
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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Households in the U.S. will receive eight test kits via the U.S. Postal Service. The release comes as cases have risen over 60% in the U.S. over the past two weeks.
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The pandemic is the issue driving much of American politics these days and could either doom or boost the Biden presidency.
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Biden used to talk a lot about the COVID-19 death toll, but over the last year he's shifted to how to fight the pandemic. Some want him to go back to addressing the country's grief.
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Among his new steps to fight COVID surges this winter: requiring private health insurers to reimburse people for at-home tests. It also calls for more people to get vaccines and boosters.
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The White House says no disruptions to government operations are expected from the COVID-19 vaccine mandate, which President Biden issued in September. Federal contractors have a January deadline.
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About 3% of children in the age group authorized last week to get a low-dose vaccine will have their first shots by Wednesday, according to the White House.
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There are fresh logistical challenges, warns the White House's COVID czar in an exclusive interview with NPR. For example, young children will be getting a smaller dose delivered via smaller needles.
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The 110 million doses sent abroad puts the U.S. ahead of every other country making donations combined. But global health experts warn that billions of donated doses are needed to stop the pandemic.
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President Biden wanted 70% of adults to get their first COVID-19 shot by July Fourth. America won't quite reach that milestone. But the White House isn't letting that get in the way of a good party.
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The White House laid out a plan for sharing the nation's vaccine surplus with parts of the world struggling to get shots in arms.