Former President Biden’s Amtrak Anecdote Revisited

Former President Biden’s Repeated Anecdote

Former President Joe Biden shared a familiar story during an episode of Jay Leno’s Garage on YouTube. The anecdote concerns Biden’s interaction with an Amtrak conductor named Angelo Negri after it was reported that he had flown over 1.2 million miles via Air Force Two. According to Biden, Negri approached him and grabbed his cheek, surprising Biden’s Secret Service agents, to highlight that Biden had traveled almost double that distance by train.

The Story’s Feasibility

This account has been repeatedly challenged. Negri passed away before Biden amassed 1.2 million miles on Air Force Two and retired in 1993, well before Biden became vice president. Despite these inconsistencies, Biden has shared the anecdote multiple times. Organizations like the Associated Press and CNN have fact-checked the story.

Biden’s Amtrak Story

Biden, at 83, has recounted the story numerous times. Speaking to Leno, he mentioned traveling from Washington, D.C. to visit his mother, who was seriously ill in Delaware. In other versions, he noted that his mother, Catherine Eugenia “Jean” Finnegan Biden, was dying and later passed away in 2010.

Surrounded by approximately 30 Secret Service agents, a conductor confronted him, as Biden recalled. The conductor told him, “Do you realize how many miles you’ve ridden on Amtrak? We calculated it. You, as a senator for 36 years, for you, was a total of 298 miles a day. You averaged 22 trips a year. Thirty-six years times that. And that’s not counting VP. You’ve traveled 1,200,000 miles already. I don’t want to hear any more of this about Air Force Two.”

Fact Checking the Claims

Reports from CNN and Biden’s official photographer, David Lienemann, confirm that Biden may have traveled more than a million miles on Amtrak by late 2015. Biden might have conversed with Negri after his retirement, supported by Negri’s stepdaughter Olga Betz, who confirmed their friendship.

However, establishing that Biden had the noted conversation with Negri about Air Force Two is impractical, as Negri died in May 2014, over a year before Biden hit a million air miles. Biden might have interacted with another conductor around 2015 or 2016 after his air mile announcement, confusing the details. It is also impossible for Biden to have been visiting his dying mother, since she had passed away before the milestone.