In every presidential election year since 1976, the main contenders have had at least two debates; in many years, there have been three.
However, we might only get one between the two nominees in 2024, now that former President Donald Trump has announced he will not debate President Kamala Harris again, claiming the original ABC debate was “rigged” against him.
That’s not good enough. If this is indeed the most important election of our lives — as both campaigns and almost every commentator say it is — voters still need to hear more. Eighteen percent of voters still have not decided whether to vote for Trump or Harris.
But if there are additional debates, a few things need to change to give both candidates a fair shake and all voters more clarity on where both Trump and Harris stand on the most critical issues facing the country.
It was widely noted that the moderators of the ABC News debate — David Muir and Linsey Davis — fact-checked Trump five times while not fact-checking Harris at all.
That wasn’t their job.
Earlier this year, I spoke with Frank Fahrenkopf, the co-chair of the nonprofit Commission on Presidential Debates. He helped oversee every presidential debate since 1988 until the Republican National Commission backed out of this year’s scheduled commission-sponsored debates.
According to Fahrenkopf, moderating a debate is a fundamentally different exercise than a journalist interviewing a candidate. “The moderator is not a fact checker,” he said. If a candidate says something inconsistent with their prior position, it’s the responsibility of the other candidate to point it out.
A second Harris-Trump debate should feature hosts who are there only to facilitate discussion. Hosts from several different news networks should also be present to avoid any charges of bias.
No one should expect a debate to cover every issue. Yet, the ABC News debate featured no — or only cursory — discussion of several of America’s most profound foreign and domestic problems.
What do Harris and Trump plan to do about the fact that China, Russia and Iran are aggressively challenging the U.S. world order at a moment when our “military lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat?” That frightening conclusion comes from a just-released report from the bipartisan Commission on National Defense Strategy.
During the ABC News debate, Muir asked Trump if he believed it was in the best interest of the U.S. “for Ukraine to win this war” against Russia. What did not get asked — and which voters don’t have a good answer to — is how Trump or Harris defines a good outcome in Ukraine. Harris says she will “stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies.” Trump says he can end the conflict “in a day.” On what terms and with what specific goals in mind? Voters deserve an answer.
The most glaring omission in the first debate — and throughout this campaign — is a discussion of what either candidate would do about America’s rapidly deteriorating finances. This year’s deficit could clear $2 trillion; our accumulated national debt is now higher than at any time since World War II, and Washington is spending more to cover the interest on our debt than on our defense budget.
Trump and Harris have yet to articulate a solution to this problem and are instead offering the most giveaways since Oprah gave everyone in her studio audience a free car.
Both Trump and Harris support making tips tax-free and expanding the child tax credit. Trump says he wants no taxes on overtime pay or Social Security benefits as well, to extend his previously passed individual tax cuts and lower corporate tax rates, and now he is also offering to lift the cap on state and local tax deductions. He also wants the federal government to subsidize fertility treatments.
For her part, Harris supports a tax credit for first-time homebuyers, an expanded earned income tax credit, a larger first-year deduction for startup businesses, cancellation of medical debt, enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies, guaranteed family and medical leave, larger federal subsidies for childcare and dental and vision coverage through Medicare.
Any of these policies is defensible — some are even desirable — on its own. But when the Wharton School recently modeled the overall fiscal impact of the candidate’s policies, they found Harris would expand the debt by an additional $1.2 to $2 trillion over ten years, whereas Trump’s plan would tack on between $4.1 and $5.8 trillion.
This invites the obvious question that must be answered at a second debate: “How — and please give specifics — will you pay for all this?” If either candidate thinks we don’t need to pay for his or her plan, and that America can just keep racking up debt indefinitely, we deserve to know that, too.
Debates aren’t a perfect format, and the skills required to perform on the stage aren’t the same as those needed to run a country. However, debates are still the closest thing to a job interview for president. They are singular moments when candidates can make their case to tens of millions of voters and we deserve at least one more presidential debate with a more neutral format and more serious questions than the last.
Ryan Clancy is the chief strategist for No Labels.