Washington, D.C. — 

President Joe Biden spent three days this week campaigning in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania. He littered his remarks with false and misleading claims on subjects ranging from his annual earnings to his cap on seniors’ prescription drug spending to the demographics of China to the frequency of his past travel to Iraq and Afghanistan.

And in Biden’s most eyebrow-raising remarks of the campaign swing, he told and then retold a story in which he strongly suggested his late uncle, Ambrose Finnegan, was eaten by cannibals after his plane was shot down while he fought in World War II. Biden’s dramatic details don’t match the Defense Department’s official account of the plane crash.

Biden’s earnings:

In the same speech in Scranton, PA, Biden repeated his regular promise that nobody making less than $400,000 per year will pay even a cent more in taxes under his proposals. He then added, “I hope you’re all able to make $400,000. Because I never did."

Biden’s cap on seniors’ prescription drug spending:

In the same speech in Scranton, Biden touted provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act he signed in 2022. He said: “For example, seniors, beginning in 2024, no matter how much their prescription drug costs are, they’ll never have to pay more than $2,000 a year, no matter what."

Billionaires and taxes:

Biden delivered another version of a claim he has regularly made about billionaires’ tax rates. He said in the same Tuesday speech in Scranton: “Do you know what the average federal tax rate for a billionaire is today in America? For real: 8.3%.” After some people in the audience laughed, Biden continued, “That’s how much federal ta- — no, I’m serious. Not a joke. Far less than the vast majority of Americans pay in federal taxes. No billionaire should pay a lower tax rate than a teacher, a nurse, a sanitation worker.”

Biden’s visits to Iraq and Afghanistan:

Biden claimed in another Tuesday speech in Scranton: “I was in, I think, 36, 38 times in Iraq and Afghanistan as a senator and as a vice president.”
 

These statements are incorrect and false.

Biden has delivered similar falsehoods about his travel to Iraq and Afghanistan on various previous occasions — including in the 2019 remarks that prompted his campaign to correct the record — and they have been previously fact-checked by media outlets including CNN.