What to expect from tonight's presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump

President Joe Biden and Donald Trump will engage tonight in the first presidential debate of 2024. It’s the earliest one ever and the first one between a current and former president, and there are some new wrinkles. There will be no audience, and each participant’s microphone will be muted while the other is speaking, so they can’t talk over each other.

The debate will begin at 9 p.m. Eastern on CNN. Jake Tapper and Dana Bash will moderate. Here’s what to expect.

Biden will likely highlight his record, such as passing the American Recovery Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, actions on climate change, and more. Biden needs to “make it clear who is on the side of the working families of this country,” U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders told CNN.

The moderators may well bring up Trump’s recent felony convictions and the other charges he faces, along with his comments about wanting to be a dictator and punish his political opponents. He will probably say the courts are persecuting him, and as for the “dictator” statement, he pretty much confirmed that even when the Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity tried to give him an out. Tapper and Bash also may ask about the Christian nationalist, anti-LGBTQ+ agenda laid out in Project 2025, a blueprint for the next conservative president. Biden, meanwhile, happens to be the most pro-LGBTQ+ president in history.

Trump will probably downplay the issue of abortion, saying it’s left to the states now and that’s fine, although we’ve seen the damage done in the states that ban or severely restrict the procedure. The moderators may bring up the possibility of a national ban on abortion or restrictions on contraception, which are be deeply unpopular with voters, and Trump will try sidestep the issue. Biden will undoubtedly emphasize his pro-choice record.

Trump likely will make much of Biden’s age, even though Trump is only three years younger than Biden. “Any misstep, meandering statement or lost thought on the debate stage [by Biden] will be heavily scrutinized or even distorted by allies of Trump,” CNN notes. But Trump allies, of course, ignore the many servings of bizarre word salad the former president has delivered. And Trump has even said that Biden will be on performance-enhancing drugs, something for which there is no evidence.

The wars in Gaza and Ukraine — which Trump claims wouldn’t have started if he was still in office — are certain to come up, along with immigration and inflation.

LGBTQ+ activists are speaking out ahead of the debate. “This election is not simply about two candidates. It is about two different visions for our country,” said a statement from Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign. “And those visions will be on display tonight. On the one hand, you have twice-impeached, forever disgraced, convicted felon Donald Trump, who is hellbent on burning democracy to the ground and installing a Christian Nationalist regime that would terrorize our families and trample our freedoms. And on the other, you have President Biden, the most pro-equality President in American history, who is dedicated to building an Administration that looks like America and serves the people everyday. Over and over again, the American people have made clear that they value equality, dignity, and freedom. They will hear a commitment to those values from one man onstage tonight: President Joe Biden.”