Ahead of the first debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, ABC has rejected the Harris campaign’s request to have microphones muted.
A network email obtained by the New York Post details rules for the upcoming debate that mirror those from Trump’s June 27 CNN debate with President Biden, such as no audience, prohibiting pre-written notes or props and enforcing muted mics when candidates are not speaking.
Both Trump and Harris will be debating on stage standing up. They will only be allowed to have a pen, a pad of paper and one bottle of water.
The Trump campaign was insistent on the debate having the same rules as the June debate with Biden.
On Monday, the Harris campaign stated that they preferred to have the microphones on for the duration of the 90-minute debate.
According to an anonymous top Trump advocate, both campaigns were informed in writing last week that the network would use the same CNN debate format for Sept. 10. Both campaigns confirmed that the debate was a “go.”
“At this point, Team Harris is going to be taking an ‘L’ when they finally accept, as the debate rules aren’t changing, or they’ll take an even bigger ‘L’ if they back out of the debate because the Dana Bash/CNN interview goes poorly,” the advocate told the outlet.
Harris spokesperson Brian Fallon said that his party was asked to accept the Trump campaign’s request to keep microphones muted. However, he said that the Harris campaign was still “in discussions with ABC on the final rules.”
“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,” Fallon wrote in an X post on Thursday.
“We have been asked to accede to Trump’s handlers’ wishes on this point for the sake of preserving the debate. We find the Trump’s team’s stance to be weak, and remain in discussions with ABC on the final rules.”
On Wednesday, Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller told Newsmax that the Harris campaign was “completely full of it.”
“Everything was agreed to and set last week,” he said. “The Harris people are trying to distract and come up with something shiny to move away from the fact that she’s not doing interviews.”
The debate on Sept. 10 will be held in Philadelphia at the National Constitution Center. This will be Harris’ first presidential debate since 2020.
Source: Resistthemainstream
