XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.guns, sac.politics
XPost: alt.society.mental-health

President Biden referred to the presidential helicopter Marine One as “Air Force Helicopter One” Monday — while claiming that Ronald Reagan sent the chopper to take him from Delaware to the DC-area Walter Reed military
hospital when Biden had a brain aneurysm in the 1980s.

The 81-year-old’s anecdote is, like other biographical details he’s shared
in public remarks, not supported by his own autobiography — or by Reagan’s daily presidential diary.

“President Reagan was nice enough to send Air Force Helicopter One to take
me down, but it couldn’t fly,” Biden told firefighters during a day-trip
to Philadelphia, using an incorrect name for the aircraft.

“And so my fire department came up, put me in the back and took me on
heavy snow on the day I went down to Walter Reed,” added the president,
whose stories often face withering fact-checks amid campaign-trail
criticism of his mental acuity.

The latter part of the story involving the local fire department is
described in Biden’s 2007 book “Promises to Keep,” but Reagan offering or dispatching the presidential helicopter is not mentioned.

A review of records posted online by the Ronald Reagan Presidential
Library turned up no corroborating evidence.

Press reports indicate that then-Sen. Biden was admitted to Walter Reed on
Feb. 12, 1988 — and Reagan’s daily diary, which includes a detailed
account of his meetings and phone calls, shows no discussions about
sending the chopper to assist the Democrat.

In fact, Reagan himself was unable to use Marine One on the morning of
Feb. 12 due to poor weather, according to a handwritten annotation,
forcing him to take a motorcade to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland to board
Air Force One for a flight to Los Angeles.

The term “Marine One” is used for whichever helicopter the president is traveling in, rather than a specific vehicle — as is the case with the
term “Air Force One” — and it’s typically joined by two identical decoys.
It’s unclear how many times presidents may have tried to loan one of the military helicopters as a favor.

Biden’s autobiography provides a detailed account of his trip to Walter
Reed, triggered by what he said was his brother James Biden’s
determination that the facility had the best expert to treat him.

“Weather conditions made a medevac helicopter flight too dangerous,” Biden wrote. “I had no idea what time it was, but I found myself on a gurney, my
test results strapped to my chest, being wheeled out the doors of Saint
Francis [hospital in Wilmington, Del.] toward a waiting ambulance.”

Biden wrote that the ambulance was “manned by my friends in the local
volunteer fire department” and escorted through the snow by Delaware and
then Maryland state police.

“The medical personnel did not seem easy with the situation. If the
aneurysm burst, there wasn’t a thing they could do for me out on the open road,” Biden wrote.

“We rode on for about half an hour… as the ambulance driver picked his way through the snowstorm until suddenly we noticed we weren’t moving anymore.
The snow was coming down harder, and we weren’t going anywhere.

“‘Why are we stopped?’ Jill kept saying. ‘Why are we stopped?’ Finally she started banging on the partition that separated us from the driver’s cab.

“‘The Maryland State Police aren’t sure where to go,’ came the answer.
‘Move!’ Jill yelled. ‘We can’t.’ ‘Dammit,’ she said. “move this
ambulance!’ The next thing I knew, we were moving again.”

Reagan featured later in the book version of the story.

Biden wrote that he was discharged from Walter Reed after 10 days, but
then had to be taken back to the hospital for another 10 days and
“President Reagan even sent his own doctor to check on me.”

“When I got back home, Jill and the staff made the decision to keep me completely isolated,” he went on. “There would be no work, no phone calls,
no nothing. President Reagan had called twice. Jill was grateful to the president, but she made no exceptions to her rule.”

The White House did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for
comment on whether evidence exists to support Biden’s most recent version
of the story.

Biden has made a series of incorrect public remarks about his own
biography, including telling a debunked story involving an Amtrak
conductor 13 times as president — and claiming last year that his uncle
Frank Biden had been awarded the Purple Heart, despite chronological
details making the story factually impossible.

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

Biden’s defenders say he’s simply prone to gaffes that are aggravated by a lifelong stutter.

He ended his first presidential campaign in 1987 — shortly before his
aneurysm — after revelations he plagiarized campaign speeches and a law
school paper, as well as that he exaggerated his academic record.

https://nypost.com/2023/12/11/news/biden-misnames-presidents-chopper- claims-reagan-sent-it-to-him-post-aneurysm/

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