Conservative media outlets have recently circulated a misleading video to claim that President Joe Biden wandered off during the G7 summit in Italy. However, a full video captured by NBC News reveals a different story. Instead of aimlessly wandering, Biden was seen walking towards a group of parachutists who had just landed, giving them a thumbs-up.
The deceptive video began spreading online shortly after a photo opportunity at the G7 summit in Puglia, southern Italy. Biden and other world leaders were standing on a green lawn while military personnel parachuted in, carrying oversized flags of various countries. Multiple cameras, including one from NBC News, documented the event, where Biden was expected to advocate for increased support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia.
Critics of Biden, 81, seized on a particular camera angle to push the narrative that he is absent-minded and too old to be president. This video is one of many circulating online that attempt to portray normal moments as gaffes or evidence of mental decline. Experts warn that while advanced technology like generative AI can spread misinformation, simpler methods like selective editing can be more effective in spreading false narratives.
The NBC News video shows Biden walking towards a specific destination: a group of kneeling parachutists. The misleading videos went viral on X, a platform owned by Elon Musk, which has become influential in conservative circles and is often hostile to the Biden administration. The New York Post, controlled by the conservative Murdoch family, posted a video that appeared to be taken with a phone in a vertical position, showing little of what was happening on either side of Biden. The video shows Biden walking about seven steps away from the other leaders, seemingly with no destination, and giving at least one thumb-up to something off-camera. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni follows him, touches his arm, and directs his attention in the opposite direction.
The New York Post, in text superimposed on the video, claimed that Biden “appears to wander off” and “has to be pulled back.” This post on X garnered 4.2 million views. Andrew Bates, the White House senior deputy press secretary, criticized the Post’s reporting, stating that the Murdoch outlets are desperate to distract from Biden’s record and are resorting to lies. Bates explained that the video used an artificially narrow frame to hide the fact that Biden was congratulating a skydiver and giving a thumbs-up. His post received 2.4 million views.
A spokesperson for the Post did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, the claims continued from conservative and Republican accounts, which used the same video or other camera angles with limited context. A post from the Republican National Committee used a video that, although it had a wider angle, still did not show what Biden was walking toward. It received 2.9 million views on X. “WHAT IS BIDEN DOING?” the RNC post asked. The RNC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Clay Travis, a conservative talk radio host, used the same video as the RNC and wrote that Biden “just goes wandering off” and that other national leaders “are babysitting our president in Italy.” His post received 1.1 million views. In a follow-up post, Travis stood by his view that Biden is not mentally fit to be president. The RNC’s and Travis’ posts did not have community notes on them, though X users had proposed some and were in the process of voting.
The NBC News video angle clearly includes what the others did not: the group of kneeling parachutists who were only steps away from Biden. As they kneel, Biden walks toward them, stops, and gives them two thumbs-up. At least one of them appears to acknowledge Biden by standing at attention. Meloni does pull Biden back to the group as someone appears to begin speaking, but there is no indication in the NBC News video that Biden was unaware of his surroundings.
Deceptive videos of Biden have become a common tactic during the 2024 presidential campaign, which features Biden and 78-year-old former President Donald Trump. Last year, conservative pundits used low-quality video to spread a false claim that Biden fell asleep during a memorial for wildfire victims in Hawaii.
Right-wing media outlets used a deceptively cropped video to misleadingly claim President Joe Biden wandered off during an event with other world leaders at the G7 summit in Italy. The video shared by the New York Post on X showed part of a skydiving demonstration in front of several world leaders in Italy, involving several parachutists landing near the group, each carrying a flag representing the different G7 countries.
In the full, unedited video, Biden, who was standing with the group of leaders as a parachutist carrying a G7 banner landed in front of them, briefly turned away to give a thumbs-up to several parachutists who had landed behind the group. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni then walked toward Biden, tapped him on the arm, and motioned for him to join the other leaders who were being briefed by an Italian Army officer about the demonstration they just watched.
The video shared by the Post on X cropped out the kneeling parachute rigger, omitting the context of why Biden walked away from the group. “President Biden appeared to wander off at the G7 summit in Italy, with officials needing to pull him back to focus,” the social-media post said. This claim later became the basis of the Post’s front page, which called Biden the “MEANDER IN CHIEF” and accused the president of embarrassing the US with “confused wanderings.”
The White House criticized the Post and other outlets for characterizing the president as “confused” and for using an “artificially narrow frame” to make it appear as if the president was wandering off from the skydiving demonstration. “He’s saying congratulations to one of the divers and giving a thumbs up,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a post on social media. “Beware cheap fakes … and all the bad faith actors who post them,” White House communications director Ben LaBolt also posted.
X later added a community note to the Post’s tweet acknowledging the video had been cropped. A spokesperson for the Post did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The video of Biden at the skydiving demonstration appeared to have first been flagged by the Republican National Committee, which posted the uncropped video of Biden giving the parachutists a thumbs-up shortly after the demonstration took place. The New York Post shared the cropped version less than 90 minutes later.
Other right-wing outlets quickly followed suit. Sinclair stations posted stories saying Biden appeared to wander away at the summit. Those stories also resurfaced false claims that the president soiled himself at a D-Day ceremony in France earlier this month. A Fox & Friends segment reported on the incident and the Post’s front page, with a chyron saying the president appeared “confused” at the summit.
Other world leaders who attended the event with Biden, though, pushed back on the idea that he was confused. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who was standing just steps away from Biden, said the president “was being very polite and went over to talk to all of (the skydivers) individually.” “Giorgia was saying don’t worry they’re all coming – we were meant to line up and they were coming to shake our hands,” Sunak said, according to The Telegraph.
While emerging technologies like artificial intelligence continue to proliferate and create concern about the impact that misinformation will have on voters ahead of November, the video shared by the Post shows that relatively low-tech efforts, like cropping videos to show Biden out of context, can still be powerful tools to reinforce the idea that the 81-year-old president has lost control of his mental faculties.
Every day that Biden is president, he sets a new record as the oldest person to ever hold that office. He would be 86 at the end of a potential second term. And recent events, including special counsel Robert Hur’s report that described the president being portrayed as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” and recent Biden missteps where he appeared to confuse long-dead world leaders with their living contemporaries, have served to reinforce those concerns.
The White House has pushed back on criticism over Biden’s age by pointing toward his packed travel schedule. In just the last two weeks, the president has traveled to France to commemorate D-Day, back to the United States to comfort a son who just became a convicted felon, and then embarked on another transatlantic journey to Italy, where he participated in high-stakes discussions about future US support for Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion. From there he heads straight to California to participate in a star-studded fundraiser.
The rest of this month will see Biden preparing for his critical June 27 debate with former President Donald Trump, who turned 78 on Friday and is also scrutinized for his age. Biden’s campaign and his family members have said his age and the experience that comes with it are an asset to his role, and not a liability. The campaign has sent first lady Dr. Jill Biden to shore up older voters’ support of the president.
