With just 15 days left until the scheduled Sept. 10 presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, negotiations between their two campaigns have hit an impasse over whether the candidates’ microphones will be muted when it is not their turn to speak, according to four people familiar with the issue.
In June, President Joe Biden’s campaign came to an agreement with Trump’s: There would be two debates — CNN’s on June 27 and ABC’s on Sept. 10 — conducted by mutually negotiated rules. One of the Biden team’s demands — which the Trump team agreed to — was that microphones “will be muted throughout the debate except for the candidate whose turn it is to speak,” as CNN announced on June 15.
But Biden is no longer running for president. And Harris’ campaign wants the microphones to be hot at all times during the ABC debate — as has historically been the case at presidential debates.
“We have told ABC and other networks seeking to host a possible October debate that we believe both candidates’ mics should be live throughout the full broadcast,” Brian Fallon, the Harris campaign’s senior adviser for communications, tells POLITICO. “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. We suspect Trump’s team has not even told their boss about this dispute because it would be too embarrassing to admit they don’t think he can handle himself against Vice President Harris without the benefit of a mute button.”
Privately, the veep’s team believes that Harris can get Trump to lose his cool and say something impolitic on mic.
“She’s more than happy to have exchanges with him if he tries to interrupt her,” one person familiar with the negotiations tells Playbook. “And given how shook he seems by her, he’s very prone to having intemperate outbursts and … I think the campaign would want viewers to hear [that].”
For its part, the Trump campaign sees this all as a bait and switch. They want the ABC debate governed by the CNN rules — even though those rules were agreed to by the Biden campaign, not the Harris campaign.
“Enough with the games. We accepted the ABC debate under the exact same terms as the CNN debate. The Harris camp, after having already agreed to the CNN rules, asked for a seated debate, with notes, and opening statements. We said no changes to the agreed upon rules,” Jason Miller, senior adviser for Trump told Playbook last night. “If Kamala Harris isn’t smart enough to repeat the messaging points her handlers want her to memorize, that’s their problem. This seems to be a pattern for the Harris campaign. They won’t allow Harris to do interviews, they won’t allow her to do press conferences, and now they want to give her a cheat-sheet for the debate. My guess is that they’re looking for a way to get out of any debate with President Trump.”
Trump on Sunday night openly questioned whether he’ll take part in the ABC-hosted event, suggesting the network might be biased, without mentioning anything about the microphone contretemps.
Trump himself has suggested additional debates with Harris, governed by rules different from the CNN standard — including proposing a Fox News-hosted debate on Sept. 4 with “a full arena audience,” as Trump posted on Truth Social earlier this month. (The CNN debate had no in-person viewers.)
The no-live-mics stance is also at odds with the Trump campaign’s demand in the 2020 campaign, when it wanted microphones to remain on as the then-president faced Joe Biden.
“It is our understanding … that you will soon be holding an internal meeting to discuss other possible rule changes, such as granting an unnamed person the ability to shut off a candidate’s microphone,” Trump’s then-campaign manager, Bill Stepien, wrote to the Commission on Presidential Debates on Oct. 19, 2020. “It is completely unacceptable for anyone to wield such power … This is reminiscent of the first debate in 2016, when the President’s microphone was oscillated, and it is not acceptable.”
As for Miller’s assertion that Harris wanted a seated debate with notes, Fallon pushed back vigorously. “All three parties (Trump, Harris and ABC) have agreed to standing and no notes, and we never sought otherwise,” Fallon said. A separate person familiar with the negotiations laughed when we asked if Harris ever asked to be seated, saying it wasn’t true.
At the time it accepted ABC’s invitation, the Harris campaign did so while making clear to the network that the rules themselves were up for debate. And if this current snag is any indication, that debate is far from settled.
