US presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have agreed to an election debate on ABC News on September 10. Both candidates have confirmed their attendance. Organizer ABC News has drawn up strict rules to ensure the debate runs smoothly. The conditions have been the subject of much wrangling, with Trump even hinting at canceling it.
Date and time of Harris-Trump debate
Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will debate on Tuesday, September 10 at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time (ET). For Dutch viewers, this means the debate will take place in the early morning (3:00 a.m.) of Wednesday, September 11.
ABC News is hosting the debate at the National Constitution Center. This museum dedicated to the American Constitution is located (like the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall) on the Independence Mall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This is one of the swing states that fluctuate between Democrats and Republicans and are more decisive than average for who will win the election. The debate is not open to the public.
Where will the Trump-Harris debate be broadcast?
The debate will be streamed on Disney+ and Hulu. The debate can also be followed on the livestream of ABC News Live. ABC News Live is available on Samsung TV+, The Roku Channel, YouTubeTubi and most other streaming channels.
What are the rules and format of the debate?
Organizer ABC News has set strict rules to ensure the Harris-Trump debate runs smoothly:
– The debate will last 90 minutes and will include two commercial breaks. Candidates will not be allowed to communicate with their campaign team during the breaks.
– Candidates’ microphones will be muted when the other is speaking, to avoid interruptions.
– Only the debate moderators – hosts David Muir and Lindsey Davis – are allowed to ask questions of both candidates.
– By flipping a coin, it has already been determined that Donald Trump will have the closing words. At the end of the debate, the candidates will both have 2 minutes to address the voters.
Will Trump-Harris debate get multiple episodes?
“I hear Donald Trump has finally agreed to debate me on September 10th. I look forward to it,” Harris wrote on X. Trump had previously confirmed at a press conference that he wanted to debate on September 10th, just as he had previously promised a confrontation when Joe Biden was still the Democratic nominee. It was Trump’s first public appearance since Harris was chosen as the Democratic presidential nominee and Tim Walz was her running mate became.
Trump wanted to debate Harris two more times: on Fox News on September 4 and on NBC News on September 25. The Harris camp was not interested. When asked, Harris said only that she was looking forward to the September 10 debate.
It is the first time that Trump and Harris will debate each other directly. The ABC election debate was previously uncertain after Trump indicated that the agreements he had made with Biden about it no longer applied. Trump said that he only wanted to compete against Harris on September 4 on Fox News, a channel that is more favorable to him than ABC News. Harris then said that the Republican is afraid to debate her.
Fuss about microphones
There was more bickering. Trump took to his platform Truth Social to lash out at “ABC fake news.” He questioned why he would debate Kamala Harris there.
Trump debated President Joe Biden on CNN earlier this year. The candidates’ microphones were turned off when they weren’t speaking, a request from the Biden team. Now, it’s reportedly the other way around: Harris wants the microphones to stay on for the entire debate.
She would hope that Trump would not be able to control his verbal language and would prefer to question Trump critically as a kind of prosecutor (a position she previously held in California). That is not possible if her microphone or Trump’s is turned off and she cannot interrupt him.
Trump’s team would have little interest in that, although Trump himself contradicted that by stating that he doesn’t care whether the microphones are on or off. In the end, the appointment for the first debate between Trump and Biden was maintained. Enough fuss, and the debate still has to start.
