CNN will take center stage as it gears up to host the inaugural presidential debate of the 2024 election cycle. The highly anticipated showdown between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump is set to light up television screens across America in late June. Both candidates have verbally sparred from afar, but now, they are preparing to go head-to-head in a direct confrontation, setting the stage for what promises to be a pivotal moment for 2024.
The debate is planned to unfold in CNN’s Atlanta studios, an in-studio format that excludes a live audience, a setting that promises an intimate and intense exchange between the two political heavyweights on June 27.
On Wednesday, CNN announced Jake Tapper and Dana Bash as the moderators according to Deadline. The arrangement comes after Joe Biden’s bold challenge to his rival, declaring his readiness to debate “anywhere, any time, any place,” a challenge that Trump accepted with characteristic confidence, asserting that Biden “can’t put two sentences together.”
While CNN holds the reins for the first debate, the other coverage implications remain under wraps, with no confirmation yet on whether other networks will be offered a feed to simulcast the event. However, ABC News, the host of the subsequent September 10 debate, has already pledged to share its coverage.
“Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020. Since then, he hasn’t shown up for a debate. Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal,” Biden said in a video message shared earlier Wednesday morning. “I’ll even do it twice. So let’s pick the dates, Donald. I hear you’re free on Wednesdays,” Biden said alluding to Trump’s New York trial.
Tapper’s first major role as a debate moderator was during the 2015 Republican primary debate. Tapper also moderated a pivotal Republican debate in March 2016, which was one of the last debates of the primary season. Dana Bash, CNN’s chief political correspondent, has experience covering Congress and presidential campaigns. Bash has co-moderated several key debates, including the 2020 Democratic primary debates. During the Democratic primary, Bash was known for her pointed questions particularly on issues like healthcare and economic policy. Both Tapper and Bash have sometimes moderated debates together as well.
Four years ago, the 2020 presidential debates were hosted by different moderators for each of the three scheduled debates. Chris Wallace, anchor of Fox News Sunday, moderated the first presidential debate on September 29, 2020, at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.
Originally scheduled to be moderated by Steve Scully of C-SPAN, the second debate was intended to take place on October 15, 2020, at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami, Florida. However, it was canceled after President Trump tested positive for COVID-19 and subsequent disagreements over making the debate virtual. Instead, both candidates held separate town hall events on the same night.
Kristen Welker, co-anchor of Weekend Today and NBC News White House correspondent, moderated the final presidential debate on October 22, 2020, at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee.
2024’s first debate is set to coincide with the likely end of Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial and will take place shortly after Biden returns from an overseas junket to the G7 Summit. The second debate in September would occur shortly before the start of early voting in most states. The Biden-Harris campaign also proposed a vice-presidential debate for July after both parties had officially nominated their ticket partners.