President Joe Biden incorrectly stated during a speech on Tuesday that his son died while serving in Iraq as he also initially blamed global inflation on the “war in Iraq,” before correcting himself.
Biden’s latest verbal blunder happened while he was speaking at an event in Hallandale Beach, Florida, discussing inflation, medicare, and social security.
“I’m thinking of Iraq because that’s where my son died,” Biden claimed. He then added “because he died,” possibly referring to Biden’s belief that his son died due to exposure to toxic burn pits in Iraq, before he jumped to another topic, deeming the United States as having the “lowest inflation rate of almost any major country.”
Beau, a two-term attorney general of Delaware and a decorated war veteran passed away in May 2015 at the age of 46 after a battle with brain cancer at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
He served a yearlong stint in Iraq from 2008 to 2009, which included a 7-month deployment in the combat zone.
During a speech in 2019, Biden said he believes toxins found in smoke from burning waste at U.S. military installations in Iraq could have attributed to Beau’s death, though he noted; “I can’t prove it yet.”
“Because of exposure to burn pits, in my view—I can’t prove it yet—he came back with stage 4 glioblastoma,” Biden said at the time. “Eighteen months he lived, knowing he was going to die.”
‘Not a Joke’
Biden has been hammered on social media by critics for making a number of bizarre verbal miscues in his recent speeches.While describing how Democrats have worked on improving health care by defending the “Affordable Care Act” (ACA) from being replaced, Biden told people at the event that Democrats campaigned in “54 states” to prevent the federal statute from being dismantled.
“Not a joke, everybody; that’s why we defeated it in 2018 when they tried to do it. We went to 54 states,” the president said proudly.
In just a few weeks, Biden—already the oldest sitting president—will turn 80 years old. If Biden were to win reelection in 2024, he would be 86 at the end of his second term.