President Donald Trump told supporters in an official campaign email he won the first presidential debate – hours before it even started.
“I finished debating Joe Biden,” the email reads.
It goes on to say “This debate will go down in HISTORY. I showed the American People that I will ALWAYS fight to put America First no matter what and that I will NEVER stop working to Make America Great Again.”
Campaigns typically have these kinds of statements pre-written and ready to send out the minute a debate ends to raise small-dollar donations, and they sometimes get sent too soon.
In fact, the Biden campaign made the same mistake last November with an email that went out hours before a debate that said he was just “leaving the Democratic debate now.”
A conspiracy theory that Biden plans to use a hidden earpiece during Tuesday night’s presidential debate is thriving on the Internet, despite denials from the Democratic nominee’s campaign.
The rumor has gained thousands of shares on Facebook and Twitter and has been circulated by the right-wing conspiracy group, QAnon. It has also been discussed by right-media outlets, including Fox News and Breitbart News Network.
Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign’s communications director, issued a statement Tuesday saying Biden’s handlers had agreed to a pre-debate inspection for electronic earpieces, only to abruptly reverse themselves. The Biden campaign denied the allegations as little more than a “distraction.”
The conspiracy theory is part of a torrent of false claims as the presidential campaign nears its final month.
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