Snopes REVERSES 'fact check' claiming Joe Biden didn’t wear hard hat backwards

Misinformation hall-monitor website Snopes was forced to reverse a fact-check on Saturday after making the false claim the Joe Biden did not wear a hard hat backwards during a recent photo-op with construction workers.

When Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) posted the photo of Biden to X with several other construction workers, users responded slamming Biden for wearing the hard hat backwards.  

One user zoomed into the photo and posted, "Why his hard hat is wore backward?" 

Others were quick to respond to Biden's often middle-class image that is portrayed in media, saying, "Hat backwards because 'he’s a man of the people.'" 

"He’s never done a hard days work has he," the X user continued.  

The post from Klobuchar started to gain traction and has been seen over 2.4 million times as of Saturday afternoon. As the photo went viral, Snopes was quick to publish a fact-check of claims that the Biden had been wearing the construction gear wrong.  

In a now changed post, Snopes writers said, "The photo is genuine. And it does look, at first glance, like Biden was wearing that hard hat backwards. But after comparing it to other photos and videos of the same event, we were forced to reach the opposite conclusion: The hat on Biden's head was facing forward, bill to the front, not backward." The media company rated the claim it was backwards as "false" in their reporting when published on Jan. 26. 

By Saturday afternoon, Snopes had reversed course on the claim after posting the fact-check on X with the caption, "Folks are saying Biden was wearing his hard hat backwards in the photo op with Sen. Amy Klobuchar and some construction workers in Superior, Wisconsin. But was he?" 

After backlash from comments on the social media platform, the Snopes editors wrote on the reversed fact-check, with a three-paragraph correction, saying, "The prevailing counter-argument is that if the suspension of the hat has been purposely configured by its owner such that the bill and tightening knob are worn to the back (as was the case of the hat Biden wore), to wear that hat with the bill facing forward is, practically speaking, to wear it backwards. Therefore, it's argued, it's actually true that, in the photo op discussed below, Biden was wearing it backwards. The strap and tightening knob, which should have been behind Biden's head, were on his forehead."

The writers then summed this up to mean, "A corollary to that argument is 'Biden looks damn silly in any case.'" 

Continuing the correction they wrote, "We find these arguments sound. Therefore, the claim 'President Joe Biden wore a hard hat backwards during a photo op with union construction workers in Superior, Wisconsin' is true, and this fact check has been re-rated as such. Thanks to all who argued on behalf of this correction."