By Justine Noble
American president Joe Biden will face off with his predecessor and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump in the first presidential debate of the 2024 campaign later this month, but the two men have snubbed the traditional Autumn debates held in front of live audiences.
The non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates has organised the debates since 1988. Last month, the Biden campaign told the commission the President would not take part in the debates. He and Trump subsequently agreed to hold two debates without a live audience present — on 27 June with CNN and 10 September with ABC.
According to Statista, Biden and Trump’s first debate in 2020 was the third most watched presidential debate in US history, with 73.1 million people tuning in. In 2016, Trump’s first debate with Hillary Clinton broke records with a viewership of 84.4 million.
However, Biden’s team said the commission-led debates are “noisy spectacles” that happen too late in the election process to cater to early voting and run on rules that are too easy to violate, as Trump did in 2020.
The commission chairman, Frank J. Fahrenkopf told Politico the Biden campaign’s claims were “false.” He said that in all 33 general election debates he’s organised, attendees have only been disorderly twice.
But Ameshia Cross, American political commentator and democratic strategist, said the set-up was problematic. She said the absence of live viewers who can visibly display excitement or disgust will make the debates run more smoothly.
“Trump loves a spectacle, he’s a showman, is very interested in crowd development and plays aggressively when they are around because he doesn’t have to talk policy, which he has proven incapable and ill-knowledgeable of.” she added.
To Cross, it seems Fahrenkopf is “trying to save his job and the relevance of the commission.”
Feature Image: An ABC News broadcast advertising the first presidential debate. Photo credit: Justine Noble.