How To Catch Up On Today’s US Presidential Debate For Free

How To Catch Up On Today’s US Presidential Debate For Free

The first US presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump was today at 11:00AM AEST. If you missed watching it live, here’s how you can still watch the debate in full.

Illustration by: Angelica Alzona

Thankfully, we have a vast array of options to watch the debates this season, unlike the rather bare bones offerings of debates in past US election cycles. An estimated 100 million people are expected to tune in tonight, which would blow away the previous viewership record for a US presidential debate made in 1980 between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Roughly 80 million people watched Carter and Reagan, and those poor schmucks didn’t even have a single Snappychat or Twitter Tweet between the two of them.

Whatever happens, all eyes will be on Trump and Clinton tonight. And we have so many options. Many livestreams have a pregame schedule that starts one hour before (10:00AM AEST) and sometimes even two hours before (9:00AM AEST) the actual debate starts. But if you’re only interested in the main event, make sure your popcorn is popped and your deplorables are deplored by 11:00AM AEST.

YouTube

Note: The actual debate begins at around 25:40 in.

Twitter

Twitter is livestreaming Bloomberg TV‘s coverage at debates.twitter.com starting at 10:30AM AEST.

Facebook

Facebook is partnering with ABC News to bring a livestream of the debate to viewers. All of the questions for the first debate will come from NBC and the producers hosting the event, but Facebook is helping to collect questions for the next debate on October 9 at Washington University in St Louis, which will be hosted by Martha Raddatz from ABC News and Anderson Cooper from CNN. But remember, Facebook is not a media company.

PBS Newshour will also have a Facebook livestream which will be followed by a half hour of analysis.

Telemundo will also have a Facebook livestream with coverage in Spanish.

AltspaceVR: Virtual Reality

Do you want to watch the debate in virtual reality? Well, that’s an option. AltspaceVR has partnered with NBC News to bring a virtual reality experience to the debate, which will purportedly allow you to experience the event “with people around the world”. If that sounds like an enjoyable use of your time and you have a Samsung Gear VR or Oculus Rift, you can check out AltspaceVR for more info about how to join. There’s a 2D “virtual reality” experience available, but it’s unclear why you’d bother.

Today’s debate will be moderated by NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt. It’s still unclear if Holt will “factcheck” either candidate in real time, or just sit there like a robot reading questions from a teleprompter, as some believe he should. It’s also still unclear what a “fact” is, if we’re to believe the media watchdog echo chamber.

Whatever happens today, may God have mercy on our souls.


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