President Joe Biden appears to have outdone himself with the latest in a long series of tall tales — that range from minor exaggerations to partial fabrications — telling a crowd that the late President Ronald Reagan had once made him an extraordinary offer in an effort to save his life.
Biden was referring to the brain aneurysm he suffered in February of 1988, and he credited Reagan with offering him the use of “Air Force — Helicopter One” to make sure that he was able to get the emergency medical care that he needed.
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Biden claims Ronald Reagan sent "Air Force Helicopter One" to take him to the hospital when he had a brain aneurysm in the 1980s.
His story "is not supported by either his own autobiography or by Reagan’s daily presidential diary," according to @stevennelson10. pic.twitter.com/hJ9aSy0cud
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 11, 2023
Biden told the story as part of his opening remarks on Monday congratulating the city of Philadelphia for receiving a “SAFER Grant Award to Fund the Philadelphia Fire Department:”
I — I would not be here were it not for my local fire company in Wilmington, Delaware. They saved my life. I had a cranial aneurysm. I wasn’t — it was the middle of a snowstorm. Not a joke.
I couldn’t figure out how they were going to — President Reagan was nice enough to send Air Force — Helicopter One to take me down, but it couldn’t fly. And so, my fire department — my fire department came up, put me in the back, and took me on — in a snow — in a heavy snow on the day I went down to Walter Reed, because that’s where I had to get for this operation.
I got there for a nine-hour operation that saved my life. I — not a joke. My firefighters — the guys I grew up with — they saved my life.
And while the story about the aneurysm was true — Biden did have two separate lifesaving surgeries to correct aneurysms, one on each side of his brain — the rest of his story appears to be at least partially fabricated.
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The New York Times reported that Biden was transferred to Walter Reed from St. Francis Hospital in Wilmington, Delaware — and as The New York Post’s Steven Nelson noted, neither Biden’s own autobiography nor Reagan’s presidential diary made any mention of any other transport being offered by the White House at the time.
According to a report from The New York Post, Reagan’s notes from that day did mention Marine One — the name given to any helicopter on which the president is traveling — but only to say that inclement weather had prevented even Reagan himself from using it that morning.
Biden’s account of his trip to Walter Reed — given in great detail in his 2007 autobiography, “Promises to Keep” — also made no mention of any offer from the White House.
“Weather conditions made a medevac helicopter flight too dangerous. I had no idea what time it was, but I found myself on a gurney, my test results strapped to my chest, being wheeled out the doors of Saint Francis [hospital in Wilmington, Del.] toward a waiting ambulance,” Biden wrote at the time.
Biden went on during Monday’s remarks to repeat the often exaggerated tale of the small kitchen fire that took place in his Delaware home — which firefighters reportedly contained in under 20 minutes — saying that the fire department had saved his wife and his home (and his beloved ’67 Corvette).