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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As President Trump holds his first meeting with Cabinet secretaries Wednesday and Elon Musk expected to attend, there's conflicting messaging over who's in charge of some government decision-making.
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Victoria Coates, former deputy national security adviser during the first Trump administration, wonders if NATO allies aren't falling short of U.S. expectations as President Trump seemingly embraces Russia. -
Ihor Brusylo, deputy head of Ukraine's President's Office, tells NPR Trump is a "peacemaker and dealmaker," while expressing hope the U.S. continues to provide aid to Ukraine. -
U.S. opposes a resolution demanding that Russia withdraw from Ukraine, Trump funding freeze includes payments to keep the Colorado River flowing, massive child sex abuse trial begins in France.
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More than 170 migrants held at Guantánamo flown back to Venezuela, no injuries reported after 3 buses explode near Tel Aviv, and the Trump administration fires more than 200 FEMA employees.
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Israel identified the remains of child hostages but said another body from Hamas was not their mother as claimed. And near Tel Aviv, explosions hit threes buses, but no injuries were reported.
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Steve Inskeep talks with Jason Willick, a Washington Post columnist who argues the Trump administration needlessly created a scandal in its handling of corruption charges facing NYC Mayor Eric Adams.
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President Trump has recently made a series of statements in which he sounds more aligned with Russian President Vladimir Putin than with Ukraine. So what is Trump's ultimate goal?
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Nearly all the migrants held at Guantánamo — 177 Venezuelans — have been flown back to Venezuela. Court records show about one-third had no criminal record, contradicting administration claims.
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President Trump escalates attacks on Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, NPR analysis shows DOGE savings claims don't add up, and Hamas releases the bodies of four Israeli hostages.
