After months of invective, the hour of face-to-face has come: Donald Trump and Joe Biden meet on stage Tuesday (at 9:00 p.m. EST, at 3 a.m. in Paris), for 90 minutes, 35 days from a very high tension American presidential election.
Tens of millions of Americans will have their eyes riveted on their screens for this first debate between the Republican President, 74, and the former Democratic Vice President, 77.
A few hours before kick-off, the tension suddenly rose and the first shots were flying low.
Distanced in the polls for many weeks, Donald Trump is hoping for a good evening - or a spectacular misstep from his Democratic opponent - to revive.
With the November 3 election approaching, he fears becoming the first president not to be reelected for over a quarter of a century (George HW Bush facing Bill Clinton in 1992).
Joe Biden hopes that his third attempt to enter the White House (he was twice an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic primary) will be the right one and will have to take care to avoid the blunders he is accustomed to.
Read also: US Presidential: Trump against Biden, the face-to-face of enemy brothers
The Covid-19, the Supreme Court, the economy, racial issues, the balance sheets of the two candidates as well as "the integrity of the ballot" will be among the subjects on the menu.
After the explosive revelations of the
New York Times
, Donald Trump's heritage and his tax situation should also feature prominently in the exchanges, which could be explosive.
Joe Biden's team made public on Tuesday, just hours before the debate, its tax forms for the year 2019. The New York daily revealed on Sunday that Donald Trump had paid only $ 750 in income tax in 2016, the year of his election as President of the United States, and none for ten years out of the last fifteen.
The Democratic candidate paid $ 300,000 in 2019.
Body language
The short phrases and body language of the two men will be scrutinized with attention.
For weeks, the tenant of the White House has mocked the physical and mental capacities of "Sleepy Joe" ("Joe asleep").
Trump had called for a doping control for his opponent on Sunday during their first debate.
"I will strongly demand a doping test for sleeping Joe Biden before or after the debate on Tuesday night,"
the President of the United States tweeted.
“His performance during the debates was UNMATCHED like never before, to put it mildly.
Could drugs alone have caused these deviations ??? "
, added the Republican billionaire, while assuring that he would agree to submit to the same test.
Joe Biden declined to comment on Sunday.
But his team sent a scathing response to that request.
"If the president thinks the best way to present his arguments is through urine, then he is not shy
,
"
said the communications director of the Democratic candidate, Kate Bedingfield.
Read also: Donald Trump vs.
Joe Biden: two candidates at the antipodes
The Trump team further accused their opponent on Tuesday of asking for an earpiece and being given breaks during the 90-minute debate.
Words again rejected by the Democratic team, which in return criticized the opposing camp for having asked moderator Chris Wallace not to mention once the number of deaths from the Covid during the debate.
The ultimate snub, Joe Biden's campaign opened Tuesday on Twitter a “fact checking” account called Truth.
Because to add nothing to the clarity of the exchanges, the debate on Tuesday will not give rise to any verification of the candidates' statements, the organization warned.
Suffice to say that journalist Chris Wallace will have a lot to do to elevate the exercise beyond invective and exchanges of personal blows.
Joe Biden knows he has nothing to gain by challenging Trump on this ground where the former real estate mogul excels.
This will undoubtedly be all the difficulty for the Democratic candidate: to make his ideas and his program for America heard, little audible so far, and to prove that he has other qualities than the simple fact of not being Donald Trump.