Lester Holt, Savannah Guthrie, Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell Lead NBC News Primetime Coverage Starting at 9 p.m. ET
Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace, Joy Reid and Brian Williams Anchor MSNBC Pre- and Post-Debate Special Coverage Starting at 8 p.m. ET
Chuck Todd Anchors NBC News NOW Pre-Debate Special starting at 8 p.m. ET, Debate Streams Live at 9 p.m. ET
Sept. 22, 2020 – Marking the first time President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden will meet on the debate stage, NBC News and MSNBC will deliver full coverage and analysis of the first presidential debate on Tuesday, Sept. 29, at the Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio.
NBC NEWS COVERAGE BEGINS AT 9 P.M. ET
- Starting at 9 p.m. ET, NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt and TODAY co-anchor and NBC News chief legal correspondent Savannah Guthrie will anchor from NBC News Headquarters in New York and Meet the Press moderator and NBC News political director Chuck Todd and NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent and senior Washington correspondent Andrea Mitchellwill anchor from Washington, D.C.
MSNBC SPECIAL “DECISION 2020” COVERAGE BEGINS AT 8 P.M. ET
- Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace, Joy Reid and Brian Williams will anchor MSNBC’s special “Decision 2020” coverage of the first presidential debate on Tuesday, September 29.
- Starting at 8 p.m. ET, Maddow, Wallace and Reid kick off coverage ahead of the debate live from NBC News World Headquarters in New York.
- They will be joined by a team of MSNBC political correspondents and experts with reporting and insight throughout the night – including NBC News national political correspondent Steve Kornacki, who will be stationed at the Big Board with the latest numbers and polling data. Maddow, Wallace and Reid join Williams for post-game coverage and analysis once the debate wraps at 10:30 p.m. ET.
DEBATE AND PRE-DEBATE SPECIAL TO STREAM ON NBC NEWS NOW; FULL DEBATE COVERAGE AND FACT CHECKS ACROSS NBC NEWS DIGITAL
- NBC News NOW will provide debate coverage for free, including a pre-show hosted by Chuck Todd, and joined by Kasie Hunt, at 8 p.m. ET, available to stream live and on demand across OTT platforms, including Peacock, NBCUniversal’s new streaming service.
- The NBC News digital politics team will live blog the debate with minute-by-minute updates, highlights and takeaways. The live blog will feature debate analysis from Jonathan Allen and fact checks by Jane C. Timm and Adam Edelman.
- The NBC News Stay Tuned team will cover the most important moments and will partner with Snapchat to create near-live highlights of the debates. The dynamically updating episodes will be an edited Highlights Show from the key election events within Stay Tuned’s channel.
- The NBC News Data Graphics team will be tracking topics covered throughout the debates in a digital interactive, in addition to their continuously updated interactives on voting, polling, early results, user predictor tools and more.
PLUS, NBC NEWS AND MSNBC CORRESPONDENTS AND REPORTERS ON THE GROUND IN CLEVELAND AND BATTLEGROUND STATES ACROSS THE U.S.
- NBC News and MSNBC correspondents and reporters will contribute to debate coverage and provide the latest reporting and analysis across both networks and online, including Hallie Jackson, Peter Alexander, Ali Vitali, Mike Memoli, Chris Jansing, Kate Snow, Alex Seitz-Wald and Allan Smith on the ground in Ohio.
- NBC News Road Warriors Vaughn Hillyard and Shaquille Brewster, as well as correspondents Dasha Burns and Ellison Barber will be reporting live from battleground states across the U.S.
- Plus, Ali Velshi will end the week by anchoring VELSHI on MSNBC from Ohio with voter reactions to the first presidential debate.
SPECIAL COVERAGE AND REPORTING OF THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL RACE CONTINUES ACROSS ALL NBC NEWS PLATFORMS
NBC News will continue to follow the 2020 presidential race across all its platforms including:
- Following ‘Vote Watch’ – a full week of special coverage earlier this month across NBC News and MSNBC – the networks will continue to cover issues related to U.S. election security and voting across all platforms led by the networks’ Vote Watch Unit – a team of more than 24 correspondents and reporters focused on social media misinformation and disinformation, voting machines and technology, election administration, voting procedures, rights and access, voter disenfranchisement and voting rights.
- The network’s Plan Your Vote interactive tool launched last month and encourages Americans to plan out when and how they will vote this year. More than one million people have used NBCNews.com’s Plan Your Vote interactive tool to learn everything they need to know about casting a ballot in the 2020 presidential election.
- Road to 270 is an interactive web tool where users can design and map their own road to the presidency and see the latest scenarios from Chuck Todd and Steve Kornacki.
- NBCNews.com will continue to publish Election Confessions, where voters can share their anonymous thoughts about the presidential candidates and the state of the country.
- NBC News’ County to County team will continue to cover five key bellwether counties in swing states across the country, identified when the project launched last November, with ongoing on-the-ground reporting, focus groups, and polling through Election Night.
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