AP Fact-Checks Video of Barack Obama Walking Joe Biden off Stage, Citing One Anonymous Source
The Associated Press (AP) on Monday fact-checked a video of former President Barack Obama walking President Joe Biden off stage by citing one anonymous source who attended the event.
The fact check comes after Biden’s aides became more quarrelsome with the media about coverage of Biden’s age, gaffes, and videos exposing moments of strange confusion.
A video on Sunday showed Obama walking Biden off the stage after the president appeared to freeze. Another video appeared to show Biden wandering off into the distance in Europe before Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni turned him back to the group of world leaders watching a skydiving show.
That’s a wrap on record-setting Democratic fundraiser for Joe Biden’s reelection campaign (netting $28M). Former President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden offer final waves to Peacock Theater crowd as Obama then grabs Biden’s hand to lead him offstage following 40-minute… 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 argued Monday during a press conference that videos the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) research team clipped of Biden’s public glitches are “cheap fakes” and published in “bad faith.”
Jean-Pierre repeatedly avoided questions about whether Biden is “fine.”
Karine Jean-Pierre is BIG MAD that we distribute unfiltered, unedited, publicly available clips of Biden in public.
(We’ll do more) pic.twitter.com/ps6gDqY8yb
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 17, 2024
After the press conference, the AP published a fact check Monday evening on the video, per an anonymous “source who helped organize, and attended.”
“[T]here was nothing noteworthy about this moment and that Obama wanted to be ‘chummy’ by walking offstage with Biden,” the AP explained, according to the single source.
The AP’s fact check read:
CLAIM: Biden froze onstage during his fundraiser in Los Angeles on Saturday night and had to be led away by Obama.
THE FACTS: Biden paused amid cheers and applause as he exited the stage with his predecessor following an interview moderated by late-night host Kimmel.
The article admitted every detail seen on the viral clip, then printed a positive spin on Biden’s pause from a White House aide. AP took the mind-reading explanation as gospel:
[F]t ootage from the event provided to The Associated Press by Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer shows the president waving, pointing, clapping and giving the thumbs-up to the audience alongside Obama while Kimmel waits off to the side. Biden then stands still for about seven seconds looking out at the crowd. He starts moving again when Obama briefly takes his arm and puts his hand on his back as the pair walks offstage.
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates described the moment as “the President taking in an applauding crowd for a few seconds.” [emphasis added]
Not everyone went along with the explanation from the White House and its media ally.
Videos of Biden malfunctioning in public are real, the Trump campaign exclusively told Breitbart News on Tuesday.
“The truth hurts,” Trump Campaign Communications Director Steven Cheung told Breitbart News.
“When the Biden campaign is confronted with that cold, hard reality, they offer ridiculous claims that anyone who clearly sees Biden acting like a brain-dead dope is part of some media-wide conspiracy,” he said.
“That’s what happens when you have junior staffers and interns running Biden’s campaign strategy for a candidate who can barely walk and talk at the same time,” Cheung added.
A Quinnipiac poll found in February that 67 percent of voters believe Biden is too old to serve a second term.
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former GOP War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
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