How Margaret Brennan And CBS Turned ‘Face The Nation’ Into A Sunday Morning Ratings Powerhouse

How Margaret Brennan And CBS Turned ‘Face The Nation’ Into A Sunday Morning Ratings Powerhouse

Margaret Brennan, host of CBS's "Face the Nation." It was as clear a pronouncement that CBS could offer — that the identity of its consistently top-rated Sunday morning show is inextricably linked with the veteran business and foreign affairs journalist who's moderated it since 2018. And who, more important, is unique among her peers. Both in terms of her style ("If you're looking for anger and outrage for the sake of it? That's not what you'll find here," she told me) as well as her background. The latter includes her coverage of Wall Street, the financial crisis and global markets — beats she focused on for a decade before coming to CBS from Bloomberg Television and CNBC before that. And the show isn't even the entirety of her professional identity. Upon her return, Margaret was also upped to CBS News' chief foreign affairs correspondent and quickly scored an interview with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in New York about his relationship with President Biden, the situation in Syria, and more. Also for CBS News, Brennan's interviews with foreign leaders have included UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, French President Emmanuel Macron, Irish Prime Minister Michael Martin,