Keller: Presidential debates are on as candidates discard decades-old tradition
BOSTON - After months of doubt, it looks like there will be presidential debates after all. But not the way you're used to.
First debate scheduled for June 27
Since 1988, the debates have been sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates, a bipartisan group setting the times, places, formats and criteria for inclusion. But the two campaigns have broken that mold, okaying two debates on individual TV networks with the first one scheduled for CNN on June 27.
Biden posted a trash-talking video on X in which he told Trump "I hear you're free on Wednesdays," a reference to the usual day off at the former president's ongoing criminal trial in Manhattan. Trump responded in kind with an insulting tweet on his social media site.
The campaigns agreed to unusually early debate dates because early voting starts in some states in late September. "June is really early," noted presidential debate expert Alan Schroeder, professor emeritus of journalism at Northeastern. "My biggest concern is that when the debate commission sponsored debates, all the networks would simulcast them and everybody in America would drop what they were doing and watch the debates."
Will the audiences be drastically smaller this time around? After all, while debates tend to just reinforce the positions of partisans, sometimes moments occur that have an impact on undecided voters, like the exchange in 2020 when Trump seemed flustered when asked if he would denounce the white supremacist group the Proud Boys, responding: "Proud boys? Stand back and stand by." (Members of that group later played a role in the January 6 Capitol riot.)
RFK Jr. likely to be kept out of CNN debate
Meanwhile, CNN has set candidate criteria that would likely keep Bobby Kennedy Jr. out of their debate, something Kennedy suggests both Trump and Biden prefer. "If RFK can demonstrate that he's at 15% in the polls nationwide and has a following of some kind, is getting donations in addition to poll standings, then he should be included in the debates whether the other candidates like it or not," said Schroeder.
So who benefits most from this arrangement?
The fact that there will be debates benefits Biden. Trump world has firmly convinced itself that Biden is a broken-down old man who can't handle it, but that's not how the 2020 debates turned out and it sets the bar too low. But the early timing of the debates helps Trump. It allows nearly two months until Election Day for swing voters to forget how poorly Trump might have done and return their focus to what they may not like about Biden's presidency.