Here are the rules for the Harris-Trump ABC debate
The much-anticipated faceoff between Vice President Harris and President Trump will take place Tuesday in Philadelphia with similar rules to the June debate between Trump and President Biden.
After some back-and-forth between the Harris and Trump campaigns and host ABC News over the terms, both campaigns have agreed to the rules. An ABC-hosted debate has been on the calendar for months, originally set to be the second between Trump and Biden after CNN’s June match-up, but that was before the president dropped out of the race.
The most contentious issue had been whether a candidate’s microphone would be muted while their opponent is speaking.
The mics were muted in the Trump-Biden debate in the aftermath of a 2020 clash between the two, when Trump repeatedly interrupted Biden and moderator Chris Wallace, making what was being said at times unintelligible.
Harris’s campaign pushed for the microphones to be live at all times, allowing her to interject and Trump to be heard if he tries to talk over her. But the mics will be muted when the other candidate is speaking as before.
Other rules and regulations will be similar, too.
The event will start at 9 p.m. Eastern time and go for 90 minutes with two commercial breaks. The moderators, David Muir and Linsey Davis, will be the only ones asking questions, and the candidates will not be allowed to ask each other questions.
Each candidate will have two minutes to answer a question and two minutes to respond to the other candidate. They will also have an additional minute for “follow-ups, clarifications, or responses,” the rules state.
After the moderators introduce the candidates, the debate will begin with the questions and no opening statements. The candidates will have an opportunity at the end for a two-minute closing statement.
Harris and Trump will be given a pen, pad and bottle of water for the debate, but are not allowed to have any prewritten notes or props. No topics or specific questions are being shared in advance, and their campaign staff will not be allowed to interact with them at any point while the debate is ongoing, including commercial breaks.
The candidates will stand at podiums opposite each other and enter from opposite sides. Trump won a virtual coin toss and chose to deliver his closing statement last, allowing Harris to choose her preferred podium on the right side of the television screen.
Also notably, as was the case with the June debate, the event will take place without an audience, unlike many of the debates from previous election years.
