Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris' campaign has accepted rules for next week's debate with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, including muting the microphone of one candidate when the other takes the floor, media reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Both Harris and Trump have agreed to participate in a debate hosted by ABC News on September 10. This will be the first debate between Trump and Harris.
The Harris campaign wrote in a letter to ABC News on Wednesday afternoon that it accepted the terms in order to keep Trump from withdrawing from the debate. "Despite our concerns, we understand that if we do not accept Donald Trump's preferred debate format, he may not participate in the debate altogether, as he has previously threatened," the Harris campaign said. "We do not want to jeopardize the debate. Therefore, we accept the full set of rules proposed by ABC News, including microphone muting." Despite agreeing to the debate rules, the Harris team reiterated their objection to the "mute debate" in the letter, insisting that this format would put Harris "at a disadvantage" because it would prevent the two candidates from "being able to communicate directly," thereby depriving Harris, a former prosecutor, of the opportunity to fully question Trump.
However, ABC News assured Harris' team that if a major disagreement arises between Harris and Trump, the network may choose to turn on the microphone so that the public can understand what is happening, and the moderators will prevent either candidate from constantly interrupting and work to explain to the audience what is being talked about, according to people familiar with the matter.
Harris took over as the Democratic presidential nominee after President Biden dropped out of the race amid mounting pressure following his poor performance in a debate with Trump in June.
Harris's succession to Biden has revitalized the Democratic campaign. Previous polls showed Trump ahead of Biden, including in some key battleground states, but now the election pattern has reversed, with Harris slightly ahead of Trump in some national polls.
Over the past few days, the Trump and Harris teams have been arguing over whether to have an open mic debate. The focus of the debate is whether the microphone of the other candidate will be muted when one candidate is speaking. Harris wants the debate to be open mic, but the Trump team disagrees.
Last Saturday, Harris called on Trump to turn on his microphone throughout the debate and slammed Trump's support for the "closed mic debate" as "capturing to his advisers." "Donald Trump is capitulating to his advisers who don't allow him to turn on his microphone during the debate. If his own team doesn't have confidence in him, the American people certainly won't trust him either," Harris posted on X at the time.