The microphones were muted. So were the moderators.
Despite the CNN logos filling the screens and the nonstop hype the network had created surrounding Thursday’s primetime debate between President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump, hosts Jake Tapper and Dana Bash largely remained in the background as they hosted the debates.
There were virtually no real-time fact checks of Trump’s numerous unsubstantiated claims. In tense moments, the moderators left it up to the candidates to address each other’s claims directly. And concerns that Trump could start a showstopper fight with his CNN interlocutors proved unfounded.
Mr. Tapper’s name was mentioned only twice in the course of 90 minutes. Ms. Bash’s name was not uttered once.
CNN had made it clear in advance that the moderators would act as facilitators, not participants. The chairman, Mark Thompson, called Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump “the stars of the show.” The network succeeded on that front.
Whether viewers agree with that approach may depend on their partisan views, and some Biden supporters quickly grumbled that the moderators were letting too many falsehoods go unchallenged.
But the unusual format of this debate — the first in decades to be controlled entirely by one television network — was fully negotiated and agreed to by both campaigns.
While Mr. Trump has a reputation for steamrolling debates and booing moderators, he displayed a newfound discipline on Thursday, rarely interrupting his opponent or any of the CNN anchors. The result was an evening remarkably free of the crosstalk or chaotic moments that might have forced moderators to intervene.
It was a technical aspect of the broadcast that seemed to have more effect than the moderators’ questions and follow-ups.
The decision to mute the candidates’ microphones when it was not their turn to speak was pushed by senior Biden aides, who had complained about Mr Trump’s refusal to follow ground rules during the two’s unruly first debate in 2020.
But on Thursday, the mute function seemed to better suit Mr. Trump’s broadcasting skills. His bombast, often lacking facts and context, stood in stark contrast to Mr. Biden’s often rambling and erratic responses. Mr. Trump was better at packing sound bites into the allotted time.
And while the moderators refused to question Mr. Trump about his more outlandish lies, Mr. Biden often passed up those opportunities, too. When Mr. Trump baselessly suggested that Mr. Biden had encouraged Vladimir V. Putin’s military strikes, it fell to the current president to dismiss the claim. He simply called it “nonsense.”
There were follow-ups, notably when Ms. Bash pressed Mr. Trump three times to indicate whether he would accept the results of the November election. Three times, Mr. Trump declined to answer the question directly.
And Mr. Tapper found himself at one point urging Mr. Trump to make even a half-hearted attempt to answer the question the anchor had just asked.
“So President Trump, you have 67 seconds left,” Mr. Tapper said dryly, after Mr. Trump sidestepped China and used the term “Manchurian candidate” to describe Mr. Biden. “The question was, ‘What will you do to help Americans who are now in the grips of addiction and struggling to get the treatment they need?’”
There was a moment early in the night when Mr. Trump seemed tempted to break the rules. Clearly irritated, he tried to respond to an answer from Biden about abortion, but his microphone was muted and viewers at home couldn’t hear him. The camera turned to Mr. Tapper, who moved on to his next question.
By the time Trump reappeared, he had done something that many of his regular viewers may not be accustomed to: he had gone silent.
