Vice President Kamala Harris vs Former President Donald Trump - Photo by CNN
WASHINGTON D.C. (WSAU) – The upcoming presidential debate scheduled for September 10 on ABC has rules that Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign wants to be changed.
According to Trump’s campaign manager, Jason Miller, in an interview with Politico’s Playbook, Harris prefers that she and former President Trump take seats and be allowed to use notes, which doesn’t sit well with the Trump campaign, saying, “Enough with the games. We accepted the ABC debate under the exact same terms as the CNN debate. The Harris camp, after having already agreed to the CNN rules, asked for a seated debate with notes and opening statements. We said no changes to the agreed-upon rules.”
“If Kamala Harris isn’t smart enough to repeat the messaging points her handlers want her to memorize, that’s their problem. This seems to be a pattern for the Harris campaign. They won’t allow Harris to do interviews; they won’t allow her to do press conferences; and now they want to give her a cheat sheet for the debate. My guess is that they’re looking for a way to get out of any debate with President Trump,” Miller continued.
Harris’ campaign senior communications adviser Brian Fallon disputed Miller’s claims in the same interview, saying, “All three parties (Trump, Harris, and ABC) have agreed to stand and no notes, and we never sought otherwise.”
Politico noted in the article that “At the time they accepted ABC’s invitation, the Harris campaign did so while making clear to the network that the rules themselves were up for debate. And if this current snag is any indication, that debate is far from settled.”
In addition to agreeing to the ABC debate with President Joe Biden—who has since been removed from his party’s ticket—Trump also complied with all of the Biden campaign’s demands for their June 27 CNN debate, which came before the Democratic Party replaced Biden with Harris, who has yet to do a formal interview since the change was made.
This debate will come as independent and moderate voters who supported former presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr., who dropped out of the race last Friday afternoon, are now left to decide between Harris and Trump, while prominent pollster Frank Luntz said during an interview on NewsNation’s “On Balance” that one may already have the upper hand, saying, “It’s probably worth about 1 percent for Trump, and that 1 percent could be everything if it’s in the swing states. In the end, the reason why Kennedy was drawing 10, 12, even as high as 14 percent is because he was taking votes away from Joe Biden. Joe Biden’s gone. Kamala Harris has replaced him, and [Kennedy’s] vote collapsed down to about 4 or 5 percent, and what’s left is a Trump vote.”
“Some of them are simply not going to participate in November, roughly two to one; the ones who are remaining will vote for Trump over Harris, and that’s worth a single percent, and a single percent can make the difference in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin,” Luntz continued.
As of Monday morning, pollster Nate Silver of Five-Thirty Eight has Harris with a 53.2% chance to win come November with a 62% chance of winning Wisconsin, while the latest Rasmussen poll has Trump ahead of Harris nationally by just three percentage points, which represents a four percentage point swing toward Harris since July 24th.
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