Joe Biden is an unapologetic liar. His claims of being the most successful president in history, with more job creation than any of his predecessors, are demonstrably false. Yet he continues to spread these falsehoods, trying to mislead and manipulate public opinion.
But even more concerning than his lies about his political achievements is the degree to which Biden fabricates his personal history. Every anecdote he shares seems designed to enhance his image, garner sympathy, or bolster his credentials, regardless of whether it’s based on reality. Below, I’ve compiled ten of the most egregious lies.
10. He graduated in the top half of his law school class
Joe Biden notoriously cheated when he was in law school, and yet he’s never learned his lesson. In 1987, he claimed to have graduated in the top half of his class in law school, despite being 76th in a class of 85. “I did not graduate in the top half of my class at law school and my recollection of this was inaccurate,” Biden admitted after being caught in that lie.
9. He grew up in a black church
Biden has spent much of his recent years in politics trying to compensate for being white, and one way he’s done that is to appropriate black culture. While running for president in 2020, he often claimed that he was “raised in the black church.” But longtime congregants of the black Wilmington, Del., church he claimed to frequent don’t recall him attending.
Further casting doubt on the story is that Biden has similarly claimed to have been “raised” in the Puerto Rican community and that he also grew up Jewish because he went to Jewish services more frequently than many Jews did.
8. His house burned down with his wife inside
It’s hard to imagine why Biden felt the need to embellish this story, but he actually claimed that his house burned down while his wife Jill was still inside. “And I know, having had a house burn down with my wife in it — she got out safely, God willing — but having a significant portion of it burn, I could tell 10 minutes makes a hell of a difference. It makes a big difference.”
He told the same story in Florida in October following the hurricanes, in a misguided attempt to empathize with Florida residents who’d lost everything after Hurricane Ian. “We didn’t lose our whole home, but lightning struck, and we lost an awful lot of it about 15 years ago.” According to the Associated Press, it was “a small fire that was contained to the kitchen.”
7. He got arrested in South Africa
Biden also falsely claimed that he was arrested while trying to visit Nelson Mandela in South Africa during the apartheid era. “This day, 30 years ago, Nelson Mandela walked out of prison and entered into discussions about apartheid. I had the great honor of meeting him,” Biden said while campaigning for president in 2020. “I had the great honor of being arrested with our U.N. ambassador on the streets of Soweto trying to get to see him on Robbens Island.”
Never happened. The story seemed to have been entirely contrived for the campaign, as no mention of the incident was made in Biden’s memoir or past public statements. Biden was later forced to admit that he wasn’t arrested at all. “I wasn’t arrested, I was stopped. I was not able to move where I wanted to go.”
Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler suggested at the time that Biden’s fiction seemed to be driven by competitiveness with Bernie Sanders, who actually did participate in the civil rights movement — unlike Biden.
6. He was a professor
Biden has also claimed to have been a professor at the University of Pennsylvania from 2017 to 2019. He may have been paid a handsome sum for the position, but it was only an honorary title and he never taught a class. He only visited the school a handful of times during that period.
Also for our VIPs: Biden’s Worst Lies From the State of the Union
5. He visited Israel during the Six-Day War
In 2021, Joe claimed to have visited Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967. “I have known every — every prime minister, well, since Golda Meir, including Golda Meir,” he said. “And during the Six-Day War, I had an opportunity to — she invited me to come over because I was going to be the liaison between she and the Egyptians about the Suez, and so on and so forth.”
But it never happened. In fact, it couldn’t have happened because Golda Meir wasn’t prime minister then, and Biden was in law school at the time.
4. He had a same-sex marriage epiphany as a teen
In an interview on The Daily Show that aired Monday, Biden claimed to have had an epiphany in support of same-sex marriage as a teenager. But in 1973, during his first year in the U.S. Senate, Biden opposed homosexuals working in the federal government, claiming they were a security risk. He later supported the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” military policy and voted in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act. As vice president, he opposed civil unions for same-sex couples.
3. He fought segregation
Biden claimed during his 2020 presidential campaign that he helped organize anti-segregation protests at Union Baptist Church in Delaware, but there is no evidence nor eyewitness account to support his assertion. Biden even claimed to have been arrested during the civil rights movement, but there’s no evidence that this is true, either. In fact, in the 1980s, Biden himself admitted that he was not a civil rights activist. In a 1987 presidential campaign speech, he stated that although he was concerned about the civil rights movement in the 1960s, he did not participate as an activist. He also explicitly stated that he did not participate in any marches, including the one in Selma. During the 2020 Democrat presidential primary debates, Biden’s past efforts to oppose busing, including working with Democrat segregationists, became a hot topic.
2. His son Beau died in Iraq
Joe Biden’s penchant for lying extends even to his personal tragedies, with no lie too low for him to tell. He has often invoked his late son Beau Biden in misguided attempts to empathize with the families of fallen soldiers — most recently with the families of the fallen U.S. servicemembers who died during his botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. But Beau Biden didn’t die in combat. He died of brain cancer.
That has never stopped Biden from equating Beau’s death to death in combat, though. In fact, he’s alluded to Beau so often in this context that this past October, he falsely claimed that Beau Biden lost his life in Iraq.
1. His wife and daughter were killed by a drunk driver
And lastly, for years, Biden falsely claimed that his first wife and daughter were killed by a drunk driver when in fact, the other driver in the accident was neither drunk nor at fault, and an investigation concluded it was Biden’s wife who ran through a stop sign. Biden has never apologized for lying about the other driver.
Biden’s lies about the accident have caused immense pain to the family of the other driver. Pamela Hamill, the daughter of the other driver in the accident, has asked Biden to publicly apologize for lying about her father, but he never has.