ABC News turns down Harris campaign request to unmute mics for debate

ABC News has decided to go forward with the original presidential debate rules and keep the microphones muted, denying the Democrats’ request to keep the mics live.

An email sent out and reviewed by the New York Post laid out the rules for the Sept. 10 debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. The rules are similar to the June CNN debate between Mr. Trump and President Biden, including no audience, no pre-written notes and muted mics when the candidate isn’t speaking.

There has been much back-and-forth between the two campaigns over the presidential debate between Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump. The former president argued it shouldn’t be hosted by ABC News, and Ms. Harris pushed for live mics.

Both have accepted the Sept. 10 debate date, but only the Trump campaign has formally accepted the rules so far from ABC, the Post reported.

“Our last understanding is that even though Trump said Monday he would be fine with an unmuted mic, his handlers don’t trust him to spar live with VP Harris and are asking ABC to ignore Trump’s comments and keep the mics muted or else they will back out of the debate for a third time,” Harris spokesperson Brian Fallon wrote in an X post Thursday.

“We have been asked to accede to Trump’s handlers’ wishes on this point for the sake of preserving the debate,” he said. “We find the Trump’s team’s stance to be weak, and remain in discussions with ABC on the final rules.”

A “top Trump ally” slammed the Harris campaign and said it should just accept the debate rules and added that the Thursday interview between Ms. Harris, her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and CNN will go “poorly.”

“At this point, Team Harris is going to be taking an ’L’ when they finally accept, as the debate rules aren’t changing, or they’ll take an even bigger ’L’ if they back out of the debate because the Dana Bash/CNN interview goes poorly,” the Trump ally, whom the Post didn’t name, told the newspaper.