From CNN’s outline of their rules for the June 27th Biden/Trump debate:

🇺🇸 “The 90-minute debate will include two commercial breaks, according to the network, and campaign staff may not interact with their candidate during that time.” Fair enough, we guess.

🇺🇸 “Both candidates agreed to appear at a uniform podium, and their podium positions will be determined by a coin flip.” Why the positions of the podiums is important was not made clear. Shouldn’t it just be Biden-left, Trump-right corresponding with their respective “wings” in politics?

🇺🇸 “Microphones will be muted throughout the debate except for the candidate whose turn it is to speak. While no props or pre-written notes will be allowed on the stage, candidates will be given a pen, a pad of paper and a bottle of water.” Would be better if they were allowed to (within reasonable limits) read verbatim from each other’s public statements, but whatever.

It’s not clear why CNN couldn’t just post the rules themselves. They also kind of got scooped by the New York Times, who earlier on Saturday morning provided additional details like “President Biden and former President Donald J Trump will each have two minutes to answer questions – followed by one-minute rebuttals and responses to the rebuttals. Red lights visible to the candidates will flash when they have five seconds left, and turn solid red when time has expired.”

“Both men will be rusty. Neither has debated since their last clash in 2020,” the Times writes, of course failing to mention that Trump had at least seven opportunities to shake off said rust and deliberately chose not to. They do however note that Trump is not undergoing any formal debate preparations with someone standing in for Biden like Chris Christie did in 2020 (his performance reportedly seriously fucking pissed off Trump by bringing up Jared and Ivanka’s graft from the White House). This in contrast with Biden, who has been prepping with former Chief of Staff Ron Klain.