CNN has announced the rules and details for the presidential debate on June 27, preparing for the event less than two weeks away.
Notable aspects include no studio audience, muted microphones except when candidates are given time to speak, and each candidate standing at a uniform podium. Candidates are given a pen, notepad, and bottle of water, but no props or pre-written notes are allowed onstage.
The network said hosts Jake Tapper and Dana Bash “will take every precaution to ensure punctuality and civil discussion.”
The network also looked at who would qualify for the debates, saying it was unlikely that independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would qualify. “While it's not impossible for Kennedy to do so, it's unlikely any candidate other than Biden or Trump would meet that requirement,” the network said.
According to the network, RFK Jr. has three of the four qualifying votes needed, giving him 89 of the 270 electoral votes required. He has until June 20 to submit another poll showing he has at least 15% support and an additional 181 electoral votes through voting in those states.
The most notable requirement is that there will be no studio audience, an anomaly for a presidential or primary debate, a detail that was the Biden campaign's idea, with campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon saying they wanted to avoid rowdy crowds for the viewers.
“The debates should be conducted for the American voters watching on television and at home, not as entertainment for spectators against loud and disruptive partisans and donors who consume valuable debate time with their raucous cheering and heckling,” Dillon wrote in the May letter.
To read more from the Washington Examiner, click here
President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have already agreed to rules for a 90-minute debate, likely to include arguments, with two breaks allowed during it. As for other details, muting microphones was a condition included in the 2020 debates, and Trump has called on the candidates to stand at the podium while Biden's team has suggested he sit, believing Biden would feel more uncomfortable.
There is at least one more presidential debate to go — ABC is hosting one on Sept. 10, shortly before early voting begins in the general election — and an average of 538 national polls has Trump leading by 1.1 percentage points.
