Danielle Kurtzleben

Danielle Kurtzleben is a White House correspondent on NPR's Washington Desk. She appears regularly on the NPR Politics Podcast and other NPR shows. 

In her time at NPR, she has covered three presidential elections, from the 2016 Republican primary that Donald Trump went on to win, to Trump's 2024 presidential campaign. Kurtzleben traveled to dozens of Trump rallies and reported live on the ground from the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where a would-be assassin shot at Trump. For that reporting, Kurtzleben was part of the team that won an Edgar R. Murrow Award for breaking news radio coverage.

As a White House correspondent, she specializes in covering Trump's economic policies, as well as his administration's political rhetoric.

Kurtzleben covered elections nationwide prior to covering the White House, traveling all over the country to understand the forces that determine how people vote. 

She also covered the intersection of gender and politics for much of her time at NPR. Most notably, she carved out a unique niche in observing how politicians use masculinity to try to win elections, particularly the presidency. In addition, she has covered Women's Marches, the 2018 midterms that elected a wave of Democratic women, the Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade, and the backlash to that decision.

Before joining NPR in 2015, Kurtzleben was a correspondent for Vox.com. As part of the site's original reporting team, she covered economics and business news.

Kurtzleben was with U.S. News & World Report for nearly four years prior to Vox.com, where she covered the economy, campaign finance and demographic issues. As associate editor, she launched Data Mine, a data visualization blog on usnews.com.

A native of Titonka, Iowa, Kurtzleben has a bachelor's degree in English from Carleton College. She also holds a master's degree in global communication from George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs.