In a move that will surprise no one, Kamala Harris is now pushing for major rule changes at the ABC News debate. That comes after her campaign spent weeks insisting that any deviation from the Biden-negotiated event would represent cowardice on the part of Donald Trump.
According to Politico, Harris wants to do away with the muted mics seen in the CNN debate so that the candidates can have “uncensored” exchanges.
The holdup? Whether or not the candidates’ microphones will be muted when it isn’t their turn to speak.
Back when President JOE BIDEN was still running for reelection, his campaign came to an agreement with Trump’s: There would be two debates — CNN’s on June 27 and ABC’s on Sept. 10 — conducted by mutually negotiated rules. One of Biden world’s red lines — which the Trump team agreed to — was that microphones would “be muted throughout the debate except for the candidate whose turn it is to speak,” as CNN announced on June 15.
This is a laughable shift by the Harris campaign. For weeks, she and her surrogates claimed that Trump was “scared” to debate because he suggested that the rules agreed to with Biden were no longer valid. Almost every major news organization in the country framed the situation as Trump “backing out” instead of noting that no debate had ever been agreed to with Harris, who wasn’t the nominee at the time.
SEE: Kamala Camp’s Response to a Fox News Debate Shows Just How Unfit She Is
Still, Trump eventually agreed to the original terms of the September 10th debate on ABC News while offering debates on Fox News and NBC News to complete the traditional three-debate slate all modern presidential elections have. In response, the Harris campaign refused to agree to the Fox News event while proclaiming the “debate about debates is over.”
SEE: Kamala Harris Runs for the Hills With New Statement on Debates
If the “debate about debates is over,” why is she insisting on major rule changes this late in the game? Her lackeys were quick to push the idea that if Trump objects to this bait-and-switch, then he’s “afraid.” Others pointed out the hypocrisy at play.
Here’s the real question. Why is ABC News even entertaining this? Kamala Harris demanded Trump agree to the original terms and he did. To let the Harris campaign now dictate the rules is insane, and something no legitimate news organization would allow. Unfortunately, we are talking about a left-wing network that is anything but legitimate, so it wouldn’t surprise me at all if they allow the vice president to change the rules and then force Trump to abide by them or not show up.
So what’s this really about? It’s about the following clip.
The Harris campaign isn’t nearly as confident behind the scenes as it projects to the public. They want a viral moment where Harris goes full girl-boss on Trump with her “I’m speaking” routine she’s trotted out so many times in the past. With hot mics, she will get at least an hour and a half to fit it in, even if that means interrupting Trump first.
Lastly, I’d suggest that this is an attempt to get Trump to preemptively back out because Harris doesn’t want to debate. She’s terrified of the unscripted nature of the event, and she doesn’t want to take the risk. All the bluster is just that. If she were actually eager to debate, she wouldn’t be trying this last-minute gambit to change the rules. ABC News should think long and hard about whether it wants to diminish its credibility even further by going along with this.
