What to Expect from the Biden-Trump Debate, with the Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin 32:32

I just got a glimpse finally last night of the suppressed docudrama on Trump called The Apprentice. That's right. And I

I just can't believe that they can't find someone to show it in America. Apparently, you know, 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. What is he? Does he play? He plays Roy Cohn. Oh, that is good. He's really good as him. I 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, 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? Wow. But don't we, aren't we going to Europe to escape from the omnipresent orange man? Well, there is that. You want me to go see a movie 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. Hi, Evan. And hi, Susan. Hey, guys. Great to be with you.

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 agree. I just want to make sure. You're the liar. I want to make sure. You graduated last in your class, not first in your class.

The question is, the question is, will you shut up, man? Listen, who is on your list, Joe? This is so unprecedented. He's going to pack the court. 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. I've got PTSD just from thinking about it. Here we go again. 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 a first. We've never had this before in modern American politics since the advent of televised debate. Certainly have we had 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?

Oh, 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 there's potentially no floor for these two. They're both

four years older. In many ways, I think they're both weaker going into this debate. And we're 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.

And 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. Yeah.

What are you going to be looking for? 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 that's been painted by Trump and the Republican Party claiming that he's not up to the job. And I think there's a lot of pressure on him to perform and prove himself.

Well, I do think that, you know, if anybody's 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, five percent of the people who watch debates who ultimately either change their mind about who they're going to support or decide that they're going to 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? 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 don't recognize as even remotely presidential. So, I mean, I'm just wondering if the new format is going to be able to control that kind of zoo-like behavior. Susan, didn't they, in that second debate in 2020, they did introduce an element that allowed them to turn off the microphone of the person who wasn't

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?

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. You know, 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 happens.

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 first debate is.

was Donald Trump's line in which he was talking about his already his complaints about the ballots in the election and the mail-in votes and all this. And he said, prophetically, unfortunately, this is not going to end well. 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.

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. That's what I was thinking. And, of course, he said, stand back and stand by. White supremacists and right supremacists. Proud Boys. Proud Boys. Stand back and stand by. Which was this really haunting moment, particularly in light of what happened on January 6th. 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? 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 it's 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. Biden's done some press conferences, so he's done more than Trump. But Trump especially, he really hasn't 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 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 haphazardly

Having those two physical presences there, having them respond to questions, it really can go in some surprising ways. Is that right, Susan? 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 debate.

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, you know, fitness for four more years in office. The right has been going nuts with out of context clips and the like. Abolitionists,

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, you know, 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? 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. 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 substances. Performance enhancing drugs. Well, look, if he wins the 100 meter 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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Hello, everybody. Hi, Doris. Welcome. Hi there. Thank you. I'm glad to be with you. 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 of 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. 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. 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? The reason it's so important is really it was the first event that showcased the impact of television on presidential races.

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. 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. 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.

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. And was Nixon as sallow and bad as people have said? I mean, I gather if you didn't

CM, you might even have a different impression of the whole debate. Is that really true when you looked at it? I mean, what was true? Yes, they did say that if you listened to it on the radio, you scored pretty easily the points against John Kennedy if it was a debating contest. 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 to,

Senator Kennedy would have the federal government spend more than I would have it spend.

But watching the two of them, it wasn't only 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 told him, don't be the assassin, don't be the assassin. So he just seemed to let Kennedy be...

be equal to him in stature. He was vice president after all. Kennedy had to appear mature, experienced, and he 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.

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, he had a stack of note cards that his team had given him to prepare. And one by one, he would sit there and memorize it and then throw them on the floor and, you

You had 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?

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. I loved, like you did, the image of him throwing the cards after he had memorized these three life of 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 20s, 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...

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 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. I think to Susan's point and Doris, you touched on this, that calm was a kind of engineered calm.

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 work. He was grinding it out in anticipation, whereas Nixon and I'm not trying to draw too much of a present illusion. But, you know, Nixon thought, I've got this. I know how I know how the debates work.

And as a result, he was unprepared. No, I think that's absolutely right. I mean, preparation is what gives you that sense of confidence. And for days they'd 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 creeped, crept out and it was OK. 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's

who are 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 to 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 70s or 80s and you

can go back to be young again. I was struck, too, by the fact that JFK, in your recounting of it, actually corrected Ted Sorensen's 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. 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? 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, he's someone who knows how to do TV. And he's an entertainer almost. And I wonder how much of an advantage that can be for him.

Well, you know, especially in the last couple of 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 and 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 and then he didn't do himself any good in 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 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've got to feel a sense of

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. More with Doris Kearns Goodwin right after the break. I'm David Remnick, host of the New Yorker Radio Hour.

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If you've been enjoying the show, please leave us a rating and a review on the podcast platform of your choice. And while you're there, don't forget to hit the follow button so you don't miss an episode. Thank you very much for listening. 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.

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

How big of a screw up or a success would one of these candidates have to have to actually change the outcome?

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 that are going to follow sooner after. There'll be the whatever happens with the Supreme Court decisions. There'll be the conventions. You know, there'll be the 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 say, 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'll 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'll also be a sort of downturn. So we can look for that. I think that's important, whether it shows that

poll right away or not. People know whether somebody won or lost or somebody said something really stupid. It'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 talk about debates and the role they've played, I

I am struck by a moment that you had in the book describing your experience of going back and watching this again with your husband, Dick. 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? Yeah.

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 as 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, style 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, of 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 mr 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 they had fun they had fun with each other and and they lasted for four hours i mean it's it's

incomprehensible to imagine such a thing today, but much more fun would it be. 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? 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 got to 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.

and not 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. 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. I'm very glad I could be with you. It is fun to talk about these historic debates. They mean something, that's for sure. The book is called An Unfinished Love Story, A Personal History of the 1960s. Doris, thanks again. You're welcome. Thank you.

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, Susan?

Well, right. Like it's it's the high and the low. I mean, first of all, let's just stipulate that no, none of us could imagine, nor would we want to have four hours of Donald Trump and Joe Biden, you know, 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 for so much of her life.

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 she, like the rest of us, I think is strapped in and bracing for

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? 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 there's 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 era.

That is changing politics and maybe not for the better. 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 articles.

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. Deep fakes, AI, all of this kind of thing that can really sort of tamper with reality. Well, I'm glad to know that I'll be able to rehash it with you all no matter what happens. Great to be with you guys today. Great to be with you guys.

This has been the political scene from The New Yorker. I'm Evan Osnos. We had research assistance today from Alex D'Elia. Our producer is Julia Nutter, and our editor is Gianna Palmer. We were mixed by Mike Kutchman. Stephen 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.

Every single aspect of a conflict...

some kind of rationale behind it. You might not agree with it. You might not agree with the methods. You might not agree with the means, but you have to look at it as like a rational actor and make your analysis that way. And Pod Save America's Jon Favreau and Tommy Vitor. I don't think we're going to fact check our way to victory. Follow Wired Politics Lab for in-depth conversations and analysis to help you navigate the upcoming election. From PR