Has the National Debt personally affected each of your lives if hasnt how can you honestly find a cure for the economic problems for the Common People if you have no experience of what is ailing them . Imitating the National Debt affects everybody. Obviously a has a lot to do with interest rates. On a personal basis has it affected you personally quick. I was like to know if governor bush will support me in the main bill that is pending . John, ten days ago you said are you afraid i couldnt hear him . I am just determined to get you to talk to him. All the applicants were all men and i said how come they are all men and they said these are the ones that were qualified and i said cant we find women that are qualified and we took an effort to find women who were qualified. I went to a number of womans groups. Some memorable and gamechanging mome moments. You are looking inside the arena at hofstra university. In about 30 minutes you will see live coverage of the predebate briefing where folks are walked through the mechanics of the debate and you will hear lester holt esh explane how we will proceed and their role in the first, 90minute map up between donald trump and Hillary Clinton. Thanks for watching us here on the cspan networks. We look at the past debates and how many people were watching over the years. In 1960, 56 years ago tonight. 66. 4 Million People watched in a much smallernati smaller nation. 80. 6 million in 1980. In 2012, the obama versus romney, 67. 2 million. Estimates tonight are as many as 100 million. Where is that 100 million estimate coming from . Guest the 100 million estimate is coming from the increased interest. The fact the first republican primary debate back in 2015 had 24 Million People tuning in when most people dont realize there is even an election coming up points to the increased mount of interest there is in these debates. People are estimating between 100 million, i heard 80 million, as we were pointing out we are a bigger nation and there are different ways to watch. You can watch the debate livestreaming on your phone, on twitter, facebook or any of those. Livestreaming. Explain how that is likely to affect the impression on vote. Four years ago you could not have streamed the entire thing on your smartphone. Now you can. People are going to be seeing photographs on instagram and clips on social media. How will that affect the audience . Guest there was something in 2012 where a lot of Campaign Officials and surrogates were complaining about the spin room no longer mattered because the real spin room was on twitter. That is true now. We see how the narrative starts on twitter within the first half hour. That first 30 minutes is the most important time for the debate because that is when you get the highest audience and people start dropping off but people get an idea of where it is going. It is hard to change the direction of the momentum after the first 30 minutes. Host lets move from the people watching to the person who is really at center stage as it begin and that is lester holt. Want to tell the people about lester holts bioography. He is now the official anchor position after the departure of Brian Williams joining nbc in 2000. He moderatored a democratic debate. He worked in chicago and he is a graduate of cal state sacramento. There was a bit of a discussion on twitter about his politics. The Trump Campaign tweeted out that he was likely to be against him because he was a registered democrat. We found in that process that lester holt is actually a registered republican. Guest right. A new york republican which is rare. Host what can you tell us about his qualification and preparation going into the debate . Lester has a good representation in terms of being an unbiased reporter and anchor. He has really had what a lot of people consider a good career. He came into his current position under a bit of a different circumstances. Normally when you hand over an anchor position it has fanfare but he slipped into it on interim basis and them named the hos host. Brian went on the late night shows and lester hasnt done that. This debate could change that. This is going to be a huge audience and probably the debate most people are paying attention to the moderator because there is a discussion about fact checki checking. People that know and work with him say he will do a great job and not make waves. They want to be invisible, asking questions and directing the debate and not become the story. Host you might explain to people the whole back and forth about the whole of the moderator and how important it was for them to fact check. By the way, we are watching live pictures of donald trump coming into the arena. As we are watching that, politico is talking to us about the Fact Checking and whether or not it is the job of the moderator in these debates to do that. Guest you know, it is a really fascinating question that we have because the moderator is the only other person on stage other than the two candidates. I actually spoke with quite a few of the former moderators including jim lair who moderated, i think, 12 president ial debates so he is experienced. He said a good moderator prefers to have the other candidate fact check their opinion before the moderator steps in but both different on if the moderator should step in. If one candidate says the sky is green he would turn to the canada candidate and say what do you think and if he does rnt answer does the moderator say well, the sky is blue. We dont know what lester holt will do. In previous cycles, the Fact Checking was more nuance. We have had instances where donald trump said, for example, he was always against the iraq war when we have a recording of him on a radio show saying he was for the iraq war back in 2002. If he makes that assertion on state and Hillary Clinton doesnt attempt to counter that what should a moderator do . If the moderator steps in and fact checks it can be seen as bias. We saw that in 2008 with Barack Obamas description of the benghazi attack. The way romney was framing and getting at was different than what was being fact checked and it launched a controversy. But the moderator are going to be part of the story. Host what is the position of the debate officials . Guest they give a lot of freedom to their moderators. The moderators come up with their own question and set the term and the direction. They help figure out the format but it is up to the moderator to control the questions and much time the candidates gets. Tonight, a question posed, each candidate gets two minutes and then ten minutes of open debate and it is up to lester holt to determine who gets what time. Host why do we even have moderators and why are the moderators journalists and this is a historical remnant of the first debate that was 56 years ago tonight. The Kennedy Campaign was concerned they would not be able to stop a filibuster and insisted a journalist act as a moderator to control the time. We are left all these years later because it was that way in the first debate. You mention you talked to a number of moderators and we talks to the person who m moderated the march 3rd debate between Hillary Clinton and bernie sanders. Lets listen to what her advice was for lester holt tonight you cannot overprepare for this job. You need to make sure you know everything this candidate has ever said about the subject before you ask a question. You have to be really well prepared for an answer that goes off into a strange territory where they have never been before. One of the Biggest Challenges for the moderator is to get the candidates off their talking points and get them to Say Something, to engage with your question in a way that, you know, is not necessarily something that voters would have heard day in and day out. The other big challenge is to get them to engage with each other. Honestly, they will always default to their talking points if they can. What is your reaction to that . I think it is definitely true. There is no such thing as overpreparation. A lot of moderators try to anticipate what the candidates will say. They actually create answers and followup questions to those answers but it will help determine the debate. You cant have a list of questions without assuming one of those answers might turn the debate question into another way. Bob sheafer, a former moderator said he always said to go with short and simple questions. They are much better than these long questions because first of all they keep the moderator off camera and they tend to get better responses. He had his favorite question was how would you do that. If a candidate says we going to get rid of isis he would say how would you do that and he says increase military spending and then how would you do that and you can keep asking them that over and over. Hillary clinton will respond well to the how would you do questions. Yes, but donald trump is very good as well at not only answers questions that might not seem suited to him but changing the topics. He is so fast when answering the questions sometimes it is hard to keep up with all the Different Directions he is going in. Host thinking about the factchecking issue. There are a number of resources people who are concerned about Fact Checking have in the second stream experiences. Politifact is going to be factchecking in real time, bloomberg tv is going to fact check. How does this change the game as people are able to have resources immediately available to check the candidates . Guest i think it is a really positive thing. How many voters will take the extra step to open the Second Screen and follow the Fact Checkers . I think it is a very involved audience member who will do that. I feel like most people will be watching is just watching without necessarily getting that extra context fact checks might provide. I reached out to networks asking if they are providing onscreen fact check and the only network saying they will be doing something is bloomberg and they said it would not be at the the moment Fact Checking but over time there will be a scroll, where they scroll the headlines, that will make notes of didnt fact checks. But with the Second Screen, if something is going to politico where i work is doing Fact Checking or the washington post, however good fact checks take time. Unless you are really prepared and know somebody is going to Say Something offbase and a lot of organizations anticipate answers it will be at least 15 minutes after the answer and whether the fact check as the same effect 15 minutes later from a moderator there is a huge difference in effect. As a media reporter what are you doing on site . What are you looking for . My main story tonight is watching lester holt and seeing how he does. This is a really big stage. I am going to be watching for how other reporters and political operatives and candidates react to this moderator, whether he does fact check, does he seem like he is hammering one candidate more than the other and watching the media here. What is the main thing the reporters are asking one another and the candidates. Host thank you so much for being here. I invite people interested in how the media is covering the event. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Lets return to peter slen. The commission on president ial debates is the organization that sets up the can debates and here is the story from the International Business time who makes up the commission, an elite group decides schedule, moderator and candidates. Alex graph wrote this. Every four years a select group of fewer than 20 people makes just about every decision about the u. S. President ial debates from the schedule to how candidates qualify. That gives them an enorsement amount of power over the countrys election but most americans have no idea who they are. The commission on president ial debates has been the governing body since 1970 in charge of organizing the president ial and Vice President ial debates every election cycle. They put together mondays highly anticipated showdown and the status purpose is to ensure voters get the opportunity to few an informative debate. The commission on president ial debates board is currently chaired by frank and michael mccurry. Mike pharyncough is a former chairman of the Republican National committee. Janet brown is the executive director. The Board Members of the cpd howard buffet, son of warren buffet. Former senator John Danforth of missouri, a republican. Mitch daniels former governor of indiana and current president of purdue university. Charley gibson, former anchor of abc news. John griffin, the managing director of alan and company. Jane harmon former Congress Woman from california and director of the woodrow center. Antonio hernandez the president and ceo of the California Community foundation. The president of notre dame. Jim lair. Former executive anchor of news hour. Newton, a senior counsel at Sydney Austin and former head of the fcc under john f kennedy. And dorthy writing, former president of the league of women voters. Olympia snow. And former president of princeton university. That is the board that makes up the commission on president ial debates. Now the Minneapolis Star Tribune has a secret history of the commission and did it sin graphic novel form. If you go to the startribune. Com you can see their take on the secret history of the debates. The debate is taking place in the david s mack complex at hofstra university. Well who is that . He was born in 1941 and he owns a Real Estate Development company. He was appointed to the metropolitan Transportation Authority who george putacky was governor of new york and been a member of that ever since. That is a little bit about david mack who the center is named after. Thank you, peter. We are getting pictures inside the debate hall. It is now 8 20. The debate begins just shortly after 9 00. At 8 35 we will give you a chance to be in the hall as close as you can be in the hall via television and you get to listen to the debate prep. Janet brown who has been the executive director of the commission on president ial debate since the founding in 1987 will be talking to the audience about the format and lester holt will be addressing the university. More about hofstra university. It is in hempstead new york founded in 1935. 140 different graduate programs and tuition and housing at the university averages about 58,000 and change. And let me introduce you to Michael Ortiz who is editor and chief of the hofstra chronicle. How did the campus react when it found out it was going to unexpectingly going to be hosting another debate . We found out we were going to be hosting our third consecutive debate in july. So the university have three months to prep. The general feeling is exciteme excitement. People are getting more engaged than they ever have before. Students are excited, pumped and ready to see what the candidates bring to the stage. Host how many students will be in the hall . I am not quite sure. I know the commission on president ial debates allocates that number out to the university. I know a few students from Wright University will be in the debate hall. They were supposed to host the debates at their campus but because of security concerns they could not afford to so hofstra was named in july. You can see in the crowd, and the faces they are excited and nervous. Dont really know what to expect. But overall happy and proud of their university. Host news reports suggested it might cost the university as much as 2 million to help with the logistics and security. Is that number controversial for students on the hofstra campus . Definitely. But the great thing is hofstra has always funded their debates through contributions to the university. David s mac and peter cackle and Lawrence Herbert were major con tributers. The university has never raised tuition because it had to host the president ial debate. I think that laid to rest some of the worries. Host we want to introduce our audience to the president of your university who talked to us a little about hosting the debate. We will watch him and come back to learn more about the reaction on campus and how professors are utilizing this unique experience to help with student learning. You know, we heard nothing about the possibility of our being an alternate until middle to end of july. There were no prior discussions. There was just a message from the Commission Call at your convenience. So i did and i am thrilled. You know, we are the campus is alive, our students are excited. We were able to put together a brief threeweek program of commentators and journalists and politicians to talk about the issues in the campaign. Even during such a short period of time those kinds of discussions were packed with students. So the president s comments echoes yours but it is not long after school has started this semester and you found out during the summer when most students and faculty were away. So how are professors trying to maximize this experience for students on campus . Definitely professors in the Political Science and communication departments have been working tirelessly to get their students to go to all kinds of programs. Hofstra has been hosting programs really since we got back to school to try to get students civically engageded. They hosted panels with speakers like David Axlerod and others. They are trying to encourage students to become engaged and offering credit for going and there is journalism 13 class which has been doing polling and they found that the majority of students they polled were in favor of Hillary Clinton on this campus which isnt surprising seeing it a liberal arts campus. I think they are trying in a multitude of ways and i think successful and shows in the impact on the students. For more on the cost of hosting a debate lets listen to mike mccurry. He is the cochair of the debate and former press secretary. We have a very small number of committed corporate and individual supporters but a rather meager budget compared to some of the budgets we are seeing in Campaign Politics now in the cycle we are in. Most of the expense of the debate quite frankly is borne by the host colleges and universities we pick. They have the raise the money from their supporters to con figure to facility, pay for the security, arrange the transportation, make sure there is extra air conditioning in the hall. They are really borne by the college. It is why some colleges and universities think this is worth it because we get put on the map. If you talk to the president of hofstra tonight he will tell you it has been great to have the debates. Our students get something out of it, we develop curriculum out of it, and it has made hofstra a much more widely known name than it would be otherwise. Other big Name University probably say we dont need the extra hassle that goes into this. But that is where most of the cost lies. We, by had way, the commission itself, the limited amounts of founding we raise to pay for a hardworking staff. Janet brown who is the executive director and other staff we have minimal expenses for the commission itself. But it is all laid out in the Public Forums we file with the Internal Revenue service. Host that is mike mccurry press secretary during the clinton years and the democratic cochair on the commission of president ial debates. Mr. Ortiz, about the cache. Are you finding that hofstra has a buzz about it that it would not ordinary have because it is hosting this debate . Does it help with recruitment of new students . When you talk to colleagues attending other schools there is a little bit of jealousy about your role . Absolutely. It is all about branding. Part of the reason i applies to hofstra is because it hosted debays in 2008 and 2012 and i was politically involved and thought wow, what if i was there for the 2016 debate. It is surreal right now. We have a center on the study of the american presidency, we have hosted numerous president ial conferences. Last year we hosted a president ial conference on george w. Bush. Our school is making a name for itself in the political world on par with George Washington i would argue. This debate heightens that and secures our place as a leader in that area. Host and last question, you are experiencing some of the security that surrounds president ial candidates. Explain to people watching in our audience what that has been like. What are you seeing . It is definitely hard to explain. We have secret service, new york state police, nasau county and hofstra security working to make sure the students, faculty and candidates are safe. It is a remarkable experience going through security. All the different checkpoints and things. It almost feels like you are going through an airport. It is pretty hard to explain. It is hard to imagine unless you were here but it is all for the best especially with the recent bombings in chelsea and everything going on you want to make sure when you have a profile event like this everyone is as safe as possible. Those security measures can seem time consuming and an inconvenience it is for the best. Host Michael Ortiz is editor and chief of the hofstra paper. Thank you so much for talking to the cspan audience. Lets look once more inside the debate hall. Most people are in place. I have been able to see famous faces in the crowd that are lining up to find their seats. I think right now there is Rudy Giuliani on the screen as one example. We will continue watching that for the next five minutes or so until people will be asked to be seated and the predebate program will get underway. Peter slen is before that. What do you have . We want to introduce you to one more student. This is natalie of the Fashion Institute of technology. How did an fit student get to hofstra to attend the president ial debate . Well, i went to Lawrence High School a local high school in long island and my former teacher is very into politics and i was in one of his Public Policy classes and he noticed i have a huge interest in politics. He got this great opportunity and he has been here before at the 2012 debate. He got this great opportunity and was natalie i am taking three students or former students they need to be 18 are you interested and i was like of course i am interest. I have a class monday evenings and told my professor i will do all my work i just really have to take this and he said go do t it is a once in a lifetime chance. Here i am and really excited. This is a picture tweeted out. You interviewings congressman peter king. What are you been doing up there . They are very persistent and go up to everyone. We have been picking up on what they asked the former congress men or high executive people and ask the same questions. We love seeing Young Students involved. It is exciting and inspiring. Natalie with the Fashion Institute of Technology Thanks for being with us. You can see what she is tweeting out. Csp cspanbts if you want to see some of her work