Univision producers debunked the Trumpworld conspiracy theory that Vice President Kamala Harris used a teleprompter in a recent town hall.
Donald Trump’s campaign posted a clip on Thursday of the town hall's Univision broadcast. The low-res snippet of the broadcast shows a teleprompter displaying text during Harris' answer to an audience member before quickly blinking out.
🚨 BREAKING: Univision accidentally broadcast proof that Kamala used a teleprompter at her town hall
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) October 11, 2024
Watch them panic when they realized they were showing the prompter live on-air pic.twitter.com/fiUFcfN2Kx
That video was quickly amplified by conservative commentators like Greg Price, Benny Johnson and Vivek Ramaswamy. Those accounts accused Harris of making use of the prompter to answer questions from the audience, asked in English and Spanish, causing Univision producers to set the record straight late Thursday night.
“That’s not true. The teleprompter that displays a text written in Spanish was a support element for the town hall moderator,” Univison News President Daniel Coronell wrote on X. “I can tell you this with first-hand knowledge because I was in charge of the television program.”
Town hall moderator Enrique Acevado chimed in to issue a correction, noting that “the prompter displayed my introduction (in Spanish) and then it switched to a timer. Any claim to the contrary is simply untrue.”
The prompter displayed my introduction (in Spanish) and then it switched to a timer. Any claim to the contrary is simply untrue. https://t.co/eYWZFoCyZf
— Enrique Acevedo (@Enrique_Acevedo) October 11, 2024
The clip that traveled around X is a lower resolution than the broadcast video available on YouTube. In the original clip, the text on the teleprompter screen is clearly in Spanish.
It's not the first time that misinformation from X, formerly Twitter, has made it into this year's presidential election. The platform was the birthplace of JD Vance and Donald Trump’s now-infamous lies about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.
A September analysis showed that rampant misinformation on the site was frequently boosted by Musk, who advanced at least 17 false narratives and amplified five of the most prolific lie-spreaders on the platform.
