Trump, Biden to face each other in debate on Tuesday

For former vice-president Joe Biden, the goal of his first live debate against US President Donald Trump on Tuesday will be to not take the bait.

For Trump, the goal will be to offer plenty of bait, whether it's about Biden's son Hunter, Biden's age (77) or his mental capacity.

"He doesn't know he's alive" and is "dead as a rock", Trump has said of his Democratic opponent for the presidency.

For the last 18 months, Biden and Trump have exchanged barbs from afar. On Tuesday night, they will face each other in the first of three presidential debates. There will be no in-person audience at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, when they take the stage.

Moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News has chosen six topics for debate for approximately 15 minutes each, though they are subject to change: the Trump and Biden records, the Supreme Court, COVID-19, the economy, race and violence in cities and the integrity of the election.

"We don't expect Chris or our other moderators to be fact checkers,"said Frank Fahrenkopf Jr, co-chair of the Commission on Presidential Debates, to CNN on Sunday. "The minute the TV is off there will be plenty of fact checkers."

The debate will begin at 9 pm East Coast time and run for 90 minutes without commercial interruption

Trump goes into the debate lagging Biden in national polls and in some key battleground states, and his re-election campaign is behind in terms of cash, while Biden's is more than flush.

Viewers can expect see potentially heated exchanges over COVID-19 and the more than 204,000 US deaths it has caused, Trump's rush to fill the Supreme Court seat of the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the president's refusal so far to commit to a peaceful transfer of power after the November election.

Within hours of Biden's announcement that he would seek the Democratic presidential nomination, Trump dubbed him "Sleepy Joe" and called him someone whose "intelligence" had been "long in doubt". Weeks later, Trump amended the nickname to "Sleepy Creepy Joe". And the name calling hasn't stopped.

"I hope I don't get baited into a brawl with this guy, because that's the only place he's comfortable," Biden said during a virtual Sept 10 fundraiser.

While saying he doesn't want to get baited by Trump, he has said,"I know how to handle bullies."

Biden has suggested that his strategy in the debate will be to draw a contrast with Trump on competency and policy and to offer voters an alternative to the Trump presidency.

"Everybody knows who Donald Trump is. I plan to tell them who I am," he said.

Biden acknowledged that he expects the president to "say awful things about me and my family" during the debate to get him angry.

The Trump campaign has targeted Biden's son Hunter for his profitable ties to Ukranian companies while his father was vice-president.

Trump's family has also been fair game for Democrats. They have criticized Trump for the roles his children and son-in-law play in government and in policy negotiations, as well as the financial benefit his family business has seen since his presidency began.

Some political observers say that Trump has set debate expectations particularly low for Biden with near-constant attacks about his mental fitness and seizing on Biden's gaffes while on the campaign trail.

Ed Rollins, a veteran Republican strategist who runs a pro-Trump fundraising committee, said the Trump campaign has "so diminished" Biden that he is virtually guaranteed to be perceived as the winner of the first debate.

"Biden has clearly shown he can function, the bar is low and the expectations are so low, all he has to do is exceed those expectations," Rollins told Politico.

Trump, during an event in Pennsylvania this month, tried to raise expectations for Biden, saying that he "should be able to beat me" in a debate because "he's much more experienced". Trump even said Biden was "great" at debating.

Minutes after those comments, Trump went back to attacking Biden's verbal abilities and mental acuity, saying he is "shot" and "the worst presidential candidate in the history of politics" who "can't speak without the teleprompter".

But Tim Murtaugh, Trump's campaign communications director, said "the Joe Biden we're expecting" has had "eight years as vice-president, three decades in the Senate, two debates as vice-president and he just came through about a dozen debates in the Democratic primaries where he vanquished two dozen opponents".