President Joe Biden shared what appears to be an altered version of a debunked story with Air Force graduates.
Speaking at the U.S. Air Force Academy graduation ceremony in Colorado, Biden said he'd applied to the Naval Academy but was deterred by the presence of its football stars.
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"When I was graduating from high school 300 years ago, I applied to the Naval Academy," Biden said during his speech. "I was picked by a senator. There's two ways senators can pick, you can pick individually, or they can name 10 people and let the academy choose. I was a relatively good football player, so I had a shot."
But, Biden continued, Heisman Trophy winners Joe Bellino and Roger Staubach were on the Navy football team, which meant he likely wouldn't make it.
"I went to Delaware," he said.
However, as the Republican National Committee pointed out, there is no record of this happening.
Biden tells Air Force graduates he applied to the Naval Academy after graduating high school.
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 1, 2023
Last year, he told Naval Academy graduates he was "appointed to the [Naval] Academy in 1965."
There is no record of either of those things ever happening. pic.twitter.com/4PaQuGMNvW
The president spoke at the Naval Academy's graduation ceremony in 2022, telling a slightly different version of the story that was also heavily scrutinized.
In that tale, Delaware Republican Sen. J. Caleb Boggs appointed Biden to the Naval Academy in 1965. Biden later defeated Boggs to win one of Delaware's senate seats in 1972.
However, Biden graduated from the University of Delaware in 1965, meaning his timeline was off. Biden did play football in high school, graduating in 1961, and was a member of Delaware's freshman team.
This story aside, Biden has a long history of making claims about his background that turn out to be embellished, such as stories about driving an 18-wheeler and getting arrested during a civil rights protest.
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The Air Force speech was at least the third iteration of the Naval Academy appointment story. In 2010, during a graduation speech while he was vice president, Biden also said he'd been appointed, citing 1960 rather than 1965.
The stories have been panned in some corners by people who point to medical deferments Biden received that kept him from serving in Vietnam.