In September 2023, information spread on the Internet about an unusual statement by the US President - he allegedly said that he was already 856 years old. We checked whether this news is true.

Notes that Biden had “exaggerated” his age were posted by some Media, including on our own pages on blog platforms. Internet users ridicule Biden and his words on social networks with derogatory comments (“VKontakte", Facebook*). The news spread most widely on Telegram: it was published in the channels “Ostashko! Important"(124,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Communications center"(58,000), "Notepad Russia"(49,000), "Frivolous news" (31,000), "Peace in the moment"(17,000), etc.

September 22, 2023 Joe Biden announced on the creation of a new unit in the US presidential administration that will deal with the prevention of gun violence. During this speech he said: “I remember when I was young. We have something in common (with 26-year-old congressman Maxwell Frost, who invited Biden to the microphone. — Approx. ed.): I was elected to the Senate when I was 29 years old. <…> It was 827 years ago, a lot of time has passed.” It was from the addition of the two numbers mentioned by Biden that the number 856 was obtained, which appears in messages on social networks. As evidence, their authors use a 15-second fragment that ends immediately after the words “827 years ago.”

Spectators present at the politician's speech apparently took his words as a joke - laughter can be clearly heard in the full video recording when Biden clearly exaggerates how long ago he was elected to Congress (this is also reflected in transcript on the official White House website). Congressman Frost and Vice President Kamala Harris, standing next to the president, also laugh - it is unlikely that they would so openly ridicule the slip of their senior colleague. Since the video fragment that spread on the Internet ends immediately after Biden’s words, neither the reaction of the audience nor the laughter of the politicians standing on stage were included in the video.

Earliest discovered "Verified" publication in Russian with this 15-second video and the caption that Biden “made a discouraging statement about his age” appeared on September 23, 2023, the day after Biden’s speech, in the Telegram channel “Ostashko! Important,” which belongs to Russian TV presenter Ruslan Ostashko. “Checked” more than once caught him on dissemination unreliable or completely fabricated news.

Joe Biden is truly the most age President of the United States, he was 78 years old on inauguration day. This fact has become the reason for numerous jokes and ridicule from Biden’s opponents, who are trying to present him as an insane old man who is not capable of governing the country. “Verified” has already examined reports that the politician got lost in the Capitol that it noticed in a store choosing books on fighting dementia or what he didn't recognize me and pushed me away British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. All of them turned out to be untrue, some were deliberately fabricated in order to portray the US President in an unfavorable light.

Biden is generally not averse to joking during his public appearances, and his statements are often taken out of context and presented as inappropriate. For example, this was the case with the scattered quote that the politician “had his skull opened a couple of times to make sure there was a brain,” which was part of the story about the operation for an aneurysm, and with his words that he sold many state secrets, which he said at a meeting with the heads of US technology companies and immediately called them a joke. This happened this time too. This is not the first time that an American president jokes about his age - for example, in June 2023, at a charity event in California, he compared his experience in foreign policy with the American diplomat Henry Kissinger, specifying that he “has been doing this all my life, the last 207 years” (Kissinger himself celebrated his 100th birthday this spring).

Thus, Biden really said that he was 856 years old, albeit in other words, but this was clearly a joke - he is indeed the oldest US president and, despite the constant attacks of his opponents on this matter, he is not averse to making fun of his considerable age.

*Russian authorities think the company Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social network Facebook, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.

Cover photo: Twitter POTUS