Trump Supporters Are Faking A Biden Mask Controversy Using Old Photos

Joe Biden wears masks. He listens to the experts saying that masks are part of the toolkit to slow or limit the spread of COVID-19, he says that they should be used by everyone to help control the spread of the disease, and he practices what he preaches. Now, some Trump supporters appear to be trying to create a narrative of hypocrisy, sharing photos of Biden without a mask to suggest that he isn’t following the very rules he espouses. However, it’s a fake controversy, again — the photos are old, from before the pandemic.

Photos shared by Mark Levin and Richard Grenell, among others, on Twitter showed Joe Biden failing to wear a mask while on a plane, in fact engaged in close conversation, failing to social distance as well. Both editorialized the photo with comments to say that Biden was a “fraud” or “phony.”

A screenshot of the tweet below will be added at the end of this article, in case the tweet is deleted by Twitter or the author.

Biden wears a mask outside but not on a plane. Fraud. https://t.co/Ifj44claPP

— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) November 2, 2020

To be fair, the photo has likely come up in some people’s news feeds recently, because it has been used in some recent articles. Vogue, in fact, published a profile of the other person in the photo, Biden’s traveling national press secretary Remi Yamamoto, just a few days ago.

However, it’s far from unusual for a media entity to use the best photo available, even if it isn’t brand-new — and Vogue is very clear that it’s not a photo taken this week. The caption under the photo identifies it as being taken on a flight to South Carolina in November 2019.

Notably, since posting the misleading photos, Mark Levin has lashed out at online fact checkers repeatedly, claiming that Politifact has an unfair bias that keeps causing his posts to be deleted, and that fact-checkers are just expressing opinions.