What to know before Friday’s blockbuster Biden v Trump debate

Washington: Joe Biden and Donald Trump face off this week for one of the most consequential events of the campaign so far: the first presidential debate. It’s been four years since the pair last shared a debate stage, and polls suggest they are virtually tied as they edge towards an election rematch in November.

With so much at stake, Friday’s debate (AEST) offers a crucial chance for both candidates to make their case for another four years in the White House. Here are five things you should know:

Donald Trump and Joe Biden will appear in two presidential debates before November’s poll.Credit: Marija Ercegovac

This debate will be unlike any other in history

Never before has a debate been held this early in an election year, and never before has it involved a sitting president and a former president. Friday’s event is also the first time since the inaugural presidential debate in 1960, when John F Kennedy went head-to-head with Richard Nixon, that there will not be an audience. Instead, the 90-minute verbal sparring match will take place at CNN’s studios in Atlanta at 9pm on Thursday (11am Friday, AEST), moderated by Jake Tapper and Dana Bash.

Microphones will be muted unless a candidate is directed to speak. Candidates are also banned from bringing pre-written notes or props, and will only receive a pen, paper, and a bottle of water to take to the stage. A coin flip determined podium positions and the order of closing statements. Biden’s campaign won the toss and chose the podium to the viewer’s right; Trump’s campaign chose to deliver the final closing statement of the evening. Popcorn, anyone?

Donald Trump and Joe Biden on stage during one of their previous presidential debates in 2020.Credit: UPI

Biden cannot afford to have a bad night

Each side enters this debate with no shortage of policy ammunition to attack their opponent or highlight their own strengths. But, fairly or not, the big question is whether Biden, America’s oldest-ever president, is mentally and physically up to the task of another four years as the leader of the free world.

Sure, there are doubts about Trump’s own cognitive capacity, and one doesn’t have to look too far to find numerous examples of the 78-year-old’s incoherent monologues over the past few months (his latest rant at a Las Vegas rally in scorching heat this month, involved a bizarre story about electric boats and shark attacks). But Republicans have done a far better job at portraying the 81-year-old Biden as a senile old man who can barely find his way off a stage, let alone stand on one for 90 minutes.

To that end, Democrats are hoping Biden can bring the same energy he brought to the State of the Union address in March. A bad night could further cast doubt on his candidacy ahead of the Democratic National Convention in August when the party is due to officially announce him as their presidential nominee.

Both sides will struggle to navigate criminal convictions

It’s been a month since Trump was found guilty of falsifying business records to hide an affair that could have derailed his 2016 election campaign. Democrats have used the former president’s new status as a convicted felon to attack him as unfit for the job, but Biden himself has barely touched on Trump’s prosecutions to avoid giving weight to claims of political interference. The issue could also be tricky to navigate after Biden’s son, Hunter, was convicted this month for illegally owning a gun and lying about his drug use when he bought it in 2018.

The president is fiercely protective of Hunter, a recovering addict, and it will be interesting to see how Trump uses his legal woes to get under the president’s skin or to fuel longstanding Republican claims of corruption about Hunter’s foreign business dealings.

Trump, however, will need to tread carefully. At the first presidential debate of the 2020 election, for instance, he inadvertently gave Biden one of his strongest moments after attacking Hunter for failing a drug test for cocaine and being discharged from the military. An emotional Biden responded as an empathetic father who had gone through the family pain of addiction, like millions of other Americans.

This week was the second anniversary of overturning the Roe v Wade abortion decision in the US Supreme Court.Credit: Getty Images

Abortion versus immigration

Monday (Tuesday AEST) marked the second anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade, the 1973 landmark ruling that gave women in America a federal constitutional right to an abortion. Two years later, one in three women of reproductive age in the US now live under a ban of some sort, with more than 21 states either prohibiting access or severely curtailing it.

Biden will remind Americans that it was Trump’s Supreme Court appointments that enabled the restrictions women now face. He’ll also try to wedge Trump on the issue of a national abortion ban, which some Republicans are pushing for.

If abortion is Trump’s biggest political liability, immigration is the president’s. After all, it was Biden’s decision to rescind many of Trump’s border policies that led to millions of people illegally crossing into the US over the past few years.

Trump has vowed to stop what he calls the “invasion” through a mass deportation program, while Biden has tried to strike a balance between his left and right flanks by issuing an executive order to block crossings when they surge while also offering citizenship to immigrant spouses. Expect both issues to be front and centre this week, along with the economy, foreign policy, law and order, and democracy.

Independent candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr is trying to get on the election ballot in a number of states.Credit: AP

Robert Kennedy isn’t happy

In an election rematch that the vast majority of Americans don’t want, it remains an open question how many voters will choose a third-party candidate such as Robert F Kennedy Jr at November’s poll. Just don’t expect to see him at the debate: the black sheep of the Kennedy dynasty failed to qualify.

Despite capitalising on his family name, the 70-year-old son of former US attorney-general Bobby Kennedy and the nephew of the former president was unable to meet CNN’s criteria.

This included receiving at least 15 per cent in four national polls (he passed that threshold in three national polls) and his name appearing on enough state ballots to reach the 270 electoral college votes required to become president (an extremely high bar for any non-major party candidate).

Kennedy filed a pre-emptive complaint against CNN’s rules with the Federal Election Commission earlier this month, accusing the network of colluding with Trump and Biden to push him out. Although his complaint is highly unlikely to be taken up by the time the debate takes place, he labelled his exclusion “undemocratic, un-American, and cowardly.”

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Donald Trump and Joe Biden will appear in two presidential debates before November’s poll.