Washington DC – It began with a quote made famous by actor Clint Eastwood.
“Make my day,” said US President Joe Biden in a video challenging his Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, to two debates in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election. The first airs this Thursday .
In throwing down the gauntlet, Biden made Trump, who has long boasted of his prowess on the debate stage, an offer he could hardly refuse. Trump soon responded with his own bravado: “I'm ready to go anywhere you are.”
The back-and-forth ended speculation that octogenarian Biden and septuagenarian Trump might forgo nationally broadcast debates in favor of more controlled, less combative environments to spread their campaign messages, such as rallies, for example. .
Going head-to-head is a political calculation that carries high risks, according to Aaron Kall, director of the debate program at the University of Michigan.
But it could also be the key to moving forward in a stagnant race, in which polls show that Trump and Biden are very evenly matched. Even Trump's historic criminal conviction has done little to tip the balance.
“Both candidates believe it will be advantageous for their opponent to be seen by the public for an extended period of time, especially by voters who would not normally tune in to their channels,” Kall told Al Jazeera.
“But in reality, only one of them can be right.”
A history of confrontations
The debate may be the first of the 2024 presidential race, but it will be the third time Trump and Biden have faced off as presidential hopefuls – they previously faced off in the 2020 election.
“Nor have we debated [since their last face-off]which is kind of unique,” Kall said, noting that Trump skipped the GOP debates in the run-up to this year’s primaries.
“So, they will both miss practice, will not have debated since the fall of 2020, and it may take a little time for them to return to their usual debating styles,” he said.
For both men, the forum has offered a mixed bag.
In 2016, when Trump made his first successful bid for public office, his strident, combative and spontaneous debate style helped him gain notoriety in a crowded field of Republican presidential candidates.
His subsequent confrontation with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton garnered higher ratings than any debate before or since. It attracted about 84 million viewers.
Ready for the cameras since his days as a reality TV star, Trump made insult-laden and physically foreboding appearances that cemented his public persona and helped build his electoral base, Kall explained. At one point during her confrontation with Clinton, Trump even seemed to hover over her as he talked about her.
For his part, Biden often failed to stand out in crowded Democratic primary debates during his previous campaigns for the presidency. Still, experts say she has proven herself to be a worthy opponent in one-on-one debates against Sarah Palin in 2008 and Paul Ryan in 2012.
Flaunting his everyman appeal, Biden served as a pugilistic, straight-talking attack dog on the debate stage, offering a counterpoint to the more polished Barack Obama, for whom he would serve as vice president.
Fast forward to September 2020, when then-incumbent Trump finally faced Biden.
The event quickly went off the rails, with Trump repeatedly yelling about Biden and Fox News moderator Chris Wallace. As the evening progressed, Wallace assumed the role of exasperated babysitter. Trump appeared belligerent, Biden baffled.
“Will you shut up, man?” Biden appealed to Trump in one of the most memorable quotes of the event.
National Public Radio political correspondent Domenico Montanaro would later describe the evening as chaos and write that it may have been the “worst” presidential debate in history.
“If this was supposed to be a boxing match, instead it turned into President Trump jumping on the ropes, refusing to come down, the referee trying to talk him down, and Joe Biden standing in the middle of the ring with gloves on and a confused expression on his face,” Montanaro wrote.
What is the motivation to participate?
But that first debate likely planted the seeds for Trump and Biden to face off again.
Kall said Biden probably expects the debate to feature the increasingly radical rhetoric that is very common at Trump rallies, but that may not be as visible to “moderates, independents and soft supporters.”
After all, Trump infamously refused to condemn white supremacy during the first debate of 2020 and instead told the Proud Boys, a far-right group, to “stand back and stay out of it.”
For his part, Trump can expect the length of the live process to affect Biden's advanced age, Kall explained.
Ratings are expected to be high, despite the debate's unorthodox scheduling for late June. When Trump and Biden first debated in 2020, for example, they drew 73 million viewers, the third-most ever.
“The average low-information voter doesn't tune in until the election gets closer, but they can watch a debate,” Kall said. “So these debates are one of the rare opportunities for a more casual person (who may vote but doesn't actually follow the daily updates) to see these candidates for the first time in a long time.”
The first debate of 2020 between Biden and Trump has also cast a long shadow over the format of Thursday's debate, which will be presented by CNN in Atlanta, Georgia.
Candidates' microphones will be muted when they are not speaking. There will be no studio audience. Both factors are widely considered to favor Biden. The event also will not be overseen by the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, breaking with three decades of tradition.
How can candidates maximize the event?
Issues of the economy, inflation and immigration are expected to loom large at the event, as are foreign policy issues over China, Ukraine and Israel's war in Gaza.
Debate moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash are also expected to mention the events of the 2020 presidential election: Trump has publicly maintained, without evidence, that the race was “stolen” through voter fraud.
Another possible topic of debate is Trump's continuing legal problems. The event comes less than a month after Trump was convicted in New York of 34 felony counts of falsifying business documents to cover up hush payments from him to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
The verdict made Trump the first president, past or present, in US history to be found guilty of criminal charges. While Biden has treaded carefully in approaching the trial, to avoid any appearance of involvement, his campaign released a new ad this month highlighting the conviction as evidence of Trump's character.
“This election is between a convicted criminal who only seeks his own interest and a president who fights for his family,” says the voiceover of the ad.
But the verdict may also offer an opportunity for Trump, according to James Davis, a Republican strategist and founder of Touchdown Strategies.
Davis noted that the jury's decision made only a small dent in Trump's support base, and Republican officials have largely denounced the conviction as politicized.
The debate offers Trump a stage to promote that narrative, particularly among key demographic groups, including young black people, Davis added.
He recommended that Trump try to connect his sentence to the First Step Act, a bill he signed in 2018 to reduce excessively long federal prison sentences.
“He can say, 'I knew the justice system doesn't treat people fairly across the board… and that's why I passed the First Step Act, because it's been treating minority and black communities unfairly for years,'” Davis told Al Jazeera.
“If you can keep it clean and focused on the messages, you can do well,” he added. “But if he appears to lean more toward Trump's revenge tour, that will ultimately inform some of the arguments against him that Biden has been making.”
For Biden, Democratic strategist Kristian Ramos said the debate offers an opportunity to overcome negative perceptions about the country's economic performance: Biden could, for example, tout the policies he signed to create jobs.
“It's an opportunity for him to tell the story of the last three years and what he's done and how he can help the American people,” Ramos told Al Jazeera.
He also pointed to polls that have shown some independent voters turning away from Trump after his conviction. That demographic could be key in deciding the election.
“It may still be a bridge too far for many voters,” Ramos said of Trump's conviction. “So this is an opportunity for Biden to tell that story to those voters and reach them through the debate.”
