President Joe Biden got a little carried away at a Mack Truck plant in Lower Macungie Township, Pennsylvania this Wednesday, telling workers there that he “used to drive an 18-wheeler, man.”
Biden was there to promote government investments in manufacturing and clean energy. The factory employs about 2,350 people.
In a video released by the Republican National Committee (RNC), Biden can be heard making the claim, then clarifying that he “got to” drive a truck at some point. But the White House was hard-pressed to provide evidence of Biden’s claim.
See the clip here:
President Joe Biden Once Rode in a Truck
The RNC acknowledged that Biden rode in a truck for some 500-plus miles one night in 1973. Biden was then serving his first term in the Senate. He reportedly rode from Delaware to Ohio in a 47,000-pound cargo truck.
In fact, the RNC’s Zach Parkinson tweeted newspaper clippings documenting Biden’s journey. Then-Senator Biden apparently told the Associated Press at the time that he had spoken to more than 300 truck drivers who were upset about their working conditions.
“One guy said, ‘The problem with you high-falutin’ senators is once you get in your pinstripe suits, you never get out of them,’” Biden told the AP.
The senator returned to Washington, D.C. from Ohio by plane.
White House Points to Bus Driving Experience
The White House at first pointed to then-Senator Joe Biden’s 1973 journey in a truck to support his claim. Reminded by Fox News that riding in a truck is different from driving one, the White House then cited Biden’s past summer job driving a school bus, according to the New York Post.
Biden reportedly drove a school bus while he was a law school student at Syracuse University. He has said he took the job “to pick up spending money.” He later said he did it both during the summer and during the school year.
Biden Mocked for ’18-Wheeler’ Claim
Meanwhile, the RNC video went viral on social media, with some users scoffing at Biden’s trucking claim and piping up to mock it.
“Maybe he did drive them,” one tweep quipped. “Every little boy back in the day had either big daddy 18 wheelers or Tonka dump trucks. Some even had pickup trucks.”
“I think when Biden said he was a truck driver he assumed it was the Tonka truck he plays with in the oval office,” another user tweeted.
Still, other social media users chimed in to point out that today’s truckers cannot be happy about the price of gas under the Biden Administration.
The price of both regular-grade gas and diesel has continued to rise, the Associated Press reports. Prices at the pump are on average 98 cents higher than a year ago.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki has responded to concerns about gas prices by tweeting, “Gas prices are the same now as they were in June 2018.”
Gas averaged about $2.85 a gallon in June of 2018. By June of 2021, the national average was approaching $3.11 a gallon.
