nytimes.com
The Trump-Biden Debates Are On: Three Matchups, With a Solo Moderator for Each
By Michael M. Grynbaum


Chris Wallace of Fox News, Steve Scully of C-SPAN and Kristen Welker of NBC News will run the televised proceedings.

President Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr. will debate with a single moderator at each of their three matchups, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced on Wednesday.

The first debate of the general election, on Sept. 29, will be moderated by the “Fox News Sunday” anchor Chris Wallace. Mr. Wallace received high marks for his debut debate in 2016 and is known for his sharp interviewing style. He is also frequently a target of needling tweets by Mr. Trump.

The second debate, on Oct. 15, will be moderated by Steve Scully, the political editor at C-SPAN and a figure well-known in the Washington media community. Mr. Scully has served as an alternate moderator in past years but has never taken charge of a debate.

Kristen Welker, a White House correspondent for NBC News and a co-anchor of the weekend “Today” program, will moderate the third debate on Oct. 22. This will be her first time moderating a general-election debate.

The debate commission turned to a print journalist, Susan Page, the Washington bureau chief of USA Today, to moderate the vice-presidential debate between Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris on Oct. 7.

Michael M. Grynbaum is a media correspondent covering the intersection of business, culture and politics. @grynbaum

Updated Sept. 2, 2020

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Well, at least there's no hyper partisans involved here, but it's probably not the best idea to have a rookie moderator doing the third debate, as I suspect that Team Cheeto will have rolled out whatever "October Surprise" they have in mind by October 22nd, and the moderator for that debate should probably be prepared to throw out their previously scripted set of questions and be prepared to call out the Orange Imbecile on whatever his bullshit stunt of the day is, in relation to that October Surprise.