-This is Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta,
where an empty studio lot is being transformed
to host the fifth Democratic debate of the 2020 election.
It takes hundreds of people to pull this off.
Crews build the stage,
bring in seats for a live audience,
set up lights, audio, cameras.
But hosting a presidential debate
isn't just about the stage and the setting.
It's about getting the candidates to answer questions,
reveal who they are and what they would do as president,
and to get those answers, you need moderators,
and they do a lot of homework.
I'm Libby Casey.
Come with me behind the scenes
to see what it takes to moderate a presidential debate.
-The role of the moderator really is to get the candidate
beyond their talking points,
to get them beyond what a voter would've heard them say over
and over and over again on a campaign trail,
because that is what the candidate
does not want you to do.
There is the tension between the moderator and the candidate.
That's it right there.
-Karen Tumulty has moderated a debate or forum
in four of the last five presidential cycles.
-When you think back to debates,
the moments that really stand out in your memory are,
number one, the disastrous gaffe.
-I can't -- the third one I can't, sorry.
Oops.
-But number two, they really are those moments
where the candidates engage with each other
in a kind of meaningful way.
-I got votes for that bill.
I convinced people to vote for it,
so let's get those things straight, too.
-Now, you didn't say what the moderator did, right?
We don't all look back and think,
"Remember that time the moderator did X, Y, and Z?"
Is that a sign of success?
-If you come away from a debate thinking about the moderator,
that moderator has not done a good job.
-When you get the call
or the e-mail or the tap on the shoulder
that you're gonna be part of one of these debates,
what's the first thought that goes through your mind?
-It takes about a second.
You go from, "Oh, cool," to "Oh, my God," you know?
-So, you find out that you're gonna be involved
in this process and you think about,
"Okay, do I have enough time?
How am I gonna prepare for this?"
Because, you know, someone may think,
"Well, what do you mean do you have enough time?
If you have, like, even a week, like, all you have to do
is write questions, right?"
-It's, in fact, the questions themselves.
We had, in both of the debates I've done
since I was at The Post,
they were sponsored with another news organization,
and we spent many, many hours around a table --
probably 20, 25 people around a table --
just working on the questions.
How do you phrase this?
What's the point you're trying to get to?
What are the likely answers going to be?
How do you make sure that in the way you frame the question,
you're not giving a candidate an off ramp
to go answer something else?
The first thing you want to do
is learn everything you can about every issue
that you think is likely to come up,
but it is just as important to know everything
that every candidate has said about that issue
so that you can get them past their talking points.
Expect what they are going to want to say.
Often, you can do that by the way you frame the question.
You can say, you know,
"Candidate 'A,' we all know that," you know,
"you think climate change is a big problem.
We all know that you talk about it all the time,
but how would you deal with it in such and such a way?"
So, you can go ahead and get the talking points
off the table and move on.
The other thing that is, I think, really important
is to keep your questions as short as possible.
-Okay, this is 2016 Democratic debate
between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
-Secretary Clinton, you've known Donald Trump a long time.
You've seen what kind of campaign he's running.
Secretary Clinton, is Donald Trump a racist?
-You know, Karen, I'm gonna follow my friend
Senator Sanders' model here.
If I'm so fortunate enough to be the Democratic nominee,
there will be a lot of time to talk about him.
I was the first one to call him out.
So, people can draw their own conclusions about him,
but I will just end by saying this.
You don't make America great by getting rid of everything
that made America great,
and -- -Secretary Clinton,
my question is about his character,
and that is one of the primary things
that Americans think about
when they choose their next president.
-Does she ever answer your question?
-She did not.
I suspect that if Hillary Clinton had that moment back,
I think she might have given me a straighter answer on that one.
-Yeah.
One thing I noticed about this, Karen,
is you first point out
that they've known each other for a long time,
and Hillary Clinton sort of laughs,
and you don't break character.
I mean, you don't get, like, sucked into, like, the,
"Oh, this is like a fun, light moment."
You are just still right there,
and then you pull the attention back.
Like, you pull the audience and Hillary Clinton
back to the moment,
and then you go ahead and ask the rest of your question.
-Yeah, you know, I could've phrased that question sort of
in more of a fuzzy way.
You know, I could've phrased it,
"What does it say about a person?
Do you think he's playing on racial fears," you know.
-You were really direct, yeah. -Because I just thought
you'd get a more interesting answer,
and the fact that I couldn't get an answer
was interesting in itself.
-One of the trickiest parts of moderating a debate
is interrupting the candidates
and holding them to time without coming across as abrasive.
TV networks have tried to help the moderators
by putting lights on the podiums to signal candidates
to stop talking, a signal they often ignore.
-Thank you, Congressman.
Thank you, Congressman, we're gonna move on.
We're gonna move on to the issue of immigration now.
-First you say, "Thank you, Senator."
And then you say, "We've got to move on, Senator,"
and you just get firmer and firmer,
and then finally you say, "Time.
We're moving."
-Presidential debates have a way of grabbing the news cycle
and focusing on the race to the White House,
but even an event this big can't ignore the day's headlines.
-Of course, then the big wildcard is the potential
that you walk into the day of the debate
so prepared with all your questions,
and then some major news event happens that day,
and you've got to figure out, you know,
what are we gonna ask about this big event?
What are we gonna throw out
and not be able to ask about because of this?
-So, after the debate, there's a big tally of,
like, winners or losers of the candidates.
Are you doing your own mental tally of, like,
things you feel like you did well, regrets that you had?
Are you playing the night over in your mind
over and over again? -Oh, a hundred times.
I mean, it was just like, "Oh, I didn't word that right,"
or, "I stumbled over that."
-Do you go back and watch? -I probably did once, yeah.
And then my children were just delighted
that there was some moment
that got turned into a gif out of that of me.
-Maybe you'll be a TikTok this time, yeah, right.
-My kids, you know, had seen that look.
Yeah, it was like, "Move on."