Vice President Kamala Harris has called on her Republican rival Donald Trump to debate with their microphones switched on after the host ABC confirmed they would be muted.

Harris took to social media to reignite the spat over the debate rules for the presidential showdown on September 10.

“Donald Trump is surrendering to his advisers who won’t allow him to debate with a live microphone,” Harris posted to X on Saturday (US time).

“If his own team doesn’t have confidence in him, the American people definitely can’t.

“We are running for President of the United States. Let’s debate in a transparent way — with the microphones on the whole time.”

Trump has said he preferred to have his microphone kept on and that he did not like it muted during the last debate against then-contender President Joe Biden.

So-called “hot mics” can help or hurt political candidates, catching off-hand comments that sometimes were not meant for the public.

Muted microphones also prevent the debaters from interrupting their opponent.

Earlier last week, America’s ABC sent the debate rules to both candidates which confirmed the mics would be off when not speaking.

“Candidate microphones will be live only for the candidate whose turn it is to speak, and muted when time belongs to another candidate,” ABC stated .

The debate would be the first time Harris and Trump face off since Biden dropped out of the presidential race following a poor performance at a CNN debate in June that raised doubts about his mental acuity.

Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz and Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance have agreed to an October 1 debate on CBS News.

Harris sits for first interview

On Thursday (US time), Harris sat for her first interview since becoming the Democratic nominee for president.

She was interviewed by CNN anchor Dana Bash, with little more than two months until Election Day on November 5.

She was joined by her vice presidential running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

Since becoming the Democratic candidate for president last month, Harris has surged in the polls, brought in hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign donations, and had a series of forceful campaign speeches.

She leads Trump 45 per cent to 41 in a Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Thursday that showed the vice president sparking new enthusiasm among voters.

Some critics suggested she might be less polished in unscripted settings like a TV interview, but she appeared to make no major mistakes on Thursday.

Harris has moved more toward the centre on some issues from the time she ran for president in 2020 until she took over from Biden in July as the Democrats’ choice to face Republican former President Donald Trump in the election.

She has toughened her position on migration along the southern US border with Mexico. She also no longer wants a ban on fracking, an energy production method that employs many people in Pennsylvania, one of a handful of swing states that could decide the election.

When asked about her policy shifts, Harris said: “My values have not changed.”

Harris dismissed a comment from Trump in which he questioned whether she was a Black American. “Same old tired playbook,” she said.

“Next question, please.”

Trump, in a post on Truth Social, responded to the interview by saying: “I look so forward to Debating Comrade Kamala Harris and exposing her for the fraud she is.” Trump often falsely refers to Harris as a Marxist.

Though she has taken questions from journalists on the campaign trail and been interviewed on TikTok in recent days, she had, until Thursday, not done a one-on-one interview with a major network or print journalist since Biden ended his re-election campaign on July 21 and endorsed her.

Bash, who co-moderated the June 27 debate between Trump and Biden that ultimately led to the president’s departure from the race, conducted the interview in Savannah, Georgia, as Harris and Walz were on a campaign bus tour.

-with AAP