The White House has accused “right-wing critics” of selectively editing videos as part of a “misinformation” campaign to question President Joe Biden’s mental state.
In the latest incident, Biden’s opponents claimed he appeared confused and needed Barack Obama to guide him off stage at a weekend fundraiser.
The White House released additional footage, asserting that Biden was simply pausing to take in the applause.
The mental acuity of both Biden, 81, and his 78-year-old challenger, Donald Trump, has come under scrutiny as the presidential race heats up.
Opinion poll after poll, however, indicates that Mr Biden’s age and faculties are drawing far more scrutiny from voters.
“It tells you everything that we need to know about how desperate Republicans are here,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at Monday’s daily press briefing.
She told reporters that “these manipulated videos [are] done in bad faith.”
The White House spokeswoman was responding to a question about a gala that Biden hosted in Los Angeles on Saturday night.
The event featured George Clooney, Barbra Streisand, Julia Roberts, and late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel.
Conservative outlets shared a clip of Biden standing on stage as the crowd applauded, before Obama reached for his arm and they walked off stage together.
The New York Post reported that Biden “appeared to freeze up” at the end of the event and “had to be led off stage” by Obama.
Trump shared the clip on his platform, Truth Social, commenting, “Is this really who you want to be your President?”
However, allies of the president pointed to longer clips showing Biden smiling and apparently taking in the crowd’s applause.
Ms. Jean-Pierre said the incident demonstrated that Obama and Biden “have a relationship. They are friends. They’re like family to each other.”
The White House press secretary also criticized the Post’s recent framing of another Biden clip.
Last week, the newspaper reported that the president had “started to wander off during a skydiving demonstration” in Italy on Thursday, with other G7 leaders “needing to pull him back to focus.”
But British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told the Telegraph that Biden was simply “being very polite and went over to talk to all of [the parachute jumpers] individually,” before Italian PM Giorgia Meloni told him they would all line up for handshakes.
A clip of the interaction widely shared on X, formerly Twitter, has a community note attached, pointing out the video was cropped.
Meanwhile, Biden allies have been seizing on viral clips of Trump to argue that it is the Republican candidate who is lacking mental lucidity.
Biden, a Democrat, is preparing to face Trump in their first televised debate of the year later this month. The White House election is in November.