Mara Liasson
Mara Liasson is a national political correspondent for NPR. Her reports can be heard regularly on NPR's award-winning newsmagazine programs Morning Edition and All Things Considered. Liasson provides extensive coverage of politics and policy from Washington, DC — focusing on the White House and Congress — and also reports on political trends beyond the Beltway.
Each election year, Liasson provides key coverage of the candidates and issues in both presidential and congressional races. During her tenure she has covered seven presidential elections — in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016. Prior to her current assignment, Liasson was NPR's White House correspondent for all eight years of the Clinton administration. She has won the White House Correspondents' Association's Merriman Smith Award for daily news coverage in 1994, 1995, and again in 1997. From 1989-1992 Liasson was NPR's congressional correspondent.
Liasson joined NPR in 1985 as a general assignment reporter and newscaster. From September 1988 to June 1989 she took a leave of absence from NPR to attend Columbia University in New York as a recipient of a Knight-Bagehot Fellowship in Economics and Business Journalism.
Prior to joining NPR, Liasson was a freelance radio and television reporter in San Francisco. She was also managing editor and anchor of California Edition, a California Public Radio nightly news program, and a print journalist for The Vineyard Gazette in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.
Liasson is a graduate of Brown University where she earned a bachelor's degree in American history.
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Democrats have spent months negotiating with themselves, undercutting their ability to take credit for bills of significance they are now passing, but for which they aren't getting credit. -
Democrats and some anti-Trump Republicans are panicked about the impact of the ex-president's election lies on American democracy. They see worst-case scenarios looming — but few, if any, solutions. -
Some of the former president's boosters are pushing for him to lead the House if Republicans win it back in 2022. Even if he's not really interested, just the notion may be an issue in the midterms. -
The Electoral College, which has benefited Republicans in some recent elections, also factors into debate over GOP bills aiming to change state-level election laws. -
More and more Democrats say the system is out of whack, with key pillars of democracy under stress. -
The White House finds opportunity to push its ambitious economic plans after a disappointing April jobs report, while the GOP cites the report as proof the government helped the unemployed too much.
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The procedure has evolved at many points in history, clearing breakthroughs on civil rights and a recent GOP judicial spree. Those issues show why the two parties see changing it now as existential. -
The president promised to "build back better" after dealing with the pandemic. He also said he could work with Republicans, and his next legislative push will test that. -
With a big victory already under his belt, Klain now must gear up for many challenges ahead. But he comes to the job "uniquely well-prepared," says a journalist who wrote the book on chiefs of staff. -
The president is pledging "unity," but the word means different things to different people. For him, it appears to be about tone, not necessarily direction.
