Former President Donald Trump and current Vice President Kamala Harris are set to hold their first Presidential Debate on Tuesday night September 10 at the National Constitution Centre in Philadelphia. The event is slated for 9:00 pm Eastern Time and will be hosted by ABC News.
This will be their first meeting ever in person. The two have never met in person or spoken.
The network released the final debate rules after a painstaking negotiation with the two opposing camps. From the moment Harris accepted Trump’s challenge to debate, the nature of the debate rules has been a source of contention between the teams.
ABC News finally came up with the following rules which both campaigns have accepted.
According to the network, the debate rules will be as follows:
The Debate will be 90 minutes long with two commercials in between.
There will be no audience in the room.
Microphones will be muted when not speaking. In other words, mics will be LIVE only for the candidate whose turn it will be to speak.
Candidates are not permitted to ask each other questions. Only moderators will be permitted to do so.
No opening statements. Closing statements will be two minutes long per candidate.
President Trump will offer the Closing Statement after he won a virtual coin toss by the network to determine the order of who goes first and last. Harris will stand on the right podium on the screen (which is left on stage) after winning the toss for the podium placement.
Candidates will each have two minutes to answer the question; another two minutes for rebuttal; one minute for a follow-up, clarification or response.
Candidates will stand behind the podium for the duration of the debate. Moderators will be seated. Harris initially wanted to have the debate seated.
No props or pre-written notes allowed on stage. This part is the one said to have been the most contentious of all and that caused the most consternation for the Harris team. It has been reported that Kamala’s campaign team had requested and still wanted to have pre-written notes with her as a form of reference during the debate, a request that was vehemently rejected by the Trump campaign. After all, the unspoken question within political circles is, who is Kamala without her spoon-fed notes and teleprompter? Hawkish eyes will be watching.
Candidates will be given a pen, writing pad or paper and a bottle of water.
The rules as laid out, seem identical to those laid out by CNN in June during the first Presidential Debate between President Trump and then Democrat Presidential candidate, Joe Biden, before he was dumped and had Harris installed.
It was this last debate performance that saw Biden unceremoniously discarded and replaced by his Vice President, who was placed on the position without ever getting a single vote from the people. Some, would call that an “undemocratic” and “rigged” electoral process or worse, “interfering in the election process.”
According to the network, the debate will be moderated by two of their anchors, David Muir, who is also the Managing Director of World News Tonight along with his counterpart, Linsey Davis of ABC News Live Prime.
ABC News is known to be one of the most hostile network to President Trump with a recent poll showing that in its recent coverage, it continues to be hostile and totally biased against him while leaning favourably at all times towards Harris.
According to MRC, a Media Research Company, the network’s coverage is 100 percent positive for Harris and 93 percent negative against Trump, leaving many objective observers wondering to what extent ABC will go to shield their candidate against all her flaws, total failures including her abysmal record as the incumbent Vice President.
Observers will be watching this debate with a keen eye to see if the moderators will be fair to Trump and prove to the world that the network will take the position of impartiality in their moderation.
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