It may be a rematch, but the Biden-Trump debate is anything but a rerun

The historic rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is anything but a rerun, with their first presidential debate next week set to showcase a vastly different set of issues driving their bitter duel for the White House.

The historic rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is anything but a rerun, with their first presidential debate next week set to showcase a vastly different set of issues driving their bitter duel for the White House. It feels like an upside-down lifetime ago since the pair last appeared together on a debate stage. The coronavirus pandemic was raging in the fall of 2020 and Trump’s chaotic presidency was at the center of it all. Now, Biden’s record is under the microscope in equal measure, even as he still presents himself as a safer alternative. In the Biden-Trump sequel, an entirely new set of fights have been brewing on the campaign trail and in TV ads that offer a glimpse into at least some of the arguments likely to be aired when the two come face-to-face Thursday at the CNN debate in Atlanta. To voters in Wisconsin this week, Trump delivered a stark warning about an unstable world and, in his view, an unstable Biden presidency, saying: “We’re going to end up in World War III with this person. He’s the worst president ever.” A new Biden ad minces no words about Trump’s May conviction on 34 felony counts: “This election is between a convicted criminal who is out for only himself and a president who is fighting for your family,” the narrator declares in the spot, which is part of a $50 million advertising campaign. The competing messages not only crystallize the theory of the case for the two rivals, but underscore just how much the country, the world and, yes, the candidates themselves have changed in the past four years.