Does a video show President Joe Biden struggling to speak during an MSNBC interview? No, that's not true: The video has been heavily edited to only show when the president stumbled over his words and it is not a true depiction of what he said in the nearly 20-minute interview, as an uncut version of the interview shows.
The claim appeared in a video on TikTok on June 30, 2023, by Redwhite&JESUS (archived here) with following description:
Wow!! #republican #democrat #biden #conservative #liberal #gottobekiddingme #MSM
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:
Redwhite&JESUS on TikTok
Wow!! #republican #democrat #biden #conservative #liberal #gottobekiddingme #MSM
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Jul 25 21:53:51 2023 UTC)
The one-minute 25-second video opens with host Nicolle Wallace speaking and then quickly cuts to Biden speaking but hesitating, stuttering and not completely finishing a sentence. The entire version on TikTok shows the president unable to complete a sentence and struggling over many words. This is not what occurred during the June 29, 2023, interview between Wallace and Biden, as the YouTube video posted on the MSNBC channel shows.
TikTok opening:
Wallace: Hi there everyone, it's 4 o'clock in New York. The president of the United States is here. Joe Biden, thank you for being here.
Biden: Thank you for having me.
Wallace: This is very exciting for us.
Biden: I just find it ... um ... I don't know how to express it ...
In the MSNBC YouTube video, Wallace speaks for 36 seconds before Biden does and he does not immediately stutter. This is what they say to each other at the 0:36 mark:
Wallace: Joe Biden, thank you for being here.
Biden: Thank you for having me.
Wallace: This is very exciting for us.
Biden: Exciting for me.
Biden saying "I just find it ... um ... I don't know how to express it," occurs later in the interview. He was speaking about the Supreme Court and describing the way the court has ruled in the Dobbs case that overturned Roe v. Wade. At the 2:24 mark in the full interview on YouTube he is referring to the Court when he says:
And I just find it, um, I don't know how to express it, find it just so out of sorts with the basic value system of the American people and I think that across the board the vast majority of the American people don't agree with a lot of the decisions this Court is making.
At 0:56 in the TikTok video Biden says "it's a matter of" and then appears to not be able to get the words out. The original video on YouTube, beginning at the 10:27 mark, shows he said:
I just think that it's a matter of, um, and and this is not a criticism of press, it's an observation, there's a lot to be worried about around the world.
At the 1:09 mark in the TikTok video Biden says "and what I found was awfully hard," and then appears to stumble over his words. At the 11:44 mark in the YouTube video he is speaking slowly and deliberately about the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017:
And one I found was that uh ... it was it was awfully hard to uh to stay silent when I saw those people coming out of the woods. I mean literally you ever think you never think we see people in Charlottesville [Wallace says "without the hoods"] yeah, coming out of the woods with lighted torches carrying swastikas.
Other Lead Stories fact checks about Biden can be found here.
