Did joe biden say they wiped my butt?
Executive summary
A short, widely circulated video from July 2021 prompted claims that President Joe Biden shouted “My butt’s been wiped” to reporters as he exited Marine One; multiple established fact‑checkers and news organizations reviewed the footage and concluded the viral phrasing was a mishearing or distortion, not a verifiable quote [1] [2]. While some outlets and commentators amplified the phrase and merchandise followed, the best available reporting finds the “my butt’s been wiped” claim false or unproven rather than an accurate transcription of Biden’s words [3] [4].
1. The clip that started the story: muffled audio and social virality
A short pool video of Biden leaving Marine One circulated on social platforms in July 2021 with captions and posts asserting he had yelled an absurd line — “My butt’s been wiped” — but the audio in that recording is muffled by helicopter noise and unclear enough that listeners disagreed about what was actually said, a basic technical fact noted by multiple outlets [1] [4].
2. What professional fact‑checkers concluded
The Associated Press and Reuters both examined the pool footage and concluded the commonly circulated quote was false: AP reported Biden was asking reporters to clarify their question because of the helicopter noise and did not say the quoted phrase [1], while Reuters concluded he appeared to be saying something like “What must be what?” or “But what’s been what?” rather than “My butt’s been wiped” [2].
3. The more cautious read: Snopes’ assessment of uncertainty
Snopes reviewed the same video and explained that, although the viral clip is genuine, the claim that Biden said “My butt’s been wiped” is improbable; Snopes noted that some listeners’ prior expectations or the audio’s frequency mix likely produced a perceptual illusion, and while it’s highly unlikely he uttered that sentence, the outlet stopped short of a categorical proof because the recording is inconclusive [3].
4. How the line was weaponized politically and commercially
Conservative social accounts and right‑wing outlets amplified the misheard phrase as evidence of cognitive decline, and the clip spawned commentary, TV segments, and even novelty T‑shirts — a pattern where low‑quality audio plus partisan intent can turn an ambiguous moment into a meme used for political attack and monetization, a chain documented in contemporary reporting and media coverage [4] [5].
5. Alternative viewpoints and the limits of the record
There are competing narratives: some viewers and commentators insisted they clearly heard the crude phrase and treated it as confirmation of decline [6] [7], while others — including journalists who slowed the footage and media fact‑checkers — heard different words or concluded the clip was ambiguous [2] [3]. The reporting shows a real evidentiary limit: the pool audio is too noisy for a definitive phonetic transcription, and no clearer source has been published that overturns the fact‑checkers’ conclusions [1] [3].
6. Bottom line and what remains unknown
Based on the best available reporting, the claim that Joe Biden said “My butt’s been wiped” is false or at least unproven: reliable fact‑checkers concluded Biden’s words were misheard amid helicopter noise and that more plausible transcriptions exist [1] [2]; Snopes describes the viral interpretation as improbable though not absolutely disprovable given the poor audio quality [3]. There is no credible published recording or authoritative transcript in the reviewed sources that confirms the crude quote as an accurate rendering of what Biden said [1] [2] [3].