Hello to wherever you are. And the Republican Debate is only hours away, and the candidate candidates will be arriving this hour for the walkthrough throughout the stage, and 11 candidates will meet in the main event starting at 8 00 p. M. Tonight here on cnn. And lindsey graham, the senator from South Carolina is there and he is getting a chance to feel the stage, if you will, and set the scene for us, athena. Hi, wolf. Yes, that is right. We saw senator graham pull up, a and this is where all of the candidates are pulling up, and walking past us, and we are asking them, how you are feeling, and if you are ready, and i asked that of senator graham what he did this morning to prepare. And he said, i got up, and took a shower and went on by. There you are, you can see the picture of him up there on the main debate stage, getting the lay of the land, and each of the candidates has a chance to stand by the podium, and find out where the moderators are going to be sitting and get a sense of what to expect tonight at the main event. Well, he is in the first event, but it is a first big event for both tiers of candidates, wolf. And both of the debates are major opportunities for all of the candidates still in the race for the republican president ial nomination. Athena, and remind the viewers, because they cant bring any notes with them, and they have no cell phones, and they can go up there, and there is a piece of paper, and no notebook and they can write something, but no props to help them, right . No props at all, and that is part of what makes it so exciting, and so unpredictable, and the big question is not just will these individual candidates have a memorable moment on the positive side, but of course, in the debates past, you have had the candidates who have clearly lost their train of thought, and led to long pauses, and of course, the oops moment from now former candidate rick perry from the last cycle, and no, the candidates have to show up, and be ready and going to have to have note paper that they can take the notes on, and of course, water, if they need it, but they cant bring anything with them to that stage tonight. Wolf . All of the candidates will have a few minutes to walk around the stage and get a feel for what is going on, and do they have 15 minutes each, is that right . Well, it is Something Like that. They are staggered so that you wont have the candidates facing off ahead of the faceoffs. So there are staggered arrivals and each candidate has a several minutes long window to koum here to check out the stage and check out where they are going to be standing and an early view of what it is going to be looking like, and the idea is not meant to be overlapping a head of time, and they will have to wait for the actual hour of the debate before they are all out there together. Wolf. All right. Athena, thank you very much, and our chief washington correspondent, and the anchor of the lead jake tapper is going to be joined on the stage asking questions the conservative talk show host hugh hewitt, and the chief Political Correspondent dana bash and what are your expectations, da na, because i know that you and hugh and jake have been preparing and preparing and preparing. Well, that at the end of the time here that the republican vo voters will have a much better sense of where the candidates stand and who they are and what they stand for. And this is a debate, hugh, and it is not a conversation or interview, and it is a debate, and let the candidates show where they the disagree on the sensitive issues. Yes, and in the first debate they touched gloves, bow the night, going after it, and it is an opportunity to put in the republicans minds, the differences between them. And some of the candidates go after the questioners as you know, and they are not happy with the questions, and they believe that the questions are unfair, and all of you are bracing yourselves for that. And you dont know what that is like at all . No. And president reagan and we are at the library and it is a great honor to be here, and i dont believe it is going to happen with the scene that cnn has constructed with the air force one because it is adding some gravitas to it, and if they go after jake or dana or i, they will have to go after each other, and they need to do that. And it is about them at the end of the day and not about us. It is about them. And some of the candidates dont like the mainstream media, and they feel they can score political points among the more kconservative supporters with that. And they will get pushback, because i have interviewed all of them, and except senator paul, and john kasich likes to punch back at me, because he is my own state governor and he likes to pushback and it is not just mainstream media, but Newt Gingrich showed value in that in the last cycle, and soy expect down the road, but not tonight, tonight, they are have to distinguish themselves from each other, and i suspect that is what is going to be happening. And it is much more intimate auditorium, and 500 tonight as opposed to thousands in cleveland in the first debate, and air force one behind the podium, and the Ronald Reagan president ial library and it does set a tone. Yes, i was at the first debate in cleveland and it was fascinating, but it was a large venue, as we were talking about yesterday, and the arena where lebron james plays, and it felt that way, and they tried to make it intimate, but only so much to do when you have a big place, and this is a stage that was literally built from nothing. It is like 45 feet in the air, and it is really special to be up right next to the plane that president reagan flew on and others before him, and you are absolutely right about the feel and the vibe in there and it is quite different than in cleveland. We dont want one kind of vibe, because we are in earthquake territory, and we are out there, and i am looking at the platform, and i am thinkingings if we are above 6. 0, we are in trouble. It is the first thing that you thought of living ow here. And something i did not think of. And in the first debate Rick Santorum, bobby jindal, George Pataki and senator lindsey graham, and they have much more air time, because it is four as opposed to 11 candidates there on the stage, and they have to do something to break out. And i asked senator graham why he was so sad, and he said, because nobody was there, and it was very funny, so i believe that the crowd will get him much more energy, and somebody is going to get some ticket off of the stage and maybe more than one, but somebody will get a ticket off of the stage out of the preliminary stage, and they are going to be looking for air time. And the last time for all of them in the first stage with the exception of rick perry who wont be here now, and they had not done a president ial debate before, and they had been in public service, and done it on the state level, but not at this level, and so they didnt know what to expect and now the first one is over, a nd they know wha to expect and i cant imagine that they have not modified how to approach it based on that. And 3 of the 4 candidates based on the first, pataki, jindal, and lindsey graham, and not Rick Santorum so much, but those three have gone after donald trump in the recent weeks, and slammed him, and George Pataki, the former governor of new york said he is not ready to be president , and he could not vote for him if he were the republican president ial nominee, and bobby jindal refused to tell me that he would vote for him if he were the nominee, and they are going to be going after trump, but he is not going to be going after him. And i expect that donald trump is going to be watching and it is going to be going to get his juices going. And it is shock iing that as a conservative that going to be coming up, and i am sure that is going to be shocking for the other candidates because in the undercard, you will set up the issues that happen in the second debate, and it is not without significance what any of them say, and i assume that all of the candidates will be saying. And let me correct when you said senator santorum, and of course, senator santorum did debate on the big stage and won iowa last time around and on senator santorum, he is somebody who is not all that thrilled with the attention that donald trump is getting and i know that talking to him that he is eager to talk about the issues that i divide the republicans. They will be forceful and assertive in making the points, and some of that, the sound bites of the first debate could be used to play in the second debate, right . Yes, referred to if nothing else. Yes. Good lucko both of you tonight. Thank you, wolf. And tonight, we will countdown to the debate, including looking at the effect of donald trump to the Republican Party. Is he alienating voters or drawing in people who would not get involved. We will talk about that and later, senator rand paul is promising the go after donald trump in a big way. And senator rand paul is going to be joining me here at the Ronald Reagan library in simi valley here at this hour. We stop arthritis pain, so you dont have to stop. Tylenol® 8hr arthritis pain has two layers of pain relief. The first is fast. The second lasts all day. We give you your day back. What you do with it is up to you. Tylenol®. We danced in a german dance group. I wore lederhosen. Man. When i first got on ancestry i was really surprised that i wasnt finding all of these germans in my tree. I decided to have my dna tested through ancestry dna. The big surprise was were not german at all. 52 of my dna comes from scotland and ireland. So, i traded in my lederhosen for a kilt. Ancestry has many paths to discovering your story. Get started for free at ancestry. Com. When you think of the United StatesPostal Service . Exactly. Thats what pushes us to deliver smarter simpler faster sleeker earlier fresher harder farther quicker and yeah, even on sundays. Whats next . Well show you. The Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker arrived here at the ronald Ronald Reagan president ial library and you can see him getting out of the vehicle there, and walking inside and he is going to be getting a tour of the stage area, and the podium and getting a feeling of what is going through there. All of the candidates have an opportunity, 10 or 15 minutes each to check out the room and see the audience and about 500 guests will be inside, and a much smaller setting than the first president ial debate at the basketball arena in cleveland and this is a much more intimate setting with air force one in the background. And donald trump meantime stood on the deck of the battleship uss iowa last night to give what he billed as the National Security speech, but it was noticeably lacking on the specifics. And nobody is going to mess with us, and that i can tell you, and we will make the country so great, and we are going to be making it so strong, and we will make it powerful, and we will rebuild the military and make it it so strong. And you are going to be looking around and remember who the people are who are here, because we are doing something special, and this is a movement, and we are going to be making the country great again, and believe me, we will make the country great again. And no specific mention of isis, syria, terrorism, and lots of support from the u. S. Military veterans. And joining us is the cnn political analyst ron brownstein, and the former michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, and mike rogers who is our cnn commentator and also jeffrey lord who is a trump supporter, and he said it would be a National Security speech, but it was not. And im on the grill, but he is doing message, message, message, and as we get into the debate, what is the message here, and you get it here in terms of what Ronald Reagan would call peace through strength, but i will recall here at the Ronald Reagan library, he, himself, was criticized not only as a candidate, but also through the strobe talbot who wrote this in 1984 said that he doesnt know what nuclear throw weight weights are, and doesnt know this or that, and et cetera, and things worked out differently. And reagan the had been a twoterm governor and years of Radio Broadcasts to lay out the views and i cant believe i am saying this, but in a 1980 campaign of the Radio Broadcasts that laid out a detailed view of the domestic and International Viewpoints which is a lot more to go through than what donald trump has said. And well, frankly, i think that Ronald Reagan would be rolling over, and trump reminded me of sarah palin in foreign policy. When you dont say anything, and how do you get up here on the debate stage and not say anything . It is like, you know, punching an airball or maybe punching the hairball, i dont know sorry, sorry. Oh, oh. And by the way, i will remind everybody what they are seeing right now is scott walker the wisconsin governor on the stage over there, getting a little flavor for the podium, and flavor for what is anticipated later, and all of the candidates have this walkthrough and it is very important for them to know what is going on and where the glass of water is going to be and the notebook for them to jot the notes, and as we said, they cant bring any notes or props or cell phone or anything along those lines. And what happened to scott walker, kongressman . Because he was doing very well . Well, he just went down, down, and the traction of the dealing with the unions and that was a substantive issue to deal with the year before the election, and he lost ground and the record and the charisma that he brought to the race, there is a gap, and you make that combination of all of those thing, and you will see the numbers. I i would say that scott walker lost the balance. As he entered the race, the unique asset is that he could appeal to both the business wing to the party, and the evangelical and the populist party and he steered to the evangelical wing and went right to say that he would seek a constitutional amendment to overturn the gay marriage amendment, and then after walker had positioned himself in a way that was to the more center right voters of john kasich and marco rubio are targeting. And he is layle bit of the onehitwonder can, and playing to smaller, and smaller audiences and the one hit that he thought would be bashing the union, and okay, we have heard about it now, and now, how do you build the middle class, and one subject. And the strength is build ing the economy, and suddenly, anybody who has Held Public Office with donald trump has a problem on their hands. And this strength of going after the evangelical voters after they had several candidates working hard in iowa and New Hampshire and he had a late start. And at love the b t a lot o who looked at overturning the gay marriage amendment in 2016 sat and looked, is this really what we want to look at. That is why they have a busine businessman leading the race. And so now, scott walker is going to give a little feeling of what is going to be on the stage there, and dont go too far away, and we will have more coverage here, and how do you prepare for a debate with donald tru trump, and the top tier candidates, and what do they need to do to steal some of the spotlight back . That is next. Big day . Ah, the usual. Moved some new cars. Hauled a bunch of steel. Kept the supermarket shelves stocked. Made sure everyone got their latest gadgets. Whats up for the next shift . Ah, nothing much. Just keeping the lights on. laugh nice. Doing the big things that move an economy. See you tomorrow, mac. See you tomorrow, sam. Just another day at norfolk southern. Building aircraft, the likes of which the world has never seen. This is what we do. Thats the value of performance. Northrop grumman. And my brother ray and i started searching for answers. vo when its time to navigate inhome care, follow that bright star. 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And there is scott walker there looking at the podium where he will be tonight, and where all of the 11 prime time candidates will take the stage to debate the major issues on the campaign right now, and National Security issues, domestic issues, and all kinds of good stuff, and scott walker has major problems right now as the numbers have gone do down, but all of the candidates will have a feeling of the stage, and that is coming up where all of the candidates will see them, and lets discuss what is going on, and once again, we will be joined by jeff zeleny who is with me at the Ronald Reagan president ial library and also Jennifer Granholm who helped former Vice President joe biden help with his debate against sarah palin