The campaign committees of US President Joe Biden and magnate Donald Trump agreed on the rules for the first debate before the November elections, which will be on June 27 organized by cnn: It will last an hour and a half, there will be no audience and there will be deactivatable microphones.
The platform will be presented by journalists from the aforementioned chain Jake Tapper and Dana Bash.
The White House duel between the current Democratic president and the Republican candidate will be at the network’s central studios in the city of Atlanta, in the state of Georgia (south), with a date set earlier than is customary in these instances.
The news channel had indicated since its announcement in May that the debate would take place without audience, Biden’s preferred formula.
It was also reported that the campaign teams of both candidates accepted another series of provisions, including the use of identical desks and deactivatable microphones to ensure the timing of their presentations is respected.
“The microphones will be muted throughout the debate, except for the candidate who has the turn to speak,” CNN said, adding that the presenters, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, “will use all the tools at their disposal” to “ enforce timelines and ensure civilized discussion.”
The debate will last 90 minutes with just two advertising interruptions during which the campaign teams will not be able to interact with the candidates, as specified.
Notes written in advance on the set will also be prohibited, but “candidates will receive a pen, a notebook and a bottle of water” for the instance.
To meet CNN’s requirements for debate, candidates must be eligible to be president under the Constitution and have submitted a formal declaration of candidacy to the Federal Election Commission, something Robert F. Kennedy Jr. minority candidates also meet. , Cornel West and Jill Stein.
All entrants must appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to reach the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidency and receive at least 15% support in four national polls, making only Biden and Trump eligible to participate, and which at the moment Kennedy, the third most popular presidential candidate, does not fulfill.
Last April, the five largest television networks in the United States prepared a joint letter to ask Biden and Trump to participate in televised debates, amid speculation that this election year they would not reach an agreement to hold this traditional face-to-face debate, for decades organized by the Presidential Debates Commission and not by the networks directly, like this year.
Organizing a presidential debate in June, before the conventions of both parties, which make the candidacies official, is not common, but this primary campaign has cleared the way for Trump and Biden since the spring.
ABC will host the second and final presidential debate in September. Televised presidential debates have been part of American tradition in every election cycle since 1976.
(With information from AFP and EFE)
