The White House on Monday blasted a string of altered videos that purported to show President Biden wandering or standing in a state of confusion, calling the footage “bad faith” and a sign of desperation from Biden’s critics.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about the recent spate of videos, which stemmed from Biden’s trip to France earlier this month, his visit to Italy last week and his stop at a fundraiser Saturday.
Jean-Pierre referenced a Washington Post article that called the footage “cheap fake” videos and said they were being spread in bad faith by “right-wing critics of the president.”
“It tells you everything that we need to know about how desperate Republicans are here,” she said.
“And instead of talking about the president’s performance in office, and what I mean by that is his legislative wins, what he’s been able to do for the American people across the country, we’re seeing these deepfakes, these manipulated videos,” she continued. “And it is, again, done in bad faith.”
Polling has long shown voters have concerns about Biden’s age and cognitive ability to do the job as he seeks reelection at age 81, and the videos that spread in recent days served to feed into those concerns.
The New York Post shared a clip last week that showed Biden with other Group of Seven (G7) leaders in Italy watching a skydiving demonstration. While the full view of the event showed Biden walking away to gesture toward one of the skydivers, the Post version of the video shows a narrower angle where it’s unclear who Biden is gesturing toward before the Italian prime minister nudges him back toward the group.
A community note attached to the post on the social platform X points out the video had been cropped.
Another New York Post clip focused on Biden standing on stage at a fundraiser with former President Obama and late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. The Post wrote about the video under the headline, “Biden appears to freeze up, has to be led off stage by Obama at mega-bucks LA fundraiser.”
At the end of the event, both Obama and Biden were leaving the stage, waving goodbye to the crowd. Obama grabs Biden by the hand and pats him on the back before they walk away.
But White House and Obama aides have both pushed back on the Post’s characterization of events.
In a post on X, Eric Schultz, Obama’s senior adviser, reposted the New York Post’s article and said “this did not happen.”
White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said the Post was “pretending the President taking in an applauding crowd for a few seconds is somehow wrong. Their ethical standards could deal with a little unfreezing.”