Get ready for tonight’s presidential debate

The last time there was a presidential debate, the entire election changed.

That’s not hyperbole.

President Joe Biden literally dropped out of the race not long after his disastrous debate in late June. His performance started a wildfire of calls for him to exit the race, something he ended up doing 28 days later.

And so tonight, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will debate for the first, and maybe only, time. ABC News will host the event in Philadelphia with “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir and ABC News Live “Prime” anchor Linsey Davis serving as moderators.

While no one is expected to drop out after tonight, it certainly could go a long way in deciding the next president of the United States.

The Washington Post’s Tyler Pager and Josh Dawsey wrote, “And yet for all the attacks they have exchanged, Harris and Trump have never met. The event is likely to draw the largest audience for either candidate before November, and both sides agree that the faceoff, hosted by ABC News, carries unusually high stakes, given the campaign’s compressed timetable and the fact that polls show it is essentially tied.”

Pager and Dawsey report that Harris has been hunkered down in a downtown Pittsburgh hotel having an intense “debate camp,” while Trump “spent much of the weekend at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., opting for ‘policy sessions’ with aides and allies instead of traditional practice runs.” Those sessions included reviewing Harris’ record and how to respond if Harris attacks his character.

We’ll get to ABC in a moment, but the pressure is mostly on the candidates.

For Harris? NPR’s Elena Moore writes, “Harris has mostly campaigned from the trail in her brief time as a presidential contender — excluding a single sit-down interview with CNN at the end of August. She has also struggled in the past with unscripted moments as vice president, which will put the spotlight on her ability to perform in a debate while also laying out some of her platform and going on the offensive against Trump.”

And yet, Harris will certainly be a much more formidable debater than Biden was in June, and is unlikely to let Trump get away with many of the lies that went unchecked when he debated Biden. And as a former prosecutor, Harris likely will be more effective in going after Trump.

In a pre-recorded interview for “The Rickey Smiley Morning Show,” a syndicated radio show, Harris said she is prepping for “untruths” from Trump, adding, “There’s no floor for him in terms of how low he will go. And we should be prepared for that. We should be prepared for the fact that he is not burdened by telling the truth.”

There’s also pressure on the third party of this debate: ABC News.

Rick Klein, the network’s political director, told The New York Times’ Michael M. Grynbaum, “Our job is to meet the moment, and it’s a huge moment and a humbling moment. Nothing that’s said about us or anyone else matters once the light goes on and the cameras are rolling.”

As I mentioned in Monday’s newsletter, there will always be a, well, debate about whether or not moderators should get involved when fact-checking candidates in real time. Is that the moderators’ responsibility? Or is it up to each candidate to check the other? Is it both?

Grynbaum asked Klein if there is a role for fact-checking from the network during a debate.

Klein told him, “I don’t think it’s a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ proposition. We’re not making a commitment to fact-check everything, or fact-check nothing, in either direction. We’re there to keep a conversation going, and to facilitate a good solid debate, and that entails a lot of things in terms of asking questions, moving the conversation along, making sure that it’s civilized.”

That answer might not satisfy a lot of people who believe that part of a moderator’s job is to fact-check.

But more important than the fact-checking will be the questions asked by Muir and Davis. Will they grill the candidates on if they’ve flip-flopped on past positions? Will they ask Trump about his continued false allegations of rigged elections? How much will they ask Harris about President Joe Biden?

Mostly, how much will they ask about policy and how much will they ask about character?

The editorial board of The Philadelphia Inquirer (the paper in the host city of tonight’s debate) wrote, “Harris’ every response and clothing choice will be hyper-analyzed as she is pressed on a wide variety of issues, including crime, taxes, immigration, and abortion. But parsing Harris’ policy positions and pantsuit preferences seems trivial given her opponent lacks the character, temperament, and fitness to be president. That’s why the biggest challenge on Tuesday falls to the debate moderators at ABC News, and subsequently the media at large. Will ABC’s Linsey Davis and David Muir press Trump to give substantive responses to their questions?”

Here are a few other notable pieces to check out heading into tonight’s debate …

• The New York Times’ Peter Baker with “As Debate Looms, Trump Is Now the One Facing Questions About Age and Capacity.” Baker writes, “At 78, former President Donald J. Trump exhibits more energy and speaks with more volume than President Biden does at 81, but he, too, has mixed up names, confused facts and stumbled over his points. Mr. Trump’s rambling speeches, sometimes incoherent statements and extreme outbursts have raised questions about his own cognitive health and, according to polls, stimulated doubts among a majority of voters.”
• The New York Times’ Jess Bidgood with “How Trump Has Used Debates to Belittle Women.” Bidgood wrote, “Mr. Trump has, of course, treated men with intense bellicosity, launching a blizzard of interruptions against President Biden during their first debate in 2020 and lobbing personal insults at the likes of Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz during the primary in 2016. But a review of his onstage clashes with women shows how, over nine years in politics, he has honed a playbook of explicitly gendered attacks against both female candidates and journalists that he is likely to draw from on Tuesday when he debates Vice President Kamala Harris. Mr. Trump has used his physical presence and body language to intimidate women, made veiled threats, complained that they were uniquely mean and belittled their qualifications in a way that many women view as open sexism.”
• The Associated Press’ Jill Colvin with “What the Trump-Clinton debates might tell us about Tuesday’s match with Harris.”
• Politico’s Alex Isenstadt and Meridith McGraw with “Trump’s debate playbook: Call the rules ‘rigged’ and undermine the moderators.”
• McClatchy’s David Lightman with “Kamala Harris’ main goals in the debate with Donald Trump. Look presidential, keep her cool.”

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Tom Terrible or Tom Terrific?

OK, so I promised myself not to delve too deep into reviews for Tom Brady’s first game as an NFL announcer. After all, to repeat, Sunday was his first game. How good is anybody doing something for the first time?

But when you’re the greatest quarterback who has ever lived and a network has signed you to a 10-year, $375-million contract, and you’re scheduled to call the Super Bowl in five months, it’s not completely unfair to see how you did in your opening game in the booth.

And for Brady, it could have gone better.

The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand summed it up pretty well: “Tom Brady — the 47-year-old, seven-time Super Bowl champion — sounded like a rookie out of the gate Sunday. His syntax was stilted. His interesting thoughts were limited. It was a bit awkward.”

Yeah, that’s a good way to describe it. He sounded like a rookie. I’ll add a rookie with promise.

Social media was much harsher. (Isn’t it always?) While I went in pulling for Brady to do well, it wasn’t as good as I had hoped, but it wasn’t as bad as many made it out to be.

The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch wrote, “Brady came off as someone attempting to learn the craft in real time. That’s not a criticism. It’s just reality. He first spoke on-air at 4:23 p.m. ET with the usual scene-setter stuff and was very deliberate over the first quarter. Everything felt a little slow, with him and (play-by-play announcer Kevin) Burkhardt still finding a conversation rhythm. Brady got more comfortable as the broadcast continued, and I’d expect that to be the pattern as the season continues. If you desperately want me to grade him, I’d give him 2 1/4 goats out of four. Fox will take that for his first regular-season game.”

Brady is nowhere near Super Bowl-ready, but as USA Today’s Chris Bumbaca wrote, “… this was by no means a disaster for Brady or Fox.”

Brady’s first-game reviews are also compounded by the fact that he will get compared to the other top (and really good) analysts on other networks — Troy Aikman (ESPN), Tony Romo (CBS) and Cris Collinsworth (NBC). He also is getting compared to Fox Sports’ Greg Olsen, who was demoted from the top broadcasting team at Fox to No. 2 to make room for Brady. Olsen is a big fan favorite and won a Sports Emmy for his work last season.

Marchand wrote, “While in today’s social media environment, it can feel like a person has five seconds to make a first impression, in reality, Fox and Brady just need Brady to build during the season so he is at his best when the playoffs and Super Bowl come around.”

Zero nominations

The 2024 Country Music Awards nominations came out Monday and there was one name curiously missing: Beyoncé.

Back in March, Beyoncé put out a 27-track album called “Cowboy Carter,” which featured hit songs “Texas Hold ’Em” and “16 Carriages.” As CBS News’ Mary Cunningham noted, the album “broke streaming records upon its release, becoming Spotify's most-streamed album in a single day in 2024 and earning the title of most first-day streams of a country album by a female artist on Amazon Music.”

In addition to that, The New York Times’ Ben Sisario wrote, “The album — with a cover picturing Beyoncé as a red-white-and-blue rodeo queen, riding a horse sidesaddle and hoisting an American flag — was a cultural phenomenon, stirring debates and extensive news media coverage about the historical role of African Americans in country music and their continuing struggles to be accepted by the Nashville establishment.”

Yet Beyoncé was left out of the nomination for “Album of the Year,” “Single of the Year” and “Entertainer of the Year.”

Sisario wrote, “But the snub was not unexpected. Eight years ago, Beyoncé got a cool reception at the 2016 CMAs when she performed her song ‘Daddy Lessons’ with the Chicks (then still known as the Dixie Chicks). That experience apparently played a role in Beyoncé’s decision to make a country album, with the star saying that ‘Cowboy Carter’ was ‘born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed … and it was very clear that I wasn’t. But, because of that experience, I did a deeper dive into the history of Country music and studied our rich musical archive.’”

Sisario also noted that the album “was given only limited promotion on country radio stations, where the industry often signals its preferences and choices. While ‘Texas Hold ’Em’ went to No. 1 on Billboard’s main country chart — as well as its all-genre Hot 100 chart — its success was driven by streaming and downloads. On Billboard’s country airplay chart, a more telling barometer for any performer’s success in the more specific arena of the country establishment, ‘Texas Hold ’Em’ stalled at No. 33, and her remake of Dolly Parton’s classic ‘Jolene’ never made it higher than No. 56.”

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the CMAs are voted on by members of the Country Music Association, which includes artists, executives, songwriters, musicians, publicists, touring personnel and other industry professionals.

Bianca Betancourt, the culture editor at Harper’s Bazaar, wrote, “Whether you’re a die-hard Beyoncé fan or not, there is no debating the musical, lyrical, and vocal excellence of Cowboy Carter. To me, such a blatant snub only tells me the CMA nomination committee members couldn’t bear the thought of a Black woman who doesn’t fit their idea of a country star sweeping the biggest categories of the night — so they opted not to recognize her at all.”

Vox’s Aja Romano wrote, “While there may be some logistical arguments behind the industry’s snub of Beyoncé that have nothing to do with identity, the CMA has a noticeable pattern of erasing and sidelining Black women, even in their own art. Beyoncé is actively aware of this gatekeeping; ‘Cowboy Carter’ is built on the marginalized contributions of centuries of Black artists that came before her. It’s hardly any wonder she distanced herself and her album from the country establishment from the start; she likely knew well before the rest of us that the CMAs were never going to let her in the door — even with the entire world clamoring for her to be let in.”

Media tidbits

• Jorge Ramos, one of the most respected journalists in Spanish-language television, will leave Univision at the end of the year, ending a 40-year run with the network. TelevisaUnivision, which operates Univision, said in a statement that Ramos and the network “mutually agreed not to renew their soon-to-expire contract agreement.” The New York Times’ Jesus Jiménez has more.
• My Poynter colleague Roy Peter Clark with “A eulogy for America’s greatest living obit writer — Robert McFadden.”
• And here’s McFadden with “James Earl Jones, Actor Whose Voice Could Menace or Melt, Dies at 93.”
• CNN’s Brian Stelter with “The Washington Post is giving its homepage a facelift as it seeks a turnaround.”
• The Washington Post’s Philip Bump with “Rumors about an Ohio town show the scale of the right-wing bubble.”
• The New York Times’ Benjamin Mullin and Rob Copeland report that Jamie Heller, the business editor of The Wall Street Journal, is expected to be named editor-in-chief of Business Insider.
• Sally Buzbee, the former executive editor of The Associated Press and, more recently, The Washington Post, has been named a Visiting Nieman Fellow at Harvard University for two months, beginning in mid-September.
• Semafor’s Ben Smith with “OffBall launches as new sports culture brand.”
• Natalie Korach is moving from TheWrap to Vanity Fair to cover the media.

Hot type

• The New York Times’ Mike Baker with “To the World, He Is an Anti-Trafficking Hero. Women Tell a Different Story.”
• The Marshall Project’s Shoshana Walter with “She Ate a Poppy Seed Salad Just Before Giving Birth. Then They Took Her Baby Away.”

More resources for journalists

• Lead With Influence is for leaders who manage big responsibilities but have no direct reports. Apply soon!
• Understand critical aspects of the swiftly evolving AI landscape at Level Up.
• Find compelling climate change stories on any beat at Beat Academy.

Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected].