Meet Susan Page, The Vice Presidential Debate Moderator
She's interviewed nine presidents.
Youtube With only about two months left in the race for president, voters will have the opportunity to watch several debates between the candidate in the coming weeks. There will be three debates between the Joe Biden and Donald Trump but only one debate for the candidates for vice president. Susan Page, the Washington Bureau Chief for USA Today will be moderating the debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris tonight, October 7, 2020.
Who is Susan Page, the vice presidential debate moderator?
Page is a veteran journalist who has been covering politics since the 1970s. In addition to her work as a print journalist, she has appeared on television news programs and on NPR. She is the author of two books and she has won numerous awards for her work over the years.
Susan Page will moderate the only debate between the VP candidates.
There is traditionally only one debate between the two candidates for vice president. The last VP debate was in 2016 when then-governor Mike Pence squared off against Senator Tim Kaine. Elaine Quijano of CBS News moderated that event. Page will be asking questions and minding the time for Vice President Pence and Senator Kamala Harris. Harris's popularity has driven interest in how this debate will go so there will probably be a large TV audience, though in-person attendance will be limited due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Susan Page probably won't be intimidated.
While a lot of folks would be nervous moderating an event with two such high profile politicians, it's going to be just another day at work for Page. She has interviewed the past nine presidents in her career, so a vice president and senator probably won't faze her.
Page interviewing Donald Trump in 2015.
Susan Page's favorite interview is not who you would expect.
As a journalist who has made her career talking to the most powerful politicians in the world, you might think Page would look back most fondly on an experience talking to a president or ambassador. But in a 2004 interview about her career, she recalled speaking to a luminary from the world of science as her favorite interview. "I think my favorite interview was in 2001 with Nobel Prize-winning physicist Stephen Hawking," she said. "What struck me was his life force and good humor despite his considerable handicaps. As Hawking painstakingly tapped out answers with his thumb, I sat there wishing my questions had been smarter."
She is an expert on First Lady Barbara Bush.
In 2019, Page published her bookThe Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty. Page explained to reporters that she wanted to take a deeper look into the life of the very popular First Lady. She had interviewed Mrs. Bush before and was granted more interviews as she researched the books, including conversations that took place at the end of Mrs. Bush's life. Mrs. Bush even gave Page her diaries to use as source material for the book.
Who is Susan Page's husband?
Her husband Carl Leubsdorf is a columnist for the Dallas Morning News. Like Page, he has a long career covering politics and world events. He worked for the Associated Press, the Washington Post, and the Baltimore Sun before becoming the Washington Bureau Chief for the Dallas Morning News from 1981-2008.
Page has a lot of honors.
Over her long career, Page has been honored for her work numerous times. She won the Merriman Smith Memorial Award and the Aldo Beckman Memorial Award from the White House Correspondents Association, the Sigma Delta Chi Distinguished Service Award for Washington Correspondence from the Society for Professional Journalists, and the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency twice. She has also helped give awards to other writers, serving as a juror for the Pultizer Prize.
Her next project is a book about Nancy Pelosi.
In 2019, Page announced that she would be turning her attention to another major power player in Washington: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. "She is the highest ranking woman in the history of American politics and the most effective House Speaker since Sam Rayburn. Yet she is fundamentally misunderstood by many in the public,” Page said about the Speaker. The book will be called Madame Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Arc of Power. It is due out in early 2021.
The vice presidential debate is scheduled for October 7.
Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. She is the creator of the blog FeminXer and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union.