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Takes place despite Corona worries: The TV debate between Trump and Biden
Photo: MICHAEL REYNOLDS / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock
There should be no handshake when US President Donald Trump and his challenger Joe Biden meet this Tuesday for the first of three TV duels before the US election on November 3rd.
In the corona pandemic, this is a precautionary measure taken by the organizers, but it probably doesn't need it at all.
Even under normal circumstances, these two gentlemen would hardly greet each other warmly.
Never before has the tension been greater before an American TV duel.
The clash between Trump and Biden in Cleveland, Ohio on Tuesday evening (local time) is the culmination of an election campaign that has been conducted with unprecedented severity and merciless fury.
One can expect a political spectacle in the arena the likes of which America has never seen - and all of it live at prime time airtime.
One can safely speak of the mother of all TV duels.
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Patriotic Podium: Debate Stage in Cleveland
Photo: BRIAN SNYDER / REUTERS
Certainly it can be discussed for a long time what effects such show events will have on the election results.
Many voters have long since made up their minds about the candidates, and both have barely moved in the polls, despite the turbulent weeks.
At least Trump, however, is likely to see the clash as one of the last opportunities to secure his political survival in the White House without having to resort to unfair means.
In most polls, Trump, 74, has been behind Biden for months, especially in the important swing states.
He no longer has many opportunities to turn the race in his favor, especially after a new scandal is chasing after him, that of his years of tax tricks.
If Trump fails in Cleveland, this would hardly improve his chances.
Conversely, Biden will have to be careful not to make any mistakes.
The 77-year-old is under at least as much observation: for the democratic challenger, it is a matter of dispelling all doubts about his mental and physical fitness in front of an audience of millions.
How is the debate going?
Biden has to prove that he is up to the presidency and must not show any weakness towards the political bulldozer Trump.
If he fails dramatically on the big stage, that would not be a good omen for the final sprint.
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Critical - although he works for Fox News: Debate host Chris Wallace
Photo: Joe Raedle / AP
The debate will be broadcast simultaneously on all US networks, 90 minutes without commercial breaks.
In Germany she can be seen in the night from 2.45 a.m. in the live stream on SPIEGEL.de, but also on linear television on Phoenix and on ZDF.
Thanks to the dramatic situation, the US ratings could even set the previous record: 84 million Americans watched the first TV debate by Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016.
This time, up to 100 million viewers are expected.
Moderator Chris Wallace comes from the conservative broadcaster Fox News, but is known as a critical questioner - and last took Trump in July.
Nevertheless, he doesn't want to be a live fact checker, but "as invisible as possible".
This is by design: "There is a big difference between being a moderator of a debate and a reporter interviewing someone," said Frank Fahrenkopf, the vice-chairman of the non-partisan commission that organizes the debates, on CNN.
He also rejects the correction of lies - whether from Trump or Biden.
Because of the pandemic, the debate will only take place in front of a maximum of 100 spectators, who have to keep their distance in the auditorium.
Two other venues had previously canceled.
There will also be no reporter masses and the "Spin Room", in which top consultants advertise the candidates.
Some technical staff did not want to be flown in and were brought in by bus, some from more than 2,000 kilometers away.
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Evil attacks: Trump debated Hillary Clinton in 2016
Photo: POOL / REUTERS
The second meeting, a townhall debate in Miami in mid-October, will be moderated by Steve Scully, C-SPAN's chief political officer, and the third on October 22nd in Nashville by NBC reporter Kristen Welker.
USA Today's Susan Page will take on the vice debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris in Salt Lake City next Wednesday.
None of them was on Trump's wish list made up of mostly friendly names.
How did Trump and Biden prepare?
The candidates have prepared very differently for the duel.
Trump hired his lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie, the ex-governor of New Jersey, to "prep" him, although it remains unclear who gave whom instructions.
Above all, Trump has been trying for weeks to manipulate the debates from the outset with all sorts of political theater.
For example, he claimed that Biden wanted to avoid being afraid, a pure invention.
He also called for a fourth, earlier debate.
At the same time, he portrayed Biden as senile - until his advisors allegedly warned him that he was putting the threshold for Biden's success dangerously low.
Since then, Trump has taken the opposite path: Biden may be among "performance-enhancing drugs" that should make him more vigilant, he said - and requested a drug test.
Such maneuvers are not new: Trump also complained in 2016 about the appointment calendar and raved that Clinton and the Democrats wanted to "fake" the duels.
Biden, on the other hand, prepared himself in the classic way for the expected attacks, in the closest circle of trust.
According to US reports, the chief debate coach was his former chief of staff Ron Klain, flanked by chief strategist Mike Donilon and ex-government attorney Bob Bauer, who played the role of Trump.
These internal sparring matches were accompanied by malicious commercials against Trump, which ran the Lincoln Project, a group of Republicans close to Biden.
Which topics are important?
Corona, the economy, the Supreme Court, Trump's tax returns, police violence, the health system, the dispute over postal voting: there is hardly a topic that will not be discussed in the duel.
For both opponents there are points with which they want to distinguish themselves - and those that could become uncomfortable for them.
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Potential hot topic: Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett
Photo: CARLOS BARRIA / REUTERS
Trump will try to
highlight
his successes in economic policy
before
the pandemic begins, but has been distracting from the crash since then.
Biden is likely to portray Trump as a threat to the future of American democracy and present himself as a reconciler.
Experience shows that in such duels, many viewers do not necessarily pay attention to the substance of what is being said, but rather to
how
things are said.
Who appears competent, assertive, personable?
What else can the debate change?
In the past, in conventional election campaigns, televised debates could be key moments that, albeit rarely, turned a candidate's fate for better or for worse.
For example, when Richard Nixon sweated in the spotlight in the first TV duel ever against John F. Kennedy in 1960, which allegedly robbed him of his election victory.
Or when Gerald Ford claimed in 1976 that the Eastern Bloc was by no means under "Soviet rule".
Or when Ronald Reagan teased in 1984 that he would not take advantage of the "youth and inexperience" of his rival Walter Mondale.
But this is not a conventional election campaign.
So the question remains, what will all of this change?
If you follow Trump's behavior in the 2016 debates, he will unleash a volley of lies and insults, which Biden is likely to counter with pointed criticism of Trump.
That should be entertaining for the audience.
But is it also informative?
Especially since a recent poll showed that only 11 percent of registered US voters see themselves as "undecided".
However, the same survey found that 80 percent were very interested in the election campaign.
In addition: Almost a million Americans have already cast their votes by postal vote.
More than 70 million ballot papers are on their way to the voters by post.
"Too much theater, too little substance," writes columnist Charles Blow in the "New York Times" about the debates - and advises that they be abolished: Those who want to know more about the candidates' positions are better off on their websites.
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