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Did Joe Biden Really Say ‘We Can Only Re-Elect Donald Trump’?
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The Dispatch Fact Check

Did Joe Biden Really Say ‘We Can Only Re-Elect Donald Trump’?

A deceptively edited video went viral thanks to Trump staffers and campaign accounts.

Alec Dent
Mar 9, 2020
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Did Joe Biden Really Say ‘We Can Only Re-Elect Donald Trump’?
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Dan Scavino, the White House director of social media and presidential assistant, experienced Twitter virality after sharing a clip purportedly from Joe Biden’s campaign rally in St. Louis, Missouri. The clip, actually from a Biden rally in Kansas City, Missouri, shows Biden saying, “we can only re-elect Donald Trump.”

Twitter avatar for @DanScavinoDan Scavino @DanScavino
Sleepy Joe💤in St. Louis, Missouri today: “We can only re-elect @realDonaldTrump.” #KAG2020LandslideVictory🇺fcD
Image

March 8th 2020

22,876 Retweets70,135 Likes

The tweet went viral and was shared by Trump campaign accounts.

Twitter avatar for @TeamTrumpTeam Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) @TeamTrump
Thanks, Joe!
Image

March 8th 2020

3,378 Retweets12,018 Likes
Twitter avatar for @TrumpWarRoomTrump War Room - Text EMPOWER to 88022 @TrumpWarRoom
Joe Biden sums up his campaign: "We cannot win this re-election. We can only re-elect Donald Trump."
Image

March 8th 2020

15,592 Retweets47,224 Likes

Even President Trump jumped into the fray to share and comment on it.

Twitter avatar for @realDonaldTrumpDonald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
I agree with Joe! https://t.co/h84mD7jVPW

Dan Scavino @DanScavino

Sleepy Joe💤in St. Louis, Missouri today: “We can only re-elect @realDonaldTrump.” #KAG2020LandslideVictory🇺🇸 https://t.co/FT4q2MWfcD

March 8th 2020

38,495 Retweets171,568 Likes

The moment also reached an audience outside the Twitterverse thanks to articles from popular Trump-friendly websites likeRedState, Townhall, and Gateway Pundit.

The Biden campaign has complained that Facebook allowed the video to circulate.

Twitter avatar for @ceciliakangCeciliaKang @ceciliakang
⁦@JoeBiden⁩ campaign blasts Facebook for allowing a manipulated video of Biden - that was shared by Trump and officials - to circulate this weekend. Scathing rebuke Story on the way
Image

March 9th 2020

312 Retweets675 Likes

And indeed, reviewing the video of Biden’s speech at the rally shows that the clip was deceptively edited. Biden plainly stumbles over his words, as he has repeatedly throughout the campaign. But the video shared by Trump and his advocates is cut off before he finishes his sentence, leaving out important context. After criticizing negative attacks in the Democratic primary as being antithetical to unity, Biden said:

“We can only re-elect Donald Trump if, in fact, we get engaged in this circular firing squad.” (emphasis added).

And it fact, the full clip shows Biden making precisely the opposite point of the one attributed to him by Trump, his advocates and Trump-amplifying press. (Townhall later added an update to its original post that includes the full context of Biden’s remarks.) 

If you have a claim you would like to see us fact check, please send us an email at factcheck@thedispatch.com. If you would like to suggest a correction to this piece or any other Dispatch article, please email corrections@thedispatch.com

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Did Joe Biden Really Say ‘We Can Only Re-Elect Donald Trump’?
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Ray Salemi
Mar 9, 2020

Thank you Dispatch for bringing this kind of fact-checking to conservative circles. It is the sort of thing that we’ve been seeing for years in other fact checking sources, but Republicans quickly labeled them “biased” and so the message was blunted.

It is also an antidote for the problem David French brought up yesterday.

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bitteroot77
Mar 9, 2020

The man is old, is in constant campaign mode and is tired. Stumbling over his words is to be expected, as is Trump's use of the video. Not sure what the point of this article was.

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