Mary Margaret Olohan on September 3, 2019
Former vice president Joe Biden said Tuesday “the details are irrelevant” for decision-making in regard to his inaccurate war story that was actually three different stories compiled together.
The 76-year-old presidential candidate told 400 people assembled in a Hanover, New Hampshire, college meeting hall an emotional story about how a general asked him to travel to Afghanistan to award a Navy captain, The Washington Post reported Thursday.
Biden’s story was an inaccurate compilation of at least three war stories, WaPo reported. The publication based this claim on interviews with troops, commanders and Biden officials.
Biden commented on the story in a Tuesday radio interview with NPR Politics Podcast and Iowa Public Radio, saying the details are “irrelevant in terms of decision-making,” according to NPR.
“That has nothing to do with judgment of whether or not you send troops to war, the judgment of whether you bring someone home, the judgment of whether you decide on a health-care policy,” Biden said.
Biden’s three-minute story inaccurately detailed not only the time period, location and action, but also the type of medal, and the service member’s military branch and rank — and Biden‘s own role in the ceremony.
“This is the God’s truth,” Biden said to the audience as he told the story. “My word as a Biden.”
The 2020 presidential candidate compared his inaccurate telling of the story to accidentally confusing the color of a reporter’s eyes.
“It’s like saying, ‘I had this very bright reporter, and I think her eyes were blue,’” Biden said Tuesday. “What difference would it make about whether you were a bright reporter? Your eyes are brown. It’s irrelevant, and you know it.”
The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.