Episode 52
Who Cares About Presidential Debates?
Presidential debates are a staple of the election cycle, but in recent years the drama of deciding who gets to host a debate and when can often be more exciting than the event itself. In a world where news is instant and everyone is connected, do they have the same impact and influence on elections as they once did? So in this episode, I want to know… who cares about Presidential debates?
Special guest for this episode:
- Emma Long, Associate Professor of American History and Politics at the University of East Anglia.
Highlights from this episode:
(02:18) The first Presidential debate
(07:44) Behind every great President is a great First Lady
(09:45) How many millions watch the JFK / Nixon debate?!
(13:45) The Trump effect
(17:25) How has social media changed debate strategy?
(23:10) How much control do the parties have over debates?
(27:13) Are debates too boring?
(32:42) What lessons were learnt from the Biden / Trump debate?
(36:02) Why should candidates care about debates?
Additional Resources:
Commission on Presidential Debates
The American Presidency Project (includes transcripts of past debates)
C-SPAN – Presidential Debates (recordings of past debates)
Michael Socolow, “Think presidential debates are dull? Thank 1950s TV game shows”
Pew Research Center, “6 facts about presidential and vice presidential debates”
And if you like this episode, you might also love:
Will America Ever Elect a Woman for President?
Should Donald Trump Be Allowed to Run for President?
What is a Primary and a Caucus?
Thank you for listening to our podcast. It's a labor of love by an American history nerd and some smarter folk. Making it does come at a small cost so if you'd like to help:
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Transcript
Presidential debates are a staple of the election cycle, but in recent years the drama of deciding
Speaker:who gets to host a debate and when can often be more exciting than the event itself. In
Speaker:a world where news is instant and everyone is connected, do they have the same impact and
Speaker:influence on elections as they once did? In this episode, I want to know, who cares about
Speaker:presidential debates?
Speaker:Welcome to America, a history podcast. I'm Liam Heffernan and every week we answer a different
Speaker:question to understand the people, the places and the events that make the USA what it is
Speaker:today.
Speaker:To discuss this, I'm joined by our resident election expert, Dr Emma Long, but by day she's
Speaker:Associate Professor of American History and Politics at the University of East Anglia.
Speaker:Welcome back Emma. Hi Liam. I sort of feel like I should apologize to regular listeners to
Speaker:the podcast. They've heard a lot from me recently, so anyone out there who's thinking, oh God,
Speaker:it's her again. Deep apologies. I promise I'll stop talking eventually. Yeah, I mean, it's
Speaker:the nature of the beast, right? We are we are midst election cycle and it's hey, we've we're
Speaker:getting a bit politics heavy by I can promise any listeners that after November, we're gonna
Speaker:we're gonna lighten the load a little bit and do some other stuff, I promise. But in the
Speaker:meantime, we have Emma to help us understand what the heck is going on. Well, I try. This
Speaker:week to do that, we're going to take a closer look at presidential debates. Now, we were
Speaker:just talking before the recording that we've had this episode kind of in the pipeline for
Speaker:months. And I think the discussion today is going to take on a much different form than
Speaker:it would have done a couple of months ago. So let's just start before we get into maybe some
Speaker:more recent context. I'm just wondering if you can provide a bit of broad history on presidential
Speaker:debates. Yeah, okay. So. Just out of interest, if I was going to ask you, when do you think
Speaker:the first presidential debate was? Well, I'm a bit of a film and TV nerd, so I'm going to
Speaker:say it probably lines up roughly with sort of the booming in radio and maybe the birth of
Speaker:TV. I'm going to say sort of 50s. Yeah. Yeah, you're pretty close. I think the one that most
Speaker:people think of when they think of the history of presidential debates, the Kennedy-Nixon
Speaker:debates in 1960.
Speaker:Kennedy is seen as the first TV president about the way he used television, not just in the
Speaker:debates, but otherwise. And the common line on these is... the idea that viewers who watch
Speaker:TV thought that Kennedy won the debate, viewers who listen to it on the radio thought that
Speaker:Nixon won it, and you know, the impact of visuals. Now, there are a lot of people who've written
Speaker:and said, it's a bit simplistic to say that, and maybe it's not that, but what the debates
Speaker:did was sort of legitimize Kennedy by giving him a platform, you know, this relatively unknown
Speaker:senator from Massachusetts Nixon, who'd been vice president under Eisenhower and so on.
Speaker:But this is where this gets complicated because you'd think when was the first presidential
Speaker:debate would be a really straightforward question, right? But it sort of depends on how you define
Speaker:the presidential debate. So Kennedy-Nixon's kind of the first one that I think we would
Speaker:recognize where you've got the two main candidates facing off against each other live, or at least
Speaker:it was live on TV, they didn't have a studio. audience. There were four debates between the
Speaker:two of them, including one where they weren't in the same studio. So it's like the earliest
Speaker:version of a Zoom era debate in that Kennedy was in New York and Nixon was in California,
Speaker:which I just think is incredible when you think about the technology from 1960. Okay, so 1960,
Speaker:this happens, it seemed to be quite a big deal. When do you think the next one was? Okay. So
Speaker:I'm naively going to make an assumption that I'm sure a lot of people would make in that
Speaker:they just continued every election cycle after that, but I'm sure you're going to tell me
Speaker:I'm wrong. Yeah. I sort of signposted that one. 1976 takes 16 years before you get another
Speaker:presidential debate. Johnson, LBJ in 64 refuses to hold them. But. The next set of presidential
Speaker:debates that we know about is Gerald Ford against the then relatively unknown Georgia governor
Speaker:Jimmy Carter, who was challenging him for the presidency in 1976. And it gets weirdly technical.
Speaker:So the reason that there's this big gap in the middle is to do with broadcast technology and
Speaker:the laws governing it. So the Communications Act in the US. governed airtime and these kinds
Speaker:of things basically said, was published in the 1930s, and basically said, if you're going
Speaker:to do something like this, you have to give every candidate for office time to speak, not
Speaker:just presidential candidates, but every possible candidate for elected office in every election,
Speaker:which clearly was not possible and was not going to happen. And they couldn't find a way around
Speaker:it. So in 1960, they get kind of special dispensation from Congress to have the Kennedy-Nixon debates.
Speaker:But it takes until 1975 for Congress to basically find an exception to this rule, to this law,
Speaker:for presidential debates and allow them to happen. And then they've happened every year since
Speaker:1976. So everybody thinks of Kennedy-Nixon, but actually it's almost like a one-off. in
Speaker:the midst of this and then they don't become regular until the late 1970s. But if you think
Speaker:about presidential debates, not just as the candidates themselves, but say spokespeople
Speaker:on behalf of the candidates, interestingly enough, the very first presidential debate defined
Speaker:that way involves two women. which I think is probably kind of surprising. It happens in
Speaker:1956 and on the program that is quite well known in the US, Face the Nation, so it wasn't a
Speaker:specific debate, it happened on a regularly scheduled TV program, and you have Eleanor
Speaker:Roosevelt speaking on behalf of the Democratic candidate, Adlai Stevenson, and you have Maine
Speaker:Senator Margaret Chase Smith, speaking on behalf of Eisenhower. So if you define presidential
Speaker:debates as being sort of party representatives rather than necessarily the candidates, the
Speaker:very first presidential debate was 1956 and it was two women, which I think is really great.
Speaker:I also think it's really interesting that you had a former First Lady kind of quite actively
Speaker:campaigning. I know Michelle Obama, you saw her at the DNC very recently to this recording
Speaker:and Michelle Obama doesn't actually go out there campaigning, does she? No, no. And I mean,
Speaker:she's been very clear both in interviews, but also in her book, Becoming. She writes very
Speaker:clearly, I don't like politics. I'm not interested in going into politics. I will go out and talk
Speaker:about issues that are important to me. talks about speaking out for people that she knows
Speaker:and people she respects and so on, but she's not driven by politics in the same way. Eleanor
Speaker:Roosevelt was a very different character. She was very engaged with Franklin Roosevelt's,
Speaker:not just the campaign, but his administration. Of course, because he was paralysed as a result
Speaker:of polio and it was difficult for him to travel and so on. you know, she went out and about
Speaker:and met people that he didn't or couldn't or wouldn't. And she sort of fed that back to
Speaker:the administration. So she was, she's an interest, really interesting character in her own right,
Speaker:but continued sort of political engagement long after FDR died. I mean, she was, she was a
Speaker:key figure in the development of the UN, for example, after World War II. So maybe she's
Speaker:somebody that we can talk about in a future episode of the podcast. I think she probably
Speaker:deserves at least an episode of her own. Oh, I would love to do an episode on Eleanor Roosevelt
Speaker:and on FDR as well. I think maybe there's a sort of doubleheader there. I think obviously
Speaker:the two are going to overlap quite a bit. But I'd like to know because you've explained a
Speaker:little bit about some of the reasons around the rules, why it took so long for the second
Speaker:debate. I'm keen to know how popular that first debate was and how the audience figures have
Speaker:changed over time. Funnily enough, the figures haven't changed massively over time. So it's
Speaker:estimated that about 70 million people watched the first Kennedy-Nixon debate in 1960. I mean,
Speaker:it's easy to throw the number out there. 70 million is a huge number. I mean, take any,
Speaker:like the biggest of... TV shows at any moment in time would probably give the right arm for
Speaker:70 million people sitting down and watching it. So we're talking big numbers. And also
Speaker:just for context, that's basically the size of the entire population of the UK, right?
Speaker:Yeah. And probably bigger, of course, than the population size in 1960. Of course. So just
Speaker:to give you, yeah, just to sort of compare that. And actually, if you look at figures over the
Speaker:years that are sort of made publicly available. So something called the Commission on Presidential
Speaker:Debates that was formed in the late 1980s that for many years, up to this year actually, organized
Speaker:the presidential debate. And their website that I think we're going to link to in the show
Speaker:notes has publicly available data on. the number of viewers or estimated viewers for the debates
Speaker:over history. They suggest that numbers haven't changed a huge amount over time. They sort
Speaker:of hover between the low 60 million figure and upwards depending on debate. So the most watched,
Speaker:we were talking about this before we started recording, the most watched... presidential
Speaker:debate in US history to the current point was the first Clinton Trump debate in 2016. And
Speaker:that's about 84 million people. And my understanding is that 84 million doesn't include people who
Speaker:would say, watch it was streaming online or you know, that that's TV viewers, which is
Speaker:huge. I mean, okay, as a percentage of the population, that's probably slightly smaller than the Kennedy
Speaker:Nixon won, but it's still, I mean, there's 84 million households, right? Not just individuals,
Speaker:but households sitting down to watch the presidential debates. And just as a comparison, I mean,
Speaker:I could, there's no point. I could sit and read all the numbers off, but that will bore everybody
Speaker:to tears. But the first Biden Trump debate in 2020 was the third most watched in US history.
Speaker:And that had 73 million people. The one that was so consequential for this election cycle,
Speaker:the one June 2024, again, between Biden and Trump, where Biden just sort of basically,
Speaker:this whole campaign imploded, the estimates for that were about 51 million. So actually,
Speaker:in terms of the number of people who were watching it, live, at least, that was a little bit down.
Speaker:And I think... I think that probably reflects things we've talked about in this podcast before,
Speaker:which is that there was just a general apathy about the election. Fewer people wanted to
Speaker:tune in to watch two old white men basically debate each other in the format that they had
Speaker:debated each other in 2020. As of course we know, it all went unexpectedly wrong for the
Speaker:Biden campaign. And obviously I suspect many more people have seen clips of it since. Exactly.
Speaker:And I think that that's, it's that engagement, that follow up engagement with the debate that
Speaker:is probably more indicative of how much impact that debate has had. And, you know, when you
Speaker:mentioned that, you know, two of the three most watched presidential debates of all time involved
Speaker:Trump, that suggests to me that actually the audiences that they're galvanizing, to tune
Speaker:in live, are people that are already pretty loyal to one candidate or another and are tuning
Speaker:in to cheer that candidate on. And I just wonder how effective the debates are as a piece of
Speaker:live television to sway undecided. Yeah, it's difficult to tell, isn't it? Because there's
Speaker:an interesting thing, the second most watched debate in US history was 1980, which is the
Speaker:first one with Reagan. I find it interesting that those three top ones are with presidential
Speaker:candidates who already had sort of, I guess, a media presence. Reagan was in films, though
Speaker:he'd had a political career since then. And Trump, obviously, we've talked about his background
Speaker:with The Apprentice and sort of his sort of people were familiar with him just from being
Speaker:around in culture. It's hard to tell. I mean, the Pew Research. Center, which is one of the
Speaker:great go-tos for
Speaker:public opinion polls. It's a non-partisan organization that does polls internationally on a whole
Speaker:range of issues. But the last time they asked about presidential debates and who was watching
Speaker:them and whether the people watching them thought that they were useful in thinking about the
Speaker:candidates and deciding who to who to vote for. The last time they asked it, as far as I could
Speaker:see, was 2016, so that first Trump campaign. About 63% of their poll suggested that people
Speaker:were interested and they found them useful in thinking either about the candidates or about
Speaker:the policies that they were following. That number has been fairly steady in the years
Speaker:previously that they had asked. about this. Now, obviously, we know that American politics
Speaker:has become more partisan, it's become more divided, particularly when it comes to kind of presidential
Speaker:level and national level politics. On the ground, a lot of people kind of fall more into the
Speaker:purple zone than into the red or blue one, but national level politics has become increasingly
Speaker:divided, and particularly when you're talking about stuff. with this kind of level of exposure.
Speaker:So whether that might have changed since 2016, it's difficult to tell whether people are watching
Speaker:to see their particular candidate and sort of to cheer them on and to see that their candidate
Speaker:sort of deliver the knockout blow rather than tuning in to hear about policies. It may be
Speaker:that we don't have the evidence either way to suggest, but I mean, that wouldn't be new if
Speaker:you ask people about the most famous moments in the history of presidential debates. It's
Speaker:almost always gaffes that candidates, usually losing ones actually, that have made various
Speaker:points. So this idea of tuning in either to see somebody deliver the knockout blow or alternatively
Speaker:to see whether they're going to fall apart. that in and of itself isn't new. What's new
Speaker:at the moment is of course the partisan context in which it's taking place. And I think what
Speaker:can be so devastating for candidates now, particularly when they make a gaffe in a debate, is just
Speaker:how quickly that can spread and how much that can sort of come to define their campaign because
Speaker:with social media now, if you made a gaffe, back in the 70s, okay, news wires might pick
Speaker:it up and play a little clip on the national news or whatever. Nowadays, within minutes,
Speaker:that is clipped, it's on social media, it's going viral, and many more millions of people
Speaker:that would never have bothered to watch the debate are now very aware that you made a mistake
Speaker:in that debate. Yeah, instant memes, right? And probably... your worst moment or sometimes
Speaker:the good ones. I mean, one of the interesting things about the 2020 campaign, the primary
Speaker:campaign, one of the things that raised Kamala Harris's profile was when she challenged Biden
Speaker:on busing. And that was a similar thing, right? That got clipped and replayed and people showing
Speaker:that. So it can be... good stuff. But I think the nature of our society and politics as it
Speaker:is at the moment is that we have a tendency to go, oh my God, look what they did. That's
Speaker:terrible. Let's share it. Yeah. And actually, with that in mind, I wonder how networks have
Speaker:dealt with the changing expectations that people have on debates now and how that's impacted
Speaker:the way and the look and feel and the execution of presidential debates. Are TV networks having
Speaker:to think a little bit more about trying to get those soundbites and those elements that kind
Speaker:of bring people into the debate? Maybe not live, but at least encouraging them to engage afterwards.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, interestingly, actually, the networks haven't had control over this until this year,
Speaker:actually. So mentioned before the Commission on Presidential Debates. So that was formed
Speaker:in... 1987 by an agreement between the Republican and the Democratic parties that there would
Speaker:be this sort of non-partisan non-profit organization that would be responsible for organizing the
Speaker:debates. They usually have a moderator and actually if you look at the history of the moderators,
Speaker:they cover all of the major networks in the US. So CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, and actually PBS,
Speaker:which people here may not quite know so much about, is the public broadcasting system, which
Speaker:is the closest thing the US has to the BBC, although it's not exactly the same. So those
Speaker:have always been shared around, and particularly since the advent of Fox News, when there have
Speaker:been enough presidential debates, there's always been that sense that, you know, there's one
Speaker:conservative... moderator and sort of the others along the way. But the point of the commission
Speaker:was set up so that the networks didn't have control over it and the format was decided
Speaker:between the campaigns and the parties. And it's varied over time. Famously, for example, in
Speaker:1992, one of the debates like a more kind of town hall type feel. So they didn't have the
Speaker:podiums, they had a live audience and people could, the candidates could walk around and
Speaker:sort of as if they were sort of chatting to people individually. And that's widely considered
Speaker:to have favoured Clinton in 92 and this kind of style that he had of trying to connect with
Speaker:people. Obviously, you've got the famous moment from the 2016. campaign where Trump sort of
Speaker:loomed up behind Hillary Clinton as if like trying to intimidate her that also went viral
Speaker:in terms of those. The numbers have varied year on year, whether they have a, you know, what
Speaker:kind of audience they have. In fact, if you look at them, a lot of them have been held
Speaker:on university campuses, which I think is kind of interesting. So it's a changeable feast.
Speaker:And it's determined or has been at least determined by the commission and the campaigns and the
Speaker:candidates and you know who favors what and how many and set the rules. This year was slightly
Speaker:different. So the Republican National Committee pulled out of the commission in 2022. And it
Speaker:sort of cited a whole range of things, but said that the moderators were biased and also actually
Speaker:that the debates were too late. you know, normally they happen sort of September, October. Of
Speaker:course, the Biden one that we've been talking about was June, which is one I think about
Speaker:the earliest they've ever happened. And part of the reason for that was that a lot of states
Speaker:have early voting. So election days this year is November 5, but a lot of states opened their
Speaker:polls up to 30 days before that. And obviously, if you've got postal votes, then you're voting
Speaker:early as a as well. So there's been an argument in recent years that actually, some of those
Speaker:later presidential debates have been happening after people have already voted. So one of
Speaker:the reasons for having the June one this year was that it would reach people before early
Speaker:voting started. Yeah, I think it's interesting just all of those cogs that are wearing in
Speaker:the backgrounds, sort of making those seemingly... innocuous decisions about the format and the
Speaker:structure and the date of these debates because it is all quite calculated from the campaign
Speaker:teams. I don't know if anyone's ever watched the newsroom, which is the Aaron Sorkin show
Speaker:from the early 2010s. Love it. Absolutely love it. It's a great show and if you haven't, go
Speaker:and watch it. It takes place during the 2012 election, so there's this very dramatised arc
Speaker:in one of the seasons where they're... sort of the news network is trying to win a debate.
Speaker:But there's this sort of real compromise and negotiation happening between the news networks
Speaker:and the parties and to come to this sort of agreement on the rules and the format and the
Speaker:structure and all of these elements so that everyone's happy and it just really got me
Speaker:thinking about, you know, the debates as a campaign tool. You know, they're not really these independent
Speaker:platforms, are they, to grill candidates? No, they're stage managed. Yeah. And, you know,
Speaker:candidates are grilled to within an inch of their lives on these. And, you know, particularly
Speaker:those ones that we've seen more recently where it's been, you have a certain number of minutes
Speaker:to reply, to comment, and then they have a certain number of minutes to reply and respond and
Speaker:etc. Of course they're stage managed. Absolutely. Because... even if they don't have the questions
Speaker:in advance, you kind of have an idea of what sort of topics are going to come up. To reference
Speaker:another Aaron Sorkin series, The West Wing, which came before the newsroom. They have several
Speaker:episodes throughout the series, the seven-year series, where they've got their candidates
Speaker:being prepped for the debates and how that plays out in a kind of
Speaker:rigorously prepared for. I mean, as we're recording this, I mean, by the time this show goes out,
Speaker:they may have resolved it. But just as we're recording this, the current battle that seems
Speaker:to be going on is about the Trump-Harris debate and whether the candidates' microphones are
Speaker:going to be on or off when the other person is speaking. So the agreement with the Biden
Speaker:camp, And what happened in the first debate was that microphones would be off when people
Speaker:weren't speaking. And this seems to have been a response to, I think it was 2020, another
Speaker:viral moment from the 2020 campaign where, you know, Trump is constantly interrupting Biden
Speaker:and Biden quite famously says, will you just shut up, man? He's fed up. You see, he's getting
Speaker:fed up with being interrupted. So the agreements that they had this time was that microphones
Speaker:would be off to stop. that. And the Harris campaign has tried to make a bid to have microphones
Speaker:on permanently. And there's speculation about this, but as a general rule, it's thought that,
Speaker:again, this is about the campaigns, that the Republicans want the microphones off because
Speaker:it stops, it forces Trump to focus and he has that time that is allocated to him. And if
Speaker:he says something outside of that. the audience isn't going to hear it. So it makes him look
Speaker:more focused and on point. The idea that the Harris campaign want that on because they think
Speaker:that what it will show is him with outbursts and rambling on and all the rest of it and
Speaker:they think that's going to help their campaign. So yeah, it's just a little example of exactly
Speaker:what you're talking about in the current circumstances where... the campaigns are trying to work out
Speaker:what format is going to most benefit their particular candidate. Do you think they're almost sort
Speaker:of cutting their nose to spite their face because when it's so tightly controlled, it can almost
Speaker:become boring? Potentially. And you know, if people want effectively car crash TV, right,
Speaker:you know, there's that, that on the sort of edge of your seat, what's gonna happen. But
Speaker:I suppose it depends how you think about them, right? It's sort of, are these debates intended,
Speaker:regardless of what they end up being, are they intended to be spectacles, right? Where you,
Speaker:you know, you watch the two candidates slug it out in whatever format they want. Or are
Speaker:they intended to kind of be some kind of public service in which people get to understand not
Speaker:just who the candidates are, but what they stand for. I think historically at least, some of
Speaker:the reasoning for this was that there's a public service element here, right? That it's, yes,
Speaker:it's an opportunity for the candidates and for the parties to get their platforms out there
Speaker:and say what they, you know, where they stand on policy and, you know, that's it. But it's,
Speaker:you know, there's that informative element. where the balance has been, we all, you know,
Speaker:of course, they've sort of emerged it more into spectacle. They probably always were, right?
Speaker:You know, if it's televised and you've got an audience and you play up to the cameras and,
Speaker:you know, especially in this era of sound bites and all the rest of it, of course, that's part
Speaker:of it. But I think the format of them has always been about trying to manage that and also provide
Speaker:some element where you don't just allow them to go off on whatever tangent they want, that
Speaker:actually it's meant to be informative to the public. So I think there's been a tension between
Speaker:those two things. And have they always got it right? Probably not. But lots of people are
Speaker:still watching, regardless of why they're watching. And even if they do come for the spectacle,
Speaker:they're probably going to hear some stuff about policy as well. Yeah. And I think lots of people
Speaker:are watching, not just in the US, but all over the world. I mean, we're two Brits sat here
Speaker:in the UK talking about US presidential debates. We're not alone there. A lot of people care.
Speaker:And it makes me wonder if now that we're in an age where people want stuff on demand and
Speaker:people aren't necessarily going to watch live, particularly if you're in a different time
Speaker:zone. argument there to think about people coming along like Netflix who are now doing more live
Speaker:content and Amazon Prime and all these other streaming services. Is it only a matter of
Speaker:time before one of them pick up these debates? And how is that going to change the look and
Speaker:feel of it versus a news network running it? Yeah, it's hard to know because the whole point
Speaker:of these, it's in a bit of flux at the moment. So in the years when the Commission for Presidential
Speaker:Debates covered it. The whole point was that this was, like I said, almost like public service
Speaker:broadcasting. This was not for profit. This was public service. And they made the feed
Speaker:of this available to any network that wanted to show it. So it's not about competing. It's
Speaker:not like, oh, ABC's got it this time and Fox News will have the other one. It could show
Speaker:on all of those channels at the same time and historically has at various points. So it's
Speaker:hard to know. I mean, I can see the appeal of something like Netflix or Amazon Prime or either
Speaker:Disney Plus or start running out of streaming services to mention here. I feel like the BBC,
Speaker:right? Other services are available. But I suspect there might be resistance to it simply because
Speaker:of that idea about, you know, is this more, is this about money shaping politics? Is it
Speaker:profit who are doing this rather than companies that are doing it from a public broadcasting
Speaker:situation. And of course, most of them are streamed live anyway. So if you're thinking about an
Speaker:international audience, to the extent that the international audience actually matters, and
Speaker:I have some doubts about how much they're really thinking about the international audience,
Speaker:those things are available anyway via live stream. these days. So you wouldn't necessarily need
Speaker:something like one of the streaming platforms to make it available. So I don't know. I mean,
Speaker:if you think about them as entertainment, you can see that. But I genuinely think there'd
Speaker:be sort of resistance to doing that. And let's look at the June 2024 debate between Trump
Speaker:and Biden. I feel like we need to for a bit in this episode because It hadn't happened
Speaker:when we were first planning to record this. And the answer that I would have had to this
Speaker:question on the podcast, Who cares about presidential debates, would have been, well, not many people
Speaker:outside of a campaign team or that changed this year, didn't it? And so I'm keen to understand
Speaker:what lessons were learned from the Biden-Trump debate because the wheels came off and it ended
Speaker:Biden's campaign, right? Yeah. Yeah, despite his best attempts not to. And I mean, there
Speaker:had been concerns before, right? And I remember the discussion, you know, what would Biden
Speaker:need to do in the debate? It was like, just not mess up, which is hardly a high bar, right?
Speaker:To ask someone to achieve and in the end that didn't happen. I don't know. I think there's
Speaker:something quite specific about this particular election, right? About... We've talked... before,
Speaker:we'll probably talk again, you know, people were not enthusiastic, even the partisans,
Speaker:right, were really not that enthusiastic about a Trump-Biden rematch. And there was just a
Speaker:lot of apathy about the election. And I mean, actually, if you look at the viewing figures
Speaker:for that debate, before anybody knew what was going to happen, right, they were the lowest
Speaker:they've been since, I think, probably since presidential debates started. So the answer
Speaker:to your question, who cares? I mean, 51-ish million people is still a lot of people watching
Speaker:the debate, but it's significantly lower than in previous years, which does sort of suggest
Speaker:that people weren't that interested. Of course, what happened is that things went wrong and
Speaker:it showed up the weaknesses in Biden. And I think obviously more people have seen it since.
Speaker:And it's not the watching it live, it's the kind of the consequences of that. Lessons to
Speaker:be learned. That's hard to say. We've got two more debates coming up, or at least two that
Speaker:have been agreed. One between Trump and Harris and one between Walls and JD Vance. I'm looking
Speaker:forward to that one. I think, yeah. I mean, that just two completely different characters.
Speaker:Yeah. Right. I just think that has the makings of a really interesting one. And actually,
Speaker:interestingly, 2008, when Obama was running the first time, it's the one year that I could
Speaker:find where the vice presidential debate got higher viewing figures than the actual presidential
Speaker:candidates. I do wonder if the, the Wolfsfans one might be the same, the same here. I guess
Speaker:we'll see. But I think we're only going to see the idea of lessons learned or ways in which
Speaker:it shapes them by seeing what happens next. And we haven't seen that yet. And also in terms
Speaker:of format, like I said, we're in slightly uncharted territory at the moment, because both parties
Speaker:have now pulled out from the commission on presidential elections. These ones with networks. And I
Speaker:don't think we yet know what impact that might have on how these are run and organized in
Speaker:the future. So there are a few things to watch out for, I think, going forward. I think maybe
Speaker:then I should reword the question to this episode from who cares about presidential debates to
Speaker:why should candidates care about presidential debates? Because it feels like if you win a
Speaker:debate, or if you have this sort sound bitey moment. People like it, but it doesn't necessarily
Speaker:transform your fortunes. If you have a really bad debate, actually, as we've seen it with
Speaker:Biden, it can end your campaign. So it just feels like the benefits do not outweigh the
Speaker:risks. Certainly a tightrope to be walked. And like I said, some of the famous moments are
Speaker:where candidates got it wrong, which suggests those things are the things that live on in
Speaker:people's memories. But on the other hand, where they do seem to have benefited candidates,
Speaker:and actually this applies a little bit this year given everything that's happened, is to
Speaker:relatively unknown presidential candidates who are running for office. So Kennedy in 1960,
Speaker:Carter in 76, even to some extent Clinton in 92. You know, these were people who, I mean
Speaker:Kennedy, sort of, I guess all of them really, known in a kind of regional area within a small
Speaker:grouping, but didn't necessarily have a national platform. And what the debate did in a way,
Speaker:even campaigns couldn't necessarily, was give them a platform to get themselves known, sometimes
Speaker:just as people, sometimes in terms of the policies. And I think That applies to Harris too. I mean,
Speaker:you know, one of the things that people have been talking about is the fact that despite
Speaker:the fact that she's been vice president for four years, she's relatively unknown to most
Speaker:Americans. And we're seeing the pressure at the moment. Why hasn't she sat down for a TV
Speaker:interview at the moment? Why hasn't she, why is she now saying that she'll sit down for
Speaker:one, but she's bringing a vice presidential candidate along? Is this because she doesn't
Speaker:want to? do it by herself or she can't do it by herself. You have to take all of that with
Speaker:a pinch of salt. This is all driven to some extent by the partisan side of things. But
Speaker:in the same way that the conventions can provide a platform for people, the debates can do that
Speaker:too, especially for candidates who are less well known. And I mean, the one thing that
Speaker:we've not talked about so much is sort of the getting. the presidential debate. So increasingly
Speaker:there are primary debates that are televised now. Again, not entirely new. There are some
Speaker:examples of that happening on small scale, particularly in battleground states in the past. But those
Speaker:are becoming nationally televised as well. So you're getting more and more opportunities
Speaker:to do that. But yeah, I mean, I still think that it is there is a risk to candidates as
Speaker:we saw with Biden this year. And speaking as somebody who finds live public speaking quite
Speaker:terrifying. Because you never quite know, are you going to have a blank moment? Are you going
Speaker:to suddenly forget all the dates or the information that you had? And what if you can't find the
Speaker:right words? Or what if somebody asks you something you weren't prepared for? ramp that up to a
Speaker:massive scale when you're talking about national and international policy. And there's a, yeah,
Speaker:there are real risks there. But at the same time, that ability to respond and to deal with
Speaker:that, you know, it's something that Americans expect of their leaders. And if you're not
Speaker:going to show that in something that is as structured as a presidential debate, then that's going
Speaker:to be significant for people to want to know as well. Yeah, it's a great point to end on.
Speaker:When you look at the rhetoric in response to the Biden-Trump debate, that was part of it.
Speaker:It was a demonstration of just, it was kind of an affirmation of all the doubts that people
Speaker:had in his mental state, I guess, and his ability to lead at that level for another four years.
Speaker:It's weirdly unfortunate as well, because then you see the speech that he gave at the DNC,
Speaker:you know, that very forceful speech. And, you know, the meetings that he had at various times
Speaker:with international leaders, all of whom have no reason to come out and say, oh, yes, yeah,
Speaker:you know, he was he was on top of it and all the rest of it. So, you know, I think I'm pretty
Speaker:sure I've said before on one of these, you know, Biden is clearly somebody who has good days
Speaker:and bad days, right, at this point. And, you know, I think about my parents in particular
Speaker:circumstances, and maybe they have good days and bad days too. The consequences are different,
Speaker:clearly. But at the same time, you know, I think the debate in many ways showed Biden sort of
Speaker:at his worst and on a different day, maybe wouldn't have been. that wouldn't have been quite the
Speaker:same outcome, but it did. And we've seen the fallout of it. Yeah. And by the time this episode
Speaker:goes out, I think it would be just before the next debate, by the time we talk about this
Speaker:again, who knows, maybe after September 10th, the tickets are going to change again. Who
Speaker:knows how. I don't think the system could cope with that. Yeah, unlikely, but. Hey, who'd
Speaker:have thought that the first one would have had the sort of consequences it did? And, you know,
Speaker:I think it shows that there is still a lot of weight to the presidential debates and clearly
Speaker:a lot of people still do care about it when we consider the sort of very recent impacts
Speaker:that it's had. But thank you, Emma, for joining me on this episode to sort of give a bit more
Speaker:of the history behind that. Really interesting to understand more about, you know, how the
Speaker:debate started and how they evolved into what we know. they are today. So thank you so much
Speaker:Emma and to anyone listening, if you do want to find out a little bit more about presidential
Speaker:debates, we can put some links in the show notes for you to do just that. And Emma, if anyone
Speaker:wants to connect with you, where can they do that? Oh, as regular listeners will know, I'm
Speaker:not on social media. So if you search for my name at UEA, you'll find my email address is
Speaker:probably the best way to... get in touch and thank you for inviting me on. It's always a
Speaker:pleasure. Oh, it's always great, Emma. And you can find me on X as well. This is the Heff
Speaker:and on LinkedIn. And of course, you can find the show on Patreon. We are on there. So if
Speaker:you do want to support the show, we're going to record some bonus content straight after
Speaker:this that you'll find only on Patreon. So do check us out on there. And if you're listening
Speaker:to this podcast, which obviously you are, give us a rating and a review. Only takes a few
Speaker:seconds and it will. really help us and help other people find the show as well. Thank you
Speaker:very much and goodbye.
