President Joe Biden visited striking auto workers in Detroit on Tuesday and joined them on the picket line in a historic first for a sitting president. But a video showing Biden speaking to the workers includes a misquote that’s going viral on X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter.
The misquote was shared by Benny Johnson, a right-wing media personality with over 1.8 million followers on X.
“Joe Biden minutes after slipping on steps of Air Force One: ‘I marched a lot of UAW picket lines when I was a Senator since 1973. But I tell you what— first time I’ve ever done it in person,’” Johnson incorrectly quoted the president as saying.
As the video clearly shows, President Biden said “this is the first time I’ve ever done it as president,” not “in person.”
The incorrect quote has been seen by over 500,000 people on X alone at the time of this writing. And many of the people in the comments of the video clearly haven’t actually watched the video, since they just believe Biden said “in person” rather than “as president.”
It’s not clear if Johnson’s inaccurate quote was spread intentionally or was merely a mistake, though some pundits speculated online it could have been intentional. Johnson was previously fired from BuzzFeed for plagiarism in 2015. Johnson wrote 41 plagiarized articles in his time at the online news outlet, according to the Washington Post.
Johnson shared other clips on X demeaning President Biden, including one where he called the president “Toddler-in-chief.”
The 36-year-old Johnson started his online media career at The Blaze in 2011 before moving to BuzzFeed in 2013, where he was churning out about 500 posts a year, according to the Washington Post. These days Johnson has his own YouTube channel and works for a conservative organization called Turning Point USA.
Johnson did not immediately respond to a message about the misquote on Tuesday afternoon ET. I’ll update this post if I hear back.
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