‘They Just Lie’: White House Blasts ‘Murdoch Outlets’ Like Fox and NY Post Over Misleading Biden Video
The White House blasted “Murdoch outlets” like The New York Post and Fox News over a misleading video of President Joe Biden at the G7 watching a skydiving show.
Numerous right-leaning social media accounts specialize in posting misleading clips of President Biden — the RNC Research X/Twitter account being a prime example. But they often get an assist from right-leaning news outlets who amplify and promote the attacks, like the skydiving video.
President Biden is currently in Fasano, Italy for the G7 Summit, where he and other world leaders gathered to watch a skydiving demonstration before gathering for the traditional “family photo.”
The RNC Research account seized on a moment in which the president moved away from the group to congratulate a skydiver who was packing his chute. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy then took the president’s arm to lead him back to the world leaders. The clip was captioned “WHAT IS BIDEN DOING?”
The New York Post then posted a version of the clip cropped vertically in the aspect ratio common to mobile phones, which meant the skydiver Biden was congratulating didn’t show in the video.
President Biden appeared to wander off at the G7 summit in Italy, with officials needing to pull him back to focus. https://t.co/M50eobWwHr pic.twitter.com/Uaw1etcUB8
— New York Post (@nypost) June 13, 2024
The full video makes clear that the president didn’t “wander off” and that Meloni grabbed Biden’s arm to draw his attention to a member of the team who was addressing the group of world leaders. A community note on the NY Post video reads:
Biden didn’t “wander off”.
After viewing a skydiving demo with the other G7 leaders, Biden stepped aside to speak with one of the skydivers who is kneeling on the ground packing away his chute.
The video in the above post has been digitally altered to remove the skydiver.
Fox News got in on the act by ridiculing Biden over the moment — using the uncropped video but echoing the line of attack and cutting the clip short to reinforce it.
Senior Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates pointed out the misleading effect, and slammed “Murdoch outlets” for “lying”:
The Murdoch outlets are so desperate to distract from @POTUS‘s record that they just lie.
Here, they use an artificially narrow frame to hide from viewers that he just saw a skydiving demonstration.
He’s saying congratulations to one of the divers and giving a thumbs up. Video: https://t.co/Pn0uGtzpLy pic.twitter.com/tDowABzud3
— Andrew Bates (@AndrewJBates46) June 13, 2024
In a statement to Mediaite, Bates added:
“Joe Biden is *actually* making the rich pay their fair share in taxes, *actually* bringing violent crime to historic lows, *actually* rebuilding infrastructure, *actually* bringing jobs back from China, *actually* achieving energy independence, *actually* beating Big Pharma – so all rightwing propaganda can do is lie with cheap fakes.”
Watch above via Pool.
