Was Biden using an iPad during second presidential debate? Fact Check

Claims online purport to show the moment a “handler” removed an iPad (or other type of electronic device) from Biden’s podium stand straight after the second and final presidential debate finished.

FALSE

The conspiracy video is below.

Tackling the usual slew of baseless conspiracy theories that pop-up online in the aftermath of presidential debates has sadly become par for the course, and the claim that Biden is secretly equipped with various devices designed to “feed” him answers during the debates is perhaps the most popular theory.

In every single case, these theories are based on nothing, or incorrect interpretations of poor quality video footage. That includes the claim that video cameras caught Biden wearing a wire which turned out to be a shirt crease, and a microphone in his cuff, which was almost certainly a rosary bead chain that Biden is well known to wear in memory of his son Beau.

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This latest claim purports to show a woman walking up to Biden’s podium to collect an iPad that Biden had presumably been reading from during the debate. Such a claim is of course entirely nonsense, not only because footage of the debate shows that Biden rarely looked down at his podium when giving answers, or that multiple photos taken during the debate show Biden’s podium without an iPad, but also because the intentionally skewed framing of the video appears to deliberately omit showing a man walking to Trump’s podium and removing an identical item.

In the video above, despite the narrator specifically claiming “no one’s going to Trump”, an aide did in fact walk to Trump’s podium. However the video deliberately cuts him out from the scene.

Below is a photo of Biden and Trump during the second and final presidential debate. The photo shows Biden’s podium with only a notepad.

And below is the C-SPAN video showing both a male aide and a female aide taking identical items – likely paper pads provided for the candidates to take notes – away from both Biden and Trump’s podiums. Biden was seen taking some notes away with him, which is likely the sheets he had written on (leaving the blank sheets.)

The rules set by the Commission on President Debates are strict, and do not allow for electronic devices to be used in this manner, so it’s unlikely that Biden could so brazenly use an iPad on his podium without anyone in the arena noticing, including President Trump himself who was standing only a few metres away.

We rank this claim as false.