No those weren't transmitters in Kamala Harris' ears during debate | Fact check

Joedy McCreary, USA TODAY
Updated ·5 min read
5.2k

The claim: Kamala Harris wore 'audio earrings' during presidential debate

A Sept. 10 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) shows side-by-side photos, one of Vice President Kamala Harris’ left ear during the presidential debate and another of a pair of earrings that double as wireless communication devices.

“Nova Audio Earrings. She was Being coached, Now we know,” text in the image states.

The post was shared more than 1,000 times in a day. A similar version of the claim was reposted tens of thousands of times on X, formerly Twitter.

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Our rating: False

There is no credible evidence that Harris' earrings contained audio transmitters, which would have broken rules that ban in-debate interactions with people offstage. Harris' earrings were not the Nova model referenced in the post, the company's founder and CEO said. Photos of the debate show her earrings do not match the ones referenced in the post.

No evidence Harris’ earrings contained wireless earphones

For more than 90 minutes on Sept. 10, Harris and former President Donald Trump traded barbs, claims and policy proposals during their first presidential debate of the election season.

But the claim in the Facebook post is baseless. There is no credible evidence to indicate Harris’ jewelry during the debate contained audio transmitters that could have allowed her to be “coached," as the post claims. And the founder and CEO of the German company that produces them said the earrings worn by the VP were not made by his firm.

Harris' earrings "are not our H1 Audio Earrings," Icebach Sound Solutions founder Malte Iversen said in a statement.

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The earrings she wore on the debate stage featured large pearls with two gold stalks that curve behind her earlobes in a “J” shape. A journalist-run website that tracks the vice president’s clothing choices identifies them as a discontinued style from Tiffany & Co. Indeed, the earrings bear a close resemblance to the earrings in Tiffany & Co.’s HardWear line of jewelry, although the pearls in Harris' earrings are noticeably larger than the ones pictured on the jeweler's website.

"There was a bizarre narrative being pushed last night claiming the vice president wore earrings with an audio receiver," Susan Kelley wrote for her site, What Kamala Wore. "I am comfortable stating that was clearly not the case; these are the same Tiffany earrings she has worn for months."

Harris was photographed wearing similar earrings multiple times before the debate – including at events where no clear advantage could be gained by using such technology.

In addition, the electronic earrings shown in the post do not match the ones shown in high-resolution photographs of Harris during the debate. The Nova H1 Audio Earrings – which are purported to have embedded wireless transmitters – have single stalks. The hinge that bends around each earlobe has a smaller radius than the ones visible in photos of Harris.

Additionally, it is unclear if anyone actually possesses a pair of the earrings, which are not available for purchase on the Icebach website. Iversen initially told USA TODAY the earrings were out of stock and the company is seeking investors to "ramp up operations accordingly." But two days later, the company placed four styles of them for sale on eBay at nearly $2,000 per pair. Icebach acquired Nova's intellectual property after it became insolvent in 2023 but did not receive any money from Nova's Kickstarter investors, he said. Nova has not updated its Kickstarter page or its Instagram account since May 2023.

In what appears to be a tongue-in-cheek response to the increased attention, Icebach updated its website to add a promotion of its “Special Edition for Presidential Debates – soon available for everyone.”

Using an earpiece to communicate with anyone during the debate would have been a flagrant violation of its rules, which prohibit interactions with campaign staff during commercial breaks.

The claim echoes false assertions debunked by USA TODAY in 2020 that President Joe Biden wore an earpiece at a town hall and a wire at a presidential debate ahead of that year’s election.

The Harris campaign declined to provide an on-the-record response to a USA TODAY request for comment. USA TODAY reached out to a Tiffany spokesperson and to the Facebook user who shared the post but did not immediately receive responses.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: No, Kamala Harris didn't have 'audio earrings' at debate | Fact check

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