Video misrepresents Biden joke as admission of crime
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on June 27, 2023 at 19:57
- 2 min read
- By Natalie WADE, AFP USA
Copyright © AFP 2017-2024. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
"Joe Biden’s brain is going and he’s literally admitting his crimes out loud," says Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from the US state of Georgia, in a June 26, 2023 tweet.
The post shares a video originally published by the Republican National Committee. The clip shows a meeting with Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in which the former says: "I sold a lot of state secrets and a lot of very important things."
The video spread elsewhere on Twitter, Facebook and TikTok, including in Spanish.
On June 23, Biden and Modi met with technology executives at the White House to discuss ramping up cooperation between the United States and India. The event was part of a state visit in which the two world leaders reached agreements on US engines for India's new home-grown fighter jets and a major semiconductor factory.
The footage shared online does show the June 23 roundtable, but it has been edited to remove the context -- the official White House video and transcript show Biden immediately clarified that his remark was a joke.
Here is what the president said to kick off the meeting, according to the transcript (archived here):
"OK. We -- I was just thanking the -- anyway, I started off without you, and I sold a lot of state secrets and a lot of very important things that we shared. (Laughter.)
"Now, all kidding aside -- look, we’re teaming up to design and develop new technologies that are going to transform the lives of our people around the world. And together, we’re lifting the private and public partners to make this possible, including launching a new program between India and America -- American astronauts, Indian astronauts, and entrepreneurs, scientists, students."
The full video of the meeting (archived here) also indicates Biden was telling a joke.
The White House declined to comment for this story.
AFP has previously fact-checked other edited videos of Biden here, here, here, here and here.
Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.
Contact us
