Kamala Harris Still Wants Live Mics for Her Debate with Donald Trump Next Week

The ABC presidential debate in Philadelphia is less than a week away, and the battle for the microphones is far from over. At least not for Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign.

Harris’ team is continuing to push for microphones to be turned on for the vice presidential debate with former President Donald Trump, likely to give the Republican nominee unfettered access to information that could disrupt her or allow her to spout lies on stage at the National Constitution Center on Sept. 10.

“We’re running for president of the United States. Let’s debate transparently — with our microphones on at all times.” — Harris wrote in a post on Saturday X.

The Trump campaign wants the microphones to be muted when the candidate is not speaking, which will prevent Trump from interrupting while Harris is speaking.

Harris’s style of debate as a prosecutor has typically done well to create natural and sometimes viral moments on the national stage over the past few years, whether she was debating former Vice President Mike Pence behind a pandemic-era Plexiglas partition or sharing the stage with nearly a dozen other Democrats. She may be hoping to create more meaningful moments during next week’s debate.

Here’s how Harris has handled pauses and tense moments during past debates:

Kamala Harris to Mike Pence: ‘Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking’

Harris coined the popular phrase during the 2020 vice presidential debate with Pence.

The moment that sparked this situation was Pence interrupting Harris’ response to COVID-19.Mr. Vice President, I am speaking“ Harris repeated throughout the night as Pence interrupted her.

At one point, Pence interrupted Harris’ answer about President Joe Biden’s tax plan. Harris replied, “If you don’t mind me finishing, we can talk, OK?”

These moments made national headlines as some of the key moments in the vice presidential debate, and even inspired Saturday Night Live sketch dedicated to this issue (and the infamous fly that landed on Pence’s head during the debate).

The incident further highlighted Harris’ skills as a debater and was the last moment in the debate in which Harris appeared unfazed by an opponent’s off-the-cuff remark. These days, Harris “is prepared to deal with Trump’s constant lies and interruptions in real time,” Brian Fallon, Harris’ senior campaign communications adviser, said in a statement.

The unmuted microphones produced several quotes for other Democrats in the 2020 debate cycle, most notably when Biden said, “Can you shut up, man??” when Trump continually interrupted him during the presidential debate.

‘America does not want to see a food fight,’ Harris told Democrats

In just the second debate of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, Harris proved she could cut through the noise on the debate stage.

It all started when then-candidate Biden and Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., got into a spat about novel and elderly leadership in the Democratic Party. From there, an onstage spat erupted, which Harris tried to break up.

“Hey, guys, you know what? America doesn’t want to see a fight over food. They want to know how we’re going to put food on their table,” Harris told her fellow Democrats, prompting a round of applause from the audience and even a little cheering from Biden.

It was one of Harris’s bigger debate moments this year, capturing the attention of pundits and the public before she ultimately became Biden’s vice presidential nominee later in the election cycle.

Under pressure from some of Tulsi Gabbard’s misleading claims

One of Harris’ biggest opponents in 2019 was former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who sought to attack Harris for California attorney general.

Gabbard has since left the Democratic Party and it is member of Trump’s 2024 transition team one sec helping the former president prepare for the debateDuring a July 2019 Democratic primary debate, she said she was “concerned” about Harris’s record as attorney general.

The former representative cited what she said were Harris’ policies on marijuana and bail at the time. Gabbard also alleged that Harris “blocked evidence that would have exonerated an innocent man from the death penalty until the courts forced her to do so.”

Some of Gabbard’s claims were misleading or lacked contextaccording to a fact-checking analysis by PolitiFact. Harris quickly responded to the shift in her record, although some felt her response was unenthusiastic, and donors wished the campaign reacted more sharply to Gabbard’s comments.

“I’m proud of this work,” Harris said during a debate on her efforts to reform the criminal justice system. “And I’m proud of making the decision not to just give fancy speeches or sit in a legislative body and give speeches on the floor, but to actually do the work of being in a position where I can use that power to reform a system that desperately needs reform.”