NBC denies Yang’s accusation that his mic was turned off in debate
NBC News is denying 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s claim that his microphone was muted or turned off at points during Thursday night’s Democratic debate in Miami.
The pushback comes after Yang claimed his microphone was “not on” a few times when he attempted to jump in.
{mosads}”There were also a few times, FYI, where I just started talking, being like, ‘Hey, I want to add something there,’ and my mic was not on,” the tech entrepreneur said while speaking to supporters after the event.
“And it’s this sort of thing where, it’s not like if you started talking, it takes over the [conversation]. It’s like I was talking, but nothing was happening. And it was like, ‘Oh f—.’ So that happened a bit too.”
The hashtag “#LetYangSpeak” was trending on Twitter Friday afternoon.
Haha #LetYangSpeak indeed. You all are the best. The #YangGang is amazing.
— Andrew Yang (@AndrewYang) June 28, 2019
The allegation comes after an analysis by The Hill shows Yang had the least amount of speaking time of all the 20 candidates who participated in the two nights of debates that took place Wednesday and Thursday.
Yang clocked in at just two minutes and 50 seconds of speaking time, while former Vice President Joe Biden, the 2020 front-runner in most polls, spoke for 12 minutes and 53 seconds. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) had 11 minutes and 37 seconds of speaking time.
On Wednesday night, a glitch involving microphones of NBC moderators who had left the stage generated headlines, laughs from the audience and a mocking tweet from President Trump.
As candidates were being asked a question about gun control from “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd, the previous moderators, Savannah Guthrie and Lester Holt, could be heard saying, “I need to go to the restroom” and “Someone’s got my binder.”
“We are hearing our colleagues’ audio,” Todd informed those in the debate venue and watching at home. “If the control room could turn off the mics of our previous moderators…”
“We prepared for everything. We did not prepare for this,” moderator Rachel Maddow said before cutting to a commercial break to address the issue.
The Hill has reached out to the Yang campaign for comment.
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