Biden raises eyebrows after claiming late son Beau, who died of brain cancer, died in Iraq
President Joe Biden, 80, again falsely claimed that his son Beau Biden was killed while serving in Iraq while visiting US troops stationed in Japan on Monday.
“My son was a major in the United States Army. We lost him in Iraq,” Biden told troops in Iwakuni on Thursday.
Beau Biden, who served as Attorney General of Delaware and in the Delaware Army National Guard in the Iraq War, died of brain cancer at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, in 2015 at age 46.
His death may have been linked to burn pits encountered while serving in Iraq, although Beau did not die fighting in the Middle East.
The president was speaking while visiting troops on their way to the G7 summit in Hiroshima, the New York Post.
It was at least the third time that America’s oldest living president – who is gearing up for a second term in 2024 – has publicly spoken misleadingly about the death of his oldest son.
President Joe Biden, 80, repeated the false anecdote that his son Beau Biden was killed while serving in Iraq, again while visiting US troops stationed in Japan on Monday.
In October 2022, Biden said Beau died in Iraq during a speech at Camp Hale in Colorado.
“Imagine – I mean it sincerely – saying this as the father of a man who won the Bronze Star, the Conspicuous Service Medal, and lost his life in Iraq. Imagine the courage, the audacity and the heartfelt sacrifice – real sacrifice they all made,” Biden said at the time.
He also said that Beau had been killed in Iraq during a speech in Florida in November, right after he confused the war in Ukraine with the war in Iraq.
“Inflation is a global problem right now,” the president said. “There is a war in Iraq and the impact on oil and what Russia is doing. Excuse me, the war in Ukraine.’
“I think about Iraq, because that’s where my son died — because he died,” Biden explained at the time.
The president has long linked his service time and the military’s use of burns to Beau’s diagnosis of brain cancer.
‘I don’t think I can prove it yet, he came back with stage 4 glioblastoma. Eighteen months he lived, knowing he would die,” Biden said in 2019.
The younger Biden had deployed to Iraq in 2009 and earned a Bronze Star medal for his service there as part of the military.
“My son was a major in the United States Army. We lost him in Iraq,” Biden told troops in Iwakuni on Thursday
The younger Biden had been deployed to Iraq in 2009 and earned a Bronze Star medal there. President Biden said in 2019 that he thought his son had contracted cancer from ‘exposure to burning pits’ during his broadcast
The younger Biden had been deployed to Iraq in 2009 and earned a Bronze Star medal there
President Biden first claimed his late son Beau “lost his life in Iraq,” seemingly convinced the former military reservist died as a result of the brain cancer he contracted after exposure to burn pits, in October 2022
President Joe Biden again said his son Beau Biden died in Iraq, caught calling the war in Ukraine the war in Iraq, while making remarks in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in November 2022
Biden has campaigned for legislation to support legislation to improve health care for veterans exposed to toxic burns, and regularly brings up his late son in speeches.
The president was also criticized for invoking his son Beau in military speeches in the past.
William McGurn, a speechwriter for George W. Bush, wrote for the Wall Street Journal in 2019 that Biden should stop invoking Beau as a way to deflect criticism of his approach to the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
‘Mr. Biden is not a Gold Star dad and should stop playing one on TV,” he wrote.