Biden, 81, repeats debunked claim that he was ‘the first in his family to go to college’: Joe brags again in Wisconsin student loan speech…despite bragging that his grandfather was an American football player’

President Joe Biden repeated a previously debunked claim that he was the first in his family to go to college during a speech on student loans in Wisconsin on Monday, after coming under fire in the past for that claim.

“I, like many people in this audience, was the first in my family to go to college and I watched my father fight to help me get there,” Biden said in Madison as he touted his new executive actions to cut student loans. for millions of Americans.

You have already made the claim before, including during his 2020 campaign. Donald Trump’s campaign flagged him as inaccurate at the time, as he had been during a much more serious incident when he borrowed language from British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock in 1987, helping to end his campaign. presidential.

In that speech, he said that he was “the first in his family to go to university”, in language that closely followed Kinnock’s as part of a longer passage. Biden later told the New York Times, “There are Finnegans, my mother’s family, who went to college,” acknowledging the mistake.

“The president is proud to be the first Biden to graduate from college,” said White House spokesman Andrew Bates.

Biden, 81, during his speech on Monday spoke once again about his grandfather being an “American football player,” a line that in turn points to his ancestor’s time in college, although it has not been established. the title of “All-Ameican.”

But there are also problems with the story. A AP Data Verification discovered that Biden’s grandfather, Ambrose Finnegan, attended Santa Clara College. That would have happened around 1902. A obituary called him a “star athlete” who was the team’s quarterback, but did not establish that he was a college All-American. (He did maintain that he “could have been an All-American player for another reason.”)

The comments were taken up by Republicans, who accused him of “lying.” The comments came in a speech in which Biden promised “life-changing relief” for 30 million borrowers, as Biden reaches out to young voters in a battleground state he won in 2020 and needs to fend off Trump in a revenge

More than 48,000 Democrats voted for the “uneducated” in last week’s primaries, more than double their margin of victory in 2020.

Biden made the comment about his background in a speech to students in Madison, Wisconsin.

Biden’s grandfather, Ambrose Finnegan, was a librarian who worked in the newspaper business after being a ‘star athlete’ at Santa Clara College in California.

He said he would “give everyone a fair shot” and the “freedom to pursue their dreams,” on a day when he announced plans to eliminate debt, including for millions of people whose student loans had grown larger than when they applied. for the first time the loans years ago.

“Even when they work hard and pay off their student loans, their debt increases and doesn’t decrease,” Biden said. “Too many people are feeling the tension and the stress, wondering if they’re going to be able to get married, have their first child, start a family, because even if they make it through, they still have this overwhelming, overwhelming debt.”