There has been a flurry of reports from liberal news outlets recently about so-called “cheap fakes,” a term used by both the media and the White House to describe a video of President Biden that critics say shows signs of cognitive decline.
Biden’s age has come under intense scrutiny in recent days as the president has faced accusations of freezing and wandering around at various events presented online by Republicans.
In one notable example, Biden was seen separating himself from other leaders at the G7 summit and giving a thumbs-up to a parachutist off camera, before Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called him back to the group for a photo op.
“Selective editing of video and misrepresentation of events has long been a part of American politics,” said Jeffrey McCaul, a journalism professor at DePauw University. “But what’s surprising is how eager the mainstream media is to repeat the White House’s distortions and dismiss concerns about Biden’s competence as simply cheap fake editing and showboating.”
The Biden campaign claims that all the videos that make Biden look bad are fake, but that’s not true.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni invited President Biden to take part in the G7 photo op, with the parachutists watching. (Fox News/Pool)
NBC News accused Republicans of pushing “false” claims, alleging that Biden was wandering aimlessly.
“Experts warn that while advanced technologies like generative artificial intelligence can spread misinformation, so-called cheap fakes that use only light or selective editing are more effective at spreading false narratives.” NBC News writes: Reacting to the viral moment.
“There are many possible interpretations of the G7 parachute situation, but even a favorable assessment must acknowledge that none of the other leaders followed Biden on his wanderings and that the Italian prime minister felt the need to bring him back,” McCaul told Fox News Digital.
Biden’s video clips are most widely distributed by RNC Research on X, which often slaps unfavorable captions on them to raise concerns about the president’s cognitive state.
But regardless of whether Biden’s portrayal was fair, the White House and media have falsely suggested the video was manipulated by the Republican National Committee and other critics. Biden’s press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, even mistakenly called the video a “deepfake.”
“While ‘deepfakes’ are misleading audio, video or images created or edited with artificial intelligence techniques, ‘cheapfakes’, according to researchers Britt Paris and Joan Donovan, are ‘manipulations created with cheaper, more readily available software (or no software at all). Cheapfakes are rendered through Photoshop, lookalike images, recontextualization, speeding up or slowing down footage.'” NBC News In a separate report.
President Biden appears frozen at White House event on June 19th
The Washington Post Similarly elevated Using the term “cheap fakes,” it tells readers that “the deceptively edited videos…simply misrepresent events by manipulating video or audio or omitting context” and that they have “become a staple of Republican attacks on Biden.”
In a separate fact-check, the paper branded the G7 incident a “false story” and also featured one of its chilling rebukes from footage of Biden standing motionless while people around him danced and swayed at a concert marking Juneteenth on the White House lawn.
On June 10, 2024, at a Juneteenth concert held on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, President Biden was seen “freezing” while people around him sang and danced, creating a buzz.
The Washington Post tried to refute claims that Biden had frozen, citing a 2009 interview in which Biden said he “doesn’t dance.”
“The use of these clips is a particularly pernicious example of manipulated video, which we call ‘orphans’ in our guide to manipulated videos, because they are intended to create a false narrative that does not reflect actual events. The Republican National Committee and their ardent allies in the conservative media have earned themselves four Pinocchios.” The post concluded.
Fox News contributor Joe Concha said Biden’s drop in approval ratings is “clear” and that a majority of voters are aware of it.
“It’s not about age, it’s about intelligence. Most Americans believe he doesn’t have it anymore. All the hype and cheering in the world is not going to change that,” Concha told Fox News Digital.
Obama’s dragging of Biden off stage at a Los Angeles fundraiser is the latest example of an ally coaching the president.
The Associated Press conducted its own fact-check of the video, which shows Biden standing motionless at a star-studded fundraiser in Los Angeles before former President Barack Obama grabbed him by the wrist, put his hand behind his back and shoved him off the stage.
“Claim: Biden froze on stage at a fundraiser in Los Angeles on Saturday night and had to be removed by Obama.” The Associated Press reported on Tuesday“Fact: Biden paused amid cheers and applause as he walked off stage with his predecessor following an interview moderated by late-night host Kimmel.”
Former President Obama was seen grabbing President Biden by the wrist and leading him off stage at a star-studded fundraiser in Los Angeles. (Christopher Gardner, via Storyful)
William A. Jacobson, a professor at Cornell Law School and media critic, said the media and fact-checkers are “protecting the Biden campaign.”
“As with the 2020 Hunter Biden laptop cover-up, the herd effect and the number of outlets repeating the same stories proves that legacy media can still influence an election,” Jacobson told Fox News Digital. “The media’s swarming to deny evidence of Biden’s cognitive decline reflects the true start of election season.”
Media advocates were also quick to reject Biden’s interpretation of the exchange between Obama and Biden. CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy simply declared in his newsletter, “Reliable Sources,” that the freeze claims were “fabricated,” without even linking to the video so readers could judge for themselves.
MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace denounced the “highly misleading and selectively edited video” and refused to air raw footage from the Los Angeles fundraiser, instead airing a highly edited livestream that omitted the awkward exchange.
Karine Jean-Pierre criticizes Biden’s ‘cheap fake’ video: ‘Too much misinformation’
CBS News published a report sounding the alarm about “cheap fakes” and their impact on the upcoming election, echoing the White House’s claim that Biden was “the victim of a simpler version of ‘deep fakes.'”
“These videos are effective — they’re called cheap fakes for a reason,” said Lorna Tarrant, editor in chief of CBS News’ Confirmed. “They’re quick and easy to get out there, and they often have a big impact on people who are just scrolling through their phones.”
CBS News was forced to remove its original coverage of the raw footage of the G7 incident, which it classified as “digitally altered video,” and replace it with a trimmed version that was also circulating online and classified as “edited video.”
NBC News went further on Wednesday, accusing major tech companies of spreading footage from the G7 summit that was “quickly debunked.”
“Google promoted the fake news as ‘top news’ and the false video continued to receive millions of views on X. Copies of the video appeared on TikTok and YouTube with little context and no indication that it was part of a coordinated disinformation campaign. Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, added fact-check labels to some posts but not all of them.” NBC News writes:“The long-lasting repercussions of this case demonstrate how Big Tech and the partisan media will compete with each other in the 2024 election cycle, continuing to feature hot topics in the news even after they have been proven false or misleading.”
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“The Biden campaign is so completely lacking in vision or messaging for the future that they have resorted to gaslighting the American people into believing that what they experience and see in their daily lives is not real,” a Trump campaign adviser told Fox News Digital. “Using the mainstream media to do Biden’s dirty work and issuing euphemistic government threats to social media platforms is just the latest desperate tactic from a failed president’s failed campaign.”
Fox News’ David Latz contributed to this report.
