Did Biden Say FDR Went on TV To Discuss Stock Market Crash?
During a 2008 interview, then-vice presidential candidate Joe Biden said "Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television" when the stock market crashed in 1929. In June 2021, an old quote supposedly spoken by U.S. President Joe Biden about how President Franklin D. Roosevelt got on television to talk about the stock market crash in 1929 was recirculated on social media:  The quote reads: When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didnt just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said look heres what happened. '  This remark was truly made by Biden and, as stated in the above-displayed meme, there are several inaccuracies with this statement. This quote comes from an interview then-vice presidential candidate Biden gave to Katie Couric and CBS Evening News in September 2008. Biden was talking about how it was important for leaders to be clear, direct, and honest with their constituents when he garbled a few historical facts. Roosevelt, for example, was not president during the stock market crash in 1929. (That was Herbert Hoover, because Roosevelt took office in 1933.) And while Roosevelt was the first president to deliver a televised speech, that didnt happen until 1939. When the stock market crashed in 1929, televisions were not a household item. Heres a clip from this 2008 interview: