Meet the brave souls who will moderate the debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump
The moderators for the 2016 presidential debates have been announced.
The following people will be helplessly refereeing and occasionally looking on in quiet horror while Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton slug it out on national television.
The list of moderators is slightly less white and male (and a little younger) than previous years, too. Here we go:
First presidential debate: Lester Holt, anchor of NBC Nightly News
The first debate will be held on September 26th at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY, and hosted by Holt. According to an earlier release from the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), the format will be six segments of approximately 15 minutes each. Candidates will have two minutes to respond to questions, an additional opportunity to respond to each other, and some bonus time for a “deeper discussion” of each topic.
The battle of the vice presidents: Elaine Quijano, anchor of CBSN and correspondent with CBS News
The first vice presidential debate will be held on October 4th at Longwood University in Farville, Va., and hosted by Quijano. The CPD says this one will be divided into nine segments of approximately 10 minutes each, same rules as above. (Quijano is the first Asian-American moderator in a general election debate. She is also the first digital anchor to do so.)
Second presidential debate: Martha Raddatz, the chief global affairs correspondent and co-Anchor of This Week on ABC, and Anderson Cooper, anchor of 360 with Anderson Cooper
The second presidential debate will take place on October 9th at Washington University in St. Louis in St. Louis, Mo. This one will be a town hall-style debate, “in which half of the questions will be posed directly by citizen participants and the other half will be posed by the moderator based on topics of broad public interest as reflected in social media and other sources,” according to the CPD. Response rules are the same as above.
Third presidential debate: Chris Wallace, anchor of Fox News Sunday
The third presidential debate will take place on October 19th at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in Las Vegas, NV. The rules are identical to the first debate, but Celine Dion will be doing the half-time show. (This is not true.)
Those are your debates. Hugh Hewitt, the conservative radio host who inexplicably seemed to be part of almost every Republican primary debate, will undoubtedly be disappointed.