(Atlanta) For months, they have been attacking and insulting each other from a distance, in an hour, they will face each other physically: Joe Biden and Donald Trump are preparing to debate Thursday for the first time in a presidential campaign as uncertain as it is tense.
Posted at 3:08 p.m.
Updated at 8:22 p.m.
Andrew CABALLERO-REYNOLDS with Camille CAMDESSUS and Aurélia END in Washington
France Media Agency
The 81-year-old Democrat arrived first in Atlanta (Georgia, southeast), and enjoyed a crowd bath with his supporters.
The 78-year-old Republican, shortly after, exited the plane with a raised fist.
PHOTO EVAN VUCCI, ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Joe Biden upon arrival at Dobbins Air Force Base, Georgia.
The two men, neck and neck in the polls, will meet at 9 p.m. local time for this confrontation organized by CNN, and which will be hosted by two journalists from the channel, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash.
PHOTO ANDREW HARNIK, ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
Journalists Jake Tapper and Dana Bash will moderate the debate.
The duel between the two men is scheduled from 9 p.m. on CNN.
It is up to them to enforce the very strict rules of a debate that will be held without an audience, with timed exchanges and, above all, a microphone systematically cut off for the candidate whose turn it is not to speak.
PHOTO MEGAN VARNER, REUTERS
Former President Donald Trump upon arrival at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta.
Antipathy
The first debate between the Democratic president and his Republican predecessor in 2020 turned into a fistfight, and the antipathy they have for each other has only grown since Joe Biden’s victory, which Donald Trump never conceded.
The Republican, who presents himself as the only strong man capable of stopping the “decline” of America, broadcast a murderous video on his opponent on Thursday, showing falls and moments of confusion, to ask if he was really capable to “spend four more years” in the White House.
Joe Biden has undeniably lost physical and oral ease in recent years, and his age worries voters much more than that of Donald Trump, who is three years his junior.
But the billionaire has not yet won: his verbal aggressiveness and his disjointed diatribes, if they appeal to his supporters during meetings, could, in the context of the debate, put off independent voters.
And it is precisely them that Joe Biden and Donald Trump are trying to seduce on Thursday, four months before an election that could, like four years ago, come down to the wire in a few key states.
Spectacle
To win, experts believe that each of the two candidates will have to go against their nature in some way.
The Democratic president, who is not very charismatic and likes to talk about his record with a lot of figures and details, “must give something other than purely rational arguments. No election is decided solely on reason, so he will have to offer a few shock phrases”, in short, put on a show, analyses Jane Hall, professor of communication at American University.
“This debate could surprise us. I think Donald Trump has been trained and will try not to be the same person as in recent debates,” to give himself more of a statesman’s stature, she predicts.
Joe Biden presents himself as a guarantor of democracy and an ally of the middle classes, facing an opponent accused of fueling political violence and serving the richest.
Democrats have put up huge billboards in Atlanta welcoming a “convict”: Donald Trump is the first president ever to be found guilty in a criminal case, in a case of secret payments to a former adult film star.
Among the essential themes of the campaign and therefore certainly of the debate: the cost of living, the right to abortion, aid to Ukraine and Israel, the numerous indictments of Donald Trump and the defense of democracy.
A second debate is scheduled on ABC in September, two months before an election that is being watched with concern around the world.
