♪ you know, they really are talking in upwards of 80 to 100 million americans watching what happens in that room. about a third of the way out from manhattan, we want you to know as we approach the top of the next hour, we'll probably go to that room a little early without a formal good-bye. know that we are here without

breaks and will join you on the other side. rachel, you know this, we want to join some of the early stuff, the walking in of the spouses, the welcoming of the audience. >> that's right. what we're hoping to be able to do -- and this is a live event, we're hoping to be able to not just go to them -- go to the room immediately as the candidates are introduced. what we're hoping is to go to the room a little earlier so you can see how people in the room are experiencing it. we're expecting the executive director of the commissioner on debates to introduce the candidates spouses, for example. they will then take their seats, we'll have an introduction for the moderator, lester hold from nbc news, and then he'll greet the audience and do this very interesting thing which you don't usually get to see on tv, we're hoping to bring it to you live, lester holt will explain to the audience how the ground rules are going to work for this 90 minutes and what is expected of them as an audience. the audience is an interesting player in the debate dynamics.

what we expect is that they'll be told to basically shut it. i'm told that they should not respond in any way during this debate. but we'll get to see those instructions, we hope, live just before the candidates themselves go to the podiums. >> the commission on presidential debates, as we noted in this room earlier, copd, is an interesting organization about which the voters should probably know much more and some of that reporting, i'm sure, will be done before it's over in addition to explaining just what is a survey monkey. but first, let's go into the spin room. hallie jackson, andrea mitchell, two of our rogue veterans are it wai waiting to talk to us. what can you tell me about the process? >> reporter: if you can explain a survey monkey, i have 50 bucks for you. donald trump has been relaxing, trying to focus and go over his vision, apparently, for tonight's debate, his first ever

one-on-one. representative peter king is behind us here. i grabbed him for a quick interview which may run later on. he spoke with donald trump in the last couple of days and the candidate is feeling upbeat. as for a strategy, i'm told that reviewing tape of hilla clinton's past debate performances is what the trump campaign sees as a potential opening and it's this, on the second or third or follow-up question on a particular topic, that's where clinton is prone to stumble. guys? >> hallie jackson, thanks. over to andrea mitchell, same question. >> reporter: well, first of all, what hillary clinton has been doing is preparing. you know hillary clinton. what she does is her homework. she's done mock debates late at night starting at 9:00, practicing standing, doing all of this without a break of any kind and she's been rehearsing for the tough donald trump, for the insulting donald trump. well, today, she started practicing for the gracious

donald trump because they think that he may pull something different. there may be a change-up here. that's what she's planning for. she does know she's got to do her own game plan. she's got to tell her story. she's not always good at telling how she made the decision about the e-mails, her explanations get to lawyerly. the young voters who voted for barack obama and who are not saying that they are going to vote for her, that is her biggest challenge. >> andrea, thanks. more than one man named chris, chris hayes, together at last. gentlemen? >> we are certainly here, both of us. i was thinking about the oddest question to ask a question about the likability. yet, you can look at all of the history of debates, chris, and you look at reagan beating carter and w. inching out al

gore. they weren't smarter than the other guy, by any means. i think of arnold palmer, a guy that hasn't been in a tournament for 50 years and people like the guy. likability, can they earn that tonight with a big audience? >> i think that hillary clinton sort of touched on what she thinks about this, is that ga e benghazi hearing. >> 11 hours. >> 11 hours and it was two things. well, three things. it was a command of the facts. she knew all of the dates and the figures and a stamina in the face of this unrelenting questioning and levity, too. there was a moment that is the version of her that people that work with her talk about. >> yeah. >> and that is, i think, the goal tonight in some ways of who she should be on that stage. >> how does that happen? because all of us have spent a lot of hours on the air pretty much melded to the personality we are on television, it becomes the one person. >> for better or for worse.

>> we all know hillary is not the same person on television. and trump is a commonsense guy more so than this over-the-top figure. in an hour and a half, do you get to the real person? >> i do not think you get to the real person but i do think you get a test of their command. >> of their command. >> command. >> but what about likability? >> the big question for me is how much each of these people can present themselves as something that they are not. right? i mean, hillary clinton is a details person. donald trump likes attention. >> it seems to me about trump, if you sit next to him -- i've been in green rooms, he does talk back and forth. >> yeah. >> he listens. >> he's a new yorker. >> can he do that tonight? >> i think he can. although, the thing that i keep thinking about is that speech at the rnc, that was his first big

opportunity to do it and he didn't. he doubled down. so you wonder tonight about what they strategically think that they should do and whether he's capable of playing against hype. >> for a lot of people, i am what i am sometimes cuts in there. >> that's right. these are two people almost 70 years old. >> back to you, brian. >> both chrises, thank you very much. we're going to go to scottsdale, arizona, where i'm told a light rain is falling over the location where we have mr. carville. we just want to confirm you're not in the witness protection program. you're there under your own free will? >> it's raining in arizona. >> we can hear that, making the background even more lush. >> yes. >> james, a couple of questions for you. number one, what do you think they are doing in the green room in the last hour and how do you keep it light for a candidate who tends to be a student most of the time, shall we say? >> it's very tense.

i doubt if anybo is saying much. from the clinton camp, they've had enough facts and prep. i would just bet you that everything is kind of quiet and subdued tones. somebody cracks a joke to try to break the tension in the room. look, this is a big night. you know, there are two more debates after this but 100 million people are going to be watching. it's a big opportunity to succeed on this and a big opportunity to fail and both of these candidates know that and they are nervous, trust me. >> while you've been talking, we've watched donald trump now with a tie on in full game uniform arriving at the back entrance to the stage. james, for years, you've been attached, i hope it's correct, to a folklore story that you were part of the last crime committed against the presidential commission on debates. did you and begala replace the stand-up stools at that kind of half-seated, half-standing

debate with clinton, perot and bush because you didn't like the ones that they had or have you been wrongly connected with that story for years? >> i think there was some dispute about that. but i'm not going to trust my total memory from back there. look, the rows are set and they are going to go at it tonight and from my vantage point, i hope secretary clinton frames it. i hope she's hopeful for the country. i think this campaign has been a tough slot for a lot of people and i think people are ready to have a message and kind of focus on tomorrow and i hope that's what we get tonight and i think we will. >> james, thank you for joining us. this is rachel. this is a little bit dark, but how risky are debates? what could go wrong? i mean, weird stuff has happened at debates, right? we've had the sound drop out at a debate in 1986 and then the

stock market fell 730 points that day. we've had weird atmospheric stuff occur. >> well, first of all, you could have a brain freeze. i think president reagan got lost somewhere on a one-on-one in 1984. president ford talked about no slavery in poland. you're always in the back of your mind worried about that and i think both of these candidates are looking for a moment that i think everyone is armed with a line, you can force a line, come across the wrong way. it's a high-risk endeavor but it's also, you're running for president, the biggest job in the world and it's not too much to ask that they stand up for 90 minutes three times during the course of this campaign. but it is, you want to do well. you can imagine, you go on the air and you've got x million

people watching you and you want to do well on your show. you can imagine what it's like when you're running for president and 100 million people are watching. i suspect lester holt knows there's real tension there. it's very quiet in the green room right now, i promise you. >> james, when you think about all three, moderator and both candidates, they are cut off, they are going to be islands when the red light comes on, no contact with the outside world or your camp, there's no notes that can bepassed, no information that can get to you, the two candidates separated by 12 feet, this is going to be very intense and i think that's going to be amplified by the split screen airing of it, not a glimpse, not a glance or a sigh is going to go untelevised tonight. >> it's not. and what do you do when you're

under attack because you're going to have a split screen. so watch for reaction shots. people don't pay enough attention when someone is only attacked, notice the reaction of the person that's under attack. usually what you try to do is write notes and look up and not change your facial expression but it's a 90-minute event and you're exactly right, brian, that split screen camera will be on you the whole time. that's an important thing to look for because i know -- and when i did campaigns, we always, always trained, there's never a time when a camera's not going to be on you. >> james carville, we're awful fortunate and lucky to have you as part of our of-counsel group tonight. thank you very much. i know you'll be watching with us from out there and be part of our team when this is all over. another break for us. police at a hotel on long island

are -- look at that. every motorcycle on long island is awaiting the departure of hillary clinton's motorcade, the short drive from the hotel and conference center over to the college campus. we're within an hour, less than an hour until the start of this first presidential debate.

out east here on the campus of hofstra university, long island, new york, it is 8:16 and change. we're within three-quarters of an hour of the start of the first presidential campaign, this extraordinary matchup of very different candidates for president. >> the largest debate audience ever for a presidential debate was in 1980. the one debate that year, 80.6

million people watched that debate between reagan and carter. that record has never been beaten. it may be beaten tonight. there's bobby knight on our camera there. that aggregate number is of interest. they are trying to sway certain demographic groups. steve kornacki has more on that. steve? >> we're seeing things within the numbers that really that we've never seen before. this is one group of voters you've heard us talk about a lot, white voters with college degrees, a little more upscale economically, more cultural moderate. hillary clinton right now, and this has been steady for a while, a nine-point lead. a nine-point lead among these voters. the significance, never, never in the history of presidential polling has a democrat won this group of voters but hillary clinton has been steadily leading it. so when you think about hillary

clinton putting messages out there about donald trump is so extreme, this republican hasn't endorsed him, that republican hasn't endorsed him, these are the voters that she's talking about, people that normally vote republican who can't vote for trump. now, if you're trump, you're thinking about these voters, too, because you've got to get your numbers up with them. if you're trump, you have a more specific challenge. if you look at men who have a college degree, donald trump is ahead right now by 11 points. but look at this. women, white women who have a college degree, a 25-point lead there for hillary clinton. the fact that she's ahead with white voters with college degrees, that would be historic. this is the reason. so donald trump, this is where he really needs to make -- when you look at a state like pennsylvania, if he wants to have a prayer there, these are the voters that he has to try to communicate with tonight because right now in this campaign, he has failed at that. >> 25. wow. >> steve kornacki at the big

board with the numbers, thanks. we're going to put in another break at this moment. when we come back, we'll talk to hugh hewitt, among others, in the minutes leading up to this debate. we wanted to also show you the photo that came out of team hillary. that is philippe reinas playing donald trump.

22 minutes after the hour, 9:00 eastern, straight up, we'll be under way and well before that we'll carry for you, for example, lester holt is going to greet and give the ground rules to the audience in the hall before we let any other time go. we also both want to wish lester holt nothing but the best of luck as our friend and colleague and what can be an impossible job in the best of circumstances there. so we'll hear the executive director of the presidential commission on debates, we'll see both spouses enter the room and so on. so we'll be going there early, a few minutes early than the appointed hour. hugh hewitt of the hugh hewitt radio program is with us and, hugh, you're a student of history. i'm trying to remember other candidates who have been talked to in the realm of which guy or

woman is going to show up tonight. you know, you didn't hear a lot of that with mondale or benson. who else did we talk about having a possible kind of bifurcated personality where either one of two people could show up. >> there was a great deal of concern in 1984, brian, i was in the reagan administration, the second reagan/mondale debate, and reagan's rather disastrous performance at the end of the first debate had left many people wondering whether he would get his a-game back. so i would think that would be the analog and not only did he have his a game but had the a plus game and put the election away that night. but there are very few for which trump is going to show up kind of analogs to this. definitely the second debate in 1984. >> hugh, you've spent hours as a questioner, a panelist in

reagan -- in trump debates. what's been your observation? because really, there's no seat like a front row seat watching a candidate go through the thought process, some are cognizant of e fact they are on televisi, sometimes thinking, sometimes reacting, some are not. >> yeah, the 27 years of broadcast i've done, brian, the ten hours on those four stages with donald and the rest of the republicans are the most fun i've had and i must say my eyes always traveled to donald trump because he's a practice television professional. he keeps his game face on. he's sort of like the indians' robot pitcher who never smiles. he keeps a glare on and is fiercely concentrating on what is being said. i think he's vulnerable tonight to the perception he does not know enough, even as secretary clinton is vulnerable as a know

it all. at the same time, the very best thing i've seen written about this election cycle came from celina zito of "the atlantic" but she wrote that secretary clinton supporters and the elite media like to take donald trump literally but not seriously. a lot of his supporters and much of the undecided vote take him seriously but not literally. i'm going to watch tonight to see if the twitter verse falls into that biforcation. >> and hugh, if you heard the unmistakable sounds of harley-davidsons while we've been talking, we're looking at live pictures now of the motorcade carrying hillary clinton and extended family, we presume, over to the venue on campus. this has not done wonders for the traffic on new york's long island, which is not wonderful at any time of the day. hugh, finally, what would be your short briefing book if you

were the last person to see donald trump before going out on stage? >> remember to talk to the people you've been talking to. there's a seismic event going on. i've lived in california for the last 27 years. i went through the north ridge and big bear earthquakes. coastal elites don't get it. remember to talk to the people in the middle of the country who do not believe themselves to be protected as peggy noonan has said and that elites don't give a damn about them. >> hugh hewitt, thanks. it's a great time for people watching. mayor giuliani walked through, andrew cuomo and i think i saw a veteran music producer rick ruben. someone can fact-check me. >> i saw don king and i believe you saw rick ruben. >> okay. another break because we are getting ready for the event of the remarks to the audience

which we will carry live.

one-half hour to go and less than that until we have the first welcome and address to the audience inside the hall before people are forced to find their seats and have a seat. >> i'm getting excited. >> yeah? >> it's really happening. i mean, the people watching helps with that. but also just because we are rolling right into it right now. chris matthews is with mark acosta. chris? >> trump is reaching 100 million people tonight. does he know he needs to go over the gold again, trade, immigration, stupid wars? >> there wasn't a mock debate. this was about broad themes. it was about going over those

big points. >> does he know now he has to sell that big? my father after watching reagan say, are you better off than you were four years ago and i was a speechwriter for carter at the time and he said i really liked that line of reagan's. i said he's been using it for weeks. >> a lot of people haven't heard an in-depth look at any of these people. >> trump is an outsider and he's going to try to underscore that outsider persona. they are saying you don't need to make a conservative case. can you be the face of change. >> what about deplorables? >> i hear prep has been full of a lot of asides and cracks. >> roger ailes, what part has he played in this? >> an important part, a confidant, someone who gives trump a sense of history. >> you are the message, i was thinking this up over the weekend, in our subconscious minds, the style that's acceptable on television relaxed, informal, crisp and

entertaining, has become the modern standard for an effective communicator. >> you go to trump tower on the 26th floor, pictures of him on tv and tv ratings. he's not thinking about a debate, he's thinking about a television production. >> what's his lesson from roger? >> he learns about nixon, populism, can you have a law and order ssage, mr. richie rich, mr. mitt romney, get tagged by the democrats in that way. can he be anything else? can he be an outsider? >> can he be the two-thirds? because our polling shows that two-thirds are not happy with the direction of the country. >> the problem is temperament. clinton will make a case on him on temperament. north carolina is watching. >> i'm sorry. one last question. you haven't watched this guy for a year. can he hold off when hillary hits him, taunts him, gets under

his skin, can he ignore that? >> he always tells his friend, i love to hit back. if he's disciplined tonight, i'd be surprised. the real trump is someone who likes to hit back. >> he'll hit back? >> that's his style. >> back to you, rachel. >> chris matthews with robert costa. thanks. as you see this camera view of the two lecterns on the stage as the crowd is milling about, our reminders, we believe the audience will be taken out of the game. it's kind of commissioned on presidential debates custom to have audience members be silent. they can welcome candidates at the top and hoop and holler after it's all over. this will largely be televised in a split screen. that calls for facial discipline when you're not the one talking as we watch mike pence enter the

room. and no breaks and no contact with the outside world. that holds for moderator, that holds for both candidates. lawrence o'donnell, also part of our coverage, also found some of the rules for tonight's event interesting. lawrence? >> rules usually favor the weaker debater because it allows you to go into your corner. when there's a time limit as a debate response for two minutes followed by two minutes by the other candidate, that favors the person who only has two minutes of material and is actually more burdensome on the person who could do eight minutes on that same thing. and so you will often see the weaker debater use those rules and you can actually -- you can usually tell how they are using those rules. the other thing that must be said, though, that all debate watchers should keep in mind is, there are no actual presidential skills on display tonight. the job of president takes place

in quiet and serious rooms surrounded by advisers with memos, with documentation and all sorts of things to check. you're never forced to answer a question without checking your notes or without checking with your advisers. so this is something that the campaigns have developed as that final attempt to distinguish from the other candidate. but what is not on display here tonight is how the job of the president is actually done. >> lawrence, as you spoke, one man who knows how that job is done is arriving, former president bill clinton, the gmc van is arriving that usually carries hillary clinton. >> ladies and gentlemen -- >> she is here. and so now both candidates are in the hall. >> hillary clinton wearing red. donald trump wearing blue. tonight he had a very bright blue tie on. that's just to scramble with our

partisan expectations. >> we heard the first announcement from the podium telling people to begin to find their seats. what is our first scheduled remark here? >> first scheduled remark should be -- there will be some discussion of like -- they will be introducing the co-chairs and stuff of the commission on presidential debates. they will be sort of talking about themselves as an institution and then the first time they actually start the program, we're expecting the commission executive director to introduce the candidates' spouses. >> if you could all please take your seats. >> they are being asked to take their seats. we will take our final break because we'll take it live throughout obviously without commercial interruption from the first introductory remarks. our live coverage of the first presidential debate continues after this.

we are back and inside the hall. the two lead gentlemen of the commission on presidential debates, frank on the right, a veteran of republican politics, mike mccurry on the left, a veteran of democrat politics, known as the press secretary for the clinton white house. let's listen to their reading of the rules. >> to talk to each other, to challenge each other on the issues. the moderator is also there to make sure that they drill down on the issues and we get some

answers rather than the thing we used to see in the old debates. only lester holt knows the questions that will be asked. the commission does not know. we have no control over it and, of course, the candidates. the last thing tonight is i'll have to be the public scold. what i mean by that, by all estimations, there are -- could be as many as 100 million people watching around the world and in the united states what happens on this stage tonight. and this debate is for them, for them to observe these candidates, to listen to them, to consider what their position is on the issues and to see them in this atmosphere that we have here. it is not -- this debate is not for us. the lucky ones, who get to sit in this audience and be part of history, really. and this is a very historic debate tonight. so this is not like the primary

debates. there's no clapping, there's no cheering, there's no booing, there's no sound. you please be quiet. let's not interfere with what those 100 million people are doing and trying to exercise their view of democracy by listening to what these candidates say. you'll get a chance to applaud in a few minutes when the two candidates come out and meet right where i am and when it's over you get a chance to applaud. so, please, please follow that. it's very, very important to us, it's important to the candidates and we don't want to have anything disrupting what's happening. we've done 20 of these and only on one or two occasions have we had a problem. lester will talk to you about this, also. as i said, paul kirk and i started this way back in 1987. when teddy kennedy died, paul was named by the governor of massachusetts to fill teddy's seat until a special election was held and he had to step down as being my co-chairman but we were very, very lucky to have this gentleman standing to my

right, he's usually on my left but that's another story. and mike mccurry, who did such a tremendous job as spokesman to the office. >> thank you. our partnership is a valuable one and we really do work well together. but the commission on presidential debates itself is totally nonpartisan. it's a nonprofit organization. we don't get funding from the government, from political parties or any public entities. so we, therefore, rely on a number of corporations and individuals and foundations that have been really generous in allowing us to put these debates on and i'd like to list the names of our 2016 national sponsors. the anheuser-busch companies, the howard j. buffet foundation, the kovlar fund, coral and murray, aarp and the national

governor's association. would you please join me in thanking them for the work that they've done. [ applause ] now, in addition to putting on these debates, we have this time around incorporated a lot of social media aspects into some of what you will see in the coming debates and certainly some of what you see here tonight and that's involved a lot of partnerships that we've developed with technology companies, social media companies and others that you will see listed there in your program. i encourage you to take a look at that and see some of the ways in which we bring the educational aspect of these debates to a much wider audience through the work that we do with these partners. the next thing i would say is somebody might wonder what does the commission on presidential debates do when it's not a presidential campaign and election year? we're very proud of the work that we do internationally. one of the things that we've done is lend expertise to other countries that are interested in

sponsoring their own debates, they learn from our staff, learn from people we send abroad to help them with their function. you'll see more information about that also listed there in your program. and then, finally, i would join with everyone who has complimented our friends here at hofstra, we could not have done this in the record time that it took hofstra to pull this together without some incomparable leadership from the president of that institution. it's my pleasure to introduce the president of the university. [ applause ] >> thank you. >> this is the president of hofstra university. he's going to make brief remarks before the candidate spouses get introduced. hofstra university has produced three debates in short order.

they hosted the third obama/mccain debate and on that day the stock market fell 733 points and all of a sudden the debate t debate didn't feel like the most important political thing in the country. and they hosted the debate where candy crowley was the moderator and she basically sort of fact-checked mitt romney in the moment and that became an incredibly controversial thing. hofstra was not initially scheduled to be hosting this debate. a school in ohio had been scheduled to host this event this evening. that school, for a variety of reasons, pulled out and hofstra said, hey, we know how to do this, we're ready to go and by the way, we have some very deep-pocketed donor who is will cover the costs for us. and so hofstra, once again, having the honor of hosting one of these debates but it did come together on pretty short notice for them. >> nicole wallace who has done this before, what's going on

backstage right now? it's 8:47. we're within 15 minutes. >> i agree with james carville's assessment. it's pretty quiet. somebody is probably cracking a joke. their final moments are probably very different. donald trump is used to going on television and performing and is probably sort of keeping it loose and wanting to present himself as a loose performer. she is probably making her last mental notes about what the game plan was, about what they established in their sort of prep. i'm told that in the final session they were not at a podium and around the table and really thinking through -- not scripting lines for her but going over strategy and he's probably trying to get out of his head. >> and i think what they ought to be doing is exactly the opposite. >> i know. >> because maybe clinton ought to be trying to loosen it up and trump ought to be trying to -- >> get in his head. >> like reading a briefing book. >> yeah. >> steve schmidt has also done this before. he's also part of our discussion. steve, what would you like to add about that?

you're within the 15-minute window. >> well, right now the candidates are getting ready to leave their green rooms. they are having their final moments. they'll be walking from the green rooms to the two sides of the stage and they will be standing off stage. they may have a person or two with them who will say the final words of them of good luck or final instruction and probably try to put some positive energy on them with comments like you're going to do great. but they are getting ready to move. it's moments away now. it's not so different, i suppose, as a team getting ready to come out of the locker room right before the super bowl. the moment is upon them now. >> important to remember. people watching all across the country. there are people in uso facilities watching overseas, our folks in uniform, there are people in foreign countries, certainly americans overseas, ex-pats, it's an amazing audience. >> i've had interviewrequests,

requests of me, as a person covering this election, from slovenia and the uk and france and three other countries just in the past week. the international interests not only in this campaign but what is going to happen in this debate. i'm personally feeling it in terms of the media requests we're getting here at msnbc. and while the president of hofstra finishes up here, we're going to have two directions of being quiet. there are not just partisans but people cognizant of how the candidates are being received. we've heard that from the co-chairs of the commission of presidential debates, heartfelt comments about why it's so important for the audience to be a mutual, quiet part of this. we'll hear that again from the moderator himself, from lester holt of nbc news, who is due to be introduced within the next

two minutes. >> there was a primary debate, i think the south carolina debate, where he accused the audience -- all of the tickets went to gop donors. the one who in this cycle who has been more deeply affected by the audience was donald trump. >> when they were booing, he was like, bring it on. >> he bounces off the crowds, positive or negative. >> and some of the primary debates, drinks are served. it's a social event. >> uh-huh. >> and there is a bar and people sit down and watch. >> just like us here. >> yes. >> that's what makes it fun. >> and nicole, for the record, said as it should be. >> you know, i was out at the hofstra campus last week doing a talk and they are really going like this. they feel like they know how to do this. and they got everything tied up, they did it -- they've done it so often. >> right now, they are two minutes late in the way that

they are running their introducti introduction. right now they are about 115 seconds past where they are supposed to be. >> we've spotted a number of a member of congress in the audience. new york and new jersey, that we know of, the mayor of new york city is there in the audience and so on and so on because there's limited tickets for gallery space for each candidate. >> and you can tell, for the fact that we were doing almost like the oscar's, this is not a typical audience, right? this is a lot of bigwigs, a lot of elected officials and party officials and donors and celebrities for lack of a better term. this is not a normal debate audience even if they were allowed to make noise. >> harvey weinstein. >> you can find the overlap. >> hollywood on the hudson. you know what we mean.

president of hofstra is still speaking. after his remarks, we believe the spouses will come into the room? >> the executive director should be introducing the spouses. he's now officially -- >> we should get the instructions to the audience. i mean, at this point, i want to bring our friend joy reid into the conversation. joy, one of the things that we've been looking at here is not just what we're expecting from the candidates and report from the kacandidates and campaigns are telling us, but the expectations, do you think they are inherently unfair? >> you know, i was on with chris hayes earlier and quoted from this think progress piece that talked about the soft bigotry of high expectations for hillary

clinton that unless she's not perfect she's seemed to have failed because the expectati for her are so high and those for trump are so low that if he doesn't scream he'll be declared the winner. i think that's unfair. i had a chance to talk to a member from the clinton world and what they expect from her. she needs to work on what she can control. >> hold on a second. i'm sorry. >> cell phones, pagers, whatever, no use of cell phones or photography while this is going on. if you could do that now, that would be great. i'd like you to welcome melania trump and former president bill clinton. [ applause ]

[ applause ] >> almost a little bit of a receiving line there. >> take your seats again. thank you very much. >> as the two families enter. bill clinton will be sitting with chelsea clinton. >> we have as moderator, lester holt, the anchor of "nbc nightly news." you can welcome him now. [ applause ] >> thank you, janet. good evening. nice to see every seat is filled. there was some question whether we'd have enough interest for tonight but i guess we've taken care of that. mrs. trump, president clinton, good to see you. good to see everyone.

that thud you heard backstage was the sound of my knees buckling when frank mentioned a potential audience of 100 million but it's just us tonight and in a moment the three of us and then hopefully just the two of them. that what it's all about. as you can imagine, it's not an easy job. i'm going to ask your help, you've heard the admonition, if you cannot boo or clap, that would make my job a lot easier and the american public would appreciate it because we really want to hear what they have to say tonight and i'm happy to facilitate that conversation. what is going to follow are some awkward moments of silence. i'm going to take my seat here in my office for the evening and i'll give you a one-minute warning when we're about to come up on the air and then no fancy lights or musical opens. we just go to it. so thank you for being here. i hope you enjoy the debate. >> all right.

>> lester holt giving his brief instructions to the crowd there. do we still have joy reid with us? >> she was mid-thought. >> no, we don't have joy. i cut her off. >> wow. they come and go so quickly. >> i know. i'm very sorry. we're about three minutes out. oh, we got her back. joy reid, i'm very sorry. i cut you off. you were just saying that you just had been speaking with clinton folks and getting some insight there. we have about 90 seconds here. complete your thought there. >> sure. absolutely. just that she needs to work on the things that she can control and the thing that they are looking for her to do, motivate democrats. don't worry about converting people who don't like her or who see her as untrustworthy, to look into that audience, give her proposals and try to motivate her base. that's what they want her to do tonight. motivate the people who want to vote for her. >> excellent.

joy reid, thank you for joining us. i apologize for having to jump down your throat there once they started doing the introductions. listen, things are both in the overall picture and in the small stuff and things don't necessarily go how these candidates expect. debates are, by their nature, unpredictable. we know that the balloons will fall at the end of a convention. we know at the state of the union, there's going to be a lot of standing and sitting and applauding and frowning. we know how these things go. the debates are the most unpredictable in this country. and with these two candidates, perhaps that's more true than ever. >> we also know that there's an eight or nine-inch height differential between these two candidates so you see lecterns of various sizes on stage. we've also been told that our new start time is 9:03:30.

that allows all of the networks to come up at 9:00 p.m. eastern time, give their previews, set the scene and the candidates who have been moved to their marks just behind the platforms of the staging there will then be introduced and brought out on stage. i think all we're seeing is technicians helping lester with any microphone or sound issues he may have. >> we should note that the way this will happen over the course of 90 minutes, it's divided into 15-minute sections. six 15-minute sections. they will -- two of those 15-minute sections on each of three very broad topics. one of them is like america's security. they are vague up to the point that nobody can teach to the test and prep to expected questions. we know there will be something on the economy and something on the direction of the country and something on national security broadly. but in terms of the way this is going to be structured, as

lawrence o'donnell was talking about earlier this hour, basically, they will start off with an initial question. they will have two minutes to respond to the question, give an answer to the question. and then after that, it's fairly free form in terms of how they get through the 15-minute section. >> 9:00 eastern time has arrived. we're within the three-minute mark now. the moderator at these events has broad discretion on subject topic. nicole wallace, you have lived this, follow-ups and the like. >> what's interesting, i talked to the clinton folks a few times today and a few different individuals remarked about all that they learned from the commander in chief forum and feel like all of their messaging coming out of that and going into tonight was to get the press to police donald trump's truthfulness or lack thereof. so, you know, i think they created a climate where there is an