On Thursday’s broadcast of “MSNBC Live,” host Thomas Roberts asked Clinton campaign press secretary Brian Fallon if he prefers being the underdog and whether Clinton was “healthy enough” “to take on Donald Trump in that first appearance?”

Roberts asked Fallon, “Brian, you say you’re on offense, though, so, do you prefer being the underdog at this point?”

Fallon answered, “Well, I don’t know who you’d call the underdog, or who’d be the favorite. I think, at this point it’s a very tight contest. And if Democrats and Independents and even some Republicans that have decided that Donald Trump is unfit to be president of the United States, were starting to take anything for granted, then I hope that these polls will serve as a wake up call to them. The reality is, we’ve known within the campaign here, for a long time, that no matter what the national polls showed in early August, that this was going to go right down to the wire.”

Later, Roberts asked, after remarking that the Clinton campaign had “a super friends” of surrogates, “We’ve got 11 days to go until the first debate. Is Hillary Clinton healthy enough, and ready, prepared to take on Donald Trump in that first appearance?”

Fallon responded, “Oh, absolutely, Thomas. I mean, she takes all the debates very seriously. The voters saw that during the primary. She does her homework going into these debates. And I think that she treats the debates as an essential proven ground for anyone that’s seeking to be president of the United States. You have to go and prove to the American people that you have the command and the fitness to occupy the Oval Office. So, she is going to be ready. And we just want Donald Trump to be measured by the same standard. These debates should not be graded on a curve. You cannot wing it as a commander-in-chief. And so, we need to see Donald Trump show up and be ready, but know what Donald Trump we’re going to get.”

(h/t WFB)

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett