The family of Hersh Goldberg-Polin appears on a screen via video link during a news conference in Tel Aviv

Former US president Trump's hush money criminal trial continues in New York City, USA - 13 May 2024

Trump

The Washington Post

US-POLITICS-JUSTICE-COURT-TRUMP

Contributor

For The Washington Post

(Chris Gash for The Washington Post)

APTOPIX Israel Holocaust Remembrance

op-allen-democracypromo

Stormy Daniels

UGCR

RUSSIA-US-DIPLOMACY-BASKET-COURT

(Michelle Kondrich/The Washington Post)

**ONE TIME USE ONLY FOR OP-LAMOTT

Sonia Sotomayor,Clarence Thomas,John Roberts,Samuel Alito,Elena Kagan,Amy Coney Barrett,Neil Gorsuch,Brett Kavanaugh,Ketanji Brown Jackson,Michael Dreeben

Children holding hands

ONE TIME USE FOR OP-CARNEY KIDS 

FEDERALISTGALA

Four Dalmatian Puppy

other

People visit the site of the Nova festival, in Reim

Fake Electors Indictment Arizona

Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

Show NLP summaries collection recirc on article pages

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

Carolyn Hax: Is it weird to ask other people to care about you?

Ask Amy: Can’t a single woman eat alone without interruption?

Miss Manners: Miss Manners: Gag gift falls flat

The world’s coolest hotels want to tell you a story

Cruise ships to return to Baltimore two months after bridge collapse 

Some cruise prices are about to get a little more clear

She finished chemo then got a medical degree: ‘The dream is real now’

Puppy abandoned with heart-rending note is adopted, named Minerva

Man, 91, shocks tiny firehouse with $500K gift: ‘Nobody knew how much I’d saved’

Blue Origin to fly again as space tourism struggles to get off the ground

These ISIS news anchors are AI fakes. Their propaganda is real.

Boeing delays spaceflight again as it continues to struggle with leak

Mexican taquería’s new Michelin star puts street eats on par with gourmet food

Police believe a U.S. rapist killed several women in Canada

With its energy network nearly destroyed, Ukraine already fears the winter

Russia shows resilience. There is more to do for Ukraine.

Trump promises tax cuts and fewer rules. CEOs shouldn’t fall for it.

Tariffs against China hamstring the transition to a clean energy future

How Jim Jordan tried to connect the dots on Biden’s $8 million book deal

Biden’s false claim that inflation was 9 percent when he took office

Did Obamacare ‘massively’ increase the cost of health care?

‘Never Trump?’ ‘Never Biden’ voters might loom larger.

Ukraine gamble pays off: Republicans face little backlash in primaries

At campus protests, ‘DO NOT TALK TO THE MEDIA’!

Trump’s lawyer charges Michael Cohen lied to jury

CNN gets a presidential debate — and a much-needed win

Book Tour: At home with Amor Towles

In photos: The scene in Houston after severe storms killed at least 7 people

Civilians flee new Russian attacks on Ukraine border

Joey Gallo returns, but Nats endure another quiet offensive night

Bryce Harper, Joey Gallo and a bond forged by baseball since they were kids

A taco will always be a taco — no matter what we call it

Jabin Botsford

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/candidates/joe-biden-2024/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Joe Biden</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/donald-trump/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Donald Trump</a> say they are ready to rumble … again.

“I am happy to debate him,” the president <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/biden-says-happy-debate-trump-rcna149559" target=_blank>told radio host</a> Howard Stern last month. To which Trump, who skipped all the Republican primary debates, replied on his social media platform: “ANYWHERE, ANYTIME, ANYPLACE.”

Granted, there is reason to wonder how much enlightenment voters will get from seeing these two standing side by side on a stage. Their first faceoff four years ago ranked as “the worst presidential debate in living memory,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-and-biden-stage-the-worst-presidential-debate-in-living-memory/2020/09/29/9cdbeb56-027e-11eb-b7ed-141dd88560ea_story.html" target="_blank">according to a Post headline</a>. Our Editorial Board called it “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-debate-was-a-disgrace-it-showed-us-trumps-assault-on-democracy-is-escalating/2020/09/30/2e7e075c-033c-11eb-b7ed-141dd88560ea_story.html" target="_blank">a disgrace</a>.”

To refresh your memory of those excruciating 90 minutes, this was the melee in which Trump put in a performance that ranged from rude to unhinged, interrupting Biden practically every time the Democrat opened his mouth. Rattled and exasperated, Biden shot back at one point: “Will you shut up, man?” Moderator Chris Wallace has said <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/news/watch-cnns-chris-wallace-gets-flashes-of-ptsd-when-confronted-with-video-of-trump-attacking-him-at-debate/" target="_blank">he still gets</a> “flashes of PTSD” from the experience.

Still, that spectacle was as revealing as it was appalling. Could there have been any better evidence of Trump’s disregard for democratic values — or prelude of what was to come on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/january-6-capitol-riot/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Jan. 6</a>, 2021 — than the call he issued for the far-right extremist group Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by”?

The Commission on Presidential Debates has already <a href="https://debates.org/2023/11/20/2024-sites/index.html" target=_blank>announced a schedule</a> of three presidential debates and a vice-presidential one to take place in the run-up to Election Day, with the names of the moderators and other details to come later. And the truth is, much of this will be decided in negotiations between the campaigns themselves. There is no small chance, for instance, that instead of three debates, there will be only one or two.

But it’s worth hoping that what could come out of this are changes that could make presidential debates more meaningful and update them to reflect the realities of how people decide and cast their ballots in 2024.

Let’s start with when the debates take place. Traditionally, they have come late in the calendar. The one meeting of President <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/jimmy-carter/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Jimmy Carter</a> and Republican challenger Ronald Reagan in 1980 didn’t occur until Oct. 28 — a mere week before the election. But that was in an era before early voting.

The commission recognizes this, which is why this year’s first debate will be held earlier than ever before, on Sept. 16, at Texas State University. Both campaigns are saying that isn’t early enough; by then, for instance, it is possible, depending on when ballots are finalized, that some voters in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania will <a href="https://www.usvotefoundation.org/pennsylvania-election-dates-and-deadlines" target=_blank>already be voting</a>.

Ideally, argues Brett O’Donnell, who has been a sought-after debate coach for GOP contenders going back to George W. Bush, there should be “maybe one before Labor Day and the other two in September.”

Complicating that, however, are the debate commission’s criteria for determining whether any contenders from outside the major parties would be allowed on the stage, as, most recently, independent candidate Ross Perot was in 1992. In addition to polling at 15 percent in an average of five national polls vetted by an outside expert, a candidate must be on the ballot in enough states to have at least the possibility of reaching the 270 electoral votes necessary to be elected. And in a number of states, <a href="https://www.nass.org/sites/default/files/surveys/2020-07/research-ballot-access-president-Jan20_0.pdf" target=_blank>filing deadlines</a> don’t occur until 60 days before the Nov. 5 election, which means Sept. 6.

So if an earlier debate between Biden and Trump<b> </b>is to be added, it will have to be done outside the purview of the commission. Let’s not hold our breath for that happening.

Another thing I’d like to see is the discontinuation of live audiences. They consist of supporters, party officials and donors, who routinely ignore admonitions not to cheer or clap. Debates would be more disciplined and substantive if they were conducted — as was the famed 1960 meeting <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbrcRKqLSRw" target=_blank>between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon</a> — in a television studio.

The exception should be the town hall debate, which is scheduled to take place on Oct. 1 at Virginia State University, the <a href="https://www.vsu.edu/news/2023/vsu-hbcu-history-election-presidential-debate.php" target=_blank>first historically Black college or university ever selected</a> as a venue. Candidates cannot shrug off or react with hostility to questions they get from ordinary voters. Which is why whoever is chosen to moderate the town hall would be well advised to take a step back and let the audience hold the candidates to account.

Then there is the always thorny question of fact-checking. Moderators should not carry the burden for this. It is better — and more thoroughly — performed by the media and the opposing campaigns. Today’s audiences are often watching the debates on more than one screen. When a candidate tells a whopper, it quickly catches up with him.

There are plenty of people who argue that presidential debates have outlived their usefulness. But the alternative is the dueling echo chambers that pass for political discourse these days. So mix it up, Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump. We’ll all be standing back and standing by.

Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting, 2014

National Press Foundation Edwin M. Hood Award for Diplomatic Correspondence, 1993

Gerald Loeb Award, 1982

University of Texas at Austin, bachelor of journalism

Harvard Business School, masters in business administration

Karen Tumulty is an associate editor and columnist covering national politics. She joined The Post in 2010 from Time magazine and has also worked at the Los Angeles Times.

Karen Tumulty

washpost

Presidential debates need improvement

the-washington-post

President Donald J. Trump

staff

Editorials

Columns

Guest opinions

Cartoons

Submit a guest opinion

Today's Opinions newsletter

Opinions

Sign up for Democracy, Refreshed, a newsletter series on how to renovate the republic.

Opinion Columns

Opinion Columnists

Sign up for the Prompt 2024 newsletter for opinions on the biggest questions in politics

Washington Post Opinions

The Washington Post Opinions section features opinion articles, op-eds, editorials by the Editorial Board, global opinions and letters to the editor on the issues of the day. Offerings include columns by Washington Post opinion writers, political cartoons by editorial cartoonists Ann Telnaes and Michael de Adder and podcasts by Jonathan Capehart.