The National Constitution Center prepares for presidential debate spotlight

The last time the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia hosted a presidential debate, Usher, Lil Wayne, and Flo Rida were on the Billboard Top 100, the Iraq War was raging, and the Phillies were about six months away from winning the World Series.

It was April 16, 2008, and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who were then competing for the Democratic presidential nomination, took the stage just eight days before the Pennsylvania primary. Clinton won Pennsylvania, but Obama won the nomination and the presidency.

On Sept. 10, the National Constitution Center will host its first-ever general election debate when Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump come to Philadelphia, adding to the institution’s history of hosting momentous events.

“There’s nothing like a presidential debate,” said Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the Constitution Center. “It’s unique, it’s important, and it’s historic.”

ABC News, whose anchors will moderate the debate, had reached out to the center to hold the event, Rosen said. The network liked the venue, which they had used to host separate town halls with then-candidates Trump and Joe Biden during the 2020 election amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The rules for the debate are officially set after Vice President Kamala Harris’ and former President Donald Trump’s campaigns agreed to a list of guidelines that include muting candidates’ microphones when they are not speaking.

It’s ”all the more significant” that one of the most important political moments of 2024 is taking place just steps from Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, Rosen said. The center’s history has been used as the backdrop for other significant political and historical events and conversations, dating back to the institution’s opening on July 4, 2003.

“It is so important in these polarized times to model civil dialogue and debate, to show that it’s possible to disagree without being disagreeable, and to respectfully explore areas of agreement and disagreement about the Constitution,” Rosen said.

Here’s a look at just a few historical moments at the National Constitution Center ahead of next week’s debate.

The former president made a speech at the Constitution Center on March 18, 2008, when he was a U.S. senator from Illinois vying to be the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee.

In a key moment for his campaign, Obama stood in front of a collection of American flags and passionately delivered an approximately 40-minute oration on the role race plays in the presidential campaign. He also condemned inflammatory comments from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his former pastor.

He recounted his own life story and his upbringing. Five months later, Obama became the first Black presidential nominee, and then president, in U.S. history.

“It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional of candidates,” Obama said. “But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts — that out of many, we are truly one.”

Obama discussed the extreme rhetoric surrounding race at that time and called on the American people to unite to solidify “a more perfect union.”

“I have asserted a firm conviction — a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people — that working together, we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union,” he said.

Next week, Trump will be making his second appearance taking questions from ABC at the Constitution Center (though the former president has recently cast doubt on his participation).

In 2020, Trump fielded questions from anchor George Stephanopoulos, against whom Trump now has ongoing litigation, as well as an audience of socially distanced Pennsylvania voters who asked the then-president about his handling of the pandemic, racial injustices in the U.S., the economy, and health-care policies.

“Not downplaying,” Trump said of his response to COVID. “I don’t want to drive our nation into a panic. I’m a cheerleader for this nation. I’m the one that closed up our country. I closed it up long before any of the experts thought I should — and saved hundreds of thousands of lives.”

Biden’s town hall a month later gave him the opportunity to disparage Trump’s record on these issues.

“But President Trump says things like, you know, everything from this crazy stuff he’s walking away from now, inject bleach in your arm and that’s going to work … I mean he actually said these things,” Biden said.

Besides its involvement in presidential politics, the National Constitution Center annually awards the Liberty Medal to “people around the globe who have committed themselves to the blessings of liberty,” according to the center.

Recent recipients of the medal have ranged from Supreme Court justices to world leaders to former presidents, lawmakers, and civil rights leaders.

The center presented Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with the medal for his leadership amid Russia’s war on Ukraine in 2022. Two years prior, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a recipient of the award just one day before her passing.

In an act of bipartisanship, Biden — who was the chair of the center’s board of trustees at the time — presented his friend Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz), with the medal in 2017 in a moment Rosen called “unforgettable.”

“We didn’t always agree on the issues. We often argued — sometimes passionately,” McCain said of Biden during his remarks. “But we believed in each other’s patriotism and the sincerity of each other’s convictions. We believed in the institution we were privileged to serve in.”