Donald Trump had a tough time during Monday night's presidential debate and seemed to have a very serious case of the sniffles. But don't worry, he's got an excuse for it. Trump is now claiming that his microphone—which had no issues picking up his sniffles—was "defective."
Shortly after the debate, Trump, who consistently claims that the system is rigged, pondered conspiracy theories related to his microphone. He told a group of reporters, "They also had gave me a defective mic. Did you notice that? My mic was defective within the room." According to CNN, he went on to say, "No, but I wonder, was that on purpose? Was that on purpose? But I had a mic that wasn't worked properly with, working properly within the room."
Later on Fox News, Trump doubled down: "I had a problem with a microphone that didn't work. My microphone was terrible. I wonder, was it set up that way on purpose? My microphone, in the room they couldn't hear me, you know, it was going on and off. Which isn't exactly great. I wonder if it was set up that way, but it was terrible."
According to Talking Points Memo, Trump said his mic was going on and off. "I don't want to believe in conspiracy theories, of course," he said, "but it was much lower than hers and it was crackling, and she didn't have that problem."
He then took it even further, saying that he didn't even have the sniffles. "No, no sniffles," he said. "No, You know, the mic was very bad, but maybe it was good enough to hear breathing, but there was no sniffles."
Of course, Twitter wasn't exactly buying into Trump's conspiracy theory:
Oh man, we can't wait for the next two debates in October.
