White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre danced around questions on Thursday about President Joe Biden apparently “embellishing” the story of his uncle’s death and going so far as suggesting that he was eaten by cannibals after being shot down in World War II.
Biden is on the final day of a three-day campaign tour of Pennsylvania. On Wednesday, in Pittsburgh, the president aimed to critique his 2024 Republican rival, former President Donald Trump, by recounting the death of his uncle, Ambrose Finnegan, a U.S. Air Force pilot who was killed while serving in World War II.
“He flew single-engine planes, reconnaissance flights over New Guinea. He had volunteered because someone couldn’t make it. He got shot down in an area where there were a lot of cannibals in New Guinea at the time,” Biden said before knocking Trump for referring to World War II veterans as “suckers and losers.”
“They never recovered his body, but the government went back when I went down there, and they checked and found some parts of the plane,” he continued.
Reporters traveling with the president to Philadelphia on Thursday asked Jean-Pierre about Biden’s recounting of Finnegan’s death, which does not appear to match the Pentagon record.
“You saw the president. He was incredibly proud of his uncle’s service in uniform. You saw him at the war memorial. It was incredibly emotional and important to him,” she responded. “The president highlighted his uncle’s story as he made the case for honoring our sacred commitment to equip those we send to war and to take care of them and their families when they come home, and, as he reiterated, that the last thing American veterans are suckers or losers, and he wanted to make that clear.”
Still, reporters pressed Jean-Pierre on why Biden opted for “embellishing the story,” but the press secretary answered that she didn’t “have anything beyond what [she] just laid out.”
“But it was a really proud moment for him. It was incredibly emotional. I think some of your colleagues … were there, and they got to witness the president pray at the war memorial, look for his uncle’s name, honor him, and I think we can’t forget that moment,” Jean-Pierre told reporters. “We cannot also forget what it means to be a commander in chief, what it means to lift up our service members, what it means to make sure that we respect their service, and he made that contract very clear as to what we saw from the former president.”
A report issued by the Pentagon’s Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency regarding Finnegan’s death contradicts large portions of Biden’s recounting.
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“For unknown reasons, this plane was forced to ditch in the ocean off the north coast of New Guinea,” the report reads. “Both engines failed at low altitude, and the aircraft’s nose hit the water hard. Three men failed to emerge from the sinking wreck and were lost in the crash. One crew member survived and was rescued by a passing barge. An aerial search the next day found no trace of the missing aircraft or the lost crew members.”
You can listen to Jean-Pierre’s comments in full below.
