Joe BidenJoe BidenHillicon Valley: Biden calls on Facebook to change political speech rules | Dems demand hearings after Georgia election chaos | Microsoft stops selling facial recognition tech to police Trump finalizing executive order calling on police to use ‘force with compassion’ The Hill’s Campaign Report: Biden campaign goes on offensive against Facebook MORE’s presidential campaign sent out a fundraising email highlighting support from a Marine veteran as it continues to face criticism over a war story the former vice president tells on the campaign trail.
“Over the course of my career, I’ve had the opportunity to meet a handful of leaders with true character. Joe Biden is one of them,” Capt. Kevin Penn, who says he served in the Marines for more than 20 years and now volunteers with the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, writes in the email.
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Penn tells a story of when he visited the White House for an event under the Obama administration and Biden shook hands and took photos with every service member despite running late to an event, saying he and the other service members “haven’t forgotten it.”
“Joe Biden is a man of character,” said Penn. “And in the age of Twitter and perfect sound bites—people who are most interested in themselves, shaping their own image—Joe Biden is a man who, after more than 40 years of public service, still wants to give. I honestly get chills when I think about his empathy for and dedication to everyone but himself.”
“Now more than ever, we need to have leaders we truly believe in. I truly believe in Joe Biden. I hope you’ll join me in supporting his campaign,” he added.
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The email comes as Biden’s campaign is in damage control mode in the aftermath of a report that revealed a story Biden often tells of his time in Afghanistan as vice president seems to be pulled from at least three separate events.
Biden on the campaign trail has repeatedly told a story of visiting the Kunar Province in Afghanistan and touts the heroism of someone he said was “a young Navy captain.” Biden said during a town hall last month that a general had wanted him to pin a Silver Star on a Navy captain who rappelled 60 feet under fire to recover the body of a U.S. serviceman.
But The Washington Post wrote after interviews with over a dozen troops, commanders and Biden campaign officials that “it appears as though the former vice president has jumbled elements of at least three actual events into one story of bravery, compassion and regret that never happened.”
Biden maintained Monday that he did not intend to deceive anybody in telling the story.
“[Details] matter in terms of whether you’re trying to mislead people. And I wasn’t trying to mislead anybody,” Biden said in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “My point is, I was there. The fact is, the point I was trying to make, I’d make again.”