Politics

Marjorie Taylor Greene roasted online for making a silly video calling Joe Biden a pedophile

Marjorie Taylor Greene speaks at a rally
Photo: YouTube screenshot

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) called all Democrats – and particularly President Joe Biden (or, in her words, “Joe Biden the president”) – pedophiles on 60 Minutes this weekend. Reporter Lesley Stahl was stunned that Greene would say such a thing when there are no credible accusations of child sex abuse against Biden, but Stahl was apparently unaware that this is something that Greene actually believes and has believed for a while.

To drive her point home, Greene posted a video entitled “The Predator President” to her personal Twitter account. The video has a watermark showing that it was made by her congressional campaign.

“I’ll say it again: Democrats are the party of pedophiles,” she wrote with the video.

The video itself does not prove, or even really provide much evidence, that Biden is a child molester. With sinister music and some scary filters, the video shows some clips of Biden in public with kids, often with his hand on their shoulders. As a politician who has been in elected office for over 50 years, it’s not surprising that he has had some public appearances with kids.

In the voiceover, there are some quotes taken out of context that don’t really say what Greene seems to think they say.

“We go back a long way. She was 12, I was 30,” Biden says at one point in the video. That’s from a speech he gave at the National Education Association headquarters in September 2022, where he was literally talking about how he met a woman when she was 12 and he was 30 and… that’s it. Anyone who has worked with kids or who has more distant nieces or female cousins could say the same thing.

“He did not say what he did when he was 30 and the woman was a preteen,” the rightwing New York Post’s Steven Nelson – yes, that Steven Nelson – wrote about Biden’s words, as if to imply that even talking to a person under the age of 18 is evidence of inappropriate behavior.

“It’s gonna change, honey, I promise you,” Biden says in another clip in Greene’s video. The clip is from an early 2020 Democratic presidential primary stop in New Hampshire. Biden was talking to Brayden Harrington, age 12, and his father Owen Harrington. Brayden, like Biden, had a stutter.

“We’re here because he stutters, he wanted to hear you speak,” the dad told Biden.

“Don’t let it define you,” Biden told Brayden, leaning in. “You are smart as hell. No, you really are. You can do this.”

Biden asked for Brayden’s number – with the kid’s father standing right there – and said he would help him practice so that he could learn to speak better.

“I know about bullies. You know about bullies, the kids who make fun. It’s going to change, honey. I promise you,” Biden said.

Those are just two of the innocuous moments that Greene tried to use to prove that Biden is a child molester.

The video also contains quotes from a diary that conservatives have been passing around at conventions for years that supposedly belonged to Biden’s daughter Ashley Biden when she was in treatment for substance abuse. The validity of everything in the diary hasn’t been confirmed – it’s unclear whose possession it has been in during the intervening years – Ashley Biden hasn’t accused her father of molesting her, and she is supportive of her father’s political career.

The last part of Greene’s video is devoted to showing that Biden supports LGBTQ+ rights, including equal rights for transgender people. That part of the video trades in the stereotype that LGBTQ+ people are child predators. Supporting the LGBTQ+ community is not evidence of being a pedophile.

On Twitter, Greene was mocked for her video “evidence.”

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