During a climate change address in the Amazon, the departing US president appeared to stray from the designated area.
On Sunday, in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, President Joe Biden, while delivering a climate change speech, seemingly wandered off course after his presentation. Video of this incident, involving the 81-year-old president, has quickly spread across social media.
Addressing a press conference near Manaus, the largest Amazonian city, President Biden, in his signature aviator sunglasses and a loose button-down shirt, discussed climate change threats, rainforest preservation, and his administration’s clean energy investments.
Biden declared his visit as the first by a sitting US president to the Amazon and announced a new financing initiative aiming to secure at least $10 billion by 2030 to protect 20,000 square miles of Amazonian land.
Following his speech, Biden waved, turned from the podium, and walked into what looked like dense vegetation.
The video of the president’s exit has become a social media sensation; one clip on Pop Base garnered over 26 million views by Monday morning. Comments expressed bewilderment about Biden’s direction, with some suggesting he had “wandered off into the Amazon.”
Joe Biden becomes the first sitting US President to visit the Amazon Rainforest.
— Pop Base (@PopBase)
“Bruh did he just wave bye and disappear into the jungle?” one user commented; another questioned the president’s Amazon visit. “He’s really doing all the side quests now that he can retire,” one user quipped.
However, according to Newsweek, a longer video supposedly shows Biden following a path not readily visible in the shorter clip, a path reportedly also used by other journalists.
While Biden’s team hasn’t yet responded, this incident, if it involved the president becoming disoriented, wouldn’t be his first public incident. The White House has previously dismissed similar videos portraying Biden as confused or appearing immobile as manipulated or “cheap fakes,” according to Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.