Biden’s Amtrak story about hitting 1.5million miles unravels: Conductor he said congratulated him on hitting milestone had RETIRED 20 years earlier, and his mother who he claimed to be visiting was DEAD
UK Daily Mail | May 06 2021 | Keith Griffith

President Joe Biden’s strange anecdote about reaching 1.5 million miles on Amtrak has come under scrutiny after key inconsistencies emerged that make it impossible to have occurred as he told it.

On Friday, delivering a speech in Philadelphia commemorating the 50th anniversary of Amtrak, Biden launched into the tale of a certain conductor congratulating him on reaching the milestone as he traveled to visit his sick mother.

Biden said the incident occurred in his ‘fourth or fifth year as vice president’, or around 2014-2015, at which time the conductor he named had been retired for 20 years and his mother had passed away, inconsistencies first pointed out by Fox News.

‘My mom was sick and I used to try to come home almost every weekend as vice president to see her. I got on the train and Angelo Negri came up and he goes, ‘Joey, baby,’ and he grabbed my cheek like he always did. I thought he was going to get shot. I’m serious. I said, ‘No, no, he’s a friend,’ Biden recalled.

‘He said, ‘Joey, what’s the big deal? 1,300,000 miles on Air Force Two? Do you know how many miles you traveled on Amtrak?’ I said, ‘No, Angie, I don’t know.’ He gave me the calculation and he said you traveled 1,500,000 miles on Amtrak. The fact is, I’d probably take Angie’s word before I’d take the word of what the article said,’ Biden said.

A key issue with the tale is that Angelo Negri retired as an Amtrak conductor in 1993, according to his 2014 obituary. That is long before Biden was elected vice president in 2008.

As well, Biden’s mother, Catherine ‘Jean’ Biden, passed away in 2010 at the age of 92, meaning that she was not alive in Biden’s ‘fourth or fifth year as vice president’.

Further casting doubt on the account, Biden’s own office celebrated his one millionth mile on Air Force Two in 2015.

It is not the first time that Biden’s colorful anecdotes have drawn questions about their accuracy. 

On the campaign trail last year, Biden told a tale about being arrested in South Africa while trying to visit Nelson Mandela in prison.

No contemporaneous or other supporting evidence ever emerged to support Biden’s extraordinary claim, and key figures he said were with him denied any knowledge of the events.

What a habitual fraud. And I have a colorful anecdote about the Brooklyn Bridge, if you want to buy it.