It’s a curious scene: G7 leaders attend a parachute air show at their summit in Italy. They look at the sky and US President Joe Biden With his characteristic aviator sunglasses, he contemplates the spectacle with his mouth open.
When they land on the ground, Biden walks toward the paratroopers slowly, raises his thumbs up in a gesture of approval and the host of the summit, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, touches him on the arm to return to the rest of the group to listen to the explanations of a member of the Italian army.
Biden, 81 years old and the oldest president in US history, stands there with his arms hanging and listening intently.. An everyday moment for those who regularly follow it, but in the G7, where each gesture is analyzed in detail, it becomes a topic of conversation.
G7 leaders during the meeting in Italy.
Photo:AFP
The main reason is that the video that goes viral is manipulated. A few hours after the moment, The Republican Party posted a video on its X account in which the shot is cropped, so it seems that Biden is separating from the group because he is disoriented and that, when he raises his thumb, he does so in a vacuum.
Thousands of people immediately saw the video and the conservative newspaper The New York Post began to replicate it in X with this message: “President Biden seems to wander at the G7 summit in Italy with officials who need to bring him back to focus.”
Millions of people around the world have woken up to headlines of Joe Biden’s evident cognitive decline
The controversy grew and The New York Post placed on its Friday front page print edition stills of the manipulated video with the large headline in capital letters “MEANDER IN CHIEF” and accused the president of embarrassing the United States with his “confusing wanderings.”
The campaign of Republican Donald Trump (2017-2021), who will face Biden again in the November elections, He took advantage of the moment to portray the Democratic leader as a senile old man on the verge of collapse, unable to say a coherent sentence, much less lead the country.
“From Italy to the United Kingdom to New York, millions of people around the world have woken up to headlines of Joe Biden’s obvious cognitive decline seen at the G7 summit,” said campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt. from Trump, in a statement.
The Republican Party posted a video on its X account in which the shot is cropped, so it appears that Biden is separating from the group because he is disoriented.
Photo:AFP
Right away, The White House responded with a barrage of X messages criticizing conservative media for playing a video with “artificially narrow framing,” in the words of Andrew Bates, one of the government spokespersons.
White House Communications Director Ben LaBolt also warned in another X message: “Be wary of cheap fakes… and all the bad faith actors who spread them.”
Shortly after, Platform clarifying that Biden “had not become disoriented.”
G7 Summit organized by Italy, in Savelletri.
Photo:AFP
The age of President Joe Biden, a central point of the presidential campaign in the United States
The president’s age has become one of the most delicate issues of his re-election campaign. A Marquette University poll shows that 79% of Americans believe that the phrase “too old” describes Biden “very well or fairly well,” compared to 54% who think the same of Trump, who just turned 78 yesterday. .
It is undeniable that the image projected by Biden differs from that of Trump. He walks stiffly because he has arthritis, moves slowly, sometimes trips up stairs and, in most of his speeches, makes mistakes, doesn’t finish sentences or confuses the names of world leaders.
For example, in February of this year, he confused Emmanuel Macron, the current French president, with François Mitterrand, who led France between 1981 and 1995 and died in 1996.
Biden’s age has become a focal point of the presidential campaign.
Photo:AFP
The stuttering that Biden suffered as a child has reappeared over the years. However, that condition does not explain mistakes like the one that occurred in September 2022, when during an event at the White House she asked if Republican Congresswoman Jackie Walorski, who died more than a month ago, was in the audience.
These oversights will be exposed to even greater scrutiny as the campaign progresses, in which misinformation and video manipulation – also with artificial intelligence – could be determining factors.
The next litmus test for Biden will be the debate he will star in with Trump on the 27th of this month. the first of the electoral season in which voters will be able to buy the two candidates to lead the country.
This Saturday, in fact, the campaigns of the US president and Trump accepted the rules of the CNN format for face-to-face.
The 90-minute debate will include two commercial breaks, as CNN detailed this Saturday, and campaign staff will not be able to interact with their candidate during that time.
Joe Biden upon his arrival in Italy.
Photo:AFP
Both candidates also agreed to appear on identical podiums, and their positions on these will be determined by flipping a coin.
Among the parameters accepted by the Biden and Trump campaigns, it is established that the microphones will be closed throughout the debate except for the candidate whose turn it is to speak.
Contestants will also not be allowed on stage accessories or pre-written notes, although they will receive a pen, a notebook and a bottle of water.
