UPDATE (Aug. 27, 2024, 3:04 p.m. ET): Donald Trump on Tuesday, after calling for ABC News to be “shut out” of the presidential debates a day earlier, said he will participate in the network’s Sept. 10 debate with Kamala Harris.
UPDATE (Aug. 26, 2024, 1:24 p.m. ET): This story has been updated to include Donald Trump’s comments to NBC News on Monday, saying he believes ABC News should be “shut out” of the debates and stating he would be OK with keeping microphones unmuted.
Keeping up with Donald Trump’s positions on presidential debates has been like watching a misshaped ball bounce in unpredictable directions. As the post-convention general election phase begins in earnest, the problem actually seems to be getting worse. The Washington Post reported:
Former president Donald Trump suggested Sunday evening that he might skip a Sept. 10 ABC News debate with Vice President Kamala Harris (D), after agreeing to participate as the GOP presidential nominee earlier this month.
Before delving into the Republican’s latest online tantrum, let’s review how we arrived at this point.
In mid-May, Trump agreed to a debate schedule, including a Sept. 10 event on ABC News, when the former president assumed his opponent would be President Joe Biden. After the Democratic incumbent passed the torch to Harris, Trump abandoned his “anywhere, anyplace” chest-thumping and took a variety of clumsy steps to back out of his earlier debate commitments.
In fact, three weeks ago, Team Trump made what appeared to be a categorical announcement: The GOP candidate would not participate in ABC News’ Sept. 10 presidential debate.
And then things got even weirder.
Seven days after backing out of the debate, Trump reversed course and re-accepted the invitation. Around the same time, the former president held a Mar-a-Lago press conference in which he also announced the dates of other upcoming debates that hadn’t been negotiated and therefore might not occur.
Two days later, on Aug. 11, Trump published a middle-of-the-night missive to his social media platform, further alerting the public to a made-up debate schedule, pointing to events that no one had agreed to.
By and large, much of the political world simply ignored the Republican’s odd rambling and remained focused on the Sept. 10 debate that both campaigns had agreed to — that is, until Trump published a new rant that put the future of that event in doubt.
“I watched ABC FAKE NEWS this morning, both lightweight reporter Jonathan Carl’s(K?) ridiculous and biased interview of Tom Cotton (who was fantastic!), and their so-called Panel of Trump Haters, and I ask, why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?” the former president wrote.
Trump went on to suggest Donna Brazile (whose name he misspelled) might secretly give Harris the debate questions; the vice president’s “best friend” leads ABC News (I don’t know whom Trump was referring to); before concluding, in reference to George Stephanopoulos, “Where is Liddle’ George Slopadopolus hanging out now?”
Obviously, making predictions based on Trump’s juvenile rhetoric is folly, but his screeds did not sound like a candidate eager to appear on a debate stage.
Complicating matters further, Politico reported that the Harris and Trump campaigns are still negotiating the terms of the scheduled Sept. 10 debate, and one of the sticking points is whether the candidates’ microphones “will be muted when it isn’t their turn to speak.”
According to the reporting, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, members of Team Harris want the microphones to stay on — in keeping with modern practices — because they assume Trump won’t be able to keep his composure for 90 minutes.
“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,” Brian Fallon, a senior adviser on the Harris campaign, told Politico. “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. 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.”
Where does this leave us? With a great deal of uncertainty about whether Trump and Harris will ever share a stage.
In case this weren’t already complicated, Trump denounced ABC News again on Monday morning, telling NBC News that ABC should be “shut out” of the debates.
The Republican, as part of the same comments, said he doesn’t care about the microphones issue — contradicting his own team — adding that his focus is on the networks. “I’d much rather do it on NBC,” he said. “I’d much rather do it on CBS. Frankly, I think CBS is very unfair, but the best of the group, and certainly I’d do it on Fox. I’d even do it on CNN; I thought CNN treated us very fairly the last time.”
Trump went on to say that Harris “doesn’t want to debate,” which was amusing given the circumstances.
