Is Biden Still Fit for Office? When Real Images Lie

The president also moved stiffly at the G7 summit. He is not as disoriented as Republican videos suggest — but they are still tearing him down.

Joe Biden is an old man. He moves stiffly, some say even robotically. Arriving at the G7 summit in Rome, he teetered so uncertainly down the stairs of Air Force One that anyone watching with empathy would have worried whether he would reach the ground unscathed. The images hurt his reputation and his campaign for reelection. But they are real. He is, after all, 81 years old. That’s one thing.

It’s another thing entirely when fake news chefs in Republican election headquarters and foreign media’s toxic kitchens cook up videos that make Biden seem even older, more geriatric, and more senile than he is. They use real scenes, like images from the G7 summit or the visit to France for the 80th anniversary of the Allies’ D-Day landing in Normandy.

They pull the images out of context and edit them to present viewers with a misleading impression. Biden appears disoriented, some might even say demented.

The videos lie. But they are enormously powerful. They “go viral,” as the phrase goes in social media. They have the potential to tear Biden down and undermine his chances at reelection.

The most recent video to distort reality purports to show a Biden who does not realize that the other G7 colleagues are lining up for a group photo while they observe a parachuting exercise. He seems to walk in the wrong direction and to talk to no one in particular.

But anyone who watches the scene in context or a fuller video sequence gets a very different impression. Biden turns to two soldiers who are currently struggling with their parachutes on the ground, fitting with his affable nature. Then, Giorgia Meloni calls him back to the group.

Biden Searches for a Chair — Or Does He?

Donald Trump’s campaign attack team and international misinformation spin doctors treated images from the D-Day events in Normandy a week ago very similarly. They edited the footage to give the impression that Biden wanted to sit down but did not realize that there was no chair under him. In fact, as AP confirmed, Biden was glancing over his shoulder to confirm where his chair was and paused for a moment before sitting down.

It is a classic example of when and how misinformation is most effective. One takes a kernel of truth and builds a false narrative around it.

It has been known for at least a year that age and fitness are among the two greatest threats to Biden’s reelection in November. In early June 2023, he tripped over a sandbag that was holding down a cable on stage and fell flat in front of rolling cameras. Biden on the floor.

Trump and the Republicans have since had the scenes they need to wear away at Biden’s image, no matter that the edited and extreme videos, cut and rearranged, are lies. The doctored footage exacerbates a problem that is true without resorting to exaggeration.

But Biden is still running, and he has denied the Democratic Party an opportunity to cultivate younger alternatives, the best of which might have gained a foothold in the primaries.

Biden’s decision to run was both ambitious and courageous. His primary argument was that he was the only who has defeated Trump and knows how to do it.

It was also a reckless decision because it renders the future of the United States global power dependent on how fit Biden will be during the 2024 campaign. The 81-year-old no longer has the same energy or health that he had as a 77-year-old during the 2020 campaign.

It is very possible that the U.S. won’t be the only one who will pay the bitter price of this miscalculation. Germany, Europe, and Ukraine will, too.