What You Don't Know About Susan Page's Husband

Vice presidential debate moderator Susan Page is a member of journalistic royalty. Aside from being the head of USA Today's Washington bureau, she's also married to Carl Leubsdorf, retired Washington bureau chief for the The Dallas Morning News. 

While fellow journalists might know him from the newspaper, as well as from his stint as the president of the White House Correspondents' Association, those of us who watch videos of the annual black tie correspondents dinner also know him as "one of the dudes that Jon Stewart called out in 1997." Stewart said he had gotten nervous about doing the event, but did it because his mother said, "When in your lifetime do you think you'll ever get the opportunity to meet, or even really eat in the same room as the Carl Leubsdorf?" Stewart then added: "They told me that name would work, I really don't know who he is ... Carl, I know you're thinking the same thing about me too." Heavy, who reported the exchange, also helpfully provided the clip where you can catch the shout-out.  

Carl Leubsdorf is a registered Democrat and has been so since 1978; his wife Susan, on the other hand, doesn't have a political affiliation and is listed as an Independent.

And just because Leubsdorf is retired, doesn't mean he's stepped away from journalism. He still writes a regular column for the Dallas Morning News. In one of his most recent editorials, he panned last week's presidential debates, saying that there has never been a debate like it, and that he hoped there would never be one like that again (via LimaOhio). "From the outset, Tuesday night's 90-minute nationally televised confrontation in Cleveland was a brawl unbefitting the presidency, 'a pure train wreck,' as NBC's Chuck Todd put it," he wrote, and followed with a summary of the evening's debacle. The veteran newsman saved his harshest criticism for President Donald Trump, noting: "If Trump's goal was to show that the 77-year-old Biden was a man of diminished mental capacity, unfit for the presidency, he failed to do so, while living up to his Democratic rival's advance characterization of him as a bully." 

Retirement also doesn't mean that Leubsdorf is out of touch. A look at his Twitter feed reveals a trove of insight into a man that has followed the Washington scene for decades, and he uses it as a platform to weigh in on important election-related issues from gun control to COVID-19.

Carl Leubsdorf also enjoys looking into his journalistic crystal ball and making a few predictions about what is to come. His "not-so-serious" predictions for 2020 included Trump choosing Ivanka as his running mate, and that the Trump-Trump ticket would go head-to-head against rival Democratic slate with Pete Buttigieg as president, and Stacey Adams as his VP pick. He also sees recounts confirming Mayor Pete's victory in December. 

Leubsdorf also predicts Trump will pardon himself, and all of his allies including Paul Manafort and Roger Stone, but that authorities in New York would press criminal charges against Trump in January. "House Republicans call for impeachment inquiry into Buttigieg's ties to Ukraine," he wrote (via The Virginian-Pilot).

But the veteran newsman has points taken off for not having predicted the pandemic that would come to dominate the campaign, as well as the vice presidential debates that were moderated by his wife. 

Leubsdorf even took to Twitter to weigh in on some of the views that were expressed during the vice presidential debates. His most recent tweet addresses former Vice President Joe Biden: "Would a President Biden try to 'pack' the Supreme Court? He said 'no' last year; for now, why it's politically smart for him to evade that question." He has also, in the past, weighed in on Kamala Harris as Biden's choice, posting, "Kamala Harris meets all the guidelines for a good vice presidential choice, plus she'll help Democrats to win."

Carl Leubsdorf was born of German immigrant parents and grew up in New York City (via Heavy). He received his undergraduate degree with Honors in Government from Cornell University, and a Masters with Honors in Journalism from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Like many journalists of his generation, Leubsdorf has worked in different organizations — he started with the Associated Press in 1960, and he became their chief political writer from 1973 to 1975. After working at The Sun in Baltimore, he joined The Dallas Morning News (via Your Tango).

The veteran newsman has been married before — but his first marriage ended in divorce, and she subsequently passed away in 1999. He married Susan Page in 1982.