The teleprompters

Trump falsely accuses Biden of being fed reporters’ questions

The teleprompters that Biden used during his opening remarks did not appear to be running during the question-and-answer portion of the news conference.

By QUINT FORGEY

President Donald Trump on Wednesday falsely asserted that former Vice President Joe Biden responded to questions from reporters a day earlier with pre-written answers displayed on a teleprompter — despite video footage of Biden’s interactions with the media demonstrably proving otherwise.

“Biden was asked questions at his so-called Press Conference yesterday where he read the answers from a teleprompter,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “That means he was given the questions, just like Crooked Hillary. Never have seen this before!”

Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, did indeed read from a teleprompter during his speech Tuesday in Wilmington, Del., which focused on Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

But following his prepared remarks, Biden took roughly 30 minutes of questions from reporters in what amounted to his first news conference in nearly three months, since the infectious outbreak forced him to begin campaigning largely virtually.

Although Biden appeared to call upon reporters in an order determined by his staff, his answers on various subjects — including alleged Russian bounties on U.S. troops, his vetting of potential Black, female Supreme Court nominees and even his mental fitness — were all seemingly off-the-cuff. The teleprompters that Biden used during his opening remarks did not appear to be running during the question-and-answer portion of the news conference.

The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s claim.

The president’s invocation Wednesday of his previous general election opponent, Hillary Clinton, referred to his long-running frustration that she was leaked potential topics for a town hall event during the 2016 Democratic primary by Donna Brazile, the former vice-chair and later interim chair of the Democratic National Committee.

Brazile resigned from her role as a CNN contributor after hacked emails published by Wikileaks showed her passing along the information to the Clinton campaign. She is now a contributor on Fox News.

Trump vented his outrage Tuesday night at her position with the conservative-leaning network, tweeting: “She gets fired by @CNN for giving Crooked Hillary the debate questions, and gets hired by @FoxNews. Where are you Roger Ailes?”

Ailes, the longtime chairman and CEO of Fox News who stepped down from the network in 2016 amid accusations of sexual assault, died in 2017.

“I know better than anyone that my friend Roger Ailes died 3 years ago, just look at what happened to @FoxNews,” Trump clarified in a tweet posted a half-hour after his prior message. “We all miss Roger!!!”