
Snopes
In July 2024, Snopes introduced "FactBot," an "artificial intelligence (AI) tool to fact-check your burning questions about online rumors."
In 2021, we wrote about an example of Snopes attempting to fact-check a subjective claim about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
U.S. President Joe Biden is an inveterate storyteller, but more than once has misstated the facts during the course of his stories and speeches, a pattern for which he has been criticized. A particular claim that he made in December 2022 pertaining to his own family appears to follow that pattern. On Dec. 16, during remarks he made at the Delaware Veterans Summit and PACT Act Town Hall, he said he gave his uncle Frank Biden a Purple Heart medal after becoming vice president in 2008.
The Purple Heart is a medal awarded to serving members of the armed forces who were wounded or killed (it is given posthumously as well) in action. It is the highest award given automatically to anyone who meets the criteria and can be given multiple times if the person is wounded on separate occasions.
According to Biden, his father asked him to help rectify the fact that the veteran uncle earned but never received a Purple Heart medal for his military service.