President Joe Biden told college students in New Mexico on Nov. 3 that he had been a professor after leaving the vice presidency, but omitted to mention that the role was honorary in nature.
“I spent more time with Xi Jinping of China than any world leader has,” Biden
said while speaking on student debt relief at Central New Mexico Community College in Albuquerque.
“When I was vice president, and when I was out of the office for four years and I was a professor, and now president.”
Thursday was not the first time Biden referred to having been a professor.
In April, while speaking at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, he
said: “I’ve been on a lot of university campuses. As a matter of fact, for four years, I was a full professor at the University of Pennsylvania.”
That claim led to a fact-check from
Snopes, which clarified that Biden was the first person to hold the honorary position of Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he gave lectures and talks but never taught a full semester of courses. The position, which he held from 2017 to 2021, netted him more than $900,000.
In 2019, when he announced his candidacy for president, the university released a
statement notifying students that he would be taking an “unpaid leave of absence” from his work at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement.
Biden’s Thursday speech was one stop on a three-day, multi-state tour to California, Illinois, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania to boost Democratic support ahead of next Tuesday’s midterm elections.
Earlier this week, he raised brows by making
several gaffes while speaking in Hallandale Beach, Florida, which included claiming to have spoken to the man who “invented” insulin, referring to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) as “Senator,” and blaming current inflation and the death of his late son on the Iraq war.
“Inflation is a worldwide problem right now because of a war in Iraq and the impact on oil and what Russia’s doing,” Biden said. “I mean, excuse me, the war in Ukraine. I’m thinking of Iraq because that’s where my son died … because he died.”’
Beau Biden died of brain cancer in May 2015—six years after he returned from Iraq.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House for comment.
