A video shared on Instagram purportedly shows President Joe Biden staging a March 16 interaction with reporters in front of a green screen.

 

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Verdict: False

Videos and photos taken of the exchange from different angles indicate Biden did not stage the interaction with a green screen. The operator of the microphone said the exchange was not faked.

Fact Check:

Biden told reporters on the White House’s South Lawn March 16 that he didn’t have plans “at the moment” to visit the U.S.-Mexico border, video of the interaction shows. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Tuesday that the U.S. is experiencing a surge of migrants at the southern border, Reuters reported.

Social media users later shared a clip of the brief exchange, with some alleging Biden staged it using a green screen. They pointed to the positioning of the president’s hands in relation to a microphone in the video clip as “evidence” the interaction was staged.

“Biden green screen footage released by the media (watch his hand over the mics),” reads the caption of one such Instagram post. (RELATED: Does This Video Show Joe Biden Sleeping During A Local Television Interview?)

There is, however, no indication the interaction between Biden and the reporters was faked using a green screen. Steve Herman, Voice of America’s White House bureau chief, tweeted that he was holding the fuzzy microphone during the March 16 exchange on the South Lawn.

I was the one holding the lighter-colored fuzzy microphone and thus literally in front of @POTUS on the South Lawn. It’s all real. Who actually believes this ‘faked moon landing’ type nonsense and more importantly who is spreading it? https://t.co/9V3t0oqDz6

— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) March 17, 2021

“I was the one holding the lighter-colored fuzzy microphone and thus literally in front of  @POTUS on the South Lawn,” Herman tweeted. “It’s all real. Who actually believes this ‘faked moon landing’ type nonsense and more importantly who is spreading it?”

Moreover, other angles of the exchange are available online. For example, The Washington Post published a video taken from a different angle. A photo, taken by Drew Angerer for Getty Images and published by Politico, shows Biden from below as he stands before the microphones. Neither shows Biden’s hands going through the microphones as some social media users attempted to suggest.

BBC journalist Shayan Sardarizadeh tweeted a compilation of different angles showing the microphones and Biden standing behind them. Sardarizadeh also suggested in a subsequent tweet that it was an optical illusion.

That large, grey microphone is actually further to the right of Biden’s hands, not in front of them.

There are multiple videos of the exchange taken from other angles as well as images.

Obviously, there’s no green screen or CGI at play.

And, yes, Biden is alive and real… pic.twitter.com/9pF3C9RF8d

— Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) March 17, 2021

“That large, grey microphone is actually further to the right of Biden’s hands, not in front of them,” he tweeted. “There are multiple videos of the exchange taken from other angles as well as images. Obviously, there’s no green screen or CGI at play. And, yes, Biden is alive and real…”

Check Your Fact didn’t find any indication Biden faked the exchange with members of the media March 16. We rate this claim false.