During Monday's press briefing, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed over a dozen times that videos showing concerning moments that President Joe Biden has had amount to "cheap fakes." Sure enough, on Tuesday, CBS News stepped in to provide cover for the White House when it comes to videos that we've seen with our own eyes. It was a segment that our sister site of Twitchy quipped could have been written by Jean-Pierre herself, and one which Guy touched upon as well, as he fittingly phrased it as "surreal gaslighting" when it comes to how Biden and the media "collude."
The segment claimed that footage from Biden at the G7 summit, when he had to be pulled back by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, was one of those "cheap fakes" and had even been a "digitally altered video." After being thoroughly ratioed, though, CBS News took their post down.
Deleted, but the List comes for all, @CBSNews.
— The List (@ListComesForAll) June 19, 2024
✍️✍️✍️ pic.twitter.com/JDnu4X9zGx
CBS News still posted the segment again on Wednesday, though this one was also heavily ratioed. There's also another post in the thread, one claiming the "earlier post was removed as it included the wrong version of a video." And these are the people who take it upon themselves to lecture the American people about "[m]isleading video clips," who even thought to insist at the clip that "CBS Confirmed is one of the most credible!"
The segment claimed that such videos amount to "forms of misinformation" and "are being picked up by news outlets that know they're fakes or know that they are misleading, but post them anyway."
CBS News Confirmed Executive Editor Rhona Tarrant was on to warn about the upcoming election when it comes to these "cheap fake" videos, especially as there is a "steady stream of videos that are targeting President Biden, and in particular taking aim at his age," a point she lamented multiple times.
Tarrant, who is tagged in the video has locked her X account.
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An earlier post was removed as it included the wrong version of a video. This version has been updated to include the correct clip and label on the edited video.
— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 19, 2024
We don't need "cheap fake" videos to raise concerns with Biden's age, as Tarrant herself addressed, especially when it comes to his mental and cognitive abilities. Footage of the president in real time shows him forgetting the names of his cabinet members as well as slurring his words, and even the official White House transcripts confirm this. Jean-Pierre also harped on specific moments or narratives to fixate on, without ever really directly answering if Biden is "fine," as was the case with Newsmax's James Rosen on Monday.
Then comes Brian Stelter, now of Vanity Fair, who returned to CNN to speak more to the issue.
The clip begins with host Abby Phillip insulting the intelligence of the American people as she claims being able to tell if a video is real or not "is going to be really tough and tricky for voters to sort through," also claiming someone who is "a regular voter" can't be expected to do their due diligence.
Stelter brought up Jean-Pierre's narrative on "cheap fakes" to cover for the White House, as being "distorted, out of context videos chopped up in certain ways, constructed in certain ways" which is "what we're seeing," supposedly.
In emphasizing how the White House and Biden reelection campaign is so worried about such video evidence, Stelter insisted "they are worried about this, this is a real problem, this is not some made-up fiction. The videos are oftentimes made up, but the problem is real!"
Brian Stelter on the Biden bumbles: "This is a real problem. This is not some made-up fiction. The videos are oftentimes made up, but the problem is real."
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) June 19, 2024
The videos are "made up"? So much for Facts First.
Later he implied twice that Biden-bumble videos are just "LIES." pic.twitter.com/DvPhqvJPvi
These are just a few of many examples, though. As Grabien's Tom Elliott pointed out on Wednesday, the media spent 49 hours in three days circulating such talking points. "ORDERS RECEIVED" indeed.
ORDERS RECEIVED: In the last 3 days, the corporate media has spent 49 hours circulating the White House's "cheap fakes" talking point pic.twitter.com/1R3tPmm7To
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) June 19, 2024
Sure enough, on Wednesday morning The Hill put out a piece as well, "'Cheap fake' Biden videos burst into national spotlight."
"The rise of the videos, which do not use artificial intelligence (AI) but are cropped or edited in a way that is misleading, marks the latest instance of how technology may be used deceptively during the 2024 campaign," the article claims early on. Despite how the article acknowledges polls show voters have concerns about Biden's mental and cognitive health, the article still laments concerns over the president's age. "The videos, which are often shared by conservative accounts and Biden critics, feed into the narrative that he is a feeble man prone to states of confusion," the article claims, though that Biden actually is "a feeble man prone to states of confusion" might have something to do with it.
During that Monday briefing, Jean-Pierre kept speaking about such "cheap fake" videos having been "fact-checked." Fox News' Howie Kurtz did some fact-checking of his own during "America Reports," though on Tuesday.
"There's a different kind of, conflation going on here that, anything that you see now is manipulated by the media is false, is fake, is bogus, and that's flat out untrue," he said when speaking specifically about clips from the G7.
Kurtz also spoke about how former President Barack Obama made the move to step in at a fundraiser last weekend to guide Biden off of the stage. "I find what Barack Obama did inexplicable because he knows the narrative that is built up around his former vice president," Hurtz pointed out. He also added "and yet everything you saw there was real not one second was altered. He took Biden by the hand and then led him off the stage with his hand consistently on his back. And I think that, I'm sure the Biden campaign is not happy about it. But the point is that happened. Nobody can spin it. We all saw it. Nothing was altered."
"To suggest that anything like that, is any unflattering video of Joe Biden that appears to show him being frail, he's 81 years old, as we all know, has got to be fake, has got to be manipulated. It is a deep fake. It’s a cheap fake. It may be cheap, John, but it's not necessarily fake," Kurtz also offered to host John Roberts.
Greg Gutfeld, another Fox News host, also addressed the "cheap fakes" narrative on multiple episodes this week of "Gutfeld!"
Just as Gutfeld, Katie, and others have also pointed out, it's astounding that the same folks from the mainstream media who are lecturing us on "cheap fake" narratives dared to claim Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian misinformation in the days before the 2020 election. For an outlet that sees itself as being supposedly so credible, it wasn't until nearly two years later that CBS News "confirmed" the Hunter Biden laptop.
The same people telling you videos of Biden looking lost, confused, senile, and angry are fake are the same people who claimed Hunter's laptop was Russian disinformation ... they're also the same people who pushed the Trump pee tape, claimed the border is secure, and insisted…
— The🐰FOO (@PolitiBunny) June 18, 2024
Friendly reminder that EVERYBODY telling you Biden's brain freezes are fake told you Hunter's Laptop was fake, the border was closed, the vaxx stopped transmission, and then had the BALLS to warn us about the dangers of misinformation. We are living in the death of shame.
— Jimmy Failla (@jimmyfailla) June 18, 2024
"These videos are about as fake as the Hunter Biden laptop — they are real. People can see for themselves what they are." –@KatiePavlich pic.twitter.com/3ynlhiBMVh
— Spencer Brown (@itsSpencerBrown) June 18, 2024
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