Flashback: Biden briefly wanders away during wife's speech
President Biden briefly walked away during a speech by First Lady Jill Biden on Sept. 10, 2021. The clip was later fodder for a spoof video of the president being distracted by an ice-cream truck.
President Biden is well-known for his love of ice cream, enough in fact that a major news outlet's fact-checking organization was dispatched to debunk a viral clip of him being lured away by the dulcet tones of an ice cream truck.
"Social media users are sharing a video of U.S. President Joe Biden walking away momentarily during a speech given by U.S. First Lady Jill Biden and claiming that he was distracted by an ice cream truck. The video being shared, however, has been digitally edited to include music usually played by an ice cream truck," wire service Reuters reported on Sunday.
The outlet was concerned by the spread of clips of Biden, while listening to first lady Jill Biden speaking at a Washington, D.C., middle school on Sept. 10, 2021, walking away after apparently hearing a cheerful ice truck jingle. The below tweet went viral last week. Other people lampooning the president shared videos and posts with a crudely added ice cream truck in the background.
Reuters linked to a CSPAN video of the speech, which showed there was no ice cream truck music. It was unclear what briefly distracted the president as his wife waxed poetic on children returning to school.
"This video has been digitally edited to include ice cream truck music as U.S. President Joe Biden walked away momentarily during first lady Jill Biden’s speech," Reuters concluded. The story had no single byline; it was the product of the "Reuters Fact Check Team."
The Reuters fact-check also caught the attention of Twitter, which flagged the above video as "manipulated media" and linked to a page noting the outlet's findings.
"A video circulated online of President Joe Biden walking away momentarily during a speech given by first lady Jill Biden has been overlayed with music usually played by an ice cream truck, Reuters reports. The original video is from September 10, 2021, when the couple spoke at Washington, D.C.'s Brookland Middle School about the COVID-19 pandemic and keeping children safe."
The sober fact-check of the humorous video caught the attention of social media users, who expressed derision and amusement at the fact-check.
"Oh for Pete's sake," journalist Jeryl Bier reacted.
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"They actually fact-checked this. Holy cow," another user wrote.
Seth Abramson, the left-wing academic known for pushing Russiagate theories, was among those angered by the mere existence of the satire video in the first place.
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"How do I know Republicans have nothing on Biden? Because every day their pimple-faced, basement-dwelling trolls vomit up some fake media to try to establish a narrative of foolishness and incompetence that reality doesn’t bear out. If they had *anything*, they’d stick to reality," he fumed.
Biden's fondness of ice cream has often endeared him to reporters covering him.
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