From msnbc, the place for
politics, the first president ial debate. Good evening, just two hours from now at Hofstra University on new yorks long island, a debate like no other in the modern political era. Two candidate s like no other pair, including one who is debating a sole opponent in the same room for the first time ever. There are predictions tonights telecast could be one of the wildly watched Television Events of any kind in history, during this extraordinary, all bets are off political year, this is the event people have been waiting for. 43 days from now, americans will go to the polls to choose the next president of the united states. And what happens tonight, what we witness on Live Television tonight could be a major component in that vote. We are here for all of it and headquarters in new york, brian williams, along with rachel maddow, and our team, our veteran Chris Matthews, onsite at hofstra, our entire team is here. And rachel, ive heard it said,
tonight is about the plausibility of donald trump. Its always about the plausibility of the challenger when there is an incumbent. Hillary clinton, if you squint, seems like an incumbent, but in this case, its an open seat. And so, i mean, yes, everybody makes a big deal out of the first debate every time around. But this is different. The stakes do feel higher. I mean, number one, biggest picture view, weve never had a woman in a president ial debate before. Weve also never had a major Party Candidate in a president ial debate who has no political record, no record of public service, no record of military service, whatsoever. Weve never dish mean, weve never seen Hillary Clinton and donald trump together. Weve never seen donald trump debate a single opponent, as you mentioned, in your leadin there. Theres a lot that we havent seen tonight, but because of the unusual nature of this pairing, i think, because of Donald Trumps unpredictability, weve
got yet another wild card in this, which is that somewhere between 80 million and 100 million americans will watch this. We could have a super bowlsized audience tonight, which is something weve never had before in any president ial debate, and we dont know what it means to have a third of the country watching a president ial debate, regardless of what happens in that debate. This is all uncharted territory. It means there are executive at monday night football going donald trump arrived at hofstra on long island not too long ago. Without tie, more of a walkthrough kind of thing. Thumbs up, walk through, that is. Came in the back entrance with secret service, was inside for a short time, got back in the suv within and went back to whatever home or hotel their holding area has been. Chris matthews, as we said, our veteran in washington, is going to be a big part of this. Only tonight, he is our veteran
on the campus of hofstra. Chris, good evening to you. Yeah, hi, brian and rachel. Rachel said it right. The audience could be 80 to 100 Million People. And that means the people that normally watch programs like ours, maybe 5 million to 10 Million People on an irregular basis. But we think maybe eight times that number of people, who have varying degrees of lesser interests. So theyre going to be getting full exposure. And guess what, we, who watch this all the time, will see something weve never seen before. As rachel suggested again. The dynamic of them looking at each other from a few feet away, knowing that one is in the way of them becoming president. That person theyre looking at is the only reason theyre not going to be president. And so this is real chemistry here. And we have never, ever seen it before, guys. Anything like these two are facing each other. Yeah, i believe the measured distance between podiums is 12 feet, 3 inches. Which sounds like a lot, but try it in intimate circumstances, especially with two people larger than life, one of them
physically larger by a fair piece than the other, thus the different height of the podiums, and it feels quite close. To the spin room we go. So named, a quaint title from another era, where there used to be adults where after a debate would go face the cameras and reporters, reporting for things called newspapers and tell them who they thought won the debate. Well, these days, the verdict is usually on social media, that ricochets around the nation and the world, early on in the debate. But the spin room lives on. Kristen welker covers the Clinton Campaign. Kristen, what to expect . Reporter brian, we just got a little bit of early spin here in the spin room, just underscoring how unique this evening is. Mark cuban, billionaire businessman, reality tv star, clinton supporter, who set off a firestorm this weekend, just walked through. Just a background for our viewers, in case they dont remember. He sent out a tweet essentially
saying to donald trump, hes going to be sitting in the front row, baiting him, if you will. That trumped donald trump to threaten to bring jennifer flowers, someone who had a brief affair with bill clinton, if you ask bill clinton, but according to her, it stretched on much longer. She is not here, but mark cuban is here. So we got the chance to ask him about this exchange. I asked him if he regretted his tweet. He said, absolutelynot. He said hes also not here to start anything or to bait donald trump. Take a look at what he had to say. Im not here to cause a scene, right . Im not here to jump up and down. Donald will do that on his own. He doesnt need any help from anybody else. Hes kind of a big boy, you know, sometimes. And hell say what hes going to say. So im not here to cause a scene, im not here to make faces, im not here to stare him in the eyes, i havent practiced the stink eye, i dont have a
little dance move, i dont have anything like that. Hes good enough at that on his own. Just gives you a sense of the unusual optics here tonight, brian and rachel, and governor mike pence just walked behind me, as i was starting this live shot. Well be talking to him in a little bit. Secretary clinton, as i covered the Clinton Campaign, i can tell you she has been preparing for tonight. She has been holding mock debates. She was preparing as late as today. She had a donald trump standin, former top aide from the state department named the phillippe ryan. He is someone who is good at throwing a sharp barb. Shes preparing for two Donald Trumps, who who will be on the attack, and one who will be a little bit more restrained. And top aides say they think theyll get the donald trump whos a little more restrained. Youre missing all the action by talking to us. You just missed begala whos eating something, who walked by you. And our favorite quote of the night, im not here to cause a scene, said mark cuban, to 20 cameras surrounding mark cuban. Over to katy tur whos
surrounding the trump side of things. Katy . Reporter hey, brian. I was jus talking to a Campaign Aide a moment ago, and he was giving me spin, as you will, saying all this hype about donald trump not being able to control himself, being wild, is overblown. That he knows he needs to come off as president ial in this debate, and thats exactly what hes going to do. He understands the narrative. And the narrative is not going to be good for him if he goes on the attack against Hillary Clinton unnecessarily. That being said, brian, ive heard that before. Katy tur at hofstra with what passes for advanced spin from the trump. Spin is supposed to be after. Spin is so unavoidable at this point, they are spinning their candidates performance befores the, which is absurd. But, i mean, as we were saying, this is such a big deal, that its hard for there not to be a lot of speculation. The cure to just the speculation, though, is the numbers. And weve got some new numbers, courtesy of chuck todd, whos going to explain to us this new
latest nbc survey. Chuck, what have we got . Well, its our nbc News Survey Monkey weekly tracking poll. This is online for those that are different methodology, this is one thats conducted online. Methodologically sound. We studied it for over a year, before we went public with it. And it has matched our Gold Standard nbc wall street journal poll. Last week it showed five and so did our nbc wall street journal poll. The new one, we still have a fivepoint lead for Hillary Clinton, 4540. Now, we have other polls that have been out there today, rachel, for what its worth, that have shown a tighter race. Look, everybody is going to have their spin on how to weight a poll, but some of those polls felt like they were headline generators, plain and simple. Because when you looked inside it, it showed an instability in this race that actually went seen. All of that said, this 4540 number tonight, while it may seem stable, i will say this, i do think there is more fluidity in this electorate, because after tonight, youll have, i
think, the johnson and jillstein voters who will look at tonight more as a binary choice and at some point they need to move off the fence. History says that is what happens to third Party Candidates. Once you see that first debate and voters realize, theres only two that have a shot, those votes start melting away into the major Party Candidates. And to me, thats how we could see movement. History says no Real Movement after the first debate. That wherefore the race is before is usually where it is after. Maybe one or two points on either side. I think there is some fluidity, because of the Gary Johnson Jill Stein factor. One in seven voters are sitting there right now. After tonight, theyre going to start moving. Which way do they move . That will create some mooucveme in my opinion. And there any way to tell which way those voters are likely to move . Its hard to imagine jill stein voters jumping to donald trump, but gary johnson is a little bit more of a black box. Its interesting, let me give you the breakdown of the gary johnson voters. We did this last week at our
nbc wall street journal survey. When you ask gary johnson voters, if you have to pick between the two, they split dead even. But when you ask those same voters, how do you plan on voting in your congressional race . Do you want to see the Democrats Control Congress or the republicans, by a tenpoint advantage, johnson voters lean republican. So theyre republican leaning with, and the best way to look at it, collegeeducated white men. The biggest chunk are younger collegeeducated white men who have libertarian leanings, theyre not as moved on social issues like conservatives, the way older conservatives are, they tend to lean right, but are turned off by trump. They like sanders, too. So i think they are up for grabs for clinton. But they may not be up for dprabs fgrabs for any other democrat. Chuck todd, thank you very, very much. In addition to these National Numbers are the state numbers, because thats how we vote. Our own Steve Kornacki has some
of the latest in terms of the road to 270 and how the various states are polling right now for the two candidates. Steve . Weve got some new numbers at the state level. First of all, if you average all those new policy nationally, you can see Hillary Clinton come in tonight with about a 2. 3 lead nationally. Nationally, 2. 3 points. But its a battle in the states right now. I want to set up the new numbers by looking at it this way. Donald trump, in terms of having a path to 270, what would it take . Heres roughly what the electoral map looks like right now. If youre donald trump, if you average together the polls that are already out there in nevada, its a slight lead, but he has a lead in nevada right now. If youre looking at what the path would look like. He has a lead in the arverage o polls in iowa. Hes pulled into the lead in an average of polls in ohio. In north carolina, this is a republican state in 2012, a romney state, he would need to lock it down. That looks like probably a 50 50 proposition, but if youre trump and you could do that, and go to
florida, where the average of the polls has him down by a fraction of a point, you could see, hed be getting very close. But that would not be close enough. And thats where the new polls that came out today come in to play. Take a look at a coup of the states where we got in numbers from today. One is colorado. Donald trump, a new poll today, ahead of Hillary Clinton by a point. Now, this is just one poll, but weve seen several over the last few weeks in colorado, that have shown this to be very, very close. The instance of this is simple. The Clinton Campaign about a month ago topped advertising in colorado. After the democratic crosspetition, this state looked like it was going to be a runaway for the democrats. We all started saying, this is not going to be a battleground anymore. This raises the possibility that colorado is a battleground. If thats the case, look how the clinton number falls and theres an opportunity for donald trump. Its not just necessarily in colorado, though. Look at the number we got out of pennsylvania today. Pennsylvania, very much like colorado. We stopped talked about this as a real serious flip possibility
for donald trump after democratic convention. One poll, well wait to see if theres more, but for right now, one poll shows clinton up by just a point there. If that is something we see in more polls, that could be another opportunity for donald trump and another drawback for Hillary Clinton right now, and theres also this. One more state. This was on nobodys radar at the start of this campaign. It is the state of maine. And look at this, maine, 1988, the last time they voted for republican for president , statewide. Hillary clinton barely leading this by three points, but maine is one of two states that gives it out by congressional district. So maine won, this is basically portland and southern maine. Solid Hillary Clinton win. Looks like shell get an electoral vote there. But maine, too, this is the rural part of the state. This is western maine, bangor, lewiston, auburn. Donald trump, a commanding doubledigit lead. So its looking right now like they are likely to split the electoral votes in maine, clinton and trump are. And then it would be a question of who could win statewide. But right now, Hillary Clinton,
if youre Hillary Clinton, you cannot count on winning statewide. So new opportunities, at least in the polls today, suggesting new opportunities for donald trump. The path that im putting together here, theres a lot of ifs involved for donald trump, but there is a potential path at this moment thats opening up to him. Potential. Steve kornacki at the board. Some interesting numbers and states people did not anticipate we would be discussing at this point in the race. Chris matthews is over at hofstra. Chris, do you just as an axiom, do you do you see this as a tossup right now . Do you see it as a 50 50 race or a little bit on one side . It just seems whatever nothing happens for a couple of week, it goes back to that true north, that default of about 50 50 in terms of the decided vote between the top two candidates. What i keep looking at is our own number, which is twothirds of the country dont like the direction were in. And the amazing ability so far
of trump to tap into that dissatisfaction over uncontrolled immigration, loss of jobs and manufacturing, and bad wars. And hes been able to do that. The problem is, hes been messing up that message again and again with his offtopic or offmessage comments. So, continue, hes got a chance to reach 90 to 100 Million People with a pure message of dissatisfaction and say, thats whats deplorable. The situation itself, which i find deplorable. I think you can do that, but he has to avoid what hillarys going to try to get him to do, which is to show the bad trump. To show the trump that gets personal with her. That makes comments about ethnic groups, blacks, hispanics, et cetera. He has to be able to distill the good trump, politically, from the bad trump, and hillarys not going to let him do it. Shes going to start the minute this debate starts reminding us that i believe 90 to 100 Million People of everything bad trump has done in
this campaign. Thats what i think its going to be about tonight. Chris matthews out at the hofstra campus. And my list of four things, the first thing i will say them this evening, a reminder to viewers looking for certain things in this coverage. Its been widely reported the crowd will be silent. That will be a different dynamic for donald trump. He will appear in split screen at all times. So all visual facial reactions will be on televion. The mikes will be open the entire time. And there will be no breaks. Theyll go all the way to the end, 90 minutes, start to finish. Its a lot of uninterrupted Television Time and very concentrated relationships and its hard to be good at that type of television for 90 minutes with no break, with them never offcamera and never offmike. It requires incredible ly discipline and even really good politicians, neither of them have done this before. The music heralds our first break, but also our first reminder, well go commercial free the length of tonights debate. When we come back, people who
have done this for a living, ie, prepped candidates to enter the debate hall, our best in the Business Panel and others, coming up when we continue. They have opened up the debate hall on the campus of hofstra on long island, so you see selfies being taken and the first very, very lucky spectators going in. First of many reminders, they will get a dramatically different picture, perhaps, of the event tonight. So will our friends listening on sirius xm radio on terrestrial radio across the world, armed forces radio. Audio of these events is often so different from watching it as folks are watching it at home on
television. That 1960 Nixon