Harris jabs Trump over ‘surrendering to his advisors’ in muted mic debate

Vice President Harris took another swing at former President Trump Saturday over the back-and-forth around the rules of the upcoming debate, claiming he is “surrendering to his advisors” by supporting muted mics.

“Donald Trump is surrendering to his advisors who won’t allow him to debate with a live microphone,” Harris said in a post on social media platform X. “If his own team doesn’t have confidence in him, the American people definitely can’t.”

“We are running for President of the United States,” the vice president continued. “Let’s debate in a transparent way — with the microphones on the whole time.”

Harris’s remarks came in response to a thread by Washington Post journalist Josh Dawsey outlining the rules for the upcoming debate that Trump accepted and what her campaign has asked for as well.

The vice president also echoed similar jabs made earlier this week by her campaign.

The Democratic nominee’s campaign said Thursday that it was still having discussions with the outlet on the topic of muting mics. An email from ABC to campaign officials, obtained by The Hill, stated that microphones would exclusively be live for the candidate whose turn it is to talk and muted when time belongs to another candidate.

“The memo sent by ABC is a draft set of rules that both campaigns need to sign off on and indicate agreement. We have not done so because we think both candidates have expressed a clear desire to have hot mics,” Harris spokesperson Brian Fallon wrote on X. “Not clear why Trump staff is overruling their principal, who should be capable of making up his own mind.”

The former president indicated earlier this week, however, that it didn’t matter to him if the microphones were muted. However, his campaign has insisted on it.

The Trump team had also suggested that Harris would go into the debate with a loss over fighting for debate rule changes.

“At this point Team Harris is going to be taking an ‘L’ when they finally accept, as the debate rules aren’t changing, or they’ll take an even bigger ‘L’ if they back out of the debate because the Dana Bash/CNN interview goes poorly,” a top Trump ally said to The Hill at the time.

Harris took part in her first major interview since taking over the top of the ticket, following President Biden’s decision to withdraw from the race in July and endorse her. The vice president made it through the program with no major gaffes while making no major news.

The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign.