WASHINGTON, May 31 (Reuters) - The presidential

campaigns of Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump know

what they want to talk about in their high-stakes television

debate next month, and now they're trying to convince news

network CNN to play ball.

President Biden and former President Trump, his predecessor

in office, meet in Atlanta on June 27 for the first of two

debates they have agreed to, a showcase that will draw millions

of viewers and could cement many voters' preferences in a

closely fought election on Nov. 5.

Biden has three preferred topics, according to a campaign

memo viewed by Reuters: abortion rights, the state of democracy

and the economy.

Trump's team has pointed to immigration, public safety and

inflation as key issues ahead of the debate. Trump on Thursday

became the first U.S. president to be convicted of a crime when

a New York jury found him guilty of falsifying documents to

cover up a payment to silence a porn star ahead of the 2016

election.

Each campaign team, not surprisingly, has picked topics they

think play to the candidates' own perceived areas of strength in

the debate and signaled them publicly, including to the network.

This is not new. Campaigns in the past have lobbied debate

hosts about rules, topics and other specifics.

However, this election cycle presents an nearly

unprecedented situation - not since 1960 ushered in the era of

televised presidential debates has a news organization been

fully in control of the terms and parameters of two debates

between the top two candidates. Most recently, the bipartisan

Commission on Presidential Debates has sponsored them.

The commission was created in 1987 to settle differences

between the two major political parties in a bipartisan forum.

Some previous debates had been organized by the League of Women

Voters, a civic group, but the Democratic and Republican Parties

wanted more control.

Whether CNN, Warner Bros Discovery's ( WBD ) news

network, will honor the candidates' wishes on topics remains to

be seen. CNN declined to comment.

Besides topics, CNN and later news network ABC, which is

hosting a September debate, control who is in the room, how long

candidates have for replies, what other news media can share

footage of the debates and how the Biden campaign's proposed

muting system for microphones would work.

Frank Fahrenkopf, co-chair of the commission, said networks

previously avoided sponsoring their own debates because of the

conflicts between staging a news event and covering it, as well

as the headache of creating a fair forum amid lobbying from both

sides.

"I don't think it'll work, but let's watch it and see what

happens," he said.

Moderators for prior debates run by the commission disclosed

broad themes in advance, but so far there's no sign that CNN

anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, plan to do so. ABC, a part of

the Walt Disney Co ( DIS ), will host a second debate between

the candidates on Sept. 10.

SEATED OR STANDING?

Biden's team thinks they can overcome voter ennui about

their own candidate by painting Trump as a threat to democracy

and individual freedoms.

Trump's team feels voters will look past the ex-president's

legal trials and choose him on pocketbook issues and other

policies of concern under Biden.

Shared in common between the two candidates is a focus on

the economy, which voters rank top of their list of concerns in

public opinion polls, though immigration and democracy also

feature.

Trump said in a radio interview last week that the

candidates would be seated during the debate, to his chagrin, at

the request of the Biden campaign. A Biden adviser said that is

not true.

Independent U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy

Jr., who previously said he expected to meet the criteria to

participate, on Tuesday filed a complaint with the Federal

Election Commission for being excluded.

Jen O'Malley Dillon, the Biden campaign chair, said in a

strategy memo viewed by Reuters that Biden wants to discuss

Trump's role in the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 reversal of the

Roe v. Wade ruling that guaranteed a right to abortion, as well

as "how Trump attacks our democracy" and how his economic plan

"would make him and his friends richer."

Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokesperson, said that

"voters want a president who will stop Biden's Bloodbath at the

southern border, enforce law and order in our crime-ridden

cities, lower prices on housing, gas, and groceries, and put

America first."