the person they re working with. they have a lot of debate prep. i heard from another clinton aide, doing last-minute debate prep coming into the final hours. but, yeah, not even it s pretty interesting, jake not even trying to manage expectations. she s got to come here, she has to do well, and they know that. all right. brianna keilar, thank you. the candidates themselves begin arriving in a few minutes. senior white house correspondent jim acosta on the lookout for us. any sightings? that s right. no, sightings yet, jake. standing about this n. this loading dock behind the wynn hotel and casino, candidates coming in as they arrive for the debate stage walk-through. i ll walk along here, show you what they ll be doing. pull up in their limos, hop out of the car, greeted by the owner, steve wynn before he head back to check out the podium and lectern position. i have to tell you, jake, the stakes are high. the temperatures are high. we re out here in the hot vegas sun have to
reporter: it s going great. john, what we re seeing is sort of debate prep, debate setup in action. you can see all the scores of cnn employees behind me setting the stage for tuesday s debate, the first democratic debate of this season. you can see the fill-ins for candidates standing at the lecterns on stage right now. there s a lady standing where hillary clinton will be standing in that middle lectern position. she s obviously the front runner this campaign. you talked about the other candidates who are in this race and where they ll be positioned on stage. the candidate obviously that everybody is talking about right now is really giving hillary clinton a run for her money is vermont senator bernie sanders, the self-described socialist who s lit up the progressive base of the democratic party, filling up stadiums and arenas and auditoriums. over the weekend he had 9,000 people in colorado. in the last 24 hours we ve heard one of the potential flashpoints in tuesday night s debat