In the wake of a debate performance that has been widely panned as disastrous, former president Donald Trump and his supporters have tried to explain the evening away by posting conspiracies about a “rigged” event, deeply misogynistic attacks on vice president Kamala Harris, and wild claims about the vice president’s earrings.
Within minutes of the debate ending, a brand new conspiracy emerged on X, focusing not on the content of what was said but on the earrings that Harris was wearing.
“It appears Kamala Harris was being coached by using earphones embedded in her earrings during the ABC presidential debate against President Trump,” one pro-Trump disinformation account with over half a million followers posted on X. Another major pro-Trump account also shared the conspiracy while the debate was still going on, and that post has been viewed over 5 millions times.
The claim is based on the fact that the earrings Harris was wearing bear a passing resemblance to a pair of so-called “audio earrings” that were sold on Kickstarter last year. “NOVA H1 Audio Earrings—the first and only wireless earphones embedded in a pair of pearl earrings,” the product description reads.
This conspiracy quickly gained traction among Trump supporters on Tuesday night as they grasped to excuse his poor performance. Numerous pro-Trump clickbait accounts on X and other supporters reshared the conspiracy, including Laura Loomer, a failed Florida congressional candidate and Trump acolyte who traveled with the former president to the debate.
Photograph: Saul Loeb; Getty
Throughout the debate, Harris deftly attacked Trump’s weak spots—the size of the crowds at his rallies, his inherited wealth—and the former president reacted angrily, lashing out with nonsensical answers and outright lies.
Trump’s answers were filled with disinformation, including lies about abortion, elections and the Capitol riots. He even resorted to pushing the false conspiracy about illegal Haitian immigrants eating the pets of people in Springfield, Ohio.
“They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” Trump claimed, repeating a baseless conspiracy that has been trending on social media platforms like X in recent days and promoted by vice presidential candidate and Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio.
This claim and many others were quickly fact-checked and debunked by ABC News hosts and debate moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis, a fact that clearly further incensed Trump.
Almost immediately after the debate finished, Trump reiterated the conspiracy about a “rigged” debate from ABC News that he has been promoting for the last week.
“I thought that was my best Debate, EVER, especially since it was THREE ON ONE,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, where he tried to defend his claim about migrants eating pets by sharing links to unsubstantiated rumors.
This line of attack was echoed by Trump’s biggest supporters. “Weird how the hack moderators at [ABC News] are only ‘Fact checking’ Trump and allowing Kamala to lie nonstop,” Donald Trump Jr. wrote on X. “The Fake News is the enemy of the people!”
“The moderators might as well be on the DNC payroll,” Mike Lee, a Republican senator from Utah wrote on X. “This is ridiculous. This is the worst moderated debate in history.”
“Somebody abort the moderation of this debate and then send the journos to Gitmo,” wrote Sean Davis, CEO of the Federalist, on X.
Charlie Kirk, co-founder of Turning Point USA, called the debate “a show trial where the judge, jury, and executioner is ABC News,” while Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican congresswoman from Georgia, called it “an absolute attack on Trump.”
Despite his bravado online, Trump appeared to be concerned about the reception of the debate performance, as he went into the post-debate spin room himself. In between randomly shouting out polling numbers—”90%, 60%, 72%, 71% and 89%”—Trump once again claimed it was “my best debate ever.”
It is an unsurprising response from a man who seems to be insulated from reality by a cadre of sycophants within the Republican Party and his campaign team, and an army of kowtowing supporters on social media platforms.
On these platforms on Tuesday night, his supporters echoed Trump’s complaints about ABC News’ decision to fact-check him in real time and continued to attack and spread conspiracies about Harris based on her gender.
Many of the comments used deeply misogynistic and racist language to refer to Harris, calling into question her ethnicity and boosting the conspiracy that her success was predicated on sleeping with powerful men.
“I hope he calls her a stupid bitch to her face,” a member of a fringe pro-Trump message board wrote, while another added: “I bet she had a lot of abortions.”
On Telegram, one member of a Proud Boys channel responded to Harris calling the group a “militia” during the debate by writing: “We are living rent free in this whores head.”
