In a deep dive into the debate preparations currently underway for Tuesday night when Donald Trump will face off with Vice President Kamala Harris, the New York Times is reporting that some of the former president's advisers are worried he may come on too strong and alienate voters who have tuned ...
He knows his base will still see it, even if they don’t hear everything. That is what he cares about. Messaging the base. And his message is going to be to “put her in her place”. He has absolute interest in portraying himself as the alpha male who does his own thing, rules and norms be damned. That’s his whole brand.
And this is assuming that the moderators have a spine. Do you think they’re going to actively shut his mic off if he goes past time? There’s zero chance of that happening. Trump going off at random on a hot mic = ratings. Trump demanded no fact checking last time and he got it. They continually give in to Trump’s demands because they want to continue having access to him, they don’t want to be labelled as “fake news” in one of his tweets, and they know that his soundbytes generate attention, and therefore ratings, and therefore money.
There has never been an instance where Trump has been successfully corralled by debate moderators. I have no reason to believe that the next debate will magicallly be the first.
Actually the Harris campaign wanted the mics on and it was the Trump campaign that wanted them muted.
And that’s exactly why. His base is going to vote for him no matter what he does. If he wants to pander to the base, then let him. Harris will look good to moderates that are tired of their racist uncle going on rants during family get-togethers.
As it is, if Trump rants while his mic is muted it makes him look nuts. Sure his base will like it, but how many independent voters is he going to pick up from doing this?