Trump Previews Upcoming Debate Strategy With Harris

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris waits to speak at a campaign rally at United Auto Workers Local 900 in Wayne, Mich., on Aug. 8, 2024. (Right) Republican Presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives to speak during a rally at Herb Brooks National Hockey Center in St Cloud, Minn., on July 27, 2024. Andrew Harnik, Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

Former President Donald Trump offered a preview of his Sept. 10 debate strategy, saying he would allow Vice President Kamala Harris room to talk.

“I’m going to let her talk,” Trump said on Wednesday at a taping of a town hall in Pennsylvania that was hosted by Fox News. “Debates are interesting, you can go in with all the strategy you want, but you have to sort of feel it out.”

He said that it also “depends a lot on ABC, will they be fair or not?”

“I hope they will be fair,” he said.

The debate, scheduled for Sept. 10 in Philadelphia, will be the first between Harris and Trump. A previous debate between Trump and President Joe Biden was held in June, about a month before Biden announced he was dropping out of the 2024 presidential race before endorsing the vice president.

Earlier Wednesday, ABC News announced the rules of the presidential debate between Trump and Harris. Both candidates agreed to their microphones being muted while their opponent talks, similar to the rule during the first presidential debate.

The Harris campaign sent a letter to the network indicating her camp will accept the debate rules but signaled that it isn’t in favor of microphone muting.

Her advisers wrote that their candidate will be “fundamentally disadvantaged by this format, which will serve to shield Donald Trump from direct exchanges with the Vice President.”

Despite the concerns, the Harris campaign wrote that “we accepted the full set of rules proposed by ABC, including muted microphones,” the letter stated.

There was a previous impasse over whether the debate microphones should be muted, with the Trump and Harris campaigns respectively taking jabs at one another last month. At the same time, Trump had written in a social media post that he might pull out of the debate due to his concerns about bias at the network.

Harris spokesperson Brian Fallon said in a statement at the time the campaign wanted ABC News to keep their microphones on for the full event and not be muted. “The Vice President is ready to deal with Trump ... in real time,” Fallon said. “Trump should stop hiding behind the mute button.”

Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller said in a statement that the team already agreed to the same terms as the debate hosted by CNN in June. “We said no changes to the agreed-upon rules,” he said last month.

The 90-minute debate will be held with no audience at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia at 9 p.m. ET, with David Muir and Linsey Davis having moderation duties.

The Epoch Times contacted the Harris campaign for comment Thursday.

Election Day on Nov. 5 is only about two months away, and a number of major dates, events, and political developments are still forthcoming. Mail ballots will be sent out in the first state—North Carolina—starting on Friday, Sept. 6, the state said.

Pennsylvania, the nation’s premier swing state, begins in-person absentee voting the week after the debate. By the end of the month, early voting will be underway in at least four states with a dozen more to follow by mid-October.

No other debates between Harris and Trump have been scheduled. The vice presidential candidates, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz are slated to have a CBS News-hosted debate on Oct. 1.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.