Fact Check: Did a Child Shout 'Shut the F*** Up' During a Jill Biden Book Reading?

First lady Jill Biden, an English professor, hosted a Christmas story-time session Monday with a group of Maryland schoolchildren, shortly after unveiling Christmas decorations at the White House, and the event has produced a controversial video.

Biden was filmed reading passages from a children's book she recently published, Don't Forget, God Bless Our Troops. Some of the footage emerged later in the video, which has gone viral.

The Claim

An 18-second clip purporting to show a child shouting "Shut the f*** up" at Biden during the reading has drawn hundreds of thousands of interactions across multiple platforms, including TikTok and Rumble, over the past 24 hours. It was shared by accounts on Facebook and Twitter, with some laughing it off and others using it for partisan attacks.

The Facts

The excerpt, which appears to be clipped from a full-length YouTube video of the reading, begins approximately six minutes into the recording. But the viral video has been doctored, with another audio track laid on top toward the end.

The child shouting the profanity, along with some adults screaming and cheering as the video slows down, can be heard at the 15-second mark. The audio is sourced from another viral video, dated June 18, 2019.

In the original clip, a young boy is heard screaming "Shut the f*** up!" at his teacher and calling her a "b****" during his school's end-of-year graduation party.

But in the Biden video, the first lady is not interrupted and goes on to explain her motives for writing the children's book.

Newsweek has not been able to determine who authored the edited video or for what purpose. Some accounts sharing it followed up with disclaimers that it is likely "fake," while others appeared to share it in earnest.

This kind of manipulated or doctored content has become increasingly common on social media and is sometimes used to target prominent political figures on both the left and the right. Even when shared as a meme or a joke, it can be weaponized and passed off as genuine by other accounts.

The Ruling

False.

No, a child did not tell Jill Biden to "shut the f*** up." The doctored clip contains audio from an older viral video in which a child is screaming at his teacher. The full video of the first lady's White House book reading shows her speaking uninterrupted.

FACT CHECK BY NEWSWEEK