Biden Claims To Have Been Arrested In South Africa

The New York Times reports:

In at least three campaign appearances over the past two weeks, Joseph R. Biden Jr. has told a similar story as he tries to revive his campaign in states with more diverse voters. On a trip to South Africa years ago, he has said, he was arrested as he sought to visit Nelson Mandela in prison.

“This day, 30 years ago, Nelson Mandela walked out of prison and entered into discussions about apartheid,” Mr. Biden said at a campaign event in South Carolina last week. “I had the great honor of meeting him. I had the great honor of being arrested with our U.N. ambassador on the streets of Soweto trying to get to see him on Robbens Island.”

Andrew Young, a former congressman and mayor of Atlanta who was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 1977 to 1979, said that he had traveled with Mr. Biden over the years, including to South Africa. But Mr. Young said that he had never been arrested in South Africa and expressed skepticism that members of Congress would have faced arrest there. “No, I was never arrested and I don’t think he was, either,” Mr. Young, now 87, said in a telephone interview.

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Biden says he was arrested in South Africa in the 1970s with America's UN ambassador, Andrew Young, while they tried to visit Nelson Mandela.

The only thing is Young is saying it never happened and Biden's campaign is refusing to clarify the discrepancy.https://t.co/eJhs2rFGjo

— Nathan McDermott (@natemcdermott) February 21, 2020

3x in past two weeks, Biden has recalled getting arrested in South Africa while trying to see Mandela. A search of avail news accounts turned up no references to an arrest&it's a departure from how he+Jill Biden describe a trip to South Africa in memoirshttps://t.co/Mws4E0XSAm

— Katie Glueck (@katieglueck) February 21, 2020