Debate moderator Lester Holt, given a choice assignment, opted for restraint

Call him the minimalist moderator.

Facing "knees buckling" scrutiny — his words — ahead of Monday evening's presidential debate, Lester Holt of NBC, with the nation's eyes (and the internet's critics) upon him, opted to lie low.

He was silent for minutes at a time, allowing Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump to joust and bicker between themselves — and sometimes talk right over him — prompting some viewers to wonder if Holt had left the building.

But his reticence as moderator also gave viewers an unfiltered glimpse of the candidates: their views, speaking styles, and reactions under pressure. And Holt, amid a news media tempest over how aggressively a moderator should fact check candidates, took pains to reject Trump's oft-repeated claim that he had initially opposed the Iraq War, telling the Republican nominee, "The record shows otherwise."

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When he first took the stage at Hofstra University on Monday, Holt announced to the crowd that he intended to ''facilitate'' a conversation, hopefully, he added, between "just the two of them." He was true to his word, for better and for worse.

Early on, Holt's attempts to guide the discussion seemed to fizzle. First Trump interrupted his questions and then Clinton, sensing little pushback on the moderator's part, followed suit. Two-minute replies stretched on, and the candidates began to interrupt each other's answers, a breach of decorum that is not uncommon in debates but typically brings a moderator's rebuke. Holt held back.

With barely half the debate finished the verdicts were flowing in. The website of The New Yorker had already posted a parody of his low profile: "CNN Launches Manhunt After Lester Holt Vanishes From Debate." Some observers on Twitter urged Holt to "do your job."

But there were some moments when Holt was more assertive. He asked Clinton about her contentious use of a private email server, and pressed Trump about his embrace of the so-called birther movement, which claimed President Barack Obama had been born outside of the United States. "For five years, you perpetuated a false claim," Holt told Trump bluntly.

Moderating a presidential debate is among the most coveted jobs in journalism, and Monday evening marked a pinnacle of Holt's long career.

But in the upside-down political world of 2016, Holt's assignment seemed to engender more sympathy than envy. "Poor Lester Holt," Leslie Stahl, the veteran CBS News correspondent, said last week on WNET-TV, shaking her head. "What a horrible position. Can he interrupt without the next day having everybody come down on his head?"

Holt, 57, was working in the shadow of his fellow NBC anchor Matt Lauer, whose widely panned performance at a forum this month set off a media tempest over how aggressively a moderator should fact-check the candidates.

Television veterans were stunned at the opprobrium aimed at Lauer after he failed to challenge a false claim by Trump about the Iraq War. In subsequent days, even as the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates said a moderator ought to play the role of facilitator, not fact-checker, both candidates sought to influence Holt.

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Supporters of Clinton demanded that Holt aggressively call out false assertions. Brian Fallon, Clinton's press secretary, urged him to go after Trump, writing on Twitter that "it would be a thumb on scale" if he let falsehoods slide.

Trump declared that Holt "is going to hammer me, and I think that's not the right thing to do." Trump also implied that Holt could face a backlash if the candidate disapproved of his performance.

"I think Lester Holt will be very fair," Trump said at a rally last week, "but a lot of people will be watching to see if that's true."

There is a sense among many viewers that the moderator ought to be a stand-in for their point-of-view. "The rancor that's infused this entire campaign is coming to a crescendo in this debate," said Jonathan Klein, the former president of CNN. "Partisans on both sides don't want a moderator as much as they want a prosecutor."

Holt's approach on Monday seemed to follow the notion that the less he interjected himself into the candidates' back-and-forth, the less he would open himself to criticism. He let the night's prime stars keep the spotlight.

"I feel kind of sorry for the moderators," Dick Cavett, the former talk-show host, said in an interview last week.

"Feelings are so high, and hatreds are so deep," Cavett said. "There's almost no way you can win."

Up to 100 million people, if predictions about debate viewership pan out, were expected to scrutinize Holt's every word, inflection and facial flicker.

Holt's previous debate experience was light at best. He oversaw a primary debate between the Democratic candidates, but it was before relations between Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders became icy. His most recent debate before that was in 2004.

During this campaign, Holt has interviewed Clinton once in person and twice remotely. He has sat with Trump three times, including an evening when the "Nightly News" moved its broadcast into the Trump Tower lobby to accommodate an interview in the candidate's office.

Holt, an NBC journeyman with stints at a Chicago affiliate and at MSNBC, is seen by an average of about 9 million people each weeknight. He is the first African-American to be the solo anchor of an evening news broadcast. At NBC, he earned the nickname "Iron Pants" for marathon stretches at the anchor's desk during breaking news.