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‘Everything Set’: Harris Camp Calls Trump’s Bluff After He Says ‘Doesn’t Matter’ About Mics

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As Donald Trump attacks ABC News and suggests he may pull out of the scheduled presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Harris campaign is calling his bluff on the one major remaining sticking point: debate rules.

The Harris campaign wants the microphones for both candidates to stay on during the September 10 debate, but Trump’s advisors have been refusing, saying they want the same rules as the fateful CNN debate that led to President Joe Biden scrapping his re-election bid.

At 11:00 AM ET NBC News posted video (below) of Trump from Monday morning saying he did not care one way or the other about muting the microphones, but insisting the rules should stay the same as the CNN debate.

Harris campaign senior adviser for communications Brian Fallon picked up on Trump’s remarks and called his bluff.

READ MORE: ‘Black Jobs’: Trump Clarifies What He Meant

“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,” Fallon wrote on X.

Trump had told NBC’s Jake Traylor, “We agreed to the same rules. I don’t know. Doesn’t matter to me. 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. Ask Biden how it worked out. It was fine. And I think it should be the same.”

Trump, widely reported to want to pull out of the ABC News debate, especially after his late Sunday night rant, went on to claim it is Harris, a former prosecutor, who is not a “good debater” and “doesn’t want to debate.”

The ex-president, now down in the polls, declared, “they’re trying to change it. The truth is, they’re trying to get out of it because she doesn’t want to debate. She’s not a good debater. She’s not a smart person. She doesn’t want to debate.”

Politico Playbook Monday morning reported that behind the scenes, the Trump campaign is refusing to agree to the Harris campaign’s request the microphones stay on at all times.

READ MORE: ‘Sold His Endorsement’: RFK Jr Suspends, Backs Trump – Running Mate Wants Vaccine Apology

“It’s clear the veep’s team is hoping to get Trump to lose his cool on mic,” Playbook reported.

Harris is “more than happy to have exchanges with him if he tries to interrupt her,” a “person familiar with the negotiations tells Playbook.”

“And given how shook he seems by her, he’s very prone to having intemperate outbursts,” they said. “I think the campaign would want viewers to hear [that].”

“Our understanding,” Harris campaign’s Fallon had said in a statement, “is that Trump’s handlers prefer the muted microphone because they don’t think their candidate can act presidential for 90 minutes on his own. We suspect Trump’s team has not even told their boss about this dispute because it would be too embarrassing to admit they don’t think he can handle himself against Vice President Harris without the benefit of a mute button.”

It’s unclear if Trump’s remarks are the final word on unmuting the microphones.

Watch Trump below or at this link.

READ MORE: Stephen Miller and GOP AGs Sue to Protect Feds’ Right to Rip Apart Multi-Status Families

 

 

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Trump: ‘Extraordinarily Brilliant’ — Yet Stumped by Virginia’s ‘Rigged’ Referendum

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President Donald Trump is being criticized for his latest Truth Social post in which he describes himself as an “extraordinarily brilliant person” yet admits he cannot understand the language in Virginia’s redistricting referendum — which more than 1.5 million voters passed Tuesday night.

The president also claimed the election was “rigged,” while offering no evidence, and was frustrated because ballot counting went more heavily in Democrats’ favor (the “Yes” vote) as results were counted.

“A RIGGED ELECTION TOOK PLACE LAST NIGHT IN THE GREAT COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA!” Trump declared.

“All day long Republicans were winning, the Spirit was unbelievable, until the very end when, of course, there was a massive ‘Mail In Ballot Drop!’ Where have I heard that before — And the Democrats eked out another Crooked Victory!”

READ MORE: ‘Weak, Stupid, and Bad’: Trump Slams Conservative Supreme Court Justices in Wild Rant

“In addition to everything else,” he continued, “the language on the Referendum was purposefully unintelligible and deceptive.”

“As everyone knows, I am an extraordinarily brilliant person, and even I had no idea what the hell they were talking about in the Referendum, and neither do they! Let’s see if the Courts will fix this travesty of ‘Justice.'”

Critics blasted Trump’s remarks.

“I am begging for someone to explain to the President how election returns work,” wrote Sarah Longwell, the founder and editor of The Bulwark.

“You weren’t ‘winning all day,’ you were ahead before counting finished,” wrote progressive commentator Alex Cole. “Those are not the same thing. The real conspiracy is how MAGA convinces itself losing = cheating instead of… losing.”

READ MORE: Republicans Have to Make a Choice Between ‘Reality-Based Data’ and Trump: Benen

 

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Republicans Have to Make a Choice Between ‘Reality-Based Data’ and Trump: Benen

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President Donald Trump’s job approval stands at its lowest point of his second term, and since he won’t be on the ballot in November or in 2028, Republicans will have to ask themselves at what point do they accept “reality-based data” and distance themselves from him?

So asks Steve Benen at MS NOW, where he notes that the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll “found Trump’s approval rating at just 36%, which was roughly in line with the latest NBC News survey. For the White House, the Associated Press’ latest national poll was even worse” — coming in at 33%.

The AP reported that even Republicans are showing less faith in his leadership, and added their findings “show a president who is struggling with unfulfilled promises to tame inflation and testing Americans’ patience with a conflict in the Middle East that has dragged on longer than expected.”

Benen notes that it’s been widely assumed that there is a floor below which Trump cannot sink — his base will never leave him. But, he posits, “the AP poll suggests it’s time to reassess earlier assumptions about just how low his support can go.”

READ MORE: ‘Weak, Stupid, and Bad’: Trump Slams Conservative Supreme Court Justices in Wild Rant

Some believe that focusing on Trump’s approval rating is “misplaced,” since he is constitutionally prohibited from running again.

But the trouble with that argument is that congressional Republicans are indeed preparing for midterm elections “as the American electorate turns sharply against a GOP president — whom those same congressional Republicans have championed since his return to power.”

The lower Trump’s approval rating drops, the lower his support gets, “the more the party confronts a question about what to do with reality-based data,” says Benen. “Do they take new, sizable steps to distance themselves from a failing and woefully unpopular president, or do they continue to carry Trump’s water and take their chances with a dissatisfied electorate?”

READ MORE: How Trump’s Corruption Is Like a Thermonuclear Bomb: NYT Columnist

 

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‘Weak, Stupid, and Bad’: Trump Slams Conservative Supreme Court Justices in Wild Rant

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After delivering dozens of Truth Social posts in a 24-hour period, President Donald Trump is now lashing out at the conservative justices on the Supreme Court — again.

The president appeared to suggest that the conservative jurists should be loyal to his positions, and lamented that liberal justices “stick together like glue, NEVER failing to wander from the warped and perverse policies, ideas, and cases put before them.”

He also attacked Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, although not by name but by calling her “that new, Low IQ person, that somehow found her way to the bench (Sleepy Joe!).”

Calling it “unexplainable” and a “travesty,” the president appeared furious, once again, after losing his tariffs case at the Supreme Court, and was angered at what he expects will be a ruling against his administration on birthright citizenship.

READ MORE: How Trump’s Corruption Is Like a Thermonuclear Bomb: NYT Columnist

He wrongly called birthright citizenship “something which virtually NO OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD IS STUPID ENOUGH TO ALLOW,” and claimed that it “was meant for the babies of slaves, not for the babies of Chinese Billionaires.”

“No,” he continued, “certain ‘Republican’ Justices have just gone weak, stupid, and bad, completely violating what they ‘supposedly’ stood for.”

“If they rule against our Country on Birthright Citizenship,” Trump wrote, “which they probably will, it will be even worse, if that’s possible. It will cost America massive amounts of money but, more importantly, it will cost America its DIGNITY!”

Trump’s Wednesday remarks follow his Tuesday attack on the conservatives: “I put certain people on the United States Supreme Court who totally misrepresented who they were, and the true ideology for which they stand!”

READ MORE: ‘What Evil Looks Like’: Columnist Says Trump Presides Over a ‘Circus of Death and Chaos’

 

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