Post wrongly implies President Joe Biden's inauguration was a hoax | Fact check

Andre Byik, USA TODAY
·3 min read
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The claim: Post implies Biden's inauguration was a hoax

A Jan. 21 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) includes two images from President Joe Biden's inauguration that seemingly show visual discrepancies during his oath of office. Both photos show Biden raising his right hand to recite the oath, but in one image, several guests in the crowd visible in the other photo are missing.

"Three years ago in the year 2021 we had one of the strangest inauguration (sic) for a president that I have ever seen," reads the post's caption. "Do you remember anything strange happening on that day?"

Some social media users took the post as proof that the ceremony was a hoax.

"Yes. It was fake," wrote one such user.

The Facebook post, which is a screenshot of a post on X, formerly Twitter, was shared 30 times in a day. The original X post was reposted thousands of times in two days.

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Our rating: Missing context

The implied claim here is wrong. Biden's presidential inauguration was broadcast live and independently documented by multiple news organizations. The images in the post show two different angles of Biden's oath of office. They aren't evidence of a hoax.

Post shows two angles of same event; no evidence of inauguration hoax

Biden was inaugurated as the 46th U.S. president on Jan. 20, 2021, in a ceremony that was broadcast live and independently documented by news organizations.

The Facebook post falsely suggests that the inauguration was a hoax.

The post uses as supposed evidence two screenshots of Biden as Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is administering the presidential oath of office. In one of the screenshots, Rep. Nancy Pelosi – wearing sunglasses, a mask and a blue coat – is clearly visible behind Biden. In the other, she is not. The post uses red arrows and circles to highlight this apparent inconsistency. The post also highlights other individuals who appear in one of the screenshots but not the other.

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But the screenshots are taken from two different video sources – C-SPAN and the White House – and simply show the same portion of the ceremony from different angles. A review of both videos did not reveal any missing or disappearing guests.

A Getty Images photo of Biden's swearing-in ceremony shows all the guests noted in the Facebook post in the same frame at the same moment.

USA TODAY previously debunked separate claims asserting that Biden's inauguration was prerecorded and illegitimate and that an actor secretly served as his body double.

The Facebook user who shared the images and the X user who made the original post did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: President Biden's inauguration not a hoax as post implies | Fact check