Fact check: Image falsely claims to show Harris and Pelosi sleeping during Biden's speech to Congress

McKenzie Sadeghi, USA TODAY
·5 min read
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The claim: Image shows Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi sleeping during Joe Biden's speech

Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made history as the first women to preside together over a joint session of Congress during President Joe Biden's April 28 address, which was met with misinformation in the hours that followed.

Biden's first speech to Congress focused on his first 100 days in office, systematic changes to policing, raising taxes on corporations, immigration legislation and COVID-19 vaccinations.

Sharing the dais behind the president, Harris and Pelosi, D-Calif, were seen elbow bumping, clapping, giving standing ovations, and according to some social media users, sleeping.

"Did Biden put them to sleep already?" reads the caption of an April 28 Facebook image with over 5,000 shares and almost 300 reactions. The post includes a purported photo from a news broadcast of the vice president and House speaker seated behind Biden with their eyes closed.

That same image and text was shared by co-chair of Students for Trump Ryan Fournier in an April 28 Facebook post with over 3,600 shares.

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In an email to USA TODAY, Fournier's spokesman Mark Chase reiterated the post's caption, which says the image was a meme joke.

USA TODAY reached out to the Facebook user for comment.

Photo is misleading

While the image of Harris and Pelosi is authentic, it is misleading as it shows the two women blinking at the same split second, not sleeping.

A review of footage from the speech on C-SPAN reveals the photo included in the post was taken near the beginning of Biden's address when he was discussing his first days in office.

The scene at mark 5:19 of the C-SPAN video is identical to the photo circulating on social media. Harris' and Pelosi's eyes and posture, as well as Biden's stance and facial expression, match the image in the claim, but at a different angle.

The perspective in the social media versions of the photo appears warped as it was captured off of a television screen.

In the photo, Harris and Pelosi had just sat down in their seats after giving Biden a standing ovation when he said, "America is on the move again."

At no point during Biden's roughly 70-minute speech were Harris or Pelosi seen to be closing their eyes and sleeping. Video footage shows them consistently nodding, applauding, sitting and standing.

Meanwhile, Twitter users also mocked Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who appeared to be fighting sleep during Biden's remarks.

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Cruz quote tweeted the image of Pelosi and Harris with their eyes closed in response to the criticism and wrote, "Kamala & Nancy agree....#BoringButRadical."

What's a meme?

While users who shared the post claimed the image was a joke, experts on online culture and social media say memes can play a prominent role in the spread of misinformation.

"Online memes are a cheap and easy ways to spread ideas, usually with images overlaid with text, with the text regularly being mixed by other users," said Shane Creevy, the head of editorial at disinformation tracking firm Kinzen. "It's a classic case of what you might call participatory disinformation."

Meme formats became popular in the early 2000s in the form of a picture with Impact font text placed on the bottom and the top of the photo.

Whitney Phillips, an assistant professor at Syracuse University who studies media literacy and social media, previously told USA TODAY memes took off during the internet's offensive troll culture. Then the format crossed over to mainstream internet culture around 2009, USA TODAY also reported.

In an email, Creevy said it's common for "bad actors" to use irony and humor to spread misinformation because "it gives some plausible deniability if they are called out." Memes can also feel fun to people and their communities to speak about politics in irreverent ways, he said.

"It's actually quite smart to make political points through humor, as it can spread more widely as a result," Creevy said. "When criticism comes, they can claim fact checkers and other citizens who care about facts simply 'don't get the joke' or 'don't have a sense of humor.'"

Our rating: False

An image claiming to show Harris and Pelosi sleeping during Biden's speech to Congress is FALSE, based on our research. The photo was captured from a moment where Harris and Pelosi were blinking at the same time. A review of the full 70-minute speech further shows Harris and Pelosi were not sleeping at any point.

Our fact-check sources:

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Harris and Pelosi were not asleep during Biden's address