What Biden video keeps, ignores about Marjorie Taylor Greene’s speech seemingly praising him

The Great Society were big government programs to address education, medical care, urban problems, rural poverty, transportation, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and welfare, the Office of Economic Opportunity and big labor and labor unions. Now LBJ had the Great Society but Joe Biden had Build Back Better and he still is working on it. The largest public investment and social infrastructure and environmental programs that is actually finishing what FDR started, that LBJ expanded on, and Joe Biden is attempting to complete. Socialism.

 

Greene’s original speech clearly wasn’t endorsing Biden’s policies. 

"It does not portray the tone and intent of the speech that was bitterly critical of the president," said Al Tompkins, a former senior faculty member at the Poynter Institute, about Biden’s video. (Poynter is the parent organization of PolitiFact.) It is a "gotcha," he said.

We transcribed Greene’s full speech here, and below we’ll offer a close reading of some of her words, along with how Biden portrayed them.

We reached out to Biden’s campaign and Greene’s office but heard back from neither.

This splicing does not completely change what Greene said, but it omits that she framed this agenda as "socialism."

Greene teed up that section of the speech by saying, "Lyndon B. Johnson is very similar to Joe Biden. How are they the same? They're both Democrat socialist." And she closed the section quoted in Biden’s posts by repeating the word, "socialism."

Biden has previously pushed back against Republican claims that he’s socialist by emphasizing that he’s a capitalist. We gave then-President Donald Trump a False when he accused Biden of being a socialist in 2020.

Beyond removing Greene’s "socialist" criticism, Biden’s posts ignore that the rest of her comments are highly negative about him, his party, and his supporters.

Early in her speech, Greene offers 16 one-liners all starting with, "You might be a pedophile if…" They variously attack Democrats, liberals, and Biden himself, and one targets physicians who offer gender-affirming care. 

PolitiFact has previously debunked some of the claims Greene made, including ones about Target selling "tuck-friendly" bathing suits; about Biden allegedly sniffing strangers’ children; and about students being forced to read a book called "Gender Queer."

Later in the speech, Greene makes extended remarks about how the United States should not be involved in the war in Ukraine.

This is part of her comparison of Biden with Johnson: In office, Johnson increased the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War. Greene said that U.S. involvement in Ukraine, which does not currently involve U.S. troops, will inevitably cross over into U.S. boots on the ground defending Ukraine.