Vice President Kamala Harris’s attempt last week to suddenly change the ABC News debate rules miserably failed.
The Harris campaign caved on Tuesday and decided to go along with its previously agreed debate rules with no notes, no sitting, no audience, and no open mics, a senior Trump campaign aide told Breitbart News.
ABC News will virtually hold a coin toss to determine the order of closing arguments and podium positioning at 12:30 pm, the aide added.
The debate dispute goes back to when President Joe Biden was still in the race. Both candidates agreed on two debates (CNN on June 27 and ABC on September 10), with Biden insisting that microphones “be muted throughout the debate except for the candidate whose turn it is to speak,” CNN reported on June 15.
Harris then joined the race. Two weeks ago, both the Trump and Harris campaigns had ABC News’s debate rules in writing and both sides confirmed to the network the debate was a “go,” the Trump ally told Breitbart News.
To apparently avoid too much media attention on the anniversary of the deadly Afghan withdrawal in the coming week, the Harris campaign suddenly requested that ABC News and other networks unmute candidates’ microphones, an idea Trump continued to oppose.
“I have reached an agreement with the Radical Left Democrats for a Debate with Comrade Kamala Harris. It will be Broadcast Live on ABC FAKE NEWS, by far the nastiest and most unfair newscaster in the business, on Tuesday, September 10th, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,” Trump said last week.
The Harris campaign, however, continued to play games with debate rules on Wednesday, refusing to agree on muted microphones at the September 10 debate. ABC News then pushed back on Thursday and rejected Harris’s last-minute attempt to change the mic rules.
One person familiar with Harris’s negotiations told Politico Playbook that Harris wants an unmuted mic to save her from gaffes.
“She’s more than happy to have exchanges with him if he tries to interrupt her,” the person said. “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].”
More is here on Harris’s word salads.
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
