Your guide to the Biden-Trump debate: Same candidates as 2020, different rules for 2024

On Thursday, President Biden and former President Donald Trump will face off in person for the first time since 2020. Yahoo News presents a guide to the first presidential debate of the 2024 election — and the unusual way it came about.

Video Transcript

On Thursday, June 27th, CNN will be hosting the first presidential debate of the 2024 election.

Here's what you need to know first.

Why are they debating so early?

So normally presidential debates are held after the party conventions once candidates are formally nominated and organized by the commission on presidential debates.

But the Biden campaign said waiting until September was no good.

And after some back and forth, Biden challenged Trump make my day pal and Trump accepted.

So now CNN is set to host the first one.

OK.

So what else is different?

While traditional presidential debates have an audience and moderators don't have much power to get things on track if candidates break the rules, the CNN debate is taking a different approach.

Jake Tapper and Dana Bash are set to moderate, but there won't be an audience in the room.

Trump and Biden won't be allowed to have anything on them other than a pen, a pad of paper and a bottle of water, meaning no props or prepared notes.

They won't be allowed to speak with anyone from their staff during commercial breaks.

And perhaps the biggest change, their microphones will be muted by default, meaning only the person whose turn it is to speak will get picked up.

So what's going to happen?

Both candidates are likely to be a little rusty when they take the stage.

Trump skipped all 5, 2024 GOP primary debates.

And as President Biden has done far fewer interviews than his predecessors, but this is also the first televised debate where both candidates have already been the president.

So they've each got extensive records to defend.

Beyond that.

We'll just have to wait and see.