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Quick Take
A viral video showing President Joe Biden briefly donning a campaign hat for Donald Trump has been used to suggest that Biden is endorsing Trump. He isn’t. He had exchanged hats with a Trump supporter at a 9/11 memorial in an effort to show unity.
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On the 23rd anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, President Joe Biden participated in memorials at the three locations where planes had crashed.
While he was in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, for a wreath-laying ceremony with Vice President Kamala Harris at the Flight 93 National Memorial, Biden also visited the local fire station, where he spoke with first responders and area residents.
One exchange he had at the fire station has now become fodder for misinformation spreaders online.
In a now viral video, Biden is shown talking to a man wearing a hat supporting Donald Trump for president. Biden, who dropped his bid for reelection on July 21 and endorsed Harris, offered the man a hat with the presidential seal in exchange for the Trump hat.
Then, with encouragement from the crowd, Biden put on the Trump hat for a moment and smiled. White House spokesman Andrew Bates later described the move as a gesture of unity.
Bates said: “At the Shanksville Fire Station, @POTUS spoke about the country’s bipartisan unity after 9/11 and said we needed to get back to that. As a gesture, he gave a hat to a Trump supporter who then said that in the same spirit, POTUS should put on his Trump cap. He briefly wore it.”
But some social media posts have used clips or screenshots of the video to suggest that Biden has switched his support to the Republican candidate for president.
Trump’s campaign, for example, posted a two-second clip from the video on X, and said, “BREAKING: Kamala did so bad in last night’s debate, Joe Biden just put on a Trump hat.”
Another X account called Breaking911, which we’ve written about before, referred to the video and posted, “IT’S OFFICIAL! BIDEN ENDORSES TRUMP! After wearing a MAGA hat today, the old man posed with kids in Pennsylvania sporting TRUMP SHIRTS!”
And on Facebook, Peggy Hubbard — who ran unsuccessfully in 2022 to be the Republican Senate candidate from Illinois — posted a screenshot from the video and said, “HEY KAMALA! LIKE TRUMP SAID, ‘BIDEN DOESN’T LIKE YOU!’ I GUESS HE’S NOT WITH HER?”
For weeks, Trump has been baselessly claiming that Biden “hates” Harris for forcing Biden to end his campaign. At a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on Aug. 18, he said, “Joe Biden hates her. This was an overthrow of a president.” And, during the Sept. 10 debate, Trump said, “I’ll give you a little secret — he hates her, he can’t stand her.”
But Biden has praised Harris, saying during his speech at the Democratic National Convention in August, “Selecting Kamala was the very first decision I made when I became our nominee, and it was the best decision I made my whole career. We’ve not only gotten to know each other. We’ve become close friends. She’s tough. She’s experienced, and she has enormous integrity.”
Biden continues to support Harris’ campaign for president, with plans to make appearances on her behalf in several key states. Any suggestion that his brief donning of a Trump hat means that he’s switched his allegiance is false.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
Sources
Wojcik, Baylee. “Shanksville Fire Department hosts Biden, Harris, and Trump on 9/11 anniversary.” WJAC. 12 Sep 2024.
PBS NewsHour (@PBSNewsHour). “WATCH: Biden briefly wears Trump hat during 9/11 visit in Shanksville.” YouTube. 12 Sep 2024.
Jones, Brea. “Bogus Claims Follow Donation of Kamala Harris’ Children’s Book.” FactCheck.org. 30 Apr 2021.