George Stephanopoulos
- Born:
- February 10, 1961, Fall River, Massachusetts, U.S.
George Stephanopoulos (born February 10, 1961, Fall River, Massachusetts, U.S.) is an American political commentator, best known as an anchor of the ABC (American Broadcasting Company) morning news program Good Morning America (2009– ), chief Washington correspondent of ABC news (2005–09), and the host of ABC’s Sunday news program, This Week with George Stephanopoulos (2002–10, 2012– ). Prior to joining ABC, Stephanopoulos served as a senior aide (1993–96) to U.S. Pres. Bill Clinton.
Stephanopoulos was raised in Cleveland and graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in political science. In 1983 he attended the University of Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, earning a master’s degree in theology. Upon graduating, Stephanopoulos relocated to Washington, D.C., and began his career in politics as an aide to Ohio Democratic Congressman Ed Feighan, eventually serving as his chief of staff. After working on the unsuccessful presidential campaign of Michael Dukakis in 1988, Stephanopoulos joined the staff of former House majority leader Dick Gephardt. Stephanopoulos served as a deputy manager of Clinton’s presidential campaign in 1992, and after Clinton’s inauguration in 1993 Stephanopoulos became one of the new president’s most important advisers, a position he held until his resignation in 1996.
In 1997 Stephanopoulos shifted his career to broadcasting when he joined ABC as a political analyst for This Week (then hosted by Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts). In 1999 he published a New York Times best-selling book, All Too Human: A Political Education, an account of the 1992 and 1996 Clinton campaigns and of Clinton’s first term in office. Stephanopoulos soon began appearing as a regular correspondent on various ABC news programs, including Good Morning America and World News Tonight. In 2002 he became the anchor of This Week, which was renamed This Week with George Stephanopoulos, and three years later ABC named him its chief Washington correspondent, a post he held until 2009. That year Stephanopoulos also became a coanchor of Good Morning America. In 2010 Christiane Amanpour replaced him as host of This Week, but he returned to the position in early 2012.