Washington DC – It all started with a quote made famous by actor Clint Eastwood.
“Make my day,” said United States President Joe Biden, in a video challenging his Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, to two debates before the 2024 presidential elections. The first will air this Thursday- fair.
In issuing the challenge, Biden made Trump, who had long boasted of his prowess on the debate stage, an offer he could hardly refuse. Trump quickly responded with his own bravado: “I’m ready to go anywhere you are.”
The back and forth put an end to speculation that octogenarian Biden and septuagenarian Trump might forgo nationally broadcast debates, in favor of more controlled and less combative environments for disseminating their campaign messages – such as rallies, for example.
Direct confrontation is a political calculation that carries high risks, according to Aaron Kall, director of the debate program at the University of Michigan.
But it could also be the key to moving forward in a stagnant race, where polls show that Trump and Biden are very close. Even Trump’s historic criminal conviction did little to tip the scales.
“Both candidates think it will be advantageous for their opponent to be seen by the public for a long period of time, especially for voters who don’t normally tune in,” Kall told Al Jazeera.
“But in reality, only one of them can be right.”
A history of confrontations
The debate may be the first of the 2024 presidential race, but it will be the third time Trump and Biden face off as presidential candidates: they previously faced each other in the 2020 election.
“They didn’t even debate [since their last face-off]which is unique,” Kall said, noting that Trump skipped the GOP debates ahead of this year’s primaries.
“So they will both be kind of out of practice, having not debated since the fall of 2020, and it may take them a little while to get back to their normal debating styles,” he said.
For both men, the forum offered a mixed bag.
In 2016, when Trump made his first successful bid for public office, his raucous, combative and impromptu debate style helped him gain notoriety in a crowded field of Republican presidential candidates.
His subsequent showdown with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton drew higher ratings than any other debate before or since. It attracted around 84 million viewers.
Camera-ready since his days as a reality TV star, Trump put on insult-laden and physically foreboding displays that cemented his public persona and helped build his voter base, Kall explained. At one point during the confrontation with Clinton, Trump even appeared to hover over her as she spoke.
For his part, Biden often failed to overcome the fray in crowded Democratic primary debates during his previous presidential runs. Still, experts say he has proven himself a worthy opponent in individual vice presidential debates, against Sarah Palin in 2008 and Paul Ryan in 2012.
Leaning into his appeal to all, Biden served as a straight-talking, pugilistic attack dog on the debate stage, offering a counterpoint to the more refined Barack Obama, for whom he would serve as vice president.
Fast forward to September 2020, when then-incumbent Trump finally faced off against Biden.
The event quickly went off the rails, with Trump repeatedly shouting at both Biden and Fox News moderator Chris Wallace. As the night progressed, Wallace took on the role of exasperated babysitter. Trump seemed belligerent, Biden confused.
“Will you shut up, man?” Biden appealed to Trump in one of the event’s most memorable quotes.
National Public Radio political correspondent Domenico Montanaro would later describe the night as chaos, writing that it may have been the “worst” presidential debate in history.
“If it was supposed to be a boxing match, instead it turned into President Trump jumping on the ropes, refusing to get down, the referee trying to persuade him, and Joe Biden standing in the middle of the ring with his gloves on and a confused expression in the face,” Montanaro wrote.
What is the motivation for participating?
But that first debate likely planted the seeds for Trump and Biden to fight again.
Kall said Biden likely expects the debate to showcase the increasingly radical rhetoric that is very common at Trump rallies — but may not be as visible to “moderates, independents and soft supporters.”
After all, Trump infamously refused to condemn white supremacy during the first debate of 2020, instead telling the Proud Boys, a far-right group, to “stand back and stand by.”
In turn, Trump may expect the length of the live proceedings to overwhelm Biden’s advanced age, Kall explained.
Ratings are expected to be high despite the debate’s unorthodox scheduling for late June. When Trump and Biden debated for the first time in 2020, for example, they drew 73 million viewers, the third-highest number in history.
“For the average low-information voter, they don’t tune in until closer to the election, but they can watch a debate,” Kall said. “So these debates are one of the rare opportunities for the casual kind of person — who might vote but might not be keeping up with the daily updates — to see these candidates for the first time in a long time.”
The first debate of 2020 between Biden and Trump also cast a long shadow over the format of Thursday’s debate, which will be hosted by CNN from Atlanta, Georgia.
Candidates’ microphones will be muted when they are not speaking. There will be no studio audience. Both factors are widely considered to be in Biden’s favor. The event will also not be supervised by the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, in a break with three decades of tradition.
How can candidates maximize the event?
Issues of the economy, inflation and immigration are expected to play a major role in the event, as are foreign policy issues regarding China, Ukraine and Israel’s war in Gaza.
The debate moderators, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, are also expected to raise the events of the 2020 presidential election: Trump publicly maintained – without evidence – that the race was “stolen” through electoral fraud.
Another possible topic for debate is Trump’s ongoing legal troubles. The event comes less than a month after Trump was convicted in New York on 34 felony counts of falsifying business documents to cover up hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
The verdict made Trump the first president, past or present, in US history to be found guilty on criminal charges. Although Biden treaded carefully in his approach to the trial – to avoid any appearance of involvement – his campaign released a new ad this month highlighting the conviction as proof of Trump’s character.
“This election is between a convicted criminal who only defends himself and a president who fights for his family,” says the ad’s voiceover.
But the verdict could also provide an opportunity for Trump, according to James Davis, a Republican strategist and founder of Touchdown Strategies.
Davis noted that the jury’s decision caused only a small dent in Trump’s support base, and Republican officials widely denounced the conviction as politicized.
The debate offers Trump a stage to further that narrative, especially among key demographic groups, including young black people, Davis added.
He recommended that Trump try to tie his conviction to the First Step Act, a bill he signed into law in 2018 to reduce excessively long federal prison sentences.
“He can say, ‘I know the justice system doesn’t treat people fairly… and that’s why I passed the First Step Act, because it has unfairly treated minorities and communities of color for years,’” he said Davis. Al Jazeera.
“If he can keep it clean and on message, he could do well,” he added. “But if he appears to lean more toward Trump’s revenge trip, that will ultimately substantiate some of the arguments against him that Biden has been making.”
For Biden, Democratic strategist Kristian Ramos said the debate offers an opportunity to eliminate negative perceptions of the country’s economic performance: Biden could, for example, praise policies he signed to create jobs.
“It’s an opportunity for him to tell the story of the last three years, what he’s done and how he can help the American people,” Ramos told Al Jazeera.
He also pointed to polls that showed some independent voters moving away from Trump after his conviction. This demographic could be key to deciding the election.
“It may still be a bridge too far for many voters,” Ramos said of Trump’s conviction. “So this is an opportunity for Biden to tell that story to those voters and reach them through the debate.”
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
