Harris campaign caves on whether to mute microphones during next week's debate: report

Vice President Kamala Harris's presidential campaign on Wednesday reportedly caved on whether microphones should be muted during the presidential debate next week.

The Harris campaign previously pushed for the microphones to be unmuted for the entire 90-minute debate, while former President Donald Trump's campaign and ABC News agreed to muting the other candidate's mics when they are not speaking. 

Harris’ senior adviser for communications Brian Fallon told ABC News in a letter reported by Politico that the campaign felt the current set up placed Harris at a "disadvantage" because she could not cross-examine Trump, but conceded to the format in order to move forward with the debate. 

"[The muted mics] will serve to shield Donald Trump from direct exchanges with the Vice President," Fallon wrote. "We suspect this is the primary reason for his campaign’s insistence on muted microphones.”

“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," he continued. "We do not want to jeopardize the debate. For this reason, we accept the full set of rules proposed by ABC, including muted microphones.”

Fallon said the vice president's team also agrees to give the moderators power to admonish a candidate who speaks past their allotted time, or interrupts the other person, and also give them power to keep the microphones on during crosstalk if the moderators want.

The other big issue for the Harris campaign was allowing the vice president's pool of reporters into the debate hall to cover any remarks that are muted. The first presidential debate between Trump and President Joe Biden did not allow any reporters into the venue.

Trump's campaign has already agreed to the debate rules, which restrict candidates from speaking or interacting with each other or their campaigns during the broadcast's two commercial breaks. Candidates are also not allowed to bring any paper or notes up on stage, and are required to stand for the entire debate duration.

The debate will take place next week, on Tuesday, Sept. 10 in Philadelphia. The debate will be held at the National Constitution Center near Independence Hall, and will be aired live at 9 p.m. Eastern. It will be moderated by "World News Tonight" anchor and managing editor David Muir and ABC News Live "Prime" anchor Linsey Davis.

Misty Severi is an evening news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.