Fact check: Video of Biden with reporters on White House lawn is unaltered

Chelsey Cox, USA TODAY
·4 min read
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The claim: Background of Joe Biden interview digitally altered to look like White House lawn

A March 17 Instagram post joins the many social media claims suggesting President Joe Biden is illegitimately occupying the office of the presidency, USA TODAY has reported.

The post "Biden Green Screen Footage Released by Media" contains a clip of a video showing Biden approaching members of the press on The White House lawn. There is no audio. "Watch his hand over the mics," instructs a caption beneath the clip.

Indeed, Biden's hand appears to "float" over a boom microphone carried by a member of the press.

"Well what in the fresh hell is going on here," poster Jaimee — "thegaywhostrayed" on Instagram — wrote in the post caption. USA TODAY debunked a prior satirical claim posted by the same user in November. The user was contacted for comment.

Other versions of the claim have appeared on Instagram and YouTube since the March 16 interview. None has offered definitive proof that it was digitally altered.

Fact check: No basis for claims that President Joe Biden's inauguration was faked

More: Fact check: Photo of Joe Biden with stacks of executive orders on Resolute desk is altered

Who shot the interview?

The brief question-and-answer session was recorded from various angles, according to The Associated Press. The news outlet posted the full video exchange to its YouTube account shortly after the interview.

Biden was recorded approaching members of the press and answering two questions before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House, according to the video. The president traveled to Chester, Pennsylvania, that day to promote the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package signed into law in March, USA TODAY reported. Biden was shown exiting the aircraft to board Air Force One later in the video.

Pictures taken of Biden by the press were also posted to AP Images, Politico and The Washington Times. The same video clip from the Instagram claim was shot from a different angle by The Washington Post. In it, the president's hand appears to move over a boom mic placed closer to the camera.

"We’ve seen conspiracy theories like these pop up frequently by people who are unaware of how video is compressed," Grant Fredericks, an analyst at Forensic Video Solutions told USA TODAY in an email.

The video in the claim is a compressed version of other copies of the video that are widely available online, according to Fredericks.

"There are several other media outlets that covered the same event, but from different angles. They have published video showing President Biden at the same place and time, doing and saying the same thing. This includes the print media that have published images of the president at the same place and time and there is no compression in those still images," he said, and added that "people with nefarious agendas will use that misunderstanding to allege manipulation."

Steve Herman of Voice of America News was present during the interview, according to his March 17 retweet of BBC journalist Shayan Sardarizadeh's post explaining the fake video claim.

"I was the one holding the lighter-colored fuzzy microphone and thus literally in front of @POTUS on the South Lawn," Herman wrote. "It's all real. Who actually believes this 'faked moon landing' type nonsense and more importantly who is spreading it?"

Our rating: False

We rate this claim FALSE, based on our research. Several social media posts claiming an interview with President Joe Biden on the South Lawn on The White House is fake rely on unfounded information. The brief question-and-answer session was captured from various angles and uploaded to the internet by numerous media outlets. There is no evidence that a green screen or another sort of digital manipulation was used.

Our fact-check sources:

Contributing: The Associated Press

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Unaltered video of Biden with reporters on White House lawn