Trump campaign releases list of debate demands from Kamala Harris’ team … and whether they agree on one important point

Amid a bitter public dispute over whether to mute the microphones at the first debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, the former president’s team has now announced that his Democratic opponent wanted to change other aspects of their showdown.

Trump senior adviser Corey Lewandowski told reporters in a phone call Thursday morning that Harris’ team tried to pressure ABC News to change the logistics of the debate to their advantage.

For one thing, the vice president wanted the opportunity to bring notes to the stage—which is highly atypical for a presidential debate taking place at a time when Republicans claim the vice president will not stick well to the script.

The 1.62 m tall candidate would also prefer to sit rather than stand behind the respective lecterns and face the 1.90 m tall ex-president, Lewandowski revealed.

But the Harris-Walz campaign team told DailyMail.com that the recent claims from the Trump camp were false.

The most famous dispute is over muting microphones when it is not a candidate’s turn to answer a question or refute his rival’s arguments, which many saw as an advantage for the former president in his debate with President Joe Biden earlier this summer.

But the lack of notes, the stage setup and the muting of the microphone will remain the same at the CNN debate between Trump and Biden in June.

Just 12 days before the September 10 debate in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, it is still unclear from Harris’ camp whether her team has agreed to the final terms.

When Harris was still in the running for re-election as vice president and Biden was leading the pack, her campaign team agreed with Trump’s team and ABC News to previously established rules, which included muting microphones.

But Lewandowski says Harris now wants a compromise because her team has no “confidence” in her ability to deviate from the script and debate Trump without a crutch.

This comes after the vice president did not give a formal interview or hold a press conference for 38 days after entering the 2024 presidential race as a presidential candidate. The vice president will finally face an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Thursday afternoon – but her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, will accompany her to the conversation.

When asked whether the microphone debacle was finally over, Lewandowski told reporters in a press conference on Thursday morning: “Yes, we have sorted that out.”

“When we originally negotiated the rules of the debate, those rules were discussed, negotiated and agreed upon by the Biden-Harris campaign at the time,” he explained. “This included the vice presidential debate, which [Harris] was supposed to participate until they kicked Joe out like a dog and … coordinated them for the presidential nomination.”

“But here’s what happened,” he continued. “Kamala Harris’ team came back and said, ‘We want to sit during the debate. We don’t want to stand anymore. We want to bring notes to the debate because we’re not sure we can answer questions without notes. Oh, and we want to keep the microphones on.'”

“None of these things were previously agreed upon, and we are applying the same criteria to them that we used in negotiations with the then Biden-Harris campaign team, because that is what she agreed to as vice presidential candidate and in the vice presidential debate process.”

Trump senior adviser Corey Lewandowski revealed the demands Harris’ team made as it tried to renegotiate the rules and logistics of the debate after previously agreeing to the terms when she was still running for re-election as vice president

Trump wants the rules to remain the same as they were at the CNN debate in Atlanta, Georgia, in June, when he dominated against President Joe Biden.

He assured that the candidates would stand up for the 90-minute debate without any notes being taken beforehand and the microphone would be muted.

“That’s agreed, ABC has agreed. It will be there in just over a week.”

Trump and his Republican allies claim Harris can’t perform well without prepared remarks or notes to guide her. They use delaying an interview or press conference for more than a month as evidence that her team doesn’t trust her, that she can go off script, and that she has a history of likability issues.

CNN anchor Dana Bash will join Harris for her first interview as a presidential candidate on Thursday afternoon. The interview will air later Thursday evening.

Lewandowski says Bash has an “obligation … to ask Kamala Harris the difficult questions she has avoided since being crowned the Democratic nominee.”

Meanwhile, Harris’ campaign team is supporting Trump’s request to mute the microphone as a sign that his advisers do not believe the former president can control himself during a debate.

“We have communicated to ABC and other networks considering hosting a potential debate in October that we believe both candidates’ microphones should be on throughout the broadcast,” Harris’ senior communications adviser Brian Fallon said in a statement this week.

“To our knowledge, Trump’s advisers prefer the silent microphone because they do not believe their candidate can act as president alone for 90 minutes,” he continued.

“The Vice President is prepared to confront Trump’s constant lies and interruptions in real time. Trump should stop hiding behind the mute button.”

Trump said this week that his campaign had “made an agreement” with Harris and ABC to mute the microphones.