There is fresh doubt over the first presidential debate in September between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump\u2019s team, according to the source, would like for the microphones to be muted throughout the debate except for the candidate whose turn it is to speak, as was the case during the first debate with President Joe Biden,\u201d CNN reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Harris campaign, however, is requesting that ABC and other networks seeking to host a potential October debate keep microphones on, according to a senior campaign official, marking a change from the June debate when the then-Biden campaign wanted microphones muted except when it was a candidate\u2019s turn to speak,\u201d the outlet added.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have told ABC and other networks seeking to host a possible October debate that we believe both candidates\u2019 mics should be live throughout the full broadcast,\u201d Brian Fallon, the Harris campaign\u2019s senior adviser for communications, said in a statement.<\/p>\n \u201cOur understanding is that Trump\u2019s handlers prefer the muted microphone because they don\u2019t think their candidate can act presidential for 90 minutes on his own. We suspect Trump\u2019s team has not even told their boss about this dispute because it would be too embarrassing to admit they don\u2019t think he can handle himself against Vice President Harris without the benefit of a mute button,\u201d Fallon added.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s team has said that when they agreed to the ABC debate with Harris as the front-runner, they agreed to follow the same rules as the last debate.<\/p>\n \u201cEnough with the games. We accepted the ABC debate under the exact same terms as the CNN debate,\u201d Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller said in a statement.<\/p>\n The Harris and Trump camps are at an impasse over rules ahead of the Sept 10 ABC debate.<\/p>\n The holdup? Whether the candidates\u2019 microphones will be muted when it isn\u2019t their turn to speak.<\/p>\n Team Trump wants them muted.<\/p>\n Team Harris wants the mics hot.https:\/\/t.co\/FDrCdAnvzO<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Zack Stanton (@zackstanton) August 26, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n\n This comes as the 2024 race took a major turn a few days ago after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump.<\/p>\n RFK Jr. was only polling at around 5 percent nationwide but in a tight contest between Harris and Trump, that minor percentage could be what decides the presidency, the New York Post reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cMost of Kennedy\u2019s left-leaning support had already dispersed to Harris,\u201d Cook Political Report senior editor and elections\u00a0analyst Dave Wasserman said to The Post. \u201cSo this could represent a meaningful benefit for Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re talking probably a fraction of a point in our survey from August in battleground states,\u201d he said. \u201cForty-six percent\u00a0of RFK supporters went with Trump in a two-way race, 26% went with Harris and Kennedy\u2019s support had collapsed from 8% to 5% nationally.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCampaigns would spend hundreds of millions of dollars for a fraction of a point given how tight the margins are in these battleground states,\u201d he said as he referenced the tiny margins in 2020, particularly in Arizona and Georgia.<\/p>\n \u201cRFKs endorsement won\u2019t move all his supporters to Trump,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re in a very volatile environment right now and it could remain that way through the election.\u201d<\/p>\n Chris Lane, a pollster for Cygnal, said that \u201camong swing voters who will ultimately decide this election, 16% indicated they were going to vote for RFK.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWith margins in battleground states being razor-thin, that 16% could represent the difference between winning and losing a state,\u201d he said. \u201cIf RFK encourages his supporters to vote for Trump, it could have a massive impact and change the calculus for both Trump and Harris, especially in battleground states.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAdd in the fact that those 16% are more center-right than anything, and will ultimately add to Trump\u2019s ballot share,\u201d he said. \u201cOur data shows 4:1, these swing voters were more likely to call themselves conservatives than liberals.\u201d<\/p>\n And even anti-Trump pollster Frank Luntz said the RFK endorsement could decide the election.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s probably worth about 1% for Trump and that 1% could be everything if it\u2019s in the swing states. In the end, the reason why Kennedy was drawing 10, 12, even as high as 14% is because he was taking votes away from Joe Biden. Joe Biden\u2019s gone. Kamala Harris has replaced him, and [RFK\u2019s] vote collapsed down to about 4 or 5% and what\u2019s left is a Trump vote,\u201d\u00a0the pollster said when he appeared<\/a> on NewsNation after the endorsement and spoke to host Leland Vittert.<\/p>\n \u201cSome 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\u2019s worth a single percent and that single percent can make the difference in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin,\u201d added Luntz.<\/p>\n He also attacked the media for its response to the RFK endorsement.<\/p>\n \u201cIf he had endorsed Harris, I do think he would be regarded as a hero, but because he endorsed Trump, the people who are communicating that are not giving him the credit that he deserves, and I think we have to be careful in the last 73 days of this election campaign to understand the motivations of the people providing us information,\u201d said Luntz.<\/p>\n Scott Rasmussen, who founded Rasmussen Reports, said that recent polling shows the former president getting a \u201cslight\u201d benefit.<\/p>\n \u201cRMG Research polling for the Napolitan Institute this week showed Harris up 2 points 48% to 46% with RFK in the mix at 3%. When we pushed the RFK voters to make a choice, the race was tied at 49%\u00a0at 49%,\u201d the pollster said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile that suggests a slight boost for Trump, there are many other things that could have a bigger impact on the race \u2014 especially the debate and economic trends,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, in recent years, we\u2019ve had the Electoral College winner determined by a relative handful of votes in a few swing states,\u201d he said. \u201cIf that happens again, any blip in support from RFK voters could be important.\u201d<\/p>\n The post Trump-Kamala September Debate In Jeopardy Over Microphone Dispute<\/a> appeared first on Conservative Brief<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is fresh doubt over the first presidential debate in September between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. \u201cTrump\u2019s team, according to the source, would like for the microphones to be muted throughout the debate except for the candidate whose turn it is to speak, as was the case during the first…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/topproductsonly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/topproductsonly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/topproductsonly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topproductsonly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/topproductsonly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/topproductsonly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topproductsonly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topproductsonly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}