Trump wants Biden to undergo an ear inspection before the debate

Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
(Image credit: JIM WATSON,BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

If President Trump's calls for his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, to join him in taking a drug test before or after Tuesday night's presidential debate were ever serious, they gained little traction. On Tuesday, Trump's campaign moved on to a new demand: that both candidates subject themselves to a pre-debate, third party inspection for electronic ear pieces.

The calls came after a conspiracy theory that Biden would wear such a device spread on social media, including several accounts associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory. Biden's campaign denied reports that it had earlier agreed to an inspection.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.