Vice-President Kamala Harris has agreed to the rules for the upcoming TV debate with Donald Trump, which include allowing microphones to be muted during the other person’s turn to speak.
Harris’ campaign previously fought against the muted microphone rule, which was agreed upon by her predecessor in the presidential contest, Joe Biden. Analysts suggested Ms Harris’ team believed the rule would benefit Trump.
On Wednesday, both the Harris and Trump campaign teams complied with the ground debate rules established by ABC News, the host network.
The debate set for September 10 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania will be their first debate as presidential candidates.
The rules are similar to those of the June debate between President Joe Biden and Donald Trump, which was broadcast by CNN, where Mr. Biden’s performance resulted in calls for him to step down from the Democratic Party’s nomination.
According to political observers at the time, the mute microphone rule used in that debate may have been beneficial to Trump, as it restricted his ability to interrupt Mr. Biden and speak off-the-cuff, and enabled him to perform more accurately.
In a letter to ABC on Wednesday, the Harris campaign team said it still believed it would be “fundamentally disadvantaged” by the debate’s format, saying it would “serve to shield Donald Trump from direct exchanges with the vice-president.”
Despite this, the campaign stated that it was accepting the rules to enable the debate proceed.
“We understand that Donald Trump is at risk to skip the debate altogether, as he has threatened to do previously, if we do not accede to his preferred format,” it said.
“For this reason, we accepted the full set of rules proposed by ABC, including muted microphone.”
The Trump campaign said in a statement it was “thrilled that Kamala Harris and her team of Biden campaign leftovers” have “accepted the already agreed-upon rules.”
Previously, Trump stated that he would be okay with unmuted microphones.
The debate will last 90 minutes and will be held at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia. It will be moderated by ABC anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis.
Both candidates won’t be making opening statements, and they won’t be able to communicate with their campaign staff during commercial breaks.
The venue will not have any live audience, similar to the CNN debate.
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