Here’s who will moderate the Republican presidential debate at the Reagan Library
It's unclear if former President Donald Trump will attend the debate at the Reagan Library. He skipped the first one.
Fox News’ Stuart Varney and Dana Perino, as well as Univision’s Ilia Calderón, have been tapped to moderate the second Republican presidential debate, slated to be held in late September at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.
The debate will be broadcast on Fox Business Network and Univision on Sept. 27 from 6 p.m.-8 p.m. local time.
The host of “Varney & Co.” on Fox Business, Varney has been with that network as an anchor since its inception in 2007. He provided analysis for Fox Business’ midterm election coverage in 2022.
Perino co-anchored a pre-debate show for the first GOP presidential earlier this month, held in Milwaukee and hosted by Fox News. She is the co-anchor of Fox’s “America’s Newsroom” and is a co-host of “The Five.” Perino served as the White House press secretary during the George W. Bush administration.
Calderón co-anchors Univision’s weekday evening newscast, “Noticiero Univision” and its primetime newsmagazine, “Aqui y Ahora.” She is the first Afro-Latina to anchor an evening newscast for a major broadcast network in the country, according to a news release.
“We are very proud to have Stuart Varney and Dana Perino co-moderating the second debate with Univision to provide Americans with a comprehensive view of the qualifying candidates vying for the Republican nomination for president,” Jay Wallace, president and executive editor of Fox News Media, said in a statement.
So far, former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie reportedly have qualified for the second debate.
But it remains to be seen if Trump, who skipped the first one, will attend.
Earlier this month, the former president said on his social media site that he would skip the debates, but it was unclear which ones he meant. He previously criticized the Reagan Library as the pick for a debate because its longtime board chair, Frederick Ryan Jr., was the publisher of the Washington Post. (In June, Ryan said he was leaving the Washington Post to lead the new Center on Public Civility at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute.)
Two days after the Simi Valley debate, presidential candidates — including Trump, DeSantis, Scott and Ramaswamy — will head a bit south to Anaheim for the California Republican Party’s fall convention.