Did 80-year-old President Joe Biden get lost in the U.S. Capitol building on September 14, 2023 and did he need a "security intervention" to find his way? No, that's not true: The video making this claim misrepresents a scene from Biden's February 2023 State of the Union address by replacing the original sound. The actual C-SPAN footage of the event has different sound and no captions like the falsified video.
The story originated in a post (archived here) on X, formerly known as Twitter, on September 14, 2023. The text overlay on the video, presenting the quotes, says:
We are in the Capitol building, and you are going the wrong way. Exit on the other side of the building like we gave in the map.
The caption's version of the second sentence is: "Exit on the other side of the building, as we indicated to you on the map." The caption on the post continues:
Joe Biden needs security intervention because he went wrong in the building where he worked for 40 years.
This is what the video looked like on X at the time of writing:
The seven-second video used subtitles to create the impression that the blonde woman in a camel-colored jacket was saying to Biden the words attributed to her in the post. However, their supposed conversation is barely audible, except for several words such as "building" and "map."
An expanded view of the video shows that the woman's lips are out of sync with the audio.
A reverse image search shows that the clip on X is an extremely cropped version of a fragment from Biden's 2023 State of the Union footage, which was broadcast live by C-SPAN. The scene appears at the 2:04:55 mark:
(Source: C-SPAN screenshot taken on Fri Sep 15 14:37:45 2023 UTC)
This fragment captures Biden talking to the crowd after his address. He is not lost -- he is heading toward the exit from the chamber when the woman in a camel-colored jacket approaches him.
It's unclear what exactly she tells the president, but audible bits of Biden's response show that his reaction to the delivered information can be described as concern, rather than disorientation. Taking the woman's hands, the president says:
People will get angry. They feel like they're being used.
The several seconds after that are inaudible again, but the woman can then be heard saying:
... anything I can do to help support that effort, I will.
Biden then turns to an apparent aide behind him, points briefly at the woman, and says:
Get her number.
The woman then steps back into the crowd, and Biden continues to chat with the people surrounding him.
Contrary to the claim, the original audio does not contain the words "building" or "map."
Lead Stories contacted the White House for additional comments about the claim. If we receive a response, this story will be updated as appropriate.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks of claims about Joe Biden can be found here.
