Ramping up to the Sept.10 Kamala Harris vs. Donald Trump debate on ABC, Harris’ campaign is still pushing for a return to debate normalcy with microphone rules, while Trump’s campaign seeks to shield him from a hot mic moment, despite his wishes.
“Our latest understanding is that even though Trump said Monday he would be fine with an unmuted mic, his handlers don’t trust him to spar live with VP Harris and are asking ABC to ignore Trump’s comments and keep the mics muted or else they will back out of the debate for a third time,” Brian Fallon, a senior advisor to the Harris campaign, wrote on X, adding that though the campaign was asked to comply with the Trump campaign’s wishes, they will continue to push for the mics to remain on.
In a departure from previous debate structures, the microphones were muted outside of candidates’ allotted speaking time for the first presidential debate this year — when President Biden faced off against Trump in a now-infamous performance that ultimately led to Biden exiting the race — which kept Trump somewhat under control, barring a bizarre spat over golf and strange lies about abortions “after birth."
Trump has publicly said that un-muting the microphones “doesn’t matter” to him, and the Harris campaign has pushed for the mics to be left on, with some hoping to catch Trump in a “hot mic” attack on the candidate.
“I’d rather have it probably on, but the agreement was that it would be the same as it was last time,” Trump said on Monday, squarely agreeing to the match-up he once tried to back away from.
Aside from the microphone change, ABC plans to keep other key changes to the structure adopted by CNN for the June debate between Biden and Trump. The face-off, moderated by Linsey Davis and David Muir, will feature no live audience. The Harris campaign hopes to continue negotiations.
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