Kamala Harris wants Trump’s mic to stay unmuted the whole time during their upcoming debate

In a break with the Biden campaign, Kamala Harris is insisting that her mic and Donald Trump’s mic remain on during the debate on September 10.

Kamala Harris’ campaign has a new demand for her debate with Donald Trump: that each candidate’s microphone stays unmuted the whole time.

“The VP is ready to debate Trump live and uncensored,” Harris’ advisor Brian Fallon wrote on X on Monday. “Trump should stop hiding behind the mute button.”

Fallon suggested that Trump’s campaign would not agree to that condition, writing that Trump “should reject his handlers’ attempts to muzzle him via a muted microphone.”

Later on Monday, Trump told reporters in Virginia that he didn’t have a problem with microphones being unmuted, but went after Harris for seeking to change the rules of the debate, set to be held on September 10 in Philadelphia.

“Doesn’t matter to me, I’d rather have it probably on,” Trump said of the microphones. “The truth is, they’re trying to get out of it because she doesn’t want to debate.”

.@jake__traylor: “Would you want the microphones muted in the debate whenever you’re not speaking?”

Donald Trump: “We agreed to the same rules. I don’t know, doesn’t matter to me. … The agreement was that it would be the same as it was last time. In that case, it was muted.” pic.twitter.com/l7d7Odd7cb

— NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) August 26, 2024
“Now that they’ve started their debate prep with Harris, they’re wanting to change the rules,” the Trump advisor Jason Miller wrote on X. “What is it they’re seeing that has them worried?”

Miller also told Politico that Harris’ campaign “asked for a seated debate, with notes, and opening statements.” Fallon told the outlet that the campaign didn’t push for any notes or for the candidates to be seated.

The back-and-forth over microphones came after Trump suggested on Truth Social on Sunday night that he might skip the debate, claiming that ABC wouldn’t be fair to him. “Why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?” he said.

The Harris campaign’s unmuted-microphone demand is a significant break from the Biden campaign, which demanded ahead of the disastrous June 27 debate that a candidate’s microphone remain muted while the other is speaking.

The switch likely reflects a degree of confidence in Harris’ candidacy that wasn’t necessarily there with Biden — that while the 81-year-old president may have been tripped up by Trump’s interruptions, the younger vice president will be able to make such outbursts work to her advantage.

“She’s more than happy to have exchanges with him if he tries to interrupt her,” one person familiar with the negotiations told Politico, adding that Trump was “very prone to having intemperate outbursts” and that the campaign “would want viewers to hear.”