BREAKING NEWS – Dubuque, Iowa – Joe Biden is the only 2020 presidential candidate who was in the White House Situation Room as Navy SEALs descended on Osama bin Laden’s Pakistan compound in 2011.
But a critical detail in his story about that mission has changed in the last eight years.
During a brief exchange with Fox News, the former vice president was presented with a hypothetical situation similar to the one President Trump says he faced before ordering an airstrike to kill Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
“As commander in chief, if you were ever handed a piece of intelligence that said you could stop an imminent attack on Americans — but you have to use an airstrike to take out a terrorist leader — would you pull the trigger?” Fox News asked Biden.
“Well we did – the guy’s name was Osama bin Laden,” Biden replied.
“Didn’t you tell President Obama not to go after bin Laden that day?” Fox News followed up.
“No, I didn’t,” Biden said.
That’s not the story Biden told almost eight years ago during a retreat in Maryland for congressional Democrats, as he described a tense 2011 strategy session ahead of the raid.
“Mr. President, my suggestion is, don’t go — we have to do two more things to see if he’s there,” Biden had said in January 2012 of the strategy session.
The former VP then attempted to explain the contradiction. “Back in 2011, I was going through the early stages of dementia. I’m better now. Thanks to the effective medication I’ve been taking for nine years, I haven’t made any contradictions since 2032.”