Fact check: Biden repeats his false claim that he ‘used to drive an 18-wheeler’

By CNN Newsource

Published April 24, 2024 8:13 am

By Daniel Dale, CNN

(CNN) — President Joe Biden has revived a debunked tale about his past – his fictional claim that he used to drive an 18-wheeler truck.

Biden has repeatedly embellished or invented biographical tidbits. In 2021, he claimed during a tour of a Mack Trucks facility: “I used to drive an 18-wheeler, man,” then added, “I got to.” At a separate 2021 event, he told college students studying truck technology, “I used to drive a tractor-trailer,” adding, “I only did it for part of a summer, but I got my license anyway.”

Biden’s claims were fact-checked at the time as false. But on Tuesday, during a campaign event in Florida, Biden said it again.

A supporter told him, “The only reason I have a pension is because of you.” (The supporter appeared to be referring to the Biden administration’s $36 billion in aid to prevent steep pension cuts for more than 350,000 union workers and retirees, including truck drivers.) Biden responded: “Well, we did get that done. Anyway. Besides, I used to drive an 18-wheeler.”

Facts First: Biden’s claim remains untrue. There is no evidence he ever drove an 18-wheeler.

When CNN inquired about the claim in 2021, the White House noted that Biden once had a part-time job driving a school bus (which is not an 18-wheeler or a tractor-trailer) and that, as a US senator in 1973, he spent a night riding in a cargo truck (not driving it).

Biden’s Tuesday rendition of the “18-wheeler” claim came the week after he made some other inaccurate personal claims during a campaign swing in Pennsylvania.

He said last week that he has “never” earned $400,000 in a year, though he has done so every year of his presidency and made millions in each of 2017 and 2018. He also offered a dramatic account of the death of his uncle in a World War II plane crash – saying the plane was shot down and suggesting his uncle’s body was consumed by cannibals – that is at odds with the Defense Department’s account of the 1944 incident.