President Joe Biden delivered his farewell address to the nation Wednesday night. If you watched it, you know it was a painful and pathetic last-ditch effort to salvage his legacy and spin his presidency before he exits the White House.
After four years marked by scandal, economic stagnation, international embarrassments, and domestic unrest, Biden seems intent on spinning his legacy into something remotely positive. His frantic attempts to frame his presidency as anything but a failure are as transparent as they are unconvincing—a final, flailing effort before being put out to pasture.
The timing of the address is particularly striking, coming just hours after Biden attempted to claim credit for brokering an agreement between Israel and Hamas—a move transparently aimed at deflecting months of domestic criticism over his mishandling of the conflict.
But, as with so many of Biden's broadcast addresses to the nation, we're left with the nagging question of whether the address was truly live or prerecorded.
The Trump War Room account on X may have found evidence that the address was prerecorded.
The account shared video from the official White House livestream that, according to the Trump campaign account, "just accidentally caught his handlers queuing it up."
🚨 Crooked Joe Biden's farewell address to America is pre-recorded.
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) January 16, 2025
The official livestream just accidentally caught his handlers queuing it up. pic.twitter.com/NckvD0bcio
In fairness, this appears to be a simple screen graphic, not a prerecorded movie file. The filename selected ends with the word "slate," which is a broadcasting industry term for a screen graphic.
Does that mean the broadcast wasn't prerecorded? No. But, there are other reasons to believe it was live. For one thing, if you watched it, you probably noticed Biden stumbling regularly throughout the address. It's hard to believe that such a sloppy job would have been deemed acceptable by his handlers.
We've called out Biden videos before for being prerecorded and heavily edited. For example, the 13-second video of Biden challenging Trump to debate had five jump cuts, a telltale sign that it required multiple takes to get 13 seconds of usable footage.
Similarly, after Joe Biden's disastrous debate performance at the end of June, the While House released what was a blatant campaign commercial. It was bad.
Democracy is the essence of who we are. pic.twitter.com/OHwbSoDRM3
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) June 30, 2024
I counted eight jump cuts in this 38-second video, suggesting it took numerous takes for Biden to make it through. Even then, his delivery was often hard to follow. I suspect that's why captions were added. And let’s not forget that this heavily edited clip represented the best takes from who knows how many attempts.
There were no jump cuts during his farewell address. So, if it was prerecorded they used the best take they could muster, and it wasn't very good.
I suspect the White House didn't have high hopes for the address from the begining because, earlier in the day, Biden released a self-serving “letter to the American people” where he outlined why he ran for president and reflected on his term, seemingly oblivious to the public’s dismal assessment of his tenure.
Five more days, folks. Five more days.
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