John Harwood (journalist)

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John Harwood (born November 5, 1956) is an American journalist from Louisville, Kentucky who has covered U.S. politics for decades. He was CNN’s White House Correspondent from February 2021 to September 2022, after serving as editor-at-large for CNBC. Earlier, he was CNBC’s chief Washington Correspondent and a contributor to The New York Times, where he wrote the weekly Washington politics column “The Caucus.” He also wrote for The Wall Street Journal.

Harwood comes from a journalism family. His father, Richard Harwood, was a reporter, and his mother supported Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 campaign; Harwood even appeared in a Kennedy campaign ad at age 11. He grew up near Washington, D.C., attended Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School (editing The Tattler), and began his journalism career as a copy boy for the Washington Star. He studied history and economics at Duke University, graduating magna cum laude in 1978.

After college, Harwood worked for the St. Petersburg Times in Florida and reported from South Africa during the end of apartheid. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard in 1989–1990. He joined The Wall Street Journal in 1991 as White House correspondent during the George H. W. Bush presidency, later becoming Capitol Hill correspondent and, in 1997, political editor.

In 2006 Harwood became CNBC’s chief Washington correspondent. He has appeared on PBS’s Washington Week, NBC’s Meet the Press, and MSNBC’s Morning Joe, and he was a guest in Tim Russert’s last taped interview in 2008.

Harwood moderated CNBC’s Republican presidential debate on October 28, 2015, a performance that drew criticism from candidates, media, and colleagues. In 2016, emails disclosed by WikiLeaks raised questions about his links to the Hillary Clinton campaign and staffer John Podesta.

In February 2020, Harwood described President Donald Trump as being in “deep psychological distress” after the Senate’s impeachment acquittal. On September 2, 2022, he announced his departure from CNN on Twitter after a meeting with CNN’s new chief executive, Chris Licht, who was guiding the network toward a more moderate tone.