Here’s What The New Trump-MAGA Cheapfake Attack On Biden Doesn’t Show You — But Full Video Does

Trump fans are running with another cheapfake video claiming it shows President Joe Biden being “guided” offstage by former President Barack Obama — but the full video clearly shows a very normal interaction between the president, his friend, and a cheering crowd.

The president raised over $28 this weekend with a star-studded Saturday fundraiser headlined by former President Barack Obama, Hollywood superstars like George Clooney and Julia Roberts, and a “moderated conversation” with Biden and Obama hosted by Jimmy Kimmel.

But MAGA cranks focused on a short cellphone video to claim that at the end of the fundraiser, President Biden had to be led off the stage by Obama.

The full video of that moment, however, reinforces the context that’s already in that video if you’re not a deranged Trump fan trying to deflect from your messiah’s shortcomings.

Kimmel wraps up the conversation with both presidents, and Biden basks in the applause and interacts with the audience while Obama wanders away and heads offstage.

Obama finally cues Biden to leave, and puts his arm around his friend as they walk backstage — with the crowd still applauding:

JIMMY KIMMEL: All people who are working hard to make this a better place. And that is what makes me optimistic about the future.

Thank you for coming. And we’ll see you in traffic. Thanks, everybody.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: All right, everybody —

JIMMY KIMMEL: Thank you, Mr. Presidents.

(APPLAUSE)

PRESIDENT BIDEN: Thank you, thank you, thank you.

(CROWD ROARS WITH APPLAUSE)

PRESIDENT OBAMA: — let’s get to work!

I know it’s confusing to Trump fans that Biden and Obama are friends who like each other and would never cheer a mob hunting each other for execution, but that’s how friends act when you have friends.

What’s also confusing is that when the president walks away to congratulate someone, that’s a case of impeachable wandering, but when Obama bolts for the exit — Biden’s still somehow wrong? It’s almost as if it doesn’t matter what he does.

I’m referring to the last cheapfake, from the G7. A group of world leaders gathered to watch a skydiving demonstration ahead of the “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 grabbed Biden’s arm to draw his attention to a member of the skydiving team who was addressing the group of world leaders.

The clip was captioned “WHAT IS BIDEN DOING?”

The New York Post then posted a version of the clip cropped vertically so the skydiver Biden was congratulating didn’t show in the video and Fox News piled on with mockery.

This is the new right-wing playbook, and it hardly matters what the unaltered videos show. A critical of viewer can usually tell what the misleading part is, the context merely reinforces it. They can take any clip of the President and just claim it shows something that it doesn’t show and their job is done.

Such was the case with a clip from the president’s appearance at the D-Day commemoration, when a short clip was shopped as an example of the president, trying to sit in an imaginary chair. It was false, the longer clip showed him sitting in an actual chair that very much had a corporal form, but anyone with half a brain could tell it had been cut short and could see the chair in the video.

It was a very ordinary action, the president, jumping the gun, and then waiting for everyone else to begin taking their seats, and right-wingers claiming this means he is unfit for the presidency.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t call them out, but the callouts sort of missed the point of this exercise. The trick here is to keep the issue of the President’s age front and center, and even debunking these attacks accomplishes that.

Unfortunately, this is a case of asymmetrical warfare because no matter how much Trump opponents focus on his numerous unhinged rants and gaffes and inability to stand up straight less than a 45° angle, they can’t get the kind of cooperation from the media that Biden’s attackers get.

Even when they are debunking these videos, news anchors feel the need to point out that the president’s age has been shown to be a concern among voters in polls – even though a certain amount of that concern is likely driven by the “butter emails” relentlessness of the Biden age coverage.

They don’t do that for Trump, certainly not to the degree that they do it to Biden.

There is a chance that will change after the debate that takes place 10 days from now, and which could help settle this question once and for all.

Until then, people should be more critical when viewing these cheap fakes and media outlets should stop doing Trump’s work for him.

Watch the full above — including the crowd angle — via Mediaite.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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