Trump vs Clinton debate: Should moderators be fact checkers?

It’s one of the main concerns going into Monday’s first presidential debate: will Lester Holt be checking Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton’s statements?

The NBC Nightly News anchor has a lot of pressure riding on him after colleague Matt Lauer came under fire for soft-balling the Commander-in-Chief forum at the beginning of the month.

But is it his job to ensure the candidates are telling the truth? It depends on who you ask.

The U.S. presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton begins at 9pm ET and will be livestreamed on Globalnews.ca here.

For one, Clinton’s campaign is calling for Holt to keep Trump in check.

Campaign manager Robby Mook told CBS This Morning that his team is “concerned that Donald Trump may lie, he may throw misinformation out there, and that Hillary will have to spend all of her time trying to correct the record rather than talking about the things she wants to accomplish.”

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While Holt has been silent on how he is preparing to lead the debate today, two NBC staffers said that he will be actively participating during the debate.

“Lester is not going to be a potted plant,” one of them told CNN.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "Lester is not going to be a potted plant," <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/25/media/lester-holt-nbc-presidential-debate/index.html?sr=twmoney092616lester-holt-nbc-presidential-debate0705AMVODtopLink&linkId=29180621">one of them told CNN.</a>

But Chris Wallace, host of Fox News Sunday, is slated to moderate the second presidential debate in October and believes it’s not his role to be a “truth squad.”

“That’s not my job,” he told MediaBuzz at the beginning of the month.

READ MORE: 2016 presidential debate viewer’s guide: What to watch for Monday night

“It’s up to the other person to catch them on that. I certainly am going to try to maintain some reasonable semblance of equal time. If one of them is filibustering, I’m going to try to break in respectfully and give the other person a chance to talk.”

Wallace said his job is to be a referee between the candidates, not a participant.

“If it succeeds when it’s over, people will say, you did a great job. I don’t even remember you ever even being on the stage.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "If it succeeds when it's over, people will say, you did a great job. I don't even remember you ever even being on the stage."

Trump agrees. He said during a phone interview on Fox & Friends Thursday that Holt should let him and Clinton “argue it out.”

READ MORE: Trump vs. Clinton: Will Donald Trump act presidential on the debate stage?

Holt’s former colleague David Shuster also agrees. He told political website The Hill that the goal of a moderator is not real-time fact checking, but to provide an opportunity for either Trump or Clinton to call their rival out.

“If either candidate delivers a whopper, Lester needs to turn to the other candidate and say ‘Is that your understanding of ‘A, B, C?’” he said.

The Commission on Presidential Debates, which is hosting tonight’s event, did not reply to a request for comment before publication.