Tamara Keith
Tamara Keith has been a White House correspondent for NPR since 2014 and co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast, the top political news podcast in America. Keith has chronicled the Trump administration from day one, putting this unorthodox presidency in context for NPR listeners, from early morning tweets to executive orders and investigations. She covered the final two years of the Obama presidency, and during the 2016 presidential campaign she was assigned to cover Hillary Clinton. In 2018, Keith was elected to serve on the board of the White House Correspondents' Association.
Previously Keith covered congress for NPR with an emphasis on House Republicans, the budget, taxes, and the fiscal fights that dominated at the time.
Keith joined NPR in 2009 as a Business Reporter. In that role, she reported on topics spanning the business world, from covering the debt downgrade and debt ceiling crisis to the latest in policy debates, legal issues, and technology trends. In early 2010, she was on the ground in Haiti covering the aftermath of the country's disastrous earthquake, and later she covered the oil spill in the Gulf. In 2011, Keith conceived of and solely reported "The Road Back To Work," a year-long series featuring the audio diaries of six people in St. Louis who began the year unemployed and searching for work.
Keith has deep roots in public radio and got her start in news by writing and voicing essays for NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday as a teenager. While in college, she launched her career at NPR Member station KQED's California Report, where she covered agriculture, the environment, economic issues, and state politics. She covered the 2004 presidential election for NPR Member station WOSU in Columbus, Ohio, and opened the state capital bureau for NPR Member station KPCC/Southern California Public Radio to cover then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In 2001, Keith began working on B-Side Radio, an hour-long public radio show and podcast that she co-founded, produced, hosted, edited, and distributed for nine years.
Keith earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master's degree at the UCB Graduate School of Journalism. Keith is part of the Politics Monday team on the PBS NewsHour, a weekly segment rounding up the latest political news. Keith is also a member of the Bad News Babes, a media softball team that once a year competes against female members of Congress in the Congressional Women's Softball game.
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FBI background checks and ethics agreements are a standard part of vetting cabinet nominees. But, so far, the Trump transition is going its own way. -
President Biden and President-elect Trump met for almost two hours and discussed a funding bill that Congress needs to pass by Dec. 21, as well as ongoing support for Ukraine, the White House said. -
The presidential election is over, and the complicated two-month sprint has begun to hand over the levers of power from one administration to the next. -
The campaigns crisscrossed Michigan and Wisconsin. Trump tried to woo Arab Americans and zeroed in on Friday's jobs data as Harris criticized the GOP nominee for violent comments about Liz Cheney. -
Former President Trump had criticized Rep. Liz Cheney's support of U.S.-led conflicts in the Middle East, saying, "Let's see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face." -
With five days left until Election Day, the candidates made a last-minute pitch to Latino voters in Arizona and Nevada — talking about border security, one of the biggest issues for the campaign. -
It sounded like the president was calling Trump supporters "garbage." But the White House said he was talking about a joke made by a comedian at a Trump rally who disparaged Puerto Rico. -
A week before Election Day, Vice President Harris used the backdrop to lay out the case for turning the page on the divisive and chaotic politics of her Republican opponent. -
In Pennsylvania — a pivotal state in this year's tight election — Puerto Ricans wield significant clout. A comedian at a Trump rally called Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage." -
If Vice President Harris were to win the swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, she would be short one electoral vote to win the election. That’s where Omaha comes in.
