Donald Trump and Joe Biden will face each other this Thursday, June 27 on American television for the first time since 2020. Highly anticipated, this debate is the result of long negotiations between the two campaign teams.
A shock that many Americans are waiting for. After spending several months insulting each other through the media and social networks, Donald Trump and Joe Biden will come face to face, this Thursday, June 27 on the set of the CNN channel, for the first time since the 2020 debates.
Neck and neck in the polls, the Republican and the Democrat play big in this unprecedented event in more than one way. The poster, first of all, is exceptional: for the first time in American history, a presidential debate features a sitting president and a former head of state.
Commission on Presidential Debates snubbed
The timing then explodes. The two candidates face each other in the summer, even before having been officially nominated by their respective parties. Usually, the contenders for the White House wait until the fall to debate, as planned by the Commission on Presidential Debates.
This independent organization has organized in a very codified manner the televised duels between candidates for the White House since 1987. Four debates are usually planned, including one between the vice-presidential candidates.
But this year, Donald Trump and Joe Biden broke with this tradition for the first time. The two campaign teams preferred to negotiate between themselves to agree on the choice of media, the date and the conditions of the exchanges.
Microphones off, no audience…
Concretely, the debate will take place from 9 p.m. (3 a.m. Thursday to Friday night, French time) in the CNN studios in Atlanta, without an audience. The two candidates will exchange for 90 minutes. They will stand behind a lectern, and each will have their microphone muted when the other speaks. Enough to avoid the cacophony which had dominated the first televised duel of the previous presidential election. Faced with Donald Trump, who kept interrupting his challenger, Joe Biden ended up saying: “Are you going to shut up, man?”
The US president won a coin toss allowing him to choose which side he would stand on the stage if he wanted to speak first or second during the final statements. He opted to stand on the right on the screen, leaving the choice to Donald Trump to intervene last and therefore close the debate.
The two debaters will have neither teleprompters nor prepared sheets, but will have something to take notes as well as a bottle of water. They will not be able to speak with their teams during the two commercial breaks.
The exchange will be moderated by Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, CNN figures. The two journalists “will use all the tools at their disposal to enforce speaking times and ensure a civilized debate,” assures the channel.
CNN allowed its rivals to broadcast simultaneously, with a channel logo and without outside comments. Fox News regulars will therefore not have to skip. The conservatives’ favorite channel will go on air two hours before the debate, with its editorialists Jesse Watters and Sean Hannity, who regularly attack CNN, deemed “anti-Trump” by its supporters.
A Biden-friendly organization?
The conditions of the debate seem to the advantage of Joe Biden who has everything to gain from an argument against argument debate, without invective. And his demands were met. According to Politico, it was the Democratic leader’s team that demanded the absence of the public, fearing that a hubbub would disrupt their 81-year-old candidate.
Opposite him, the very fiery Donald Trump will be forced to stick to the framework. “It won’t be easy for him. Donald Trump likes to break the rules, he doesn’t like to be constrained. He is much more comfortable in large meetings where he can harangue the crowd,” Olivier explains to BFMTV.com Richomme, professor of American civilization at Lumière Lyon-2 University.
For Thierry Arnaud, columnist at BFMTV and former correspondent in the United States, Joe Biden does indeed have a card to play. “Since he is widely criticized for his age, all he needs to do is stand up to Donald Trump for 90 minutes for us to applaud the performance. Conversely, if Donald Trump fails to crush Joe Biden as he promised to do, there will be disappointment,” he explains in our Washington Briefing podcast.
Immigration, abortion, purchasing power, support for Ukraine, Donald Trump’s legal setbacks… The two candidates have no shortage of subjects on which to confront each other. Enough to allow voters to decide? According to Olivier Richomme, this debate can be decisive in “convincing the undecided, particularly in the swing states (Key states, Editor’s note) where a few thousand votes can swing the election.”
The exchange should in any case be widely followed. 84 million viewers were there for the first duel between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, a record, and 73 million for the first Biden-Trump debate in 2020.
