vegas with cnn senior white house corinth jim acosta. set the scene for us. reporter: we are inside the debate hall right now. if you re wondering why we got up so darn a early las vegas time to bring this to you, it s because this is your first chance to see inside the debate hall for the first democratic debate on cnn and just over 48 hours from now. i m standing right next to the podiums. here they are. this is hillary clinton s podium and bernie sanders next to her and the other candidates next to them. lincoln chafee and martin o malley and jim webb. there is another space if they want to add another candidate, hint, hint, vice president joe biden who has nod said whether he is running for president. the rules are such that vice president biden could join this debate at the last minute if he decides to do that. let me show you the rest of the debate hall here. on the far side of the debate hall, a giant screen is behind me.
where hosts will be asking the questions on the debate on tuesday night. as for what we re going to be seeing its course during that debate on tuesday evening, a couple of interesting things. bernie sanders, he s been going after hillary clinton in the last 48 hours on this vote on the iraq war pointing out that back in 2002 he voted against the iraq war and hillary clinton voted in favor of the iraq war. those are echoes, guys, of the 2008 race when barack obama and hillary clinton were going at each other and that was something that senator obama, at that time, was using as a way to divide himself from hillary clinton at that time. and hillary clinton, as you know, reversed herself on the tpp deal. bernie sanders is opposed to that. that s another flash point to watch on tuesday. it s going to be fascinating political television. the first democratic debate here on cnn. we re inside the debate hall. i ll be showing you this over
me. the one in the middle is where hillary clinton will be standing. she s leading in the polls. bernie sanders the independent senator from vermont will be next to her. he s been surprising a lot of people in the race by doing so well in the polls and giving hillary clinton a run for her money. guys, i have to tell you, there s a lot of room up here if they want to add one more podium, hint, hint, for vice president joe biden who is in delaware this weekend. he s said to be engaged in deliberations with his advisors whether or not he should run for the presidency in 2016. stay tuned for that. we ll see if vice president joe biden joins us on tuesday night. let s look at the rest of the debate hall. very interesting to look at. across the way you can see behind me there s a giant screen. that s will don lemon helping host the debate. he ll be taking questions from the facebook users during the debate. and the table soon here behind me, you see the chairs, that s
all right. two days now, two days until the first democratic debate right here on cnn. i have the five presidential hopefuls here on your screen. this is going to be one person s opportunity to break-away, all though hillary clinton who is at the top. those candidates honing their messages. we can assume they re preparing to try to stand out in front of the national audience. let s start our live coverage this week with senior cnn senior white house correspondent jim acosta. he s in las vegas. good morning, jim. reporter: good morning, guys. that s right. you won t see much of the candidates over the next 489 ho 48 hours. we want to show our viewers we re inside the debate hall where the debate will be taking place on tuesday night inside the winn hotel on the las vegas strip. you can see the podiums behind
chafee. they book end the stage. a brand-new poll out today, hillary clinton on top in the cbs poll. she is 19 points ahead of bernie sanders. now, if, if vice president joe biden enters the race, he would be in third with the other candidates far, far behind. but a biden candidacy is still a big if. there has been no word from the vice president who has been meeting all weekend with friends and family to discuss a potential run up in delaware, no white smoke, no black smoke from that house. we simply do not know what s going on there. let s begin here, though, with cnn s senior white house correspondent jim acosta, who is inside the debate hall right behind me at the wynn las vegas. jim, tell me what the candidates are doing to prepare today. you won t see them anywhere near the hotel where we are checking out the debate preps. our cnn staff are all over the