With the second presidential debate set for a week from this Sunday, the next stage is expected to center on issues that drew little airtime the first time around, including climate change, health care, and voting rights—along with family leave—while both camp
The first presidential debate may have been dominated by performance—and by Tuesday’s nonstop replays of Donald Trump’s complaints about his “terrible Monday night” showing—but the next matchup is already shaping up to demand more than style.. The second presidential debate is scheduled for a week from this Sunday. leaving moderators Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz until Oct.. 9 to get their questions ready.
In the days after the first debate. Trump continued to revisit the night’s outcome. spending most of Tuesday laying the blame for his performance on moderator Lester Holt. former Miss Universe Alicia Machado. and a debate commission he suggested gave him a faulty microphone on purpose.. The emphasis on tone and logistics helped crowd out a harder question: what each candidate is actually promising to do.
The pressure is likely to land on Clinton to connect her policy proposals to tangible effects for voters who remain unenthusiastic.. Even as her campaign reputation leans on detailed. deep policy work—often contrasted with Trump’s shorter statements—questions about practical impact are expected to become part of the debate’s stakes.
Climate change is one area the debate may not be allowed to treat as a side note.. President Barack Obama has called climate change the most pressing foreign policy issue of our time. arguing that competition among nations for resources degraded by a warming planet is already leading to violent conflicts.. The argument extends to Syria. where there is said to be some evidence that a drought driven by climate change helped plant seeds of the civil war. a foreign-policy priority the next president is expected to take on.
The U.S.. is also bound up in worldwide climate treaties requiring it to reduce emissions.. Whether a new administration would honor those treaties is framed as important for countries beyond the United States.. Meanwhile, the military is already described as factoring climate change into its long-range plans—an issue Trump has repeatedly downplayed.. In the first debate. the only mention of climate change came when Clinton referenced a 2012 Trump tweet in which Trump accused the Chinese of inventing a “hoax” meant to destroy America’s economy.
Health care is another question that the next debate could not afford to dodge.. Obamacare remains the target of GOP-led resistance and continued efforts to kill it, producing problems for members of the public.. Trump’s approach is described as unchanged for over a year: repeal Obamacare and “replace it with something terrific.” Clinton has signed onto a public option meant to expand coverage and create competition for insurers.
The tension between the two plans is rooted in the durability of the disagreement about access to health insurance.. Seven years after the passage of Obamacare. the parties still face what is described as a huge and unbridgeable philosophical gap about the right of Americans to have access to health insurance.. Supporters and critics alike are likely to want the candidates to spell out how this fall’s choice would shape that access going forward.
Voting rights may become the sharpest contrast of all. with the first debate’s omissions setting up a follow-up that has to answer for consequences at the ballot box.. The Republican Party is described as running a sustained effort to disenfranchise voters—particularly people of color who generally vote Democratic.. Those efforts are said to have been ramped up after a conservative-dominated Supreme Court in 2013 gutted the Voting Rights Act.. Federal courts, in turn, are described as slapping down egregious laws.
Yet the rules are still expected to land differently on Election Day. Laws enacted by states for voter identification and other restrictions are described as likely to keep thousands of people from voting this year.
Trump’s focus—framed here as his “newfound concern” for the African-American community—could collide with whether he agrees with the rest of his party about keeping as many Black people from voting as possible.. Clinton. meanwhile. could be pressed on her announced plans for restoring voting rights and how high a priority she intends to make restoring the franchise.
Even in an election where the spotlight often swings to bigger themes. family leave is also flagged as a rare point where both campaigns have a specific plan.. The topic is expected to force sparring. especially given the framing of Trump’s past history of sexism and misogyny and his pride in having barely lifted a finger to help raise his children.
Taken together. the issues being lined up for the next debate form a pattern: climate change. health care. and voting rights are described as pressing problems shaped by existing U.S.. obligations and court action. while the first debate’s coverage is characterized mainly through what did and did not get airtime—leaving moderators a narrow window to press both candidates on substance before the campaign moves on.
United States politics presidential debate climate change Obamacare voting rights family leave Anderson Cooper Martha Raddatz Lester Holt Alicia Machado