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Commission On Presidential Debates Co-Chair Tells Audience To 'Please Be Quiet' During Debate

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- The Commission on Presidential Debates is telling the audience to not make a sound during Monday night's presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Taking the stage about 20 minutes before the debate began, commission co-chair Frank Fahrenkopf told the crowd they need to "be quiet."

"This is not like the primary debates – there's no clapping, there's no cheering, there's no booing, there's no sound. Will you please be quiet," Fahrenkopf said. "Let's not interfere with what those 100 million people are doing in trying to exercise their view of democracy in listening to what these candidates have to say."

Fahrenkopf added the debate is not for the ones in the audience, but for the ones watching across the globe.

"By all estimations, there could be 100 million people watching around the world and the United States what happens on this stage tonight," he said. "And this debate is for them, for them to observe these candidates, to listen to them, to consider what their position is on the issues and to see them in this atmosphere that we have here. It is not, this debate, is not for us."

Fahrenkopf was the chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1983 until 1989.

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