A few posts about President-elect Joe Biden are being shared on social media with a claim that he was partying with ‘his friends’ without anyone wearing a mask, in the middle of the pandemic, on his birthday, which was on November 20.
“Biden and Friends Busted Partying and Singing Without Masks or Social Distancing at Joe’s Elite Birthday Bash,” the headline of the articles shared on Facebook read.
The same article was shared by multiple websites on Facebook.
Many users also shared the screenshot of the various article with the same claim.
Link to the above post. Similar posts were shared extensively on Facebook.
More such posts can be seen here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the post and found it to to be misleading.
We ran a Reverse Image Search on the image and found a tweet by Keisha Lance Bottoms (standing beside Biden in the picture), the Mayor of Atlanta.
Keisha Lance Bottoms uploaded the video on November 20, 2020, with the caption, “Wishing our President-Elect @joebiden a VERY Happy Birthday from the great Blue state of Joe’gia!”
Wishing our President-Elect @joebiden a VERY Happy Birthday from the great Blue state of Joe’gia! pic.twitter.com/knv2XtcqYq
— Keisha Lance Bottoms (@KeishaBottoms) November 20, 2020
After the video went viral with false rumours, Bottoms clarified that the video was from 2019 and was not taken during the on-going pandemic.
“Pre-Covid! This was in the @TPStudios White House following the @DNC @msnbc debate on 11/20/19, ” she wrote.
Pre-Covid! This was in the @TPStudios White House following the @DNC @msnbc debate on 11/20/19. https://t.co/7IVxsirx2J
— Keisha Lance Bottoms (@KeishaBottoms) November 20, 2020
We then ran a keyword search and found video reports of the Democratic Debate in Atlanta which was held on November 20, 2019.
The event was hosted by The Washington Post in association with MSNBC. You can hear the debate here and read the transcript here.
This proves that on November 20, 2019, Biden was in Atlanta.
We then ran another keyword search and found media reports from November 20, 2020, stating that President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris had held an in-person meeting on Friday with Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer, in Wilmington, Delaware.
Another report by NBC News can be read here.
Hence, from the above information, it is clear that the President-elect was in Wilmington, Delaware and not Atlanta on the day of his birthday and the video in circulation is from 2019.
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