In the latest example of President Joe Biden playing fast and loose with the facts, he claimed his uncle – who died while serving in World War II – was killed by cannibals. As the White House was later forced to admit, that is simply not true.
The curious tale came while the commander in chief was campaigning in Pennsylvania on Wednesday and trying to draw a distinction between the way he respects the military compared to former President Donald Trump.
On Thursday’s show, Megyn was joined by Charles C.W. Cooke and Jim Geraghty of National Review to discuss Biden’s bizarre claim and why he is “unfit” to be president.
Cannibalism Claims
On two separate occasions on Wednesday, Biden implied his maternal uncle, 2nd Lt. Ambrose J. Finnegan Jr., was eaten by cannibals. “He once again came out with a nonsense story,” Megyn noted. He can’t go two seconds without telling another familial lie about his background, his son, what have you.”
After visiting a war memorial in Scranton, PA, that bears his uncle’s name, the 81 year old suggested cannibals killed Finnegan after his plane went down in the South Pacific. “He got shot down in an area where there were a lot of cannibals at the time,” he told reporters. “They never recovered his body, but the government went back when I went down there and they checked and found some parts of the plane.”
During a visit with steelworkers in Pittsburgh later in the day, Biden once again brought up the story, alleging his uncle “got shot down in New Guinea and they never found the body because there used to be– there were a lot of cannibals, for real, in that part of New Guinea.”
Finnegan’s personnel profile from the Pentagon’s Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, however, tells a different story. It states a plane carrying four people “was forced to ditch in the ocean off the north coast of New Guinea” for “unknown reasons” on May 14, 1944.
While one crew member survived the crash and was rescued by a passing barge, three men – including Finnegan – “failed to emerge from the sinking wreck and were lost in the crash.” A search of the area the next day “found no trace of the missing aircraft or the lost crew members” and they remain “unaccounted for.”
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was forced to do damage control while addressing reporters aboard Air Force One on Thursday. “You saw the president, he was incredibly proud of his uncle’s service in uniform. You saw him at the War Memorial. It was incredibly emotional and important to him,” she said. “You saw him respond to all of you when asked about the moment yesterday and his uncle who lost his life when the military aircraft he was on crashed in the Pacific after taking off near New Guinea.”
Family Affair
This is not the first time the president has had trouble recounting his family history. Last fall, he came under scrutiny for regurgitating a concocted story about his “Uncle Frank” and a Purple Heart during a meet-and-greet with European Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
The problem? No one can find any record of Uncle Frank’s Purple Heart.
The president has also misrepresented the cause of his eldest son’s death. Biden often tells grieving families that Beau, who died in 2015 of brain cancer, was killed while deployed in Iraq.
In Geraghty’s view, these mistakes are common of people of Biden’s age, but they should not be common of the president of the United States. “We’ve heard these stories from our grandparents and our parents… and we put up with those stories because we love our elderly relatives,” he said. “But we don’t love Joe Biden… and he really has no communications anymore.”
The Age Old Problem
To that point, twice accusing the people of New Guinea of cannibalism was not the only gaffe of the day. Biden also appeared to confuse the Israeli port city of Haifa with the Palestinian city of Rafah during an interview with Nexstar Media.
Reporter Reshad Hudson asked the president for his position on Israel’s war against Hamas and his plan to sure up support among pro-Palestinian voters. After saying he is “meeting with them” and urging increased aid for refugees, he seemingly grew confused as he mixed up the two cities.
BIDEN: I made it clear to Israelis: Don’t move on Haifa. It’s just not, I mean– uh anyway, I, I just– look what we did recently when Israel was attacked…
Megyn said the behavior feels impossible to ignore at this point. “I mean, how many times does this have to happen before somebody over on the Democratic side says, ‘We’re dead. He can’t make it to [the election]. We’re going to have one of these [gaffes] that is too calamitous between now and then,’” she asked. “Or is it just, he’s polling within one point of Trump in the national polls, things are tightening in the swing states, so shut up?”
In Cooke’s view, the Trump v. Biden rematch will prohibit the left from acknowledging he is “unfit” to serve. “He’s too old, he doesn’t know what’s going on, he projects no confidence or ability or knowledge… quite clearly his staff are running the show… it’s a huge problem,” he explained. “But I think because we’ve got into this horrendous dichotomy once again of Trump versus Biden, we’ve almost lost our ability to evaluate and interrogate these questions in and of themselves without reference to the other person.”
And those who are willing to ask those questions objectively don’t fare much better. “Once you do it,” Cooke concluded, “you want to have a very stiff drink very soon.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Cooke and Geraghty by tuning in to episode 770 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.