Tom Elliott of Grabien said it best. What would we do without Snopes? The so-called fact-checker decided they just had to defend Joe Biden over his latest stumble that would have led to hysterics among media circles if Donald Trump had a similar misstep in front of the cameras. Joe Biden clearly forgot that Lloyd Austin was his defense secretary. It’s clear. He tried to pivot, maybe buy time in the hopes that he could remember, but he couldn’t. He’s too old. Let’s circle back to that classic Biden brain fart. Two female generals were recommended for a promotion, and Joe couldn’t name Austin. It’s on tape:
Whoops: Biden forgets the name of the Pentagon, as well as the name of his secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin pic.twitter.com/ZtcgHLBIAO
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 8, 2021
The guy who runs that outfit across the river over there—that guy. Good lord. It’s these senile moments that resonated with voters, by the way. They were concerned Joe’s mind was being eaten by worms—and it’s a legitimate concern. Maybe that’s why the Biden campaign set up that ‘malarkey factory’ to push back on these claims. In 2021, Snopes decided to actually do a post about this trip-up, analyzing “if U.S. President Joe Biden forgot the name of his defense secretary during a speech.” They gave it a mixed rating:
What would we do w/o Snopes? pic.twitter.com/q8PqWiaVPK
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 10, 2021
What's True
A video shows Biden fumbling his words and apparently blanking on Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's name at one point in the speech, although he had mentioned Austin's name a few minutes earlier without issue.
What's Undetermined
It's unclear whether Biden literally "forgot" his defense secretary's name at that moment, or whether, for example, he got stuck doing an extended "folksy" ad lib after initially tripping over his words.
The best part is the “what’s true” portion which clearly says and doesn’t even defend that Biden forgot Lloyd Austin’s name, but the undetermined is full of liberal conjecture. That’s fact-checking in the liberal media universe—and it’s taken seriously. This might as well have been written by a DNC operative.