New right-wing conspiracy theory: Kamala Harris’ debate earrings were a high-tech cheating device

Post-debate polls indicate that Vice President Kamala Harris defeated former President Donald Trump at their confrontation on Tuesday evening, with various commentators, including some Republicans, suggesting that Harris came well-prepared while Trump talked himself into a disaster. Then there’s the explanation by some internet conspiracy theorists that Harris cheated her way to victory by means of secret earpieces disguised as earrings, through which aides fed her a script to attack Trump and defend her positions.

This new theory follows claims by Trump and his supporters that Harris would be given the questions in advance of the debate to give her an unfair advantage. In the wake of Harris’ debate performance, the earpiece theory is now being circulated on Elon Musk’s X, where posts promoting the claim have garnered millions of views. “The VP cheated with earring headphones? Not surprising,” former NFL player Antonio Brown, who has 2.1 million followers, posted on X.

An account called “Election2024” explained the theory in more detail, falsely identifying the vice president’s earrings as a product developed by Nova H1 Audio Earrings, an earpiece technology company. “This earring has audio transmission capabilities and acts as a discreet earpiece,” Election2024 tweeted. “Kamala Harris confirms claims that a candidate against Trump gets to break all debate rules.”

To prove their point, some of the accounts peddling the theory showed an image-by-image comparison of Harris’ earrings to the device worn by a woman in a Tom’s Guide review of the Nova H1 audio earrings, pointing to what appears to be a pearl, a gold stalk extending out from the pearl and two small gold hoops on both pictures.

But as other users pointed out, Harris’ earrings do not have a gold stalk, and the hoops in the Tom’s Guide picture were clearly worn separately from the pearl audio earring. A community note on X later clarified that Harris’ earrings were in fact from Tiffany & Co. and cannot receive any transmissions.