Does a video show President Joe Biden trying to sit on "a chair that doesn't exist" on June 6, 2024, during ceremonies commemorating D-Day in France? No, that's not true: The video that went viral on social media has been edited to crop out the moment Biden sits down on an existing, tangible chair. In the extended video, Biden is seen simply wavering above the chair and slowly sitting down in the chair alongside first lady Jill Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron, who sat in real chairs of their own.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X, formerly known as Twitter, on June 6, 2024. The caption read:
Biden trying to sit down on a chair that doesn't exist.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Thu June 6 15:19:44 2024 UTC)
A comment under this post has a repost (archived here) with an extended version of the video seen in the post on X. The longer version shows Biden noticeably sitting in an actual chair among many other people who are also seated. In the caption of this repost, the author, @EdKrassen, writes:
There is literally a chair right behind Biden that he literally sat in a few seconds after you cut this clip.
The longer, uncut version shows Biden at a ceremony on June 6, 2024, commemorating the Allied landings in Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944.
A Google search (archived here) produced a June 6, 2024, YouTube video by Reuters, titled, "LIVE: US President Joe Biden marks the 80th anniversary of D-Day landings," which, at 4:16:33, displayed an extended version of the video in the post making the "chair that doesn't exist" claim. The video shows Biden wavering over an existing chair that he then slowly sat down on as others sat.
Lead Stories did a search using keywords on Google News, visible here, which found no credible documents or reporting to corroborate the claim of "a chair that doesn't exist."
Additional Lead Stories fact checks on claims concerning Joe Biden can be read here.
