ATLANTA — The presidential election rematch remains close and every vote in November could matter, quite literally, in the first of two debates between President Joe Biden and former President Trump on Thursday. The stakes are huge.
The presumptive nominees of the two major parties will face off in a CNN presidential debate, which will be held at CNN’s Atlanta studios. largest city and capital.
“This is a close race with more than two months until the next debate. This matchup will set the tone and narrative for this summer’s convention,” said Matt, a longtime Republican strategist and communications consultant. Gorman told Fox News.
Gorman, a veteran of multiple Republican presidential campaigns, stressed that the debate, which will be simulcast on Fox News Channel and other networks, has the potential to “massively change the narrative” as Biden and Trump “attempt to Break through the status quo.”
Donald Trump will appear in Thursday’s first presidential debate
A sign for the upcoming presidential debate is seen at the Media Documentation Center near CNN’s Techwood campus, Tuesday, June 25, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsiva)
The debate will begin at 9 p.m. ET and run for 90 minutes, with two commercial breaks.
Only the Democratic incumbent and his Republican predecessor will take the stage, as third-party and independent candidates running for the White House — including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — failed to meet the qualifying threshold.
To get on the stage, a candidate needs to gain at least 15% support in four approved national surveys and vote in enough states to reach 270 electoral votes, the number needed to win the White House.
How to watch the CNN presidential debate simulcast on Fox News Channel
Trump and Biden bypassed the Commission on Presidential Debates – which has organized the showdown every four years for more than three decades – and instead agreed on rules and conditions.
These include no studio audience, each candidate’s microphone will be muted unless it’s their turn to answer a question, no props or notes will be allowed on stage, and no opening statements will be allowed.
There will be closing arguments, with a coin toss determining whether Trump will get the final say.
The debate comes as polls show a tight race between Biden and Trump, with the former president holding a slim advantage in many national polls and surveys in about a half-dozen battleground states that could decide the election.
“Simply put, the debate has an impact on the numbers that few other events have. Period,” Gorman emphasized. “There are still more than two months until the second debate. [an ABC News hosted showdown scheduled for Sept. 10]The narrative that develops on Thursday night will likely crystallize, so performance and performance in Atlanta will be crucial.
Both candidates enter the debate with plenty of baggage that will provide their opponents with plenty of potential ammunition.
At 81, Biden is the oldest president in U.S. history, and for months voters have expressed serious concerns about his age and physical and mental capacity. He has been dealing with low job approval ratings for nearly three years as he grapples with persistent inflation and crises at the U.S. southern border and in many overseas hot spots.
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Meanwhile, Trump made history for all the wrong reasons last month when he was convicted of 34 felonies in the first-ever criminal trial of a former or sitting president.
Three and a half years after Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an attempt to overturn Congress’s certification of Biden’s 2020 election victory, Trump faces criminal charges for trying to overturn the results of the previous presidential election. His pledge to exact revenge on political opponents during his second term sparked a backlash that he, along with many other Republicans, grappled with two years after the Supreme Court overturned the decades-old Roe v. Wade ruling. The flammable issue of abortion.
Arguably, the biggest question surrounding Thursday night’s debate is which version of Trump will emerge?
On October 22, 2020, then-Vice President Joe Biden and then-President Donald Trump held a debate at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. (Kevin Dietsch/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Will it be the undisciplined candidate who interrupted Biden and debate moderator Chris Wallace dozens of times during the first debate of the 2020 election?
Trump appeared to lose his cool and failed to condemn white supremacists, a performance that was widely criticized by political experts and viewers.
Or Trump in the second debate in 2020, when the then-President reworked his strategy and improved dramatically from his disciplined, measured performance.
“If he replicates this performance, Donald Trump is going to have a very good night,” longtime Republican consultant and veteran debate coach Brett O’Donnell told Fox News.
Biden and Trump campaigns take action ahead of debate
O’Donnell said his advice to Trump would be to “watch the second debate with Joe Biden in 2020 and replicate that performance. Watch it over and over again and replicate that performance in this debate.
“He’s cautious and determined,” O’Donnell said of Trump. “You can be aggressive and passionate without offending people.”
O’Donnell knows something about coaching presidential candidates before debates. He helped prepare the 2004 debates for George W. Bush, the 2008 debate preparations for Arizona Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, and the 2012 Republican flag Debate preparations by then-former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.
This election cycle, O’Donnell coached Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ahead of his debate performance in the Republican presidential primary.
O’Donnell said Biden needs to be careful not to “fall into the trap of the incumbents…many, if not most, incumbents in their first debates, whether it’s Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush or Barack Obama, most incumbents are in their first debate for a second term.
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“So the advice to Biden is to avoid the existing traps because if he falls into them, it will be twice as bad because of all the age arguments,” he added.
O’Donnell emphasized that Biden “has to look at the campaign in some way as an option to defend his record over the past four years. It’s a tall order, but it’s what he has to do in order to justify choosing him over Donald Trump.” trump card.
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