Tonight, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will square off in the earliest general election debate ever.
The high-stakes debate will be a crucial platform for the two oldest candidates in U.S. history—Biden is 81 and Trump is 78—to demonstrate their energy, appearance, coherence, and responsiveness, making it a pivotal event that could shape the presidential race, according to political analysts.
![(Left) Former President Donald Trump on June 22, 2024. (Right) President Joe Biden on Nov. 15, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times; Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.theepochtimes.com%2Fassets%2Fuploads%2F2024%2F06%2F24%2Fid5674527-trump-biden-1-1200x800.jpg&w=1200&q=75)
The debate will be held in Atlanta and last 90 minutes, including two commercial breaks.
Notably, no live audience will be present and candidates’ microphones will be deactivated when it’s not their turn to speak—both conditions requested by Biden.
This year’s debate is taking place considerably earlier than usual. It is so early—generally these aren’t held until September or October—that neither candidate has even received an official nomination yet, though both are the presumptive nominees for their respective parties.
For Democrats, it offers a shot at upping the momentum behind Biden’s campaign.
With Biden’s approval rating sitting at a dismal 38.4 percent, and with the president lagging in most swing-state polls, Democrats hope that Biden can make a strong debate showing that’ll change the dynamics of the race.
“The first debate offers both candidates a chance to change the race’s momentum,” Democrat strategist Christy Setzer told The Epoch Times.
“Currently, we believe President Biden has benefited, albeit in a small way, from Trump’s felony convictions, but it’s still a toss-up,” she said.
“The debate offers him an opportunity to pull ahead for real, or to reignite voters’ worries about him.”
Since June 20, Biden has been at Camp David, focusing most of his energy on preparing for the debate, including through mock debates.
Trump, for his part, chose to forego much debate prep, with senior adviser Jason Miller saying in a statement that Trump is ready.
“President Trump takes on numerous tough interviews every single week and delivers lengthy rally speeches while standing, demonstrating elite stamina,” Miller said.
For Biden, the main concern will be proving to Americans that his advanced age is no barrier to a second term, as Biden’s age has topped voters’ concerns in poll after poll. Polls have shown that voters are generally less concerned that age would affect Trump’s job performance.
Trump, meanwhile, could err by being too hostile or bombastic, Ethics and Public Policy Center senior fellow Henry Olsen told The Epoch Times.
“He needs to avoid being the over-aggressive person that he was in the first debate in 2020, and he needs to avoid over-emphasis or excessive rhetoric that becomes the story of the debate,” he said.
During that debate, Trump repeatedly interrupted and spoke over Biden, a move which some analysts say likely harmed his 2020 campaign.
Whatever the outcome, the stakes are high for both men in an election season that could be decided by slim margins in just a handful of states.
—Emel Akan, Lawrence Wilson, and Joseph Lord
JUSTICES REJECT CLAIMS OF SOCIAL MEDIA CENSORING
The Supreme Court rejected yesterday a group of states and other plaintiffs’ claims that the Biden administration had coerced social media companies into censoring certain content about COVID-19 and elections.
The plaintiffs lacked standing, according to a six-justice majority that included the three liberal justices—Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson—as well as Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
Justice Barrett, who wrote the majority opinion, said the plaintiffs in the case failed to show their purported harms were traceable to the federal government or redressable by an injunction.
The case—Murthy v. Missouri—was the second major case this term to come out of the more conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and fail on standing. Earlier in June, the Supreme Court rejected a group of doctors’ attempt to challenge the Food and Drug Administration’s de-regulation of the abortion pill.
Justice Barrett, in Murthy, criticized the Fifth Circuit’s “sweeping preliminary injunction” and argued that the record of facts exhibited “lack of specific causation findings with respect to any discrete instance of content moderation.”
Justice Samuel Alito penned a strongly worded dissent in Murthy and was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. In it, he focused on standing from one of the plaintiffs—Jill Hines—while deriding the Biden administration and Facebook.
“Blatantly unconstitutional” was how Justice Alito described the administration’s actions. He argued that Hines showed more than enough for standing and described the case as “one of the most important free speech cases to reach this Court in years.”
NRA v. Vullo, another coercive speech case heard on the same day as Murthy in March, featured prominently in Justice Alito’s dissent. He claimed that “Officials who read today’s decision together with Vullo will get the message. If a coercive campaign is carried out with enough sophistication, it may get by.”
Besides ruling on Murthy, the Court also released its decision in Snyder v. United States. The 6-3 decision, led by Justice Kavanaugh, held that a federal bribery statute “does not make it a crime for [state and local] officials to accept gratuities for their past acts.”
Only two decisions were officially issued by the Court on June 26, despite many major cases remaining and only two more days left for opinion releases this term.
Inadvertently, the Court released an opinion in the case on Idaho’s abortion law. The opinion was then unpublished but seemed to reveal a majority of justices ordering the restoration of an injunction on the pro-life restriction.
The Court’s term is set to end on June 28 but the number of remaining major cases has prompted speculation that it may extend its term into July. The justices have yet to issue their opinions in former President Trump’s immunity appeal, a challenge to the DOJ’s prosecution of Jan. 6 defendants, state restrictions on social media content moderation, and major considerations about administrative law.
—Sam Dorman
BOOKMARKS
A Supreme Court decision was accidentally leaked on Wednesday, outlining its ruling in an Idaho abortion case. Reportedly, the Court will allow abortions in cases of life-threatening medical emergencies.
President Joe Biden will pardon service members who were formerly convicted under the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” rules that prohibited gay sex. The rule was changed in 2013 to only apply to cases of rape.
Former Olympian Michael Phelps has accused the World Anti-Doping Agency of overlooking the failed drug tests of Chinese athletes. The athletes reportedly tested positive for a banned heart medication in 2021, but were cleared of wrongdoing based on an internal investigation by China.
Military service members may face scrutiny for liking, sharing, or “retweeting” online material labeled as “extremist.” Soldiers who violate the rules could face legal action, reassignment, or loss of security clearance.
The GOP has unveiled its new appropriations bill, which cuts $1 billion in funding from the Department of Justice. However the bill does not remove funding from Special Counsel Jack Smith despite calls from some Republicans to do so.
—Stacy Robinson