Former Vice President Joe Biden abruptly announced that he was canceling plans to appear at a primary night party in New Hampshire, as voters headed to the polls there in February. It was also in the Granite State in 1987 that then-Sen. Joe Biden saw his first run for the White House derailed.
In Fox Nation's docuseries "Proving Grounds: New Hampshire," Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume reviewed the history of the first-in-the-nation primary and the role it has played in picking America's presidents.
"Despite being one of the smallest states in the country, New Hampshire has a gigantic impact on U.S. politics as the first primary in the nation," said Hume in the Fox Nation show. "It can make or break a presidential candidate."
That "break" moment came for Biden after C-SPAN aired a video showing Biden campaigning in Claremont, N.H., on April 3, 1987.
A New Hampshire voter named Frank Fahey asked Biden, "What law school did you attend and where did you place in that class?"
"Who cares?" blurted out someone in the crowd, and Biden appeared to lose his temper.
"I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do, I suspect," said Biden, pointing at the man. "I went to law school on a full academic scholarship."
"I was the only one in my class to have a full academic scholarship. ... The first year in law school I decided I didn’t want to be in law school and ended up in the bottom two-thirds of my class and then decided I wanted to stay and went back to law school and in fact ended up in the top half of my class," he continued.
"I was the outstanding student in the political science department at the end of my year. I graduated with three degrees from undergraduate school and 165 credits, you only needed 125 credits. And I'd be delighted to sit down and compare my IQ to yours, if you'd like, Frank."
Several months later Biden released his academic records revealing that many of the credentials that he cited in the rant in Claremont were not true.
In fact, Biden attended Syracuse law school on a half-scholarship and graduated near the bottom on his class. Despite claiming that he improved his academic performance over time, the records did not indicate that he did. And finally, he graduated with a dual major in history and political science -- not "three degrees" as he stated.
WATCH: PLAGIARIZED IOWA SPEECH THAT SANK BIDEN'S 1988 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN
By that time, Biden's campaign was already weathering several scandals. It had already been revealed that Biden plagiarized the speech of British Labor Party leader in remarks that he delivered during a debate at the Iowa State Fair in August 1987. At the same time, Biden was accused of plagiarizing the remarks of Hubert Humphrey, Robert F. Kennedy and John F. Kennedy.
On top of all this, Biden acknowledged that he had plagiarized a paper in the first year of law school. The Washington Post ran the headline, "Biden Admits Plagiarizing in Law School," and six days later he announced that he was dropping out of the race.
"Proving Grounds: New Hampshire" is available exclusively on Fox Nation.
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