It’s been obvious for months now that Joe Biden uses a teleprompter—and not just for speeches. He uses it during what are supposed to be unscripted interviews with reporters and when answering questions from high-profile Democrats and voters in the middle of virtual events like fundraisers and campaign-driven town halls.
In late March/early April as the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic ground much of the country to a halt, Biden began to spend the majority of his time campaigning from his basement. Because there’s (presumably) no one in his basement outside of the presidential nominee himself, family members, and his handlers, the Biden campaign appears to have taken advantage of the situation by setting up a teleprompter loaded with talking points he uses when he talks to journalists and voters while sequestered.
The Daily Caller put together a pretty comprehensive video a week ago of numerous incidents where it looks as though Biden is reading scripted answers from teleprompters during virtual events and interviews. They also included clips of Trump complaining about how he could never get away with it and another where an MSNBC reporter/anchor dishonestly conflates reading off a teleprompter for a speech with reading off of one for media interviews:
Here’s another clip that stands out in my view as clear evidence of a teleprompter being used:
Up until recently, no one in the mainstream media dared ask the Biden campaign the teleprompter question even as Trump himself has relentlessly pounded Biden on the issue. Fox News host Bret Baier was the first to ask Biden campaign national press secretary T.J. Ducklo earlier this month several times about it. Ducklo never directly answered the question and instead accused Baier of being a Trump campaign operative. Ducklo’s defensiveness and refusal to answer the question spoke volumes.
Just days later, Biden’s campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon was asked by a Politico reporter about the nominee using teleprompters during virtual interviews. She didn’t deny it.
Fast forward to last Friday, when Trump held a campaign rally in Minnesota. As he gave a speech in front of a large crowd of supporters, he read off of a teleprompter. This, numerous members of the mainstream media declared, was evidence that Trump was being hypocritical and duplicitous:
The Hill correspondent Reid Wilson chimed in earlier in the day Friday on Trump’s alleged “habit of projecting onto others” including on “the teleprompter thing”:
This is maddeningly dishonest, but you’ve probably already figured that out. The issue isn’t the use of teleprompters in and of itself. The issue is a nominee for higher office using them during interviews and Q&As with voters where you are supposed to be able to speak coherently without the use of visual aids and other campaign prompts.
Trump’s point from the Daily Caller video about how he would be skewered by the same press if he tried to use a teleprompter to answer their questions is right on the money. They’d hammer him on it for days, weeks, months on end.
That supposedly objective reporters have taken the “whataboutism” route here is just more evidence that they’re trying to negate legitimate questions about Joe Biden’s stamina, health, and preparedness to lead the country in a desperate attempt to drag him over the finish line in November. It’s what they did during Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 presidential campaign, too.
Regardless of the MSM working at warp speed in an effort to take this issue off the table, the Trump campaign is not letting up on it. They released this ad Saturday:
Move along, nothing worrisome to see here, right? I mean according to CNN “fact-checker” Daniel Dale, Biden can “utter… many consecutive coherent sentences” together, so voters have nothing to be concerned about, right?
If that’s not setting the bar about as low as it can go, I don’t know what is.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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