Biden jokes doctors had to 'take off' the top of his head trends now President Joe Biden addressed the International Association of Fire Fighters Monday and came armed with jokes but also sincere thanks for when fire fighters played a role in the president's life. Biden said firefighters saved him when he suffered a cranial aneurysm in 1988 and came to the rescue when a lightning strike started a house fire at his Delaware residence in 2004. 'My fire company at home saved my life,' Biden said, detailing how his fire company got him to Walter Reed from Delaware during a snowstorm so he could have surgery to fix his aneurysm. 'They had to take the top of my head of a couple times, to see if I had a brain,' the president joked. Biden then recalled the 2004 house fire - which he often brings up when addressing fire fighter groups. 'But guess what, my fire company was there to go in and save my wife, get her out, the cat and my '67 Corvette,' he said to laughs. President Joe Biden addressed the International Association of Fire Fighters Monday and came armed with jokes but also sincere thanks for when fire fighters played a role in the president's life Then Sen. Joe Biden talks to the press after returning to Capitol Hill in 1988 after undergoing brain surgery for aneurysms He joked that there were 'three political parties in Delaware' - Democrats, Republicans and fire fighters - and he won his first longshot Senate bid in 1972 due to support from the fire fighters. 'You've been with me my whole career,' the president said. He then joked, 'God made man and then he made a few firefighters, because you're all nuts.' 'You're the only ones who run into flames, everybody runs away from them,' Biden acknowledged. He also said that a fire fighter's profession 'defines' them. 'What you do takes enormous courage,' Biden told the group, gathered in Washington, D.C. for their annual legislative conference. 'I want to personally thank your families who had to stand and wait while you keep us safe.' The president weaved in policy messages too. 'With climate change getting so severe we're calling on you more and more and more,' Biden noted. He talked about how fire fighters are also called to respond to mass shootings. And he spoke about how he'd protect their right to collective bargaining. The fire fighter who introduced Biden, an Arlington, Virginia federal fire fighter named Mike Jackson, talked about how he was diagnosed with cancer after spending a decade on the job. 'For years the government has denied federal firefighters presumptive coverage for cancer, heart and lung diseases that we have rightly earned for putting our lives on the line,' Jackson said. He said it changed thanks to 'our next speaker,' crediting Biden for signing bills that bolstered fire fighter health care. Biden said he would continue expanding health care for fire fighters, pointing to the burn pit legislation he signed for veterans and again telling his late son Beau's cancer story. 'Much of what we're doing is about your right to be treated fairly with dignity and with respect,' Biden explained to the group when talking about his agenda. He segued and said part of that was making the tax system fair. 'We can make all these improvements and still cut the deficit if we start making people pay [their] fair share,' Biden said in his trademark whisper. Biden said 'we did all the stuff you guys wanted me to do and some more' and still paid down the deficit by implementing the 15 percent minimum tax on corporations, which was included in the Inflation Reduction Act. The president then spoke of the growing number of American billionaires and claimed their average tax rate was just 3 percent. 'Poor people,' he uttered to laughs. 'That's why I'm proposing a billionaire tax. Because no billionaire should be paying a lower tax rate than a firefighter,' he said. 'It's not like it's going to be a great sacrifice,' he added. Biden made the quip ahead of the release of his budget this week. The president plans to make a big deal about the budget and travel to Philadelphia for an unveiling on Thursday. All rights reserved for this news site (dailymail) and under his responsibility