When Vice President Kamala Harris participated in a Univision town hall last week, viewers noticed a teleprompter facing the candidate, earning her ridicule and insults online.
But yesterday, former President Donald Trump held a town hall on the same network that featured a teleprompter, too.
The teleprompter wasn’t for Harris, but Univision moderators, the network’s president said in the wake of the backlash.
On Oct. 10, after Harris’ Univision appearance, right-wing influencers and Trump campaign account @TrumpWarRoom tweeted a video of Harris speaking to an in-studio audience. A teleprompter is in front of her.
“Kamala is using a teleprompter during her ‘town hall’ with Univision lmfao,” far-right influencer Greg Price tweeted.
That same day, Univision News president Daniel Coronell debunked the discourse, tweeting that the teleprompter was used by network moderators, not Harris.
“The teleprompter that displays a text written in Spanish was a support element for the town hall moderator,” Coronell said. “I can tell you this with first-hand knowledge because I was in charge of the television program.”
But even after Coronell’s tweet, right-wing influencers continued to spread the claim that Harris used the teleprompter—calling it “egregious journalistic malpractice.”
“BUSTED!! Kamala was just caught using a teleprompter at her Univision town hall! Producers panic and turn off the prompter midway through her answer,” Charlie Kirk tweeted on Oct. 11. “Why did Univision allow this?! This is egregious journalistic malpractice.”
Today, in the aftermath of Trump’s Univision appearance, many online are blasting him for the presence of a teleprompter during his town hall.
“The teleprompter,” Republicans Against Trump tweeted.
“WOW! Would you look at that, MAGA? There’s a teleprompter in front of Trump during his Univision town hall,” left-wing influencer Harry Sisson tweeted. “Remember when you FALSELY said that VP Harris was using one to answer questions? Will you hold the same energy? Complete hypocrites.”
Journalists, though not those at Univision, stated that the teleprompter in front of Trump wasn’t for him, either.
“Trump had the same teleprompter at his Univision townhall that Harris did,” the Bulwark’s Sam Stein tweeted yesterday. “It wasn’t for there him and it wasn’t there for her.”
“Univision used the same shot, revealing the monitor that the moderator was using for automatic translation, at the Harris event,” Semafor’s David Weigel tweeted. “Trump campaign (and Trump) falsely claimed this was a teleprompter for Harris to read her TH answers.”
Univision has not made a statement on the teleprompter present during Trump’s town hall, probably because the backlash Trump is receiving is tongue-in-cheek.
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