Check facts in Trump, Cinton match

Editorial Campaign 2016

Get out the popcorn popper or phone in an early pizza order. This Monday, for United States citizens, dinnertime in front of the television is mandatory, as presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump face off for the first time starting at 6 p.m.

The level of interest and expectation may be the highest ever for a televised debate, threatening to knock “Monday Night Football” off the top of the Nielsen heap. It’s a good thing. Voters rarely have a choice this stark for president. They need to watch.

But watching isn’t enough. Go the next step. Understand the context for the answers — both factual grounding and consistency with what the candidates have said before, and how they’ve said it.

While moderators of the debate should call the candidates on misstatements of fact and on answers that contradict previous statements, don’t expect even the best of them to do it all. Besides policing accuracy, they have to keep the debate moving and covering a range of topics. Some of the fact checking has to happen afterward.

In back-to-back (rather than head-to-head) foreign policy interviews a few weeks ago, moderator Matt Lauer took heat for spending most of the Clinton interview on emails rather than policy and for not contradicting Trump when he said he always opposed the Iraq War.

The email issue, aired constantly in the media, did take time away from international relations. And it was odd that Lauer didn’t call Trump on Iraq, since back when it started, Trump clearly said he supported the invasion. On television. To, as it happens, Matt Lauer.

So plan on fact checking with reliable sources — PolitiFact and FactCheck are pretty quick at this — as well as checking in with commentators in various media who have watched the campaigns all along and will identify changes in demeanor and position.

Most interesting will be whether Trump brings the bullying, name-calling bluster with which he vanquished a stage full of Republican foes for the nomination, or whether he will take the opportunity to act thoughtful and presidential.

We hope the debate can clarify some of his recent positions. For example, just in the past few days he has come out for racial profiling and for disarming African-Americans. In addition, questions about his interests in Russia have grown, with authorities investigating reports that a Trump adviser has had talks with the Kremlin about possibly dropping sanctions.

There has been nothing like this race in recent memory. Among other things, we have two candidates under investigative clouds: Clinton’s foundation ills linger, and Trump University and Trump’s charitable foundation are under investigation.

For Monday, at least, we will hope for more clarity about how each would perform as president. Some 100 million Americans may tune in. Be there or be — uninformed.