we're coming back late tonight with another one at midnight. i'll be joining rachel maddow for full coverage. msnbc's coverage of the vice presidential debate. tonight, the running mates, after the most watched presidential debate in history, all eyes turn to tim kaine. >> is there anybody that believes any word that donald trump says? >> and mike pence. >> hillary clinton believes that millions are deplorable. they're not a basket of deplorables. they are americans. >> in their only head-to-head matchup. >> donald trump is not ready to be president. >> hillary clinton will never be elected president. >> from msnbc, the place for politics, the vice presidential debate.

>> you are looking live at willett ll, longwood university, farmville, virginia. the second of the debates that will shape this country's presidential election 35 days from now. one of the two men who take the stage tonight will be this nation's next vice president. and in just a few hours, we will know who prevailed here tonight in their only face-to-face matchup of the season. brian williams along with rachel maddow and chris matthews who is leading our coverage from virginia tonight. our best in the business political team is here. and rachel, it was said today by a friend of ours, the job of mike pence tonight is to normalize the notion of a trump presidency. the job of tim kaine is to make it all about donald trump. >> yes. i think that's what's happening at one level. i think at another level even if you just dissolve the personalities out of it, hillary

clinton and tim kaine right now, broadly speaking, are winning, and donald trump and mike pence are not winning. i mean, it's close, but at one level there's a very different task for each of them. because pence needs to change the trajectory that his ticket is on, and kaine sort of just needs to get out of its way and hope it keeps going. so they do have different tasks. but it is fascinating. we see tim kaine arriving there. they are very similar contenders. if you look at them just at a surface level. tim kaine is going to be joined by both of his parents as well as his wife. you see him arriving there with his family. mike pence will also have a number of his family members with him tonight. we see governor pence there arriving. the two of these men, they sort of have the same bio at one level, they're both 57 or 58 years old, each happily married with three kids, both have an eldest son on active duty in the

marine corps. they're of irish descent. enthusiastically religious. they're both 5'10" or 5'11". their doctors say they are each 208 pound s i'm not kidding. they both spent one term as a governor of a large state, virginia or indiana. at one level, if you squint, they are the same guy. but they do have a different task tonight. and they each have a different relationship with the person at the top of their ticket. i mean, tim kaine and hillary clinton do have some subtle policy differences and some of the nuances of abortion, for example, and trade and on whether congress should authorize the war against isis. there are policy differences like that on both sides, but tim kaine and hillary clinton fundamentally share a world view and are the same kind of politician. mike pence is a hardline, hard core religious right guy. and he's running with, you know,

thrice-married brags about his affairs 2 corinthians not a religious right guy at the top of his ticket. he, i think, has a harder task tonight because of the difference between him and his running mate. >> mike pence a predonald trump republican in the republican party perhaps. >> an unreconstructed republican running with trump. >> the race has, let's call it, settled. in the last eight days so many of the battleground state polls have changed. that is not to say this race cannot become unsettled at a moment's notice. chris matthews heading up our coverage at the debate site tonight. chris, this is your life's work and study. talk about tactics tonight that we might see employed. >> well, first of all, i love the baseball cards that rachel just gave us on both these guys. i never had so many stats, left-hander, right-hander, both weigh about right, 208.

i'm 208. i think that's a good weight. so fascinating to watch these guys. i'm only interested in tactics tonight. i think it's fascinating there's such ideological questions about them. but tonight it's tactics. i think the real challenge, you guys can challenge this, pence has to score the headlines tomorrow. he has to break the charge. the race is beginning to settle. if it begins to settle with a 5 or 7 point lead it's over. he has to go on offense. i think he'll use that old tactic of attacking from a defensive position. he'll see her committed tim kaine committed to all the good attacks. his failure to pay taxes at almost a billion dollars in '95. his debaseness of women in the workplace. when that comes, that charge, it will come tonight strong because the moderator from his opponent, he's got to hit back really hard

and hit back at what we all know hillary is facing as of today 61% of the country that doesn't trust her. it's all been generated by republicans. but it is a weakness. i think he's going to have to go on attack tonight. >> he's going to have to -- he's got more to do in terms of changing the way things are right now than tim kaine does. it will be interesting to see if tim kaine tries to launch his own offense as well. these guys, everybody is saying these are boring guys, average guys. i think we know very little about how this will go tonight, chris. >> the other thing about the social issues, abortion rights, we know tim kaine's a little less comfortable -- let me say this right. he's not as pro choice as his running mate hillary. she's now for federal funding of abortions. that has been set in the other direction for decades by the hyde amendment. he's now going along with

hillary, i don't think excit excitedly. the moderator in this case, she may come out and try to drive them apart on this issue. but the very pro life pence stays there as the main target. it will be very interesting on those issues and lgbt issues where i've been hearing for a long time that pence is very much the villain on that issue in the community. >> chris matthews in virginia heading up our coverage there. it includes hallie jackson and k.c. hunt. hallie jackson is in the arena, as they say. >> yes, filling up now. you saw mike pence, the governor of indiana, walk in just minutes ago. i'm told by a source close to him he spent the evening having dinner in the area with his family. before that he went for a run and apparently got a workout in, too. feeling loose. not doing any last-minute day-of mock run-throughs of the debate. donald trump is out on the campaign trail. donald trump will be live tweeting.

i'm told by another source that he'll be commenting like only trump can. this is not going to be 3:00 a.m. friday morning donald trump tweeting this debate. expect these to be reinforcing the message that you see from pence. it won't be trump alone. it will be trump and his team trying to put out this message to make sure people understand that pence is doing what he's expected to do tonight. i'm told from campaign advisers that's reinforce the message of change versus status quo. that's what the campaign will consider a success for him. that's the messaging that trump has been delivering all along. what's the messaging we might hear afterwards? the rnc gave us a little bit of a sneak peek i think accidentally. check out online. they posted their post debate spin deciding that mike pence had a decisive victory tonight. of course, we're still what, an hour before the debate began. >> good to know. >> who won the vice presidential debate. it was mike pence, spoiler, according to the gop. that website has already been

taken down. but already there are place holders in there. on one, the economy and on two, hillary clinton's scandals. so expecting to hear those talking points from republican surrogates in the spin room after the debate actually happens tonight. >> we try to promise the people the very best coverage. that to me, however, is a first. we're a long time out from the end of this thing, yet we are already to safely report quote the gop as safely reporting a winner. hallie jackson in the call. k.c. hunt is in one of the two adjoining rooms. walk us through this. there's a press filing room and there is what passes for a spin room also for media, candidates and their seconds, correct? >> that's right, brian. this is actually the, hurricane corner of the spin room here. the other is other media organizations stand-up positions but we're focused on them coming

from around the corner. the same reaction when you heard about the gop talking points. they're kind of laughing behind their hands, although they don't have necessarily a formal response, i'm sure they're preparing similar documents. they just haven't seen the light of day quite yet. but i think at this point the challengfor tim kaine and what my sources have been telling me they have spent a considerable amount of time focusing on debate prep is how to handle questions about hillary clinton's background because they do know that if he slips up on one of those, it's something we'll see a lot of in the future days. the team sent their team down to prep for this debate. bob barnett, the d.c. lawyer playing mike pence in debate prep for the last couple of days. tim kaine kind of doing what you would expect. he picked up his parents from the airport on sunday. he's been spending the days off of the campaign trail. today he did stop briefly at a

high school nearby here that eventually became part of the landmark brown versus board of education case. trying to speak to african-american voters here in his home state in virginia. >> kasie hunt in the hall for us. more from you later on. >> we've been talking already about where the race is right now, what sort of a different task that establishes for each of these candidates tonight. steve kornacki has more details for us in terms the of where the race is right now and what groups in particular these candidates may be trying to sway tonight. >> yeah, rachel, that's right. we've got a flood of new polling information in the last 24 hours. the headline from it is the debate last week, the post debate period after that has been very favorable for hillary clinton. she's now clearly moved back into the lead in this race. first of all, the national horse race, look at this, three new polls last 24 hours. three clinton leads. you see our survey monkey poll on top there.

the battleground states, eight new polls in the last day or so from battleground states. look at all that clinton blue there. seven of those eight are hillary clinton wins. here's the million dollar question. what does this mean for the battleor 270 electoral votes. donald trump is the underdog. he needs three things to happen to get to 270. right now let's use this as the starting point. step number one for trump, this is an absolute must. he must lock down every state that mitt romney won in 2012. the question mark from that standpoint, north carolina, you see it in gray. and no coincidence, two clinton leads in north carolina coming out of that debate. that's a big if for donald trump. he can't win north carolina. very, very, very hard. but let's say he were to do that. he's got carolina. what is step two? the other gray states. call those the chosest things to toss-up states. donald trump must sweep those

toss-up states. the bad news for donald trump, the swing state polls we just showed you, he's down in the latest polls in florida. there's a poll in nevada that shows him falling behind in nevada after that debate. if he can't sweep those states, big trouble for him-let's give those states to trump. he is still, still short of 270. step three would be do everything i've talked about and get a surprise, pull a rabbit out of the hat in one of the states that's already blue. could it be colorado? bad news. clinton up 11 after the debate. could it be pennsylvania? that's been the white whale for republicans since 1998. they always target it. they never get it. you have polls showing him down in the high single digits. hard to find where that state would be, but he has to find the next top state. not that he's fallen behind in the national horse race. it's that that path to 270,

which is so narrow and so precise, it's gotten a lot more complicated by what it's gotten. >> we don't like it when you're not here. we understand you have to be there tonight, however, and thank you for the deconstruction of the numbers which we have long said have been on the move these last eight days. let's bring in our other guests. our political director known to all, chuck todd, host of "meet the press" and meet the press daily, nicole wallace, former communications director in the bush white house and before tonight played a big role in the mccain/palin campaign going into a vice presidential debate. chuck, what stands out at you from the map? what are you looking for going into tonight? the proviso a week is a year in politics. yet 40% of the vote's going to be in by the time we come up on the air election night? >> no, look, the big move to me that has really put his path is

what's happening in north carolina. because it's not just the polls, look at the voter registration mbers, what we've seen in early vote. there's a lot of indication here the democrats did a lot more spade work down there, did a lot more preparation on the ground. preparing for the idea that maybe ohio and florida would become more problematic for them. i think it to me is the swing state story of the cycle is the democrats' ability to keep north carolina basically at a position where it could end up being a state that goes blue before florida and ohio. >> if you're pence, what do you do, if you're kaine, what do you do? >> i agree with everything that's been said about pence's job tonight. but i disagree, i actually think the good news for mike pence is he's been having to do this for the last two months. explain trump, distance himself from trump and explain and try to deflect, right? the good news is he's been doing that prep since the day he got on this ticket. tim kaine -- so for mike pence, that's a natural thing for him to do. >> he's a disciplined guy.

>> tim kaine, that's not his comfort zone. his comfort zone would be to talk about himself, to deflect, to not get into the mess. and i think can tim kaine get over his own -- i don't want to ick factor is too harsh a word, his own dfrt fiscomfort about h to say i know that question was about nafta, but to fat shaming. i know what kaine's job is to make trump the center of the attention. but i think it has to be a very uncomfortable thing for him to do. pence will be very comfortable going every time kaine tries to do it, i can just picture him. he loves to model himself after reagan. i wouldn't even be shocked if he says the phrase. >> to all our stations up and down the line. >> did i talk through the break? >> no, no. >> right to it. >> we're going to take our first

break. and here's your first reminder. seated debate tonight with moderator and both candidates, but it will look different format wise.

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we'll put the countdown clock in the corner of the screen but you're looking live at the stage. willett hall, longwood university, farmville, virginia, just under 40 minutes to go. the one and only vice presidential debate of this season. kelly o'donnell standing by in the spin room with a special guest. kelly? >> thank you, brian. we're here with the first lady of indiana, karen pence, one of the two spouses who has a right to be proud and excited tonight. there is so much expectation that governor pence in some way needs to answer for some of the

controversies of donald trump, whether it's the taxes or the comments about the former miss universe, what advice have you given him on how to handle that? >> you know what? i have seen mike his whole life prepared him for this moment. he was on the debate team in high school and worked for a policy, you knew him in congress and then as governor. i think he's ready for tonight. i just want him to be himself. i said, you just need to be yourself, be honest, be firm, be strong and i think that's what you're going to see tonight. >> i know governor pence's style is so different from donald trump. so when you have heard some of the things trump has said about women, about appearance, about weight, has that made you uncomfortable? >> we've gotten to know the trumps well over the past few months and we're so honored to serve with donald trump. he's such a gentleman. he's so gracious to our family, to our kid. we'll be out campaigning with him and we'll bring a friend along, and even though he's giving a major speep that day,

he makes a point to walk across the room and introduce himself to them. i've never seen him be anything but gracious. for me, honestly, it's an honor to be on this ticket with him. >> we understand he's going to live tweet during the debate. do you think that will enhance your husband's performance or might it distract a bit after all the work he's done to prepare? >> i don't think it will distract at all. that's donald. he announced mike by twitter. that's the way he communicates with all of his followers. so i think that's exciting. >> what would you like to see most in his performance tonight? >> you know, i just want to see him be himself. i know he's going to have a lot of fun. this is really his element. i hope he's a little bit nervous because i think that gives a little bit of an edge, but he's really, really prepared for this. >> mrs. pence, thank you so much for your time. >> kelly o'donnell, karen pence, thank you both very much pf our family has expanded here in our studio in new york. eugene robinson, pulitzer prize winner, "washington post," nicole wallace, whose wisdom we

have put off for several minutes remains with us. and steve schmidt, a veteran of the mccain/palin effort is with us from new york. good evening, my friend. nicole, to you. first of all, you've got the top of the ticket live tweeting tonight. we assume curated. we assume there are people around him talking about the man whose night it's supposed to be about. how do you approach this evening? and would you be happy if pence were at the top of the ticket? >> watching mrs. pence speak, i was thinking about all the republican hearts breaking from coast to coast that that's not the couple at the top of the ticket. mike pence is so reassuring, he's so, you know, i said he's the yin to trump's yang clang clang this morning. and i think he's going to live tweet is perfect because that's who he is. he didn't cede the moment to pence the morning he announced

him. >> before he let pence speak. >> and what struck me about that interview is that i'm sure that's the donald trump that mrs. pence has seen. i'm sure she was speaking from the heart. the problem for the trump/pence ticket is that is not the trump that the country has seen. >> because there is so a different donald trump, right? >> i have to say, i was thinking -- and steve can speak to this, too -- i've been a part of campaigns where this mattered very much. in 2004 george w. bush stumbled badly in his first outing with secretary -- then-senator kerry. and the cheney performance turned the momentum back in our direction. our poll numbers swung seven points. the palin debate is in a category all its own. it was all about palin. her katie couric outing. but then again in '12, the biden debate mattered very much to then-president obama because biden was able to turn the

momentum around. pence has so much riding on this, and it really is, as chuck said, all about pence and whether he can turn momentum back in the direction of his ticket. >> steve schmidt, let's talk about arming your candidate for battle in this case. and we should remember throughout, both of these men are going to come in with a lot of material tonight. the ability to get off a lot of good lines that they're preloaded with, whether the opportunity comes up or not. it's a high risk, high reward possibility for both of tm going into this evening. >> look, no doubt. coming into this presidential debate last week, brian, the trump campaign was down about 2 1/2 points in the national averages. that's spreading now to 5. you look at the key swing states. if the election were tomorrow, they would lose the race. things have not gone well for the trump campaign since that debate. look at tim kaine's job tonight. i'm sure somebody on the clinton campaign has made the point to him, look, keep provoking donald

trump. question his business acumen. go after him on the things that it is impossible for him to be restrained on responding to. and hey, good news, he's going to be live tweeting. he's going to have his phone in his hand during this debate. and so when we look at the first debate, we saw a premeditated deliberate strategy by secretary clinton to say when i attack donald trump on these things, it will melt him down. he does not have the capacity to not respond to it. like a labrador retriever who will chase the tennis ball when you throw it and bring it back, donald trump will respond to provocations on his business record, on his competence time and time again. i think mike pence has a very difficult job tonight. mike pence is going to have to answer questions about donald trump's comportment, about his temperament, about his capacity to be commander in chief when

he's up at 3:00, 4:00, 5:00 in the morning literally so angry, unable to sleep because of the feud he has going with a former miss universe, and this is, you know, coming at a moment in time where we're roughly 40 days out from a presidential contest that determines which of these two people will be the commander in chief and have command of america's nuclear arsenal. he has a very difficult job tonight trying to explain some of that behavior over the last week. >> that would also read beautifully in a transcript. >> it would. >> well put, steve schmidt. >> eugene, there are the stakes. >> there are the stakes. to steve's point, it will be harder than it looks if tim kaine actually does that, if his goal is to get under donald trump's skin in absentia. that's a little tougher. i'm sure it can be done because he has a very thin skin.

but it also can look a bit awkward. so i think he has to be careful as to how he does that if he tries it. and i'm thinking about viewers and i wonder if -- and you know call me pollyanna, but i wonder if they might actually hear two different visions of the role of government, two different paths forward for the country. you know, these are pretty ideological guys. mike pence has the philosophy, tim kaine has a philosophy. they've both been governors, so they're both pragmatic in that way. >> and their message is disciplined. >> exactly. >> pence has the opportunity to do what trump had set out to do, what trump wanted to do in the first debate is what you just described. >> well, yeah, but -- >> he can make an argument -- >> -- he's donald trump. >> if pence does what trump's team wanted to do, which is prosecute a case for change,

pence is much more capable of sustaining than trump was, then it could be what you described. >> vice presidential running mates are supposedly the attack dogs, the ones that go after the other side and kill the other side. neither of these guys have been great at that in this campaign. they're both better at speaking on their own behalf, on defense, deflecting, talking points, discipline. i don't really know how they're going to combine, the two of them tonight. >> we'll have more with nicole and pollyanna after this break. just over 30 minutes to go. we'll be right back.

we are back. you're looking at the exterior entrance of longview university, farmville, virginia. chris matthews is running our team down there because you're a serious man, we should make this very serious point. one of the reasons to care and pay attention about tonight, death in office is how we receive one in five of our presidents on average through history. donald trump, if elected, will be the oldest elected first-term president in american history. hillary clinton would be the second oldest in our history. these two are the next guys up in any case. >> well, that's a stark statement of reality. brian made a good point there which is it matters a great deal.

just because of mortality and the way things are in our world today. i gave you the wrong preparation for this so you're not off guard. if you're tim kaine tonight -- no, say if you're the underdog tonight, mike pence. what's the smarter move for you in terms of your own ambitions. he's very ambitious guy. he's going for the big. do you attack hillary clinton? >> yes. >> or do you defend donald trump. >> you attack hillary clinton. >> explain. >> comprehensively so that republicans are already looking ahead to 2020 and 2024. >> i agree. >> he's going to run. they're assessing him against eryone else who did not beat donald trump in this run-up. it adds to a great speech in cleveland, in my opinion, it hit all the right notes for a reagan conservative. but he builds the case for four years or against tim kaine in eight. >> he's prepping now to run against hillary in a race he doesn't think she'll even put herself in position to be in. >> quite possibly. that's convoluted. >> but my question is really

because i find pence more fascinating tonight. he's on defense. he has to box his way out of defense and avoid all the traps that trump has laid for himself and then go on attack. because otherwise the headline at best tomorrow will be, you know, pence defends running mate. what a waste of money. >> and the battlefield is littered with republicans who have not found a way to express their support for donald trump and their discomfort in the same -- >> why is that important to do? >> because you still want to have credibility with the part of your electoral base that isn't comfortable with donald trump. you don't want to look like a quizling. paul ryan, john mccain, people who have been insulted by trump -- >> -- quandary, attack hillary. >> they need to pivot off of it because they cannot honestly say they would be proud to have their children look up to this man as president. >> the republican this cycle is rob portman in ohio, the most successful republican. he's winning by 20 points. ted strickland campaign, not ted

strickland isn't a basket case, it's a casket case. it's over. what is rob portman? good on the issues. mike pence is the same guy. he should be the same way. >> in the end this debate tonight will be about offense or defense? >> i think it's going to be about defense. pence is on defense and kaine will go after him. >> i disagree. >> raise the stakes for sunday, get the audience up, restart the campaign, reset the -- >> i think the media's looking for a reset. it can't just be trump suction. >> -- sucks. >> he has to get out of the way. >> what do you mean? >> not tweeting at 4:00 in the morning, not attacking people like alicia machado. >> hillary dug that up from 20 years ago hy didn't have to attack her. he could be a grown up. donald trump is the person who is ruining the strategy that his campaign is putting forward. it's the candidate. >> how does mike pence deliver

the trump message when he doesn't believe in it? >> he believes in change. and that is a change election. 63% of america think we're going the wrong direction. >> he supported the iraq war, on every hsh he disagrees with trump. >> mile 20 of a 26-mile marathon, it's the wall. everyone is exhausted. >> will this be a wake-up turnaround, will hillary keep winning? >> yes. >> i think we're too far down the road. >> i think i heard that. anyway, it would be change toward trump after this week according to hue hewitt. >> nice to see we're all getting along so early in the evening. 22 minutes to go. the crowd in the arena has been told to take their seats. we've been told to take a break. we'll be back, we'll be within 20 minutes to go to the top of this thing. the time is long overdue... pharmaceutical industry. need... outrageous profits. important step forward. payers of california - america. passes - ballot.

we're back in the two chairs of the debate committee are

letting the audience in on tonight's proceedings. >> brian, you were mentioning earlier that this is going to be a seated debate. we'll have the moderator seated along with the vice presidential candidates. the moderator tonight is elaine quijano from cbs news. cbs correspondent. it's actually a historic thing to have her moderating this debate. she's fill philippinfilipino am. we've never before had an asian amican moderate a presidential or vice presidential debate. elaine quijano is making history with that tonight, which is kind of exciting. this is a 90-minute debate. there are no commercials which is the same as the trump/clinton debate last week. difference, though, when the trump/clinton debate was divided up into sections, what they did was six 15-minute sections. what they're doing tonight is quicker turnover. they're planning on doing nine 10-minute segments again with no commercials between them.

we don't know how interventionist the moderator is going to be, how much the two are going to be told to mix it up. but again we expect that the audience will be admonished that they should not make themselves part of the game. that they should stay quiet. they didn't do a very good job of staying quiet last week. >> no, we had some outbursts. all of these take on a different personality. the event gets under way, it takes off and we get what we get. james carville again this week is watching with us. he is out west in arizona. james, what are the risks? take each vice presidential nominee on. what are the risks for each guy tonight? >> well, i think first of all they want to defend their candidate. i think it's going to be -- let's look and see how much is about the vice presidential candidates, how much about the presidential candidates. i wouldn't be surprised if we hear a lot more about the top of the ticket than the actual people participating in the debate. both of these guys, i know both

of them, neither one of them are particularly relish the attack or like it. they both kind of polite people. pence is more ideological than senator kaine is. it will be interesting to see how much he promotes and defends conservatism as to how much he promotes or defends trump. that will be an interesting dynamic in this race. pointed out earlier, is this an audition for 2020 or pushing himself in 2016? there's a lot of hidden stuff going on here tonight. it will be fun to watch, i promise. >> i was thinking about that factor when i knew we were going to have you on tonight. the favorable and unfavorable ratings for pence and kaine. neither seem as important as the fact that anywhere from a third to half the country has no opinion of either of these guys because they have no idea who they are. >> exactly. i mean, it's kind of hard -- >> they're making a first

impression. >> right. trump has an opaque effect on everything. and i mean also secretary clinton is, you know, kind of -- people have very strong opinions about her. so i think a lot of this is senator kaine will go a long way toward defending the secretary talking about stuff that they want to do. pence is a little bit more different character. one thing, too, is both of them in kind of different ways are both more religious than most candidates are now. kaine is a very good catholic. he was a missionary. i think pence was born a catholic and became pretty active kind of fundamentalist evangelical guy but is very committed. i wouldn't be surprised to see kaine talk about his faith a little bit, you know, trying to dig into some of the potential catholic vote that might be out there. that's going to be an interesting dynamic between the two of them. >> that was the highest praise my mother could hand out, if you were a good catholic.

>> i think he gets that. >> that's right. i would describe him absolutely as a good catholic. >> mother carville has bestowed her blessing. >> james, finally, before we have to turn our attention to the room and the final admonitions to the crowd and such thins, what's the biggest risk for tim kaine? >> i think the biggest risk for him is that he doesn't adequately defend her or make the case or let pence get away with attacking her and not coming back forcefully. but he did my class in virginia, he's a really knowledgeable guy. i don't think i've ever seen a public official more on top of issues than he. i think it's very low risk that he'll mess up on the policy thing. but pence will go after secretary clinton and he's going to have to be a good advocate for her and interesting to see how he performs in that role. also he's going to go after

trump. governor, you myself, secretary clinton, we've all released our tax returns. can you please get him to do that so we can clear this up? i'd be surprised if you don't see something like that tonight also. >> because hillary clinton spoke about it today, i wouldn't be surprised if we heard more on veterans, ptsd that came up yesterday. james, thank you, one more break. so we'll go inside the hall. we should be back in time for the moderator's introduction to the crowd and the like. we're under 15 minutes to go here.

we're back exactly ten minutes from the top of the hour when everything begins in the hall. the lights come down. and the network television audience is welcomed into this first and only vice presidential debate. i've been reminded that watching along with us tonight none less than the national political reporter for "the washington post" robert costa is here with us. steve schmidt remains with us. robert, what are you watching for tonight? i'd like to be a fly on your keyboard while you're posting updates for "the washington post." >> what we're watching tonight for "the post" is what does pence do to change the dynamics of this race. can he make a pitch to those who are still skittish about trump.

come out in droves this november. can he reassure the suburban voters that there's someone with a different temperament on this ticket? >> we want to tell our viewers when we set this scene because wen they all come out, elaine quijano, the moderator, her back will be toward the audience in the hall. she'll be speaking directly to a camera in front of her in that black band. you'll see the teleprompter come up in a little bit. and kaine and pence will sit on either side. steve schmidt, what are you doing backstage to keep your assigned candidate loose and in the game? what's the debate equivalent of having a little game of pepper in baseball? >> probably very quiet backstage right now. the two candidates are getting ready to be moved from their hold room to the sites off the stage, they're probably having a few last words with spouses. the senior advisers are trying to drive home the last point they want to make. certainly for senator kain the point is being made to him stay

on offense. put, you know, put the burden on trump. make this about trump, make pence defend trump. they're saying make sure that, you know, you hit back hard when they come after secretary clinton. and you know, clearly on the trump side, they're saying to governor pence that, you know, prosecute the case on the trump campaign with that campaign needs to see and what republicans across the country need to see is a competent debate performance. and maybe this is the only way to reach donald trump who will be watching this tonight, and he can understand the difference between his performance, the worst in the history of presidential campaigns and a competent debate performance and hopefully from the trump campaign's perspective, that he'll be right track heading into the second debate next sunday. >> as we see the meeting of the spouses. >> that's right. that's mrs. pence and mrs. kaine meeting one another. we should mention that attending

tonight, sort of in tim kaine's corner, his wife and also his mom and dad. mike pence's wife is there along with his own mother and his step-father and his kids. one of the things that's interesting about these families is that this last presidential election that we had between president obama and mitt romney, the presidential deooe lekz when we had neither candidate with military experience of any kind. we've got that again in this election. it makes it all the more, i think, important, symbolic and poignant that you've got these two vice presidential candidates tonight talking, both of whom have a son in the united states marine corps. >> here's elaine quijano, our moderator. >> hi, everyone. i'm elaine quijano of cbs news, and i am honored and humbled to be with you here tonight. thanks for coming. now, we have a lot of business to get to. a lot of issues to cover. so i would ask for your help. if everyone could right now please check to make sure that

your cell phones are off. i'll give you a moment to do that. and while you're doing that, i would remind you that there is no cheering, no booing, no noise of any kind as the debate gets under way. and with that, i am going to take my seat, get situated, once again, thank you all for being here. >> now, we enter the period of time our friend lester holt labeled the uncomfortable period of silence. the moderatomoderator's job to through final notes and keep his or her back to the audience. and it's the audience's job, we've now learned, to stay out of this game. >> that's right. we'll see if they do. i think it was actually an underappreciated part of the debate last week when the audience first decided to break the ice and jump in, the first time they made a lot of noise was when donald trump said one of his campaign lines about

releasing his tax returns when hillary clinton releases her e-mails. there was a big yeah! from the corner of the room and from that point the rest of the audience was in it. that does make a difference. that said, maybe it makes more of a difference when you've got somebody who has never been in a one on one debate before like donald trump. both mike pence and tim contain a -- kaine are experienced debaters. maybe the two of them, it won't matter that much. it is up to this audience to uphold the decorum. >> another brief note to our viewers, these events are designed to start at the top of our hour. so our friends in network television will actually be under way for clock watchers at:03.30 past the hour. we remember when sarah palin crossed to center stage and

there's always that rush to either meet your opponent at the center line or preferably be the one who is first over the center line and she said over and open mike, can i call you joe? >> right. during debate prep, which my husband was a part of, she in rehearsal kept saying, senator o biden. so she kept botching the name. she was so nervous. yeah, in prep during the week in sedona. she wanted to -- i have one of the things both these men are doing is saying a prayer. that's one of the last things we did in the green room with sarah palin and her family. then my husband actually walked her out to the stage. the first thing she said to then-senator biden was can i call you joe? and it was funny because we met up with david axelrod and that team oh, was that a strategy? and we said, no. that was not a. >> you didn't suggest that to

her as a corrective for the o'biden thing? >> she may have asked that that was okay. >> was it a comfort level thing? >> no, for sure, she kept calling him senator o'biden. at that point in the campaign we didn't need her mis pronouncing senator biden's name. i remember being with nicole watching the first couple minutes of this debate and she got off to a good start from our perspective. and someone in the room, it was a small room where we were watching says she's doing great. i remember looking, 87 minutes and 30 seconds to go. >> oh, steve, so nice to see you smiling about it now. >> steve is like -- steve has done so much penance for this time. he's like, i know i'm clean. >> let's talk about that campaign. there's a specific look that steve gets on his face. >> i am further along in my therapy. we'll save it for the shank of

the night. >> to both of you, though, by the time you got to tehe end of the 90 minutes she had outperformed not only your expectations but the country's expectations. >> there were some from our friends from the white house in the room and she had a question for the bankruptcy bill. is she prepped for that? no. the prep for a governor -- and actually i talked about sarah palin today with someone sort of taking me down memory lane. she is more similar to trump's mission. the briefing of someone who has not participated in the debates of our time is so fundamentally different. that's why voters sort of correct for it. everyone that reacts with such shock that trump is sort of -- it's not close anymore. these polls show it's competitive but not close. people from outside the debates and outside the divides are judged differently. and sarah palin was judged to have more than survived but to have held her own that night. >> do you think expectations that night are baked into the

price in terms of what people are expecting? >> yeah, absolutely. i think graded on a curve. >> as they do trump. >> trump has been graded on a curve all along. unfortunately, he often doesn't get the gentleman's c on the curve. the expectations tonight are of these two very experienced guys. are much higher in terms of policy. >> on both sides. >> and they're even. >> knowledge of, you know, like history and geography. >> policy. >> and policy. and how laws are made and stuff like that. >> it also means that it's a high bar. if either of them screws up on anything, if either of them has an aleppo moment a la gary johnson a couple weeks ago. >> as we keep saying some real communication skills will be on display on that stage tonight.

mike pence started life as a radio talk show host in the state of indiana and, for his part, tim kaine went to harvard law school which has its own way of preparing people to be good communicators later in life. and here we are, the 9:00 p.m. window within the starting time. we have some minutes of pad time at the top of the hour here. elaine quijano is right now in that holding period where the networks have started their coverage. she'll turn to camera in front of her and welcome the national audience to this debate. both candidates will come out from their sides and shake hands. >> we have seen something unusual in the lead-up to this debate. it has become traditional spin tactics that you try to downplay the debating skill of your candidate.