CBS News said on Friday that “CBS Evening News” anchor Tony Dokoupil will sit down with Vice President JD Vance next month for the next edition of its “Things That Matter” town hall series, marking the latest conversation between Dokoupil and a member of the Trump administration.
The two will meet before a North Carolina audience to discuss “the economy, foreign policy, the state of the Republican Party” and the 2028 presidential election, the network said. The conversation will air on March 14 on CBS and Paramount+.
It’s the third network town hall after sit-downs between editor-in-chief Bari Weiss and Turning Point USA’s Erika Kirk, which aired last year, and correspondent Norah O’Donnell and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, which will air on Sunday.
The choice to have Dokoupil moderate the event reflects his status as the network’s top anchor, and it comes after a series of largely congenial conversations and segments with and on administration officials, including President Donald Trump himself.
Dokoupil launched his era of “Evening News” with an interview with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth following the U.S. capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. He has since spoken with border czar Tom Homan, aired a segment that covered memes of Secretary of State Marco Rubio and interviewed Trump at a Ford plant in Detroit.
His tenure anchoring “Evening News” has drawn criticism over his both-sides coverage of issues, such as the fifth anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol and the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis.
The network is also planning a conversation with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, along with debates between Gen Z political activists Isabel Brown and Harry Sisson and dueling perspectives on feminism from Liz Plank and Allie Beth Stuckey, among other topics.
It is unclear what ratings for the program may look like. Weiss’ conversation with Kirk, which the network promoted widely throughout its programming, drew a mere 1.9 million viewers on a Saturday. While the event handily beat a Christmas special that ran the previous Saturday, the network was down 11% from its average total viewership and down 41% in the advertiser-coveted 25-54 age demographic for the year.
Weiss told staffers during an internal town hall last month that “winning isn’t about the ratings” but “making things that people can’t live without.”
