Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are set to debate each other next week for the first time after their campaigns on Wednesday agreed to the ground rules set by host network ABC.
The Sept. 10 event in Philadelphia will use the same rules and format as the June debate between Trump and President Joe Biden.
Both campaigns had previously agreed to hold the debate on that date, but the agreement appeared to be in jeopardy after Trump suggested he might back out and Harris’ team sought to change the rule on muted microphones.
Candidate microphones will be live only for the candidate whose turn it is to speak.
During a town hall with Fox News taped Wednesday, Trump said that he would let Harris talk during the debate. The former president also said that his approach to the debate will depend on how fair he perceives ABC News to be, but he noted that his strategy is to “sort of feel it out as the debate is taking place.”
Trump campaign official Jason Miller said in a statement that the former president’s campaign was “thrilled that Kamala Harris and her team of Biden campaign leftovers” have “accepted the already agreed upon rules.”
“Americans want to hear both candidates present their competing visions to the voters, unburdened by what has been,” Miller said. “We’ll see you all in Philadelphia next Tuesday.”
In a letter to ABC, the Harris campaign agreed to the muted microphone rule but said she “will be fundamentally disadvantaged by this format, which will serve to shield Donald Trump from direct exchanges with the Vice President.”
“Notwithstanding our concerns, we understand that Donald Trump is a risk to skip the debate altogether, as he has threatened to do previously, if we do not accede to his preferred format. We do not want to jeopardize the debate. For this reason, we accepted the full set of rules proposed by ABC, including muted microphones,” the letter said, bringing an end to the stalemate.
The 90-minute debate will be held without an audience in Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center at 9 p.m. ET, and will be moderated by David Muir and Linsey Davis of ABC News. Neither candidate will be allowed notes or props, and both will stand for the entire debate. Both will have two minutes to answer questions and two-minute rebuttals, with an additional minute to each candidate for follow-up, clarification or response.
The rules mirror the June 27 CNN debate between Trump and Biden. The president’s performance in the debate was widely panned and eventually led to him exiting the race and endorsing Harris in July.
The standoff over muted or live microphones had threatened to derail the debate, and the Harris campaign took jabs at Trump during the impasse.
“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!” a Harris campaign spokesperson previously said in a statement to NBC News.
Trump had told reporters that he was considering backing out of the debate because he didn’t like how Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., was treated in an interview on ABC News’ “This Week.”
“When I looked at the hostility of that, I said, ‘Why am I doing it? Let’s do it with another network.’ I want to do it,” Trump said.
He also acknowledged at the time that he didn’t have an issue with both microphones being live, but said that “we agreed to the same rules” as the June 27 debate with Biden. “I’d rather have it probably on, but the agreement was it would be the same as it was last time. In that case, it was muted,” Trump said.
Trump publicly relented on ABC hosting the debate in a post on Truth Social on Aug. 27 when he said he had “reached an agreement” with the network.
A virtual coin flip on Tuesday determined podium placement and the order of closing statements for Sept. 10, ABC News said. Trump won the coin toss and decided to speak last during closing statements. Harris selected the right podium position on the screen.
Rebecca Shabad, Zoë Richards, Megan Lebowitz, Jake Traylor and Emma Barnett contributed.
