President Joe Biden exaggerated a story of a small kitchen fire that struck his home in 2004, claiming that he almost lost his wife and his home in the flames.
While thanking firefighters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Monday, Biden repeated a story he has before embellished about when lightning struck a pond behind his house, hit a wire and caused a kitchen fire in his home. The president claimed that he nearly lost his home, his car and his wife despite a fire department repeatedly claiming that the fire was insignificant.
“They also saved my home and my wife’s life when I was away,” Biden said. “It was the last day that the most famous guy doing ‘Meet The Press’ in Washington D.C. and I was doing the program. And what happened was there was a lightning [that] struck a pond behind my house, hit a wire, came up through the basement of my home three stories and the smoke clearly ended up being literally that thick, literally that thick. You guys have seen it.”
“I wasn’t there. My wife was there, and my dog and my cat and my ’67 Corvette. But all kidding aside, they saved my wife, they got her out. They saved my home,” the president continued.
Biden, speaking to firefighters in Philadelphia, once again tells the fake story about almost losing his house in a fire.
It’s all a lie. According to a 2004 AP report, it was “a small fire…contained to the kitchen” and “was under control in 20 minutes.” pic.twitter.com/eWP1Ji7hit
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 11, 2023
The fire that occurred in Biden’s home in 2004 was contained in 20 minutes, The Associated Press reported at the time. First Lady Jill Biden was the one who reported the fire to the emergency services, according to the outlet that did not report if anyone was trapped in the house or rescued from the fire.
Other outlets reported in 2004 that the incident was a “little more than ‘a small fire that was contained to the kitchen,’” according to the New York Times.
“Luckily, we got it pretty early. The fire was under control in 20 minutes,” Cranston Heights Fire Company Chief George Lamborn said to the AP in 2004, adding that there were no reported injuries.
In October 2022, the Cranston Heights Fire Company said the fire was “insignificant,” the New York Post reported.
“For the fire service, this could be considered an insignificant fire as it did not lead to multiple alarms and did not need a widespread incident response throughout the county. However, in the case for any homeowner, it was obviously significant at the time and was quickly responded to by the local firefighters,” the Cranston Heights Fire Company said, according to the New York Post.
Biden has told embellished versions of the story before. While attending a fire prevention summit in October 2022, the president claimed that “a couple firefighters” were almost “lost” during the fire, the New York Post reported in a separate article. The year before while speaking at an infrastructure event, Biden said he “had a house burn down with my wife in it,” the outlet reported.
While trying to console residents of Lahaina, Hawaii, following the Maui wildfires, Biden told the story of the kitchen fire. The president again claimed that he almost lost his car, his wife and his home — a claim Check Your Fact labeled as misleading while citing the Cranston Heights Fire Company’s previous statements.
The fire department said last year the fire was insignificant. Via @Check_Your_Fact. https://t.co/8J2LknPufT https://t.co/rCcOpMI5UV
— Elias Atienza (@AtienzaElias) August 30, 2023
Less than a year out from the 2024 presidential election, concerns of Biden’s age continue to rise while he commits more slip ups and gaffes. The president has repeated a debunked story about his time taking the Amtrak three times since Nov. 6. After the president repeated a story about why he decided to run for president twice just moments apart during a campaign event, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed Biden was just speaking passionately. (RELATED: Biden Mixes Up Black And Hispanic Caucuses During Speech)
A majority of Americans, 77%, believe that 81-year-old Biden is unable to effectively govern because of his age, according to an Associated Press/NORC poll. Of those Americans, 85 percent said they do not want Biden to run for reelection in 2024.