People weren’t holding up turned-off phones at Biden’s July 4 event

Conservative commentators and social media posts are claiming part of President Joe Biden’s July 4 celebration at the White House was a setup because phones in the crowd were “turned off.”

In a July 6 segment, Rick Wiles and Raymond “Doc” Burkhart, founder and commentator, respectively, of the conservative news website TruNews, discussed the event and showed a clip of Biden greeting the crowd outside the White House.

“There were a lot of people there taking pictures and videos. Just one small problem, I don’t think any of the cameras were on, Rick,” Burkhart said about 53 minutes into the segment.

“As you can see, there’s not one phone with an active screen. Not one,” Wiles replied. “Every phone there is turned off.”

“I think it’s a staged event,” Burkhart said. “They brought a bunch of people over and said, ‘Hey, you’re gonna get to meet the president, but … your phones have to be off.’”

Multiple Facebook posts shared a video of this exchange between Wiles and Burkhart. These posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

At the July 4 celebration, right before the clip shown on TrueNews begins, Biden addressed a crowd of military families on the White House’s South Lawn.

In live news coverage of the event, which began around 5 p.m., it’s clear that the phones in the audience are on with their camera apps open. People in the crowd also can be seen tapping their phone screens to take photos and videos.

Some of the phone screens in the crowd look dark, but that’s because the late afternoon sun was shining on the audience, making the light from their phones appear dim in comparison.

We rate this claim False.

By

Sara Swann

Digital Research Analyst

July 12, 2023

Truth-o-meter Ruling

False

IF YOUR TIME IS SHORT

• People weren’t holding up turned-off cellphones at a White House event July 4. The late afternoon sun’s brightness made the phone screens appear dim.

Statement

A video shows people holding up their phones to film President Joe Biden, but “every phone there is turned off.”

Context

a Facebook video

Speaker/Target

Speaker: Facebook posts

Statement Date

July 9, 2023