The great debate microphone muting drama of 2024 has come to a quiet end.
Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign has begrudgingly agreed to have her and former President Donald J. Trump’s microphones muted when they are not speaking, a position top Harris officials tried to change last week to give themselves an advantage when the candidates meet onstage next Tuesday.
Brian Fallon, a top Harris aide, wrote on Wednesday to officials at ABC News, which is broadcasting the debate from the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, that Ms. Harris “will be fundamentally disadvantaged by this format, which will serve to shield Donald Trump from direct exchanges” with Ms. Harris.
President Biden’s campaign, when he was still running, had insisted on having the microphones muted when the candidates were not speaking as a condition of participating in debates with Mr. Trump. But once Ms. Harris became the Democratic nominee, her aides wanted the microphones unmuted, in an effort to goad Mr. Trump into interrupting Ms. Harris and creating an organic moment for her like when she told Vice President Mike Pence, “I’m speaking,” during a 2020 vice-presidential debate.
Mr. Trump said last week that it “doesn’t matter to me” whether the microphones are muted. “I’d rather have it probably on,” he said. “But the agreement was that it would be the same as it was last time.”
His campaign did not agree to change the rules that had been negotiated by the Biden campaign.
Mr. Fallon, in his letter to ABC, sought to characterize the rules that the Biden campaign had insisted on as Mr. Trump’s preference. The letter to ABC was first reported by Politico.
“We understand that Donald Trump is a risk to skip the debate altogether, as he has threatened to do previously, if we do not accede to his preferred format,” Mr. Fallon wrote. “We do not want to jeopardize the debate. For this reason, we accept the full set of rules proposed by ABC, including muted microphones.”
ABC on Wednesday released the full rules of the 90-minute debate, which the network said will contain two commercial breaks. The Trump campaign won a coin flip to determine the order of closing statements; the former president chose to go last. There will be no opening statements.
Each candidate will have two minutes to respond to questions, along with two minutes for rebuttals and an additional minute to follow up or respond to what the other candidate has said, according to ABC’s rules. No pre-written notes will be allowed, though Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump will be allowed to take notes on paper during the debate.
Like the June debate, which was broadcast from CNN’s Atlanta studios, the debate next week will be held without a studio audience. The Harris campaign said it had negotiated to have a press pool in the room to hear what the candidates say when their microphones are turned off and that a candidate who “constantly interrupts” may have what they say relayed to the television audience.
Both candidates’ microphones may be left unmuted during any cross-talk or discussion between the candidates, the Harris campaign said.
Ms. Harris, who has a campaign event in Pittsburgh on Thursday, is planning to remain in western Pennsylvania for several days of debate preparations through the weekend.
Mr. Trump, during a radio interview in New Hampshire on Wednesday morning, said he did not expect to spend much time preparing for the debate.
“I live with my subject, I live with all of these, these horrible problems that they’ve caused because we’ve got to straighten them out, we’re going to make America great again,” Mr. Trump said on the “Good Morning New Hampshire” show. “There’s not a lot you can do. You either know your subject or not, you either have good policy or not.”
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