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CLEVELAND (AFP) – Joe Biden offered a swift response on Tuesday (September 29) to US President Donald Trump’s campaign accusations that he would use an electronic headset to gain the upper hand during his long-awaited presidential debate.
The two sides exchanged bitter criticism just hours before the clash in Cleveland, with the Republican theory that Biden would use the device to be trained during the debate gaining traction on social media despite no real evidence.
Trump’s team claimed that Biden’s campaign had breached an agreement to conduct a pre-debate inspection of the electronic headsets and had requested multiple breaks during their standoff.
The Biden team rejected the claims.
As the two sides launched accusations, Biden, 77, intervened on Twitter.
“It’s debate night so I’ve got my headset and performance enhancers ready,” he joked alongside a photo showing Apple headphones and a can of ice cream.
In one hour, Biden’s shady post earned 200,000 likes.
“I bet you do, Sleepy!” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany responded, using the nickname Trump often uses for Biden, “Sleepy Joe.”
Earlier in the day, Biden’s aides fiercely rejected the idea that Biden would find a way to get surreptitious help during the confrontation, or that he wanted breaks during the event.
“Of course he’s not wearing a headset, and we never ask for breaks,” Biden’s deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield quoted the Washington Post on a conference call.
Bedingfield responded with a blow of his own.
“If we are playing that game, then the Trump team asked (moderator) Chris Wallace not to mention the number of Covid deaths once during the debate,” he said.
“You can take it confirmed by the Biden campaign,” Bedingfield said. “See how easy it was to try to cause a distraction?”
Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh denied that such a request had been made to the Fox News host, who will moderate the debate Tuesday night at Case Western University in Cleveland, Ohio.
“This is a lie and it never happened,” Murtaugh said in a statement. “This is the height of playing politics with a public health crisis.
“Biden is trying to distract from the facts that he will not undergo a hearing aid inspection, he will not undergo a drug test and he needs multiple breaks during the 90-minute debate.”
For months, Trump has painted Biden as senile, recently suggesting that he takes performance-enhancing drugs and demanding that he be tested, a demand that Biden laughed at.
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