CLAIM: President Donald Trump held a Bible upside-down when he walked to St. John’s Episcopal Church in June.
VERDICT: FALSE. Trump held the Bible correctly. The false claim has been repeated by the media, but remains false.
Former Vice President Joe Biden made his false claim after a speech on race in Wilmington, Delaware, on Tuesday.
Biden’s claim came in the course of an answer to a question from a journalist about how he would handle violent protest.
He said, in part, that President Trump “decided he had to walk across from the White House through a group of peaceful demonstrators, to an Episcopal Church to hold a Bible upside down, which I don’t know how often he reads, and he used the military to do that.”
Every part of that statement is false. The “peaceful” protesters in Lafayette Park had
assaulted journalists and law enforcement officers; they had also set fire to an historic structure and vandalized nearby buildings. The “military” was not involved: rather, the U.S. Park Police and the Secret Service
made a decision to clear the park the day before.
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