Does a viral clip authentically show Donald Trump's son Barron "whispering something to Biden" during his father's second inauguration on January 20, 2025? No, that's not true: The cropped video misled viewers about the scene's content. The footage of the same scene shot from a different angle showed that at that particular moment Trump's son spoke to outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris, not outgoing President Joe Biden.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X on January 20, 2025. It said:
Barron whispered something to Biden and his faces instantly changed.
What did Barron say? lol
This is what the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Tue Jan 21 20:32:38 2025 UTC)
The post implied that Barron Trump's "whisper" was audible, even in the loud environment of the Capitol Rotunda (archived here) filled with hundreds of attendees.
However, this was not what happened.
The same scene shot from a different angle showed that Barron said something to Biden from a greater distance as he was approaching the outgoing president for a handshake. As Barron Trump moved closer to Biden, he shook hands with Harris, who stood next to Biden. Barron and Harris had a quick exchange, which is what the viral clip depicted, not Trump's son "whispering" in Biden's ear.
An uncropped version of the footage (archived here) published by the Daily Mail portrayed the scene from the same perspective as the clip that is the focus of this fact check. That recording confirmed that Barron Trump shook hands with Harris at that particular point of time during his father's inauguration ceremony.
Other Lead Stories fact checks mentioning Barron Trump can be found here and here. Stories about Donald Trump are here.
