Mary Louise Kelly
Mary Louise Kelly is a co-host of All Things Considered, NPR's award-winning afternoon newsmagazine.
Previously, she spent a decade as national security correspondent for NPR News, and she's kept that focus in her role as anchor. That's meant taking All Things Considered to Russia, North Korea, and beyond (including live coverage from Helsinki, for the infamous Trump-Putin summit). Her past reporting has tracked the CIA and other spy agencies, terrorism, wars, and rising nuclear powers. Kelly's assignments have found her deep in interviews at the Khyber Pass, at mosques in Hamburg, and in grimy Belfast bars.
Kelly first launched NPR's intelligence beat in 2004. After one particularly tough trip to Baghdad — so tough she wrote an essay about it for Newsweek — she decided to try trading the spy beat for spy fiction. Her debut espionage novel, Anonymous Sources, was published by Simon and Schuster in 2013. It's a tale of journalists, spies, and Pakistan's nuclear security. Her second novel, The Bullet, followed in 2015.
Kelly's writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, Washingtonian, The Atlantic, and other publications. She has lectured at Harvard and Stanford, and taught a course on national security and journalism at Georgetown University. In addition to her NPR work, Kelly serves as a contributing editor at The Atlantic, moderating newsmaker interviews at forums from Aspen to Abu Dhabi.
A Georgia native, Kelly's first job was pounding the streets as a political reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In 1996, she made the leap to broadcasting, joining the team that launched BBC/Public Radio International's The World. The following year, Kelly moved to London to work as a producer for CNN and as a senior producer, host, and reporter for the BBC World Service.
Kelly graduated from Harvard University in 1993 with degrees in government, French language, and literature. Two years later, she completed a master's degree in European studies at Cambridge University in England.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with retired U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Walter Gaskin about President Trump's activation of Marines and what comes with following orders on American streets. -
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks to former Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern about balancing leadership and motherhood. -
The Make America Healthy Again team's recent report on children's health appears to have misinterpreted evidence and falsified citations, according to NOTUS reporters including Margaret Manto.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Daniel Shapiro, former U.S. ambassador to Israel and distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council, about the shooting deaths of two Israeli embassy staffers in D.C. -
Pope Leo XIV is the first Augustinian friar ever to be selected to lead the Catholic Church. The Villanova graduate was raised in Chicago, where he was known as Robert Prevost. -
President Trump is easing some of his tariffs on the U.S. auto industry. But what will the overall impact of these economic policies mean for the nation's biggest carmakers? Ford Motor CEO weighs in. -
U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón reflects on her term and the urgency of connecting to nature through poetry. -
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Jill Escher, president of the National Council on Severe Autism, about Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy's remarks this month on autism.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Steven Dunn founder and CEO of Munchkin a U.S.-based company selling lifestyle products for mothers, babies and children. Dunn has written an open letter to President Trump and Congress about how tariffs could harm his business and American families. -
Katherine Maher, president and CEO of National Public Radio, talks with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly about the White House proposal to eliminate federal funding for public media.
