On more than one occasion, the camera has cut to me after a break as I'm still trying to swallow the last bite of cookie. Those of you who have thought to yourselves, 'That guy talks like he has marbles in his mouth,' should know that they are not marbles, but oatmeal cookies.

There are American citizens who have been inspired to commit acts of terror on American soil, the latest incident, of course, the bombings we just saw in New York and New Jersey, the knife attack at a mall in Minnesota, in the last year, deadly attacks in San Bernardino and Orlando.

I remember when I interviewed at MSNBC, one of the first things they said to me was, 'In your tapes, you had a mustache, right?' I said, 'Yeah, I recently took it off.' I said, 'If you hire me, you get to decide if you want it or not.' They said, 'No, no, we're fine with it now.'

The challenge is right now, I call it the death of critical thinking in America. It's a very worrisome development. More and more people seem to be resisting the idea of standing back and asking questions about something, challenging their beliefs.

As Americans we rightfully place tremendous value on having a free and independent press. Our role as journalists is to give voice to the voiceless, and hold our leaders and institutions accountable. But the circle is only completed when that information is consumed by a free thinking and engaged audience.

The share of Americans who say race relations are bad in this country is the highest it's been in decades, much of it amplified by shootings of African-Americans by police, as we've seen recently in Charlotte and Tulsa. Race has been a big issue in 2016 campaign.

I don't expect us to cover all the issues of this campaign [2016] tonight, but I remind everyone, there are two more presidential debates scheduled. We are going to focus on many of the issues that voters tell us are most important, and we're going to press for specifics.