Joe Biden vs Donald Trump battle for the presidency is getting messier. But things took a nasty turn after Republican leader Steve Scalise shared a doctored video of Biden's interview with Ady Barkan, who speaks through voice assistance due to ALS. The video was not only in poor taste as it doctored Barkan's question, but it wanted to suggest Biden was all for defunding the police. The Republicans don't seem to give rest to the concept of sharing doctored videos as another one has come to light, which shows as if Biden fell asleep during an interview.
The claim
White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications Dan Scavino shared a video of an interview on his Twitter handle. The short snippet of a local news channel interview depicted Biden sleeping while the female news anchor tries to wake him up. After multiple failed attempts, the anchor laughingly says he might be meditating or taking a quick nap.
— Dan Scavino (@DanScavino) August 30, 2020
Interestingly, the anchor doesn't mention Biden's name in the 27-second clip, but the news ticker reads: "On Air: Joe Biden."
Fact Check
There are several elements in the video that show it is fake. Firstly, the video has the audio of light snoring, which doesn't match with Biden's facial expression. But more concrete evidence is when Sacramento-area news anchor John Dabkovitch said the video interview is manipulated. He knew as he was the co-anchor in the studio when the original interview took place.
The original interview took place in 2011 and it was with singer Harry Belafonte on California-news outlet KBAK. Dabkovitch also shared the original video on his Twitter handle for clarification, which can be found embedded below.
After Dabkovitch's clarification, Twitter also added a "manipulated media" tag, something the social media platform had done on Scalise's doctored video over the weekend.
Based on all the concrete evidence, IBTimes declared the video to be doctored and misleading.
