Telemundo Anchor Jose Diaz-Balart Debunks Claim Joe Biden Used Teleprompter in Interview
A viral tweet speculating that Joe Biden was reading answers from a teleprompter during an interview with Telemundo was dismissed on Wednesday by the network and anchor that hosted the sit down.
In a video that drew more than 600,000 views on Twitter, Biden answers a question on deportations in an interview with Jose Diaz-Balart. At one point, he turns towards a screen and says “I lost that…”
The account that posted the video and pro-Trump websites speculated that Biden was reading from a teleprompter.
In a statement, a Telemundo spokesperson called those claims “absolutely false”:
Recent social media posts claiming Joe Biden used a teleprompter during an interview with Noticias Telemundo and anchor Jose Diaz-Balart are absolutely false.
Noticias Telemundo has never allowed someone who is being interviewed on its news programs to read answers from a teleprompter which would be a clear violation of its editorial policies and standards.
As the full interview clearly shows, Vice President Biden was asked to respond to pre-taped questions from viewers. The viewers’ questions were played on a monitor off to the side and Biden answered them directly looking at the screen. The monitor was there only to show the questions from Telemundo viewers.
As Biden was answering one of the questions asked, the monitor went black, and Biden said, “I lost that lady.”
Mr. Diaz-Balart continued the interview by saying “You and I can talk about that,” so Biden would finish his answer directly to him instead of to a blank screen.
Earlier on Wednesday, Politico reporter Marc Caputo reached out to Diaz-Balart for an explanation.
“Of course not,” said the anchor when asked if it was true that Biden was reading off a prompter.
“He was asked to answer questions from Telemundo viewers —they were on a monitor. He would answer the monitor. In one moment the monitor went to black — he said ‘I lost the lady’ I told him he could answer looking at me,” he explained.
…”and that was that.” I asked @jdbalart about it because I know him well and he’s a helluva reporter first and foremost and he would never agree to something like this, where a subject gets interview questions or is allowed to answer off a teleprompter@TLMDPR should clarify
— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) September 23, 2020
The initial video, which was retweeted more than 14,000 times and promoted by Eric Trump, remains up. The president himself retweeted the false claim on Wednesday.
Watch the full interview above, via Telemundo.
This story has been updated with a full statement from Telemundo.
