President Biden claimed on Wednesday that one of his childhood Catholic school instructors was picked by the Green Bay Packers, which is refuted by a simple search of publicly available NFL records.
The 81-year-old president made the erroneous assertion while bragging about his connection to Wisconsin sports fans during a tour to the swing state.
“My theology professor at the Catholic school I went to was a guy named Reilly — last name — and he had been drafted by the Green Bay Packers,” Biden remarked in Racine, south of Milwaukee.
“And he decided to become a priest before that, so he didn’t go. But every single solitary Monday that Green Bay won, we got the last period of the day off.”
According to Pro Football Reference, the Packers have only picked one player with the surnames “Riley,” “Reily,” or “Reilly” since the NFL’s annual college draft started in 1936.
According to a 2002 Denver Post story, University of Colorado quarterback Maurice “Tex” Reilly was taken as the 202nd overall choice in the 22nd round of the 1947 draft after his studies was delayed by World War II, during which he oversaw bombing flights over the Pacific.
Instead of playing professional football, the Bronze Star laureate entered the US Air Force in October 1947 as a civil engineer and was stationed in Japan and then Spain.
Reilly also worked as an instructor at facilities in Ohio and Alabama before retiring as a major general, according to his service biography.
The White House did not immediately return The Post’s request for comment.
Biden earlier offered a different version of the Packers anecdote, detailing how Archmere Academy’s principal, Father Justin E. Diny, would release pupils early to celebrate Packers triumphs.
The president has a history of fabricating stories in order to connect with his audience on a personal level.
In 2021, Biden informed Jewish leaders that he recalled “spending time at” and “going to” Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, following the deadliest anti-Semitic massacre in US history, which killed 11 people.
According to synagogue leaders, Biden never visited the house of worship, and the White House later stated that he was considering calling the rabbi in 2019.
Last month, Biden sought to highlight his ties to his native city of Scranton, Pa., by visiting a military memorial named for his uncle Ambrose Finnegan – only to claim twice that his uncle was devoured by cannibals. He perished when his jet crashed into the Pacific Ocean.
Biden has presented a false narrative about an Amtrak conductor at least 13 times as president to highlight his ties to passenger rail, and he claimed in 2022 that his uncle Frank Biden received the Purple Heart despite the fact that the intricacies of the event made it factually impossible.
Biden has said twice that he was chosen to attend the Naval Academy, despite the fact that no supporting documentation exists — and told an Idaho audience during his first year in office that his “first job offer” came from Boise Cascade, a local timber and wood products company, which was unknown to the company.
He also claimed, while addressing wildfire destruction in Hawaii last year, that his Delaware house “almost collapsed” due to a little kitchen fire, while telling survivors the week before that firemen “ran into flames” to rescue first lady Jill Biden.
In 2021, Biden stated that “we almost lost a couple firefighters” in the blaze, causing the local fire department to issue a statement labeling the incident “insignificant.”
The newest news comes as surveys suggest that a sizable majority of people are concerned about Biden’s mental competence for a second term.
According to an ABC News/Ipsos survey issued this week, 81% of American adults believe Biden is too old for another four-year term, compared to only 55% for former President Donald Trump, the 77-year-old likely Republican contender.
Biden’s phony biographical claims date back decades.
In 1987, he was forced to withdraw from his first presidential candidacy due to a scandal involving speech plagiarism and a law school paper.
Biden fabricated British politician Neil Kinnock’s family background, claiming that “my ancestors … worked in the coal mines of Northeast Pennsylvania and would come up after 12 hours and play football for four hours.”
Unlike Kinnock, Biden’s forebears did not dig coal.
Biden has presented a false narrative about an Amtrak conductor at least 13 times as president to highlight his ties to passenger rail, and he claimed in 2022 that his uncle Frank Biden received the Purple Heart despite the fact that the intricacies of the event made it factually impossible.
He also claimed, while addressing wildfire destruction in Hawaii last year, that his Delaware house “almost collapsed” due to a little kitchen fire, while telling survivors the week before that firemen “ran into flames” to rescue first lady Jill Biden.
In 2021, Biden stated that “we almost lost a couple firefighters” in the blaze, causing the local fire department to issue a statement labeling the incident “insignificant.”
The president also falsely claimed in that campaign that he “graduated with three degrees from college,” was named “the outstanding student in the political science department,” “went to law school on a full academic scholarship — the only one in my class to have a full academic scholarship” and “ended up in the top half” of his class.
Neither of those assertions was true.
