The lead-up to the highly anticipated September 10 debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump on ABC is causing friction between the two candidates over microphone management. The former president is even threatening to no longer participate.
:quality(50)/2023/07/07/64a7df4c5fe71_placeholder-36b69ec8.png)
Published
Reading time: 2 min
:quality(50)/2024/08/27/000-36c22v9-66cd95571bd4a825982027.jpg)
Will Kamala Harris and Donald Trump face off in the highly anticipated debate on September 10? The answer is uncertain following the Republican candidate’s post on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, August 25: “Why would I debate Kamala Harris on this channel?” Former President Accuses Channel ABC, on which the first debate between the two candidates will be held, almost two months before the American presidential election, of being biased against him on whether or not to open the microphones.
His Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, accused Donald Trump’s campaign team on Monday, August 26, of wanting to protect him by demanding that microphones be cut during the debate, when a candidate is not speaking. “We believe that both candidates’ microphones should remain on throughout the debate. Our analysis is that Trump’s team prefers that the microphones be cut because they do not believe their candidate is capable of remaining presidential for 90 minutes.”said Brian Fallon, one of Kamala Harris’ advisers.
Donald Trump, questioned about his preference during a trip to the state of Virginia, near Washington, seemed to temporize. “I don’t know, it doesn’t matter to me. I’d probably prefer the microphones to be open.”we can hear him say on a video broadcast by the channel NBC.
“The agreement was that it would be the same as last time”in this case cut microphones, he added, however. “She doesn’t want to debate. She’s not good at debating, she’s not an intelligent person.”he then attacked. The Republican candidate would like to ride the wave of the last debate against Joe Biden, on June 27 on CNN, when the latter was still a candidate for re-election. The microphone of the candidate who was not speaking was then cut off. The calamitous performance that day of Joe Biden, who was already in a bad position in the polls before the debate, had sounded the death knell for his candidacy.
Kamala Harris, who replaced him in the race for the White House, prefers to return to permanent open microphones, which was the norm for presidential debates, against a rival known for his tendency to invectives and untimely interruptions. The challenge for the Democrat now is to maintain her momentum in opinion polls, or even widen the gap with Donald Trump.