In lieu of their weekly political panel, former 'Face the Nation host' and three-time presidential debate moderator Bob Schieffer reflects on lessons learned from past debates. Schieffer urges campaigns to keep their debate strategies under wraps, cautioning candidates against telling the punchline before the joke.



He also notes that it is the role of the moderator to be a second-tier fact checker, in the case of an egregious falsehood that has gone unnoticed by the candidates.





JOHN DICKERSON: There's been a big question about fact-checking and what the moderator's role should be in that. How do you see that question?



BOB SCHIEFFER: Well -- and I've said and I've thought about this over the years, after doing these things -- the first fact-checkers have to be the candidates themselves. If one candidate makes a mistake, you want to give the other person a chance to call him out on that. If he or she doesn't, then the moderator steps in and sets the record straight. But if you don't give the candidates themselves that opportunity, you're being unfair to both of them.