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Biden tells debunked Amtrak tale boasting his rail mileage for 13th time

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useapen

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Dec 23, 2023, 4:31:40 AM12/23/23
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President Biden on Friday shared for at least the 13th time since taking
office a debunked story involving a late Amtrak conductor named Angelo
Negri who supposedly exclaimed “Joey, baby!” while extolling Biden’s
lifetime rail ridership.

Biden, 81, gave his latest rendition of the tale — changing some details,
including the specific mileage cited — while touting investments in rail
infrastructure at an event in Las Vegas.

“I was vice president… I was going home to see my mom. I was catching a 5
o’clock train I used to take every single day — a 7 o’clock train out of
Washington,” Biden began.

“One of the senior guys at Amtrak… He comes up to me — his name is Angelo
— and he comes over and he says ‘Joey, baby!’ and grabs my cheek. I
thought they were gonna shoot him.

“And I said, ‘Ang, what’s the matter?’ He said, ‘We just — I just read the
newspaper’ — because they keep meticulous mileage [of] how many miles you
use on aircraft for the United States Air Force as vice president,” Biden
continued

“‘I read in the paper, Joey, that you traveled… one million, two hundred
thousand miles on Air Force,” Biden went on, using a different figure from
the million of miles he more commonly cites.

“He said, ‘Big —’ I’m gonna quote him exactly. He said, ‘Big deal, Joey.’
He said, ‘We just had a retirement dinner in Newark, New Jersey… You know
how many miles you’ve ridden?’ I said, ‘No, Ang.’ And he said, ‘1,000,327
miles. I don’t hear any more about the Air Force.’ Well, guys, I — I’m a
rail guy, not a joke.”

The story was rated “False” in 2021 by CNN, which noted that Biden didn’t
reach one million miles aboard Air Force Two until September 2015, well
after Negri’s retirement from Amtrak in 1993 and death in May 2014.

Biden’s daily private schedule as vice president included a note about how
many Air Force miles he had traveled, allowing for verification.

Biden is seeking a second four-year term in next year’s election despite
broad public concern about his mental acuity.

A New York Times poll last month found 71% of swing-state voters believe
Biden is “too old to be an effective president,” versus 39% who said so of
former President Donald Trump, 77, who is seeking a rematch against Biden.

Biden also has a decades-long propensity for embellishing personal stories
and was forced to drop out of his first presidential bid in 1987 due to
plagiarism of speeches, a law school paper and exaggerations about his
academic record.

https://nypost.com/2023/12/08/news/joe-biden-tells-debunked-amtrak-tale-
boasting-his-rail-mileage-for-the-13th-time-says-its-not-a-joke/
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