Hello from Cape Town, South Africa, where I'm embarking on a summer vacation (you can follow along here). But before I board a flight to Namibia, we have a special edition of this newsletter, ahead of the high-stakes CNN presidential debate this evening.

As a reminder, we will be on hiatus until after the July 4th holiday, returning to your inbox slightly jet-lagged on Monday, July 8. We hope that you also find time to catch some R&R! With that housekeeping note aside, the A1.

CNN's Big Moment

CNN Photo Illustration/John Nowak

The spotlight is about to be on CNN like never before.

In just hours, the network will host the first presidential debate of the 2024 cycle from its world headquarters in Atlanta, a highly anticipated moment that could shake up the race for the White House just months before voters cast their ballots in the November election. At stake: the future direction of the country and its democratic ideals.

The consequential primetime showdown, moderated by Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, is set to be simulcast by every major broadcast network and cable news entity, in addition to being streamed on Max. For roughly 90 minutes tonight, America's eyes will be fixated in unison on the CNN-hosted Biden-Trump face-off — a rarity in the fragmented media landscape of 2024.

To that end, the debate is likely to deliver CNN the largest-ever audience in its four-decade history. And, regardless of which channel people tune into to watch the debate, it will still be a CNN presentation, meaning the stakes are enormously high for not only Biden and Trump, but the news network hosting the presidential contenders.

It's also a formidable challenge for Tapper and Bash who have been entrusted to moderate the event and will undoubtedly face a microscope of scrutiny.

The powerhouse duo will need to, first and foremost, ensure that the evening does not go off the rails, as the first debate of the 2020 cycle did when Trump repeatedly violated the ground rules and spoke out of turn. Aiding Tapper and Bash on that front is the fact that there will be no live audience and, more importantly, that each candidate's microphone will be muted when their rival has the floor. But muting microphones will not be a sure-fire way of constraining Trump and it will be up to the moderators to rein him in if he flagrantly disregards the agreed upon rules. Such a chore, if necessary, would be neither easy nor envious.

What's more, while CNN has said it will not fact-check the candidates' claims in real-time, Trump's propensity to spread dangerous lies and corrosive conspiracy theories will put some onus on Tapper and Bash to make sure the Republican does not abuse the platform to peddle some of his favorite dishonest talking points. While much of that responsibility will fall to Biden, placing it entirely on him would create a dynamic in which there is no baseline truth on matters of enormous significance such as the legitimacy of the 2020 election. In cases of fact versus fiction on critical matters, a he-said, he-said dynamic would not serve the audience well. CNN will need to account for that.

In addition to Tapper and Bash, the debate will also be a test for Mark Thompson, the CNN chief who took the network helm in October when his predecessor, Chris Licht, was shown the door after a disastrous one-year run. While Licht had made a number of errors as CNN president, his mishandling of the network's Trump town hall in 2023 certainly contributed to his ultimate dismissal. Thursday's debate will be the highest profile event the network has hosted under Thompson's watch and how it unfolds will reflect on his stewardship of the network.

Neither Tapper, Bash, nor Thompson were made available to us for interviews leading up to the debate. But, in an interview that published earlier this week with The New York Times reporter Michael Grynbaum, Thompson signaled that the success of the event will depend largely on how Biden and Trump behave onstage.

"Much of the reaction of the public, the rest of the media and other politicians is going to depend on President Trump and President Biden, who are the stars of the show," Thompson said.

That is, of course, true. But given that CNN has unilaterally controlled every aspect of the debate — a major break from the years-long tradition in which the Commission on Presidential Debates was responsible for facilitating the process — the network will certainly be judged on the primetime spectacle that plays out on television screens across the world. 

Some of the post-debate criticism will be both unfair and predictable. MAGA Media, which has been assailing CNN and its moderators for weeks, will find cheap ways to bash the network. That is already baked into the equation.

How the rest of the world views CNN's performance will, however, be important. The network has been struggling to recapture the mojo that once infused it under previous network chief Jeff Zucker during the chaotic Trump presidency. Thursday's 90-minute political clash will be a golden opportunity for CNN to regain some of that magic and showcase to viewers the type of journalistic enterprise it seeks to be.

Which is to say that how well the primetime confrontation is broadcast and refereed will define the organization in the eyes of the public for some time.