First debate between Trump and Biden: what are they going to talk about?
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(CNN) -
Donald Trump could face the most direct challenge to his presidency for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, the economy and his personal conduct in his first debate against Democratic candidate Joe Biden on Tuesday.
Trump and Biden meet tonight in Cleveland for their first of three debates, a physically estranged matter in which the candidates will not shake hands.
Fox News host Chris Wallace will be the moderator.
The audience - of about 70 people - will be limited compared to previous debates.
All event attendees at Case Western Reserve University will be tested for covid-19 and follow other health security protocols.
The debate is scheduled for 9 pm Miami time and will last 90 minutes without commercial breaks.
The topics of the debate are "The history of Trump and Biden", "The Supreme Court", "Covid-19", "The economy", "Race and violence in our cities" and "The integrity of the elections", according to the Presidential Debate Commission.
ANALYSIS |
Trump will have to account for failed virus response in debate with Biden
Trump and Biden get ready for first presidential debate 4:11
Each segment will last approximately 15 minutes and candidates will have two minutes to respond after the moderator opens each segment with a question.
Wallace will then use the remainder of the segment time to facilitate further discussion on the topic, according to the Commission.
Here are six things to see in the debate.
Trump's $ 750 in taxes will be discussed in the presidential debate
Trump's taxes in numbers, as reported by The New York Times 2:50
On the eve of the debate, Biden landed a hefty club to use against Trump.
The New York Times reported this Sunday night that Trump had not paid income taxes in 10 out of 15 years beginning in 2000. And both in the year he won the presidency and in his first year in office. White House, Trump paid just $ 750 in federal taxes, an incredibly low amount.
Trump paid less taxes than the average American family, according to the New York Times report
Biden's campaign quickly made the news, producing a digital ad highlighting how teachers, firefighters and nurses pay, on average, significantly more in federal income taxes than Trump.
And top Democratic operatives believe Biden will use the revelation to attack the president during the debate.
The story is a gift to Biden, whose campaign has been based on populist rhetoric that places Trump as out of touch with average Americans.
The strategy is highlighted by Biden's recent attempts to frame the campaign as "Scranton vs.
Park Avenue ».
He has been well touted as the candidate who has contact with American workers because he was born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and attended state schools.
For his part, Trump, according to Biden, is not in touch with the people because he is more associated with the wealthy center of Manhattan.
Trump has dismissed the focus on his taxes by denying The New York Times report, even though the newspaper has the tax returns.
The president has argued that most people don't care about the issue.
That tactic will be challenged on Tuesday.
Biden's low bar
Trump and his campaign spent months and millions of dollars in advertising to label Biden senile, taking advantage of every verbal slip.
They often used misleading or out-of-context videos in an effort to cast doubt in voters' minds that the 77-year-old former vice president is unfit for the job.
At the same time they falsely suggested that Biden was trying to sidestep the debates.
The reality, however, is that Biden is a capable polemicist, standing his ground in the Democratic primary battles as well as the 2008 and 2012 vice presidential debates.
Biden and Sanders debate without an audience (Video March 2020) 7:57
Seemingly late to grasp the likelihood that setting such low expectations for Biden could backfire, in recent days the president turned to a new unfounded theory on Twitter to explain Biden's potentially strong performance, one that Trump also used without evidence against Hillary. Clinton, in 2016: that Biden will take drugs to improve his performance.
For those who follow the race through the lens of the right-wing media, even a proper performance from Biden could be surprising.
And in the eyes of older, independent and suburban voters who, according to polls, have turned away from Trump since 2016, Biden could benefit from the low bar the president has established simply by standing his ground.
Trump's response to the coronavirus
USA: 858 people have died per day from covid 3:41
No issue has dominated the presidential election more than the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Not only has it forced both campaigns to rethink the way they operate, Trump's handling of the COVID-19 crisis has become the dominant theme for Biden.
And Tuesday represents an opportunity for the former vice president to take those criticisms directly to the president.
Biden's advisers believe the pandemic is the reason electoral polls have been stable.
And the former vice president looks set to make it a central part of his attack Tuesday.
The factors that led the United States to have 200,000 deaths from covid-19, the highest number in the world
Trump repeatedly tells the same story about the virus: He blames China, talks about increases in testing in the United States, and then touts the possibility of a vaccine being approved soon.
All of those spots have major holes for Biden to exploit, and Trump demonstrated on an ABC News forum earlier this month that he struggles to answer direct questions about the virus when he leaves the confines of Fox News and other friendly conservative outlets.
Trump's momentum in the Supreme Court
Who is Amy Coney Barrett?
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The Republicans' decision to go ahead with a confirmation to fill the Supreme Court vacancy just weeks before the presidential election - ignoring the principle they created four years earlier, when they refused to consider then-President Barack Obama's candidate, nine months before the election — it will almost certainly be a point in the presidential debate on Tuesday night.
If Trump's designee, Amy Coney Barrett, is confirmed, the Conservatives would have a 6-3 majority on the Court.
The Trump administration is seeking in the courts to eliminate Obama's Affordable Care Act, a measure that would fulfill Trump's promise to end Obamacare.
But it would also remove protections for those with pre-existing conditions and cut coverage for low-income people.
A 6-3 court could also overturn Roe v.
Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion across the country.
The notable discrepancies of Judge Amy Coney Barrett
Democrats, including Biden, have focused on health care in the battle for the Supreme Court.
And while Trump has tried to isolate himself by signing an executive order that says protections for those with pre-existing conditions would remain in effect, that order is ineffective and neither he nor Republicans have introduced new legislation to require those protections.
Trump, meanwhile, successfully used the conservative justices' promise to motivate Republican voters, in 2016, and could try to do so again this year, when he likely needs stronger turnout among grassroots Republican voters to win re-election.
Who will check the facts that the candidates say in the debate?
Trump has been a boon to the fact-checking industry.
But for Tuesday night an open question remains as to who will verify the falsehoods spoken on stage.
Fact-checking is a key component of any discussion, because those who are watching may have only the information presented at the time, and may not look for more details separately later.
Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr., co-chair of the Presidential Debate Committee, told CNN on Sunday that they do not "expect" any of the moderators to verify the facts of Trump or Biden at the time.
"By the time the television is turned off, there will be a lot of fact-checkers," Fahrenkopf said.
And a Biden aide with knowledge of the debating process told CNN that the former vice president does not intend to verify Trump's falsehoods, even if the president routinely turns to them.
That, the assistant said, is the moderator's job.
Some Democratic strategists think it's foolish for Biden to get bogged down in verifying Trump.
"The best way to deal with Trump ... will not be to try to verify it in real time or to let the lies and absurdities go away in the hope that the moderators, or the viewers, will catch them," wrote Philippe Reines, a former Hillary assistant. Clinton, who played Trump during his preparation for the 2016 debate.
Instead, Reines wrote, Biden should get ahead of the president early in the debate by pointing out that he frequently tells lies.
A fundamental section on race
The section on race compares the central arguments of each candidate with those of the other.
Biden has said since launching his campaign that Trump's failure to condemn the white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 is what motivated him to run for president this year.
His argument that the "soul of the nation" is at stake is based in part on Trump's racist comments and actions, which Biden says embolden white supremacists across the country.
Although he has condemned violence, property damage, and looting, Biden has widely supported protests against racial injustice and police brutality, and has met with the families of George Floyd, who died in the custody of the Minneapolis Police. , and Jacob Blake, who was shot in the back by a police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Trump, meanwhile, devoted much of the Republican National Convention to condemning the property damage and looting that has taken place alongside largely peaceful protests in some cities, and promising a crackdown.
He has warned that Biden's election would create more chaos.
His goal is to scare suburbanites who have leaned toward Democrats since he took office, and while similar tactics failed for Trump and the Republican Party in 2017 and 2018, he is on the ballot this year, unlike those choices.
United States Presidential Debate Donald Trump Joe Biden
