Harris’ campaign claimed Monday that Donald Trump’s team is opposing the microphones being turned on during the high-profile debate with Vice President Kamala Harris to prevent the Republican presidential nominee from making a fool of himself.
This comes as the ex-president casts doubt on whether he will even attend the confrontation.
Harris and Trump will debate each other for the first time in two weeks on September 10, airing on ABC News.
But it appears the campaigns are not seeing eye to eye on the rules. Trump’s team agreed to the rules set in June, when President Biden was the presumptive nominee, while Harris’ campaign wants change.
“We have informed ABC and other networks interested in hosting a potential October debate that we believe both candidates’ microphones should be live for the entire broadcast,” Brian Fallon said in a statement.
“We believe Trump’s advisers prefer to turn off the microphone because they don’t think their candidate can act like a president for 90 minutes on his own,” Fallon continued.
Harris’ campaign claims Trump’s team wants microphones muted if no candidate is scheduled to appear at the Sept. 10 debate, while Trump raises questions about whether he will appear at all
The response is the latest in a series of heated negotiations between the campaigns over the debate after Harris replaced Biden at the top of the ticket.
Trump and Biden were originally scheduled to debate twice, first in June and then again in September.
But Biden’s disastrous performance at the June 27 debate prompted him to withdraw from the race less than a month later, amid growing concerns among Democrats about the 81-year-old’s fitness to serve a second term.
After Harris became the nominee, she said she was willing to continue debating Trump on Sept. 10 and was open to future debates. But their only agreed-upon showdown now appears to be in jeopardy.
In a post Sunday night, the 78-year-old wondered whether he would debate Harris on ABC News in just over two weeks.
“I watched ABC FAKE NEWS this morning, the ridiculous and biased interview by the lighthearted reporter Jonathan Carl (K?) with Tom Cotton (who was fantastic!) and their so-called Panel of Trump Haters, and I wonder why I would do the debate against Kamala Harris on that network?” Trump wrote.
The former president then took a swipe at ABC News panelist Donna Brazile on Sunday, who suggested she gave the questions to Harris after she leaked CNN town meeting material to the Clinton campaign in 2016, when she was a political analyst there.
He also pointed out that Harris’ friend is the boss of ABC and wondered if host George Stephanopoulos might be involved.
“They have a lot of questions to answer!!! Why did Harris reject Fox, NBC, CBS and even CNN? Stay tuned!!!” Trump wrote in his post.
When asked about the debate Monday morning in Virginia, the former president said he wanted a fair debate but that couldn’t happen on ABC News. When asked about muting the microphones, Trump indicated he was open to the change.
“We agreed on the same rules. I don’t know. I don’t care. I’d probably rather have it on,” he said. “But the agreement was that it would be the same as last time.”
The former president then accused the vice president of trying to back out of the debate.
Earlier this month, Trump claimed he would take on Harris and had agreed to three debates, including one on ABC News, one on Fox News on Sept. 4 and another on NBC in late September.
Harris’ campaign team responded to his message tonight in a statement Monday morning.
They said they suspect the Trump campaign has not even informed their candidate about the microphone dispute.because it would be too embarrassing to admit that they don’t think he can take on Vice President Harris without the ability to mute the sound.’
Fallon said the vice president is ready, and Trump would ““Stop hiding behind the mute button.”
When asked about the debate on Monday, Trump said he didn’t like having the microphones muted in June, “but it worked out fine.”
The former president said he believes it should be the same and that his campaign “plays by the same rules.” He accused Harris of trying to “get out of it” because she’s not a “good debater” or a “smart person.”
Harris has not formally accepted any additional debate offers beyond the one on Sept. 10, but she told reporters during her platform speech in late July that she was open to them.
Former President Trump and President Biden appeared in Atlanta for a debate on June 27. The confrontation raised alarm bells about whether the 81-year-old president was eligible for a second term
The disagreement over muting the microphones is ironic, given that it was a rule the Biden campaign originally pushed for while he was still a candidate, before the June debate.
But the move appeared to backfire on the president, who appeared on camera to be slow to react and unable to call Trump out on false statements in real time.
It led to a flood of criticism that continued to mount until Biden withdrew from the race on July 21.