Trump says he would rather have microphones unmuted during debate with Harris
Donald Trump said he would rather keep microphones on during a scheduled televised debate with Kamala Harris next month, despite his campaign team pushing to keep the same rules as in a previous debate with Joe Biden, when participants’ microphones were turned off when it was not their turn to speak.
Asked if he would want the microphone unmuted between exchanges, Trump said it “doesn’t matter to me”, adding:
I’d rather have it probably on, but the agreement was that it would be the same as it was last time. In that case, it was muted. I didn’t like it the last time, but it worked out fine.
.@jake__traylor: “Would you want the microphones muted in the debate whenever you’re not speaking?”
Donald Trump: “We agreed to the same rules. I don’t know, doesn’t matter to me. … The agreement was that it would be the same as it was last time. In that case, it was muted.” pic.twitter.com/l7d7Odd7cb
— NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) August 26, 2024
According to a Politico report, negotiations between the Trump and Harris campaigns over the 10 September ABC News debate broke down over the turning off of the participants’ microphones when it was not their turn to speak.
The report said that the Harris campaign is demanding that the microphones be left “hot” at all times, while Trump’s campaign has insisted Harris was reneging on terms agreed for the debate by the Biden campaign when it accepted the 10 September date.
Key events
Elizabeth Warren’s comments came in response to separate Meet the Press interview with JD Vance in which he was asked whether Donald Trump, if elected again to the Oval Office, would use the presidency’s veto powers overrule a congressional federal abortion ban.
“I think he would,” Vance said. “He said … explicitly that he would.”
Asked if he could commit to Trump not imposing a national abortion ban, Vance said:
I can absolutely commit that. Donald Trump’s view is that we want the individual states and their individual cultures and their unique political sensibilities to make these decisions because we don’t want to have a nonstop federal conflict over this issue.
He insisted that Trump would veto such legislation if it were passed by Congress:
If you’re not supporting it as the president of the United States, you fundamentally have to veto it.
Ramon Antonio Vargas
Elizabeth Warren said “American women are not stupid” enough to believe JD Vance’s promise that Donald Trump would veto any nationwide abortion ban passed by Congress if the Republican presidential ticket wins November’s election.
Warren said on Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press:
American women are not stupid, and we are not going to trust the futures of our daughters and granddaughters to two men who have openly bragged about blocking access to abortion for women all across this country.
She added that she suspects conservative activists could use the Comstock Act, a 19th-century anti-obscenity law which bans mailing abortion-related materials, to enforce a federal ban on abortion if the former president clinches a second presidency with Vance as his running mate. She said it would not be all that “hard to accomplish” with “the right person [in] the Department of Justice and one of their extremist judges out in the world”.
“Understand this: today 30% of all women live in states that effectively ban abortion,” Warren said, referring to how 14 US states have enacted near-total bans on the procedure since the 2022 US supreme court ruling that eliminated federal abortion rights.
Donald Trump and JD Vance in the White House – it won’t be 30%. It’ll be 100%.
Donald Trump, at a campaign event in northern Virginia, was asked he would consider appointing Robert F Kennedy Jr to the post of health and human services secretary if he were re-elected.
Trump said they had not talked about it but said Kennedy “knows a lot about the subject,” and that he had made a good impression within the Republican party, the New York Times reported.
Michael Sainato
Max Kennedy, the brother of Robert F Kennedy Jr, also condemned his sibling’s decision to suspend his independent presidential campaign and endorse Donald Trump.
In an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times on Sunday, Max Kennedy said: “Trump was exactly the kind of arrogant, entitled bully” that his father, the former US senator and attorney general Robert F Kennedy, stood against before he was assassinated in 1968 as he pursued the Democratic presidential nomination.
Max Kennedy predicted his father would have admired Kamala Harris because she was a former prosecutor as well. “Her career, like his, has been all about decency, dignity, equality, democracy and justice for all,” Max Kennedy wrote.
I’m heartbroken over my brother Bobby’s endorsement of Donald Trump. Robert F Kennedy’s life was dedicated to promoting the safety, security and happiness of the American people.”
Kerry Kennedy, the sister of Robert F Kennedy Jr, said she was “disgusted” by his decision to drop out and endorse Donald Trump’s presidential bid.
Speaking to MSNBC on Sunday, Kerry Kennedy said she planned to “separate and dissociate myself from Robert Kennedy Jr. in this flagrant and inexplicable effort to desecrate and trample and set fire to my father’s memory,” adding:
I think if my dad were alive today, the real Robert Kennedy would have detested almost everything Donald Trump represents.
Kerry Kennedy: I am disgusted by my brother’s obscene embrace of Donald Trump. And I completely disavow and dissociate myself from Robert Kennedy Jr. and his flagrant efforts to desecrate my father’s memory. pic.twitter.com/iW8pmRQRdn
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 25, 2024
Larry Sabato, the director of the University of Virginia’s center for politics and editor in chief the election forecaster the Crystal Ball, said he believes Robert F Kennedy Jr’s decision to drop out of the presidential race will not have a substantial effect on Kamala Harris or Donald Trump.
On Friday, Kennedy suspended his independent presidential campaign and endorsed Trump. His running mate, Nicole Shanahan, said he was considering dropping out “because we draw votes from Trump”.
But “few people will vote for another candidate just because their candidate drops out and endorses someone else,” Sabato said.
They’re going to split, some for the Democrat, some for the Republican, some are going to vote for one of the other independents, and others will just sit on the couch. They won’t vote at all.
Brian Fallon, a senior adviser for Kamala Harris’s campaign, has responded to Donald Trump’s latest comments saying that whether or not the microphones are unmuted in the presidential debate “doesn’t matter” to him.
“With this resolved, everything is now set for Sept 10th,” Fallon posted to X.
Trump said unmuting the mics “doesn’t matter to me.” Always suspected it was something his staff wanted, not him personally.
With this resolved, everything is now set for Sept 10th. https://t.co/l98QiTD9lh
— Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) August 26, 2024
Trump says he would rather have microphones unmuted during debate with Harris
Donald Trump said he would rather keep microphones on during a scheduled televised debate with Kamala Harris next month, despite his campaign team pushing to keep the same rules as in a previous debate with Joe Biden, when participants’ microphones were turned off when it was not their turn to speak.
Asked if he would want the microphone unmuted between exchanges, Trump said it “doesn’t matter to me”, adding:
I’d rather have it probably on, but the agreement was that it would be the same as it was last time. In that case, it was muted. I didn’t like it the last time, but it worked out fine.
.@jake__traylor: “Would you want the microphones muted in the debate whenever you’re not speaking?”
Donald Trump: “We agreed to the same rules. I don’t know, doesn’t matter to me. … The agreement was that it would be the same as it was last time. In that case, it was muted.” pic.twitter.com/l7d7Odd7cb
— NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) August 26, 2024
According to a Politico report, negotiations between the Trump and Harris campaigns over the 10 September ABC News debate broke down over the turning off of the participants’ microphones when it was not their turn to speak.
The report said that the Harris campaign is demanding that the microphones be left “hot” at all times, while Trump’s campaign has insisted Harris was reneging on terms agreed for the debate by the Biden campaign when it accepted the 10 September date.
Tulsi Gabbard expected to endorse Trump at Detroit event, reports say
Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic Hawaii congresswoman, is expected to formally endorse Donald Trump’s presidential bid today at his event in Detroit, Michigan, CNN is reporting, citing a source.
Gabbard, an Iraq war veteran, had been floated as a potential Trump vice-presidential pick. The former Democrat fell out with her party after standing in the 2020 presidential primaries after being smeared by Hillary Clinton as a “Russian asset”. That generated a lawsuit in which Gabbard alleged that Clinton’s suggestion she was the Democratic candidate favored by Russia was “retribution” for Gabbard backing Clinton’s rival Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primary.
Gabbard has been helping Trump prepare for next month’s presidential debate with Kamala Harris, although Trump has since threatened to pull out of the 10 September debate.
Anna Betts
Actor Billy Baldwin dismissed Robert F Kennedy Jr as a former friend on Sunday while accusing him of betraying his values and selling his political soul after the independent presidential candidate suspended his campaign and endorsed Donald Trump last week.
“We were friends,” Baldwin wrote in a lengthy post on X.
I loved his politics. His speeches inspired me. We were neighbors. Our kids were friends. We carpooled the kids to school for a few years.
But now the actor said he has “completely” disavowed and dissociated from Kennedy.
Baldwin described Kennedy’s endorsement of Trump as “not only a betrayal of the values and traditions of the Kennedy family” but also an act of “political cowardice”.
I have known Bobby Kennedy Jr. for decades.
We were friends.
I loved his politics.
His speeches inspired me.
We were neighbors.
Our kids were friends.
We carpooled the kids to school for a few years.Bobby Kennedy has had presidential ambitions his entire adult life.
In 2006,… pic.twitter.com/Be6JGWn5i2
— Billy Baldwin (@BillyBaldwin) August 25, 2024
The rebuke from Baldwin adds to the wave of blowback against Kennedy for his support of the former president.
