President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will face off tonight in the first of two presidential debates for the 2024 election season. But this week we’ve seen a number of conspiracy theories go viral on social media, with many people claiming that there are dark forces plotting to help Biden and hurt Trump.
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The debate, which is the earliest ever held between two presidential candidates, will be hosted by CNN in Atlanta and will begin at 9:00 pm ET / 6:00 pm PTAbout 60% of Americans say they plan to tune in tonight, but anyone who’s been following politics on platforms like X, Facebook, and TikTok has likely already seen ridiculous conspiracy theories about what’s going to happen.
We’ve rounded up some of the most prominent conspiracy theories below, including everything from claims that Biden will wear an earpiece to wild ideas that the broadcast will be altered in some way.
What is driving these strange conspiracy theories? It seems that Trump supporters are absolutely terrified of Biden performing well against the former president and are doing everything they can to preemptively insist that any strong performance by Biden was somehow rigged. Trump himself was saying just last month that Biden was a terrible debater.
“Crooked Joe Biden is the WORST debater I have ever faced – he can’t put two sentences together!” Trump wrote on Truth Social back in May.
But Trump has changed his tune recent weekstelling the All-In Podcast that Biden is a “worthy debater” and insisting that “I don’t want to underestimate him.”
Trump, a convicted felon who attempted a coup to stay in power on January 6, 2021, has obviously been trying to manage expectations so he doesn’t look like a jerk. But he also has an army of online sycophants who are happy to muddy the waters in an effort to sow confusion, as you can see in the examples below.
1) Will the CNN debate have a 2 minute broadcast delay?
User Patrick Webb, who works for a right-wing “news” website called The Leading Report, claimed Thursday that CNN would be broadcasting with an unusually long delay, implying that CNN could eliminate any of Biden’s mistakes.
“BREAKING: CNN will implement a 1-2 minute delay for tonight’s presidential debate instead of the standard 7-second delay, potentially allowing time to edit portions of the broadcast,” Webb tweeted. Thursday.
CNN denied the claim, tweeting: “This is false. The debate will begin live at 9 p.m. ET.”
Interestingly, Webb went on to share a screenshot of a conversation he had with ChatGPT about the definition of “live TV,” which is a bit like asking a Speak N Spell about a complex math problem. After being ridiculed for it, Webb deleted the tweet, as you can see in the screenshot below.
Webb is clearly struggling to rationalize a claim that has no credible source.
The top story on the Leading Report right now is a false claim that Covid-19 vaccines cause cancer in people, if you want to be serious you should take the website and anyone who works for it seriously.
2) Will Biden take performance-enhancing drugs?
One of the most popular conspiracy theories online right now is that President Biden will use all kinds of drugs to appear lucid. The claim implicitly accuses the president of having dementia, something Trump has repeatedly said despite his own rambling incoherence at rallies and media appearances.
Laura Loomer, a bigot and hateful who has been banned more than a dozen technology platforms for his intolerance, helped fuel the claim that Biden was going to use performance-enhancing drugs on Thursday in a tweet.
“JUST IN: @JoeBiden simply refused to take a drug test before tonight’s presidential debate,” Loomer reclaimed. “President Trump agreed to take a drug test, but Biden now refuses. “This is essentially confirmation that Joe Biden is going to be injected with drugs before the debate.”
But it’s all nonsense, of course.
As the Washington Post As recently explained, there is currently no medication on the market that will make you more coherent or mask the symptoms of dementia. If there was such a medicine we would give it to all Alzheimer’s patients and make the world a much more manageable place for everyone.
And it’s entirely possible that this is another example of Trump projection. After all, Trump’s personal White House physician, Ronny Jackson (who recently called “ronnyjohnson“), was demoted by the Navy for drinking at work and was nicknamed “The Candyman” for allegedly handing out powerful pills outside the normal prescription procedures.
3) Will Biden wear an earpiece?
The idea that Joe Biden will wear an earpiece has been around for a long time, Trump even posted an ad back in 2020 accusing the president of precisely that. Professional motherfucker and Trump adviser Roger Stone tweeted on Wednesday to help spread the unfounded idea by 2024.
“No headphones! Trump should demand that Biden be thoroughly inspected to ensure he is not wearing some deeply embedded high-tech headset before the start of the CNN debate,” Stone wrote.
No evidence of Biden wearing an earpiece and even thinking about how difficult it would be to hear someone in his ear while trying to counter a loudmouth like Donald Trump makes it absurd on its face.
4) Will Biden be replaced by a body double?
Most of the craziest conspiracy theories have originated online. But Fox News is no slouch when it comes to the dumbest possible ideas about how Biden could cheat. For example, Greg Gutfeld from the Fox show The five He insisted earlier this week that it was inherently suspicious that Biden was spending so much time at Camp David preparing for the debate.
“What is really happening? Does it take that long for the new face to heal? Does it take that long to 3D print a body double?” Gutfeld saying.
Obviously, Gutfeld would probably say he was just joking, but it’s an idea that’s extremely popular among the far-right, non-QA-focused crowd. In fact, there have been several times during the Biden presidency when online conspiracy theorists have claimed that Biden is actually being represented by a body double or someone appears in public while wearing a Biden mask.
Unfortunately, the “evidence” presented for the mask theory is easily explained by what happens with everyone’s skin as we age. It falls, whether you like it or not.
5) Is CNN blocking access to journalists to cover up medical emergencies?
The White House Correspondents’ Association, which lobbies on behalf of journalists for the White House, wrote to CNN on Tuesday asking for better access to the debate. As it stands now, journalists in Atlanta will only be allowed in an adjacent room to watch a live broadcast.
as Bloomberg explains (emphasis ours):
The concern among the other networks is that something could happen in the debate room that only CNN reporters would be able to witness. Unlike past contests, this debate has no live audience and the other candidate’s microphones will be muted when one is speaking. That could mean rival journalists overlooking gestures and comments during CNN’s coverage, or something more serious like a medical emergency involving one of the candidates.
That line about medical emergencies hit the internet without any context and is being twisted to suggest that a “medical emergency” is a given.
As a technical reporter written in Xthe media were “banished from the room in the event of a ‘presidential medical emergency.’” The implication, of course, is that Biden is the one who faints and CNN doesn’t want other journalists to see it for some unspecified shady reason.
But there is no evidence that CNN is forcing journalists to go to a different room for any reason other than to have all the power during this debate. CNN booked it, circumventing normal rules that have dictated previous debates through the neutral arbiter, the Commission on Presidential Debates, which has been frozen.
CNN even issued a statement On Thursday, former CNN journalist Brian Stelter was told much the same thing: they are in charge and they don’t want any other media there.
As proud members of the White House Correspondents’ Association, we respect the role the organization plays and its support of press freedom and access. The CNN presidential debate is being held without an audience in a CNN studio and is closed to the press. The broadcast has been made available to Washington Pool members, Washington Pool subscribers and CNN affiliates, and is also available for embedding via CNN’s YouTube channel at no charge to digital media and is available on CNN.com. Following our traditional approach, CNN is providing debate studio access to a small group of photographers for the duration of the event and a larger group of photographers during a commercial break. Additionally, CNN is providing debate room access to the designated print pool reporter during the first commercial break to enable them to provide a pool report from within the debate studio.
That, of course, won’t stop the conspiracy theories.
6) Will Biden be replaced?
Folds aside, there is a persistent theory that Biden will be replaced before the November election.
According to Jason Calacanis from the all-inclusive podcast:
There is a significant chance that Biden will be slaughtered by Trump tonight, or have a high-profile moment while the world watches. If either or both of those things happen, there is a significant chance he will retire.
The hot swap is coming. Don’t be surprised when the Democratic Party magically finds two new candidates after the polls this week. The hot swap is the best way to change this, and they know it.
While it’s too early to definitively debunk this, because anything can happen in this crazy world, there is absolutely no evidence that this is the case. It simply defies logic for Biden to drop out at this point. He’s had many, many opportunities to say he wouldn’t want to run and he’s only jeopardizing a Democratic victory for any successor the longer he waits.
Again, anything can happen. But this idea that Biden will be replaced at the last minute really only appears on Fox News or the most ridiculous corners of the internet.
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