President Joe Biden spoke about infrastructure Tuesday in Milwaukee.
Biden commended the builders’ union for reconstructing a bridge over the Milwaukee River. Then, Biden claimed to have become an expert on bridges after watching Pittburgh’s Fern Hollow Bridge collapse last year.
But he wasn’t there for the bridge collapse.
“More bridges in Pittsburgh than any other city in America. I watched that bridge collapse,” Biden said Tuesday, falsely. “I got there and saw it collapse with over 200 feet off the ground, going over a valley.”
In fact, Biden arrived at the bridge several hours after Pittsburgh’s bridge collapse, as part of a previously scheduled trip.
The 50-year-old bridge collapsed on a very early morning in January of last year, with reporters finding four people injured and none dead. The bridge re-opened for a ribbon-cutting ceremony in December.
On the day of the collapse, Biden had already been scheduled for a visit to Pittsburgh to promote the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, including $1.6 billion earmarked for bridge maintenance in Pennsylvania.
As Biden toured the scene last year, an officer told him a person who was running by helped first responders get people out of cars, according to the Associated Press. He called it a miracle.
Evidently, Biden didn’t walk away with much of an impression.
Some conservatives have compared Biden’s Pittsburgh lie to his other fables, like his unfounded claims about driving an 18-wheeler in 1973 and about graduating in “the top half of my class.”
One observer compared Biden’s tall tales to those of Homer Simpson’s grandfather on The Simpsons.
“In 1957 I saw him turn the Secretary of Agriculture into the Secretary of the Interior. It was hell on their wives, but it sure brought down corn prices. Built a house out of corn. It was the worst home I ever owned. When it got really hot it smelled like Fritos,” conservative commentator Ben Domenech tweeted, quoting the T.V. show.
Take a look —
Must have happened during one of his long-haul trucking routes. https://t.co/ZUAd1zg1S2
— David Giglio (@DavidGiglioCA) August 15, 2023
Realistically not a “gotcha”…Joe has been making up his own reality for 50 years in public life only to keep moving ahead…”top of my class” https://t.co/fACk5J3mVD
— jim iuorio (@jimiuorio) August 15, 2023
Biden opened his Milwaukee speech by antagonizing the press.
“Please have a seat if you — if you have one,” Biden said Tuesday. “I said that once earlier in my presidency, and there were no chairs. I couldn’t see anyth- — the press wrote, “Biden doesn’t even know whether people can stand or sit.”
He concluded with a call to “do something.”
“Thank God school was out during the — during the pandemic,” BiImagine all the people who would’ve died,” Biden said. “They knew for years they had to do something.”
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article.