Vice President Kamala Harris‘s campaign is reportedly seeking to reverse a debate rule pushed for by President Joe Biden‘s campaign in the first debate against former President Donald Trump: muted microphones.
In nearly all televised presidential debates, the microphones were on throughout the event, with either candidate able to interrupt the other. For the 2024 debates, the Biden campaign requested that microphones be muted during the debate when it is not a candidate’s turn to speak, to which the Trump campaign agreed, and that was the policy for the CNN debate between Trump and Biden in June.
As the ABC News debate on Sept. 10 approaches, a Politico report claims the Harris campaign wants to change the microphone policy back to the old rule of having always live microphones for both candidates. It also reports the Harris campaign wants the rule change because it thinks Trump could say something if he loses his composure.
“We have told ABC and other networks seeking to host a possible October debate that we believe both candidates’ mics should be live throughout the full broadcast,” Brian Fallon, Harris campaign senior adviser for communications, told the Washington Examiner in a statement. “Our understanding is that Trump’s handlers prefer the muted microphone because they don’t think their candidate can act presidential for 90 minutes on his own.”
“We suspect Trump’s team has not even told their boss about this dispute because it would be too embarrassing to admit they don’t think he can handle himself against Vice President Harris without the benefit of a mute button,” he added. “The Vice President is ready to deal with Trump’s constant lies and interruptions in real time. Trump should stop hiding behind the mute button.”
Muting microphones is the latest debate about the debates after the Trump campaign was initially uncommitted to continuing with the ABC News event against Harris because it had been negotiated with the Biden campaign, not the vice president’s campaign. The Trump campaign agreed to the debate, as negotiated with the Biden campaign, and pushed for further debates as well, but the Harris campaign has only agreed to the ABC debate and possibly a second debate in October.
“ABC offered the exact same debate rules as CNN, and we accepted — as did the Harris camp. We did not ask for any ‘changes,’” Jason Miller, senior adviser to Trump, told the Washington Examiner in a statement.
“Now, after the Harris campaign has begun debate prep, they’re clearly concerned about what they’re seeing from Harris’s performance and want a whole host of rules changes. This is interesting considering the Democrats wrote the initial debate rules and loved them until President Trump knocked Joe Biden out, and Harris spokesman Michael Tyler said on the record that the debate about debates was over. The only explanation here is that the Harris campaign is looking for an off-ramp to get out of the debate,” he added.
The muted microphones in the CNN debate in June were generally well received, with fewer interruptions occurring than in the Trump-Biden debates in 2020. The rules themselves were overshadowed by Biden’s performance, which raised further questions about his age and mental acuity and led to his dropping out of the race in July.
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The Harris and Trump campaigns have agreed to a Sept. 10 debate hosted by ABC News and an Oct. 1 vice presidential debate between Harris’s running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), and Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), hosted by CBS News.
A second debate between Harris and Trump could be scheduled for October, with Harris’s and Trump’s campaigns showing a willingness for an additional faceoff.
