CLAIM: President Joe Biden caught on camera sniffing a baby.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The loud sniffing sound was added to the original video, which merely shows the president leaning in to speak with a baby being held by its mother at a recent event. The original clip doesn’t include any sniffing sounds.
THE FACTS: Social media users are sharing a video they claim shows America’s commander-in-chief aggressively sniffing a young child.
The clip shows Biden dressed in a blue suit and red tie speaking to a mother holding a baby.
In the edited video, the child is out of the frame and cannot be seen, but Biden can be heard saying, “You’re a good kid,” before adding, “Let me whisper a secret.”
Biden then leans in close and loud, dog-like sniffing sounds can be heard until he pulls back and says, “Don’t tell mama what I told you.”
“Did y’all see this? Completely abnormal behavior,” wrote one Facebook user who shared the video. “Joe Biden, unaware he’s being recorded, aggressively sniffs a child.”
But the video has been altered to add in the sniffing noises.
The longer, original version of the clip was posted on Tik Tok on June 9 and simply shows the president speaking to the child, who can be seen being held by his mother, but not making any unusual noises.
“So I met the president of the United States today,” reads the text on the 40-second clip, which also includes a series of hashtags.
Among them are “#fortliberty” and “#army,” suggesting the video was taken at Fort Liberty in North Carolina.
On June 9, Biden visited the Fayetteville military base, formerly known as Fort Bragg, to sign an executive order meant to bolster job opportunities for military spouses whose careers are often disrupted by their loved ones’ deployments, The Associated Press reported at the time.
The woman who posted the clip under the username @saucedofamily did not respond to a message seeking comment on Monday.
But in recent days, she’s acknowledged online that she’s aware of the deceptively edited versions of the clip being widely shared on social media.
“I seen it. people don’t have better things to do,” she quipped in the comments below her original post, adding that other users should have, at the very least, given her credit for the video.
The woman also said Biden didn’t appear to have made any sound at all when he leaned in after a number of users inquired.
“I don’t think he told him anything because I didn’t hear him say anything,” she wrote in subsequent comments. “I think he just pretended to say something.”
___
This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.
