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Madison Czopek
By Madison Czopek May 18, 2023

This video doesn’t prove Joe Biden had an inappropriate relationship with a minor. It’s edited.

If Your Time is short

  • An Instagram video that appears to show a man confronting President Joe Biden about an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old girl is fake.

  • It features deceptively edited clips of a 2019 Biden interview spliced together with segments from the show, "To Catch a Predator." 

  • Biden has been the target of pedophilia attacks for years, but we’ve found no credible evidence to support such claims.

Despite some crafty editing, a video circulating online that appears to show a man confronting President Joe Biden about an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old girl is fake. 

The video spliced together an interview of Biden discussing his performance at a Democratic presidential debate in 2019 and clips from the Dateline NBC reality show, "To Catch a Predator," which was hosted by television journalist Chris Hansen.  

Posted May 9 to Instagram, the edited video presents the following exchange: 

Unidentified girl: "Yeah, I’m pretty excited. Are you excited?"

Biden: "I’m looking forward to this, man."

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Unidentified girl: "What do you want to do?"

Biden: "Show me something … Come here, man."

Hansen: "So I hate to be the bearer of bad news …"

Biden: "Oh, come on, man."

Hansen: "What’s your plan here?"

Biden: "Look, this is not — But that, they — "

Hansen: "You knew she was 13."

Biden: "No, I didn’t."

Hansen: "Well, I’ve got the transcript right here."

Biden: [Laughs] 

Hansen: "So, this is funny?"

Biden: "No. I — I get all this information about … "

Hansen (voiceover): "Instead of taking responsibility, he tries — "

It cuts off midsentence. A longer version exists and has been shared repeatedly on TikTok. Stitched together, the conversation suggests that Biden was caught during an inappropriate exchange with a minor.

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

Dateline NBC’s hidden camera reality TV series, "To Catch A Predator," ran from 2004 to 2007. With Hansen as its host, the series worked with an online watchdog group and law enforcement to identify and, when possible, apprehend potential sexual predators.

The show "uses actors who pose as teenagers, underage kids, to lure older men into what they think will be sexual encounters, and it’s surprisingly easy to find such men online," summarized Neal Conan, a former host of NPR’s "Talk Of The Nation." "NBC News doesn’t run the stings — that’s the work of Perverted Justice, an online watchdog group. And once the meeting’s all set, the would-be molester is surprised by the show’s host, Chris Hansen."

By splicing "To Catch A Predator" clips alongside remarks by Biden, the video suggests that Biden is a sexual predator. But the Biden clips come from a July 2019 interview with then-CNN  anchor Chris Cuomo. Cuomo and Biden were discussing the 2020 presidential race. 

Featured Fact-check

Here’s a transcript of part of the Biden-Cuomo exchange that was used in the Instagram video. The exchange begins about seven minutes and 35 seconds into the CNN interview. We bolded Biden remarks that were used in the deceptively edited Instagram video. 

Cuomo: "How do you beat (President Donald Trump)?"

Biden: "I beat him by just pointing out who I am, and who he is, and what we’re for and what he’s against. This guy is the divider in chief. This guy is acting with racist policies. This guy is moving to foment hate. To split. That’s the only way he can be … sustain himself."

Cuomo: "Nothing about him worries you?"

Biden: "Oh, well sure it worries me in the sense that I’m looking forward to this, man. You walk behind me in a debate … Come here, man. Don’t you think I … you know me too well. The idea that I’d be intimidated by Donald Trump? He’s the bully that I knew my whole life. He’s the bully that I’ve always stood up to. He’s the bully who used to make fun — when I was a kid and I’d stutter, and I smacked him in the mouth. 

"Look, this is not — But that, they — I think the American people want a president who has some dignity, who has a value set … " 

We found "To Catch a Predator" clips on YouTube that match the clips of Hansen walking out to confront Biden — but in the clips, he’s confronting a different person entirely. 

Biden has been the target of pedophilia attacks for years, but we’ve found no credible evidence to support such claims. In 2020, PolitiFact fact-checked pedophilia claims against Biden, and we found no news reports, formal accusations, complaints, arrests or investigations that implicate Biden in any sort of sex crimes involving kids.

On social media, allegations of sexual misconduct are often accompanied by photos or videos of Biden appearing to touch children inappropriately. Our reporting found that these photos often lack context or have been deceptively edited, like the video shared on Instagram. 

Our ruling

An Instagram video appears to show a man confronting Biden about an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old girl.

The video is fake. It features deceptively edited clips of a 2019 Biden interview on CNN spliced together with segments from NBC Dateline’s show, "To Catch a Predator." Biden has been the target of pedophilia attacks for years, but we’ve found no credible evidence to support such claims. 

We rate this video Pants on Fire! 

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

RELATED: Fact-checking the pedophilia attacks against Joe Biden

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This video doesn’t prove Joe Biden had an inappropriate relationship with a minor. It’s edited.

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