Good morning. 🇺🇸 Five weeks til the election. Nothing's riding on it except, you know, the future of the country.

⚾ Playoff baseball starts at 2 p.m. ET.

Join the Market: 🗞️ Newsletter | 🎙️ Podcast

The Debate Stage | Saul Loeb/Getty

🗳️ Moving the Market

Can a presidential debate change the 2020 election?

President Donald Trump and Joe Biden square off tonight in their first presidential debate, a major television event that will likely draw somewhere between 80 million and 90 million viewers. (The first 2016 debate drew a record-high 84 million.)

• The big question: With most Americans firmly entrenched in their political camps, and fed by news that reaffirms their worldview, can a presidential debate still change the course of an election?

In interviews with the Market, veteran political operatives and news media executives said the debate could theoretically change the course of the race. But they warned that most voters are so immovable it would take a major coup de grâce or seismic, self-inflicted wound to make a meaningful impact on the electorate.

• "History shows these debates don’t tend to change many votes and given how many in this electorate have already made up their minds, particularly on Trump’s character and job as president, I think that is even more the case in 2020," Robert Gibbs, the former Obama White House press secretary, told us.

• "The debates certainly matter, but they have not had a significant, measurable impact on the trajectory of a presidential race since at least 2004," said Jay Carney, another former Obama White House press secretary who now serves as senior vice president of global corporate affairs at Amazon.

Biden is the X factor, some of these people said:

• "I do think this can change the course of the race," a high-ranking political chief at one of the big television networks told us. "There is a group of people [who are] uncomfortable with Trump but are worried about Biden’s age, stamina and mental acuity. If Biden stumbles, he could be in a lot of trouble. If he holds his own, the race stays the course and maybe he benefits slightly."

• The president "will try to get Vice President Biden off his game," Carney said. "Biden will have to resist the urge to take the bait and stay focused on issues that matter most to the small but crucial segment of voters who haven’t made up their minds — health care, the pandemic and economic opportunity."

The backstory: Trump has repeatedly portrayed Biden as mentally weak and incoherent. As our colleague Allan Smith reports, "that line of attack will be put on trial" at the debate. But the fact that Trump has set such low expectations for his opponent could play to Biden's advantage.

• Democrats are also concerned Trump may force Biden to lose his temper by attacking his children, NYT's Annie Karni and Maggie Haberman report. At the same time, Trump’s allies fear the president could lose his temper or spend too much time talking about himself.

The big picture: Barring that truly seismic event — something that causes even the most loyal Trump or Biden supporter to rethink the mental or physical fitness of their preferred candidate — it is difficult to see how any of these debates move the needle.

• To that point: Gibbs pointed to a new Monmouth poll from Monday showing that, while 74 percent of voters plan to watch the debate, "just 3 percent say that they are very likely to hear something that will impact their eventual vote choice."

Chris Wallace | Chip Somodevilla/Getty

📺 Talk of TV Land

Chris Wallace, the invisible

Chris Wallace, the host of Fox News Sunday, says his ambition as moderator of tonight's presidential debate "is to be as invisible as possible." The true measure of his success, he says, will be if viewers say, "That was a great debate, who was the moderator?"

• The big picture: Wallace's refusal to play fact-checker will irk some Biden supporters, but that isn't the role he is supposed to play. The moderator's job is to facilitate debate; it is a candidate's job to hold his opponent to account.

• Moderators who have inserted themselves too heavily into debates — see CNN's Candy Crowley, 2012 — have paid the price, casting doubt on the integrity of the debate itself and fueling long-held suspicions about media bias.

What's next: Wallace delivered a sterling performance as moderator of the final presidential debate in 2016. We have every reason to believe that he'll do just as well tonight.

👀 How to Watch 👀

The debate starts at 9 p.m. ET and will air across all major news networks and digital platforms. Coverage starts on MSNBC and NBC News Now at 8 p.m. ET, and on NBC News at 9 p.m. ET.

President Trump | Brendan Smialowski/Getty

🗽 Moving Manhattan

Trump's 'Apprentice' bailout

President Trump's star turn on NBC's "The Apprentice" gave him a major financial lifeline while he was struggling with debts in his core businesses, NYT's Mike McIntire, Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig report in the latest installment of their reporting on his tax returns.

• "Months after [the] inaugural episode in January 2004, Mr. Trump filed his individual tax return reporting $89.9 million in net losses from his core businesses for the prior year."

• Trump went on to earn "$197 million directly from 'The Apprentice' over 16 years," plus "an additional $230 million" from advertising and licensing deals, as well as "get-rich-quick" manifestos.

The big picture: Trump's "Apprentice" earnings reveal how the fictional image of "the self-made, self-saved mogul" rescued him and eventually helped fuel his presidential bid. "His genius ... was making himself famous ... and monetizing that fame."

• "The ratings success of 'The Apprentice,' and the advertising dollars it generated, quickly pushed him into the unfamiliar position of declaring positive adjusted gross income on his I.R.S. Form 1040."

More to the point: No "Apprentice," no President Trump.

Market Links

• Bob Iger sells Disney's TrueX ad-tech firm (WSJ)

• Hans Vestberg may offload "Huffington Post" (NYP)

• Laksha Bohra faces an insider trading charge (CNBC)

• Shep Smith talks about his new CNBC show (THR)

• Bill Maher is renewed til 2022 at HBO (THR)

Tim Cook | Bloomberg/Getty

🌁 Big in the Bay

Apple vs. Epic, Round One

The federal judge overseeing Epic Games' legal battle against Apple has called for a jury trial in July, even as she repeatedly criticized Epic for intentionally flouting Apple's policies in order to force a debate over the iPhone giant's 30-percent fees on in-app purchases.

• The big picture: The standoff between Apple and Epic could have major ramifications for tech antitrust law and Apple's power over the digital marketplace, which has been criticized by Spotify, Match and others. But whatever those are, they won't come til mid-2021.

What's next: The judge will rule in a matter of days on whether Apple must reinstate Epic's "Fortnite" in the App Store (probably not) and whether it must continue to give developers access to Epic's Unreal Engine software tools (probably). More on all that here.

• Bonus: Speaking of 30-percent commissions, Google says that starting in September 2021 it will require all apps to pay those fees in the Google Play store. That includes major brands like Spotify and Netflix that had found ways to circumvent the fees.

Monday Night Football | Icon Sportswire/Getty

🌴 Talk of Tinseltown

Disney plays hard for "MNF"

The Walt Disney Company is leaning on its vast resources and big name talent from across its entertainment properties to build hype around "Monday Night Football" as rights negotiations with the NFL heat up, Variety's Brian Steinberg reports.

• "ESPN faces more pressure than some of its rivals. Its rights contract with the NFL lapses after the 2021 season, while deals between the league and NBC, Fox and CBS end after 2022."

• "Executives freely acknowledge the network’s relationship with the league had deteriorated. The quality of 'MNF' match-ups was not the best, and ESPN may have been distracted by the ratings performance of other leagues like the NBA."

• "People familiar with parts of the negotiations expect Disney to be ambitious and aggressive. ... Disney might move ["MNF"] to ABC ... Some executives would not be surprised to see Disney even make a bid for NBC’s 'Sunday Night Football.'"

The big picture: "The NFL and the TV networks that air its games are holding critical negotiations about rights contracts that, if they aren’t renewed, could determine nothing less than the fate of traditional TV itself."

• "Billions of dollars are at stake … TV executives know that in an era when more viewers are migrating to streaming-video favorites, a programming schedule without a robust NFL component is a doomsday scenario.”

What’s next: "There is speculation that the NFL and the networks could unveil new terms as soon as November."