No studio audience doesn’t mean CNN 2024 presidential debate was ‘scripted’

If a live studio audience wasn’t there to watch it, did the CNN presidential debate really happen?

That’s what one social media user wondered after the June 27 debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump in Atlanta.

"Has anyone considered that the entire debate could have just been a premade, AI video?" said text on an image shared June 30 on Instagram, using the abbreviation for artificial intelligence. The post’s caption reads, "No live audience. We are watching a scripted movie."

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.) 

There was no live studio audience, which was one of the rules CNN set that both candidates agreed to for the debate. Longtime CNN journalists Dana Bash and Jake Tapper moderated the debate.

It was the first presidential debate without a live audience since the 1960 debate between Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Richard Nixon, which was the first nationally televised presidential debate.

Was it all a video generated by AI?

There were some journalists in the room who would have reported whether the debate wasn’t happening live. A print reporter (tasked with sharing information with other reporters) was allowed briefly on set only during commercial breaks, but several photojournalists were on set throughout the debate. We found that at least six photographers took photos during the debate for multiple outlets, including for The Associated Press, Getty Images, Agence France-Presse, The New York Times and The Washington Post. 

Meanwhile, if it were a scripted event, Biden may have called for a rewrite after widespread criticism of his performance that left some Democratic allies and The New York Times editorial board to call for him to step down as the party’s presumptive nominee.

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stated on February 6, 2020 in a story

Says with his guilty impeachment vote, Senator Mitt Romney “could be removed from office.”

Biden, first lady Jill Biden, who was on the CNN set, and Vice President Kamala Harris all commented on the president’s debate performance.

"I don’t debate as well as I used to," President Biden acknowledged at a June 28 campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Jill Biden told Vogue magazine that they "will not let those 90 minutes define the four years he’s been president. We will continue to fight."

"It was a slow start. That’s obvious to everyone. I’m not going to debate that point. I’m talking about the choice in November," Harris told CNN’s Anderson Cooper in a June 27 post-debate interview.

Campaign staff members for both candidates were at the CNN studio, although they were not allowed to interact with them during the debate. James Blair, political director of the Trump campaign, shared a video of Trump immediately after the debate, where Trump received a round of applause. Trump also spoke about his and Biden’s debate performance at a June 28 rally in Chesapeake, Virginia.

An Instagram post’s claim that the presidential debate was "scripted" is False.