Watch President Trump and Joe Biden duke it out in the first debate — and follow the Blaze team's live blow-by-blow chat

President Donald Trump and former Vice President Job Biden go toe-to-toe tonight at 9 p.m. ET. You can catch the whole thing live right here AND follow the Blaze Team's live chat below, where you can get our initial take of the goings on — from campaign promises and outrageous claims to fact checks and smackdowns to media bias and spin-masters' takes.

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Tonight's Topics

The debate topics selected by Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, who is moderating tonight's debate, are as follows:

• The Trump and Biden Records
• The Supreme Court
• COVID-19
• The Economy
• Race and Violence in our Cities
• The Integrity of the Election

These topics will be discussed in six 15-minute segments.

The debate will be 90 minutes with no commercial breaks.

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Chris Field

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2004 flashback - Bush's bulge

Listening to the fight today over whether the Trump campaign insisted that a third party inspect both candidates' ears for earpieces (and whether the Biden camp agreed to it and then changed its mind) I was reminded of the 2004 debate imbroglio known as Bush's Bulge.

The left was 100% convinced that President George W. Bush was wearing some sort of wi-fi device that fed him help for the debate. Conspiracy theories abounded.

Salon even went so far as to cite a NASA scientist who claimed that "imaging techniques" pointed to Bush having some sort of device strapped to his back.

George W. Bush tried to laugh off the bulge. "I don't know what that is," he said on "Good Morning America" on Wednesday, referring to the infamous protrusion beneath his jacket during the presidential debates. "I'm embarrassed to say it's a poorly tailored shirt."

Dr. Robert M. Nelson, however, was not laughing. He knew the president was not telling the truth. And Nelson is neither conspiracy theorist nor midnight blogger. He's a senior research scientist for NASA and for Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and an international authority on image analysis. Currently he's engrossed in analyzing digital photos of Saturn's moon Titan, determining its shape, whether it contains craters or canyons.

For the past week, while at home, using his own computers, and off the clock at Caltech and NASA, Nelson has been analyzing images of the president's back during the debates. A professional physicist and photo analyst for more than 30 years, he speaks earnestly and thoughtfully about his subject. "I am willing to stake my scientific reputation to the statement that Bush was wearing something under his jacket during the debate," he says. "This is not about a bad suit. And there's no way the bulge can be described as a wrinkled shirt."

Nelson and a scientific colleague produced the photos from a videotape, recorded by the colleague, who has chosen to remain anonymous, of the first debate. The images provide the most vivid details yet of the bulge beneath the president's suit. Amateurs have certainly had their turn at examining the bulge, but no professional with a résumé as impressive as Nelson's has ventured into public with an informed opinion. In fact, no one to date has enhanced photos of Bush's jacket to this degree of precision, and revealed what appears to be some kind of mechanical device with a wire snaking up the president's shoulder toward his neck and down his back to his waist.And it wasn't just Nelson making the claim for Salon's nuttery. The outlet also got University of Pittsburgh prof. Bruce Hapke to back up Nelson.

Bruce Hapke, professor emeritus of planetary science in the department of geology and planetary science at the University of Pittsburgh, reviewed the Bush images employed by Nelson, whom he calls "a very highly respected scientist in his field." Hapke says Nelson's process of analyzing the images are the "exact same methods we use to analyze images taken by spacecraft of planetary surfaces. It does not introduce any artifacts into the picture in any way." [...]

Hapke, too, agrees that the bulge is neither anatomy nor a wrinkled shirt. "I would think it's very hard to avoid the conclusion that there's something underneath his jacket," he says. "It would certainly be consistent with some kind of radio receiver and a wire."

The two parties' craziness when it comes to accusing each other of even the most ridiculous things knows no bounds. Expect more of the same tonight and for the next five weeks.

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Welcome to TheBlaze's first debate livestream!

Welcome, readers of TheBlaze! Tonight, the news staff will be liveblogging the debate in this window with additional commentary and information. The debate will be held tonight on the campus of Case Western Reserve, with Chris Wallace of Fox News moderating. Game on!