These two famously loquacious candidates are all but destined to have some frustrating encounters with that unforgiving machine tonight. Their respective fans are likely to take issue with the degree to which their candidate was deprived of the opportunity to make his point or take the fight to his opponent. CNN is going to take a lot of the heat from debate watchers who tune into tonight’s programming for the entertainment value alone — the rules are all but certain to make tonight’s exhibition a less thrilling affair than previous cycles. But CNN won’t deserve the flack it will receive from disappointed political hobbyists. These were Joe Biden’s rules — rules that Donald Trump accepted in total. The president’s campaign insisted on a debate that would take place in a television studio without an audience and with automatic microphone cutoffs. If this format proves irritating, blame Biden.

Oddly enough, it’s Biden who is least likely to benefit from his preferred structure. One of the president’s better moments in the first outing between him and Donald Trump in 2020 occurred when the visibly exasperated president told Trump to cease his interminable interrupting — a demand that, at that time, channeled the sentiments of the viewers at home. Biden has deprived himself of a reprise of that moment. Moreover, by denying Trump an audience, Biden may have stolen from the former president the invigorating energy of the crowd on which Trump thrives, but he has also created a setting in which Trump can appear less like a performer and more like a president.