COVID tests and crosstalk: What happened the last time Trump and Biden debated

President Biden and former President Donald Trump are scheduled to face off on the debate stage on Thursday for the first time in four years.

And while the picture of the two candidates behind the podiums may look pretty much the same as it did in 2020, much has changed since then.

To name a few: Biden is running as an incumbent; Trump is fresh off a historic criminal conviction. The COVID-19 public health emergency is technically over. And the terms and format of the debate itself are brand new.

Biden and Trump agreed this spring to a pair of presidential debates hosted by TV networks in June and September, in a pointed departure from the traditional schedule and process of the Commission on Presidential Debates.

Thursday’s is hosted by CNN at its Atlanta studio, without an in-person audience and governed by a new set of rules.

Those include the addition of two commercial breaks, points out Mary Kate Cary, formerly a speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush.

“They're not allowed to talk to their staff during the commercial breaks, and the microphones will be muted when the other person is speaking,” told NPR’s Morning Edition. “And I think that's going to be a big contrast to the last time these two had a first debate, in 2020.”

Their first on-stage matchup in September 2020 was dominated by Trump’s repeated interruptions and refusal to condemn white supremacists, and was widely criticized by viewers and commentators alike.

One COVID-canceled debate and some rule changes later, the two reunited for a final, less chaotic faceoff in October — at which point tens of millions of Americans had already cast their votes.

With Trump and Biden now near even in the latest polls, and many Americans unenthused — and still