Presidential debate: Start time, how to watch and stream first 2024 faceoff between Harris and Trump

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will face off Tuesday night in Philadelphia in their first — and possibly only — presidential debate leading up to the election on Nov. 5.

Harris, 59, enters the debate slightly ahead in most national polls, while she and Trump appear to be running neck-and-neck in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state for both campaigns. Harris traveled to Philadelphia on Monday, but she had been in Pittsburgh since last week preparing for tonight’s debate, with Philippe Reines — a longtime aide to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — standing in for Trump during mock debates.

It’s unclear how much time Trump, 78, has spent preparing for the debate. The New York Times described the former president’s preparations as “more improv” than debate prep, with nobody portraying Harris. Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who challenged Harris in the 2020 Democratic primary, have participated in the informal policy sessions, according to ABC News.

Leading up to the debate, Trump has spent time lashing out at host network ABC, though going after major media companies isn’t anything new for the former president. Among other things, Trump said he doesn’t expect Tuesday’s event to be fair to his campaign, and has claimed, without evidence, that ABC News is feeding questions to the Harris campaign ahead of the debate.

Trump has also pointed to a friendship between Harris and senior Disney executive Dana Walden that goes back decades, baselessly claiming it shows bias. ABC News has said Walden isn’t involved in editorial news decisions.

Regardless of the attacks, both campaigns have agreed to the rules of Tuesday’s debate as laid out by ABC News. Only moderators will be permitted to question the candidates, and there will be a two-minute limit on answers and rebuttals. Despite the Harris campaign fighting to keep microphones live throughout the debate, both campaigns ultimately agreed to have them muted when the opposing candidate is speaking.

“I don’t think it’s going to affect the debate,” said Marc Burstein, senior executive producer at ABC News, who is overseeing Tuesday’s debate. “At the end of the day, what’s important is who delivers the better vision and convinces the most voters.”

While ABC is hosting the debate, it will also be on all major broadcast networks and cable news channels to an expected TV audience between 60 and 70 million viewers, with millions more streaming the event. The June debate between Trump and President Joe Biden averaged more than 51 million viewers — down 30% from the 73 million viewers who tuned into the first debate in September 2020 — but it took place months earlier in the election season, when many voters were less engaged and largely checked out of what was then a rematch of the previous election.

Here’s what you need to know ahead of tonight’s debate in Philadelphia.

» READ MORE: Philly debate live updates: Harris and Trump prep ahead of tonight's event

The first president debate between Harris and Trump is scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. Eastern and last about an hour and 40 minutes, including two commercials.

The debate will be hard to miss. While ABC is hosting the debate, the event will be telecast live on all major broadcast channels (CBS, Fox, NBC, PBS) and cable news networks (C-Span, CNN, MSNBC, Fox Business, Fox News, and NewsNation).

It will also be available to stream on a host of so-called skinny cable bundles, such as YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV, DirecTV Now, and FuboTV. It will also stream on both Disney+ and Hulu.

You can also stream the debate right here, courtesy of C-Span:

Tonight’s debate will have two moderators, and both will be familiar to Philly TV viewers.

The first is David Muir, who has anchored ABC World News Tonight for the last decade after taking over for Diane Sawyer. ABC World News Tonight is the most-viewed nightly newscast in the country, averaging over 7 million nightly viewers, and is also the most-watched TV program in Philadelphia, where it averages over 400,000 viewers a night.

Despite his show’s popularity, Muir hasn’t been targeted by Trump like his fellow ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos. Trump is suing both ABC News and George Stephanopoulos after the longtime anchor said a jury concluded the former president “raped” E. Jean Carroll. That Manhattan jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse but not rape, which has a specific legal definition in New York.

While Muir hasn’t been in the political spotlight of a general election presidential debate, he’s an experienced hand at major events. He has moderated four primary debates — three Democratic, one Republican — during the previous two presidential election cycles, and has conducted TV interviews of both Harris and Trump.

The second moderator for tonight’s debate will be Linsey Davis, a South Jersey native and anchor of World News Tonight Sunday. A 1995 Moorestown Friends School graduate, Davis also anchors ABC’s streaming program ABC News Live Prime and moderated two Democratic primary debates during the 2020 election cycle.

While there’s been discussion about the need to fact check Trump’s comments in real time, Burstein said the moderators’ main job is to keep the conversation going and let viewers walk away knowing where the candidates stand on the issues.

“It’s really not a yes-or-no position, fact-checking or not fact-checking,” Burstein said. “If it’s necessary for a fact check, you may hear one. I have confidence both candidates are probably going to be more attuned to what the other person is saying and want to correct the record if they hear something they think is egregiously wrong.”

» READ MORE: Who is Linsey Davis, the ABC News anchor moderating the presidential debate and South Jersey native?

That remains unclear.

Prior to Biden dropping out of the race, the two campaigns agreed to participate in two presidential debates — June 27 and Tuesday.

The Harris campaign said it would be open to adding a second debate between Trump and the vice president in October, but said it would be contingent on the former president showing up to debate in Philadelphia.

Trump has said he wants to debate Harris as often as possible, and proposed several debate dates in September on NBC and Fox News before agreeing to participate in Tuesday’s debate.

No additional debates have been announced.

Next month, it will be Minnesota Gov. Walz and Ohio Sen. JD Vance stepping onto the debate stage.

The two vice presidential candidates will face off on Oct. 1 in New York City in a debate hosted by CBS News.

As with Tuesday’s event, CBS will turn to two moderators for the vice presidential debate — CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell and Face the Nation moderator Margaret Brennan.

CBS has not yet released any details about the time, location, or rules for the vice presidential debate.

Here are some recent stories about the 2024 election from The Philadelphia Inquirer: