Last Updated on 05/09/2024 by Arun jain
The great debate microphone mute drama of 2024 has come to a quiet end.
Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign is based on her and former President Donald J. Trump’s microphone has agreed to be muted when he is not speaking, a position top Harris officials tried to change last week to give themselves an advantage when the candidates meet on stage next Tuesday.
Brian Fallon, a top aide to Harris, wrote Wednesday to ABC News officials, 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, insisted on muted microphones when candidates were not speaking as a condition of participating in a debate with Mr. Trump. But once Ms. Harris became the Democratic nominee, her aides wanted the microphone unmuted in an effort to prompt Mr. Trump to interrupt Ms. Harris and create an organic moment for her. When she told Vice President Mike Pence, “I speak,” During the 2020 Vice Presidential debate.
Mr. Trump said last week That “it doesn’t matter to me” whether the microphone is muted. “I prefer to keep it going,” he said. “But the agreement was that it would be the same as last time.”
His campaign did not agree to change the rules negotiated by the Biden campaign.
Mr. Fallon, in his letter to ABC, sought to point out the rules insisting on the Biden campaign as Mr. Trump’s choice. ABC had a letter First reported by Politico.
“We understand that Donald Trump is at risk of dropping the debate entirely, as he has previously threatened, if we do not accept his preferred format,” Mr. Fallon wrote. “We don’t want to jeopardize the debate. For this reason, we accept the full set of rules proposed by the ABC, including muting microphones.”
ABC released the full rules for the 90-minute debate on Wednesday, which the network said would have two commercial breaks. Trump wins coin flip to determine order of campaign closing statements; The former president chose to go last. There will be no opening statements.
According to ABC rules, each candidate will have two minutes to answer questions, plus two minutes for rebuttals and an additional minute to follow up or respond to what the other candidate has said. No pre-written notes will be allowed, although Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump will be allowed to take notes on paper during the debate.
Like June’s debate, which was broadcast from CNN’s Atlanta studios, next week’s debate will be held without a studio audience. The Harris campaign said it had negotiated to have the press pool in the room to hear what the candidates had to say when their microphones were off, and that a candidate who made “constant interruptions” could project what they had said to a television audience.
The Harris campaign said both candidates’ microphones could be unmuted during any cross-talk or debate between the candidates.
Ms. Harris, who has a campaign event in Pittsburgh on Thursday, plans to stay 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 have caused them because we have to straighten them out, we’re going to make America great again,” Mr. Trump said on “Good Morning New.” Hampshire” show. “There’s not much you can do. Whether you know your subject or not, you have a good policy or not.”
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