Harris Campaign Denies Debate Agreement

The Kamala Harris campaign denied that it had reached an agreement for the current vice president to debate former President Donald Trump on September 10.

Trump claimed in a social media post on Tuesday that the terms for the ABC News-hosted debate had been finalized. However, the Harris campaign disputed Trump’s statement, pointing to earlier comments made by Trump that suggested he was open to some of the terms proposed by Harris’s team.

“Both candidates have publicly made clear their willingness to debate with unmuted mics for the duration of the debate to fully allow for substantive exchanges between the candidates – but it appears Donald Trump is letting his handlers overrule him. Sad!” the campaign told Reuters in a statement.

Trump announced in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday that both sides had reached an agreement on the terms for the ABC debate. According to the former president, the debate rules would mirror those of the last CNN Debate, including a provision that a candidate’s microphone would be turned off while the other is speaking.

“I have reached an agreement with the Radical Left Democrats for a Debate with Comrade Kamala Harris,” the former president wrote. “It will be Broadcast Live on ABC FAKE NEWS, by far the nastiest and most unfair newscaster in the business, on Tuesday, September 10th, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Rules will be the same as the last CNN Debate, which seemed to work out well for everyone except, perhaps, Crooked Joe Biden. The Debate will be ‘stand up,’ and Candidates cannot bring notes, or ‘cheat sheets.’ We have also been given assurance by ABC that this will be a ‘fair and equitable’ Debate, and that neither side will be given the questions in advance (No Donna Brazile!).”

Trump had previously expressed a preference for microphones to remain live at all times during the debate. However, he noted that the existing agreement, which his campaign had negotiated when President Joe Biden was the presumed Democratic nominee, required that only the candidate currently speaking would have a live microphone.

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter to me. I’d rather have it probably on, but the agreement was that it would be the same as it was last time. In that case, it was muted. I didn’t like it the last time, but it worked out fine. Ask Biden how it worked out, it was fine. And I think it should be the same,” Trump told reporters.

The Harris campaign’s reluctance to accept the terms of the September 10 debate comes after earlier claims from Harris’s campaign that Trump was avoiding a face-off with her. In July, Harris accused Trump of “backpedaling” from the debate that his campaign had previously agreed to with Biden’s team. At that time, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung suggested that the Democrats might still change their nominee, following pressure from the Democratic establishment and the media that had already pushed Biden to withdraw from the race.

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