An image shared on Facebook purportedly shows an excerpt of a New York Times interview in which former Vice President Joe Biden says he eats the wooden stick in the center of corn dogs.

“This Biden interview is illuminating,” reads the caption.

Verdict: False

The interview excerpt was fabricated as a joke. The New York Times transcript of Biden’s interview has no instances of the presidential candidate saying “corn dog.”

Fact Check:

The New York Times Editorial Board recently published “The Choice,” an interactive interview series featuring nine Democratic presidential candidates, including Biden. It aims at helping readers decide who should be the Democratic presidential nominee.

Multiple Facebook posts shared screen grabs that appear to be from the transcript of Biden’s interview for the project. The posts credit Biden with saying this during the interview:

By the way, and that’s what some of these Bernie people don’t get. You have to get the center too. It’s, I was eating a corn dog the other day, this is like a corn dog, with some mustard. When you get to the middle, it’s hard and tough, and dry [CHUCKLES] but you have to eat that too. You have to eat that to finish it. But it’s hard.

But a quick keyword search of The New York Times transcript turns up no mention of the words “corn dog” or “Bernie people.” (RELATED: Video Claims To Show Joe Biden Making A Racist Remark)

The image seems to have originated on Twitter, where user @Julian_Epp apparently tweeted the fabricated excerpt as a joke. His tweet has garnered more than 16,700 retweets and 90,900 likes since Jan. 17.

This Biden interview is illuminating pic.twitter.com/DBvd52lKyv

— Jules (@Julian_Epp) January 17, 2020

Shortly after his tweet went viral – and showed up on Facebook – @Julian_Epp tweeted a screen grab of a Snopes article fact-checking it.

Whoops pic.twitter.com/71L1hau3Js

— Jules (@Julian_Epp) January 22, 2020

“Whoops,” tweeted Epp.

The New York Times Editorial Board endorsed Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren for the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee.