the stage is set for the most significant night of the 2024 campaign so far preparing to fact check a debate is it's sort of like preparing to run like a marathon we're not doing all the work in the moment we're doing a lot of preps I will sit down and watch a million speeches what's the message they're trying to get across to their voters we do a lot of preparing in terms of lots of food lots of caffeine we like to freeze Sour Patch Kids official candy of NBC fact checking we get our desk ready and then sort of like the theater the lights go down tonight NBC News special coverage and we are laser focused until we get to the end of the debate