A newly discovered Zoom recording has exposed the Biden-Harris campaign’s systemic efforts to manipulate voters and control the narrative surrounding Biden’s fitness for office.
The recording, obtained by journalist and video creator Matt Orfalea, reveals how top officials within the campaign worked to label legitimate concerns about Biden’s cognitive abilities as “disinformation” during the critical 2020 election cycle.
In a series of posts on X, Orfalea detailed his findings from the Zoom call.
The recording features Rob Flaherty, the digital director for the Biden campaign, who is now Deputy Campaign Manager; Becca Rinkevich, who served as Biden’s Rapid Response Director and later became Deputy Director of Digital Strategy at the White House; and Tim Durigan, the creator and lead analyst of the DNC Counter-Disinformation Program.
During the call, Flaherty candidly discusses the DNC’s strategic initiative to “detect, track, and censor misinformation” or narratives deemed harmful to Biden.
He describes this initiative as “critical” and “one of the more important decisions” made by the party in recent years.
“One of the smartest things that I think the party did itself was over the last couple of years, they actually invested in a team that Tim runs, and you’ll hear from Tim, to detect and track misinformation and misinformation narratives in the various corners of the Internet, and then actually go out and flag it to platforms as a violation of their policy,” Flaherty said.
WATCH:
Biden/Harris digital director Rob Flaherty says the DNC created a program to detect, track, and censor what it deemed “misinformation” (like Biden’s mental decline). He calls it “critical” and “one of the more important decisions” made by the party in recent years. /2 pic.twitter.com/pbIqUnY8ib
— Matt Orfalea (@0rf) August 7, 2024
According to Orfalea, the emails obtained from Flaherty show that this counter-misinformation program extended into the White House after they stole the election and lied to voters about Biden’s mental acuity, with efforts to pressure social media platforms like Facebook to censor conservative voices such as Tucker Carlson and Tomi Lahren.
Emails show Flaherty carrying out the (supposedly) counter-misinformation program in the White House, pushing Facebook to censor Tucker Carlson for correctly saying the COVID-19 vaccine didn’t stop transmission, and Tomi Lahren for her strong “my body, my choice” stance. /3 pic.twitter.com/QgtATjqI2Z
— Matt Orfalea (@0rf) August 7, 2024
During the Zoom call, Flaherty indicated that “misinformation narratives” included discussions about Biden’s mental fitness and his record on crime legislation.
But in the Zoom call, Flaherty said “misinformation narratives” include “conversation online about corruption or mental fitness…or [Biden’s] record on the Crime Bill”—effectively defining “misinformation” as anything that the Biden team found inconvenient. /5 pic.twitter.com/HMKJfokeHG
— Matt Orfalea (@0rf) August 7, 2024
Becca Rinkevich echoed this sentiment by categorizing discussions about Biden’s mental acuity as “disinformation.”
“We saw a huge amount of volume and a lot of impact on narratives like Joe Biden was being manipulated by the radical left and disinformation around his mental acuity,” Rinkevich said.
WATCH:
Becca Rinkevich, Biden’s Rapid Response Director (later WH Deputy Director of Digital Strategy), also classified talk of Biden’s mental decline as “disinformation”—”disinformation around his mental acuity”. /6 pic.twitter.com/GZMJclMYNs
— Matt Orfalea (@0rf) August 7, 2024
According to Orfalea’s report, the Biden campaign employed psychographic targeting techniques reminiscent of those used by Cambridge Analytica during the 2016 election.
Rinkevich explained how they identified voters based on online behavior and tailored their messaging accordingly. This strategy aimed to counteract what they framed as disinformation about Biden’s mental state by inundating voters with curated content designed to reshape their perceptions.
“”We targeted folks based on online behavioral cues, building out personas, based on the type of content they were consuming, what they were searching, the kinds of websites they were visiting so that we could target folks in real-time as they were exposed to that disinformation,” Rinkevich said.
WATCH:
The Biden/Harris team microtargeted voters exposed to the “disinformation” (aka reality) of Biden’s mental decline. They used psychographic targeting, a tactic that Cambridge Analytica was highly scrutinized for after the 2016 election. /7 pic.twitter.com/YDTjbAU9YX
— Matt Orfalea (@0rf) August 7, 2024
Orfalea added in his reported that if someone searched for terms like “Biden” and “senile,” they were bombarded with videos showcasing Biden speaking clearly—an effort to counteract any narrative suggesting cognitive decline.
If you typed the words “Biden” + “senile” in a search bar, you’d be shown short videos of Biden speaking clearly. Upon hearing this, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes exclaimed, “Wow.” /10 pic.twitter.com/9vNn5RjIb6
— Matt Orfalea (@0rf) August 7, 2024
The campaign also harnessed the power of online influencers to combat so-called disinformation. Flaherty cited concerns over Biden’s mental fitness as an example of disinformation that needed addressing through digital organizing.
“I know there’s a second panel we’re doing on digital organizing. We had one of the largest digital organizing operations that everyone set up. And that goes from a YouTube creator all the way down to a pastor who has a Facebook following that is big in Florida.”
“So for example, if there was this question about the President-elect’s mental fitness, which was a hit against him that the polling found to be effective. It was also very easy to ameliorate by showing content of the vice president speaking, right?
“Because that gives people proof without showing them up, right? And so those people to share content that did that thing and that helped just prove from a research perspective the thing without being in their face about it, saying fact check, or if you believe this is wrong. And so that was just one example.
Biden’s team also deployed an army of online influencers to fight “disinformation”. When asked for an example of “disinformation” countered with this “digital organizing,” Flaherty’s example of such “disinformation” was the “question about [Biden’s] mental fitness”. /11 pic.twitter.com/pzYCaYSjXP
— Matt Orfalea (@0rf) August 7, 2024
Tim Durigan also raised alarms about what he described as “true misinformation.” His comments suggested a desire for social media platforms to suppress even accurate information if it contradicted the party line, promoting instead what he deemed “authoritative” news sources like The New York Times.
According to Orfalea, just weeks after Durigan’s remarks, The New York Times referred to concerns about Biden’s mental health as “baseless rumors” propagated by right-wing influencers.
The Zoom host asks about the “big problem” of “true misinformation”. Durigan says it’s a “huge problem” & wants social media to suppress “true misinformation” to promote “authoritative” news sources like NYT. Big Tech’s done that since ’18, but apparently not enough for Tim. /14 pic.twitter.com/qg1ioQ8VGY
— Matt Orfalea (@0rf) August 7, 2024
You can read more of this report here.