The showdown in Atlanta, at 9 pm ET on Thursday (0100 GMT Friday), will be the earliest presidential debate in modern US history and a critical event for both candidates.
Biden, 81, and former President Trump, 78, are tied in national opinion polls, with a sizable portion of the electorate still undecided five months before the Nov. 5 vote.
The debate will provide the starkest contrast yet between the two men, the oldest candidates to seek the US presidency, as voters question their age and mental acuity.
“It’s an incredible test of their cognitive competence,” said Patrick Stewart, a political science professor at the University of Arkansas who wrote a book on presidential debates. “This is our opportunity to see how much they have decreased or if they have decreased.”
With strict speaking limitations, a ban on notes and no audience to cheer them on during CNN’s 90-minute debate, they will have to prepare for tough questions and a format that takes them out of their comfort zones, Stewart said.
Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. missed the cut, so Biden, a Democrat, and Trump, a Republican, won’t have to worry about him.
Ron Klain, Biden’s former chief of staff and debate preparation veteran, leads Biden’s sessions at Camp David, the mountain retreat in western Maryland where the president prepared for his impassioned State of the Union address in March.
(This is a translation of an original article from the Reuters agency)
