The first presidential debate between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris is scheduled for Tuesday, September 10, and will be moderated by ABC News. September 10 was originally scheduled as the day for a debate between Trump and Joe Biden, but that was before the president dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris as the Democratic nominee.
According to Politico Playbook reporters Eugene Daniels, Rachael Bade and Ryan Lizza, Trump is now hinting that he may not hold the debate.
According to four sources familiar with the matter, the campaign teams have “reached an impasse regarding the rules of the debate.”
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“The problem? Whether the candidates’ microphones will be muted when it’s not their turn to speak,” Daniels, Bade and Lizza explain. “When President Joe Biden was still running for re-election, his campaign team and Trump’s reached an agreement: There should be two debates – CNN’s on June 27 and ABC’s on September 10 – conducted under jointly negotiated rules. One of the red lines of Biden World – which the Trump team agreed to – was that the microphones should be ‘muted throughout the debate, except for the candidate whose turn it is to speak,’ as CNN announced on June 15.”
The journalists continue: “Now the tables have turned. Harris’ campaign wants the microphones to always be hot during the ABC debate, as has been the case at presidential debates in the past.”
According to Daniels, Bade and Lizza, it is “clear” that Harris’ campaign team “hopes to make Trump lose his composure at the microphone.”
Brian Fallon, a senior communications adviser for Harris’ campaign, told Politico Playbook: “We have told ABC and other networks looking to host a potential debate in October that we believe both candidates’ microphones should be on throughout the broadcast. Our understanding is that Trump’s advisers prefer the silent microphone because they don’t believe their candidate can act presidentially for 90 minutes alone.”
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Fallon added: “We suspect that Trump’s team did not even inform his boss about this dispute because it would be too embarrassing to admit that they do not believe he can stand up to Vice President Harris without having the mute button.”
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Read the full Politico Playbook column at this link.
