Trump-Biden Debate: How to Watch Tonight's Face Off

Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump and President Joe Biden will debate tonight starting at 9:00 p.m. ET / 6:00 p.m. PT. Hosted by CNN in Atlanta, it will be the earliest presidential head-to-head in modern U.S. history, given the fact that debates typically happen after the summer political conventions, and it will mark the first of two debates planned before Election Day.

Presidential debates tend to draw a lot of viewers, with roughly 73 million people tuning in for the first Biden-Trump debate in 2020, according to Pew Research. But it’s not clear how many people are planning to watch Thursday’s debate, given the fact that Biden and Trump are arguably the most disliked presidential candidates to ever make the ballot.

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will not be in attendance for the CNN debate. Kennedy didn’t receive at least 15% in four different national polls of registered or likely voters, according to CNN, meaning that he won’t be on stage Thursday.

Oddly enough, Kennedy announced on Tuesday that he’ll be hosting a “debate” by himself that will be livestreamed on X. The idea, as best we can figure it out, is that he’ll be answering the same questions presented by the moderators on CNN. Though it’s not clear how well that will work, since most people will want to be hearing what Trump and Biden want to say and their won’t be any pauses during the actual debate broadcast to allow Kennedy to speak.

FiveThirtyEight’s national polling average currently has Kennedy at 9.8% of the vote, with Biden and Trump in a dead heat at 40.7% and 40.5% respectively. The last third-party candidate to make a serious dent in the final vote tally was Ross Perot in 1992, who received almost 19% of the vote but didn’t secure a single Electoral College vote, a perfect illustration of the rigged nature of American presidential elections. Perot likely drew significant votes from Republican George H.W. Bush, helping Democrat Bill Clinton win the White House.

The debate will be a little odd in the sense that new rules have been established to make sure Trump doesn’t just talk over Biden. The first debate in 2020 was notable for being one of the most obnoxious presidential debates in history. Trump simply wouldn’t shut up as he rambled his way through the debate in an attempt to establish dominance like a kid in the schoolyard.

To fix that, CNN has a system that will mute microphones when it’s not that candidate’s time to speak, as you can see in the demonstration video below.

Trump posted what appeared to be debate talking points to Truth Social on Thursday. And it’s not entirely clear why he did it. Was this a mistake or some kind of miscommunication with his social media team? Chances are we’ll never know, given the fact that this is the guy who tried to pretend like tweeting “covfefe” was intentional back in 2019.

Below we’ve got the different ways you can watch the presidential debate on June 27, including plenty of options for cord-cutters.

YouTube

CNN has a livestream on YouTube.PBS Newshour has a livestream on YouTube.C-SPAN has a livestream on YouTube.CBS News has a livestream on YouTube.

Websites

CNN.com will stream the debate without a cable login.

Old School Cable

CNN CNN International CNN en EspañolFox NewsABC

Thursday’s debate will be the first since 1988 not hosted by the Commission on Presidential Debates, which previously coordinated everything and made sure the debate could be broadcast widely across all the major networks. But with CNN hosting the debate this time, all broadcasts licensed to outlets like ABC and Fox will require a CNN logo and need to be referred to as the “CNN Presidential Debate,” according to reporting from the L.A. Times.

Why are the Biden and Trump campaigns not using the Commission on Presidential Debates? As Politico explains, both campaigns weren’t happy with the commission for various reasons. The Biden campaign wanted to have a debate sooner than usual, which meant breaking the commission’s rules on waiting until the nominees were officially chosen at their conventions. And Trump’s campaign was, well, just Trumpy. They hate everything and insist every aspect of society is just rigged against them. Tossing out the old way of doing things was just a natural decision.

One of the big questions that hasn’t been answered yet about Trump’s candidacy is who he’ll choose to by his vice presidential candidate. The Sunday political TV shows engaged in plenty of speculation, with NBC’s Meet the Press reporting it’s likely down to three choices: Sen. Mark Rubio of Florida, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, and Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio. Rubio is considered the longshot, but who really knows at this point.

The selling point for Burgum appears to be the fact that he’s never criticized Trump in any meaningful way. Vance, on the other hand, once called Trump “America’s Hitler” in a private Facebook message to a friend back in 2016 that was later leaked.

The second debate, hosted by ABC, is scheduled for September 10 and is similarly being staged without participation from the Commission on Presidential Debates. Voting day is Tuesday, November 5, 2024.