The next presidential debate is scheduled for next Tuesday in Philadelphia.
The September 10 debate, hosted by ABC News, will begin at 9 p.m. EDT, last 90 minutes, including two commercial breaks, and will be moderated by Lindsey Davis and David Muir.
The event will mark the first time that candidates Harris and former President Trump will face off on a debate stage, as well as the first time they will meet in person.
The forum came after lengthy discussions between the two sides over whether the terms of the debate, set when President Biden was the incumbent candidate, still held true now that Harris is leading the Democratic field.
The questions have centered mainly on whether one candidate's microphone is muted while the other is speaking, a policy that has been in place since the first debate between Trump and Biden, and which some have attributed former president Biden's relatively strong performance to the discipline the microphones imposed on him.
The vice president's campaign has been pushing for rule changes, but ABC suggested in a recent memo that the network had not made any changes, and a campaign spokesman said last week that the network had not yet agreed to the terms.
“The memo sent by ABC is a set of proposed rules that both sides will need to sign and show agreement with,” said Harris spokesman Brian Fallon. Social Platform X“We did not do that because I believe both candidates expressed a clear desire to be on a hot mic. It is unclear why Trump campaign staff would ignore a principal who should be able to exercise his own judgment.”
“We are being asked to defer to the wishes of Trump's cronies on this point in order to preserve the debate,” he added. “We feel that Team Trump is in a weak position and are continuing to consult with ABC on the final rules,” Fallon said.I wrote this in another post About X.
Trump has accused ABC News of having “the meanest, most unfair news anchors in the business,” but said last week he would attend the September 10 debate if the rules were the same as for the first debate.
The event came as Harris leads Trump by four percentage points (49.4% to 45.4%) in The Hill/Decision Desk polling index, and holds a large lead over the former president in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, where the debate will be held, 48.2% to 47.5%.
