Telemundo refuted a claim circulated on social media Wednesday that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden used a teleprompter in a recent interview on the network. Among those passing around the claim was President Donald Trump’s son Eric Trump.
“Recent social media posts claiming @JoeBiden used a teleprompter during an interview with Noticias Telemundo and anchor @jdbalart are absolutely FALSE,” tweeted Telemundo’s official account.
The tweet invited viewers to watch a video of Biden peering off-camera at a viewer-submitted question delivered in Spanish and translated via English voiceover. He answered the question while still speaking in the direction of the monitor on which the viewer’s video submission played.
Early Wednesday morning, Eric Trump shared a video of the interview that claimed Biden was reading from a teleprompter when he looked off-screen at the monitor. “Unreal,” the president’s son captioned the video.
José Díaz-Balart, the Noticias Telemundo anchor who interviewed Biden, spoke to Politico and denied that Biden would have been given questions in advance.
“He was asked to answer questions from Telemundo viewers. They were on a monitor. He would answer the monitor,” the anchor said. He retweeted both a Politico reporter quoting his denial and the official Telemundo account refuting the claim.
Recent social media posts claiming @JoeBiden used a teleprompter during an interview with Noticias Telemundo and anchor @jdbalart are absolutely FALSE.
👇 WATCH what really happened. pic.twitter.com/RoPbdJnhZu
— Noticias Telemundo (@TelemundoNews) September 23, 2020