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Smerconish: Behind the scenes at debate No. 2

Frank Fahrenkopf promised me a good story, but one he could not share until after the final debate. The cochair of the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) didn't want to tell it and jeopardize the attendance of either candidate Wednesday in Las Vegas. The former head of the Republican National Committee said he'd had to negotiate with many candidates and campaigns over the years, but nothing like this.

Juanita Broaddrick and Donald Trump before the St. Louis debate.
Juanita Broaddrick and Donald Trump before the St. Louis debate.Read more(AP Photo)

Frank Fahrenkopf promised me a good story, but one he could not share until after the final debate. The cochair of the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) didn't want to tell it and jeopardize the attendance of either candidate Wednesday in Las Vegas. The former head of the Republican National Committee said he'd had to negotiate with many candidates and campaigns over the years, but nothing like this.

It began with a tweet four days before the first debate from Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, who's become a Donald Trump antagonist. Cuban wrote:

"Just got a front row seat to watch @HillaryClinton?? overwhelm @realDonaldTrump at the 'Humbling at Hofstra' on Monday. It Is On !??"

Fahrenkopf worried that Cuban would be a distraction but thought he'd averted that possibility with a commitment that Cuban would actually sit in the third row. But when he walked out on stage to welcome the crowd at Hofstra University, Fahrenkopf spied Cuban up front, news to both him and the Trump campaign.

"So, as you can imagine, that, along with other things, created a lot of problems going into the next debate," he recounted.

Compounding matters was that another guest became a focal point. Hillary Clinton invited Alicia Machado, a former Miss Universe who claimed Trump had shamed her for gaining weight. Clinton dropped a reference to Machado at the end of the debate, and Trump's jousting with the beauty queen dominated the following five days' headlines.

For the second debate, at Washington University in St. Louis, Trump prepared a nuclear response that Fahrenkopf had to defuse.

As is the custom, on the morning of the St. Louis debate, the CPD met with representatives of both campaigns. Fahrenkopf said that despite the apparent animosity between the campaigns, their debate teams were real pros, with "really less acrimony I think in this series of debates than we've ever had in the past." One of the checklist items is to review who will sit in the family guest boxes.

"Now remember, this was the town hall meeting, and it's almost like a stage in the round in that the audience is not sitting on the floor, as they were [in Las Vegas] and at Hofstra, but are actually up in bleachers looking down at the debate site."

But the family boxes were much closer, right behind the moderators, Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz, and each contained four seats. The campaigns agreed that only family members could sit in these chairs. So when the Clinton campaign asked if Sen. Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.), a close family friend, could sit in an unused Clinton family seat for a debate in her home state, the answer was no. Fahrenkopf thought everything was in order.

"But," he said, "about 20 minutes before I was due to go on stage for the opening remarks . . . someone came up to me, one of my people, and said, 'Do you know about the press conference that's being held?' I said, 'What press conference?' "

It was then that he learned that Trump had invited to the debate three Bill Clinton accusers and a rape victim whose attacker was once represented by Hillary Clinton. Trump's predebate news conference with the women came as a total surprise to the media and even to members of his own campaign.

"The rumor is that he wants to put them in the family box, which of course would've meant that when the families were introduced they would've walked out on stage. Bill Clinton would've walked out on stage and walked right into these four women," said Fahrenkopf.

"So I went and knocked on the door of the holding room where the . . . Trump debate team was, and I must tell you they were unaware of this, and I believe them, that they had no knowledge of what was planned. I said, 'Look, I have to get up on stage. We're going on air. But please advise them when they come out that if they try to put the women on the stage in the family boxes that's a violation of the agreement between everyone, and I'll have to get security if need be to stop it.' "

He could only hope that his threat was believed. But with the minutes counting down before a precise debate start time, he needed to go on stage and begin his remarks with no idea what would happen next. He told me he was concerned that the debate would turn into a sideshow that could impact a very important night. Standing on stage while speaking to the town-hall audience, and television viewers who numbered in the millions, his eyes scanned the debate hall.

"And it wasn't until just before I finished my remarks that I saw, at the back of the hall, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani leading the three women up into the bleacher seats where they had every right to sit, but not in the family box," he said. "So that's what happened. The next morning some members of the Trump group went on television and said, 'Well, it really wasn't a family box. It was a VIP box,' and I had interfered with their right to sit who they wanted in the VIP box. It was . . . always a family box, and that's all I enforced."

Fahrenkopf had kept one fact close to his vest - he had no security to effectuate the removal of any guests if the need arose!

So could we have seen, say, Juanita Broaddrick walk out at the start as a member of the Trump family to shake hands, had she chosen to, with Bill Clinton?

"That's right," he said. "Now to be fair, I don't know what the position would've been of the Secret Service, because, you know, the Secret Service is there with Bill Clinton, as a former United States president. . . . So, you know, I don't know what would've happened.

"It was an interesting night."

Michael Smerconish can be heard from 9 a.m. to noon on SiriusXM's POTUS Channel 124 and seen hosting "Smerconish" at 9 a.m. Saturdays on CNN.