Colby Hall Equates Muted Debate Mics to Bowling Lane Bumper Guards — for Trump

The first presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is set for September 10. Both campaigns finally agreed to the rules, which include muted microphones.

CNN’s previous debate between Trump and President Joe Biden also featured muted mics. While the Harris campaign strongly lobbied to have them unmuted, the Trump campaign would not agree to the debate unless they were (though Trump said himself that he’d be fine if he weren’t muted). ABC News, which is hosting the debate, also rejected the request by the Harris campaign.

Mediaite Founding Editor Colby Hall appeared on NewsNation’s Morning in America with anchor Hena Doba on Sunday to explain why this rule will benefit Trump — how it was like bumper bowling for kids:

Hall: I would say that this isn’t really a debate, as we’ve traditionally sort of defined it. This is candidates speaking to moderators and the audience and not really engaging with one another. They’re basically sort of making talking points. And the big issue, of course, is the muting of the mics, which I think will really help Trump.

Doba: You think it’ll help Trump?

Hall: Absolutely. Because, you know, if you look back at the 2020 last debate between Biden, he was sort of a bull in a china shop and I think turned off a lot of people. And so the muting of the microphone lends itself to a level of discipline that he doesn’t typically have. It’s almost like if you take a kid bowling and you know that they’re just gonna be throwing in the gutter like they put up those guardrails. That’s what the muting of the mic is. And that’s why the Harris campaign was trying really hard to remove that rule. And even though Trump said like, “Oh, we can we can unmute the mics, that’s fine.” His campaign was like, “NO.” So I think that goes to Trump.

Watch the video above via NewsNation.