Leila Fadel
Leila Fadel is a host of Morning Edition, as well as NPR's morning news podcast Up First.
As a national correspondent, Fadel consistently reported on the fault lines of this divided nation. She flew to Minneapolis in the midst of the pandemic as the city erupted in grief and anger over the killing of George Floyd. She's reported on policing and race, on American Muslim communities and on the jarring inequities the coronavirus laid bare in the healthcare system. Her "Muslims in America: A New Generation" series, in collaboration with National Geographic, won the prestigious Goldziher Prize in 2019.
Previously, she was NPR's international correspondent based in Cairo and covered the wave of revolts in the Middle East and their aftermaths in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, and beyond. Her stories brought listeners to the heart of a state-ordered massacre of pro-Muslim Brotherhood protesters in Cairo in 2013 when police shot into crowds of people to clear them and killed between 1,000 and 2,000 people. She told the tales of a coup in Egypt and what it is like for a country to go through a military overthrow of an elected government. She covered the fall of Mosul to ISIS in 2014 and documented the harrowing tales of the Yazidi women who were kidnapped and enslaved by the group. Her coverage also included stories of human smugglers in Egypt and the Syrian families desperate and willing to pay to risk their lives and cross a turbulent ocean for Europe.
She was awarded the Lowell Thomas Award from the Overseas Press Club for her coverage of the 2013 coup in Egypt and the toll it took on the country and Egyptian families. In 2017 she earned a Gracie award for the story of a single mother in Tunisia whose two eldest daughters were brainwashed and joined ISIS. The mother was fighting to make sure it didn't happen to her younger girls.
Before joining NPR, Fadel covered the Middle East for The Washington Post as the Cairo Bureau Chief. Prior to her position as Cairo Bureau Chief for the Post, she covered the Iraq war for nearly five years with Knight Ridder, McClatchy Newspapers, and later the Washington Post. Her foreign coverage of the devastating human toll of the Iraq war earned her the George. R. Polk award in 2007. In 2016 she was the Council on Foreign Relations Edward R. Murrow fellow.
Fadel is a Lebanese-American journalist who speaks conversational Arabic and was raised in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.
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Speaking with Morning Edition, Hakeem Jeffries discussed ending the Iran war, holding Trump accountable and calls for new Democratic leadership, but offered few specifics on how Democrats would deliver.
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The Labor Department to release October jobs report Friday, what tactics are available to the Democratic Party to bring down fuel prices, judge blocks construction of Trump's arch for 14 days.
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NPR host Leila Fadel speaks with Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, about why his city turned out in record numbers to elect Abdul El-Sayed to the U.S. Senate.
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The head of the Department of Justice Office of Civil Rights resigned on Thursday.
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Demonstrations continued across France Thursday, as trade unions went on strike over the cost of living.
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NPR's Leila Fadel speaks with Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody Analytics, for analysis of the post-midterm election economy.
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On Morning Edition, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Anne Applebaum breaks down what a Democratic Congress could change about Trump's foreign policy and what remains beyond its power.
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Democrats are planning out how to tackle their agenda in the new year, ballots are still being counted in some undecided races, Trump avoids taking the blame after GOP midterm losses.
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The Democratic gains in this week's midterm elections will bring a different business climate to Washington. But the overall economy should be OK.
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The 2026 election proved to be very good for Democrats and very bad for President Trump and Republicans. But there are still races outstanding that can tell us what mattered to voters this year.