Susan Page, USA Today’s Washington Bureau chief, will be moderating tonight’s vice-presidential debate in Salt Lake City. The debate is scheduled for 9pmEDT/6pmPDT, and will run for 90 minutes without commercial break.
Page, 69, became a White House correspondent for USA TODAY in 1995 and has interviewed nine presidents, six of them while they were in office. She is the first print reporter selected by the Commission on Presidential Debates as a solo moderator.
Fact Checking Susan Page
- She began her career as a beat reporter in Long Island for daily newspaper Newsday. In 1995 she was hired as a White House correspondent. You’ve probably also seen her offering political insights as a guest on shows like PBS NewsHour, Face the Nation, Fox News Sunday, CBS This Morning, and more.
- Page says the debate will cover nine issues, each for approximately ten minutes. She decides the subjects to cover and questions to ask, which she describes as an “awesome responsibility.”
- Page released her first book “The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty,” in April of 2019. She is finishing the last chapter of an upcoming book “Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power,” scheduled for release in April 2021.
- While Page has interviewed nine presidents, she says her interview with Stephen Hawking was her favorite.
- Page decided on journalism over playing the oboe as a career choice.
While many praised her journalistic bonafides and, specifically, her decades of experience covering the White House, others called for her to step down as moderator after a Congressional report released in early September revealed that she had hosted a taxpayer-funded party in 2018 to celebrate Seema Verma’s nomination by President Donald Trump to serve as head of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Source
From USA Today.