The two have been tussling over whether microphones will be muted when a candidate isn’t speaking during the debate, which is scheduled for Sept. 10.
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Former President Donald J. Trump has gone back and forth about whether he will attend the Sept. 10 debate.
Donald J. Trump announced for a second time that he would participate in a presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris hosted by ABC News and suggested that the question of whether microphones will be muted when a candidate isn’t speaking had been resolved.
But a person briefed on the Harris campaign’s thinking said the issue of whether the microphones will be muted — something the Trump team favors and the Harris team does not — remains an open discussion. A spokesman for ABC declined to comment.
Mr. Trump wrote on his social media website that the rules of the debate “will be the same as the last CNN Debate, which seemed to work out well for everyone except, perhaps,” President Biden.
The debate hosted by CNN, which took place in Atlanta on June 27, was calamitous for Mr. Biden, precipitating his decision on July 21 to end his re-election effort. During that debate, microphones for the candidates were muted when they weren’t speaking, a term encouraged by the Biden team.
That was ultimately seen by Mr. Trump’s advisers as beneficial to him, because it prevented the former president from the type of frequent and self-harming eruptions he is prone to. Instead, the focus was on Mr. Biden and his struggles to articulate his thoughts.
Politico reported on Monday that the Harris and Trump team had hit an impasse over whether the microphones will be muted for the Sept. 10 debate, set to take place in Philadelphia.
Mr. Trump’s team accused the Harris team of a bait and switch. Yet Mr. Trump himself, in an appearance on Monday in Virginia, said he personally didn’t care.
“Doesn’t matter to me,” Mr. Trump said. “I’d rather have it probably on. But the agreement was that it would be the same as it was last time.”
Ammar Moussa, a Harris spokesman, said in a statement that, “Both candidates have publicly made clear their willingness to debate with unmuted mics for the duration of the debate to fully allow for substantive exchanges between the candidates — but it appears Donald Trump is letting his handlers overrule him. Sad!”
The Sept. 10 debate was first agreed to when Mr. Biden was still in the race. The Harris team planned to stick with it, but Mr. Trump vacillated, and then announced in a news conference roughly three weeks ago that he would be there. Then on Sunday, he raised the prospect he might not attend after all, claiming the network was biased against him. Ms. Harris’s team on Monday publicly pushed the issue of the microphones.
Maggie Haberman is a senior political correspondent reporting on the 2024 presidential campaign, down ballot races across the country and the investigations into former President Donald J. Trump. More about Maggie Haberman
John Koblin covers the television industry. He is the co-author of “It’s Not TV: The Spectacular Rise, Revolution, and Future of HBO.” More about John Koblin
See more on: 2024 Elections: News, Polls and Analysis, Donald Trump, Kamala Harris
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Source: nytimes.com
