The rules of the duel have been chosen to be the strictest. No cheat sheets or prepared teleprompters, just a pen and a piece of paper.
Photo: REUTERS.
The United States and the entire world are looking forward to the gala show. Today at 9:00 p.m. in Atlanta, Georgia (5:00 a.m. Moscow time), the main candidates for the presidency of the United States will face each other in an irreconcilable verbal duel: the current leader of the nation, the Democrat Biden, and the former head of state, the Republican Trump, who intends to return to the White House again. In the United States they are already joking: the fate of the country in the upcoming debates will be discussed by the old dung beetle Joe (he is already 81 years old) and the feisty red cockroach Donald (he is not much younger, 78 years old). ).
The problem is that both have not yet been approved by the party congresses as official candidates, and much of the final preferences of voters depend on how they appear on television. The public expects not only a discussion of serious issues, but also a performance: which of the opponents will be able to outperform the other. Around 73 million Americans watched the Trump-Biden debate in 2020. This time the bar should be raised to 100 million.
The rules of dueling have been chosen to be the strictest. There are no cheat sheets or teleprompters at the ready, just a pen and a sheet of paper for taking notes, and a bottle of water if the speaker’s throat gets dry from a heated argument. However, they will speak alternately: it is prohibited to interrupt the opponent’s speech, the microphone will simply be turned off. There will also be no spectators in the studio. For Biden, the advantage is that the debate will be moderated by anchors from CNN, which favors Democrats and hates Trump. The downside is that Old Joe will have to stand for an hour and a half live with two commercial breaks, and not everyone is sure he will pass this test. American bookmakers are already accepting bets on whether the current US president will fall asleep or stumble during the event. You can also bet who will say the first curse words on air.
Both participants prepared for the debate in different ways. Joe holed up at his Camp David vacation home for a week with 15 of his closest advisers, who advised the president on the full range of domestic and foreign issues. The role of the sinister Trump was entrusted to Biden’s personal lawyer, Bob Bauer. Well, Donald himself, on the other hand, showed the most openness, traveling around the country with election rallies and checking how the public reacted to some of his revelations.
In keeping with an old American tradition, opponents have stocked up on vats of mud that are ready to pour on each other. Trump will be remembered for being the only convicted presidential candidate in US history, who also called on his supporters to storm the Capitol in the hope of overturning the election results. And Biden will likely be accused of participating in corruption schemes through his son Hunter when he was vice president.
Analysts believe that on the domestic front, the main debate will revolve around illegal immigrants, who have flooded the country during the Biden administration, and the long-standing issue of abortion in the United States. Among foreign policy issues, the rivals will touch on the conflict in Ukraine, the war in the Middle East and the containment of China.
So far, Trump is slightly ahead of his opponent (by one to three percent), even in the so-called swing states where the electorate’s preferences have not yet fully emerged. If he manages to defeat Biden or falls into his usual stupor, the question of an urgent replacement of the presidential candidate may well be raised at the Democratic Party convention in August.
