White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre appeared visibly agitated last week when she dismissed viral videos of Joe Biden’s recent senior moments as “cheap fakes,” throttling the term into the public consciousness. Of course, if you’re familiar with any of the social media accounts connected to the White House, Biden, or his campaign, you know that “cheap fakes’ are their bread and butter. They’re constantly taking Trump’s words out of context or blatantly describing something he says inaccurately. Worse yet, recent videos from the White House or the Biden campaign frequently rely on an excessive number of jump cuts, suggesting that Biden was struggling to recite a simple script without making a mistake.
Still, in light of the White House’s strategy to dismiss embarrassing videos of Biden as “cheap fakes,” one might think that it would avoid the practice itself. Well, one might think that, but it’s not the case. Why not? Because the mainstream media won’t call the administration out on it.
After Trump’s huge rally in North Philadelphia over the weekend, there was a barrage of media reports attempting to downplay the size of the crowd, even though it was indisputably huge for a Trump rally in a deep, deep blue area.
On Sunday, the Biden campaign wasted no time in trying to outshine Trump, asserting that President Biden drew a larger crowd at the same venue. Here’s what the campaign posted.
President Biden vs. Donald Trump speaking at the same venue in Philly 👀 pic.twitter.com/m33CZ7E0c6
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) June 23, 2024
The impression the side-by-side images suggest is that Biden and Trump had a rally at the same venue and Trump’s was far more empty. But there’s a lot that the post doesn’t say.
First starters, as previously mentioned, North Philadelphia is about as blue as you can get. That Trump had a rally there at all was huge in itself. But the Biden campaign is misleading you in other ways, too. How? The image on the left isn’t a 2024 Biden rally. It’s a rally for Pennsylvania Democrats that included then-gubernatorial nominee Josh Shapiro and then-Senate candidate John Fetterman. On top of that, Barack Obama and Biden were at the event. So, the events aren’t even comparable.
Also, what the photo doesn’t show is that the arena during the Pennsylvania Democrats’ rally in 2022, featuring both Biden and Obama, only filled about half the stadium:
On the same night that DT had his 3rd night in a row with 10’s of thousands of people, in a 10,000 capacity arena, here is a Mostly empty stadium at the Biden/Obama/Fetterman rally. This is at Temple University in deep blue Philadelphia pic.twitter.com/kd5IzQGnOM
— Costa G (@CostaGlaropoulo) November 7, 2022
Compare that to the following video from the trump rally over the weekend:
Look at all those empty seats in Philadelphia. Old man can’t even fill a high school gym fill anymore.
Sad. pic.twitter.com/OucqYLzQdU
— Chris D. Jackson (@ChrisDJackson) June 22, 2024
It’s hard to tell exactly from these two videos, but it sure looks like the Trump rally was better attended than the Biden/Obama/Fetterman/Shapiro rally in 2022.
In short, the Biden campaign posted a cheap fake in an attempt to mock the size of the Trump rally, which took place in a heavily pro-Biden area. The next time Biden wants to compare rally sizes, let’s see how he does in a deep red area.
