Published on a satirical website, an article with the headline: “Biden to Defund the Department of Veterans Affairs” has received thousands of interactions on Facebook, some of which come from users who take the claim seriously. Although intended as a parody, links to the article were shared out of context and misled people into mistakenly believing that US President Joe Biden wanted to defend the department.
The article itself, available here, was published on the website “America’s Last Line of Defense”, which describes itself (here) as part of a ‘network of parody, satire and nonsense, or as Snopes calls it before losing their war has about satire: Junk News. ”
The page also states that “everything on this site is fiction. This is not a lie and it’s not fake news because it’s not really. If you believe this is true, you should have your head examined. Other sites in America’s Last Line of Defense network include DailyWorldUpdate.us, BustaTroll.org and TatersGonnaTate.com.
Examples of posts that share the link to the satirical Biden story can be found here, here and here.
Comments that suggest some users take the claim seriously include: “It’s time to INTEND!” and “Fuck this post, and the rest of the communist pigs !!” (here) as well as “He’s so destructive ….. seriously democratic,” “Military law must get involved to save America,” and “Who voted for this boy of a bitch ????? Come talk , be proud. Wow ”(here).
President Biden has made no plans to reduce funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs. A page on his presidential campaign website (joebiden.com/veterans/) outlines his plans to “restore the VA as the most important agency to ensure overall veterans.”
Although the president’s proposed federal budget for fiscal year 2022 is not yet available, it is expected to appear soon at www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/.
VERDICT
Satire. Although intended as satire, some social media users were taken seriously in an article with the headline that Biden intends to disregard the Department of Veterans Affairs. Biden did not plan to do so.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.