President Biden claimed Thursday he’s been  “in and out of battles” while addressing an audience of military service members and their families at Thursday’s White House Fourth of July Barbecue. 

“And by the way, I’ve been all over the world with you. I’ve been in and out of battles,” the president, who never served in the military, though as Commander-in-Chief, met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine in February 2023 and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in October 2023.

It’s not the first time Biden has come under fire for remarks to military service members. In 2019, Biden came under fire for conflating and misrepresenting war stories after the Washington Post exposed a “moving but false war story” told on the campaign trail. Biden, then the former vice president and candidate for president, later defended what he said, saying the “central point” was accurate. 

Veterans 4 America First Institute, a non-profit veterans’ group, responded to Biden’s Fourth of July claims in an interview with Fox News Digital.

Peter O’Rourke is a former Acting Secretary for Veterans Affairs under President Trump and a veteran of both the Air Force and Navy. Darin Selnick, Former Veteran Affairs Advisor for the White House Domestic Policy Council, is also a former Air Force veteran. They both currently serve veterans in their roles with Veterans 4 America First.

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“It’s always bad form when a politician tries to make it about themselves and somehow equate their service with the service of those men and women who serve,” Selnick said. “So the only one who has been in battle are the men and women who served, not President Joe Biden.”

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“The men and women who serve have been all over the world in battle. So just keep it to that. Don’t try to equate what you’re doing with that, cozy up and and and that sort of thing. Just speak about the servicemen and women, think about the country; don’t make it about you. That’s the sad part, because every time Joe Biden speaks he always somehow tries to make it about him,” Selnick added.

“…every time Joe Biden speaks he always somehow tries to make it about him.” 

— Darin Selnick

Former Acting Secretary of the VA Peter O’Rourke also critiqued the president’s claim.

“I think the disappointment Darin and I both share is the continued disrespect, whether it’s examples of veterans that have been harmed in ways that don’t make a lot of sense, or just not really providing the efforts that we’d love to see our presidents give when it comes to articulating their concerns or their feelings toward veterans,” he said. 

US President Joe Biden speaks during a 4th of July event on the South Lawn of the White House on July 4, 2024 in Washington, DC. The President is hosting the Independence Day event for members of the military and their families.  (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

O’Rourke continued, saying, “we saw this example, trying to find every opportunity to politicize, trying to sneak in a jab at his political opponent on a day where really, we should just be celebrating our independence. He was there to recognize and honor both veterans and active duty members.”

Veterans 4 America First Institute supports former President Trump for his military policy in November’s presidential election. Selnick told Fox News Digital, “we’re in a very crucial time both for the military and for the veterans who have left the military. We need a commander in chief that’s going to move things forward and do what’s right, for the veterans, and for the American people.”

US President Joe Biden, center, speaks during a barbecue with active-duty military service members and their families on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, July 4, 2024. Biden’s reelection campaign limped into the US Independence Day holiday, exhausted by a week of the incumbent clawing to maintain his hold on his party’s nomination. (Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Selnick added, “and that’s why we need Donald J. Trump back as commander-in-chief, because under him, we had a thriving military.”

Veterans 4 America First Institute’s mission as listed on their website is “To preserve and expand our nation’s commitment to our Veterans, military, and their families through public education and advocacy.”

The White House has not responded to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

It took Joe Biden three campaigns and more than 30 years to win the presidency. It should come as no surprise that he’s resisting suggestions that he give it up now, barely a week after a disastrous debate performance sharpened doubts that he can win a second term.

He’s been in this position before. “Same thing happened in 2020,” he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Friday.

A recurring pattern of setbacks, defiance and recovery has been the central narrative of Biden’s career. It’s a story he frequently tells — to himself, his family and his party.

“I’ve been knocked down before and counted out my whole life,” he told campaign workers Wednesday. “I learned long ago that when you get knocked down, you get back up.”

In earlier chapters, Biden’s gritty refusal to be counted out was a virtue. It fueled his 2020 comeback from early-primary failures, when doubters said he was waging a “zombie campaign,” to victory over then-President Trump.

But Biden’s signature defiance appears to be hardening into denial.

In his 22-minute interview with Stephanopoulos, he batted away questions about whether his moments of incoherence at the June 27 debate were signs of a deeper problem.

“I just had a bad night,” the president said — five times.

He dismissed the many polls that show him likely to lose to Trump, who has been convicted of 34 felonies in New York.

“All the pollsters I talk to tell me it’s a toss-up,” he insisted.

When Stephanopoulos noted that surveys show only 36% of voters have a favorable view of Biden, the president replied: “I don’t believe that’s my approval.”

And he said he wasn’t sure whether he has rewatched the debate to analyze his performance. “I don’t think I did,” he said.

It sounded as if the famous chip on Biden’s shoulder has grown so big that it’s interfering with his ability to understand why so many Democrats are worried.

“The president is rightfully proud of his record,” David Axelrod, who helped Barack Obama win two presidential elections, posted on social media. “But he is dangerously out of touch with the concerns people have about his capacities moving forward and his standing in this race.”

A handful of Democrats in Congress — five House members, according to a tally by the Washington Post — have publicly urged Biden to withdraw from the race. More than a dozen others have expressed concern over his ability to wage an effective campaign, without explicitly asking him to get out.

Behind them is a much larger number who refuse to be quoted but worry that Biden’s debate performance was more than just one “bad night,” and that the campaign will devolve into a white-knuckled watch over his faltering performance.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) voiced their bottom-line question bluntly in a recent television interview.

“Is this an episode, or is this a condition?” she asked, referring to Biden’s lapses during the debate. “When people ask that question, it’s completely legitimate.”

If the answer is a one-time episode, Biden stands a chance of convincing voters that he can be an effective president for four more years. If the answer is that he is suffering from a worsening condition, he needs to retire with grace and honor.

When Stephanopoulos relayed Pelosi’s question to the president, Biden batted it away. “It was a bad episode,” he said. “No indication of any serious condition.”

But he acknowledged that he has not undergone a full neurological or cognitive evaluation. “No one said I had to,” he said.

“I have a cognitive test every day,” he added, referring to the many meetings he attends as president.

Pelosi, who has not urged Biden to withdraw, said both presidential candidates should undergo more rigorous medical examinations.

“Both candidates owe whatever test you want to put them to, in terms of their mental acuity and their health — both of them,” she said.

Trump, who at 78 is three years younger than Biden and has never released detailed health records, is unlikely to embrace that idea. So Pelosi’s argument amounted to a plea to the 81-year-old Biden to undergo more tests for the sake of his party, whether Trump follows suit or not.

Democrats expect more shoes to drop next week.

The first week of polls after the debate showed Biden losing about two percentage points, giving Trump an average lead of 3.5% in the nationwide popular vote.

A drop of two points may not seem large, but Democratic strategists aren’t convinced that Biden has bottomed out. “It usually takes about two weeks for an event’s effects to percolate,” one said. So Democratic leaders will be anxiously awaiting results from more polls.

Because of the way electoral votes are apportioned, Biden would need a popular vote lead of at least 2.5% to call the race a toss-up. Trump’s current lead — which may not hold up, of course — puts the president far behind.

That’s one reason Democrats in Congress are increasingly edgy. The other is that a GOP landslide could doom their chances of holding their majority in the Senate and winning a majority in the House of Representatives.

That outcome would not only cost many Democrats their jobs, it would deprive them of the power to impede Trump’s plans to transform the federal government into an instrument of his whims.

Senate and House members will return to the Capitol on Monday after their July 4 recess. Once Democrats hold their caucus meetings, the trickle of those urging Biden to withdraw could turn into a flood.

The decision, many say, is up to Biden.

If the president bows out, party insiders are already discussing how they could organize a “mini-campaign” in the six weeks before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago begins Aug. 19.

But if the president stays in, party leaders will try to avoid a chaotic fight over his nomination on the convention floor. The last time a president’s renomination was challenged at a convention, when Sen. Edward M. Kennedy tried to oust then-President Carter in 1980, the outcome was a disaster for the party.

Biden says he’s sticking to his guns. “I am staying in the race!” he shouted at a rally in Wisconsin on Friday. “I will beat Donald Trump!”

When Stephanopoulos asked the president if he would withdraw if he was convinced that he cannot win, Biden replied: “If the Lord Almighty comes down and tells me that, I might.”

Our political parties usually take a year or more to choose a presidential candidate. It’s clearly going to take longer than 10 days to decide whether to unchoose one.

A parody social media account named the “Chief Rabbi of Gaza” claimed another victim from the progressive “Squad,” duping Rep. Cori Bush’s, D-Mo., team into boasting about a potential event with the fake rabbi.

Bush’s re-election campaign was considering a possible fundraiser with “Fabbi Linda Goldstein,” a parody X account that posts anti-Israel rhetoric in an attempt to catfish progressives, according to a report from the New York Post.

The parody account reached out to Bush’s team on June 23 with the idea of partnering on a fundraiser, with the account telling the lawmaker’s office that their “congregation was displaced from Gaza after Israel’s invasion on October 7.”

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“Also – would [Bush] travel to the Gaza border for the fundraiser? The optics could be incredible,” the account told Ronika Moody, Bush’s finance and engagement director, according to emails reviewed by the Post.

“Cori is interested in hosting in Gaza, and it’s something she has been trying to plan. Unfortunately, we have not been successful with that opportunity as of yet,” Moody responded four days later, asking whether the “theme” of the fundraiser would be Gaza.

Goldstein responded with a suggestion that the fundraiser’s theme could be “the morality” of intifada, according to the report.

“The topics are built around finding a final solution to the problem of Zionism,” Goldstein said in the email, garnering no response from Bush’s team.

Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO). (Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Communications Workers of America (CWA))

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Bush, who is in a tight primary battle to keep her seat, has been one of the most vocal critics of Israel and the war in Congress.

The account, which has in the past made claims that it had dug terror tunnels into American universities, has previously fooled another member of the so-called Squad, duping Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y. and his campaign with a similar exchange in April.

Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY). (Joy Malone/Getty Images)

“Cori Bush is the perfect example of an ’empty suit’ antisemite – completely clueless about how the Israel-Palestine conflict works, but eager to speak up, because it gives her cover to publicly hate Jews,” said Michael, the man behind the account, who declined to give his last name to the New York Post.

Bowman would later lose his primary race against Westchester County Executive George Latimer.

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Meanwhile, the exchange didn’t go unnoticed by a genuine rabbi in Bush’s district, who told the New York Post that the Democratic lawmaker should know better.

“Cori has not done her homework about anything to do with Israel and Palestine, and it’s very sad,” Rabbi Susan Talve, the founding rabbi of the Central Reform Congregation, told the New York Post.

The Bush campaign did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.