The statement: an image shows Joe Biden signing executive orders with his left hand, the previous photos show him writing with his right hand
After conspiracy theorists falsely claimed that former First Lady Melania Trump used a stuntman for public appearances, some social media posts emerged targeting President Joe Biden and accusing him of doing the same.
A viral post shared on February 12 compares images side by side of Biden signing documents with different hands in an attempt to support the claim.
One photo is a recent image of Biden signing executive orders in the Oval Office with his left hand, and the other shows a photo of him supposedly writing with his right hand. A caption below the two photos says, “Is he left-handed or right-handed?”
“Oops. Biden’s stuntman is left-handed. The casting director slipped!” reads a text included in the post, which has more than 600 shares.
Another Facebook user shared the same two images on February 3 and wrote: “Okay, guys, here’s the deal in 2008 Joe Biden is right-handed. Joe Biden in 2021 is left-handed. The stories are true, our president is a stuntman. “
USA TODAY contacted Facebook users for comment.
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The image is inverted
Both photos included in the post are authentic, however, Biden’s most recent image in the Oval Office has been turned over to make it look like he is writing with his left hand.
In the original image, taken by AFP photographer Jim Watson on January 20, the handkerchief is on the left side of Biden’s coat, not on the right side, and he is writing with his right hand.
Executive orders sitting at Biden’s desk and American flags behind the president also appear on the opposite side of the photo in the authentic version.
The second photo included in the post is genuine and was captured by White House photographer David Lienemann. However, he was not captured in 2008, as the post states, and was taken on April 14, 2010, when Biden was serving as vice president in the Obama administration.
In the photo, Biden is seen signing a book of condolences at the Polish Embassy in Washington, and he is writing with his right hand.
Social media users have already used this method of mirroring images to spread false claims. For example, in 2010, an inverted photo of Barack Obama and Michelle Obama was used to claim that they saluted the flag with their left hand instead of their right, Factcheck.org reported.
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Biden is right-handed
In a 2020 auto-fill interview with Wired, Biden answered the most popular questions asked about him on Google, one of them being, “Is Joe Biden left-handed?” In response, Biden confirmed that he does not write with his left hand.
Only eight presidents are left-handed. James. Garfield was the first southpaw president, according to Potus.com. Barack Obama was the most recent.
The claims that Biden has an individual stance like him at public events were previously debunked by Snopes.
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Our rating: False
A post using an altered image of President Joe Biden to claim that he has a body double is FALSE, based on our research. A photo included in the post has been digitally inverted to make Biden appear to be writing with his left hand. Biden had already confirmed in an interview that he is right-handed, and claims that the president has a body double is not true.
Our sources of fact checking:
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Getty Images, January 20, TOPSHOT-US-POLITICS-INAUGURATION
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Factcheck.org, January 11, Mirror Image
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Flickr, April 14, 2010, Obama’s White House
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Wired, May 20, “Joe Biden answers the most searched questions on the web”
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POTUS.com, left-handed
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Snopes, December 17, “Does Joe Biden Have a Body Double?”
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This article was originally published in USA TODAY: Fact check: posts use inverted photos to make false claims of Joe Biden