“His commander asked me to pin a Bronze Star on him,” Biden said of the ceremony in a 2016 interview with National Geographic, “And right before this – you see the look on his face – he says, ‘Sir, I don’t want it. I don’t want it. He died. He died. I didn’t do my job, sir. He died.'”
“In Afghanistan, he was moved by Staff Sgt. Workman’s valor and selflessness, which is emblematic of the duty and sacrifice of the 9/11 generation of veterans who have given so much across countless deployments,” Andrew Bates, a spokesman for the Biden campaign, said in a statement given to the Post.
In an interview with the Post, Workman’s version of the story mirrors Biden’s.
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In an interview Thursday with The Post and Courier, a South Carolina newspaper, Biden pushed back on the report, saying that the “central point” of the story he told is accurate.
“I don’t understand what they’re talking about, but the central point is it was absolutely accurate what I said,” Biden told the paper. “He refused the medal. I put it on him, he said, ‘Don’t do that to me, sir. He died. He died.’ ”
The report comes as Biden, 76, continues to face increased scrutiny about his recent misstatements and gaffes on the campaign trail, a criticism he acknowledged Thursday afternoon while campaigning in Rock Hill, South Carolina.
Biden recounted how “the press accurately pointed out,” a recent misstatement about the timing of a meeting he had with students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where a 2017 shooting took the lives of 17 people. During a news conference earlier this month in Iowa, Biden incorrectly said he was Vice President during the time of the meeting, even though it took place in 2017, after he left office.
Sourse: abcnews.go.com
