Trump fuels spread of altered Biden video, tweeting it twice

A video altered to make it appear as though Democratic president candidate Joe Biden played a song disparaging the police was viewed more than 4.5 million times on Twitter by Wednesday afternoon, its spread fueled by President Donald Trump, who tweeted it — twice.

The video, which appears to show Biden playing a controversial song by the rap group N.W.A. during a campaign trip to Florida, was labeled as manipulated media by Twitter, but it continued to circulate widely.

In the original video, Biden pulls out his cellphone and plays “Despacito,” a song by Puerto Rican singer-songwriter Luis Fonsi, who introduced him at a Hispanic Heritage Month event Tuesday in Kissimmee, Florida. In the altered video, N.W.A.’s “F—- Tha Police” plays.

“What is this all about,” the president first said as he tweeted the video Tuesday night. He tweeted it again Wednesday, saying: “China is drooling. They can’t believe this!”

Trump retweeted the video from The United Spot, which describes itself as a parody or satire account on YouTube and Facebook — but not on Twitter, where the pro-Trump account has more than 22,000 followers. The account, which often tags the president to make him aware of posts, was created in 2020. Another account closely associated with The United Spot was previously suspended by Twitter. The platform did not immediately respond to a question about the ties between both accounts.

A Twitter spokesperson told The Associated Press that the manipulated media tag was added to the tweet based on the platform's policy on synthetic and manipulated media.

The United Spot often airs manipulated videos on its social media accounts, some of them attacking political figures such as Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. It did not respond to a request for...