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Former White House Press Secretary

Sarah Huckabee Sanders served as White House Press Secretary for President Donald J. Trump from 2017 to 2019. A trusted confidante of the President, Sarah advised him on everything from press and communications strategy to personnel and policy. For two and a half years, Sarah was at the President’s side, battling with the media, working with lawmakers and CEOs, and staffing the President on every foreign trip, including dozens of meetings with foreign leaders. Sarah is only the third woman and the very first mom to ever hold the job of White House Press Secretary.

Upon her departure from the administration, President Trump described Sarah as “irreplaceable,” a “warrior” and “very special person with extraordinary talents, who has done an incredible job.”

An early supporter of President Trump, Sarah joined the Trump campaign as a senior advisor in February 2016 during the Republican primary, and continued in that role through the President’s defeat of Hillary Clinton, one of the greatest and most unexpected victories in American history.

Sarah has previously worked in leadership roles for U.S. Senators, Governors, and presidential campaigns. In Arkansas, Sarah was a senior advisor to Senator Tom Cotton in 2014 when he defeated incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Pryor, and was campaign manager for Senator John Boozman in 2010 when he defeated incumbent Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln. And in 2007 and 2008, Sarah helped lead her father, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, to victory in the Iowa Caucuses and seven other states as his National Political Director.

Sarah has been named one of TIME Magazine’s “40 under 40” and is recognized as one of the best political operatives of her generation.

Sarah has also advised major Fortune 500 companies and non-profits, including serving as campaign manager of the ONE campaign, a global non-profit founded by U2’s Bono to take action to end extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa.

She is married to her husband, Bryan, and they have three children, Scarlett, Huck, and George, and live in Little Rock, Arkansas.

U.S. House of Representatives

Devin Nunes (born October 1, 1973) has served in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2003. He currently represents California’s 22nd congressional district, which is located in the San Joaquin Valley and includes portions of Tulare and Fresno Counties. He and his wife have three daughters.

Nunes is Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and a member of the Ways and Means Committee, having previously served as Chairman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade. He is the author of the book Restoring the Republic, which was published in September 2010.

U.S. Senate

Marsha Blackburn was elected by the people of Tennessee to the United States Senate in 2018. Before her election, Blackburn represented the Volunteer State’s Seventh Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives for eight terms, and in the Tennessee State Senate for two terms.

She is the first female U.S. Senator in her state’s history and was the first woman elected in her own right to the U.S. House from Tennessee. Senator Blackburn dedicates her public service to fighting for faith, family, freedom, hope and opportunity – what she calls “The Big Five.”

She serves on the Senate Armed Services, Veterans Affairs, Judiciary, and Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committees.

President and CEO, U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Thomas J. Donohue is president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Since assuming this position in 1997, Donohue has built the Chamber into a lobbying and political powerhouse with expanded influence across the globe.

During his tenure, the Chamber has helped secure business victories on Capitol Hill, in the regulatory agencies, in politics, in courts of law and in the court of public opinion, and before governments around the world.

In an era of economic and fiscal challenges, Donohue has led efforts to expand trade and domestic energy production, rebuild America’s infrastructure, combat an avalanche of new regulations, protect intellectual property, revitalize capital markets, and aggressively advocate legal, tax, education, and entitlement reform. In addition, he has vigorously challenged attacks on free enterprise, while working to protect the business community’s right to speak and participate in the political and policy affairs of the nation.

Under Donohue’s leadership, the Chamber has emerged as a major political force in races for the Senate and the House of Representatives. As part of this bipartisan effort, millions of grassroots business advocates, as well as the Chamber’s federation of state and local chambers and industry associations, mobilize in support of pro-business candidates.

Donohue established the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform, which advances significant legal reforms in the courts, at the state and federal levels, and in elections for state attorneys general and Supreme Court judges. He has dramatically expanded
the activities of the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, the Chamber’s law firm, which represents the business community’s interests in the courts. And he has reinvigorated the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, which houses Hiring Our Heroes, a
program that identifies job opportunities for returning veterans and military spouses.

Previously, Donohue served for 13 years as president and CEO of the American Trucking Associations, the national organization of the trucking industry. Earlier in his career, he was deputy assistant postmaster general of the United States and vice
president of development at Fairfield University in Connecticut.

Born in New York City, Donohue earned a bachelor’s degree from St. John’s University and a master’s degree in business administration from Adelphi University. He holds honorary degrees from Adelphi, St. John’s, Marymount, Bradley, and Pepperdine
universities, as well as the National University of Ireland at Maynooth.

He is a recipient of the Horatio Alger Award and the Boy Scouts of America National Capital Area Council’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He holds the highest civilian honor from Germany and South Korea, as well as the Order of the Crown (Commander Class) presented by the Crown Prince of Belgium.

Donohue and his late wife, Liz, have three sons and five grandchildren

Prior to joining Washington Examiner as a Senior Columnist, Fred was executive editor of The Weekly Standard, which he co-founded in 1995.  From 1985 to 1995, Barnes was senior editor and White House correspondent for The New Republic. He covered the Supreme Court and the White House for the Washington Star before moving to the Baltimore Sun in 1979. He served as the national political correspondent for the Sun and wrote the “Presswatch” media column for the American Spectator. Barnes appears regularly on the Fox News Channel. From 1988 to 1998 he was a regular panelist on the McLaughlin Group. He has also appeared on Nightline, Meet the Press, and Face the Nation.

Secretary Kelly was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. He enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1970, and was discharged as a sergeant in 1972, after serving in an infantry company with the 2nd Marine Division, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Following graduation from the University of Massachusetts in 1976, he was commissioned an Officer of Marines.

As an officer, Secretary Kelly served in a number of command, staff and school assignments to include sea duty, instructor duty at The Basic School, the Infantry Officer Course, command of the 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, attendance at the National War College, and duty on Capitol Hill as the Commandant’s liaison to the U.S. Congress. He also served as the Special Assistant to the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, in Mons, Belgium.

He returned to the United States in 2001, and was assigned duty as the Assistant Chief of Staff G-3 with the 2nd Marine Division. In 2002, selected to the rank of Brigadier General, Secretary Kelly again served with the 1st Marine Division, this time as the Assistant Division Commander. Much of the next two years was spent deployed fighting in Iraq. He then returned to Headquarters Marine Corps as the Legislative Assistant to the Commandant from 2004 to 2007. Promoted to Major General, he returned to Camp Pendleton as the Commanding General, I Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward). The command deployed to Iraq in early 2008 for a year-long mission as Multinational Force-West in Al Anbar and western Ninewa provinces. After rotating home and being confirmed as a Lieutenant General he commanded Marine Forces Reserve and Marine Forces North from October 2009 to March 2011. He then served as the Senior Military Assistant to two Secretaries of Defense, Messrs. Gates and Panetta, from March 2011 to October 2012 before being nominated for a fourth star and command of the United States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), a position he held until January 2016.

During his 39 months in command of SOUTHCOM he worked closely with the remarkable men and women of U.S. law enforcement, particularly the FBI and DEA. He also worked intimately with Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson and the equally remarkable men and women of the Department of Homeland Security, particularly in dealing with the flow of drugs, people and other threats against the U.S. homeland that flow along the trans-national criminal networks into the U.S. from the south. This relationship was a model of interagency cooperation and effectiveness.

After less than a year in retirement Secretary Kelly was offered the opportunity to serve the nation and its people again, now as the Secretary of Homeland Security. After he and his family served a lifetime in service to the nation—and knowing no other life—the opportunity to serve again was welcomed. The U.S. Senate gave him and his family the great honor of confirming him on January 20, 2017 and he was immediately sworn in as the fifth Secretary of Homeland Security. After six months, he was selected to serve as White House Chief of Staff, a position he held until January 2019.

Kristen Soltis Anderson is author of The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America (And How Republicans Can Keep Up). She is a pollster and co-founder of Echelon Insights, a research and analytics firm. She was one of TIME’s “30 Under 30 Changing the World” and has been featured as one of ELLE’s 2016 “Most Compelling Women in Washington.”

Anderson is an ABC News political contributor, columnist at The Washington Examiner, and is the co-host of The Pollsters, a bipartisan weekly podcast. She regularly appears on programs such as Morning Joe, Fox News Sunday, Real Time With Bill Maher and more.

In 2014, Anderson was a Resident Fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics. Her research on millennial attitudes has been featured in The New York Times Magazine and she regularly speaks to audiences of corporate leaders and public officials about how to reach the millennial generation.

Hugo Gurdon is the editorial director of the Washington Examiner. He is the former editor-in-chief of The Hill and previously served as an editor and reporter at the Daily Telegraph of London and the National Post of Canada. His writing has also appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal (Europe), Financial Times and The Guardian.

Salena Zito has held a long, successful career as a national political reporter. Born and bred in Pittsburgh, she worked for the Pittsburgh Tribute-Review for 11 years. She has interviewed every U.S. president and vice president since 1992, as well as top leaders in Washington, D.C., including secretaries of state, speakers of the House and U.S. Central Command generals. Her passion, though, is interviewing thousands of people across the country. She reaches the Everyman and Everywoman through the lost art of shoe-leather journalism, having traveled along the back roads of 49 states.

Salena joined the New York Post in September 2016. She acts as a CNN political analyst, and a staff reporter and columnist for the Washington Examiner.

Judge Starr has had a distinguished career in academia, the law and public service. For six years, he served as the 14th president of Baylor University. He has also been of counsel to the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis LLP, where he was a partner from 1993 to 2004, specializing in appellate work, antitrust, federal courts, federal jurisdiction and constitutional law.

In addition, Ken is a former partner at the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP. Ken is the author of more than 25 publications. His recently published book, Bear Country: The Baylor Story, has been praised by Ben Carson as “a candid and humble look at modern day politics in academia.”

Judge Starr has received numerous honors and awards, including the J. Reuben Clark Law Society 2005 Distinguished Service Award, the 2004 Capital Book Award, the Jefferson Cup award from the FBI, the Edmund Randolph Award for Outstanding Service in the Department of Justice and the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service.

Byron York is the chief political correspondent for the Washington Examiner, a Fox News contributor and the author of The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy.

Philip Klein is the executive editor of the Washington Examiner. He formerly served as the Examiner’s managing editor, commentary editor, and started as a senior writer. Since joining the Examiner, he has built national recognition for his writing on policy, particularly healthcare. He also has written extensively about politics, Capitol Hill, and presidential elections from both a news and commentary perspective. Prior to joining the Examiner, he was a Washington correspondent for the American Spectator. He started his journalism career in New York, where he was a financial reporter for Reuters. Over the years, he has written for or been cited by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Bloomberg, among many other publications. He has also appeared frequently on television and radio. He is a graduate of George Washington University and holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. He is the author of Overcoming Obamacare: Three Approaches to Reversing the Government Takeover of Health Care.

Tim Carney is the commentary editor of the Washington Examiner, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and the author of three books, most recently Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse. Carney is a protege of the late Robert Novak and has been a political journalist for nearly 20 years. He lives in the DC area with his wife and six children.

David M. Drucker is a senior correspondent for the Washington Examiner, where he focuses on Congress, campaigns and national political trends, providing breaking news reporting, analysis, and insight. Prior to joining the Washington Examiner, he was a reporter for Roll Call. He also covered California politics, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in the Sacramento bureau of the Los Angeles Daily News. 

Drucker graduated from UCLA with a BA in history and spent eight years managing a family-run manufacturing business in Southern California, giving him a unique perspective on how what happens inside the Beltway affects the rest of the country. Drucker resides on Capitol Hill with his wife and two sons.

Karl Rove, an iconic political strategist and one of the most sought-after political pundits of our time, is best known for his provocative and robust knowledge of the major political issues of the day.

Mr. Rove served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush from 2000–2007 and Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004–2007. At the White House he oversaw the Offices of Strategic Initiatives, Political Affairs, Public Liaison, and Intergovernmental Affairs and was Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, coordinating the White House policy-making process.

Mr. Rove has been described by respected author and columnist Michael Barone in U.S. News & World Report as “…unique… no Presidential appointee has ever had such a strong influence on politics and policy, and none is likely to do so again anytime soon.” Washington Post columnist David Broder has called Rove a master political strategist whose “game has always been long term…and he plays it with an intensity and attention to detail that few can match.” Fred Barnes, executive editor of The Weekly Standard, has called him “the greatest political mind of his generation and probably of any generation… He knows history, understands the moods of the public, and is a visionary on matters of public policy.”

Before Karl Rove became known as “The Architect” of President Bush’s 2000 and 2004 campaigns, he was president of Karl Rove + Company, an Austin-based public affairs firm that worked for Republican candidates, non-partisan causes, and non-profit groups. His clients included over 75 Republican U.S. Senate, Congressional, and gubernatorial candidates in 24 states, as well as the Moderate Party of Sweden.

As a Fox News contributor, Rove provides a “genuine feel of inside knowledge,” says David Zurawik, Baltimore Sun television critic. Megan Garber, of the Columbia Journalism Review, says Karl Rove has “focused his punditry on what he knows best: strategy.” Even the New York Times acclaims that “Rove’s substantive contributions may now inspire a little work ethic among the celebrity talking heads who may be forced to bring to the news a little more data and a little less opinion, a recalibration that would be welcome to its devoted viewers.”

Mr. Rove writes a weekly op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, appears frequently on the Fox News Channel and is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight. He has written for various publications, including The Daily Beast, Financial Times, Forbes, FoxNews.com, HumanEvents.com, The Times, Washington Post, and The Weekly Standard. His latest book, The Triumph of William McKinley: Why the Election of 1896 Still Matters, was published in November 2015.

A Colorado native, he attended the University of Utah, the University of Maryland-College Park, George Mason University, and the University of Texas at Austin.