Trump and Biden’s mics to be cut for two minutes under new debate rules

New rules have been announced for Thursday’s presidential debate, after calls for Donald Trump’s microphone to be cut off if he interrupts Joe Biden.

Donald Trump and Joe Biden will have their microphones muted for two minutes while the other candidate speaks at the start of each 15-minute segment during Thursday night’s presidential debate.

The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) announced the new rules on Monday, having last month flagged changes to the format to provide “additional structure” after the first showdown in Ohio descended into a farce.

In a statement, the CPD said it had considered suggestions “including the turning off of microphones to avoid interruptions”.

“Under the agreed upon debate rules, each candidate is to have two minutes of uninterrupted time to make remarks at the beginning of each 15-minute segment of the debate,” it said.

“These remarks are to be followed by a period of open discussion. In order to enforce this agreed upon rule, the only candidate whose microphone will be open during these two-minute periods is the candidate who has the floor under the rules.”

For the remaining 11 minutes of each segment, both candidates’ microphones will be open.

Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien said in a statement that Mr Trump was committed to debating Mr Biden “regardless of last-minute rule changes from the biased commission in their latest attempt to provide advantage to their favoured candidate”.

“This was supposed to be a foreign policy debate, so the President still looks forward to forcing Biden to answer the number one relevant question of whether he’s been compromised by the Communist Party of China,” Mr Stepien said.

“Why did Biden allow his son Hunter to sell access to him while he was Vice President, and why were there Chinese payment arrangements for Joe himself worked out by Hunter and his sketchy partners? If the media won’t ask Joe Biden these questions, the President will, and there will be no escape for Biden.”

The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to the announcement.

Full statement from @debates: pic.twitter.com/jqvKxnehTZ

— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) October 19, 2020

The debate is being held at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, and will be moderated by NBC News White House correspondent Kristen Welker.

Topics selected by Welker, announced last week, will be “Fighting COVID-19”, “American Families”, “Race in America”, “Climate Change”, “National Security” and “Leadership”.

Mr Trump slammed Welker earlier on Monday, calling her a “dyed-in-the-wool radical left Democrat or whatever she is”.

“Ask her why did she delete her account? Would you please have her put her account back?” he told reporters on the tarmac in Arizona.

Welker deactivated her Twitter account earlier this month – it has since been reactivated – amid controversy over fellow presidential debate moderator Steve Scully’s tweet to former White House spokesman and now fierce Trump critic Anthony Scaramucci.

Donald Trump argues with first debate moderator Chris Wallace. Picture: Scott Olson/Getty Images/AFP

The C-SPAN political editor, who had been scheduled to moderate the cancelled second debate, raised eyebrows with a tweet many viewed as having been intended as a private message.

“@Scaramucci should I respond to Trump,” Scully wrote in the now-deleted tweet.

Scully initially claimed he had been “hacked” and the CPD defended him, saying he “did not originate the tweet” and that it was investigating the incident “with the help of authorities”.

He was suspended by C-SPAN last week after admitting he had not been hacked.

“For several weeks, I was subjected to relentless criticism on social media and in conservative news outlets regarding my role as moderator for the second presidential debate, including attacks aimed directly at my family,” Scully said in a statement.

“This culminated on Thursday, October 8, when I heard President Trump go on national television twice and falsely attack me by name. Out of frustration, I sent a brief tweet addressed to Anthony Scaramucci. The next morning when I saw that this tweet had created a controversy, I falsely claimed that my Twitter account had been hacked.”

Mr Trump, who had previously branded Scully a “Never-Trumper”, ruthlessly mocked the journalist.

“When his name was announced, I said he would not be appropriate because of conflicts,” he tweeted. “I was right! Then he said he was hacked, he wasn’t. I was right again!”

Speaking to reporters in Arizona on Monday, Mr Trump took aim at Welker’s alleged partisanship.

“It’s not going to affect me, I’m going to be there,” he said. “But I told you about the last one and I was right, I told you about Savannah Guthrie and I was right, and I’m telling you about Kristen Welker.”

Mr Trump was referring to Guthrie, the host of the NBC town hall event held in lieu of the second debate last Thursday, who was particularly forceful in her questioning of the President.

After the event, the Trump campaign said he “soundly defeated NBC’s Savannah Guthrie in her role as debate opponent and Joe Biden surrogate”.