Harris campaign agrees to muted mics in debate against Trump

Washington — Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign was unable to sway ABC News, the host of next week’s presidential debate, to keep the microphones unmuted for the 90-minute debate against former President Donald Trump. 

Her campaign agreed to let the microphones remain muted when a candidate isn’t speaking, according to a letter it sent to ABC News, ending the back-and-forth over the rules for the Sept. 10 debate. 

“Vice President Harris, a former prosecutor, will be fundamentally disadvantaged by this format, which will serve to shield Donald Trump from direct exchanges with the Vice President. We suspect this is the primary reason for his campaign’s insistence on muted microphones,” said the letter, which was obtained by CBS News. 

The Harris campaign also told CBS News it was offered assurances as to how any crosstalk may be handled. The microphones may be unmuted if there is significant crosstalk between the candidates. A candidate who constantly interrupts their opponent will be warned by the moderator and their comments may be relayed to the audience. And, if the microphones don’t pick up the exchanges, a group of reporters who will be in the room would report anything noteworthy.   

“Notwithstanding our concerns, 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,” the letter read. “We do not want to jeopardize the debate. For this reason, we accepted the full set of rules proposed by ABC, including muted microphones.” 

The Biden campaign had requested that the candidates’ microphones be muted when their opponent was speaking during the match-up between President Biden and Trump in June, which was hosted by CNN. 

Trump’s campaign opposed changing the rules for the September debate. 

“We agreed to the same rules. I don’t know, doesn’t matter to me,” Trump said Aug. 26 while campaigning in Virginia. “I’d rather have it probably on, but the agreement was that it would be the same as it was last time. In that case, it was muted. I didn’t like it the last time but it worked out fine.” 

In a statement provided to CBS News Tuesday night, Trump campaign spokesperson Jason Miller said that “we are thrilled that  Kamala Harris and her team of Biden campaign leftovers…have finally accepted the already agreed upon rules of the debate that they wrote in the first place. Americans want to hear both candidates present their competing visions to the voters, unburdened by what has been. No notes, no sitting down, no advance copies of the questions. We’ll see you in Philadelphia next Tuesday.