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Kamala Harris being fed lines through “audio earrings.” Questions prepped in advance. Migrants eating pet dogs and cats. The killing of newborn babies.
These were just some of the baseless conspiracies that emerged from Tuesday night’s presidential debate between the Vice President and former president Donald Trump.
The earpiece conspiracy theory has been around for years, with Republicans and right-wing figures accusing Democratic candidates of relying on aides via audio equipment.
In 2020, then-President Trump pushed the conspiracy theory that Democratic candidate Joe Biden had “declined an earpiece inspection” before their debate.
In 2016, right-wing media pushed the same idea about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
In 2012, fundraising emails accused President Barack Obama of wearing an earpiece as he took on Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate, in a debate. Conservative bloggers also suggested that Obama did so in a 2008 debate.
And ahead of the debate between Biden and Trump in June - an abysmal performance from Biden which ultimately led to his departure from the race - Republicans claimed the president was using amphetamines, chugging energy drinks, and wore an earpiece. The network hosting the debate, CNN, was also accused of delaying the broadcast by up to two minutes.
The earpiece claim
During the debate on Tuesday night, conspiracy theorists spread the baseless claim that Harris’s earrings were transmitting audio.
“The VP cheated with earring headphones? Not surprising,” former NFL player Antonio Brown wrote to his 2.1 million X followers.
One Twitter user, followed by a number of rightwing figures, racked up millions of views on a post on X writing: “Rumors are circulating that Kamala Harris was wearing audio earrings and being fed lines. Isn’t this against the debate rules?”
The same user appeared to suggest that Obama was behind the mic and feeding Harris lines, sharing video footage from 2020 of Obama appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert jokingly saying that he’d be okay with a third term.
“If I could make an arrangement where I had a stand-in, a front man or front woman, and they had an earpiece in and I was just in my basement in my sweats looking through the stuff, and then I could sort of deliver the lines, but somebody else was doing all the talking and ceremony, I’d be fine with that,” Obama had quipped to Colbert.
A number of posts compared Harris’s earrings to a German Kickstarter campaign for clip-on audio earrings, The Daily Beast noted.
However the chunky gold and pearl-adorned earrings—which she has donned previously, and wore again on Wednesday morning to a ceremony marking the anniversary of 9/11 in New York City—are a design from luxury jewelry brand Tiffany’s “HardWear” collection, according to a website tracking her style.
Harris would be handed questions in advance
Before the debate showdown, Trump claimed, without evidence, at a Fox News town hall last week that Harris would be given the questions ahead of the debate, calling ABC News “dishonest.”
He cited Harris’s longstanding friendship with Disney TV executive Dana Walden. Disney owns ABC.
The candidates were not allowed to take pre-written notes onto the debate stage and were not told about any topics or questions in advance, according to the debate rules.
Trump claimed on Wednesday morning, during an appearance on Fox News, that Harris was being fed her answers.
“Kamala doesn’t do any shows. … That’s not fair to the public because they don’t know what they’re getting. But they saw last night what they had. They had a rigged show with somebody who maybe even had the answers,” he said.
Immigrants eating dogs and cats
Trump also used the debate to push a debunked conspiracy theory that Haitian migrants are stealing pet cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio, and eating them.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” Trump said, his voice rising.
Moderator David Muir responded that ABC News had spoken to Springfield’s city manager. “He told us there have been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community,” Muir said.
Trump then replied: “People on television say, ‘My dog was taken and used for food’.”
Officials have said there’s no evidence that Haitian immigrants are stealing and eating pets.
The conspiracy got its start on September 6, when a post appeared on X, apparently written by someone from Springfield. The post stated that a person’s “neighbor’s daughter’s friend” spotted a cat hanging from a tree to be used for food. The post claimed, without evidence, that Haitians lived at the home. A photo was included of a Black man carrying what seemed to be a goose.
Republicans, including JD Vance, Ted Cruz, and Trump, have amplified the claims on their social media platforms.
Springfield city manager Bryan Heck said in a statement: “In response to recent rumors alleging criminal activity by the immigrant population in our city, we wish to clarify that there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”
Killing newborn babies
During a segment that addressed abortion rights and reproductive care, Trump suggested that abortions are taking place at nine months and newborn babies are being “executed” in states across the US.
“There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill the baby after it’s born,” ABC News moderator Linsey Davis responded.
Trump’s race-baiting comments about Harris
Trump was asked about the offensive remarks he made earlier this summer when he claimed that Harris had “happened to turn Black” after supposedly only citing her Indian heritage.
“I couldn’t care less,” Trump claimed on Tuesday night. “Whatever she wants to be, is okay with me.”
“All I can say is I read where she was not Black ... and then I read that she was Black, and that’s okay,” he added.
The founding director of the Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy at Northwestern University, Alvin Tillery, who supports Harris, told NPR last month that Trump has “got the media covering and re-articulating his birtherism 2.0 theory.”
Years ago, Trump pushed the conspiracy theory that Obama wasn’t born in the US, eventually leading the former president to release his birth certificate. Harris’s birth certificate has also been shared online.
“Donald Trump is trying to persuade a number of marginal Black voters that they should not think of Kamala Harris as one of them,” Khalil Gibran Muhammad, professor of history, race, and public policy at Harvard Kennedy School, told NPR.
The 2020 election and the Jan 6 Capitol riot
Trump again pushed the baseless conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was stolen from him. He also refused to take responsibility for the 2021 Capitol riot, where five people were killed and his followers ransacked the building as they attempted to stop the certification of Biden’s election victory.
During the debate on Tuesday, Trump was twice asked if he regretted any of his actions on January 6, 2021.
“I had nothing to do with that other than they asked me to make a speech. I showed up for a speech,” Trump said.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen via election and voter fraud.
The Elections Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council and the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Executive Committees said in a joint statement shortly after the 2020 election that it was “the most secure in American history.”
Trump’s former Attorney General Bill Barr, also dismissed the claims of widespread fraud.
The debate was ‘rigged’
The former president claimed Tuesday night’s debate was “rigged” during an appearance on Fox News on Wednesday morning.
“It was three-to-one. It was a rigged deal,” he said in reference to the ABC News moderators, who fact-checked him on several occasions.
Trump then suggested ABC’s license should be taken away.
“To be honest, they’re a news organization. They have to be licensed to do it. They ought to take away their license for the way they did that,” he told Fox & Friends.
“I don’t know that I want to do another debate,” he added. “I’d be less inclined to because we had a great night, we won the debate, we had a terrible, terrible network … They should be embarrassed.”
