Andrea Bernstein

Andrea Bernstein is a Peabody and duPont-Columbia award-winning investigative journalist, best-selling author of American Oligarchs: the Kushners, the Trumps, and the marriage of Money and Power, and the host of the hit podcasts We Don't Talk About Leonard, Will Be Wild, and Trump, Inc. She worked in public radio for 25 years and most recently covered all five trials of Donald Trump or his company in New York for NPR.

Biography

A Peabody and duPont award-winning journalist, Bernstein is the author of the New York Times best-selling book American Oligarchs: The Kushners, the Trumps and the Marriage of Money and Power. Bernstein most recently reported and co-hosted the ProPublica/On The Media Podcast We Don’t Talk About Leonard, a three-part series and accompanying article about the most influential conservative activist of the last 30 years: Leonard Leo, a finalist for the Investigative Reporters & Editors, Ambies, and Silver Gavel awards. 

She previously co-hosted with Ilya Marritz the acclaimed podcast Will Be Wild, an eight-part audio-documentary about the January 6 Capitol riot, which reached the #1 spot on Apple podcasts, was among the New Yorker’s top ten podcasts of 2022, and was named by Pushkin Industries for its collection of “Best Audio Storytelling of 2022.”

Bernstein and Marritz previously co-hosted the podcast Trump, Inc., a collaboration between ProPublica and WNYC Studios. The podcast was recognized with a duPont-Columbia Award, the Public Radio News Director Award for Best Collaboration, and was a finalist for the National Magazine and Loeb awards.

Bernstein’s work has led to multiple investigations, indictments, convictions, and government reforms. A 30-year veteran of public radio, Bernstein has covered all five Trump New York trials for NPR, and is a frequent guest on PBS NewsHour, CNN, and MSNBC. She has written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The New York Review of Books, and New York Magazine. In 2015, she was on Out Magazine’s Out100 list with her WNYC colleague Nancy Solomon.

Bernstein was the Jack Newfield Professor of Investigative Journalism at Hunter College, taught reporting and writing at City College of New York, and has spoken widely to audiences around the country. In 2008, she traveled to Bhutan to teach journalists how to cover political campaigns as the nation transitioned from monarchy to democracy. Her mentorship of young journalists is one of her proudest accomplishments. 

Bernstein was a Presidential Fellow at Bennington for Fall 2024.

Photo credit: Matthew Septimus