Good evening from the Athletic Center at the university of massachusetts in boston, im jim lehrer of the news hour on pbs and i welcome you to the first of three 90minute debates between the democratic. Candidate for president , Vice President al gore, and the republican candidate governor george w. Bush of texas. The debates are sponsored by the commission on president ial debates and they will be conducted within formats and rules agreed toby the commission and the two campaigns. Tonight well have the candidates at podiums. No answer to a question can exceed two minutes. Rebuttals are limited to one minute. But as moderator i have the option to followup and extend any particular give and take another three and a half minutes. Even then no single answer can exceed two minutes. The candidates under their rules may not question each other directly. There will be no Opening Statements but each candidate may have up to two minutes for a closing statement. The questions and the subjects we
Good evening from the Clark Athletic Center at the university of massachusetts in boston. Im jim lehrer of the news hour on pbs and i welcome you to the debate between the democratic candidate for president , Vice President al gore and the republican candidate, governor george w. Bush of texas. They will be conducted within for th formats agreed to by the two campaigns. No answer to a question can exceed two minutes, rebuttals are limited to one minute. But as moderator, i have the option to follow up and extend any particular give and take 3 1 2 minutes. No single answer can exceed two minutes. The candidates under their may not question each other directly. There will be no Opening Statements but each candidate may have up to two minutes for a closing statement. The questions and the subjects were chosen by me alone. I have told no one from the two campaigns or the commission or anyone else involved what they are. Theres a small audience in the hall tonight. They are not here to part
Welcome everybody to todays hybrid hearing. Pursuant to house rules, some members will appear in person and others will appear remotely via webx. Some members are appearing in person. Let me first remind everyone that pursuant to the latest guidance from the attending physician, all individuals attending the hearing in person must wear a face mask unless you are speaking. Members not wearing a face mask will not be recognized. Let me also make a few reminders for these members appearing in person. You will only see members and witnesses appearing remotely on the monitor in front of you when they are speaking in what is known as webx as active speaker view. The timer is visible in the room directly in front of you. For members appearing remotely, i know you are all familiar with webx by now, but let me remind you of a few points. First, you will be able to see each person speaking during the hearing, whether they are in person or remote, as long as you have your webx set to active speak