Face the Nation

Face the Nation is a weekly news and morning public affairs program airing Sundays on the CBS radio and television network that has been one of the longest-running news programs in the history of television since its creation by Frank Stanton in 1954. The program premiered on November 7, 1954, with Bill Shadel as Washington, D.C. bureau chief and Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy as the first guest. For nearly 70 years, Face the Nation has sought to help audiences understand how current events affect their lives through illuminating and informative interviews with elected officials, policy experts, and foreign leaders. The show features compelling interviews with newsmakers, thoughtful roundtable discussions, and sharp analysis on the top issues of the day, with the full hour broadcast live from the CBS News Washington, D.C., bureau at 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time. In 2017, Face the Nation’s audience was the largest of all Sunday public affairs programs, with an average of 3.538 million viewers.

Margaret Brennan is the current moderator of Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan, CBS News’ chief foreign affairs correspondent, and a contributing correspondent to 60 Minutes, having hosted since February 2018. Brennan quickly became known for her tough but fair questioning of world leaders, politicians, and policymakers, bringing to her coverage of domestic politics a background in national security and financial news. World leaders including Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump, Vice Presidents Kamala Harris and Mike Pence, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and French President Emmanuel Macron have been interviewed on the program by Brennan, along with Republican and Democratic leaders including House Speakers Mike Johnson, Kevin McCarthy, and Nancy Pelosi. As the second woman to host the venerable CBS News broadcast, Brennan has continued the Face the Nation legacy as America’s premier Sunday morning public affairs program and helped propel it to become the most watched in its category for five consecutive years, beginning with the 2021-2022 television season. In 2023, the broadcast was recognized with a Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in TV Political Journalism, citing Brennan’s moderating approach as “measured, completely consistent, researched and prepared”. Brennan won an Emmy Award for her 2018 Face the Nation interview with the father of a student killed in the Parkland High School shooting, and the broadcast has received multiple Emmy nominations for outstanding news analysis and coverage of major events including the COVID-19 pandemic, the collapse of Afghanistan, and the Israel-Hamas war.