WASHINGTON — Critics charged that Donald Trump was making excuses when he complained that his microphone had been faulty at the first presidential debate.
Turns out, he was right.
The Commission on Presidential Debates issued a one-sentence statement Friday saying there were indeed problems with Trump’s mic.
The independent commission made no mention of Hillary Clinton’s microphone.
“Regarding the first debate, there were issues regarding Donald Trump’s audio that affected the sound level in the debate hall,” the commission said without further explanation.
After learning he had been vindicated, Trump said he knew it all along but had decided to make the best of it.
“I knew right from the beginning something was seriously wrong with my mic,” the Republican nominee said in an e-mail.
“But with 100 million people expected to watch, there was no way I was going to stop the show. The bad mic was a far bigger problem than the event itself. I was forced to fight through it just like I’ll do for the country.”
Almost immediately after Monday’s showdown, Trump began complaining about his microphone — and wondered whether he had been sabotaged.
“They . . . gave me a defective mic. Did you notice that? My mic was defective within the room,” he said in the spin room.
“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,” the tycoon added.
The next morning, Trump continued griping, saying he didn’t have the “sniffles,” as it had appeared, just poor equipment.
“No! No sniffles,” he told Fox News. “No. You know, the mic was very bad, but maybe it was good enough to hear breathing.”
“When I tested, it was beautiful. Like an hour before, I said what a great mic,” he added.
“It was going on and off, and it was much lower than hers. I don’t want to believe in conspiracy theories, of course, but it was much lower than hers, and it was crackling, and she didn’t have that problem. That to me was a bad problem, when you have a bum mic, that’s not exactly good.”
Clinton and others had been quick to dismiss Trump’s gripe.
“Anybody who complains about the microphone is not having a good night,” she told reporters on her press plane the next day.
On Friday, after the commission confirmed Trump’s complaint, the Clinton camp dug in.
“@realDonaldTrump’s problem isn’t that he couldn’t be heard on Monday night. His problem is we all heard him quite clearly,” Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri tweeted.
The campaign refused to take back its initial criticism.
The debate commission did not respond to a request for details.
Listen to Trump’s “sniffles” here: