Bryan Bedder / Getty Images

When moderator Lester Holt steps onto the Hofstra University debate stage on Monday night, he'll find himself between two campaigns with opposing visions of his role — and at the center of a months-long media debate about fairness and truth in the 2016 election.

The 57-year-old anchor of NBC's Nightly News has the honor (and the burden) of moderating the first 2016 presidential debate — an unprecedented television event in modern American political history between Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton that is expected to draw tens of millions of viewers.

In the days and weeks leading up to Monday's presidential debate, the campaigns and journalists have engaged in a debate of their own: Should Holt fact-check the candidates in real time?

The fact-checking debate has been a persistent one throughout an election cycle in which Trump, in the span of a single interview or speech, will lie about his past positions, make unfounded accusations against his opponents, and give credence to crazy conspiracy theories.

Fox News's Chris Wallace, who will moderate the last presidential debate, has already said he doesn't see his role to be the "truth squad" for the two candidates. Holt hasn't done any press in the lead up to the first debate — NBC News declined BuzzFeed News's request to interview Holt.

In a presidential forum earlier this month, Holt's colleague, Matt Lauer, failed to challenge Trump on his false assertion he oppossed the Iraq War from the start. The result? He was pummeled by critics for his performance as a moderator.

On Sunday, both the Trump campaign and the Clinton campaign made their positions on the moderator's role clear. Clinton's campaign manager, Robby Mook, said Holt should point out Trump's falsehoods.

"All that we’re asking is that, if Donald Trump lies, that it’s pointed out," Mook said on ABC's This Week. "It’s unfair to ask for Hillary both to play traffic cop while with Trump, make sure that his lies are corrected, and also to present her vision for what she wants to do for the American people."

Trump's manager, Kellyanne Conway shot back on the same broadcast, saying, "I really don't appreciate campaigns thinking it is the job of the media to go and be these virtual fact-checkers and that these debate moderators should somehow do their bidding."

The executive director of the Commission on Presidential Debates, Janet Brown, also came down against moderators fact-checking during the debate, telling CNN's Brian Stelter on Sunday, "I think, personally, if you are starting to get into the fact-check, I’m not sure what is the big fact, and what is a little fact?"

Retired PBS Newshour anchor Jim Lehrer, who has moderated several presidential debates, told Politico that the best method to fact-check is to give the opportunity to the opposing candidate.

"Usually the way you do that with simply the candidate there, you say ‘Would you agree with that, is that how you see it?'" Lehrer said.

And retired CBS News anchor Bob Schieffer, also a previous presidential debate moderator, wrote in the Washington Post, "I believe the chief fact-checkers are the candidates. If one of them says something that is dead wrong or inconsistent with what he or she has said previously, the other candidate should have the first opportunity to call his or her opponent on it."

But, he added, "If neither candidate catches the inaccuracy, then the moderator must step in, set the record straight and, if necessary, ask a question about it."

On Face the Nation Sunday, Schieffer said, "If I was moderating the first debate, I think I’d be under the bed hoping they couldn’t find me."

A picture of Texas' supply of pentobarbital.

Via court filing

A pharmacy whose drugs have been used in 16 Missouri executions is arguing that its actions are political speech protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution, and that its identity should remain secret.

Death row inmates in Mississippi subpoenaed information from the Missouri Department of Corrections — including about the drugs and supplier — months ago. Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster has attempted to have the subpoena quashed, but so far has been unsuccessful.

In the past two weeks, the supplier has spoken up for the first time, under the pseudonym "M7." In a motion filed late Friday night, M7 said its drug sales are political speech.

The "decision to provide lethal chemicals to the Department was based on M7's political views on the death penalty, and not based on economic reasons," M7 wrote in an affidavit.

Although the pharmacy argues its execution drug sales are not based on economic reasons, it has made considerable money in the process.

Missouri has paid M7 more than $125,000, all in cash, for execution drugs, according to documents obtained by BuzzFeed News. The amount they are paid per execution — $7,188.88 for two vials of pentobarbital — is well above market value, and experts have expressed concern that the cash deals could violate federal tax law.

"The fact that M7’s expression of political views involves a commercial transaction does not diminish M7’s First Amendment rights," the pharmacy's attorneys wrote in Friday's court filing.

Selling execution drugs "is an expression of political views, no different than signing a referendum petition or selling a t-shirt."

Although M7 repeatedly cites a Supreme Court case — Doe v. Reed — for the proposition that "compelled disclosure of signatory information on referendum [is] subject to First Amendment review," M7 does not mention the outcome in the 2010 case: The Supreme Court ruled that petition signers, in general, are not protected by the First Amendment against having their identity revealed under a state's public records law.

While the court was split on whether petition signers' names could ever be shielded from public scrutiny, a majority of the court appeared skeptical. The court, however, left the possibility open, with Chief Justice Roberts writing for the court, "[T]hose resisting disclosure can prevail under the First Amendment if they can show 'a reasonable probability that the compelled disclosure [of personal information] will subject them to threats, harassment, or reprisals from either Government officials or private parties.'"

It is that possibility that M7 uses to press its case for avoiding disclosure here.

Mississippi death row inmates have subpoenaed the Missouri execution drug information to help make their case against the Mississippi Department of Corrections in a challenge to its current execution protocol. In order to succeed, the inmates have to come up with a better method of execution. Their attorneys have subpoenaed information from several other states who have carried out executions recently.

M7's attorneys say the pharmacy will not sell execution drugs to Mississippi — and speculated that the subpoena would be "nothing more than a sham."

"At issue in this matter is whether the discovery process can be used to find out the names of lethal chemical suppliers so that anti-death penalty activists may harass and boycott those suppliers in an effort to coerce them into not supplying lethal chemicals," the attorneys wrote.

M7 argues — using the Doe v. Reed case — that it is afraid of facing boycotts, harassment, and even threats if its identity were revealed. The pharmacy sought out the opinion of a "threat assessment expert" to lay out his opinion in their motion.

The expert, Lawrence Cunningham, has testified about the threats to execution drug suppliers in Texas and Ohio as well. BuzzFeed News recently revealed that Cunningham's marquee example — that the FBI investigated a serious bomb threat to a supplier — was false. Cunningham spoke to no compounding pharmacies as part of his research, and based much of his opinion on social media.

M7 appears to have copied, quite literally, the evidence from the Texas and Ohio cases in making its argument that disclosing the information is unsafe — although, this time, Cunningham made no mention made of the now-discredited alleged FBI investigation.

"[T]here is a significant and substantial threat of physical harm to the compounding company/pharmacy, delivery personnel and pharmacist, as well as others in the vicinity of the compounding company/pharmacy if the identity of the compounding company/pharmacy or pharmacist is publicly disclosed," Cunningham wrote in an declaration.

This is the second time the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has heard the case. Originally the court declined to quash the subpoena, arguing much of the state's argument was speculation. But at the request of Missouri, the court agreed to rehear the case.

This past week, the M7 pharmacy also attempted to intervene in an open records lawsuit that has been ongoing for more than two years in Missouri by several First Amendment groups, media outlets, and this reporter.

Read the Court Filing:

Sara D. Davis / Getty Images

Donald Trump agrees with Russian President Vladimir Putin: No one should say that the United States is exceptional.

BuzzFeed News has previously reported that Trump has both praised and defended Putin in the past for bashing the term "American exceptionalism." In a previously unreported interview from 2014 with Jeffrey Lord of the American Spectator (and now of CNN fame), Trump called the use of the term "dangerous" and approvingly cited Putin's criticism of it.

"Well, I think it’s a very dangerous term in one way," Trump said in the interview. "Because I heard Putin saying, 'Who do they think they are, saying they’re exceptional?' You can feel you’re exceptional, but when you start throwing it in other countries’ faces or other people’s faces, I actually think it’s a very dangerous term to use."

Trump told Lord that Putin treated him "unbelievably well" during the Miss Universe pageant held in Moscow and explained that it was during the contest that Putin expressed his criticism of "American exceptionalism."

"And it was at that time that Putin said, 'Who do they think they are saying they’re exceptional?' And I understand that. You know, he said, “Why are they exceptional? They have killings in the streets. Look at what’s going on in Chicago and different places. They have all of this turmoil, all of the things that are happening in there.”

Trump added, "And I can tell you that there are many countries throughout the world that are extremely angry with that term American exceptionalism. Countries that are doing better than we are—far better than we are. You’re looking to get along with the world, and you say you’re exceptional? So I never particularly like the term. I think you can think it, but I’m not sure it’s something that you should necessarily be talking so much about."

Trump said that when President Ronald Reagan used the term, the United States was a "more exceptional country."

Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty Images

A pro-Donald Trump political action committee has stopped soliciting donations through radio advertisements as it faces a class action lawsuit and an inquiry from the Federal Election Commission.

A BuzzFeed News review of multiple closed captioning tracking tools reveals Liberty Action Group PAC — a group which has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars by running radio ads soliciting donations to help elect Trump — has not run advertisements since Sept. 9. The day before, BuzzFeed News reported the group was the subject of a class action complaint in federal court.

Liberty Action Group’s FEC filings show little evidence that it has spent any of its donations to help elect Trump.

The group removed two names from its amended FEC filings, submitted on Friday. Henok Tedla has been removed as the PAC’s treasurer and Rob Reyes, a former contact for the PAC, was also removed from the group’s filings.

Reached by BuzzFeed News, Tedla said he was aware of the filings, and confirmed he was no longer the PAC's treasurer. "I'm just doing the monthly accounting," he said.

The director of Liberty Action Group, Josiah Cammer, did not return a request for comment.

Last week, the Cammer responded to an FEC inquiry asking why the group’s filings lacked basic information about its spending and contributions. Cammer told the FEC he was unaware that he needed to list basic information about the group’s donors in public filings and said the group is attempting to ask its donor base for additional information to refile to the FEC.

Another PAC with ties to Liberty Action Group—a progressive group called Progressive Priorities PAC—also sent amended filings to the FEC on Friday.

The alleged-Democratic group, which ran robocalls for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders during the primary, is, according to sources, run by the same individuals as Liberty Action Group, and shared contact information and a treasurer. The listed director of that PAC, Alexa Roth, had no knowledge she was the listed director on the filings.

In the group’s amended filings, Tedla was again removed as the treasurer of the PAC. Roth is now listed as treasurer as well.

Roth told BuzzFeed News she was not aware of the amended filings and said she did not electronically sign them. As FEC filings note at the bottom, "submission of false, erroneous, or incomplete information may subject the person signing this Statement to the penalties of 2 U.S.C. §437g," subjecting them to civil penalties.

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

No one has gotten more credit (or blame) for the recent turnaround at the Trump campaign than Kellyanne Conway, the always-on-TV Republican pollster who was promoted last month to campaign manager.

In the five weeks since Conway took the job, Donald Trump has grown gradually more disciplined and adult-like as a candidate — reading speeches from teleprompters, backing away from pet conspiracy theories, even dialing down the frequency of his signature Twitter rants. And as the race has narrowed, Conway has emerged in the popular imagination of politicos and pundits as the deft handler who's finally succeeded in domesticating Trump. When the candidate gives a measured TV interview, it is assumed that "Kellyanne must be standing off camera with a tranquilizer gun." When he exercises restraint on Twitter, the joke is that "Kellyanne changed the passcode on the old Android." In one soft-focus profile after another, she is presented as the "Trump-whisperer."

It's a meme that's only likely to grow if, as many predict, Trump uses Monday's presidential debate stage to debut a newly chivalrous persona — but some insiders question how much influence Conway actually has over the candidate.

Interviews this week with more than half a dozen GOP sources close to the campaign suggest her “Trump-whisperer” status is more made-for-TV myth than reality.

"She's there to go on MSNBC or Fox, or whatever. That's sort of her job. They think she's good on TV, and they like having her there as the face of the campaign," said one source with knowledge of the strategy.

"The narrative that Kellyanne is a woman genius and saving Trump helps him as he runs against a woman ... [but] Kellyanne spends nearly 100% of her time on TV. That's her role," said another Republican who is close to Conway.

Even her most ardent fans and allies inside Trump Tower concede that her supposed stage management of the candidate has been overstated in the media.

"Is she the Trump-whisperer? I don't know," said one campaign strategist, adding, "She's easily the best surrogate [Trump] has."

Responding to questions for this story, Conway emailed BuzzFeed News, "My role is broad. We have a great and mutually respectful working relationship. ... Mr. Trump likes the fact that part of my role is to be a public face of the campaign through TV appearances."

Of the "Trump-whisperer" designation, she said, "You are on solid ground to question that particular description. ... He is his own person."

That's not to say Conway hasn't had any effect on the campaign. Like other advisers, she is in regular contact with Trump, and is said to be especially close with his daughter Ivanka. Among campaign staffers, she is widely credited with raising morale and creating a more stable workplace — especially when compared to the macho infighting and disruptive turf wars that dominated the organization for much of the past year.

"She's incredibly friendly and approachable," said A.J. Delgado, a senior adviser and surrogate for the campaign. "I think people are happy working under her just because she's a nice person to work for. She's definitely set a tone of positivity."

Yet, Conway continues to be cast in the political press primarily as the savvy Trump-tamer — why? One reason may be her uniquely chummy relationships with Beltway journalists (many of whom refer to her only by her first name in public). Another is Team Trump's constant touting of her "historic" role as the first Republican woman to run a general-election presidential campaign.

But the biggest factor driving Conway's outsize public reputation is her omnipresence on television. She spends far more time in front of the cameras than typical campaign managers do, appearing constantly on cable news, network morning shows, and even Bill Maher's HBO talk show Real Time, where the liberal host recently accused her of "enabling pure evil."

Some have questioned whether it's possible for her to effectively manage a national presidential campaign from a green room. Conway acknowledged that her schedule is packed ("I've mostly sworn off seated meals or hot meals until mid-November") but said her frequent TV appearances haven't interfered with her other duties.

"All this does is add an hour to my day each in the morning and the evening," she said. "The rest of the day is spent on strategy, long-term scheduling, huddling with our internal and external teams, traveling with the candidate, and naturally, poring over data, news, and other 'inputs.'"

Frank Luntz, a veteran GOP pollster who has known Conway for years, also noted that Trump has "far fewer surrogates than the average presidential campaign" and therefore "needs all the articulate spokespeople he can get."

Conway, who once lived in a Trump building, has been a friend and informal adviser to the billionaire since 2011, when he publicly flirted with entering the presidential race. She conducted polling for him in 2014 when he considered running for governor of New York. But by the time Trump began staffing his campaign in 2015, she had apparently lost interest in his political pursuits. When Corey Lewandowski invited her to meet with him about joining the campaign, she stood him up, according to two sources. (Conway denied this, and said has "stayed friends" with Lewandowski.) She went on to spend the Republican primaries working with a super PAC supporting Ted Cruz.

Several people close to Trump said bluntly that his well-documented aversion to stage management could probably not be overcome by a woman — with the sole exception of his eldest daughter. Indeed, many inside the candidate's orbit believe that if there is any "Trump-whisperer" who deserves credit for his occasional forays into seriousness, it's Ivanka. Others attribute Trump's discipline to his own competitive drive and fear of losing the election.

Meanwhile, two sources close to Roger Ailes said the former Fox News chief is playing a much larger backstage role in handling Trump than most people realize. More than anyone, they said, it is Ailes — a master of political communications and media — that has succeeded in getting Trump to stay on script and soften his tone.

One source predicted that Ailes would get plenty of ink in the various post-2016 insider campaign books, but said he was "happy for now having his role downplayed." Though Ailes is not on the campaign's payroll, he is said to be actively advising the candidate ahead of Monday night's debate.

"Trump doesn't listen to anyone," said a Republican close to Ailes. "But he does listen to Roger sometimes."

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

Ted Cruz defended his decision to vote for Donald Trump on Monday in an interview with conservative radio host Glenn Beck, but again did not say that he considered Trump fit for the presidency, casting the decision mainly as a vote against Hillary Clinton.

The Texas senator announced in a Facebook post on Friday that he'd vote for Trump after declining to endorse his party's nominee in a speech at the Republican National Convention in which he encouraged voters to "vote your conscience."

On Monday, Beck, who supported Cruz's candidacy during this year's Republican primary and who is among Trump's staunchest conservative critics, noted to Cruz that he didn't say after endorsing Trump that he believed the businessman was fit to be president.

"What I said is this is a binary choice," Cruz responded. "I wish it were not a binary choice. As you know, I tried very, very hard, as did you, to prevent it from being a binary choice between Hillary and Donald Trump, and I think it is fair to say there was no other Republican candidate who left more on the field and did more to stop Donald from being the nominee than I did, but the voters made a different decision and you have to respect the democratic process even if you may not be terribly happy with the outcome."

Cruz also did not specifically say that he encouraged others to vote for Trump, but instead said that he encouraged them "to do what is right and honorable and principled."

Repeatedly asked what new information had changed his mind since July's convention, Cruz said Trump's release of a second list of potential Supreme Court nominees on Friday, which included Cruz's Senate ally Utah Sen. Mike Lee, and his promise that he would choose nominees only from the lists he had released.

"I'd say the most significant thing that changed was on Friday, the day that I announced that I would vote for Donald Trump," Cruz said. "The Trump campaign put out a list of potential Supreme Court nominees and I think, to me, critically committed that the only nominees he would consider for the court were on that list. Now that was a major shift."

Cruz cast the shift and Lee's inclusion on the list as the result of his influence with the Trump campaign, saying, "That was not an accident that that occurred."

Asked how he could trust Trump to keep his word after having previously called him a "pathological liar," Cruz said, "I hope that he would follow through on that commitment. One never knows if one will. But the fact that he is publicly promising, 'I will nominate from these 21,' I think creates a dynamic where compared to Hillary, who is promising to put left-wing ideologues, that's a clear choice."

Cruz further explained in the interview that he had modeled his convention speech after Ronald Reagan's speech on Gerald Ford in 1976 and Ted Kennedy's speech on Jimmy Carter in 1980, saying that he had meant for the speech to lay out a path for the campaign to earn his support.

At the end of the interview, Beck delayed going to a break, saying that the next question was "worth $20,000 to me, bump the next commercial, please." He then asked Cruz about a story in Politico reporting that Cruz had rented his email list of supporters to Trump long before publicly announcing his support for him.

Explaining how he justified this move, Cruz said, "As you noted, on your radio show, you sell advertising. That's how you actually fund your radio show and that's true as far as I know of every radio show and that's how one communicates. That's also true of every candidate. You don't sell your list, but you rent your list. There are some who want to access your supporters. They pay for it and that helps fund your efforts."

He added, "That is true of every other candidate, and so, yeah, there's a hit piece today in Politico, a left-wing rag, that is hitting me, but somehow is not applying that standard to anyone else in the political world or for that matter to anyone else on radio who sells advertising every day to fund communicating with voters."

The Politico story did note that neither Jeb Bush nor John Kasich, other primary rivals of Trump's, had sold their lists to the GOP nominee, with a Kasich adviser saying that he would not.

Spencer Platt / Getty Images

Donald Trump adviser Al Baldasaro says he spoke to the Secret Service after he said that Hillary Clinton should be shot in a firing line for treason.

Baldasaro, a New Hampshire state representative who advises Trump on veterans issues and was a delegate for him to the Republican convention, says he stands by his comments — though he contends they were misunderstood.

"What I'm saying is nobody is above the law. We're a nation of laws. I spoke as a veteran and what I said was in accordance with the U.S. Code 18 and the Constitution on treason," Baldasaro said on Liberty Roundtable radio on Friday.

"I, as an American, had an opinion, OK, on somebody that I believed had the broke the law, that put my fellow veterans and police, special agents, spies in other countries in danger," he continued. "And they took it to the extent that they read between the lines of what I said. Naturally, you have to go in front of a court and be found guilty. If somebody didn't understand that, then I'm sorry. That's the far-left liberals that were too blind or the progressives, which is the next closest thing to socialism."

"If that was me or you, we'd be in jail. We'd be arrested. Nobody is above the law. I just can't see how she can be president," he continued.

Baldasaro commented on his conversations with the Secret Service, which took place after BuzzFeed News reported his comments that Hillary Clinton should be put in a firing line and shot for treason on the Jeff Kuhner Show in July.

"Anyways, the Secret Service called me on the phone from Manchester, and I'm in a hotel now with Secret Service, and I'm with Donald Trump at the convention, and I'm in the same hotel with Trump," he said. "Nobody questioned me at all. Now, I called them the next day cause he texted me the next day, too."

"He told me straight up, 'I listened to it. There was nothing there, but I have to ask you a question. Do you feel like killing Hillary Clinton?' I said 'No. Of course not. We're a nation of laws. I stated an opinion.' As far as I'm concerned, it's over and done with."

"We're Americans. We cannot give up one inch. I didn't serve 22 years in the Marine Corps to give up one inch of my freedom of speech or any freedom."

John Moore / Getty Images

The co-chair of Donald Trump's campaign in New Hampshire wrote in a Facebook comment on Saturday that Trump haters are "just afraid of losing the Obama phones and their EBT cards."

"All I can say is the party is over…" Doucette wrote on Sept. 24. "The truth is going to sting a few people… Great turnout today great support for Mr. Trump... Rick keep up the good work the first amendment of the Constitution allows you to do exactly what you're doing.... As for the haters they're just afraid of losing the Obama phones and their EBT cards they are all in for a rude awakening..."

In a phone interview with BuzzFeed News on Monday, Doucette said the comment was part of an "inside joke," but expressed regret for having written it, adding that he grew up on public assistance.

"I have a single mother that brought me up until she got her third job, I was brought as a ward of the state, on welfare, on food stamps, et cetera, et cetera," he said. "So shame on me. Shame on me, absolutely, for doing something like that. But it was in jest. It was in jest.”

Asked about people taking offense at the suggestion that people vote Democratic to save their own welfare benefits, Doucette replied, “No, dude, dude, dude, no, no, no, no, no. I was a Democrat my whole life, okay? And I have family members that are still relying on public assistance. And I get it. I absolutely get it. And again, shame on me. Shame on me for doing that.”

"It was just, it was one of those things," he added. "Never in a million years, good god, no. Because people in need, in need of a hand up, oh my goodness. I’m not of that belief system, believe me.”

Doucette, whose Facebook profile picture is a photograph of his Trump campaign business card, also clarified a post in which he accused Hillary Clinton of having a "problem in the head."

"Seriously, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH HER?" he wrote on Sept. 21. "She's got a problem in the head. There's some kind of psychological issue with her. She's pathological. It's a pattern."

Doucette told BuzzFeed News that he was calling her a pathological liar.

“What I believe is, that is diagnosable," he said. "People who have the issue of pathologically lying believe their lies. And I believe that there is a diagnosis for that. So yeah, I believe that that can be diagnosed as an illness, absolutely.”

The Trump campaign did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Here are Doucette's posts:

John Moore / Getty Images

Republican National Committee Reince Priebus said Trump's tweet saying he might sit a former model who had an extramarital affair with Bill Clinton in the 1980s in the front row of the presidential debate was funny and showed Trump was willing to play games with the Clintons.

The prospect of Flowers attending the debate was raised on Saturday when Trump tweeted that he would put her in the audience, if billionaire and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban sat in the front row. Flowers' assistant told BuzzFeed News she accepted the invite, only for the Trump campaign to say the invite wasn't formal.

"First of all, it's not not gonna happen, because the debate commission has made it pretty clear, and I think they're right — each campaign as I understand it, Laura, is going to have, outside of family, veto power over who's in the screenshot behind the moderators," Priebus said the Laura Ingraham Show. "So, when the moderators is asking questions — obviously everyone understand you see some people behind the moderators — each campaign is not gonna allow for the other side to do something like that."

Priebus blamed the Clinton campaign for starting it, but said Trump showed he could punch back.

"But, I would say, back to Gennifer Flowers thing, I do think it was incredibly obnoxious for them to play this Cuban card, and then for him to, you know, throwback to high school on Twitter, and so I think it was kinda a funny counterpunch and I think in the end, it kind of exposed the stupidity of this whole Cuban play," he said. "It showed people that look, you wanna play games, the other side can play games, too, and it's not gonna be very funny. And I think that shut it down."

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

HEMPSTEAD, New York — Rep. Michael McCaul, who is considered a possible primary challenger to Ted Cruz in 2018, says he's focusing more on this election — specifically, the possibility of a national security role in a Trump administration.

"I'm real focused on this election," McCaul told BuzzFeed News in the spin room ahead of Monday night's debate at Hofstra University between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. "I want to see Trump defeat Clinton. I believe my issues — I've become an expert on national security and foreign policy issues, and if there was an opportunity to serve in that capacity I'd be interested in that."

McCaul said he is talking to the Trump transition team about possible roles, saying, "we're having conversations about that" and describing the talks as "preliminary."

After Cruz's dramatic speech at the Republican convention in which he refused to endorse Donald Trump, some Texas Republicans began encouraging McCaul to challenge him when Cruz comes up for re-election in 2018. McCaul did not rule it out, telling reporters in August "never say never."

Now, Cruz's posture in the election has changed: fter weeks of backlash from donors and supporters, he endorsed Trump on Friday in a Facebook post.

On Monday, McCaul said he's glad Cruz endorsed Trump and said he hasn't been stoking the speculation about a potential Senate bid on his part.

"I know there's been a lot of speculation but it's not coming from me," he said. "I'm glad he did it, I've been encouraging all Republicans to unite and support Trump in this important election."

"I know there 's a lot of political pressure on him and certainly in my times at home, in the grassroots, the base are certainly — I think he even said he listened to them and did what they wanted him to do," McCaul said.

McCaul is the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and has been advising Trump on national security issues.

Asked which job he wants specifically, McCaul declined to say, saying he wants to serve "wherever I can make a difference and serve my country the best."

Via Facebook: buzzfeednews

Here is the story of this debate so far: Hillary Clinton is a strong debater, and she came to play.

Donald Trump stood at center stage through most of a dozen presidential debates this fall, and should by all rights have been at the center of Monday night's. But instead, Hillary Clinton set the pace and the tone. Trump leaned to his left to get an word in edgewise — and often took the bait as Clinton reached deeper and deeper into her opposition research file.

Perhaps the signature line so far? When Clinton touted her website and Trump rejoined, "And take a look at mine also."

(A close second: her invitation to "just join the debate by saying more crazy things.")

Clinton benefitted too from pre-debate coverage, which focused largely on whether Trump would show up wearing pants. She didn't trip trying to climb onto the stage. She proved fairly definitively that she is not dead, debunking a rumor that one of my colleagues' mothers passed on to her the other day.

That's the thing with Clinton's candidacy. Sometimes the bar is just so low. And indeed Clinton has been a weak candidate — unable in some core sense to close the deal, so far, with people you'd expect to vote for her (people who voted for Barack Obama, people who are appalled by Donald Trump). The first female Democratic nominee hasn't been able to drive a wide gender gap.

But Hillary Clinton has participated in 35 presidential debates — 26 in 2007 and 2008, nine in 2015 and 2016. She has shied away from press conferences but exercised with a steady diet of interviews with people kind of like Lester Holt — Charlie Rose, David Muir, Matt Lauer, etc. She's been working on federal government policy her whole life, and knows a lot about it.

Donald Trump, by contrast, did as well as you could be expected to perform in a presidential debate when you are totally winging it. He has some great riffs, on NAFTA and on airports. But he was constantly reacting, and spent much of his airtime responding in detail to Clinton's attacks.

This contrast may not win her tonight's debate. Indeed, it's less clear than ever what it means to "win." For most of my career as a reporter, that was hashed out in the spin room. By 2012, Twitter had replaced the spin room and you could make a decisive call during the first hour. But in a country more divided than ever, and with a media whose decisions feel less relevant, we may actually have to wait until the millions of viewers who watched this one make up their minds.

But if Clinton drops in the polls after this one — and if she manages not to fall off the podium over the next hour — she can at least take some solace in the reality that this is as good as it gets.

“LESTER WHERE ARE YOU”

NBC's Lester Holt moderated the first presidential debate on Monday, taking center stage in one of the most widely anticipated moments of the 2016 campaign.

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

But as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump began to go head-to-head, some people stopped to wonder: Where you at, Lester?

Paul J. Richards / AFP / Getty Images

@ColinDaileda / Via Twitter: @ColinDaileda

@mattwaite / Via Twitter: @mattwaite

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“Coke user?”

Donald Trump had some sniffles during Monday's presidential debate, and a lot of people noticed.

Jewel Samad / AFP / Getty Images

One of them was Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont and Democratic National Committee chair.

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

You remember, the guy who lost his shot at the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 after letting out this weird scream.

vine.co

"Notice Trump sniffing all the time," Dean tweeted on Monday. "Coke user?"

Dean has a medical degree, by the way. And there isn't any evidence that Donald Trump uses cocaine.

Twitter: @GovHowardDean

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Patrick Semansky / AP

Donald Trump repeatedly insisted Monday night that he opposed the Iraq War from the outset, despite ample evidence that he supported an invasion in the run up to the conflict.

During Monday's debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, Trump flatly stated "I did not support the war in Iraq" when confronted by moderator Lester Holt.

"I was against the war," he said again, adding a moment later, "I was against the war in Iraq. Just so you put it out."

Despite Trump's claims, he was recorded in 2002 telling Howard Stern that he supported invading Iraq.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Trump responded when asked about the invasion. “I wish the first time it was done correctly.”

In 2003, a day after the war began, he also said the invasion “looks like a tremendous success from a military standpoint.”

Shortly thereafter Trump began criticizing the war, and his positions continued to shift in various directions. By 2004, he was calling the war a "mess."

Over the last year, Trump has repeatedly claimed — falsely — to have opposed the Iraq War, making the comment a prominent part of interviews and campaign speeches.

During Monday's debate, he said that "the record shows that I'm right" and argued that Fox News host Sean Hannity could prove him right. He also called the claim that he supported the war "mainstream media nonsense" put out by Hillary Clinton.

LINK: A Guide To Donald Trump’s Shifting Position On The Iraq War

LINK: Donald Trump Lies That He Opposed Iraq War From Beginning And Goes Unchallenged

Pool / Getty Images

On the Iraq War

Once again, Trump doubled down on the claim that he opposed the Iraq War from the beginning. Trump flatly stated, “I did not support the war in Iraq,” and repeated moments later, "I was against the war."

That is not true. Trump told Howard Stern in 2002 that he supported invading Iraq.

On ISIS

Donald Trump accused Hillary Clinton of “fighting ISIS your entire adult life,” which is impossible since the group came into existence only after the invasion of Iraq.

Trump also falsely claimed that Clinton caused ISIS's rise by leaving Iraq.

“Well, President Obama and Secretary Clinton created a vacuum the way they got out of Iraq,” Trump said during the debate. “Because they got out what — they shouldn’t have been in — once I they got in, the way they got out was a disaster. And ISIS was formed.”

“They wouldn’t have even been formed if they left some troops behind like 10,000 or maybe something more than that,” Trump claimed. “Then then you wouldn’t have had them.”

The agreement to withdraw US troops from Iraq was negotiated under the Bush administration.

On Climate Change

Trump claimed that he never called climate change a hoax. However, Twitter was quick to point out this tweet from 2012:

As BuzzFeed has reported, Trump has repeatedly voiced doubts about climate change. He told theWashington Post that “there’s a change in weather,” but also that he is “not a great believer in man-made climate change.”

On the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Endorsing Him

The National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council endorsed Donald Trump on Monday, not the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as the GOP nominee said during the debate.

On Ford Moving Jobs to Mexico

Trump said that "Ford is leaving," referencing the automaker's decision to shift some manufacturing to Mexico, and said that thousands of jobs would be lost in Michigan and Ohio. Ford's CEO has said this is not true.

On Pregnancy Being an "Inconvenience" to Employers

After Trump questioned Clinton's "stamina" and "look," Clinton called Trump out for calling women "pigs, slobs, and dogs" and that he was "someone who has said pregnancy is an inconvenience to employers." Trump immediately shot back that he "never said that." But he did, in a 2004 interview with NBC.

Hayes Brown, Virginia Hughes, Kate Nocera, Kendall Taggart, and Dan Vergano contributed to this post.

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

Lester Holt walked on to the stage at Hofstra University Monday night, cleared his throat, and opened the most anticipated presidential debate event in modern history by saying, "The evening belongs to the candidates."

And for much of the night, the NBC Nightly News anchor kept his word, fading into the background and allowing Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to debate at length, while carefully choosing moments to push back and fact check.

In the days leading up to the debate, the Clinton campaign and some in the media put immense pressure on Holt to aggressively fact-check Trump — something the Trump campaign and the debate commission said wasn't necessarily in the purview of the moderator.

Holt appeared to approach his role mostly as a facilitator of discussion, disappearing from the screen for lengthy periods of time after asking a question and often struggling to keep the candidates to time or to move them to another topic of discussion. The result was a debate that will be most remembered for the interactions between Clinton and Trump, and not for any moment involving Holt.

In moments when he did interject himself into the debate, Holt, in particular, zeroed in on Trump, pressing the Republican nominee on his refusal to release his taxes, his support for stop-and-frisk, his position on the Iraq War, and his years-long campaign questioning President Obama's citizenship.

"I was against the war in Iraq. Just so you put it out," Trump said.

"The record shows otherwise," Holt flatly replied.

Holt's most pointed question of the night went to Trump, when he asked him about birtherism.

"Mr. Trump, for five years, you perpetuated a false claim that the nation's first black president was not a natural-born citizen," Holt said. "You questioned his legitimacy. In the last couple of weeks, you acknowledged what most Americans have accepted for years: The president was born in the United States. Can you tell us what took you so long?"

When Trump tried to again claim that Clinton started birtherism and he ended it by getting President Obama to produce his birth certificate, Holt pushed back, saying, "The birth certificate was produced in 2011. You've continued to tell the story and question the president's legitimacy in 2012, '13, '14, '15, as recently as January."

And while many of Trump's supporters attacked Holt for what they perceived to be uneven and unfair questioning, Trump himself gave the NBC News anchor his seal of approval.

"I thought Lester did a great job," Trump told reporters after the debate. "I thought, honestly, I thought he did a great job."

On Monday night, Lester Holt asked Donald Trump the following question: "On nuclear weapons, President Obama reportedly considered changing the nation's longstanding policy on first use. Do you support the current policy?"

Jewel Samad / AFP / Getty Images

Obama, the New York Times reported earlier this month, had considered vowing that the United States would not use nuclear weapons first in a conflict; he later ruled this policy out, according to the Times, because of concerns that the move would embolden Russia and China.

Here is that full answer:

Well, I have to say that, you know, for what Secretary Clinton was saying about nuclear with Russia, she's very cavalier in the way she talks about various countries. But Russia has been expanding their — they have a much newer capability than we do. We have not been updating from the new standpoint.

I looked the other night. I was seeing B-52s, they're old enough that your father, your grandfather could be flying them. We are not — we are not keeping up with other countries. I would like everybody to end it, just get rid of it. But I would certainly not do first strike.

I think that once the nuclear alternative happens, it's over. At the same time, we have to be prepared. I can't take anything off the table. Because you look at some of these countries, you look at North Korea, we're doing nothing there. China should solve that problem for us. China should go into North Korea. China is totally powerful as it relates to North Korea.

And by the way, another one powerful is the worst deal I think I've ever seen negotiated that you started is the Iran deal. Iran is one of their biggest trading partners. Iran has power over North Korea.

And when they made that horrible deal with Iran, they should have included the fact that they do something with respect to North Korea. And they should have done something with respect to Yemen and all these other places.

And when asked to Secretary Kerry, why didn't you do that? Why didn't you add other things into the deal? One of the great giveaways of all time, of all time, including $400 million in cash. Nobody's ever seen that before. That turned out to be wrong. It was actually $1.7 billion in cash, obviously, I guess for the hostages. It certainly looks that way.

So you say to yourself, why didn't they make the right deal? This is one of the worst deals ever made by any country in history. The deal with Iran will lead to nuclear problems. All they have to do is sit back 10 years, and they don't have to do much.

This answer posed some additional questions:

I looked the other night. I was seeing B-52s, they're old enough that your father, your grandfather could be flying them. We are not — we are not keeping up with other countries. I would like everybody to end it, just get rid of it. But I would certainly not do first strike.

I think that once the nuclear alternative happens, it's over. At the same time, we have to be prepared. I can't take anything off the table.

Does Trump mean that he would vow no first strikes, or that we can't take anything off the table?

Because you look at some of these countries, you look at North Korea, we're doing nothing there. China should solve that problem for us. China should go into North Korea. China is totally powerful as it relates to North Korea.

And by the way, another one powerful is the worst deal I think I've ever seen negotiated that you started is the Iran deal. Iran is one of their biggest trading partners. Iran has power over North Korea.

And when they made that horrible deal with Iran, they should have included the fact that they do something with respect to North Korea. And they should have done something with respect to Yemen and all these other places.

Should China invade North Korea? Should Iran... have imposed sanctions on North Korea as part of the Iran deal?

Reporting by Tasneem Nashrulla in New York; Tarini Parti, Paul McLeod, and Emma Loop in Washington, DC; and Rosie Gray, Ruby Cramer, McKay Coppins, Darren Sands, Kyle Blaine, and Adrian Carrasquillo in Hempstead, New York.

Pool / Getty Images

• Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump had a sharp first presidential debate on Monday night — they battled fiercely over race and policing in the US, over Trump's unreleased taxes, and over trade. Here's the takeaway: Clinton took charge while Trump was winging it.
• Trump told several whoppers. He said Clinton has been fighting ISIS her "entire adult life" — which is impossible — repeated the lie that he was against the Iraq War, and lied about denying climate change.
• The tone and body language of each candidate was fiery. Trump repeatedly interrupted Clinton, while she appeared incredulous at times.
• Moderator Lester Holt was being closely watched — Would he call candidates out on lies? How forceful would he be? In the first half he mostly let them have at it — later on he called Trump out on Iraq and taxes. (Take our "Where Is Lester Holt?" quiz here.)
• BuzzFeed News live-captioned the debate with emojis, then did a Facebook Live wrap of the best memes.
• SniffleGate. Trump kept making nasal-y noises to the point where Howard Dean asked if he was on blow — Trump later shot back that the microphone was "defective."
• Overall, there was a LOT to take in: a reporter yelled "thanks a lot, bitch" before the event and became internet famous; people braced themselves for the segment on race in America; and, well, there were lots of memes.

OK, first things first. If you missed the debate and want to see the whole thing, you can watch it here — captioned with emojis!

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We're just emoji-ing what you're thinking.

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Trump suggested that stop-and-frisk should be implemented in cities like Chicago to bring down the crime rate. He said that it “worked very well in New York” when former Mayor Rudy Guiliani implemented it.

“We have gangs roaming in the streets, in many cases they’re illegal immigrants who have guns and they shoot people,” Trump said. “We have to be very strong. And we have to be very vigilant.”

When Holt pointed out that stop-and-frisk was ruled unconstitutional in New York because it “largely singled out black and Hispanic young men,” Trump told him, “You’re wrong.”

He said that the issue went before a judge “who was a very against-police judge” and the case was “taken away from her.” When Holt said stop-and-frisk was viewed as a form of racial profiling, Trump said that guns needed to be taken away from “bad people that shouldn’t have them.”

“You have to have stop-and-frisk,” he said.

Clinton said that it was “unfortunate” that Trump painted “such a dire, negative picture of black communities” in the country. She said that there were “right ways” of protecting communities and there were “ineffective ways.”

“Stop-and-frisk was found to be unconstitutional,” Clinton said. “And in part, because it was ineffective.”

She also addressed the “systemic racism” in the country’s criminal justice system and said “the gun epidemic is the leading cause of death of young African-American men.” She spoke of the need for “common-sense gun safety measures.”

Here's the full quote:

But there were some problems, some unintended consequences. Too many young African-American and Latino men ended up in jail for nonviolent offenses. And it's just a fact that if you're a young African-American man and you do the same thing as a young white man, you are more likely to be arrested, charged, convicted, and incarcerated. So we've got to address the systemic racism in our criminal justice system. We cannot just say law and order. We have to say — we have to come forward with a plan that is going to divert people from the criminal justice system, deal with mandatory minimum sentences, which have put too many people away for too long for doing too little.

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HEMPSTEAD, New York — Monday night’s presidential debate was an opportunity for Donald Trump to turn a new leaf in the race. The polls have tightened up after Labor Day, and his first one-on-one was a chance to come across as presidential and unflappable.

But even if the debate comes out as a wash, Trump made a few very significant errors: Each time Hillary Clinton baited him, Trump reacted, resulting in a series of Trumpian moments that are sure to give the Democrats fresh ammunition against him with just a few weeks to go before Election Day.

When Clinton said he’d wanted to take advantage of the real estate crisis, he said that was “called business, by the way.” He wouldn’t say if Russia is responsible for hacking Democratic email systems, instead raising the specter of a hypothetical 400-pound hacker. He said not paying federal income taxes “makes me smart.” He defended not paying contractors who have worked on his properties. He rekindled a feud with Rosie O’Donnell, whose appearance he has insulted, saying she “deserves” it. And he defended his long-running questioning of President Obama’s birthplace, arguing that he actually cleared up the controversy by getting Obama to release his birth certificate. (“I got him to give the birth certificate. So I'm satisfied with it. And I'll tell you why I'm satisfied with it.”)

Trump, in other words, handed reinforcements to the Clinton campaign in several different areas: foreign policy, Trump’s treatment of women, his business dealings, and to what extent he pays taxes.

Democrats in the post-debate spin room were openly celebrating the material Trump had handed them for future attack ads.

“I think the challenge there is it’s kind of an embarrassment of riches,” said former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, adding, “Some of those moments — ‘Is it Russia or a 400-pound person on the bed?’ ‘Call Sean Hannity to find out if I opposed the Iraq War?’ — those were some bizarre moments.”

“It’s hard to tell at this point” exactly which Trump statements might make their way into future campaign ads, said Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri. But, she added, “there were important moments on both sides” that would be turned into fodder.

Clinton campaign pollster Joel Benenson, meanwhile, noted that Trump complained twice during Monday’s debate about the ads that have been aired against him.

"There's been no shortage of material created by Donald Trump, and in fact he can complain about all the ads that are being run, [but] every one of them is things he has said," Benenson said. "They are his words. If he doesn't like the ads that show his words in them, maybe he ought to think about changing some of the language he uses to describe people in America."

Jorge Silva, the campaign's Hispanic media director, foresees new ads springing from Trump's debate performance.

"Tax returns hurt him," Silva said. "But his comments on the birther issue killed him."

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

HEMPSTEAD, New York — “We move into our next segment talking about America's direction,” Lester Holt told viewers during the first presidential debate.

“And let's start by talking about race.”

The momentary pause that followed the transition sent people on social media into a defensive crouch. Since the summer shakeup of his campaign, Trump has gestured in the direction of black and Latino voters, mostly in front of white audiences, lamenting in harsh language his dismal view of America’s cities.

And on Monday night, Trump offered up to the biggest audience possible his greatest hits on the topic, a long setlist of bumps, gaffes — and one new surprise. Again, Trump presented stop-and-frisk as a solution to stemming violence. He described black people as “living in hell” because of gun violence, presenting “law and order” as a remedy, and established himself anew as the chief birther conspiracist who triumphantly forced the president to release his birth certificate.

Activists pushing for changes to policing and criminal justice system, as well as people inside the Clinton campaign, had hoped an exchange between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump would elicit their contrasting visions for the country. Clinton was prepared on the topic — she proposed putting money behind ending implicit bias, ending mandatory minimums for nonviolent offenses, and adding second chance programs, and talked about correcting the “unintended consequences” of the past, an apparent reference to the 1994 crime bill.

“Too many young African-American and Latino men ended up in jail for nonviolent offenses,” she said. “And it's just a fact that if you're a young African-American man and you do the same thing as a young white man, you are more likely to be arrested, charged, convicted, and incarcerated. So we've got to address the systemic racism in our criminal justice system. We cannot just say law and order.”

And in turn, Trump delivered some of the intense rhetoric with which he is most associated. “We need law and order,” said Trump. “If we don’t have it, we don’t have a country.”

Perhaps most contentiously Monday night, Trump again put forth stop-and-frisk — the former New York City police practice of stopping pedestrians and searching them for weapons — as a policy solution. In recent weeks, the Republican nominee has suggested the practice could be used in cities, like Chicago, to reduce crime.

“I'm talking about taking guns away from gangs and people that use them,” he said on Monday night. “And I don't think — I really don't think you disagree with me on this, if you want to know the truth. And when it comes to stop-and-frisk, you know, you're talking about taking guns away.”

He added that during the stop-and-frisk era murders went down from 2,200 to 500. “It's hard to believe, 500 is like supposed to be good?”

“I really don't think you disagree with me on this,” he said to Clinton, “if you want to know the truth. I think maybe there's a political reason why you can't say it.”

After the two exchanged words about whether New York’s murder rate is down, Clinton responded, “Look, one murder is too many,” Clinton said, before saying that what has been “effective” should take priority over what “sounds good.”

“Let's also add, no one should disagree about respecting the rights of young men who live in those neighborhoods,” she continued. “But we do always have to make sure we keep people safe. There are the right ways of doing it, and then there are ways that are ineffective. Stop-and-frisk was found to be unconstitutional and, in part, because it was ineffective. It did not do what it needed to do.”

A federal district judge in New York ruled the policy was unconstitutional; in general, the policy was found to have disproportionately affected black and Latino people. Lester Holt, in a rare push back on Trump, said a judge had ruled the tactic unconstitutional; Trump awkwardly called the judge, “a very against police” judge

And once the subject of the judge arose, Trump shifted his tone, framing himself as the candidate who has more support from police, touting his endorsement from the Fraternal Order of Police. The police groups, he said, “are on my side.”

“Right now our police are afraid to do anything.”

Trump has come under fire during some of his outreach campaigning to reach black communities — and he did little, if anything, to tamp down his “what the hell do you have to lose” rhetoric that has been received negatively by black voters. Trump stuck to a talking point about how Democrats have taken black voters for granted; “living in hell” are black voters who have been “abused and used in order to get votes by Democrat politicians” who are allowing the chaos to happen.

“Look, the African-American community has been let down by our politicians. They talk good around election time, like right now, and after the election, they said, see ya later, I'll see you in four years,” said Trump.

“And I will tell you, you look at the inner cities — and I just left Detroit, and I just left Philadelphia, and I just — you know, you've seen me, I've been all over the place. You decided to stay home, and that's OK. But I will tell you, I've been all over. And I've met some of the greatest people I'll ever meet within these communities. And they are very, very upset with what their politicians have told them and what their politicians have done.”

Clinton interjected, “You know, the vibrancy of the black church, the black businesses that employ so many people, the opportunities that so many families are working to provide for their kids. There's a lot that we should be proud of and we should be supporting and lifting up.”

Trump finally admitted earlier this month that Barack Obama was born in the United States, but not before attempting to pin the origin of the rumor he was born outside of the United States on Clinton’s 2008 campaign. On the trail this election, Clinton has described the birther movement as “insidious” and a lie that “cannot be erased” from history. “He refuses to apologize to President Obama, his family, and the American people. We have to stand up to this hate. We cannot let it go on,” she said in a speech tailored to young people in Philadelphia a week ago.

But Trump stuck with his approach on this issue as a strongman, that’s perhaps separate from a line Clinton likes to say about birtherism trying to delegitimize “our first black president.”

“He tried to put the whole racist, birther lie to bed,” said Clinton. “But it can't be dismissed that easily.”

Said Trump, “When I got involved, I didn’t fail, I got him to give the birth certificate.”