Back in April, I examined the rumor from Donald Trump’s fraud trial that the ex-president farts a lot in court. Because I am fair and balanced, this week I’ll be examining the rumor that current President Joe Biden pooped his pants at the annual D-Day remembrance on June 6 in France.
At the ceremony to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landing, President Biden delivered a fiery defense of democracy and a searing indictment of extremism and autocracy, using the occasion to link the sacrifices of the past to the challenges we face today.
Yeah, yeah, democracy vs. tyranny, blah blah blah. The important question is “Did Joe Biden poop his pants after the speech?”
Examining the evidence
The source of the D-Day poop theory is a 13-second clip posted by the Republican Party that shows Biden crouching down slightly. It’s labeled “Awkward” with the “grimacing” emoji (surprisingly not the poop emoji)
Opponents of the president fell into two camps: those who regard the footage as evidence that Biden was trying to sit in an imaginary chair, and those who thought it showed president Biden pooping. As Twitter user Drew Hernandez put it, “There’s no way Joe is not pooping himself here, this is insane.”
But is there really no way? Is this actually insane?
The counter-evidence
If you fast-forward through the footage of Biden speech, and skip the parts where he honors the few remaining people who fought to end tyranny 80 years ago, then let the clip play for about one second after the RNC’s clip ends, you can see that the President is reaching back to find the armrest of his (not-imaginary) chair before he sits.
The President doesn’t seem to be voiding his bowels in the clip, but here’s the video. The moment in question arrives about four hours and 15 minutes in:
Conclusion: President Joe Biden did not poop himself
While no one can say for sure whether anyone is or is not pooping themselves at any given moment, there is no evidence that Biden pooped himself at the 80th anniversary commemoration of the D-Day landing.
It’s a shame that whoever writes the RNC’s Twitter account didn’t have an extra two seconds to look at what happened immediately after the clip they posted. If they had, they would have thought, “Oh, wait, this isn’t awkward. It’s pretty normal for a guy sitting down, actually. I won’t post this tweet because I don’t want to mislead anyone.” This would have saved people at lot of time and worry over the president’s digestive and mental health.
I’m sure the RNC and the many, many cranks who spread this rumor online have been crafting their apology tweets with such care that they haven’t had time to take down all the tweets they posted spreading this lie.
Has Joe Biden ever pooped his pants?
OK, so maybe Joe Biden didn’t soil himself this time, but what about all the other times? Like last week, or a few years ago? That’s a trickier question. While there are unsourced online rumors that Joe Biden once pooped himself while meeting the Pope, there are no credible sources, or even shaky partisan sources, that put forth any evidence that this incident occurred.
As far as publicly available information goes, Biden’s shorts seem clean. Unlike the last president, Joe Biden’s physician publicly releases his health summary regularly. The most recent one, dated February 28, indicates that Joe Biden suffers from sleep apnea, takes medication to lower his cholesterol, occasionally suffers from acid reflux, and suffers from seasonal allergies. No indication of anything that would cause spontaneous pants-pooping.
A doctor’s note can’t prove Biden doesn’t poop his pants though. The whole “impossible to prove a negative” thing gets in the way. Plus: Dude’s been alive a long time, and shit happens, so it’s a possibility. But if President Joe Biden has pooped his pants, he’s in good company. America’s heroic astronauts routinely poop in their pants. So do marathon runners, and rock stars who don’t want to be drafted.
And what about babies? They poop their pants all the time, and everyone loves babies. Joe Biden (I assume) was once a baby, so he surely pooped his pants like every day, and they didn’t even have disposable diapers back in 1858.
In conclusion: Democracy is fragile and beautiful, and we probably don’t deserve the tiny scraps of it we have left.
