CLAIM: President Joe Biden claimed, again, that he almost lost his Delaware home in a fire, during a speech to firefighters at Philadelphia’s Engine 13 Firehouse on Monday.
VERDICT: MOSTLY FALSE: A lighting strike hit the Bidens’ home and caused “a small fire … contained to the kitchen” that “was under control in 20 minutes,” the Associated Press reported in 2004.
Monday was not the first time Biden has greatly embellished the “small fire” in his home. As early as 2013, Biden told Americans that a fire “destroyed a significant portion” of his house.
“I was down here doing a Sunday program, and lightning struck my home and destroyed a significant portion of it, and you got my wife out,” Biden said, “And in addition to my wife, you got my second-best love out of the house: my ‘67 Corvette, so thank you all. … I owe you. When I say I owe you, I mean I owe you.”
Biden told victims of Colorado wildfires in 2022 that he once “had lightning strike our home and almost lose our home.”
“We only lost about 25% of it. We were able to rebuild. But, you know, the hard part is the memorabilia you lost. The special things that you had put away that you lost,” Biden claimed.
Follow Wendell Husebø on “X” @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.