This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset . Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions . Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper .

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre doubled down on her "cheap fake" criticism of multiple videos of President Biden on Tuesday. The Biden White House and its allies in the legacy media were essentially telling voters not to believe their lying eyes in 2024 when pushing the now-infamous "cheap fakes" narrative. A new book detailing Biden's cognitive decline has dominated headlines and has reignited scrutiny of how the media shielded the then-presumptive Democratic nominee, particularly when it came to his age. In the weeks leading up to the disastrous debate performance exposing his cognitive decline on the world stage, Biden went viral on multiple occasions in videos his critics said showed him losing his faculties. The first was of him appearing completely frozen while others danced around him at Juneteenth celebration at the White House.

There has been an avalanche of coverage recently from liberal news outlets on so-called "cheap fakes," the term being used by both the media and the White House to describe viral clips of President Biden that critics say show signs of his cognitive decline. Biden's age has been the subject of intense scrutiny in recent days, with the president facing accusations of freezing and wandering off at various events showcased online by Republicans. One prominent example was footage showing Biden stepping away from other world leaders at the G-7 Summit to give a thumbs up to parachutists off-camera, prompting Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to corral him back to the group for a photo-op. "Selective editing of video and putting spin on interpretations of events has been going on in American politics for a long time," DePauw University journalism professor Jeffrey McCall said. "What has been surprising, however, is how eager the establishment media have been to parrot the White House spin, trying to dismiss concerns about Biden's capabilities as just cheap fake editing and razzle-dazzle."

President Biden appeared to wander off at the G7 summit in Italy, with officials needing to pull him back to focus.

'The Five' co-hosts discuss how President Biden appeared to freeze again at a recent fundraiser. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre faced a wave of criticism Monday after claiming a series of viral videos of President Biden appearing frail in the past week were "deepfakes." Numerous controversial videos have emerged of Biden during his visits to commemorate D-Day in France, attend the G-7 summit in Italy, and attend a recent fundraiser for his campaign that have raised questions about his age. Jean-Pierre was asked about "a rash of videos that have been edited to make the president appear especially frail or mentally confused," and responded by calling them "cheap fakes," a phrase she attributed to the Washington Post, "pushing misinformation, disinformation." "It tells you everything that we need to know about how desperate Republicans are here," Jean-Pierre said.

Back in 2019, Ben Lorica and I wrote about deepfakes. Ben and I argued (in agreement with The Grugq and others in the infosec community) that the real danger wasn't "Deep Fakes." The real danger is cheap fakes, fakes that can be produced quickly, easily, in bulk, and at virtually no cost. Tactically, it makes little sense to spend money and time on expensive AI when people can be fooled in bulk much more cheaply. I don't know if The Grugq has changed his thinking, but there was an obvious problem with that argument.

In early 2018 a video that appeared to feature former President Obama discussing the dangers of fake news went viral. The clip, created by comedian Jordan Peele, foreshadowed challenges that have now become all too real. These days, tech firms, media companies and consumers are all routinely forced to make determinations about whether content is authentic or fake -- and it's increasingly hard to tell the difference. Deepfakes are videos and images that have been digitally manipulated to depict people saying and doing things that never happened. Most deepfakes use artificial intelligence to alter video and to generate authentic-sounding audio.