In response, the commission stated that "[its] plans for 2024 will be based on fairness, neutrality and a firm commitment to help the American public learn about the candidates and the issues".

[4] Former president Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, did not attend any primary debates, describing them as unnecessary to his campaign and claiming unfair treatment by organizers.

Despite this, Trump told Fox News host Bret Baier in a June 2023 interview that he was interested in debating incumbent president Joe Biden should he become the Democratic nominee.

[13] It previously occurred in 1980, when President Jimmy Carter refused to attend the first debate with Ronald Reagan due to the presence of independent candidate John B. Anderson.

Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, campaign managers for Trump,[14] had pushed for more debates to be held by the CPD, in addition to holding them earlier than the planned September date, though the commission refused to accede.

[24] A May poll taken by the Harvard Center for American Political Studies/Harris indicated that 71% of the people surveyed were in favor of allowing a third-party candidate to debate.

[27] Kennedy's campaign filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, maintaining that neither Biden nor Trump meet the ballot access threshold as they have not been nominated by their parties.

[42][43] CNN's chief national correspondent John King reported that there was "a deep, a wide, and a very aggressive panic" in the Democratic Party that started a few minutes into the debate.

During the debate, unnamed elected officials, party strategists, and fundraisers were reported to have discussed replacing Biden as the party's candidate due to fears about him potentially hurting other Democrats' public perceptions, and deciding if prominent Democrats should make a public statement about asking Biden to step down.

[49] Biden-Harris 2024 campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon praised Biden's debate performance, saying that he presented a "positive and winning vision" for the future.

He sent a letter to Congressional Democrats before Morning Joe explaining his decision, stating that "The question of how to move forward has been well-aired for over a week now.

[58] In an attempt to show voters and Democratic politicians that he was capable of facing Donald Trump in the 2024 election, he held a solo press conference on July 11, 2024, following the NATO 2024 Washington summit.

[60] On August 3, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported that primary challenger Representative Dean Phillips said, “If people write anything, I just hope that they might write if [Biden] had debated me then and he had been on one stage, unscripted, with a national audience, and he demonstrated that decline then, this would have been very different circumstances.” He continued, “And that’s what I was trying to do.”[61] The second presidential debate was held on Tuesday, September 10, 2024, at 9:00 p.m. EDT at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Trump also attacked Harris on immigration saying "we have millions of people pouring into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums.

"[94] Some of Harris's sharpest criticisms of Trump occurred during their clash over abortion rights, a key issue for Democrats since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 with Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.

When moderators questioned him about any regrets regarding the January 6 Capitol attack, he denied responsibility and redirected the conversation to Black Lives Matter protests.

He blamed then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for not accepting his alleged offer of sending the National Guard, which the Speaker does not control.

[109] Harris also made misleading and false claims during the debate, including that Trump "exchanged love letters" with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

[111] Harris also denied Trump's claim, that she is in support of spending taxpayers' money on gender affirmation surgeries on prison inmates, as one of his "lies."

However, a video from her unsuccessful 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries surfaced of her pledging to provide gender affirming care to detained migrants.

[132] Trump's campaign strategists had urged him to emphasize in the debates that he was a "changed man" who had survived an assassination attempt and would unite America, but they believed he had been unable to do so.

[141][142][143] After the debate, polls showed Harris still had a hard time conveying the perception that she would represent a "change" in policy, due to her being a part of the Biden administration.

[153] Republican Minnesota Representative Tom Emmer played Walz in Vance's debate prep, which was directed by Jai Chabria and Jason Miller.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg played Vance in Walz's prep, which was led by Zaym Siddique, Liz Allen, and Chris Schmitter.

[160][161] When Walz brought up Amber Thurman, a Georgian woman who died after a delay in getting a procedure to clear fetal tissue from her body after a medical abortion, Vance said: "I agree with you.

Vance also downplayed the severity of the January 6 United States Capitol attack and Trump's role in challenging the 2020 election results.

Vance responded that he would start with "about a million" immigrants who have committed crimes besides entering the country illegally and complained about "Kamala Harris's wide open southern border.

"[161] Walz responded by touting Harris's record as California attorney general prosecuting human trafficking and said Trump did not deliver on his 2016 campaign promise to build a border wall and get Mexico to pay for it.

[174] The columnists from The Washington Post[175] and Reuters[176] commended both Vance and Walz for the high level of civility and focus on policy in the debate.

[31] The Biden campaign agreed to a vice presidential debate hosted by CBS News to take place on either July 23 or August 13.