The First Presidential Debate Is Just a Week Away
It's crunch time for the eligible candidates.
— -- Today marks the one-week mark ahead of the first of the three presidential debates during the 2016 campaign and the candidates are gearing up.
The Commission on Presidential Debates announced today the broad topics that are slated to be covered during the first debate: America's Direction, Achieving Prosperity and Securing America.
The topics were selected by the moderator, Lester Holt of "NBC Nightly News," but are "subject to possible changes because of news developments."
The commission also made its final decision on Friday that there would only be two candidates taking the debate stage on Monday, Sept. 26. It ruled that neither Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson nor Green Party nominee Jill Stein had met the 15 percent mark in a combination of polls, which had previously been set as the bar for participation qualification.
Before Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Clinton head to Hofstra University, the site of the first debate, the candidates and their campaign aides have started teasing their debate prep strategies.
Trump started his debate prep in late August, and at the time, sources told ABC News that he hadn't participated in mock debates, which is one of the more typical prep strategies for presidential candidates.
As for Trump's personal debate strategy, he hasn't talked about the specifics of his game plan, focusing more on how he will deal with facing one opponent head on.
"I will treat her with great respect unless she treats me in a certain manner, in which case that will be the end of that," Trump said about Clinton last week during an appearance on Sean Hannity's Fox News show. "But I'm certainly starting off with the feeling that I'm going to treat her with great respect. I hope we can talk about policy and certain things. I am not looking to go in and treat her with disrespect."
Clinton's press secretary Brian Fallon told MSNBC last Thursday that she won't "go in there seeking to provoke Donald Trump."
"She's going to do what she always does which shows she got the grasp of the issue and the command and poise of being commandeering chief. That contrast there will speak for itself," Fallon said.