Is he in? Is it over? Donald Trump has hinted again that he may try to avoid a debate against Vice President Kamala Harris as debate controversy rages between the two campaigns.
Late Sunday night, the former president lashed out at ABC News in an angry post on Truth Social, questioning why he wanted to appear at the scheduled Sept. 10 debate against Harris.
Trump wrote: “I wonder why I am debating Kamala Harris on that network? Will the panelist Donna Brazile question the Marxist candidate like she did with Hillary Clinton? Will Kamala’s best friend, who heads ABC, do the same. Where is George Slopodulos from Liddell hanging out now? Will he be on?”
“They have so many questions to answer!!! Why did Harris turn down Fox, NBC, CBS, and even CNN? Stay tuned!!!”
While Trump has been vocal about his lack of seriousness about holding debates since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race in July, his latest complaint may not be just a case of backtracking, but a complete breakdown in negotiations between the two campaigns.
on monday, Politico The Harris and Trump campaigns reportedly reached a stalemate over whether the candidates' microphones would be on while the other spoke during the Sept. 10 debate.
according to political, The Harris campaign is seeking to reverse the microphone rule — which was originally negotiated by the Biden campaign when it agreed to two debates with the former president. Meanwhile, Harris has been trying to convince Trump to hold the Sept. 10 debate on ABC by arguing that the date was pre-agreed upon, even though it was initially agreed upon by the Biden campaign, not her own. Trump committed to the Sept. 10 debate on ABC earlier this month.
“We have informed ABC and other networks seeking to host a potential debate in October that we believe the candidates’ microphones should be live throughout the entire broadcast,” said Brian Fallon, senior communications adviser for the Harris campaign. Politico Sunday. Fallon added that the Harris campaign feels “that Trump officials prefer the low microphone because they don’t believe their candidate is capable of acting as president for 90 minutes on his own.”
“We suspect that the Trump team didn’t even tell their president about this dispute because it would be too embarrassing to admit that they didn’t think he could handle Vice President Harris without using the mute button,” he said.
While Biden’s debate against Trump was an unmitigated disaster for his campaign that led to his exit from the race, Trump’s performance in the face-off was anything but stellar. The president rambled on and on about irrelevant topics, ignored the moderator’s questions, and told a series of lies. The candidates’ microphones were muted while their opponent spoke during the debate, according to convention.
according to political, The Harris campaign feels that without a muted microphone, the vice president would easily be able to provoke Trump into losing his cool in front of a nationally televised audience.
For his part, Trump's senior advisor Jason Miller said: Politico “The campaign accepted the ABC debate on the same terms as it accepted the CNN debate. After the Harris camp had already agreed to the CNN rules, it asked for a sit-down debate, with opening remarks and statements. We said no change to the agreed-upon rules.”
The Harris campaign never agreed to accept the debate rules without modification, and scoffed at the idea that they had requested a sit-down debate with notes.
Yet while the two campaigns trade jabs through public statements, disagreements over something as simple as unmuted microphones — a standard occurrence in most presidential debates — point to Trump’s deep concerns about Harris’s current momentum.
