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Nearly 75% of Americans plan to watch tonight’s debate, which proves the high interest aroused by the first face-to-face between Biden and Trump since October 2020, According to a poll conducted by The New York Times and Siena College, Republicans expressed the most enthusiasm: 83% of Republican voters said they planned to watch it, compared with 74% of Democrats and 70% of independents.
According to the national survey, conducted in the days leading up to the debate, 60% of registered voters thought Trump would perform “very” or “somewhat” well in the matchup; 46% said the same about Biden, something that accounts for the high skepticism and widespread scrutiny that weighs on the Democratic president after the viral videos – sometimes edited – about his moments of confusion at public events.
Biden’s own supporters expressed doubts about what their candidate will look like tonight; more than the Republicans about theirs. Ninety-two percent of Republicans said they expected Trump to perform well; 84 percent of Democrats said the same about Biden.
The day came much sooner than expected. Tonight, the president, Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump will face each other in the first presidential debate in the fight for the White Housea clash that could mark a decisive turning point in the campaign in the midst of a vote-by-vote dispute for the presidency of the United States. A president has never debated a former president, and Never have two candidates for president faced each other so early in the electoral calendarbefore the campaign formally kicks off. Because of this and other additives and everything that is at stake, the debate already occupies a unique place in history. Will Biden dispel doubts about his old age? Will Trump be more moderate, or more unbridled? Who wins the narrative of the debate?
Democrats paid for advertisements in Atlanta, the capital of Georgia, where the debate will take place, in which They welcome Trump as a “convicted felon” by justice. Other ads warn of the former president’s “extremist agenda” and They describe it as a danger to democracy, with images of his supporters’ assault on Congress three and a half years ago.
On his Truth Social network, Trump turned the tables on them by accusing Biden of being “a threat to democracy and a threat to the survival and existence of the country.” In a statement, his campaign accused the Democratic president of lying to the public about security at the border with Mexico and migration.
The Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador He asked the two candidates to be objective if they address the immigration issue during their first electoral debate, scheduled for the night. “At the moment there is no serious problem regarding immigration “And both former President (Donald) Trump and President (Joe) Biden know that we have been doing our part,” he said during his daily morning press conference. “We have made every effort, even when we have not had a response… to address the causes” of migration.
López Obrador, who said he would watch the televised debate closely, said that The arrival of migrants at the northern border has decreased so far this year and that is why he asked that it not be used “as an excuse, as a pretext with the desire to blame Mexico and want to look good to the citizens of the United States.” The immigration issue is the one that most concerns Americans today and will undoubtedly be one of the topics of the night.
CNN anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash will be the moderators of the debate, as the network confirmed some time ago. Both already hosted the Republican Party presidential primary debate in Iowa in January.
Dana Bash was born in New Yorkgraduated in political communications at the George Washington Universityand is currently the CNN chief political correspondent. The journalist, 53 years oldis a presenter of Inside Politics and co-host of State of the Uniona network news program that airs on Sunday mornings. Jake Tapper, 55, is a journalist, cartoonist, writer and CNN anchor. He is chief Washington correspondent, and joined the network in January 2013. Currently, he anchors The Lead with Jake Tapper and is co-host of State of the Union since June 2015.
Joe Biden, the 81-year-old Democratic candidate, and Donald Trump, the 78-year-old Republican candidate, are going neck and neck in the polls. According to a survey published on Wednesday by Quinnipiac University, Trump leads Biden for the first time with 49% to 45% of voting intentions nationwide. Another broadcast on Sunday by the Fox network benefited, on the contrary, the Democrat (50% against 48%). The Real Clear Politics polling average also shows them very close (46.6% for Trump and 45.1% for Biden), while in the swing states that will likely define the election the Republican is slightly ahead of his opponent.
The debate will be governed under strict rules. In an attempt to avoid the chaos of the first debate of 2020, during which Biden and Trump spent an hour and a half shouting and interrupting each other, CNN will turn off each candidate’s microphone when the allotted response time ends. Additionally, the program will be developed without public or teleprompter, the device that allows texts to be shown to speakers so that they can read them without looking away from the camera. Candidates will also not be allowed to keep notes, but they will have a pen and paper to write down during the meeting. Each candidate will have two minutes for each response, one minute for the reply and another for a counter-reply.
Biden, the oldest president in U.S. history, spent days preparing for the debate with his advisers at the presidential residence at Camp David. One of his goals will be to reassure the country, which is more concerned about his obvious physical deterioration than that of his opponent, despite the fact that Trump is only three years younger. “Many in the media are already ready to hand Joe Biden a trophy if he can stand for 90 minutes,” said Jason Miller, a Republican campaign adviser, based on videos — some edited — showing him looking weakened or confused and going viral on social media. Trump even hinted that his rival will be “doped” and asked for a drug test before appearing before the cameras, without any proof.
Rarely has one candidate in a presidential debate had so much material to use against the other. Biden and Trump will go head-to-head in a CNN-broadcast encounter that will be tuned in by a huge national audience of voters awaiting their 2020 rematch and who won’t see another matchup until September, so Each success or mistake of the candidates will remain fixed in their memory.
notable moments of past presidential debates demonstrate how words and body language of the candidates can make them appear hopelessly out of touch, at the top of the political game, or suggest they are completely off-kilter.
Biden welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision to authorize emergency abortion in Idaho, pointing against “the extremist and dangerous agenda of the Republicans” and stressing that his “government, however, is committed to defending women,” hours before the debate, in which he will surely speak about this issue.
The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a ruling that will allow emergency access to abortion in Idaho, for now, despite the state’s near-total ban on the procedure. The court dismissed the case without considering the basic issues, and instead sent it back to the lower courts for new proceedings.
Agencies AP, AFP, Reuters, ANSA, The New York Times and The Washington Post
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