Update Dec. 22: Replacing paragraph 8 with comment from Prager Zeitung
Users on social media are sharing a text, allegedly an extract of an editorial piece by a Czech newspaper translated into English, which claims the United States is endangered by the people who have elected Joe Biden as president. Reuters found no evidence to support this translation comes from an actual article. Virtually the same text has been circulating since at least 2010, targeting Barack Obama.
Examples are visible here , and here , here , here .
“From a PRAGUE NEWSPAPER – It appears it has become obvious to the rest of the world that the United States is digging it’s (sic) own Grave”, the post begins.
Some iterations claim the text is an extract from an “article in a Prague newspaper” that was translated into English. The alleged article extract reads: “The danger to America is not Joseph Biden, but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency.” The “Republic”, the text says, can survive Biden but “is less likely to survive a multitude of fools, such as those who made him their president.”
Most of the text in this claim, but referencing President Barack Obama instead, has been circulating online since at least 2010. ( here , here ).
Some iterations of the Obama version say the article comes from “Prager Zeitung” ( here , here ), a Czech German-speaking publication ( www.pragerzeitung.cz/uber-uns/ ).
Some later iterations ( here , here ) attribute it to “the Prague newspaper, Praguer Zeitungon”, which is likely a misspelling of Prager Zeitung.
Marcus Hundt, editor in chief of Prager Zeitung, told Reuters via email that the newspaper “has never published such an article. Neither about Joe Biden nor about Barack Obama”. Prager Zeitung, he added, “primarily reports on events in the Czech Republic and Europe and not on domestic affairs in other counties”.
A search of its website returned 15 articles that mentioned Obama, the earliest being from March 10, 2012 ( www.pragerzeitung.cz/?s=OBAMA ). None included the statement in this claim, nor anything similar.
According to a 2012 article from fact-checking site Snopes here , the text has also been falsely attributed to Václav Klaus, a Czech politician who served as president of the Czech Republic between 2003 and 2013 ( here , here ).
Snopes also noted the claim has been used to target multiple world leaders, including New Zealand’s former prime minister John Key ( here ), and South Africa's former president Jacob Zuma ( here ).
VERDICT
False. Reuters found no evidence that a news organization from the Czech Republic or elsewhere wrote this text about Joe Biden. A similar version targeting Barack Obama has been circulating since at least 2010.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our work to fact-check social media posts here .
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.