crashed in the Pacific after taking off near New Guinea.”
“The President highlighted his uncle’s story in defending the need to honor our ‘sacred commitment… to equip those we send to war and care for them and their families when they return home,’ and in reiterating that the last thing American veterans are ‘suckers’ or ‘losers,’” Bates added.
During his remarks, Biden drew a contrast between his family’s military service and Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric about the military, such as Trump calling fallen soldiers “suckers” and “losers,” according to a report. report in the Atlantic. trump denied making these observations.
“’Suckers’ and ‘losers’. This man does not deserve to have been the commander in chief of my son, my uncle,” Biden said during Your speech.
Biden also frequently talks about his son Beau BidenWho served in the Delaware Army National Guard and deployed to Iraq. His son he died in 2015 after a battle with brain cancer. Biden had already distorted who lost his son “in Iraq”, although his son died in the US after returning home from military service. Biden also apparently mischaracterized the war record of another uncle of his when he erroneously spoke about trying to present a Purple Heart to his uncle Frank, according to FactCheck.org.
This article was originally published in NBCNews. with
