Who’s Afraid of a Hot Microphone? (Trump, Apparently.)

Former President Donald Trump suddenly has a big debate concern: He doesn’t want the microphones to be hot at all times during the upcoming ABC News tilt between he and Vice President Kamala Harris, scheduled for September 10. 

As the presidential campaigns continue to have mini-debates about the debates, here’s a new topic of discussion that has the two camps dissenting: whether mics should be turned on for the entirety of the event, and thus capable of capturing each candidate’s audible reactions throughout the proceedings, or whether they should only be on during each candidate’s appointed time to speak. 

“We have told ABC and other networks seeking to host a possible October debate that we believe both candidates’ mics should be live throughout the full broadcast,” the Harris campaign’s senior communications adviser, Brian Fallon, told Politico Playbook on Sunday. 

This is a reversal from the agreement wrought with President Joe Biden’s campaign, who had previously agreed with Trump’s team about the scheduled debates—as well as the muted mics back in June.  

Now, Trump’s campaign is accusing Kamala Harris of trying to change the rules of the debates. “Enough with the games. We accepted the ABC debate under the exact same terms as the CNN debate,” Jason Miller, senior adviser for Trump, told Playbook Sunday night. “We said no changes to the agreed upon rules.” 

Interestingly, the Trump campaign wanted mics to remain hot throughout the debate back in 2020. Harris’s campaign holds that the microphones should remain on during presidential debates, which is more often the norm, perhaps hoping to highlight Trump’s bad temper and outbursts. 

“Given how shook [Trump] seems by her, he’s very prone to having intemperate outbursts and … I think the campaign would want viewers to hear [that],” said one person familiar with the debate negotiations. 

“Our understanding is that Trump’s handlers prefer the muted microphone because they don’t think their candidate can act presidential for 90 minutes on his own,” said Fallon. “We suspect Trump’s team has not even told their boss about this dispute because it would be too embarrassing to admit they don’t think he can handle himself against Vice President Harris without the benefit of a mute button.”