The Associated Press on Monday fact-checked the video of former President Barack Obama escorting President Joe Biden off the stage, citing anonymous sources who attended the event.
The fact check came after Biden’s aides engaged in an intensifying spat with the media over reports of a video revealing Biden’s age, gaffes and bizarre moments of confusion.
In Sunday’s video, Obama walk Biden walked off the stage after the president appeared to freeze, and another video appeared to show Biden walking into the far reaches of Europe in front of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Strange It brought him back to the group of world leaders watching a skydiving show.
This marked the end of a record-breaking Democratic fundraiser (raising $28 million) for Joe Biden’s reelection campaign. Former President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden waved one last time to the audience at the Peacock Theatre, with President Obama holding President Biden’s hand as they walked off the stage after a 40-minute speech… pic.twitter.com/xbE2jf3jdz
— Chris Gardner (@chrissgardner) June 16, 2024
Is Biden okay? pic.twitter.com/vrKECVNKEB
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 17, 2024
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a press conference on Monday that the video, which the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) investigative team had taken of Biden’s public gaffes, was a “cheap fake” and was released in “bad faith.”
Jean-Pierre repeatedly dodged questions about whether Biden was “doing well.”
Karine Jean-Pierre is outraged that we are distributing unfiltered, unedited, publicly available clips of Biden in public.
(I’ll do more) pic.twitter.com/ps6gDqY8yb
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 17, 2024
“[T]”There was nothing noteworthy about the moment, and President Obama simply wanted to get ‘intimate’ with Biden by walking offstage,” the Associated Press explained, citing its only source.
As the AP fact check states:
The claim: Biden froze onstage during a fundraiser in Los Angeles on Saturday night and had to be removed by Obama.
THE FACTS: Biden paused amid cheers and applause as he walked off the stage with his predecessor after the interview moderated by late-night host Kimmel.
The article acknowledged every detail seen in the viral video and included a positive interpretation of Biden’s silence by White House aides. The Associated Press took this mind-reading explanation as absolute.
[F]Footage of the event provided to The Associated Press by Biden campaign spokesman James Singer shows the president waving, pointing, clapping and giving thumbs up to the crowd next to Obama while Kimmel waits off to the sidelines. Biden then paused for about seven seconds. Watching the crowd. He started moving again when President Obama grabbed him by the arm and put his hand behind his back. When they leave the stage.
White House press secretary Andrew Bates described the moment as “the president looked out over the applauding crowd for several seconds.” [emphasis added]
Not everyone bought into the explanation given by the White House and its media allies.
The video of Biden malfunctioning in public is authentic, the Trump campaign told Breitbart News exclusively on Tuesday.
“The truth is painful,” Trump campaign communications director Stephen Chang told Breitbart News.
“When confronted with that cold reality, the Biden campaign makes the ridiculous claim that anyone who clearly sees Biden behaving like a brain-dead idiot is part of an entire media conspiracy,” he said.
“This is what happens when junior staffers and interns are put in charge of Biden’s campaign strategy for a candidate who can barely walk or talk,” Chang added.
A February Quinnipiac University poll found that 67% of voters believe Biden is too old to serve a second term.
Wendell Fsebo is a political reporter for Breitbart News and a former Republican War Room analyst. The Politics of Slave MoralityFollow Wendell “Bat” @WendellHusebø or The truth of society @WendellHusebo.
