Press
In the US election campaign, Biden and Trump will face each other in the first TV debate. Both will try to exploit the other’s weak points.
Atlanta – On the night of Friday, June 28, Donald Trump and Joe Biden will meet at CNN headquarters in Atlanta for the first televised debate of the US election. It is the first time that the most promising candidates for the presidency have entered the rhetorical ring so early – even before their parties have officially nominated them.
Until September 2023, Trump was ahead of Biden in the national average polls, but that lead has now melted and the rivals are neck and neck. Both hope to use the TV duel to their advantage to win voters’ favor.
Normally, the TV debates are organized starting in the fall by the “Commission on Presidential Debates,” a non-profit organization jointly funded by Democrats and Republicans. This time, however, the candidates have bypassed the commission and worked with the US broadcasters CNN and ABC agreed to hold a televised debate. Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley described the upcoming clash to CNN as “incredibly historic.”
Biden and Trump will debate politics and character in a TV duel
Of course, policy content will play an important role. Biden will likely try to score points on the issue of abortion, one of the few policy areas where a majority of Americans agree with him. Trump is expected to criticize Biden’s immigration and economic policies, as his campaign team has already indicated. But personal issues will also play a big role.
Biden and Trump’s quirks and outbursts could decide the TV debate. Both candidates have trained intensively to improve their self-control and to exploit their opponent’s weaknesses in the best possible way. Aaron Kall, a debate expert at the University of Michigan, told CNN: “Often these mistakes confirm a caricature of a particular candidate that already existed.”
Biden must be careful not to appear senile
Biden must be careful not to appear as a senile old man who is no longer mentally and physically capable of governing America. Trump and his team are constantly trying to give the public that impression. If footage emerges of Biden stammering or stumbling during the televised debate, the Democratic team could have great difficulty repairing the damage.
Trump, on the other hand, could fall into a trap set for him by Biden. Biden portrays Trump as an unstable tyrant who is just waiting to subject the fate of the USA to his temper. To refute this image, Trump may try to behave in a statesmanlike manner.
Biden wants Trump to resort to impulsive bluster
However, Biden is known for provoking his opponents into making rash statements. In this way, he could manage to expose the real Trump and show his impulsiveness. This already proved to be Trump’s undoing after the first TV debate of the 2020 presidential election campaign in Cleveland, Ohio.
At the time, Trump’s constant interrupting provoked Biden to shout “Will you shut up, man?” A survey by the magazine Politico showed that a majority of viewers shared Biden’s frustration with Trump’s debate style: 50 percent of respondents saw Biden as the winner, only 34 percent saw Trump.
The microphones remain silent and the audience outside the door
In response to the chaos in the television studio, during the second duel in Nashville, Tennessee in 2020, the other candidate’s microphone was muted during the opening statements on each topic. In 2024, CNN Take a model from this: In Atlanta, only the microphone of the debate participant who is currently speaking will be on.
It is said that Biden’s team insisted on not inviting a studio audience. Trump likes to interact directly with his listeners and enjoys the attention of the MAGA crowd. “I can’t imagine a better scenario for Joe Biden,” presidential expert Brinkley said to ABCNewsbecause a switched off microphone without an audience would degrade Trump’s bombastic campaign style.
“Although these rules are very strict, we will see some fireworks,” Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston, told ABCNews. It will be interesting to see how Biden deals with an unleashed Trump and how bold Trump will be, Rottinghaus added.
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