Joe Biden's Video Sleeping During Live Interview Is Fake

The viral video of Joe Biden falling asleep during a live interview is fake. On Tuesday, a Twitter user confirmed that he had created the video for fun.

In recent days, a viral video of the former U.S. vice president has gone viral, showing Biden dozing off during an interview. The video begins with a TV presenter introducing Biden, until the camera shifts to a shot of the Democratic presidential nominee having his eyes shut. With a snoring noise in the background, the presenter tries to wake him up.

In a tweet, Twitter user @damonimani revealed that he was the creator of the video and that the video was intended to be a joke. “I’m an artist with a wild imagination that I put into my parodies,” he said.

The video creator said he created the video by combining an endorsement video of Hilary Clinton dated Aug. 28 and another video of the crooner Harry Belafonte caught sleeping on live television in 2011. In the original endorsement video of Hilary Clinton, Joe Biden was caught on camera looking down for a few seconds.

The Harry Belafonte video used in the parody was originally taken at a California TV station and sparked a major controversy in 2011. At the time, Belafonte’s camp blamed the incident on a technical issue, saying that the 84-year-old singer’s earpiece was not working during his TV guesting.

“There was a technical glitch in the feed to a local station in Bakersfield, CA,” said Ken Sunshine, his spokesman. “His earpiece wasn’t working, so he decided to take the time to meditate before the rest of his Day-O,” he added. The snoring sound was not heard in the original clip.

Meanwhile, the part of the video featuring Joe Biden was taken from Hilary Clinton’s recent endorsement video, where Biden seemed to have his eyes shut for about 14 seconds. Biden’s camp denied that the presidentiable was sleeping at the time.

The video has been shared over 13,000 times on Twitter as of this writing.