Sanders, Kennedy to discuss Iran war and midterm elections on CBS
Sanders, Kennedy and Mike Waltz were lined up for CBS’s Iran-focused Sunday hour, with Anthony Salvanto set to test how voters are judging the war and the midterm stakes.
CBS News lined up Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. John Kennedy and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz for the July 26 edition of Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan, making the Iran war the defining issue on a broadcast that also pointed toward the 2026 midterm elections.
The program was scheduled to air on CBS at 10:30 a.m. ET and stream on Paramount+ and CBSNews.com at 12:30 p.m. ET on Sundays. CBS also put former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb and CBS News director of elections and surveys Anthony Salvanto on the guest list, widening the hour beyond foreign policy into the political and public-opinion terrain that is shaping the campaign year.
The lineup made clear that the real divide was not simply between Washington and Tehran. It was also between rival political instincts at home, with Sanders, an independent from Vermont, and Kennedy, a Republican from Louisiana, sharing an hour devoted to the war and the elections that will follow it. Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, brought the administration’s case into the same conversation, while Salvanto was there to translate the public’s view of the conflict into polling numbers.
That polling backdrop had already been set by an April 12 Face the Nation segment in which Salvanto said a CBS News poll found that, amid talks and a ceasefire, few Americans saw U.S. goals in Iran as being met. Those numbers gave the Iran debate a domestic edge that reaches beyond military strategy, touching on whether voters think the administration has a coherent policy or a finished objective.
CBS News had already been using the show to track the conflict closely. A July 19 Face the Nation broadcast centered on Sen. Mark Warner as U.S. strikes on Iran were being discussed, and the network’s July coverage also followed a naval confrontation in the Strait of Hormuz, including a report about a U.S. ship being disabled after allegedly violating an Iran blockade. By the time Sanders, Kennedy and Waltz were set to appear, the war had become a campaign issue with both parties still sorting out how to talk about it.
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