Audio Reveals Hannity-Hyped Biden ‘Gaffe’ About 120 Million Covid Dead Was Corrected Immediately
Audio obtained by Mediaite reveals that a supposed Joe Biden “gaffe” that Sean Hannity hyped to President Donald Trump was a misspeak that Biden corrected immediately.
During Thursday night’s Hannity town hall, the Fox News host told Trump that the former VP had committed “another gaffe” by saying that 120 million people had died from coronavirus in the U.S. Several official Republican accounts had tweeted a short clip from a Biden event in Lancaster, PA that featured Biden saying “Now we have over 120 million dead from COVID.”
Trump went on to denounce Biden, and bring up several other debunked gaffes.
But as Hannity neglected to tell Trump, it was fairly obvious even from the truncated clip that Biden had immediately corrected himself. Unfortunately, all the livestreams of the event froze at that exact moment, and so the last thing you hear Biden say is “I m…”
Mediaite has obtained audio of the rest of Biden’s answer, in which he instantly corrects himself, saying “I mean over 120,000 dead from Covid.”
After publication, Fox News pointed out that Hannity, earlier in the show, said that “Biden did go on later to correct himself.”
Hannity’s comment that Biden’s instantaneous correction came “later” was inaccurate. And Hannity did not make even that allowance when he relayed the comment to Trump to solicit an attack.
On Friday afternoon, The Daily Beast’s Sam Brodey filed a pool report that also noted the quick correction, and explained the video freeze:
Most of this conversation was live-streamed by the TV pooler, ABC News, but the pool camera—along with your print pooler—was ushered out of the courtyard while the conversation was ongoing. This happened just as Biden said that “we have over 120 million dead from COVID.” Your pooler was on his way out of the event as this was said, and the pool camera was unable to broadcast the rest of Biden’s comments after this point.
The campaign has sent along what he said immediately after:
“Now we have over 120 million dead from COVID, I mean, 120,000 dead from COVID. And you have so many—now we’re past 2 million—I mean, and we’re talking about it like it’s over. I mean, it’s over. My god.”
The other two “gaffes” Trump mentioned have also been debunked. The first was a manipulation of a clip in which the former VP said “I’m gonna be Joe Biden,” not “I’m gonna beat Joe Biden.”
The second was an out of context clip in which Biden was speaking to South Carolina voters about his early political career.
Watch the video with the audio added at the end above.
