Honestly, I don’t see Trump’s detail agreeing to it, either. He can act like he has to “cancel” this event, which probably can’t happen even if he really wanted it to (& who would genuinely pay for the venue?) & try & blame Harris for “backing out.”
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A better format would be if they let him ramble.
He is a seditionist weird idiot bully child who still doesn’t know anything about
much of anything.
Those qualities would best serve Harris if they
are full display.
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Scenario 1: Trump goes forward alone, and his followers know Harris won’t show up, so he gets his typical crowd and the arena is charitably a third full. It’s not supposed to be a rally, so the cameras will show all the empty seats. Tramp cancels.
Scenario 2: Harris calls his bluff and her momentum brings all her supporters out to fill those 2/3 seats to boo Trump. He cancels.
Scenario 3: Harris shows and the crowd is evenly divided. No advantage to Trump; he doesn’t get the ego wank he’s going for and still has to debate KH. He cancels.
He can have a rally if he wants to have a rally, but will Fox really go along if that’s all it is?
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Why wouldn’t they?
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They’ve cut away from coverage of his rallies before, when he starts to ramble incoherently. They can’t risk exposing how weird and bonkers he gets at his rallies. A debate is structured in such a way that they don’t have to worry about him just doing an uninterrupted stream of consciousness ramble like he does at his rallies.
I think Harris should insist on sticking with the original scheduled debate. Fox will not allow a fair debate. They will stack the crowd with Trump supporters, or at least Republicans. Even if Harris were to successfully insist on a 50/50 crowd, Fox will strategically seat the two camps and position their microphones to make it seem to television viewers as if the crowd is all for Trump.
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If it’s a sure thing that Harris won’t show, why would they send two anchors and all the infrastructure to put on a debate that’s not going to happen? Fox might be in the tank for Trump, but they’re not that in the tank.
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Or she could suggest that if the original date doesn’t work for Trump, they could reschedule it for say September 19th – assuming Trump isn’t otherwise detained on that date.
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Fox will strategically seat the two camps and position their microphones…
Not in an arena they won’t. A typical presidential debate has an audience of 500-1,000, is my educated guess. Anyone know for sure? Any arena in Pennsylvania will seat 5,000 to 20,000. That’s great for a concert, or even a speech, but virtually impossible for a debate. Just inherently unworkable.
In a theater or auditorium, a host can have a prayer of getting the crowd to “hold applause and reactions,” for example. What happens in a crowd of 10,000-plus? You’re more likely to hear an endless storm of F-bombs and C-bombs than you are any answer to any question. The network can control what we hear at home, but in the room, Trump and his team will not want to hear equal parts adulation and invective. I think the only thing Trump wants to hear right now is that good ole Nuremberg roar.
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That’s my point. They won’t care what the live audience can hear. They only care about what it looks like on tv.
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I dunno how much it would matter which station does it, but an audience, much less an “arena audience” is just a distraction.
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The Times also changed their original horrible headline, though it’s not clear what specific pushback prompted that.
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One of the important rules of war is to choose the right battleground. Harris would be a fool to debate Trump on Fox News terrain.
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or I can be nice and call it wetland. Nevermind, it’s the swamp and swamp monsters creatures all the way.
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Those “qualities” are on full display already and have been on full display for decades.
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I’m sure it was some ultra-wealthy person at brunch or cocktails in the Hamptons laughing at Joe Kahn and saying “c’mon, man, this is too obvious even for you guys”. A call to the newsroom followed quickly.
Kahn is one of those senior editors who reminds me of the Glenn Close character in The Paper.
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Let’s not forget that the journalist at NABJ who made him look bad works for ABC. There’s no way that didn’t play into this petty little man’s thinking.
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He called ABC “fake news” in his first answer.
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Trump himself is a distraction. He doesn’t debate; he bullies and hijacks. (I know we all know that already.) After the Biden/Trump debate, Biden said in an interview (I linked it in another thread here too) that when he (Biden) was answering questions and Trump’s mic was turned off, Trump just kept on shouting. So even though the audience wasn’t hearing Trump at those times, as per the agreed-on rules, Biden was hearing him. Biden said that it was distracting, though he made a point of saying that he wasn’t blaming his own performance on Trump’s behavior. During the debate, though—I watched parts of it—at some times when Biden seemed to lose focus and struggle to put his thoughts together, I had the strong sense that something else was going on in the room that the viewing audience couldn’t see, and that appears to have been true.
The letter of the law for the debate was followed (mics turned off) but the spirit was not.
So, I don’t think that Kamala Harris should agree to a debate (or, “debate”) with Trump unless the rules for the Sept 10 debate could be amended, so that not only would each person’s mic be shut off when it’s not their turn to speak, but also each of them would be in a soundproof booth (or perhaps wear noise-canceling headphones?) and also not be in view of each other. At which point there’s really no point in holding a live debate, as they may as well just give separate interviews.
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