A video of an unusual statement by the US President went viral on the Internet - as if the American leader said that he had undergone an operation to “find” his brain. The authors of some publications decided that this statement was a sign of the politician’s progressive dementia. We checked to see if Biden actually said that.
There are two versions of the viral video: one lasts 12 sec., and the second one is a little longer - 17 sec. In a longer video, Joe Biden says: “I came back from a trip, I was gone for a couple of days and I started having terrible headaches. I was diagnosed with... well, to cut a long story short. [The doctors] had to cut off the top of my head a couple of times to see if I had a brain.” Moreover, in words about surgical intervention, Biden can be heard laughing.
In dozens of popular Russian-language Telegram channels, the video and quote became the basis for caustic jokes. For example, in "Gossip Girl" (67,000 views as of this writing), the caption for the video reads: "Biden's dementia worsens," in "Rhymes and punches"(178,000) clarified that the quote is “not a joke,” but on the TV presenter’s channel Vladimir Solovyov (223,000) noted that “Joe Biden’s stories are getting more and more exciting.” IN "Uncle Slava” (149,000 views) wrote that “Biden is saying something unusual about diagnostic methods,” and the author of the channel “Petya the First"(66,000) believes that after this video we should “let my grandfather go on vacation.” There are also various variations of the joke that the brain of the American president has never been discovered. It can be found, for example, in the channels “Russia now"(312,000 views), "🔥 Army 🅉 18+ 🔥" (176,000) and "Ostashko! Important"(122,000). In a number of cases, the video and quote were published without any explanation, among such channels - “Live broadcast"(735,000 views), "Truthfulness" (250,000), "Scott Ritter on Telegram" (187,000) and "Pool N3"(154,000).
The video went viral not only Russian segment of the Internet. For example, a story about him appeared on the Belarus-1 TV channel. In addition, a video with a quote and comments about Biden’s health condition got infected V Twitter-accounts of American bloggers and politicians criticizing the current US President (examples here, here And here; one of these bloggers inquired, what diagnosis did the politician have), and is also found on YouTube.
The letters IAFF are visible behind Biden's back - this is an abbreviation International Association of Fire Fighters (International Association of Fire Fighters). Visible in the background logo this organization representing interests more than 334,000 professional firefighters and paramedics. March 6, 2023 Biden spoke with a speech at the legal conference of this association in Washington, and on the same day the first videos appeared on the Internet with the words that later became viral about the opening of the skull.
The official website of the White House posted transcription Biden's entire speech, and on the YouTube channel of the administration of the American president, as well as on many others, There is recording live broadcast of the event. By checking them, you can make sure that the quote in the video being distributed is genuine. At the mark 05:42 the US President says that firefighters once saved his life, and then, with 05:51 to 06:08, there is an excerpt that has gone viral. However, immediately after this, Biden calls the story about the search for a brain a joke and tells how it really happened:
But I... All jokes aside, this is what happened: then there was a snow storm, and I had a cranial aneurysm (damage to the wall of a blood vessel in the brain. - Ed.), and urgent surgery was needed. And the doctor who had to do it was the best in the area - it was at the [Army Medical] Center Walter Reed, - because he operated on so many people.
And I couldn't get there. The President, the Republican President offered to pick me up Marine One (the call sign of any US Marine Corps aircraft carrying the US President - Ed.), but he could not fly due to the weather. Then the local fire department rushed me into a nine-hour operation in the middle of a snowstorm and saved my life.
RBC publication reportsthat the events described took place in 1998, but this is an incorrect date, because at that time the US President was a Democrat Bill Clinton. The operation Biden described was held in February 1988, when the country was led by a Republican Ronald Reagan, and the future 46th President of the United States was a senator from Delaware.
After the story about Biden's operation told about two more cases when firefighters saved his family while he was not around. In 1972, shortly after Biden was elected to the Senate, he was involved in a car accident. died his first wife and one-year-old daughter, and his two sons were taken out of the crumpled car by firefighters and taken to the hospital. In 2004, due to a lightning strike in the house of the future president arose fire: “But you know what? The fire department arrived to rescue my wife, her cat, and my '67 Corvette,” Biden joked again.
Thus, a video with the actual words of the American president is being distributed across the Internet, which, nevertheless, can be misleading without appropriate explanation. The full recording of his speech shows that immediately after the end of the out-of-context fragment, Biden directly said that he was joking, but many online publications accidentally or deliberately ignore this part of his speech.
Cover photo: screenshot “Verified” / The White House (YouTube)
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