ABC Turns Down Harris’s Plea to Change Trump Debate Rules

ABC News has declined to adopt Vice President Kamala Harris’s request to have unmuted microphones during her September 10th debate with former President Donald Trump, after days of wrangling over what Republicans viewed as Democrat attempts to lay a trap for the GOP nominee. 

The rules for the debate are similar to Trump’s June 27th CNN debate against President Joe Biden, which included no audience, no pre-written notes, no props, and muted mics when a candidate is not speaking. 

Trump and Harris will take the stage being only allowed to have a pen, a pad of paper, and a bottle of water. The rules will also allow for two-minute answers, as well as comebacks lasting the same duration of time. An additional minute is allowed for follow-ups.

Trump’s team had insisted that the ABC News debate holds the same guidelines as the June debate with Biden. Meanwhile, Harris’s team said on Monday that they wanted both candidates’ mics on for the entire 90-minute showdown. 

“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,” said Harris advisor Brian Fallon amid the negotiations this week.

According to a Trump aide, ABC News informed both campaigns in writing last week that it would employ “CNN rules” and both sides confirmed that September 10th 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 Trump ally said.

“The Harris folks are completely full of it,” Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller told Newsmax on Wednesday.

“Everything was agreed to and set last week,” he added. “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.”

It has been assumed that Harris wanted the microphones unmuted to deploy an interjectory line to build viral buzz. 

Harris, who is 5-foot-4-inches tall, also reportedly requested to be seated, as opposed to standing, behind the podium against the 6-foot-3 45thpresident, according to Trump campaign advisor Corey Lewandowski.