We came across the following post on the social media platform X:
The post includes what appears to be a video, taken on a phone, of the US president speaking to a supporter, who seems to be a girl or a young woman.
From the audio, Biden appears to say, “Let me whisper you a secret. You’re one sexy kid. Don’t tell mommy what I told you. You got it?”
The president then poses with the girl, before she informs him that she is in fact recording the interaction, to which Biden reacts with surprise.
The audio therefore appears to implicate the president with sexual harassment of a minor.
Altered Audio
When we did a search on the comments attributed to Biden in the video, we found that it was an altered version of the original, and a similar claim with a different altered version had been debunked by Politifact in October 2023.
Politifact indicated that the original video was recorded at a June 2023 event in Fort Liberty, where Biden signed an executive order ‘aimed at advancing economic security for military families’. They also included a link to a TikTok video uploaded on 10 June 2023, which they indicated was the original video.
The video, by creator saucedofamily, appears to show that the ‘girl’ featured is actually a mother who is carrying a baby. The baby cannot be seen in the altered version, which is cropped.
In the original video, it is clear that Biden is speaking to the child, while referring to the woman carrying the child as the mother in his comments.
The audio does not record Biden saying, ‘You’re one sexy kid,”. However, the rest of the audio is the same as in the altered video.
The creator also claims that the comments the president made were audible to her, and that he told her baby that ‘he will be the first Mexican president’.
Politifact reported that an altered version of the video had appeared on Instagram in October 2023, where it has been flagged by Politifact and the Portuguese factchecker Poligrafo.
We therefore find the claim that Biden made inappropriate comments towards a girl or young woman in this video to be false. The claim relies on an altered video and audio, and has previously been debunked.
