GOP Strategist Warns CNN Cutting Off Trump’s Mic During Debate is Futile: He’ll Blow ‘Right Through That Stop Sign’

CNN’s Jim Acosta did some presidential debate pre-game coverage on Thursday and asked his panelists about the candidates having their microphones cut off. Republican strategist Jim Schultz was skeptical about it.

Both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump agreed to the rule that their mics will be cut off if they take too long to answer a question from moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash. But Acosta as well as both CNN analyst Van Jones and Schultz agreed that it was unlikely Trump would adhere to that rule:

Acosta: I don’t know, has there ever been a time when his mic has been cut off in a situation like this where the stakes are this high? I suspect he’ll just keep talking even if the mic has been muted.

Schultz: Yeah, I think he blows right through that stop sign, right? And the more they try to mute him–

Acosta: The other mic might pick him up.

Schultz: Yeah, I said the more they try to mute him, the more problems they’re going to have, right? Because if they try to mute him, then he goes out and carries a message afterwards that, you know, they’re trying to keep the American people from hearing what he has to say.

Acosta: Yeah. Van, what do you think?

Jones: Well, look, in some ways, I’m glad that his mic’s going to be muted because we had that one, you know, car crash debate where Biden could barely finish his sentence. He finally just said, “Oh, would you just shut up?” I mean, it was literally class clown antics. So, in some ways, it’s good for the American people that you might actually get a chance to hear Biden. But at the same time, that debate actually helped Biden a lot because you could hear what a disrespectful, unhinged maniac Trump can be. And it actually wound up helping Biden.

When Trump was more restrained in the next debate, the second debate, it actually, went more to Trump’s favor. So in some ways, you’re protecting the American people, but you’re also in some ways giving, shielding Trump from himself, in a way that might hurt Biden. We’ll see how it goes. But I’m gonna tell you what — Trump is going to talk the whole time. Microphone, no microphone. You could put him in a trash can. He’s not going to be quiet.

Schultz: You can’t have two grumpy old men screaming at one another, right? And that’s the American people don’t want to hear that. They want to hear the about the issues. And they don’t want to hear the yelling back and forth.

Acosta: Yeah, it might remind people of Thanksgiving dinner.

Watch the video above via CNN.