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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President Biden's push for vaccine mandates is supported by a majority of voters, but it marks a break with his previous unifying tone — a sign that Democrats see pandemic politics changing.
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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. -
President Biden is facing more pressure among Democrats to call for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, as the White House insists "quiet" diplomacy behind the scenes is the best approach.
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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. -
President Trump leaves fault lines in the GOP after the Capitol insurrection and his second impeachment, on top of the party having lost the White House, House and Senate on his watch.
