President Biden has many rivals in this year's election, including his Republican opponent, former President Donald J. Trump, and independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
And then there's the distorted online version of himself, the product of often misleading videos, which have fueled and strengthened voter concerns that have long existed about his age and competence.
Over the past two weeks, conservative media, the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign have circulated videos that lack important context and distort everyday moments to paint a disparaging picture of Biden. Among other things, these videos have created the following impression of the president:
A New York Times review of the videos found that some scenes were cut short and taken out of context, while other clips were cut in a way that omitted important details when compared with additional footage.
Political campaigns and groups have long circulated damaging videos of opponents, some of which are edited to be misleading.
But the footage released this month is a stark reminder of the daunting, multifaceted and evolving task the 81-year-old Biden faces in convincing voters he is competent enough to win reelection. With opinion polls predicting a close race, many Americans are questioning his fitness, and selected snippets of his everyday public remarks have stoked those fears and sent conspiracy theories swirling on social media.
“They'll go around the world twice before the truth comes out, and often people never hear what the truth is,” said former Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican who supports Biden and is one of the few Trump critics. “If you see them and that's all you see, you're going to walk away feeling like something's wrong, that something's going on, because you're not seeing the truth and the corrections. So, I think it's harmful, for sure.”
Footage of Biden's appearances at Independence Day and Normandy senatorial election commemorations led to a nearly 2,000 percent spike in posts about Biden's age and intellectual ability on social media platform X over the past two weeks compared to average, according to data from Peak Metrix.
Some of the videos of Biden circulated during this year's campaign were clearly manipulated to make him look older and confused, while others cut out important context to portray him in a negative light and were described as “cheap fakes” because they required little money or technical skill to produce.
And there are brief, unedited clips of the octogenarian president, prone to slipups, an occasional limp (his doctor says he has a “stiff gait” due to arthritis) and other signs of age that are his biggest and most enduring political liability.
The misleadingly cropped videos “follow a set format,” said Bhaskar Chakraborty, dean of international business at the Fletcher School at Tufts University.
“They're very easy to create at low cost by simply cropping the video, narrowing the frame and erasing or changing the context – no fancy technology or AI required,” he said. “The actual footage of Biden, especially his physical instability and careful, stiff gait in the cropped frame, makes cheap fakes easy to create and distribute quickly. No doubt we'll see a surge in these.”
Charles Franklin, who conducted the poll, said the video clip reinforced the public perception that Biden was too old.
“Those who are already concerned about his age are quick to accept what they see in the video and don't question whether it's selectively edited,” Franklin says, “but over the last few years, seeing photo after photo and video of him has also reinforced the perception that he's too old.”
Biden has long been the subject of deceptive videos, including of his 2020 presidential victory.
But with Trump struggling with sagging approval ratings nearly four months before Election Day, there are signs that years of damaging footage — however misleading much of it may be — poses real political risks.
“This is not a new narrative, it builds on existing narratives, which tend to be much more effective,” said Claire Wardle, co-founder of Brown University's Information Futures Institute.
Political campaigns have limited ability to respond to real misinformation online, in part because social media companies struggle to track and act on the vast amounts of false and manipulated content. And in a polarized country where basic reality is often filtered through a partisan lens, all the fact-checking in the world has its limitations.
Still, Biden's campaign has spoken out in digital campaign rallies and at the White House podium to refute the misleading video.
“Even without editing, Trump's extreme rants appear deranged and crazy,” Biden campaign spokeswoman Mia Ellenberg said, arguing that Republicans are “distorting the footage” as they struggle to effectively attack the president's policy record.
“Voters deserve accurate information to help them make their choices in November, and our campaign will be vigilant in calling out these lies when we see them,” she added.
The Biden campaign has been aggressive in its swift response across social media platforms, at times echoing Republican rhetoric about Biden and seeking to stoke doubts about Trump's mental health.
“A montage of footage of Donald Trump confused, lost, wandering around and waving to no one,” the campaign's social media accounts posted Thursday, along with footage of Trump appearing to be redirected and coaxed by others, including former Vice President Mike Pence.
The campaign also said an interdepartmental team is meeting weekly to prepare for the potential impact of artificial intelligence and misinformation on the election.
The White House has also spoken out. Responding to questions at a press conference on Monday, Biden's press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, addressed some of Biden's videos that have garnered attention online, calling them “cheap fakes” and a malicious attempt to mislead.
Biden's supporters hope next week's debate will give Americans a full picture of his abilities and undermine Trump's penchant for lies and outrageous statements. The Republican-backed video of Biden could also have the unintended effect of lowering expectations for how he will perform in the debate.
Teddy Goff, who served as digital director for former President Barack Obama's reelection campaign, said Republicans have overreached before, including before Biden's largely well-received State of the Union address.
“It was a remarkable performance by any standard, but I think it was even more remarkable because Republicans created the expectation that the president was near death,” Goff said, adding, “People will now see actual footage that contradicts that, and they will be pleasantly surprised and constantly reminded that the president is in much stronger shape than they've been told.”
He said the Republicans' reliance on misleading images gives the Biden campaign an opportunity to “sow seeds of doubt in voters' minds. Every time you see an image or video of Biden appearing to be unwell, there's a good chance Republicans are lying.”
Republicans argue that Democrats are too quick to dismiss objectionable but unaltered videos as “misinformation.”
“Cheap Fake: The Unedited Video of Joe Biden's Cognitive Decline that the Biden Administration Doesn't Want the Public to See,” a post from the Trump campaign account read.
Trump spokesman Steven Chang accused the Biden campaign of suggesting that “anyone who clearly shows Biden acting like a brain-dead idiot” must be part of a conspiracy.
Patrick Ruffini, a Republican pollster who does not work for Trump, said concerns about Biden's age and mental health were the most “troubling” thesis in the campaign and that the viral video made it harder for Biden to address them.
“I don't think it's going to go away completely,” he said, but acknowledged the debate presented an opportunity for Biden. “When you start seeing a lot of these examples in quick succession, at some point perception becomes reality.”
“Cheap knockoffs” often have this effect, says Britt S. Paris, an assistant professor at Rutgers University who helped coin the term.
“It multiplies and stays in people's minds,” she said. “There's so much of it that people think, 'Oh, that's what happened.'”
Jonathan Swan Contributed report. Video editing: Caroline Kim.