President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are scheduled to face off in a debate again on June 27.
The first presidential debate of the 2024 election is set to be a major departure from past debates, however.
Here are three ways the Trump-Biden rematch debate will be unlike any others since the Commission on Presidential Debates took control of the process in 1987.
Absence of Commission on Presidential Debates
After problems between competing presidential campaigns nearly ground debates to a halt, the nonpartisan CPD was established. After nearly four decades of managing the debates, the Trump and Biden campaigns have decided to go around them.
CPD Co-Chairman Frank Fahrenkopf largely blamed the rejection of the organization on White House communications adviser Anita Dunn. On Politico’s Deep Dive podcast, Fahrenkopf said that Dunn “hated” the commission, though he later told CBS News that he may have been too harsh.
The leaving out of the CPD from this debate means the possible destruction of the group, Fahrenkopf said, and he expressed his belief that it could derail the debates.
“There are a lot of things that have to be worked out,” he told CBS News’s The Takeout. “There’s a lot of questions … that aren’t, to my knowledge, worked out yet. That could prevent it from happening.”
Commercial breaks
Ever since the CPD took over the presidential debates, they all consisted of 90 minutes of uninterrupted debate, with no commercial breaks. CNN is changing that this year, two people familiar with the matter told Variety.
Information about the commercials hasn’t yet been disclosed, such as how long and how frequent they will be. Other networks broadcasting the debate will have the option to use their own ads during the commercials, rather than CNN’s.
Microphone cutoffs
A long-running demand from Biden’s team, that microphones would be turned off if a candidate tried to interrupt the other, was confirmed by first lady Jill Biden in an episode of The View.
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“They’ve built that in where they’re going to turn off those mics so that somebody can’t ramble or scream at somebody,” she said. “Not that my husband would be the one doing that. So that’s already been negotiated.”
The condition is evidently directed at Trump, who was known to interrupt Biden in their first round of debates in 2020.
