President Joe Biden repeated a previously debunked claim that he was the first in his family to go to college during a speech about student loans at Wisconsin Monday, after being questioned in the past for this claim.
“Like many people in this audience, I was the first in my family to go to college and I watched my father struggle to help me get there,” Biden said in Madison as he touted his news executive actions to reduce student loans. for millions of Americans.
He has made this claim before, including during his 2020 campaign. THE Donald Trump the campaign reported it at the time as inaccurate, as had been the case in a much more serious incident when he borrowed language from the British. The Labor Party Frontman Neil Kinnock in a 1987 video that helped end his presidential campaign.
In that speech, he said he was “the first in his family to go to college,” in language that closely followed Kinnock’s in a longer passage. Biden then told the New York Times“there are Finnegans, my mother’s family, who went to college,” admitting the error.
President Joe Biden called himself ‘the first in my family to go to college’
“The president is proud to be the first Biden to earn a college degree,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said.
Biden, 81, during his speech on Monday, once again referred to his grandfather as being an “American football player,” a line that itself indicates his ancestor’s time spent in college , although the title of “All-Ameican” has not been established.
But there are also problems with the tale. A AP Fact Check discovered that Biden’s grandfather, Ambrose Finnegan, attended Santa Clara College. This would have happened around 1902. obituary called him a “star athlete” who was the team’s quarterback, but did not establish that he was a college All-American. (He maintained that he “could have been an All-American player another way.”)
These comments were echoed by Republicans, who accused him of “lying.” The remarks came in a speech in which Biden promised “life-changing relief” for 30 million borrowers, as Biden reaches out to young voters in a battleground state he carried in 2020 and must fend off Trump in a rematch.
More than 48,000 Democrats voted for “uneducated” in last week’s primaries, more than double his 2020 margin of victory.
Biden made the comment about his background in a speech to students in Madison, Wisconsin.
Biden’s grandfather, Ambrose Finnegan, was a librarian who worked in the newspaper business after being a “star athlete” at Santa Clara College in California.
He said he would “give everyone a fair chance” and the “freedom to pursue their dreams” on the day he announced plans to wipe out debt, including for millions whose student loans the principle had become higher than when they first subscribed. loans years ago.
“Even when they work hard and pay off their student loans, their debt is increasing instead of decreasing,” Biden said. “Too many people are feeling the strain and stress, wondering if they can get married, have their first child, start a family, because even if they get through it, they still have this crushing debt.”
