After mocking Vice President Kamala Harris over her teleprompter use, Donald Trump’s rally in Reno, Nevada, ground to a halt as he was was forced to fix his on-stage after a campaign sign fell on it.
“Thank god I don’t use teleprompters too much,” Trump told rallygoers after the sign fell on the teleprompter, causing the script to stop being projected. “I look at the teleprompter, it’s totally gone. I say ‘What the hell happened.’ The sign fell on top of it.”
The irony of the incident comes to light when reflecting on the number of times the former president has accused Harris of relying on a teleprompter and mocking her for it.
Trump told supporters on Friday he would “level” with them, and admitted to his teleprompter usage, yet still asserted Harris uses one more.
“Isn’t it nice to have a guy that doesn’t need a teleprompter, a president, a potential president that doesn’t need a teleprompter?” Trump asked supporters moments after fixing his teleprompter.
He went on to, again, falsely accuse Harris of using one during her town hall with Univision on Thursday.
Both the Harris campaign and Univision have confirmed to CNN that the vice president did not use a teleprompter during her town hall. A teleprompter that was seen in a photo from the event was in Spanish and meant for the moderator, not Harris.
Trump and his allies have previously accused Harris of using a teleprompter in interviews when she did not. In instances where the vice president has used a teleprompter, they have mocked her and insinuated she needs one because she is not intelligent.
Senator JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, boasted about not needing a teleprompter during a rally in August claiming, “I’ve actually got thoughts in my head. Unlike Kamala Harris.” At that same rally, he misspoke about a terrorist event in Afghanistan.
Similarly, Trump told supporters on Friday night that “there’s something wrong with [Harris]” for using teleprompters.
He added: “I don’t use them that much. The concept I use but I don’t like it.”
He then embarked on a hard-to-follow rant about making speeches.
“When you can’t get up and make a speech, like, normally, like – when all the work we do, you’d think you could for 40 minutes – well she makes very short speeches too. Have you ever noticed they’re like 10 minutes,” he told the crowd at Reno.
