Video of Morgan Freeman criticizing Joe Biden is not real

If you think you saw Morgan Freeman talk about President Joe Biden on TikTok, no you didn’t.

A deepfake video of the famed actor showed Freeman with a backward hat and serious beef with something Biden said after the March 27 mass shooting at a Nashville, Tennessee, school. 

"It’s your friend Morgan. And I‘ve had it up to here," the person pretending to be Freeman in a March 29 TikTok post said. "You tell me, what the hell is going on? Children are killed in a school, and this fool comes in talking about ‘chocolate chip ice cream.’ What the hell is going on? ‘I’m Dr. Jill Biden’s husband.’ We all know that fool! Enough already! Get this guy out of there. Two years is enough. Everything costs more, everything’s going down the drain, we’re being laughed at around the world, and this fool’s talking about his ice cream. Get him out!"

The video was reshared on other platforms, including by conservative radio show host Stew Peters on Twitter. But there are telltale clues showing this video is a parody. 

An AI filter, or computerized mask, of Freeman’s face was placed on top of the TikTok user’s face in the video. As the user in the video spoke and moved their head, the mask shifts around awkwardly, making it clear that it isn’t really Freeman. The areas around the eyes and eyebrows don’t move as the person speaks.

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Another clue is that this video was not shared by Freeman, who does not have a TikTok account. Instead, it was reshared by different users whose tags appear on screen in the video. PolitiFact traced the original video to an account called @themanwithmanyvoices, which has since been deleted. Old videos from that account show that it parodied Freeman and other actors such as Clint Eastwood. 

The video was referencing a real moment from the White House. Biden appeared at a women’s summit held by the U.S. Small Business Administration on March 27, the day of the mass shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, where three children and three adults were killed. 

According to the transcript, Biden opened his appearance at the summit by joking, "Thank you. My name is Joe Biden. I’m Dr. Jill Biden’s husband. And I eat Jeni’s Ice Cream, chocolate chip. I came down because I heard there was chocolate chip ice cream." 

Biden has a well-documented affinity for Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, and the business was represented at the summit. The audience chuckled in response. Biden then called on a group of children in the crowd to stand as he recognized them. 

After the opening, Biden briefly addressed the shooting that had occurred that morning, saying that it was "sick" and that facts were still being gathered about what had happened; he then called for more action against gun violence. He spent the bulk of the appearance talking about women in small businesses and their impact on the economy. 

As for the TikTok, Freeman didn’t call out Biden. That’s Pants on Fire!