Did President Joe Biden wave "to nobody" after delivering his address in Lithuania on July 12, 2023? No, that's not true: The claim is based on video showing only the president, not a wider shot showing the audience beside the stage.
The story appeared in a post on Instagram on July 12, 2023. The caption said:
Biden points and waves to nobody again...
The shared video began with a shot of the U.S. president and after that transitioned to a man saying on camera:
Can someone explain to me who the hell he's pointing at or waving to at this point? He's just waving, just pointing around. He has no idea what's going on, no idea where he is. He's got control of the nuclear codes. I feel really, really safe right now.
This is what it looked like on Instagram at the time of writing:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Thu Jul 13 15:43:56 2023 UTC)
The scene in question was captured in a medium shot, which left the location out of the frame. But as the camera starts to zoom out, even in the video on Instagram viewers can see flags and waving hands begin to appear around the stage, indicating that the speech was given at a large outdoor space.
A longer recording shows that people were standing not only in front of the podium but also on the right and on the left:
(Source: YouTube screenshot taken on Thu Jul 13 16:02:44 2023 UTC)
The fragment reused in the video on Instagram begins at the 21:23 mark; the longer video shows that the crowd remained around the stage when the speech ended.
The transcript of Biden's remarks in Vilnius, Lithuania, are here.
Other Lead Stories fact checks about Biden can be found here.
