Is Joe Biden not in charge and is the military in control of the White House? No, that's not true. Biden is the president of the United States per the U.S. Constitution Article 20. The military is not in charge of the White House, and the president is the commander in chief of the military according to Article 2 Section II of the U.S. Constitution. In addition to putting forth false claims about who's in charge, a video makes several false statements about election fraud and vote audits as well as COVID-19 and the CDC, Bill Gates and CNN.
The claim appeared as a video (archived here) published by Ricky Rebel on YouTube on May 4, 2021, under the title "Trump's coming back. Military Intel with Cirsten W". It opened:
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Tuesdays with Rebel, I am your host Ricky Rebel and today we have an amazing guest.
Click below to watch the video on YouTube:
The video was originally posted on Ricky Rebel's Facebook page. He is joined by a woman named Cirsten Weldon and they make several false claims about election fraud, the presidency, the military and other conspiracy theory topics. Even though the title of the video is "Trump's coming back," neither Rebel nor Weldon specifically claims that. They do say at 5 minutes, 59 seconds that audits will show "they cheated" and they imply that the election will be overturned in favor of Donald Trump. But there are no facts to substantiate that.
We will break down the claims in the video here, with time codes linking readers directly to that point in the video:
ELECTION FRAUD
At 4 minutes, 56 seconds, Rebel is speaking about the ballot audit in Arizona and claims:
They have hundreds of thousands of ballots that are, allegedly, false."
Lead Stories debunked that claim here. As of May 11, 2021 no results from the audit commissioned by Republicans in the state Senate have been released. An exact release date is not known.
In a statement, dated March 31, 2021, state Senate Republicans said a report would be issued "in about 60 days." The statement read:
Because it is an independent audit, leadership will not be directly involved, and members do not expect to comment on any of the processes of the audit until the report is issued in about 60 days.
The state Senate has rented the coliseum where the audit is taking place until May 14, 2021.
At 8 minutes, 57 seconds Weldon makes misleading statements regarding audits that are taking place for the 2020 election. She states "New Hampshire is doing an audit." The state of New Hampshire is not conducting an audit of the entire state's ballots, only the ballots in the town of Windham are being audited, after questions over the results of a recount of a state legislature race, according to News Center Maine. The legislature approved the audit, and the governor signed the law authorizing it, but it is only for that one town. The audit began in Windham on May 11, 2021, according to New Hampshire Public Radio and includes the state representative, governor and U.S. senate races in the town, not the presidential race.
The Windham audit is scheduled to kick off in just a few minutes. (Not sure what this is all about? Catch up here: https://t.co/SypoCCkVU4)
-- Casey McDermott (@caseymcdermott) May 11, 2021
If you want to follow along with the audit, you can watch this livestream: https://t.co/mUxxotToz6
BIDEN IS NOT IN CHARGE
At 6 minutes, 54 seconds, Rebel says:
I have a friend, I'm not going to say who he is, his mother works in the Pentagon. She says, allegedly, that they've known all along that Biden is not really there. Not in charge. This is what she said, not me. Not there. And the military is in control of the White House. This is so fantastical."
Joe Biden is the official president and is in charge. Lead Stories has debunked this claim before here and here. Biden's presidency was made official January 20, 2021, under the terms of the 20th Amendment to the United States Constitution. He is the commander in chief of the military. The military is not in control of the White House. Lead Stories has debunked similar claims about the military and Biden here and here.
From the U.S. Constitution:
The terms of the President and the Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin."
Weldon agrees with Rebel and claims at 7 minutes, 38 seconds that strange occurrences happened at the White House:
And then on the 28th they have, allegedly, two ambulances came out. There was a direct energy [she says "direct energy" and mouths the word "weapon"] DEW found. And also there were snipers on the roof. That was on the 28th."
April 28, 2021 was the night of Biden's first address to the Joint Session of Congress. Ambulances are a standard part of the presidential motorcade. The Secret Service Counter Assault Team, the "snipers" Weldon is referring to, is always deployed on the roof of the White House and visible when the president departs. There is no evidence of a direct energy weapon at the White House.
CNN
At 15 minutes, 27 seconds Weldon claims CNN was "created by the CIA." That is not true. CNN was founded by Ted Turner in 1980. There is no evidence that Ted Turner worked for the CIA, and the CIA did not fund CNN.
COVID-19
At 30 minutes, 45 seconds Weldon and Rebel discussed the COVID-19 vaccine and she claims:
And what's going to happen to the big V-A-X company, AKA the CDC, that's owned by Bill and Melinda Gates."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is a government agency and is not privately owned by the Gates family. It is not providing vaccines for COVID-19. From the agency's website:
How does CDC get operating funds?
The main source of CDC discretionary funds is budget authority, which are annual appropriations determined by the U.S. Congress. In FY 2020, Congress appropriated $6.8 billion in budget authority to CDC and directed the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary to transfer $854.3 million in Prevention and Public Health Funds (PPHF) and $225.0 million in Nonrecurring Expenses Fund to CDC for a total program funding level of $7,919,196,000. Details for CDC's FY 2020 budget request and operating plan are available at: https://www.cdc.gov/budget/.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has made donations to the CDC, per their website.
