Fact check: Joe Biden quote about his age was targeted at an audience member, not his wife

Hannah Hudnall, USA TODAY
·3 min read
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The claim: Post implies that Joe Biden said, 'She was 12, I was 30,' in reference to his wife, Jill Biden

A widely circulated picture of a young Joe and Jill Biden has re-emerged online connected to a recent comment from the president.

An Oct. 2 Instagram post shows the image of President Biden with his wife on his lap, accompanied by the text, 'She was 12, I was 30' -Joe Biden." The post garnered more than 500 likes within a day.

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But combining this image and text is misleading.

The president did not make this comment about his wife. Rather, Joe Biden said the quote in reference to an audience member in a recent speech. The Bidens met when they were 32 and 23 years old, respectively.

USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment, and they provided no evidence the quote had any relation to Jill Biden.

Comment was not in reference to Jill Biden

The president said the phrase during a Sept. 23 speech at the National Education Association Headquarters in Washington, D.C. During his speech, he addressed an audience member and said, "You got to say hi to me. We go back a long way. She was 12; I was 30. But anyway, this woman helped me get an awful lot done," according to White House transcript.

The quote was not targeted at his wife.

Joe Biden did not meet his wife when she was 12, nor does the couple have an 18-year age gap. According to Jill Biden's White House biography, she was born in June 1951 and met Joe Biden in 1975.

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She has told outlets such as Vogue and The New York Times the same thing, adding that they met in March, specifically.

The first lady would've been 23 and the president, born in November 1942, would've been 32 at the time.

The picture of the two when they were younger was originally shared on Jill Biden's Instagram and Twitter accounts in 2020. Her captions reiterate the fact that the couple first spoke in 1975.

Our rating: Missing Context

Based on our research, we rate MISSING CONTEXT the implication that Joe Biden said, "She was 12, I was 30," in reference to his wife. The comment was directed to an audience member during a recent speech. Joe and Jill Biden met when they were 32 and 23 years old, respectively.

Our fact-check sources:

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Joe Biden quote on age wrongly associated with his wife