Martha Raddatz is ABC News’ chief global affairs correspondent and co-anchor of “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” She has covered national security, foreign policy and politics for decades — reporting from the Pentagon, the State Department, the White House and conflict zones around the world.
She began covering wars during the crisis in Bosnia in the late 1990s, but Iraq and Afghanistan are where she has spent most of her time overseas. Even during her stint as a White House correspondent during former President George W. Bush’s administration, she continued to make regular trips to war-torn Iraq.
Raddatz was embedded with U.S. forces during dozens of trips abroad, from the sands of Al Anbar province to the mountains of the Hindu Kush. She is the only television reporter allowed to fly in an F-15 fighter jet on combat missions over Afghanistan, spending nearly 10 hours in the air on two separate missions. In 2011, she reported exclusive details on the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. That same year, she was one of the few reporters on the last major convoy out of Iraq. She also had an exclusive interview on the USS Kearsarge, off the coast of Libya, with the Marines who helped rescue two American pilots who had gone down in Libya. In 2012, Raddatz was on a U.S. destroyer as it made its way through the Strait of Hormuz. She reported exclusively from the USS George H.W. Bush, covering the airstrikes against ISIS in Syria and Iraq in 2014 and again in March 2016 from the USS Truman. In 2015, Raddatz was granted exclusive access to the anti-ISIS command center at an undisclosed location in the Middle East, and she anchored “This Week” from an airbase conducting drone warfare. Raddatz also covered both summits between former President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and was one of only a handful of journalists who reported from North Korea in 2018.
In addition, her reporting trips have taken her to Yemen, Iran, Pakistan, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, India, Turkey, Libya, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and numerous countries in Africa and Asia.
In October 2012, Raddatz moderated the only vice presidential debate between Congressman Paul Ryan and then Vice President Joe Biden, covering both domestic and foreign topics. Post-debate, Raddatz received an outpouring of praise for asking pointed questions on a range of issues while asserting control over the conversation. She received the Walter Cronkite Award for excellence in political journalism with a special commendation for debate moderation. During the 2016 election, Raddatz co-moderated the Democratic and Republican primary presidential debates on ABC as well as a presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, for which she once again received praise for her moderating skills. Raddatz also reported from the Capitol grounds during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection when supporters of former President Trump attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
In July of 2023, Raddatz had a one-on-one interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, Ukraine, and sat down with his closest aide, Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine. Most recently, Raddatz anchored “This Week” from Israel while reporting on the Israel-Hamas war and spoke with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Israeli Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus.
From 1993 to 1998, Raddatz was the Pentagon correspondent for National Public Radio (NPR). Prior to joining NPR, she was the chief correspondent at the ABC News Boston affiliate, WCVB-TV. In addition to covering several presidential campaigns, she reported from the former Soviet Union, Africa, the Middle East, the Philippines and Europe.
Raddatz is the author of “The Long Road Home—A Story of War and Family,” the acclaimed book about a battle in Iraq that made both The New York Times and The Washington Post bestseller list.
