Meet Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, the moderators of the VP debate

Originally published by The 19th. Your trusted source for contextualizing Election 2024 news. Sign up for our daily newsletter.

CBS anchors Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan are set to moderate the first and only 2024 vice presidential debate between Democrat Gov. Tim Walz and Republican Sen. JD Vance. The debate, hosted in New York, is scheduled to start at 9 p.m. Tuesday.

O’Donnell has been the anchor and managing editor of “CBS Evening News” since 2019. She’s currently the only woman to anchor an evening news show on broadcast television. O’Donnell also anchors CBS News Election Specials and is a contributing correspondent to “60 Minutes.” After the election, O’Donnell plans to step down from the anchor chair to become a senior correspondent for the network.

Brennan is the moderator of “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” CBS News' flagship Sunday morning news show. Brennan, who took on that role in 2018, is the second woman to host the show after Lesley Stahl. Brennan is also the network’s chief foreign affairs correspondent and a contributing correspondent to “60 Minutes.”

O’Donnell previously co-hosted “CBS This Morning” and covered the Obama administration for CBS News. Brennan, who has a background in financial and national security reporting, has covered the White House and State Department for the network.

Both regularly interview top U.S. political figures and world leaders. Earlier this year, O’Donnell landed an exclusive sit-down interview with Pope Francis, the first time a Pope has sat for a one-on-one interview with an American broadcast journalist.

O’Donnell is writing “a female-focused retelling of American history” that centers “women who have been forgotten, marginalized, or deliberately erased from our country’s narrative,” set to publish in 2026, according to publisher Ballantine.

The vice presidential debate is set to be the only one moderated by two women. CNN’s Dana Bash and Jake Tapper moderated the June 27 debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. After Biden dropped out and was replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris, David Muir and Linsey Davis of ABC News moderated the September 10 debate between Trump and Harris.

The 90-minute debate will have no live audience. Both candidates agreed to have microphones on for the duration of the debate, unlike the previous two presidential debates when candidates’ microphones were muted when they were not speaking. CBS News said it “reserves the right” to mute candidates’ microphones if they go over time. O’Donnell and Brennan won’t be live fact-checking the candidates while moderating, but viewers watching the debate on CBS will be able to scan a QR code on their screens that will provide a link to live fact-checking by CBS News journalists.