Trump's Teleprompter Obsession Is His Strangest Fixation Yet

In an ironic attempt to bash his political opponent, former President Donald Trump falsely claimed on Friday, October 11, that Vice President Kamala Harris used teleprompters during her Univision town hall on Thursday. He then spouted more lies about teleprompter use, claiming he never relies on them during his own speeches, even though there were two visible teleprompters on each side of him that night. After claiming Barack Obama would vote for him in the election, these claims are some of Trump's wildest yet. 

During his rally in Aurora, Colorado, Trump — less than 10 minutes into his speech — ridiculed Harris for allegedly using teleprompters the day before, saying: "Did you see where she did a town hall yesterday and she used a teleprompter? I never saw a town — they never — you don't use teleprompters, we don't use teleprompters, period, pretty much. You don't use 'em for town halls." His claim was not only false, but was completely disproven Thursday night when right-wing commentator Greg Price made the same comment against Harris on X, formerly Twitter. In a reply on X to Price's comments, Univision News president Daniel Coronell put the false claim to rest, explaining that the teleprompter was displaying Spanish text to support the town hall moderator, Enrique Acevedo. "I can tell you this with first-hand knowledge because I was in charge of the television program," Coronell wrote. Acevedo also replied with the truth when conservative political commentator Benny Johnson said the same. "The prompter displayed my introduction (in Spanish) and then it switched to a timer," he wrote on X. "Any claim to the contrary is simply untrue."

Not only has Donald Trump falsely claimed that Kamala Harris uses teleprompters, but he's also vehemently denied regular use of them, himself. "Isn't it nice to have a president that doesn't need a teleprompter?" he said at Friday's rally, after praising himself on not using the one in front of him in the last 15 minutes, which means he does actually rely on them from time to time. Namely, when he was in Reno, Nevada on Saturday for a rally and had to stop his speech to move a sign out of the way, which had disrupted his view of the two teleprompters on each side of him.

"I look at the teleprompter, it's totally gone. I say 'What the hell happened.' The sign fell on top of it," the Republican presidential nominee said. After removing the sign and restoring his view of the teleprompter, he asked the crowd, basically contradicting his last move: "Isn't it nice to have a guy that doesn't need a teleprompter?" Trump then goes on to slam Harris once again, this time roping in President Joe Biden, bashing previous rallies for being "boring" — a word once used to describe his own rallies. He concluded his roast session by mocking her by repeating "32" over and over again, seemingly referring to when the Democratic presidential nominee stumbled over her words when her teleprompter allegedly cut out at a Michigan rally in early October (as if the former president has never attempted to go off-script during a teleprompter malfunction).