Report: Team Harris had “planned for unmuted microphones” and now had to “frantically rewrite its debate strategy”

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign team reportedly had to “frantically” revise its debate strategy after its attempt to change microphone rules failed.

Former President Trump and Harris will face off for the first time in a debate moderated by ABC News on Tuesday in Philadelphia. While the Harris team had insisted on running the debate as previously negotiated between the Biden and Trump teams, it seemed they were expecting a rule change to keep the microphones on throughout the event.

“Kamala Harris had planned to contradict Donald Trump, check his facts and question him directly during their debate next week,” Politico reported Friday. “But now that rules have just been passed requiring candidates to be muted when their opponents speak, campaign officials say Harris’ advisers are rushing to rewrite their script.”

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the 88th National Convention of the American Federation of Teachers on July 25, 2024 in Houston, Texas. (Montinique Monroe/Getty Images)

TRUMP AND HARRIS – FIGHT OVER DEBATE RULES: “WE SAID NO CHANGES”

According to the report, Harris’ campaign team had requested that the microphones be muted “so that the vice president could draw on her experience as a prosecutor and confront the former president in the same way she tackled some of Trump’s Supreme Court nominees and Cabinet members during the Senate confirmation hearings.”

Four of her own campaign staffers are now reportedly claiming that the rules set by her predecessor are “shackling” her.

Some Democratic strategists said the conditions of the debate were bad from the start.

One told Politico: “That was a bad set of rules for someone (Biden) who needed to be protected and who should never have been on the debate stage. And now they have to live with it.”

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump leaves a campaign rally at Central Wisconsin Airport in Mosinee, Wisconsin on September 7, 2024. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Democratic strategist James Carville, however, said the rules would not be decisive in any way.

“(Trump) isn’t going to be able to do his antics either,” he said. “So it looks to me like it’s a zero-sum game.”

The same report also said: “Some Democrats privately dismiss the Harris campaign’s frustration as largely tactics and anticipation ahead of Tuesday’s debate in Philadelphia.”

Trump senior adviser Jason Miller, speaking on behalf of the campaign team, reportedly expressed his joy that Harris “finally accepted the already agreed-upon debate rules that they originally set out,” later adding: “Americans want to hear both candidates present their competing visions to voters, unencumbered by what happened. No notes, no sit-downs, no advance copies of the questions.”

The Harris campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Harris’ campaign team had repeatedly opposed the microphone rule and tried to persuade Trump to backtrack on the original agreement to mute microphones. initially even refused to sign the rules in an attempt at renegotiation.

The campaign sent the network a letter last week officially agreeing to the original debate rules but continuing to complain about the conditions.

“Vice President Harris, a former prosecutor, is fundamentally disadvantaged by this format, which is designed to protect Donald Trump from direct interaction with the Vice President. We suspect this is the primary reason his campaign team insists on muting microphones,” the letter said.

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Fox News’ Lindsay Kornick contributed to this report.