(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) President Joe Biden shared a touching narrative suggesting a moment of solidarity between himself and former President Ronald Reagan. However, the New York Post reported on Monday that there’s historical evidence that directly contradicts Biden’s claims.
During a speech in Philadelphia, Biden recounted a health incident where he asserted that Reagan had sent Air Force One, which Biden mistakenly referred to as “Air Force Helicopter One,” to transport him to Walter Reed Military Hospital in the 1980s.
Biden claims Ronald Reagan sent “Air Force Helicopter One” to take him to the hospital when he had a brain aneurysm in the 1980s.
His story “is not supported by either his own autobiography or by Reagan’s daily presidential diary,” according to @stevennelson10. pic.twitter.com/hJ9aSy0cud
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 11, 2023
“President Reagan was nice enough to send Air Force Helicopter One to take me down, but it couldn’t fly,” Biden claimed. “And so my fire department came up, put me in the back and took me on heavy snow on the day I went down to Walter Reed.
In Biden’s 2007 book, Promises to Keep, he mentioned his local fire department picking him up to take him to Walter Reed, with no reference to the former president’s purported offer to send a helicopter.
According to Steven Nelson of the NY Post, a review of records available at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library failed to yield any corroborating evidence.
Biden was reportedly admitted to the military hospital on Feb. 12, 1988. However, the diary of Reagan, as reported by the NY Post, does not mention any intent to dispatch of Air Force One to assist Biden, who was then a U.S. senator representing Delaware.
Nelson’s report highlights that inclement weather on Feb. 12 prevented the former president from utilizing Marine One. Instead, Reagan was driven by car to Joint Base Andrews, where he boarded a flight bound for Los Angeles.
Similarly, Biden acknowledged the severe weather conditions in his own book but mentioned a helicopter ambulance. “Weather conditions made a medevac helicopter flight too dangerous,” Biden confessed, as per the NY Post.
“I had no idea what time it was, but I found myself on a gurney, my test results strapped to my chest, being wheeled out the doors of Saint Francis [hospital in Wilmington, Del.] toward a waiting ambulance,” he reportedly added.
