There has been plenty of debate on the rules governing the upcoming Trump-Harris presidential debate scheduled for Sept. 10 on ABC.
Mostly it has been Harris complaining that she doesn’t want to abide by the rules she previously agreed to which were mirrored after the June 27 CNN debate where Joe Biden wet the bed, politically speaking. For weeks, Harris has been accusing Trump of being “scared” of having live microphones at the debate rather than keeping them muted when the candidate is not supposed to be speaking. It’s an obvious ploy so Harris can try and filibuster anything Trump says and interject the way she did against Mike Pence in 2020.
Harris clearly has an angle hoping to create a viral moment of putting Trump in his place with some kind of girl-power rebuttal, but that will be harder now that ABC isn’t budging:
With less than a week until the Sept. 10 presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump hosted by ABC News, the network on Wednesday released the set of rules that will govern the matchup.
The debate, which will be moderated by “World News Tonight” anchor and managing editor David Muir and ABC News Live “Prime” anchor Linsey Davis, will mark the first in-person debate between Harris and Trump and will feature 90 minutes of debate time, with two commercial breaks.
The debate will be held in Philadelphia at the National Constitution Center and will have no audience in the room.
First and foremost, Harris will be stuck with muted mics except when she is supposed to be speaking. Here’s a condensed list of the ABC rules from Eric Daughtry on X:
- Muted mics unless given moderator permission/time
- No audience
- No pre-written notes or props
- Trump won coin toss, chose to have the final statement, while Harris will be on stage left
- No opening statements
- The debate will last 90 minutes with two commercial breaks
- No topics or questions will be shared in advance
- Candidates get a pen, a pad of paper, and a bottle of water
- Incumbent party (Harris) introduced first
- 2 minutes to answer questions, 2 minutes for rebuttals, and 1 extra minute for follow-ups, clarifications, or responses
- Candidates can’t ask each other questions
- Campaign staff can’t interact with candidates during commercial breaks
Other notable points include Trump winning the coin toss and choosing to defer his final statement allowing Harris to go first. This means that Trump, not Harris, will get the last word with the national audience.
On paper, these rules look to be almost an exact copy of the CNN debate rules back in June when Joe Biden walked himself into meandering answers that never ended and seem to trail off in several different directions.
Kamala Harris, for her part, is prone to get stuck in similar situations. When she’s given too much of a long leash, she tends to spew a lot of words that are void of anything substantive. No doubt, in her debate prep she’ll be working on sharpening answers and trying to sound as clear and succinct as possible without meandering into word salad land.
On the Trump side, he’s reportedly working with Tulsi Gabbard as the Kamala Harris stand-in for debate prep of some sort.
The debate is scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 10 on ABC. We’ll carry the live stream right here so watch for a notification.
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