Mark Halperin

For the author and formerWall Street Journalcontributor, seeMark Helprin.

Mark Evan Halperin(born January 11, 1965)is an American journalist, television cable host, and commentator forNewsmax TV.Halperin previously had worked as the political director forABC News,where he also served as the editor of the Washington, D.C., newsletterThe Note.In 2010, Halperin joinedMSNBC,becoming the senior political analyst and a contributor. Along withJohn Heilemann,Halperin served as co-managing editor ofBloomberg Politics. Halperin and Heilemann co-wroteGame ChangeandDouble Down: Game Change 2012,were co-hosts of MSNBC and Bloomberg'sWith All Due Respect,and produced and co-starred withMark McKinnoninShowtime'sThe Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth,which followed the presidential candidates behind the scenes of their campaigns in the2016 United States Presidential Election.

Mark Halperin
Halperin at the 2012Tribeca Film Festivalpremiere ofKnife Fight
Born	Mark Evan Halperin (1965-01-11)January 11, 1965 New York City, U.S.
Education	Harvard University(BA)
Occupation(s)	Anchor Author Columnist
Years active	1988–present
Notable work	Game Change(2010) Double Down: Game Change 2012(2013)
Partner	Karen Avrich
Parent	Morton Halperin(father)

In response to more than a dozen allegations of workplacesexual harassmentandsexual assaultat his prior position atABC News,Halperin was fired by bothShowtime NetworksandNBC Newstowards the end of October 2017.

Since 2020, Halperin has appeared onNewsmax TVas a contributor and is the host of their weekly Sunday show,Mark Halperin's Focus Group.

Early life and education

Halperin was born to aJewishfamily,the son ofMorton Halperin,a foreign policy expert and staff member of the National Security Council during the presidential administration ofRichard Nixonwhere he worked forHenry Kissinger;and Ina Weinstein Halperin Young.He was born in New York City but raised inBethesda, Maryland.

In 1982, before he began his senior year atWalt Whitman High School,he lived with a family in Japan as part of theYouth for Understandingprogram.He received his B.A. fromHarvard Universityin 1987.

Mark Halperin with co-host Mark McKinnon at the 2015 Iowa Growth & Opportunity Party, Varied Industries Building, Iowa State Fairgrounds, Des Moines, Iowa, during shooting ofThe Circus

Career

ABC News and MSNBC

Secretary of StateJohn Kerrychats with MSNBC analyst Halperin before appearing onMorning Joein New York.

Halperin joined ABC News in 1988.He covered the1992 presidential campaign of Bill Clinton.Halperin has described Clinton as "the best politician any of us had ever seen or ever would see."

In 1997, he was named the political director for ABC News. In that capacity, Halperin appeared frequently as acorrespondentand political analyst for ABC Newstelevisionandradioprograms. He founded and editedThe Note,which appeared daily on ABCNews.

In October 2006, Halperin andJohn F. Harris,published a book together,The Way to Win: Clinton, Bush, Rove, and How to Take the White House in 2008.

Since 2006, Halperin has served as a board member of theNew Hampshire Institute of PoliticsatSaint Anselm CollegeinGoffstown, New Hampshire.He has been on their public advisory board since it was created in 2008.

In March 2007, Halperin became apolitical analystfor ABC News and was replaced as political director byDavid Chalian.In May 2007, he was hired as a political analyst and editor at large forTimemagazine. In June 2010, he was hired as a senior political analyst at MSNBC. In 2011,Timereleased aniPadapp called "Mark Halperin 2012" that contains material from Halperin's "The Page" as well as video, photos, breaking news, and Halperin's take on the news.

Criticism

On June 30, 2011, Halperin was suspended from his duties at MSNBC for "slurring"PresidentBarack Obamaon the programMorning Joe,after he said of Obama "I thought he was kind of a dick" for his performance at the previous day's press conference.His suspension was lifted a month later.

In December 2011, Halperin was listed as number 1 inSalon's 2011 Hack List, his reporting described as "shallow and predictable" as well as "both fixated solely on thehorse raceand also uniquely bad at analyzing the horse race. "

Alex Shephard, writing inThe New Republic,criticized his coverage for being "totally fixated" on the horse race and for shallow analysis, and "that he’s wanted to carry Donald Trump's bags for years."

Conversely, Benjamin Wallace-Wells of The New Yorker wrote that Halperin's The Circus is "both an argument for horse-race journalism and a way to see its inner workings, and so to track Heilemann and Halperin in their long traipse across the American interior is to see the media discovering its own vulnerabilities, just as Trump was exploiting them."

The Washington Post'sDana Milbankcalled Halperin's analysis in the2016 United States presidential campaign"soulless" and "amoral", citing several instances when Halperin praised Republican nomineeDonald Trump.Milbank noted that Halperin had declared onMorning Joein March 2016 that Trump was "one of the two most talented presidential candidates any of us have covered." Earlier, in January 2020, also on “Morning Joe,” Halperin said Trump’s attacks on the Clintons were “politically brilliant.” In June 2016, on his Bloomberg TV show,With All Due Respect,Milbank noted Halperin asserted that "it's not racial" for Trump to attempt to disqualify an Indiana-born federal judge as a "Mexican" because of his ancestry. His reason: "Mexico isn't a race."

In November 2016, NBC'sBrian Williamssaid Halperin had "gone out of his way" to give Trump favorable coverage. "When Donald Trump complains he is not getting favorable coverage in the MSM" —making reference to the mainstream media— "he has not been listening to you this cycle", Williams said to Halperin on Williams' show. "I think you've gone out of your way to find the path, argue for the path, forge the path for him in an argumentative way with your cohost to the nomination."

Sexual harassment allegations

See also:Me Too movementandWeinstein effect

On October 26, 2017,CNNreported that five women had accused Halperin of sexual harassment. One woman told the network she was assaulted after visiting Halperin in the early 2000s. "I went up to have a soda and talk and—he just kissed me and grabbed my boobs", the woman said. "I just froze. I didn't know what to do."

Yet another woman told CNN that Halperin once pressed his penis to her shoulder during the2004 campaign cycle."I was obviously completely shocked", she said. "Given I was so young and new, I wasn't sure if that was the sort of thing that was expected of you if you wanted something from a male figure in news."

And another former ABC News woman employee, told CNN that she had been on the road with Halperin when he propositioned her. "I excused myself to go to the bathroom and he was standing there when I opened the door, propositioning [me] to go into the other bathroom to do something", she said. "It freaked me out. I came out of the ladies' room and he was just standing there. Like almost blocking the door."

CNN also reported that three other women described Halperin, "without consent, pressing an erection against their bodies while he was clothed." One woman recalled an incident during which "Halperin had pressed his genitals against her while she was seated in his office."

Halperin apologized for pursuing "relationships with women that I worked with, including some junior to me", but he also denied allegations that he had ever pressed his genitals against one woman and grabbed another woman's breast. He further announced that he would temporarily leave his daily work to "properly deal with this situation."

Later that day,NBC Newsreleased a statement saying that in light of the allegations, Halperin would not return as a senior political analyst "until the questions around his past conduct are fully understood."HBOannounced it would no longer go forward with a plannedminiseriesabout thepresidential electionthat was based in part on Halperin's then-upcoming book on the 2016 election. The premium cable channel said in a statement, "HBO has no tolerance for sexual harassment within the company or its productions."Penguin Pressalso canceled the latest installment of theGame Changeseries Halperin was co-authoring withJohn Heilemann,which HBO had already canceled plans to adapt.

A day after their first story, CNN ran a second story revealing that the number of women accusing Halperin of misconduct had grown to "at least a dozen".In a lengthy statement published in response to the CNN report, Halperin denied several of the new allegations, including ones that he masturbated in front of anyone or physically assaulted anyone. He apologized to the women he "mistreated" while acknowledging that he recognized he had a problem near the end of his tenure at ABC, received weekly counseling sessions, and ended the behavior;however, a later report fromThe Daily Beastincluded an allegation of harassment from 2011.

On October 30, 2017, both NBC and MSNBC terminated Halperin's contract with the networks.On January 3, 2018, Showtime replaced Halperin onThe Circuswith CBS News anchorAlex Wagner.

Subsequent career

According to a May 3, 2019, report inThe Daily Beast,Halperin worked on repairing his reputation during the first quarter of 2019 with a goal of returning as apunditon television and radio. According to the article, Halperin enlisted the help ofMichael Smerconish,Mika Brzezinski,andJoe Scarboroughon an under-the-radar yet calculated professional rehabilitation campaign. Since the beginning of 2019, Halperin resumed posting on Twitter and launched a new political blog titled "Mark Halperin’s Wide World of News" in mid-April. Around the same time, Halperin appeared onSirius XMwith Smerconish, where he said he has been working with theFortune Society,a New York City-based nonprofit organization that provides essential support to the formerly incarcerated.

On August 18, 2019, publisherRegan Artsannounced that Halperin had signed a new book deal. The book, entitledHow to Beat Trump: America's Top Political Strategists on What It Will Take,was published in early-November 2019. Contributors to the book includeDavid Axelrod,Donna Brazile,andJames Carville.Both CNN and NBC declined to promote the book.

After news broke about the upcoming book, there was widespread criticism and outrage, withGretchen Carlsoncalling the deal "a slap in the face to all women." Rebecca Katz, apolitical strategistsaid on Twitter, "you can beat Trump without supporting the career rehabilitation of Mark Halperin."CNNpolitical commentator Karen Finney called Halperin "a predator" and denounced publisher Regan Arts. Eleanor McManus, who had written of being sexually harassed by Halperin as a 21-year-old, commented: "He leveraged his position as a prominent journalist to prey on women... Giving him a book once again puts him in a position of authority and that is a slap in the face to all the women that he has victimized."

According to a September 9, 2019 report inThe Daily Beast,Halperin allegedly made vague threats toward MSNBC presidentPhil Griffinduring a phone call after Griffin refused to approve a possible collaboration with theMorning Joeteam earlier in 2019.

In 2020, Halperin began appearing onNewsmax TVas a contributor and as the host of its weekly Sunday show,Mark Halperin's Focus Group.

Personal life

Halperin resides in New York City with his girlfriend, Karen Avrich, co-author ofSasha and Emma.

Bibliography

• Mark Halperin and John F. Harris,The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008,Random House, October 2006,ISBN1-4000-6447-3
• Mark Halperin andJohn Heilemann,Game Change:Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime,Harper, January 2010,ISBN0-06-173363-6
• Mark Halperin and John Heilemann,Double Down: Game Change 2012,Penguin Press, November 2013ISBN1594204403
• Mark Halperin,How to Beat Trump: America's Top Political Strategists on What It Will Take,Regan Arts, November 2019

External links

• The Page,Halperin's blog atTime
  • Biography
• AppearancesonC-SPAN
• Mark HalperinonCharlie Rose
• Mark HalperinatIMDb