Biden makes bizarre claim about grandfather's death during first speech after announcing campaign

President Joe Biden on Wednesday told an inaccurate story about the death of his grandfather during his first public speech since formally announcing his 2024 reelection bid.

Biden said that his grandfather "died in the same hospital I was born in two weeks before I was born" during a speech at North America’s Building Trades Unions Legislative Conference, the New York Post reported.

The president was born in November, 1942, at a Scranton, Penn., hospital. Biden's maternal grandfather, Ambrose Joseph Finnegan, died at St. Mary’s Hospital, the same facility where the president was born, but in 1957, his obituary indicates.

His paternal grandfather, Joseph H. Biden, meanwhile, died in 1941 at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, more than a year prior to Biden's birth, according to his obituary.

Biden has long embellished or outright misstated his family history and even his own life experience. He has previously indicated that he was "sort of raised in the Puerto Rican community at home, politically" and told an unsubstantiated story about awarding his uncle a Purple Heart for his actions during World War II's Battle of the Bulge.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, he told a strange anecdote about his past experience with a supposed gang leader named "Corn Pop" whose respect he earned while lifeguarding at a local pool.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.