For weeks, the presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris has argued that the battle for always-on microphones at next week’s debate with former President Donald Trump was so that she could show her prosecutorial chops.
Skeptics instead said she was hoping for a replay of the “I’m speaking” moments she had in the 2020 debate with then-Vice President Mike Pence when he interrupted to make a point, an event heralded in liberal media circles as a victory for the Democrat.
Now, Harris is admitting the skeptics were right.
“Do you remember this?” she said in a new fundraising email showing one of her “I’m speaking” video moments.
“The vice president is preparing to go head-to-head with Donald Trump in just one week. She’s ready to deal with Trump’s constant lies and interruptions in real time,” the note to supporters requesting a donation of up to $250 said.
ABC News, which is hosting next week’s debate, and the Trump campaign have said the fight over open microphones is over and that they will be shut off for the candidate not speaking. Team Harris, however, is still pushing for them to be turned on.
The media have focused on Trump’s debating style with women and is poised to attack him as a bully as they did when he hovered near his 2016 debate challenger, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
SEE THE LATEST POLITICAL NEWS AND BUZZ FROM WASHINGTON SECRETS
While annoying to some, the media lapped up Harris’s retort to Pence in their 2020 debate.
“Harris’ prosecutorial debating style has typically fared well in creating off-the-cuff, and sometimes viral, moments on the national stage the last several years, whether she was debating former Vice President Mike Pence behind a plexiglass, pandemic-era partition or sharing the stage with almost a dozen other Democrats. She could be hoping to create more notable moments at next week’s debate,” Wednesday’s Philadelphia Inquirer wrote.