Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump will meet for the first time on a Philadelphia debate stage Tuesday evening, giving Americans their first chance at evaluating the candidates side by side, less than two months before Election Day.
What time is the debate?
The debate begins at 6 p.m. PDT on Tuesday, Sept. 10.
It will last 90 minutes, and there will be two commercial breaks, according to ABC.
How to watch the debate
ABC will air the event on television and several streaming networks, including ABC News Live, Disney+ and Hulu. It will also be available on the ABC app and online at ABC.com.
In addition to ABC, other news outlets will carry the debate live, including C-SPAN, CNN, CBS, NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, BBC, Telemundo, Univision, PBS, Fox News, NewsNation, NewsMax, Scripps News, Spectrum, Bloomberg and The CW.
Streaming or other networks will probably be an option for DirecTV subscribers who find they cannot access the debate. Because of a dispute over a distribution deal, Walt Disney Co.-owned channels, including ABC stations, were knocked off DirecTV platforms on Sept. 1 and it’s unclear when the dispute will be resolved.
Who is moderating the debate?
Anchors of the ABC show “World News Tonight” David Muir and Linsey Davis will moderate.
How will it work?
The two candidates will meet onstage at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, with no studio audience. There will be no opening statements. After introducing each candidate, the moderators will launch into questions.
Harris and Trump, who will stand behind lecterns, are not allowed to bring props or prewritten notes. They will be given a pen, a pad of paper and a bottle of water.
They will have two minutes for answers and rebuttals, and one extra minute for follow-ups, according to the debate rules.
Despite the Harris campaign’s request to leave the microphones on for the entire debate, a candidate’s microphone will be on only when it is their time to speak.
Based on a coin flip, Trump chose to get the final word and give the last two-minute closing statement.
The last debate
Tuesday’s debate marks 2½ months since President Biden and Trump faced off, beginning the rapid demise of Biden’s presidential bid. The president appeared meandering and confused throughout the debate, giving incomplete answers and seeming to lose his train of thought at multiple points.
Trump also gave incomplete and meandering answers, including a multitude of falsehoods. But Biden’s disastrous performance alarmed Democrats, who feared it could cost them the presidential race. Pressure in his own party for Biden to drop out mounted, and less than a month after the June 27 debate, Biden heeded the call.
He immediately threw his support behind Harris as his replacement to become the Democratic nominee. She kicked off a whirlwind campaign, clinching the nomination, naming Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate and quickly overtaking Biden in the polls.
Trump’s campaign scrambled to reorganize itself around a new opponent, blasting Harris for her work on the border and the Biden administration’s economic record — and launching a flurry of personal insults, including questioning Harris’ race.
The Biden-Trump debate on CNN in June averaged 51.3 million television viewers, well below the viewership the first time they debated in September 2020, when 73 million viewers tuned in.
