Posts add anti-Biden chant to university commencement footage
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on May 24, 2023 at 19:34
- 2 min read
- By Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA
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"F**k Joe Biden chants at Univ of Pennsylvania," says the title of a May 17, 2023 Rumble video from Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, who has previously promoted misinformation on various platforms.
Similar posts ricocheted across Twitter, TikTok and other social media sites. One iteration of the video shared by a popular pro-Donald Trump Twitter account drew more than 2.5 million views.
The clip, which shows Biden and his family, features a "Fuck Joe Biden" chant as "Pomp and Circumstance" plays in the background. Maisy Biden, the president's granddaughter, was part of the University of Pennsylvania's 2023 graduating class.
But the video has been altered -- an enhanced livestream of the school's commencement (archived here) features no jeering from the crowd.
Such heckling also does not appear in other videos (archived here and here) showing the same close-up of Biden at the graduation ceremony.
The Philadelphia Inquirer's dispatch from the event does not mention an anti-Biden chant. The newspaper reported the president entered the bleachers to cheers from the stadium, which he acknowledged with a double thumbs-up gesture.
A University of Pennsylvania spokesperson sent AFP fact checks from Reuters and the Associated Press debunking the altered video.
AFP also contacted the White House for comment, but no response was forthcoming.
AFP has previously debunked other altered videos featuring anti-Biden chants here, here, here and here.
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