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What Topics Will The Presidential Debates Cover? Actually, No One Is Entirely Sure

by Keiko Zoll

Do you have your popcorn ready? I know I do, because Monday night will be the first of four presidential debates between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump. I do love a good presidential debate, and this first one scheduled for Monday is sure to be an amazing one as Trump finally gets to sit in the hot seat without his yes men by his side or his raving rally supporters. It's not going to be a walk in the park for Clinton, either, what with the email "scandal" that just won't go away. It's time to get down to the issues, so what topics will the presidential debates cover? Yeah, about that.

The first debate will take place at 9 p.m. Eastern time at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. NBC Nightly News host Lester Holt will serve as the debate's moderator, and has chosen the topics for the evening — and to be perfectly honest, they sound like a middle school theme paper assignment. The first debate topics will be — and this is verbatim from the Commission on Presidential Debates announcement made Monday — America's Direction, Achieving Prosperity, and Securing America. I'm sorry, but what the f*ck does any of that even mean?

The first presidential debate format is pretty standard: Each candidate will have a half hour, broken into two 15-minute segments, to respond to each of the three topics selected by Holt: He'll pose a question, each candidate has two minutes to respond, and then they get the rest of the time to duke it out, I mean, um — debate the issues in a civil manner.

But let's take a look at those "topics," shall we?

America's Direction

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Granted, this is a relative topic: We're south of Canada but north of Mexico. Oh wait — that's not what Holt means. Well, we're not really sure what Holt means since each of his three topics are so broad. I'm assuming he means something about how the country is doing and where it's headed. If you subscribe to Clinton's campaign, things just keep gettin' better. And then there's Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan, and he seems to be under the impression America is in the toilet. No matter where the candidates take the topic of "America's Direction," here's hoping we don't have another "I can see Canada from my house!" moment.

Achieving Prosperity

This topic seems to vaguely dance around the issue of economy, I think? Again, another broad-reaching category that could touch on a number of potential topics. Get out your Presidential Debate bingo card to check off such keywords as: Mexico, China, Epi-Pen, and Wells Fargo.

Securing America

Now, this is a topic I'm particularly interested in — well, maybe not the topic itself, but how one candidate will tackle it live, on stage, in front of millions of Americans. For months, Trump has promised he's going to make America safer — but he hasn't really answered the all-important follow-up question of "How exactly, Mr. Trump?" I'm pretty confident the "Securing America" topic will definitely be the most popcorn worthy segment of the night, I'm sure.

And what about the three remaining debates? The topics and issues for each of those have yet to be announced, but here's hoping they're slightly more specific than the "American Stuff," "American Things," and "Other American Stuff" we'll be hearing about Monday night.