Steve Inskeep
Steve Inskeep is a host of NPR's Morning Edition, as well as NPR's morning news podcast Up First.
Known for interviews with presidents and Congressional leaders, Inskeep has a passion for stories of the less famous: Pennsylvania truck drivers, Kentucky coal miners, U.S.-Mexico border detainees, Yemeni refugees, California firefighters, American soldiers.
Since joining Morning Edition in 2004, Inskeep has hosted the program from New Orleans, Detroit, San Francisco, Cairo, and Beijing; investigated Iraqi police in Baghdad; and received a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for "The Price of African Oil," on conflict in Nigeria. He has taken listeners on a 2,428-mile journey along the U.S.-Mexico border, and 2,700 miles across North Africa. He is a repeat visitor to Iran and has covered wars in Syria and Yemen.
Inskeep says Morning Edition works to "slow down the news," making sense of fast-moving events. A prime example came during the 2008 Presidential campaign, when Inskeep and NPR's Michele Norris conducted "The York Project," groundbreaking conversations about race, which received an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton for excellence.
Inskeep was hired by NPR in 1996. His first full-time assignment was the 1996 presidential primary in New Hampshire. He went on to cover the Pentagon, the Senate, and the 2000 presidential campaign of George W. Bush. After the Sept. 11 attacks, he covered the war in Afghanistan, turmoil in Pakistan, and the war in Iraq. In 2003, he received a National Headliner Award for investigating a military raid gone wrong in Afghanistan. He has twice been part of NPR News teams awarded the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton for coverage of Iraq.
On days of bad news, Inskeep is inspired by the Langston Hughes book, Laughing to Keep From Crying. Of hosting Morning Edition during the 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession, he told Nuvo magazine when "the whole world seemed to be falling apart, it was especially important for me ... to be amused, even if I had to be cynically amused, about the things that were going wrong. Laughter is a sign that you're not defeated."
Inskeep is the author of Instant City: Life and Death in Karachi, a 2011 book on one of the world's great megacities. He is also author of Jacksonland, a history of President Andrew Jackson's long-running conflict with John Ross, a Cherokee chief who resisted the removal of Indians from the eastern United States in the 1830s.
He has been a guest on numerous TV programs including ABC's This Week, NBC's Meet the Press, MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports, CNN's Inside Politics and the PBS Newshour. He has written for publications including The New York Times, Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic.
A native of Carmel, Indiana, Inskeep is a graduate of Morehead State University in Kentucky.
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The U.S. job market held steady last month — but there are warning signs of possible weakness ahead.
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EU leaders to hold emergency meeting on Ukraine support and Russian threats, Trump grants automakers one-month reprieve from tariffs, nearly 6,000 USDA workers fired by Trump ordered back to work.
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What could peace talks between Russia, Ukraine and the U.S. look like? NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with Robert Hamilton, head of Eurasia research at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
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President Trump has promised again to cut taxes on Social Security benefits. NPR asks the Committee for a Responsible Budget's Marc Goldwein about the potential impact on the program's longevity.
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A recap of President Trump's address to a joint session of Congress, Trump touts success of some of his immigration policies during address, and China opens its annual session of parliament.
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In his address to a joint session of Congress, President Trump talked about his work to secure the border, slash the size of the government and his new tariffs, among other things. Hear a full recap.
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President Trump's latest tariffs have sent markets downward, and consumer confidence is low. Steve Inskeep speaks with David Wessel of the Brookings Institution about the direction of the economy.
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President Trump campaigned on border security and strict immigration policy. In his address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night, he argued he had succeeded in implementing some of his goals.
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NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., about how Democrats are addressing President Trump's agenda. -
House Republicans pass budget framework advancing Trump agenda, the conflicting messaging over who's in charge of some government decision-making, egg farmers say they're losing the bird flu battle.
