President Joe Biden will be the first to make his closing statement in the upcoming presidential debate, in which he will speak to the former president Donald Trump the final word, CNN announced on Thursday.
Biden’s campaign won the coin toss that allowed a candidate to choose either the order of his closing statement or his podium position during Thursday’s showdown in Atlanta. The president chose the right podium, placing himself on the right of viewers’ television screens and Trump on the left, allowing his Republican rival to choose to come in second during the closing statements at the end of the 90-minute broadcast.
Each candidate’s lectern will be equipped with a pen, a notepad and a water bottle, while pre-written notes and props will be banned, according to rules agreed to by both campaigns last week.
The podium positions will be identical to the candidates’ placements during both 2020 debates. But this will be the first of their matchups in which Trump makes the closing statement — although he interrupted Biden’s closing remarks during their September 2020 debate.
In addition to the podium placement and closing remarks details, several rules appear to have been announced over the weekend aimed at preventing a repeat of that hostile first meeting. Candidates will not make opening statements but will jump straight into answering questions from the moderators, CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash. They each get two minutes for answers, one minute for rebuttals and one minute for responses to the rebuttals.
In addition, there will be no audience in attendance — a demand from the Biden campaign that deprives Trump of an environment in which he could previously inflate his presence. CNN will mute the microphones to avoid interruptions between turns and insert two commercial breaks into the 90-minute broadcast. The network also strictly enforced the rules for qualifying for the stage, which Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent candidate, failed to reach.
