Doubts were rising Monday over the highly anticipated September 10 debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, after the Republican candidate questioned her participation.
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“Why would I debate Kamala Harris on this network?” the former president wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, accusing the network scheduled to host the debate, ABC, of being biased and against him.
The campaign team of the vice president, Democratic candidate for the November presidential election, assured in a press release Monday that the dispute with the advisers of the Republican candidate was in reality over an organizational point: the management of microphones.
“We believe that both candidates’ microphones should remain on throughout the debate. Our analysis is that the Trump team prefers that the microphones be cut because they do not believe their candidate is capable of remaining presidential for 90 minutes,” says Brian Fallon, one of the candidate’s advisers.
According to the site Politicoboth sides are at an impasse on this issue.
During the June 27 CNN debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, who was still the Democratic Party nominee, the microphone of the candidate who was not speaking was left muted, at the request of the 81-year-old president.
But, according to PoliticoKamala Harris, who replaced him in the race for the White House, prefers to return to permanent open microphones, which is the norm for presidential debates, facing a rival known for his tendency to invectives and untimely interruptions.
The disastrous performance of Joe Biden, who was already in a bad position in the polls before the debate, had sounded the death knell for his candidacy.
The challenge for Kamala Harris, who on the contrary enjoys a slight advantage in opinion polls, is to maintain her momentum, or even to widen the gap with Donald Trump.
