During a speech at the NAACP National Convention on Tuesday, President Joe Biden shared the nickname of one of his childhood “best friends.”
While speaking from Las Vegas, Nevada, Biden talked about how it was “good to have real friends,” and referenced one “real” friend, his childhood friend, Richard “Mouse” Smith, the former president of the NAACP’s Delaware branch.
Biden noted that Smith had been his friend while he worked as a “lifeguard in the projects.” Biden has previously told a story about how a “tough guy” called CornPop, who led a gang called the “Romans,” had approached him wanting to “cut” him. The president has claimed that he took on CornPop with a chain.
CornPop reportedly stood down after a standoff occurred.
“One of my best friends, we used to, when I was a lifeguard in the projects, he was a, his name was…..nickname was ‘Mouse,’” Biden told the crowd.
Biden greets his friend “Mouse” from back when he was a “lifeguard in the projects.”
Not Corn Pop? pic.twitter.com/NClHSc0ci6
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In a Time Magazine article from January 20, 2021 written by Smith, he tells how he met Biden in the “early 1960s” when he was 14 and Biden was 19:
He was a lifeguard at my swimming pool. I remember him smiling as he walked in.
Joe was only one of three or four white teenagers who would come hang out on this side of the tracks. We’d play basketball and softball, and we’d swim together. He was a person we could trust; he was like a family member.
Smith also shares details in the article about a “CornPop” that Biden has previously mentioned and how he had been “the leader of one of the ‘baddest’ gangs” in their town, the “Romans.”
In 2017, during the rededication of a swimming pool, both Smith and Biden recounted the story of how Biden had told CornPop, who wasn’t wearing a swimming cap, to get off the diving board and how he had taken CornPop on with a six-foot chain.
While Smith recounted the beginning of Biden’s story with CornPop, he did not mention Biden taking CornPop on, only that the president had “stood his ground” against the gang leader.