Misinformation about Vice President Kamala Harris’ appearance at a town hall event broadcast by Univision is circulating on X, formerly Twitter, after right-wing influencers and figures falsely accused her, again without evidence, of using a teleprompter at an event.
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris listens as moderator Enrique ... [+]
A video clip of Harris appearing at the event in Las Vegas on Thursday pans around to the audience and briefly shows a teleprompter with words on it before it turns off.
A number of Republicans and right-wing influencers took the text on the teleprompter as proof Harris relied on it for the town hall.
Fox News host Sean Hannity reposted a clip of the town hall on X (now deleted), writing “Kamala uses teleprompter for ‘unscripted’ town hall.” Benny Johnson, a popular far-right influencer accused of receiving funding from Russia, also reposted the clip on X with the claim “Univision accidentally broadcast proof that Kamala used a teleprompter at her town hall” —which has received over 100,000 likes (he has not deleted the post).
The claim was debunked by Enrique Acevado, the moderator of the town hall, who reposted Johnson’s post and said the prompter displayed his introduction in Spanish before it switched to a timer: “Any claim to the contrary is simply untrue,” Acevado wrote.
Daniel Coronell, the former president of Univision News who was in charge of the program, echoed Acevado’s statement by saying the claims were “not true.”
Republicans and far-right influencers have accused Harris of relying on a teleprompter for much of her campaign. Another post, which has since been viewed more than 13 million times on X in September, accuses Harris of using a teleprompter in a forum with Oprah Winfrey. A Winfrey spokesperson told PolitiFact that Harris did not use a teleprompter, but Winfrey did.
Donald Trump has previously complained about his teleprompters not working. He said at a Las Vegas rally in June: “I pay all this money to teleprompter people, and I’d say 20% of the time, they don’t work.”
No, a video doesn’t show Kamala Harris using a teleprompter during a live televised forum (Poynter)