sign the u.n. charter as it was the first victim of aggression by an axis power, and became a u.n. member in october of 1945. thank you to all of you for being a part of my program this week, and i will see you next week, and i will see you next week. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com good morning. i'm brian selter and we are in hemstead, new york, and inside of the arena has been transformed into a presidential debate stage. this is where hillary clinton and donald trump will face-off for the first time, and actually behind my shoulder, you might be able to see the stand-ins for trump, clinton and lester holt who are pretending to debate right now. i heard a trump stand-in saying how many would be holding on the stage. we will talk to man on the

middle, lester holt, and we have new details of how he is prepari preparing. and up ahead, the head of the debate commission will be taking us through the scenes of how this is all coming together. and plus, we will hear from late night host seth myers and why he would never want to be a moderator. and first, the media's role in this roomment we are broadcasters and also the judge s. clinton and trump are not just competing against each other, but against our and your expectations. moderator lester holt is also under tremendous pressure, and let's begin with two people who have been here and done this and been on the stage. jim lehrer has moderated 12 presidential debates and the former news anchor for the pbs "newshour." and ann compton served in 1998 and in 1992 and a retired white house correspondent for abc news. thank you both for being here this morning. >> thank you, brian. >> delighted to be here. >> jim, i know that lester is busy preparing, but he is taking

a little bit of time off, and if he is watching right now, what is your advice for lest er holt? >> well, two things. first of all, he must remind himself that it is not about him or the mod rayer or the. and second thing, he should remember that no matter what he does on monday night, he is going to be criticized for it. that is because the rules have changed. the rules are much more wide open than they have been in the previous years and in previous election cycles meaning that the candidates can speak directly to each other, and can question each other, and there is more time to be devoted to each subject, and each question, and the moderator's job is to keep the flow going, and to make sure that everything is maintained and fairness is maintained, ets, and the job is much more difficult, and no matter how he does it, he will be criticized, because somebody is going to be coming out in less, well, there is going to be a winner oloser declared and the loser, and people say, oh, it is the moderator's fault, he let things go or he cut things off, et

cetera, et cetera, et cetera, but as long as he understands that going in, lester will be fine, and he probably does, and he will be. >> he has the best and the worst job in tv right now. and ann, what are you believing about holt's position as a fa fact-checker on stage? there is a lot that has been made about whether the mod eratr should step in if donald trump or hillary clinton clearly lis.s what is your position on that? >> well, there is a reason why broadcast journalists are often the moderators for this. we hate to leave absolute errors of fact on the table. and while it is true that the moderator ought to give the other candidate the opportunity to check a fact, reasonable adversaries here are trying to tear each other down, and just because the democrat says x and the republican says y, it does not mean that you don't have the truth in there somewhere and there has to be a check. and also, remember, that the moderator is not just the umpire.

the moderator is the pitcher in the game, and it matters whether he throws a fastball or the curve, and it matters how much time those candidates have to really explore the answer. >> jim, nbc sources say that lester is not a potted plant which is the quote from to nbc source sources, and he will step in when necessary to fact check the candidates, and is that appropriate for holt? >> well, the key question and the key phrase is when necessary. i happy to disagree slight ly with ann's approach, because if a moderator is sitting at the table and starts moderating with the idea that i have to make sure that all of the facts are chaengd somebody says something, that is a different role. i see the number one function of the moderator is to make sure that the flow is among the candidates. the moderator should be out of the picture as much as possible, and whether he is a potted plant or not, it is ir rel vrelevancy

because when it is all over, it is about the two candidates. they are the player, and the moderator is the facilitator and not one of the players. >> that is right. >> ann, your response? >> well, jim is right about that. the moderator should never be the story at the end of the 90 minutes, but it is also the moderator who has come up with the questions, and so often in the campaign, the candidates are out there telling you what they want to do, and the real question questions for me is how are you going to get it done? why do you think that should be done, and the moderator has to take some leadership. it also occurs to me, brian, look at how long these moderators for this year have had to prepare. i think that jim and i had literally 36 hours between now and the debate, and i think that, jim, we didn't have much more time than that when we were chosen to get the questions ready. >> that is true in the most cases, and in the last few debates i had much more time in terms of notifying me. but, you can see, that the way that the rules have evolved, it is not so much about questions

for the mod erator to prepare, but it is for the moderator to prepare to do his or her homework enough so that you can listen, and move on, and decide to have something that is important, and this is not so important, but you have to have all of that information in your head, so that you can be comfortable enough to do this under the most highly pressured situation for lester hold for instance monday night. he has to make a lot of the quick decisions, and he has to have all of the information in the head, and there is no place to look or anybody in the ear to help him, and he is solely responsible. >> that is a big change from the primaries, because nobody in holt's ear except for the man timing the debate. let me ask you about the x-factor here, and that is donald trump. we have never had a television star like trump on the stage like this, and the closest is ronald reagan who was an actor, but his expertise comes from the

"apprentice" and his business days. this is what trump said about holt earlier in the week. >> and by the way, lest serer i democrat. >> i didn't know that. >> and lester is a democrat, and they are all democrats, and it is very unfair system. >> actually, lester holt is a registered republican, but that is an example of trump working the refs and the clinton campaign has as well, and the clinton campaign working the ref. and jim, does a unique candidate like donald trump require a different kind of moderating? >> no. absolutely not. remember, the debate for 90 minutes, and people are going to be seeing the candidates, and see donald trump. whatever he does and says, everybody is going to be seeing it. and there is going to be hundreds and thousands of people ready to jump on what he says, and to fact-check what he says, and fa fact chect checking willd

on and on up to election day, and donald trump is not going to quote get away with anything, and it is going to be there for everybody to see. and most is going to be watching this debate, and most if not all who are going to be voting in the election will see some part of the debate, and huge portion are going to be seeing the entire debate, and it is all going to be there and the moderator's job, and lester's job, and he knows that is to facilitate the revelation of this man and hillary clinton as well. who are these people? who are they? and you will see them side by side for the first time in a campaign and the only time during a campaign is during the debates. you want to take the measure of the person, and you can do it. >> i think that jim is -- >> and does the gender factor here matter? the number of women moderators is a small field, and martha rad dach is among them this year.

>> i think that it does matter, and she has been in the public for 24 years, and i have covered her in that public spotlight, and what is important here is the viewers and millions of them who have not really decided which way to go. and this is for them. this is for the viewers who want to know how donald trump would comfort himself dealing with somebody with whom he is a clear adversary, and how hillary clinton will address and behave in a presidential manner. i think that the fact that the current debate format allows so much oxygen, and the fact that they can really talk at length about an issue and to each other makes a world of difference, and important difference. >> and jim lehrer and ann co cometcom comppton on that note, i will say thank you. >> and now, is there a chance

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welcome back. we are live from hofstra university, the site of monday night's presidential debate.

we are here inside of the hall where the camera s are in place and the pretend stand-ins are in practice behind us. and what you may know is that you can watch the debates not only on cnn and other networks, but the debates are not sponsored by any network, but they are unby a commission of presidential debates a nonprofit group run by democrats and republicans. and so what has the commission had to contend with this extraordinary year? we are now joined by janet brown who has that exclusive job. >> hello, brian. >> this is a brand-new set. are you ready? it is a brand-new set, and we are proud of it. >> and how difficult to get donald trump and hillary clinton on the stage this year? because there was speculation that donald trump might back out of the debate. >> we have been having productive and civil communication with the campaigns, and all of it is going well, and all of it is

focused to what is behind you which is to bring everything together in time for the debate tomorrow night. >> any giant issues behind the scenes or any complaints from the campaigns? >> no, i am happy to say that there is agreement on almost everything. very productive. >> what about who is sitting in the front row, and hillary clinton saying she might invite mark cuban, and donald trump saying he might invite gennifer flowers. anybody who would not be allowed in the first row? >> the first rows are the friends and family of the candidates and it is up to them to decide who is in the seats, but the most important thing for everyone to understand is that there is a small live audience behind us tomorrow night. the big audience, and the important audience is the home audience in this country and abroad, and the broad responsibility of everybody in the hall is to be respectful and silent. >> silent? >> silent, and to make sure that all of the time and the

attention is given to the candidates and their positions. >> people on twitter have asked me why have an audience at all? >> well, you know we have held the debates on college and university campuses almost every single one since we got started in '88. this is a great opportunity to involve the young people in what is at the end of the day, the biggest civic lessons going on a. huge number of the seats will be given to the students of hofstra university which is a great opportunity for them to be involved and to see this firsthand. a live audience makes it different in terms of what the candidates are doing to whom they are speaking, and i think that it warms it up, but unlike the primary debates where there was audience participation, there is to be none here, and i think that whoever is in the seats will respect that. >> and you mentioned the audience at home, and what is the ratings predictions? 100 million? >> i don't know. you guys are the pros and the networks are saying in that range. >> what makes this debate

different? why does the format matter? >> the format matters, because the 90 minutes without any commercial interruption are the only chance that the public gets to see the leading candidate s in the same situation answering the same questions which are not known to the candidates nor to the commission. the moderator is in charge of picking those. this is a unique opportunity to learn more about the candidats s and the formats are designed to get away from any kind of time interference. there is going to be six 15:00 blocks of time which is each devoted to a major question. >> what about the issue of fact checking that has been talked about so much the last few week s weeks, and does the commission want lester holt to fact-check? >> the journalists are moderator and we let them decide how to do it. but in our history, the moderators have found it appropriate to allow the candidates to be the ones who talk about the accuracy or the

fairness of what the other candidate or candidates might have said. i think that personally, if you are starting to get into the fact-check, i am not sure what s is the big fact, and what is a little fact, and if you and i have different sources of information, does your source about the unemployment rate agree with my source? i don't think it is a good idea to get the moderator into essentially serving as the encycloped encyclopedia britannica, and so it is better for that person to facilitate and for the candidates to basically correct each other as they see fit. >> what is the hardest partt for you during all of this preparation? >> the hardest part for me is to giv giveten long to-do list is to keep perspective that we are really lucky that we can see civil substantive debates in this country. this is a remarkable facet of our democracy and it is an incredible privilege to work on it. >> i always wish that we could have more than three, and how about you? >> yeah, we are game. >> you would like to do more if

the candidates are willing? >> yeah, it is a short period of time, and three presidential, and one vice presidential seem to be enough, but it is a great thing to work on together as you know. >> janet, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> good luck tomorrow night. >> thank you. >> and up next, the great expectations game, and both sides are working the ref. and so, what is hillary clinton saying and the supporters? hear from her campaign after the break. hey, hey, hey! you're not taking those. woah, woah! you're not taking that. come with me. you're not taking that. you're not taking that. you're not taking that. mom, i'm taking the subaru. don't be late. even when we're not there to keep them safe, our subaru outback will be. (vo) love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru.

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things get worse, we have this to help keep us afloat. - so that's very, very important for us. hey, welcome back. the mock debate continues here behind me at hofstra university the site of tomorrow night's actual debate. these are the stand-ins for trump and clinton on stanl right now. there is also a stand-in for lester holt. what they are doing is to rehearse the lighting, the staging, the microphones and the placement of everything on the stage. this has been under construction for weeks inside what is

normally a sporting complex of hofstra university and now turned into the debate stage, and we will see the fireworks here for less than 36 hours. let's talk a moment for what each campaign is doing to work the refs. there is the working of the refs the debate moderator lester holt, and the working of the ref s the rest of the media, the journalists talk about the debate before and after it happens. so let's talk with one of the campaigns about that right now. brian fallon, the clinton campaign press secretary is joining me from new york. great to have you with us, have of trump's deadly lies, and you have released a list of donald trump's campaign lies that you believe that lester holt should bring up on stage, and why have you done that pro activity?

>> well, we have never seen a candidate like donald trump, and today, politico has assessed that he told a lie every three minutes approximately. and this is somebody who politifact said that 75% of the lies were from donald trump. so if you have him up there on 90 minutes and a moderator who takes a hand's off approach and s says they will not fact-check the candidates and sit there and close their ears to donald tr p trump's lies, it is going to be extending the unfair bias to him, and the equivalent of giving him more time to speak. >> and you are going to agree that clinton shades the truth, and you may not agree with me on that, but do you agree that lester holt should hold both sides accountable for misstatements or falsehoods? >> yes, absolutely. we are not asking lester holt to do anything to donald trump that he does not do to hillary

clinton, hold both candidates accountable. donald trump lies about his own record, and he has said that he was opposed to intervention in iraq, and that is not true. if he says that on the debate stage tomorrow night, lester holt should follow-up, and read him his own statements to howard stern back before the iraq war happened, and that is all we are asking. if he does that to both candidates the american people, and the audience of the debate will have an honest opportunity to judge them, but a lot of the 100 million or so viewers tuning in are doing it for the first tim time, and even though many people like you and i, brian, know that the statements are lies from trump, most of the audience don't, and so it is up to lester holt to fact check, and also to the media to judge the debate hours afterwards to not look past the lies grading the performance, and if he is telling lies like -- >> are you trying to make sure that the reporters and the commentators set the bar equal for both, and tell me what you are doing to have both of them? >> well, hillary clinton is

taking this seriously, and so she is looking at a high bar. one of these people will be the next commander in chief, and so they should be held to a high standard. i think before, donald trump was declare ad novelty act, and most people didn't believe he would wi win, and he was on a crowded debate stage and picked the moments, and then for the flair for the dramatic won the debate on the style, but the american people are going to be demanding more tomorrow night. >> and why shouldn't the bar be set higher for an experienced politician like hillary clinton? >> the bar needs to be the same for both candidates and they are going for the same job. in the oval office, no grading on the curve, and the decisions in the situation room will have the same impact whether it is hillary clinton or donald trump. he needs to do two things tomorrow night. he needs to come with detailed plans explaining exact ly what e would do as president of the united states, and give honest and straight forward answers to the american people. if he fails to do either of

those thing, it is impossible to grade him a success. from kellyanne conway's perspective, his campaign manager, she is going to be breathing a sigh of relief if he gets through 90 minutes without a meltdown, but the american people should demand more. >> and taking a little elbow to trump and kellyanne conway. le the me about your expectations of what viewers benefit are from the high turnout, and so do you believe they would benefit from tuning? >> yes, the more that participate is better for democracy. >> give us a estimate for the millions? >> well, many say it is "m. "m.a.s.h." territory, but if it does a that is a premium on the fact-checking candidates, but a you know and uno that donald trump has been going around

saying that hillary clinton wants to take away the second amendment and that her 2008 campaign started birtherism, and it has been debunked by the fact checkers but the hunned drs -- hundreds of millions may not know that, but it is up to the moderator to hold him accountable. >> and i predict 85 million by the way. and is hillary clinton going to level with the american people about what went wrong? >> well, e-mails is a subject that she has been answering questions for over a year now, and she has expressed regret and it is a mistake. and if the subject comes up again, she will say it. in recent weeks what you have heard her say when she is pressed on this or that, and that aspect of the decision to set up the e-mails, she said, look, no excuse for it, and the lesson she has learned over the last few months when she has had interviews on this, the more she intends to explain it, it is

coming across as making excuses for it, and she admits no excuse for it. so she is going to be accountable for it. donald trump needs to be accountable for the failure to the release the tax returns, and his failure to disclose the true financial dealings. and we have been learning about carter page who is having meetings with russian officials, and this is being looked at by american official, and so that is going to be coming up, and donald trump needs to have an answer. >> and kellyanne conway will be coming up on "state of the union" at noontime. >> thank you, brian. >> we asked a counterpart of the trump campaign to be here, and we will speak to them in the upcoming week. but it is notable that the clinton and the trump campaigns are setting up expectations.

>> he is -- >> hillary clinton lacks the truth. >> he clearly has something to hide. >> her conduct is disqualifying. >> clinton-trump, head-to-head for the first time on the same stage. the first presidential debate, live coverage starting tomorrow at 4:00 on cnn. on my long-term control medicine. i talked to my doctor and found a missing piece in my asthma treatment with breo. once-daily breo prevents asthma symptoms. breo is for adults with asthma not well controlled on a long-term asthma control medicine, like an inhaled corticosteroid. breo won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. breo opens up airways to help improve breathing for a full 24 hours. breo contains a type of medicine that increases the risk of death from asthma problems and may increase the risk of hospitalization in children and adolescents. breo is not for people whose asthma is well controlled on a long-term asthma control medicine, like an inhaled corticosteroid.

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debate, but as you are watching the coverage surrounding the face-off, we will show you how the expectations are set and managed. you heard some of it there from the clinton press secretary, brian fallon and the trump side is doing the same thing, and so let's dissect it with a all-star panel. eleanor cliff, and frank s.e.c.no, and here at hofstra dylan buyers. dylan, being here on set at hofstra what stands out to you about the setting in this room? it is small. it is very intimate setting, and i don't believe that it is something that the viewers ale home will understand. we have been to so many primary debates where there are big venues and a lot of applause and audience participation, and here the lights won't come up. it is a television event and it has been a television event since kennedy and nixon in 1960, and having people here is

important, but fundamentally, it is coming down to the three people in the room. and it is so overwhelming and you predicted 85 million or more people watch this thing and it is amazinging how few people will be in the room. >> that is a great point. eleanor, let me go to you on the issue of the expectations game. do you believe that the candidates should be judged exactly equally on monday night? >> i think that they each have to be judged from the point of view of the opportunities that they had going into the debate and the perils they encountered, so i don't believe that there is an exactly equal scoreboard that you can apply the each of the characters. and this is really a drama, and feels like the small theater setting, and you have a country that is absolutely saturated in sound bites and insults, and this is a chance for each of them to present themselves as three-dimensional human beings, and for trump perhaps to look like he has the temperament to be president, and for hillary

clinton to connect with the voters in a warmer way than she has and that is the first test. and then you drop down, and many other tests. you can never have a complete equality in how you score these two people. >> these are two very different candidates, and frank, think about what has happened in the last couple of days. "the new york times," the los angeles times and the "washington post," and politico, and they have all come out to say essentially that donald trump lies more than any other candidate, and donald trump lies more than hillary clinton, and donald trump lies more than any other presidential nominee in h history and does that have to be in lester holt's mind as he is up on the stage tomorrow? >> and he needs to know what donald trump is all about and he know th knows that. and what trump's past has been and he knows that. and he knows in the primary whether it is name-calling or anything else, and the most important thing that he can do with donald trump or hillary clinton is what the presidential debates commission wants which is to keep them focused and

talking about the topic, and keep them in the 15 minute blocks to have some detail and importa importantly, to have the interaction between the two and this is the big show to show them side by side for the first time. >> right. >> and we want to see them interact, and that is what we have not seen all year long. >> exactly. >> how important that we have seen the newspapers come out, and be explicit in saying that donald trump lies. and birtherism is clear, and it was clear on the coverage that he had been lying for a long time, and introduced new lies by saying that clinton started it. how unusual for the american press? >> very unusual, and donald trump is unprecedented candidate in that way, and if you are thinking of it in the position of the moderator and you know and the commissioner of the presidential debates has told you that you are not running for president, and it is not your role to step up to fact-check the candidates and that is true, but in many ways donald trump does not lie, but he brutally assaults the truth, and so for the moderator on that stage, it

is sort of your, it is hard as a journalist as someone who works in the iz bns of pursuing truth to let him say anything and not get away with it, but i will stress that the onus is so much on hillary clinton to do that. i imagine in all of the debate training she has been doinging this week, she is thinking about, when he says snag is not true, and when do i jump in in to say something and hold back, and like your own reporting has shown, lester holt is not going to be a potted plant. so the question is what does that mean? how forceful is he going to be in terms of the fact-checking of the candidates. >> and we have to keep in mind the whole time, and eleanor, let me ask you about this, do tr trump's voters care a that he has a tendency to misstate the facts more often than clinton? and should we care that the voters don't care? >> you know, he has a base of voters that are going to vote for him no matter what and this debate is not necessarily about reaching them. and i think that hillary clinton has to pick her battles, and she

can't go after every little nitpicking fact, and she has to call out the whoppers and if there are some that are missed, then it is up to lester holt to int intervene, and he has a reputation of being a bulldog as a reporter, and so he is going to be doing his job. >> and final word, frank. should we care? should we in the media care that tr trump's supporters tend to not care about the misstatements? >> no. we have a job in the immediamedd this particular case, lester holt's job is to conduct a well moderated and tough, tough questions and focused debate. there is huge interest. i am host iing tomorrow night a debate watch party at george washington university and 500 people with college democrats and republicans, and filled nup seconds. the interest and the appetite of the kcountry is enormous, and nt just the hard partisans, but the people in the middle, and also people who are not souper stron

with the support, and will this reassure them, and fuel the voter intensity. and by the way, the two people up there, what are they going to be saying about income inequality or climate change or china or russia and maybe, maybe we will hear the two engage over the issues and the public is going to be serious that one of these is going to be the commander in chief. >> and maybe it is a turning point to a more serious campaign. >> i love that, and i want to pray on that. eleanor and frank, thank you. and dylan, one more question for you, since you are here with me in hofstra, and high stakes for nbc news even though they are not producing the stage, and lester holt is there, and brian william s was the anchor, and lester took over only because of the brian williams' scandal, and what is at stake? >> a number of things are at stake. some is of them are lower down to be totem poll, but here is the stakes for nbc, they had to deal with the brian williams

situation, and lester hold was the recipient of that. and now, the bar none, the debate cycle, and matt lauer is now kind of shorthand of how you do not conduct a presidential forum, and so much, and msnbc and cnbc does great journalism on a daily basis, but it is overshadowed by registering a win in the big political events, and they need a win. they need a win. lester holt needs a win. they need to come out of the election which is the most watched event of the entire election with something they can be proud about. >> thank you, dylan. >> thank you, brian. >> we will have full coverage today and tomorrow and tuesday, including the ratings. coming up, one of lester holt's colleagues seth myers, and we will talk to him about joking

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welcome back to "reliable sources" i'm brian stlter, and we are here in hofstra university with the commissioner of debates putting the final touches here on the stage and the seats, and tomorrow night hillary clinton and donald trump will stand on the podium. some late night hosts are taking donald trump serious and there is a divide in comedy. on one hand, jimmy fallon who may have roughed up trump's hair, but he did not ruffle up any answers to his questions. and then there are others who have been highly critical of trump. and myers says it is fine to have both shows, but to him, trump is no laughing matter, and soy sat down with him, and asked

if trump is the best or the worst thing to happy to late night. >> would you call what you are doing now investigative comedy? >> i feel like we are pulling from the journalists who are doing the investigative work. we don't have people out therein to street getting information that otherwise would not be out there, and we do try to bring out information that you could not get out in a monologue joke, a and so we try to do a longer piece which is what the "closer look" bits are about to explain the stories and get it out. it is more explain iing than investigatin investigating. >> but it is exploratory journalism? >> yes, explanatory comedy, and again -- >> you are afraid of the j-word, aren't you? >> well, it is doing a disservice to the people who practice journalism to say that i do it as well, because there is a whole different skillset to which i don't have. >> you don't want to cross off? >> i don't know if i ever

>> you had a ten-minute talk this week about trump and birtherism saying he doesn't decide when this is over. the media decides when this is over. >> yeah, the media and the public. i think more importantly the public. yeah, we felt strong about that. >> do you worry about potentially alienating after of your audience, turned off by trump or wanting to watch you? >> we try very hard when we call him a racist or a liar with examples of him being a racist or a liar. if those people watch that and say, well, i don't think that's what a racist does. i don't think that is what a liar does, i would and were why they wouldn't want to watch our show anymore, but we do back things up. >> how much do you blame nbc for

launching "the apprentice" years ago. >> i think it's dumb luck this ended up like this, i don't think when he first got that show it would have been this kind of outcome. if it wasn't nbc, it would be abc, fox -- >> i think there's -- when we try to blame any of this on one person, we're forgetting the bigger problem, which is why there are so many people who are susceptible to this donald trump message. that's the core issue that i think sometimes gets lost in this. i think it's easier for us to say this wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for person "a" or "b." but there's a problem, you know a lot of these voters are the kind of voters that were drawn to bernie sanders. there is a level of anger that establishment politicians have managed to overlook. that's why trump happened more than anything else. >> everybody has expectations

for your colleague, lester holte at the debate on monday what are your expectations for the debate? >> i don't know. i think -- i think i'm going to try to go in with as few expectations as possible. i think lester will do a great job. >> would you ever like to moderate a debate? >> no. >> why? >> because you'll get blamed by everybody. i don't ever want to be that close to -- i think these debates will be -- as much as we look at polling now, they will change a great deal based on the course of these three debates. i'm not putting the vice presidential debate in, i think it's the most meaningless debate in the history of debates. >> really? >> yeah. >> not looking forward to pence and cain? >> who would look at that and say that's the tipping point for me. i think people will look back at these debates sort of in a political historian sort of way, i would want no part of that.

>> do you feel pressure in the writer's room to come up with as many jokes about clinton as there is in trump? there's an ideal in journalism of 50/50, exact equality. do you feel that pressure? >> no, only if the candidates were providing us 50/50 in material. they're not. i don't want to go out of my way for some sort of sense of we have to have exactly the same amount of jokes, when one is providing so much more comedy than the other one is. if over the course of a week, we tell more jokes about a fast food restaurant than we do about fine dining establishments for the same reason. one is more comic than the other. it would be silly to have to even that out as well. >> i love fast food, don't you? >> i like it a lot. it provides a lot of good punch lines. mostly because they keep bringing us new weird sandwiches. >> let's say november 9th trump is the next president is that good for late night? is that good for your show?

>> i don't know. i also feel very -- i would feel very self-centered if my thinking about this election was what is good or bad about us. we will proceed doing shows every day, either way. i hope the outcome is more for the future of the country than the future of late night. >> do you worry on a visceral level, on a level for your kids about trump winning? >> i worry about everything. by nature i'm a worrier. yeah, i have levels of stress about this as well. but i also have levels of stress of corners on coffee tables. >> you have to watch out for those corners. when he's not hosting "late night" he's collaborating on the documentary series "documentary now." i asked how such a niche program is finding an audience in the world of peak tv.

>> ifc does a great job with their marketing. it also had a second life on netflix. you use social media as much as you can. you hope for word of mouth. i think the people working hardest during this period are television reviewers who used to have to watch 20 network shows over the course of a year and are now scrambling. i don't know how they consume the amount we're giving them to write about. >> i think that's the first time a television host has had sympathy for a television critic. >> thank you very much. i want it to be known when it comes to empathy, there's no one in late night doing a better job than me. >> just like donald trump, working the refs. >> exactly. i didn't think of it like this. maybe since i talked about him so much i'm subconsciously learning his tricks. >> seth, great talking to you. >> i am the best at that. everybody says that. >> trump is in his head. for more, watch the interview on cnn money's facebook page

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time's up. i'll see you next week. "state on the union" with jake tapper starts right now. >> showdown. with the first presidential debate hours away, the candidates are trying to get into one another's heads. >> they say she's been practicing for the debate. some people think she's sleeping. >> is that a preview of donald trump's on-stage strategy? plus hillary clinton says she's ready to take the hits. >> you've got to be prepared for wacky stuff. i'm drawing on my experience in elementary school. >> which donald trump will show up on stage tomorrow? and with millions watching, could this change the race? both campaign managers and top debate pros will be here to weh