Did a military chaplain end a prayer with "Please get rid of Joe Biden and bring back the real president, Donald J. Trump"? No, that's not true: This audio has been edited. Lead Stories found the original video, taken at a pre-Thanksgiving visit with troops in 2023, in which the chaplain ends his prayer with, "Bless our fellowship, bless the food that we will receive. In your holy name, we pray. Amen."
The claim appeared on Instagram (archived here) where it was published on December 14, 2023, with the caption "What y'all think 🤔." Overlaying text on the video read:
I don't know...
Is this even REAL?
THIS IS CRAZY HE RIGHT THERE🤣🤣
This is what the Instagram post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Tue Dec 19 14:42:37 2023 UTC)
In the video, a man in a uniform is standing on a stage, holding a microphone and a document. President Joe Biden, first lady Jill Biden and a third person is standing behind him. The post claims that the man in the uniform says, "So anyway, please get rid of Joe Biden and bring back the real president, Donald J. Trump. Amen."
Lead Stories found the original (archived here) footage of this event on The White House's YouTube channel. This event is a "Friendsgiving Dinner with Service Members" in Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, with the video posted on November 19, 2023. Biden introduces the man in the uniform as the chaplain at 7:27 (archived here). The chaplain begins to lead the room in prayer. The last lines of the prayer were, "Bless our fellowship, bless the food that we will receive. In your holy name, we pray. Amen." The chaplain does not mention getting "rid of Joe Biden" or reinstating former president Trump in the prayer.
Lead Stories searched Google News for any evidence to support the claim found in the Instagram post. A search of the keywords, "Joe Biden AND "please get rid of Joe Biden and bring back the real president, Donald J. Trump. Amen" (archived here) did not yield any results in Google News' index of thousands of credible outlets.
Other Lead Stories fact checks on claims regarding Biden are here.
