What to Expect from the Biden-Trump Debate, with the Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin

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Susan Glasser
I just got a glimpse, finally last night of the suppressed docudrama on Trump called the Apprentice.

Evan Osnos
That's right.

Susan Glasser
And I just can't believe that they can't find someone to show it in America. Apparently distributors are really afraid of showing it in this country, but it's all about Trump's relationship and how he got trained up by Roy Cohn. It's a lot of fun. Jeremy strong is fantastic as Roy Cohn.

Evan Osnos
Who does he play?

Susan Glasser
He plays Roy Cohn. He's really good as him.

Susan Glasser
Can't wait to see it. So can you get us a bootleg copy chain? What about our listeners? Our loyal listeners need a copy, Susan.

Susan Glasser
I mean, since you're calling in from Brussels, you can see this film in Europe, but you can't see it in America. Isn't that unbelievable?

Susan Glasser
Wow. Aren't we going to Europe to escape from the omnipresent Orange man? You know, you go see a movie.

Evan Osnos
About Trump, let's be honest, you're never fully escaped. He's always there.

Welcome to the political scene, a weekly discussion about the big questions in american politics. I'm Evan Osnos, and I'm joined, as ever, by my colleagues Jane Mayer and Susan Glasser. Hi, Jane.

Susan Glasser
Hi, Evan.

Evan Osnos
And. Hi, Susan.

Susan Glasser
Hey, guys. Great to be with you.

Joe Biden
Sure. Because here's the deal. Here's the deal. The fact is that everything he's saying so far is simply a lie. I'm not here to call out his lies. Everybody knows he's a liar but you. I just want to make sure that.

I want to make sure first in your house, the question is justice. Radical left, would you show. Listen, who is on your list? Joe, this is unpacking the court.

WNYC Studios
We have.

Joe Biden
Then we have ended this segment. We're going to move on to the second segment. That was really a productive segment, wasn't it?

Keep yapping, man.

Susan Glasser
I've got PTSD just from thinking about it.

Susan Glasser
Yeah, here we go again.

Evan Osnos
Well, that was, I think, as people will painfully recall, that was some very chippy, edgy audio from the first time that Donald Trump and Joe Biden got on this debate stage together back in 2020. Next week, those two will once again face off in a debate and that's the first. We've never had this before in modern american politics since the advent of televised debates. Certainly have. We had a, a rematch like this, much less a rematch that, let's face it, a majority of the country would rather not see. So with the race basically tied right now, five months before the election, the question I think we're all considering is, will this debate actually matter? What determines when a debate is consequential or when it's largely ignored? And what can history tell us about these important questions?

Susan, I want to start with you. Can you lay out, as you see them, the stakes for Biden and for Trump, in this case, in the lead up to this debate? What are you going to be watching for?

Susan Glasser
Evan? First of all, it's going to be a herculean effort for all of us to watch, knowing what we know about how challenging this could be. There's no question. Listening to that audio from four years ago is to listen to probably the worst presidential debate ever to take place in history. So theres potentially no floor for these two. Theyre both four years older in many ways. I think theyre both weaker going into this debate and were going to see the consequences of that four years later. I am really struck by the fact that Biden in particular comes in without the cushion of a lead in the polls that he had in the fall of 2020, without the advantage of being an outsider in a country eager for change. Once again, the country wants change, but now he's the incumbent. And Trump is also playing, I think, a pretty weak hand in this election. There is, of course, that felony conviction that is just a few weeks old at this point. And, you know, I think that the timing of this debate is very interesting. It's the earliest presidential debate ever in modern debates in a way that may insulate each of the candidates from the negative consequences of a screw up. So perhaps they both had an incentive to join in on this. But I don't know.

I wish I was watching with you guys.

Evan Osnos
Jane, what are you going to be looking for?

Susan Glasser
Well, I mean, you know, we've got a divided country and a kind of frozen race. And I'm watching to see if it shakes it up. I'm watching to see whether Biden can get out from under the picture of him thats been painted by Trump and the republican party claiming that hes not up to the job. And I think theres a lot of pressure on him to perform and prove theyre wrong.

Evan Osnos
Well, I do think that if anybodys wondering whether debates matter, the truth is that the history on this is pretty eloquent, which is that they do matter in very tight contests. And this is quite literally one of the tightest contests we can imagine. I mean, if you go back historically, I was talking to a professor named Mitchell McKinney, who studied all this stuff over the decades. And he says basically that if you look at it, it comes down to about three, four, 5% of the people who watch debates who ultimately either change their mind about who they're gonna support or decide that they're gonna vote at all. And in a race like this, which is, you know, neck and neck, that could be decisive. What do you think, Jane, in terms of when you think back on that, and this is a painful exercise, but think back on that 2020 debate, what stands out to you that might be relevant since it is, after all, the closest we get to a preview of what we're about to get?

Susan Glasser
Well, I mean, it was an incredibly nasty, out of control debate where they basically was like a schoolyard fight especially. I mean, Trump was just acting in a way that you dont recognize as even remotely presidential. So, I mean, im just wondering if the noob format is going to be able to control that kind of zoo like behavior.

Evan Osnos
Susan, didnt they, in that second debate in 2020, they did introduce an element that allowed them to turn off the microphone of the person who wasnt being asked a question that actually did make that second debate something more orderly. How do you expect this time, which does have some more stringent restrictions, to be different than that sort of free for all World Wrestling Federation thing we saw the first time?

Susan Glasser
Well, it's not going to be as different as we might like it to be in the sense that the combatants are the same. And also the stakes are so very high. And I think that's going to up the voltage for both Trump and Biden. Jane's right. The unpresidential line that Biden used was the one that really most people remember from that. I think it did make a difference. At least it cemented Biden's lead. It had him as kind of the narrator for the whole country saying like, come on, man, you know, won't you just shut up? Like, this is so unpresidential in a way that kind of summed it up. Biden, however, even four years ago, did struggle to make his own point. He struggled to break through the flood of words from Donald Trump. And I think that would be a challenge this time, again, whatever the rules are, because that's just who Trump is. We know he's a rambler. He's not going to answer the question with a noun and a verb and a period in a sentence because that's not what he does. The other thing, though, that I'll be listening for is for the unintentionally revealing moment from Donald Trump. Because the other line that I think will go down in history from the 2020 1st debate was Donald Trump's line in which he was talking about is already his complaints about the ballots in the election and the mail in votes and all this. And he said prophetically, unfortunately, this is.

Joe Biden
Not going to end well.

WNYC Studios
There is no end of this is.

Susan Glasser
Not Vice President Biden, this being the election. And to me, that's sort of the, you know, he's telling us in plain sight, even in September of 2020.

Evan Osnos
But, you know, it's interesting. I thought you were going to say something else, Susan, which is the line when he was asked about the proud boys.

Susan Glasser
That's what I was saying.

Evan Osnos
And of course, he said, stand back and stand by.

WNYC Studios
Why would you like me to condemn?

Right.

Joe Biden
Probably stand back and stand by, which.

Evan Osnos
Was this really haunting moment, particularly in light of what happened on January 6, I should say. By the way, Jane, there's not going to be a studio audience this time. That is a difference from how these things have been in the past. How much do you think that changes the mechanics and the vibe in the room?

Susan Glasser
I think a lot. You can certainly understand why the Biden team, in negotiating the rules, wanted to get rid of the audience because the Trump audience is, you know, wild and disrupted things on his behalf. And it makes it very, you know, kind of a circus like atmosphere. So, I mean, I think the result will be very interesting because it means its possible to really force Trump to have to answer substantive questions. The truth is, if you think about both of these men recently, neither of them have really answered a whole lot of questions. Bidens done some press conferences, so hes done more than Trump. But Trump especially, he really hasnt put himself in a position much other than maybe that Time magazine interview to really face the press.

Both of them are surrounded by sycophants, probably Trump even more so. And so, you know, this is an opportunity to really press him in a way that he's not used to.

Evan Osnos
On substance, I am really struck by how it is that when you put two people side by side on a stage as much as they are present in our lives, there is just something really specific and sometimes quite powerful. And in cases we'll talk about in this show, it can be almost dispositive. Just having those two physical presence is there, having them respond to questions, it really can go in some surprising ways. Is that right? Susan?

Susan Glasser
Yeah. Evan. And I think your point is so smart. Who is the audience for this debate? Not the live audience, but the viewing audience. It's a very, very small, very specific segment of Americans, let's be real, that eight years into this, pretty much every single other person in America has made up their mind about Donald Trump and Joe Biden in ways that are largely immovable. Not completely, but largely immovable. And I do think Trump, I'm curious what this plays right into the questions, escalating questions about Biden and his age and his fitness for four more years in office, the right has been going nuts with out of context clips and the like of Biden, but they've also set up this weird expectations game for the debate, haven't they? Where, you know, if Biden can clear the threshold of not being a dimension ridden, senile old guy, that maybe he wins by benefit of Trump's strategy to demean and diminish him. Evan, do you have a sense of how they're going to handle that issue? The Biden team?

Evan Osnos
Well, you know, in some ways, this is going to put to the test what is this recurring and deeply held view by Joe Biden, which is, he says, as you guys know, don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative. There is simply never going to be a more vivid moment to actually press that question than on this debate stage.

Susan Glasser
I mean, we know what the Trump team's already doing to prepare the ground in case Trump looks bad and Biden looks good. There are already floating rumors that Biden's taking some kind of controlled substance, performance enhancing drugs.

Evan Osnos
Well, look, if he wins the 100 meters dash, then we'll have drug tests look in all kinds of ways. I think that what we've learned about the meaning and the importance of debates really can be traced back to the very beginning of when presidential debates went on television for the first time. That has some real insights for us, and we have the ideal guest to explore that with us. Coming up. The great Doris Kearns Goodwin joins us after the break.

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WNYC Studios
Hello, everybody.

Evan Osnos
Hi, Doris. Welcome.

Susan Glasser
Hi there.

WNYC Studios
Thank you. I'm glad to be with you.

Evan Osnos
Joining us now is the historian, biographer, and the author of a Shelf full of bestsellers, including, most recently, an Unfinished Love story, a personal history, the 1960s. Doris Kearns Goodwin. In the book, she recounts watching the 1960 debate between Nixon and Kennedy with her husband, Dick Goodwin, who helped Kennedy prepare for it. Doris, in your new book, you've gone back and you've looked in real detail at the first televised presidential debate in american history. It was 1960.

Joe Biden
Good evening. The television and radio stations of the United States and their affiliated stations are proud to provide facilities for a discussion of issues in the current political campaign by the two major candidates for the presidency. The candidates need no introduction. The republican candidate, Vice President Richard M. Nixon, and the democratic candidate, Senator John F. Kennedy.

Evan Osnos
And in the book, you call it an event that would, as you say, forever alter the course of modern presidential politics.

How did it do so? Why is it so important?

WNYC Studios
The reason it's so important is really, it was the first event that showcased the impact of television on presidential races.

Joe Biden
According to rules set by the candidates themselves, each man shall make an opening statement of approximately eight minutes duration and a closing statement of approximately three minutes duration. In between, the candidates will answer or comment upon answers to questions put by a panel of correspondents.

WNYC Studios
I mean, just think about before that. You know, in the 19th century, most people would see only a posed picture of the candidates. The candidates didn't even generally go around the country. It didn't seem to be dignified. And now you're actually watching them up against one another. And it changed the whole mood of the campaign.

Joe Biden
In the election of 1860, Abraham Lincoln said the question was whether this nation could exist half slave or half free.

In the election of 1960, and with the world around us, the question is whether the world will exist half slave or half free.

WNYC Studios
It's unclear what we know about. Did it change the election? The election was so close that anything could have changed it. But what is clear, my husband was the young speechwriter working with Ted Sorensen during the days before the debate. And then when we decided to watch this debate together, we watched it on YouTube as if we had never seen it before. It was really fun. We had a glass, we had a bottle of wine and drank it and thought, oh, who's going to win? But at any rate, the most important thing that happened was that afterwards, when Kennedy went back on the trail, his crowds had quadrupled and there were people screaming, breaking the barricades. He had become, really the first political celebrity. That's what being in a box on television can do. So I think that's why it changed the course of the country.

Susan Glasser
And was Nixon as sallow and bad as people have said? I mean, I gather if you didn't see him, you might even have a different impression of the whole debate. Is that really true when you looked at it?

WNYC Studios
I mean, what was true? Yes, they did say that if you listen to it on the radio, you scored pretty easily the points against Kennedy if it was a debating contest.

Joe Biden
Now, when we look at these programs, might I suggest that in evaluating them, we often have a tendency to say that the test of a program is how much you're spending.

I will concede that in all the areas to which I refer, Senator Kennedy would have the federal government spend more than I would have it spend.

WNYC Studios
But watching the two of them, it wasn't only that that Nixon didn't look well, that he was sweating, that he wore an indistinct suit that sort of meshed into the background, whereas Kennedy was sitting up straight and wore a dark suit and looked so much better. It was also that there was just more vitality when you watched the two of them together rather than just listening to their voices, because Nixon was trying to be conciliatory. They had told him, don't be the assassin. Don't be the assassin. So he just seemed to let Kennedy be equal to him in stature. He was vice president, after all. Kennedy had to appear mature, experienced, used a lot of facts. I mean, this is what's heartbreaking when you think about the problem of facts today. What was so impressive about Kennedy was he could reel off facts that created a story, and the facts were truly facts. So it showed that he had experience, that he had knowledge.

Susan Glasser
You know, one of the things I loved in your description in the book of watching it with your husband is the little details of having been there and the idea that Kennedy was memorizing these facts that you're talking about. And, you know, you had a stack of note cards that his team had given, given him to prepare, and one by one, he would sit there and memorize it and then throw them on the floor. And, you know, just, you have the sense of almost a pro athlete, really, at the top of his game. What do you take away from that and also from this, obviously, the youthful vigor that Kennedy was able to project both in person and on the small screen.

What does that tell you about a presidential debate with two candidates who are in some ways at the opposite ends of their careers?

WNYC Studios
Yeah, I mean, I think that's really important, because Kennedy did seem like a young athlete who had mastered his game. He worked hard on it. I mean, he was days and days in preparing. And I loved, like you did, the image of him throwing the cards after he had memorized these three life cards on the floor, and it looked like solitaire, you know, just going out on the floor. But he was relaxed because he had prepared so well, whereas Nixon was in seclusion that day. And he really didn't talk to very many people and just thought he was going to win because he was a better debater. He thought. And he thought Kennedy spoke too fast and would talk above the people. But Kennedy had been learning through the campaign. That was the impressive thing about him, just watching and listening to my husband's description of him at the beginning. He would talk too fast, and he would leave the stage too quickly, almost as if he were a student wanting to get back to his seat. But then he would ask the reporters, how did I do? Where did I lose them? And it was that willingness to be vulnerable and then learn. In fact, one of my favorite scenes in the whole debate thing is that after it was over, and Dick is young, he's in his twenties. He's so excited. They're back on the plane, and they're relaxing. And John Kennedy's way of relaxing was with tomato soup and beer, a rather weird combination, but he loved that. And they were just going through the debate again. Where could I have done better? And Dick is so young.

He said, this is too cool. We've won. We've won. Don't you realize it's over? It's over, you know? And Kennedy just smiled, and he said, well, we better get some sleep and be ready for tomorrow. And then next week, there'll be another debate on the cold War and foreign policy. He was a veteran. He knew this wasn't the end of it all, but Dick certainly felt it.

Susan Glasser
That night, I was amazed in reading your description that he was so relaxed before the debate that in the afternoon he took a nap. I mean, I wonder if any other politicians are so chill.

Evan Osnos
I think to Susan's point, and Doris, you touched on this. That calm was a kind of engineered image. It was. He was very mindful and very knowledgeable about what the peculiar opportunities and demands of television provided. And that was the product of a lot of. He was grinding it out in anticipation, whereas Nixon, and I'm not trying to draw too much of a present illusion, but Nixon thought, I've got this.

I know how debates work. And as a result, he was unprepared.

WNYC Studios
I think that's absolutely right. I mean, preparation is what gives you that sense of confidence. And for days, they've been going through this so that he could relax. At that afternoon. I mean, Dick went back into the room because he had left some of his notes there, and he was so afraid he would wake him up and it would all be over. But somehow he creeped in and crept out. Okay. But he even rested his voice in those last days. He would write on yellow pads the questions he wanted to ask Dick and Ted and the other people who were working with him, instead of using his voice, except for the memorized questions. And we have some of those notes on yellow pads that we found in the boxes that we went through with Dick, you know, about what he was going to say. So it was fun to just be in that minute. You're right. Just to be able to recreate it and live back in 1960. It's a great thing when you're in your seventies or eighties and you can go back to be young again.

Susan Glasser
I was struck, too, by the fact that JFK, in your recounting of it, actually corrected Ted Sorensens introduction because he thought it was too long winded for television. He had a great sense, I guess, of what the new medium required, which was sort of quicker sound bites.

Joe Biden
Therefore, I think the question before the american people is, are we doing as much as we can do? Are we as strong as we should be? Are we as strong as we must be if we're going to maintain our independence?

Susan Glasser
I mean, the one thing that I think you have to say about Trump, just to take a look at the current situation, is because of all those years on the apprentice, hes someone who knows how to do tv, and hes an entertainer almost. And I wonder how much of an advantage that can be for him.

WNYC Studios
Well, you know, especially in the last couple debates, it did become a circus and an entertainment spectacle. And Trump understood the importance of how to do that. Although it seemed to me he played his hands, overplayed his hand in 2020, you know, wanting to somehow establish himself as the person in charge, constantly hectoring Biden, constantly interrupting him. And it seemed like what we read at the time was that people really didn't like that. You know, they felt that it wasn't fair and that he didn't do himself any good. And the Republicans even said he seemed to overdo it. But he does have a sense of it. He does have a sense of one liners. He does have a sense of combat. He did have a sense. He thought of, of controlling the situation. Even with Hillary, when he was looming behind her in the chair, I remember hearing her say one time later that she wondered whether she should have just turned around and said something to him. Why don't you go back to your own seat, sir? Or something like that. Those are those moments when you're a candidate in a debate, and you just wish, what if I had said that? What if I hadn't said that? That's why it's high stakes. We got to feel a sense of a certain amount of respect for these candidates going through this, knowing that it could change everything for them or it could not. But, you know, they have to feel that pressure. And you're watching two people under enormous pressure.

Evan Osnos
More with Doris Kearns Goodwin right after the break.

WNYC Studios
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Evan Osnos
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Joe Biden
The question now is, can freedom be maintained under the most severe attack it has ever known? I think it can be. And I think in the final analysis, it depends upon what we do here. I think it's time America started moving again.

Susan Glasser
Doris, that 1960 debate, a lot of people date that as the beginning of the modern televised era of american politics. But, you know, now in the fragmented media space, I guess one of the questions I have is, to what extent can a debate break through anymore? The signs are that we have a very immovable electorate right now. What's your view? I mean, how big of a screw up or a success would one of these candidates have to, have to actually change the outcome?

WNYC Studios
I think you're right. I mean, even if this debate does produce a winner, then there's going to be a whole bunch of other events they're going to follow soon thereafter. There'll be whatever happens with the Supreme Court decisions. There'll be the conventions. You know, there'll be this summer and what's going on with some of the other cases. And then we get around to the fall and there'll be yet another debate. And I think, as you said, too, so many minds are already made up. There may be fewer people to be persuaded. I think the difference it can make, however, whether it changes the election or not, it will change the morale of the people who support the candidates on both sides. If one candidate really does better than another, people will have a sort of vigor in their step. Who are Biden supporters or Trump supporters? On the other hand, there will also be a sort of downturn. So we can look for that. I think that's important. Whether it shows a poll right away or not, people know whether somebody won or lost or somebody said something really stupid that's going to come back in history to haunt them, much less. The real worry I have is that we're so used to lying right now that I don't know how you combat the fact that something that Trump might say is simply not true. We have a video then later of him saying that, and then he'll say tomorrow. No, I didn't say that at all. I mean, this is the crazy world that we're in right now as we.

Evan Osnos
Talk about debates and the role they've played. I am struck by a moment that you had in the book describing your experience of going back and watching this again with your, and at one point you say, you know, neither of these guys had a reflective, amusing moment on the stage. It was, in its own way, not really a format for complexity or real reflection. And he said, well, the reality is style towers over substance in a televised debate. And it makes me wonder, I mean, are debates good for us ultimately as an electorate, or do they actually not really clarify the issue for us?

WNYC Studios
I think much more important for us than who says what in a debate, who slips up is, what do we know about the leadership qualities of these two people that are running? They've shown those leadership qualities, or lack thereof, in wherever they were before, as previous president or as governor or a senator, whatever they were, that's what we should be talking about during the campaign. And the debates take on an undue amount of time and energy, I think.

I think, you know, it's interesting, when you mentioned that Dick was saying that, yes, styles triumphs over substance. And that just brought me back to thinking about the Lincoln Douglas debates and, oh, my God, were they much more fun. 10,000 people, really complex issues of, you know, the policy issues of history, of the country, of the ideals of the framers. And they were also fun, you know, that the audience would yell out, hit him again, hit him again, harder, harder, as if it was a football game. And there's one moment when somebody yelled at Lincoln, Mister Lincoln, you're two faced. And he immediately responded, if I were two faces, do you think I'd be wearing this face? I mean, they had fun. They had fun with each other, and they lasted for 4 hours. I mean, it's incomprehensible to imagine such a thing today, but much more fun would it be?

Susan Glasser
Amy, you really got to wonder whether there was a different kind of attention span in the earlier years of this country. But I've got one more question for you, Doris. What are you going to look for during the debate next week? What would you want to have asked?

WNYC Studios
You know, I mainly just hope that it won't be the circus that was the 2020 debate, which was considered one of the worst debates when Trump interrupted Biden so much. Biden finally turns around and said, can't you shut up? And people felt like America lost. So what I really gotta hope happens. I hope questions are asked for Trump. He's talked about what he wants to do in the second term of revenge and retribution. I mean, that would be a sad thing if that's what the second term means to him already. And I think he's got to be questioned about that. I hope we hear about the future of what they want to do with that second term if either one of them gets it.

Just sort of what the past has produced and the anger of the past. I hope that there's some words that have some meaning and that we can go back and if promises are made, we can ask what those promises were. When George Bush promised no new taxes, he was held to that. He was hurt by that, but at least that was an older definition of what words meant.

So you just hope that it's not going to be the circus it was, and that it's not going to just take our time and energy and allow us to just let that last for another couple weeks away from the reality of who are these people? What are their characters? What is the temperament of the two people that are running? Do they have humility? Do they have empathy? Do they have resilience? Do they have accountability? Do they have an ambition that's greater than themselves? These are the questions we should be asking. We know what leaders need. We know what our great leaders had, and we should judge them against that rather than a simple performance on one night.

Evan Osnos
Well, you've helped us already know what to look for and to judge what we're going to see against the lessons of the past. Doris Kearns Goodwin, thank you so much for joining us today.

WNYC Studios
Today I'm very glad I could be with. It is fun to talk about these historic debates. They mean something, that's for sure.

Evan Osnos
The book is called an Unfinished Love, a personal history of the 1960s. Doris, thanks again.

WNYC Studios
You're welcome. Thank you.

Evan Osnos
So, you know, there was, there was a lot there. I mean, Doris has thought about that debate in tremendous detail, but has also watched candidates rise and fall, come and go over the decades. What did you take away from that situation?

Susan Glasser
Well, right. Like, it's the high and the low. I mean, first of all, let's just stipulate that none of us could imagine, nor would we want to have 4 hours of Donald Trump and Joe Biden going at each other a la the Lincoln Douglas debates. But, you know, to listen to somebody who has marinated in this history and in what makes a great leader that really has been kind of the through line for so much of her historical writing. And so it's, frankly, it's a more elevated plane to think about this 2024 election than we often have it now. Is Donald Trump going to rise to an elevated plane? No, of course he's not going to. And, you know, she, like the rest of us, I think, is strapped in and bracing for a 2020 redux. And is there any way we can escape that as we, you know, sort of turn on the tv, fearing what we're going to see next week?

Susan Glasser
One of the things that struck me was just the importance of that 1960 debate and the importance of the change in technology, meaning a new medium, television, and how much it affected politics. And I think we are, again, at a turning point where theres a new medium, social media, that is, again, kind of a revolution in politics. And that, you know, the old fashioned kind of debate that was moderated by the wise men of television is kind of yesterday. And a lot of what's going to be important is how this thing metastasizes on social media after the debate and, you know, the sound clips, the tiktoks, all that kind of thing. And I think, you know, we're in, again, a new era with a new technology that is changing politics and maybe not for the better.

Evan Osnos
The fact that in 1960, people who watched it on television came away with a different impression on the radio.

People who listen to it on the radio is just magnified many times over. There could be an instant in this debate that goes viral in some ways, in bad faith. Look, we are right now, just in the last couple of weeks, the Republican National Committee has been circulating some especially egregiously edited clips of Biden intended to project the idea that he is unfit to be president. And I think there is going to be a flurry of those things, deepfakes.

Susan Glasser
AI, all of this kind of thing that can really sort of tamper with reality.

Evan Osnos
Well, I'm glad to know that I'll be able to rehash it with you all, no matter what happens.

Susan Glasser
Great to be with you guys today.

Susan Glasser
Great to be with you guys.

Evan Osnos
This has been the political scene from the New Yorker, I'm Evan Osnos. We had research assistants today from Alex Darwin. Our producer is Julia Nutter and our editor is Gianna Palmer. We were mixed by Mike Kutchman. Steven Valentino is our executive producer, and Chris Bannon is Conde Nast's head of global audio. Our theme music is by Alison Leighton Brown. We'll be back next week to break down what happened at Thursday's debate. Thank you very much for listening.

WNYC Studios
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Joe Biden
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From PRX.

What to Expect from the Biden-Trump Debate, with the Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin

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1: Introduction

2: Historical Context

3: Strategy and Expectations

4: Media and Public Perception

5: Closing Thoughts

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