Bob Oswald
As Joe Biden was traveling to Delaware following a Wisconsin campaign stop earlier this month, social media posts claimed the president was in distress.
“I just received a tip from an anonymous source. My source says that Joe Biden is currently experiencing a medical emergency on Air Force One as I type this. No further details are known,” read a July 5 X post.
“Joe Biden is reportedly having a medical emergency on Air Force One right now. Press access has been removed,” claimed a different post on X.
But these claims are false, according to The Associated Press. As Air Force One was landing in Delaware at 7:22 p.m. on July 5, the fake posts began circulating on social media.
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates took to X to claim the report of Biden having a medical issue during the flight is “100% false.”
An AP reporter, who was on Air Force One for that flight, said the president didn’t suffer any sort of medical emergency and reporters were never denied access or removed from the plane.
When the plane landed, video posted by Forbes Breaking News shows Biden exiting the plane on his own, descending the stairs, pointing, saluting, speaking with a member of the military and answering a reporter’s question.
A press pool was part of the president’s motorcade when he was dropped off at his Wilmington, Delaware, home. There were no reports from that group that Biden was in the midst of a medical emergency.
Migrants not shipped to Wisconsin
A plane that has migrants and asylum-seekers bused to various U.S. cities is headed to Wisconsin, social media posts claim.
“Ask Governor Evers why planes full of unvetted ‘refugees’ are being accepted at the Milw. & Madison airports!” read a June 25 Facebook post by the Republican Party of Juneau County.
But this statement is incorrect, according to PolitiFact. There are no plans to bring migrants to Wisconsin.
“The source provides no proof, and we have no proof either. The information posted is not factual,” Harold Mester, director of public affairs and marketing for Milwaukee Mitchell Airport, told PolitiFact.
And Kimberly Jones, director at Dane County airport in Madison, told PolitiFact, “We certainly have not had ‘planes full’ of refugees coming in to our Airport. To my knowledge there is no accuracy to the statement.”
Also, the group that posted this claim “misunderstands how refugees are resettled in the U.S.,” PolitiFact said.
Refugees are not undocumented. If refugees are selected to be resettled, an agency takes their case and sets them up in homes, helps them find jobs and issues a green card.
“Refugees are among the most vetted immigrants to the United States,” Jim Mackman, philanthropy director for Jewish Social Services of Madison, told PolitiFact.
Photo not from Hurricane Beryl
Hurricane Beryl slammed the southern coast in Jamaica earlier this month, leaving a path of destruction. An image posted on social media recently appears to show the strength of the storm.
“Something terrible minutes ago! Hurricane Beryl in Jamaica,” reads the text, in Spanish, over a photo showing trucks collapsed and a person being lifted high into the air.
This, and similar posts, were shared more than 200 times in just two days.
But this image is missing context, according to USA Today. The photo doesn’t show Hurricane Beryl or Jamaica.
The photo is digitally created art which has been making the rounds on social media for at least a year. It has been used for thumbnail art for videos about storms, posted on YouTube, since 2023.
A YouTube user used the image in April 2024 for a video on natural disasters and storms in China. That same month, a different user uploaded the image as thumbnail art for a video, but added a helicopter to the photo.
Bread wasn’t baked in mailbox
While most of the country is dealing with extreme heat, an image that went viral in 2023 is making a new appearance on social media.
“It’s this hot in Texas. Roberta Wright, who lives in a suburb of Houston, baked bread in her mailbox. It only took 45 minutes!” reads the text with an image that shows a woman taking a freshly baked loaf of bread out of a brick mailbox.
But this didn’t really happen, according to PolitiFact.
In an interview with KTRK-TV, Wright, a children’s book author, said she posted the photo for fun. But did she actually bake the bread in the mailbox?
“It’s not exactly what happened,” she said. “It’s the storytelling of your imagination.”
Wright told KTRK-TV she baked the bread in a conventional oven and then placed it in her mailbox. She said she posted the photo to “inspire kids to use their imagination.”
At the time she posted the photo, the temperature in Houston was nearly 110 degrees Fahrenheit. It is recommended that bread be baked in an oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Bob Oswald is a veteran Chicago-area journalist and former news editor of the Elgin Courier-News. Contact him at [email protected].