Does a clip showing open computer files prove President Joe Biden's farewell address was prerecorded? No, that's not true: The recording only showed Biden's photo, not the purportedly prerecorded video file with his speech. Plus, a White House pool photographer took a photo capturing the final moments of the speech and posted it as the president was still speaking.
The claim appeared in a post on Instagram on January 15, 2025. It said:
SHOCKER! Joe Biden's farewell address to America was PRE-RECORDER.The official livestream just accidentally caught his staff queuing it up.
This is what the post looked like on Instagram at the time of writing:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Thu Jan 16 16:03:29 2025 UTC)
The recording shared in the post captured what looked like a screenshot recording of someone's desktop. It showed a folder with different files, including one displaying Biden's photo and the date of his farewell address.
A larger, uncropped version of the clip on X, however, showed that the file was a JPG image opened first in the preview software and then in the full-screen mode, not the "prerecorded" video. If you expand the screenshot below, the file's type -- JPG -- is visible. And the details of the preview interface are consistent with preview software for images, not videos. For example, it offers to print or rotate the file. Videos would likely have the play button in the middle.
(Source: X screenshot taken on Thu Jan 16 15:43:40 2025 UTC)
Biden delivered his farewell address on January 15, 2025, at 8 p.m. EST. It lasted 17 minutes. The transcript can be found here; the recording is here. Several news organizations -- for example, ABC and VOA (Voice of America) Kurdish -- that broadcast the address showed the screenshot of Biden and the date for several minutes -- the same screenshot in the video on Instagram making the claim -- before the president went on air live.
At the final moments of the speech, Doug Mills, a senior photographer in Washington for The New York Times who was one of the White House pool journalists observing the scene, posted a photo of the Oval Office:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Thu Jan 16 18:12:06 2025 UTC)
The timing of Mills' post was consistent with the time of the address, and Biden's outfit -- a black suit and a blue tie -- matched what viewers saw on TV.
The claim originated from the @TrumpWarRoom account on X. At the time of writing, the post was already deleted but Google still showed it as an image. It was reposted (archived here) on X by Donald Trump's incoming Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
The uncropped version of the video file displayed the AP logo in the bottom right corner. Lead Stories contacted the news organization for additional comments but did not receive an immediate response.
Other Lead Stories fact checks of claims about Joe Biden can be found here. Articles about claims involving Donald Trump are here.
