As President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump get ready to face off in a historically early televised presidential debate on CNN next week, a coin toss held Thursday determined Trump would get the last word.
Trump’s campaign called it that he would speak last as the debate comes to its end, so Biden will be the first to give his closing argument.
Last cycle’s debates between the two contenders were notably marked by insults, interruptions and clashes with moderators — the stakes for this cycle’s first debate are high.
Political commentator Van Jones summed it up during a CNN appearance Thursday.
“If Biden goes out there and messes up, it’s game over,” he said.
New York Times political correspondent Maggie Haberman, who is deeply sourced in Trump world, said Trump has acknowledged he interrupted Biden “too much” in 2020 and plans to adjust.
“I mean, we all talked about it at the time, but Biden could barely get a word in edgewise, and Biden was kind of smiling throughout as this was happening,” she said.
New Emerson College Polling/The Hill polls out this week show Trump has a slight edge over Biden in key swing states.
Among voters surveyed, the former president was up 4 points over Biden in Arizona and Georgia, 3 points in Wisconsin and Nevada, and 2 points up in Pennsylvania. In Michigan, Trump leads by 1 point, and the pair are dead even in Minnesota.
Next Thursday will be the first of two debates that the bitter rivals have agreed to do this year, and it has some new rules.
The candidates’ microphones will be muted except when it’s that candidate’s turn to speak. The moderators will also “use all tools at their disposal to enforce timing and ensure a civilized discussion,” per the rules.
Biden and Trump will be the only candidates on the debate stage in Atlanta. CNN’s Dana Bash and Jake Tapper are slated to moderate.
There will be no studio audience — a departure from past debates, which have typically been held on college campuses across the nation.
Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lashed out Thursday over his exclusion from the debate, calling it “undemocratic, un-American and cowardly.”
“Biden and Trump do not want me on the debate stage and CNN illegally agreed to their demand,” Kennedy alleged in a statement from his campaign.
The cable network required that candidates poll at least 15 percent in four national surveys and to make it onto the ballots in enough states to have a pathway to 270 electoral votes — the minimum number needed to win the presidency.
The head-to-head showdown comes ahead of both parties’ respective conventions this summer — a result of the candidates’ decision to eschew the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, which has organized the events for decades.
ABC is set to host the second debate on Sept. 10.
