Hot Microphones and No Audience: Here Are the Rules for the V.P. Debate

The brief era of muted microphones appears to be over.

At Tuesday’s televised debate between Senator JD Vance of Ohio and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, each candidates’ microphone will be turned on throughout the 90-minute event, according to the debate’s sponsor, CBS News.

But the moderators — Norah O’Donnell, the anchor of “CBS Evening News,” and Margaret Brennan, who hosts “Face the Nation” — have reserved the right to switch off the microphones if needed, the network said on Friday.

The rules — which both campaigns agreed to — are a tweak from this year’s two presidential debates, where microphones were turned off when the other candidate was speaking.

The nuances of microphone usage had turned into a bit of a kerfuffle before the debate earlier this month in Philadelphia between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump, with their aides publicly bickering over the format. The rule was encouraged by President Biden’s team before the cycle’s first presidential debate in June, but Ms. Harris’s team wanted to change that (ultimately, microphones remained muted).

There appears to be less tension ahead of Tuesday’s matchup, which will be held at CBS’s studios in Midtown Manhattan, and simulcast on most major television networks.

The rest of the rules, announced by CBS, are roughly comparable to the prior debates this year.

There will be no studio audience. Each candidate will stand at a lectern, the first time since 2008 that vice-presidential candidates have not sat at a table for their debate. (The moderators, though, will be seated.) The debate is set to last for 90 minutes, with two commercial breaks of four minutes apiece.

There will be no opening statements. Mr. Vance won a coin toss to determine the