This is what Biden said be4:
Mr Biden - at the time a senator for Delaware - said he had been visiting the country with a delegation of American officials, and had planned to visit Mandela in prison.
But during the trip, Mr Biden said he had "had the great honour of being arrested with our UN ambassador on the streets of Soweto" while trying to reach the civil rights leader on Robben Island. The town of Soweto is more than 760 miles (1,223km) from Robben Island.
At a black history awards brunch in Las Vegas last week, he also said Mandela had thanked him for his efforts.
"He threw his arms around me and said, 'I want to say thank you,'" Mr Biden told onlookers. "I said, 'What are you thanking me for, Mr President?' He said: 'You tried to see me. You got arrested trying to see me.'"
That's def not the same story: And how would Mandela know/say this if Biden never actually got arrested for him? Apparently no one else in S.A. or the U.S. knew abt this but Mandela and Biden.
Mr Biden's account of what happened has been rebuffed by Andrew Young, the US ambassador to the UN at the time, who says he travelled with Mr Biden to South Africa.
Local media have also failed to find any evidence of an arrest being made.
Fact-checkers at the Washington Post called the claim "ridiculous" on Tuesday as they awarded it four Pinocchios.
On Tuesday Mr Biden's deputy campaign manager, Kate Bedingfield, told reporters Mr Biden had been referring to an incident when "he was separated from his party at Johannesburg airport".
When a journalist noted that being separated did not equate with an arrest, Ms Bedingfield repeated that it had been a "separation".
"They, he was not allowed to go through the same door that the - the rest of the party he was with," said Ms Bedingfield. "Obviously, it was apartheid South Africa. There was a white door, there was a black door. He did not want to go through the white door and have the rest of the party go through the black door. He was separated."
I don't know how going through a separate door from Black people
at an airport 760 miles away from Robben Island, in a country with racial segregation policies, could
possibly be described as "I was arrested with the UN Ambassador trying to see Mandela on the streets of Soweto."
The best way to see that is genuine confusion due to his cognitive issue. Otherwise, he made up a story for S. Carolina to counter Bernie's arrest marching with Dr. King during the civil rights movement.
The version you quoted is more similar to what Biden told in 2013 when he was completely fine, which was brought up to his campaign in the fact-check, as a challenge to the story he was telling:
The account echoes earlier comments made by Mr Biden, but a statement he made in 2013 gives a different account of his trip.
"When I exited the plane I was directed to one side of the tarmac, while the African American congressmen travelling with me were sent to the other side," said Mr Biden. "I refused to break off, and the officials finally relented."
He has faced scrutiny for his verbal gaffes and his long and sometimes controversial political career, including his vote in favour of the Iraq war.
Republicans have been hammering away at him for his son's lucrative board position with a Ukrainian natural gas firm when he was vice-president and in charge of American-Ukrainian relations. The issue was central to the Trump impeachment case.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51648166So it's only after all this fact-checking^^^ of him that Biden finally told the version you were quoting which is likely closer to what actually happened (though this time adding he was stopped/intimidated and whatnot). Ima stick to he genuinely mixed stuff up in his head as it aligns with him mixing other stuff up like claiming to negotiate the climate deal with a Chinese leader who died in 1997. That 2013 version is in Biden's statement on Mandela's death. He mentions entering Soweto:
When I tried to enter Soweto township with Congressmen Andrew Young of Atlanta and Charles Diggs of Detroit, I remember their tears of anger and sadness.
But given he came up with it just one month ago while campaigning in S. Carolina, it's still very possible he simply made it up.