The aging US president has been accused of “inserting himself” into a national tragedy
Joe Biden speaks about the US economy in Las Vegas, Nevada, March 19, 2024 © AP / Lucas Peltier
US President Joe Biden has claimed that he traveled by train “many times” over the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. The bridge, which does not have any rail lines, collapsed when it was struck by a container ship on Tuesday.
The four-lane bridge collapsed in the early hours of Tuesday morning after being hit by the Singapore-registered container ship Dali, operated by Danish shipping giant Maersk. Two construction workers were rescued from the freezing waters of the Baltimore Harbor, and the search for six others was called off on Wednesday morning, with the men presumed dead.
Biden’s first public remarks on the incident began with an apparent lie. “At about 1:30 [am], a container ship struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which I’ve been over many, many times commuting from the state of Delaware either on a train or by car,” the president said
Spanning more than 2.6km over the Patapsco River and outer Baltimore Harbor, the Francis Scott Key Bridge has no rail lines. The Amtrak line from Biden’s hometown of Wilmington, Delaware to Washington, DC takes a circuitous route around Baltimore, while the Greyhound bus line uses the Fort McHenry Tunnel to cross Baltimore Harbor.
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Biden was called out on social media for “inserting himself” into the tragedy. The president’s comment was “just another example of his mental derailment,” conservative radio host Chad Prather wrote on X. “Biden is a natural born liar,” another commenter posted. “He opens his big stupid mouth – and lies just come pouring out.”
The White House responded with a statement claiming that “the president was clearly describing driving over the bridge while commuting between Delaware and DC during his 36-year Senate career.”
However, the most direct route by car also avoids the bridge, taking the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel instead.
Biden has a long record of exaggerating his own involvement in historic events. The 81-year-old has falsely claimed that he visited Ground Zero the day after the September 11 attacks, that he was arrested while attempting to visit Nelson Mandela in a South African jail, and that he marched with civil rights protesters in the 1960s.
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In addition to these claims, Biden regularly makes verbal gaffes and slip-ups during speeches, and often appears visibly confused. According to an Associated Press poll published earlier this month, 63% of Americans are “not very or not at all confident” in Biden’s “mental capacity for the presidency.”
