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Biden Confuses D-Day With Pearl Harbor

May 27, 2020

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden confused D-Day and Pearl Harbor—as well as the date that Delaware declared its independence from neighboring Pennsylvania—at a Wednesday campaign event.

"We declared our independence on December the 7th. It's not just D-Day," Biden said in an online townhall with Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf, referring to Delaware's breakaway from Pennsylvania.

While President Franklin D. Roosevelt did declare December 7 a day that "will live in infamy," the date marks the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy, took place almost three years later, on June 6, 1944.

Biden also confused the anniversary of Delaware's break from Pennsylvania—June 15, 1776—with the state's December 7, 1787 ratification of the U.S. Constitution.

Biden's memory has failed him at other times in the 2020 campaign. Last week, as President Trump drew criticism for firing the State Department's inspector general, Biden forgot that his former administration fired an inspector general. At a December campaign event, he could not remember what century he served as vice president.