Rick Klein
Rick Klein is the vice president and Washington D.C. bureau chief for ABC News. He oversees bureau operations and manages all news teams based in Washington for breaking news, daily coverage and special events. He supervises all political coverage, including the network’s Sunday morning public affairs program “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” and he drives collaboration across ABC News’ powerhouse political team and D.C.-based reporters with all divisions and departments, as well as with ABC-owned stations and affiliates. Klein provides regular political commentary and analysis across all ABC News programs and platforms, including “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” “World News Tonight with David Muir,” “Good Morning America,” “Nightline,” as well as ABC News Live, ABC News Digital, ABC News Audio and ABC News affiliates.
Klein’s instincts and insights were critical throughout the past five presidential election cycles, helping guide ABC News’ reporting on Washington’s campaigns and political battles. He has interviewed a wide range of key political figures, including President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump, Sen. Mitt Romney, former House Speaker Paul Ryan, the late Sens. John McCain and Ted Kennedy, as well as Ken Burns, Tom Hanks, Bradley Cooper, NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and a broad range of other prominent individuals.
He has helped plan and produce more than 20 debates and candidate town halls for ABC News, in addition to the 2012 vice presidential debate, the 2016 town-hall-style presidential debate, and town-hall forums featuring Donald Trump and Joe Biden in the fall of 2020 on ABC.
Before becoming political director in 2013, Klein served as ABC’s senior Washington editor for “World News with Diane Sawyer” and an on-air political analyst. He was featured in the 2022 Hulu documentary series “Power Trip,” which focused on the reporters covering elections for ABC News. He previously hosted the “Powerhouse Politics” podcast along with ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, the “Capital Games” podcast with ESPN reporter Andy Katz, and the Webcast and Yahoo! News video series “Top Line.” Starting in 2007, Klein authored “The Note,” a weekly tipsheet and blog at ABCNews.com. He was a co-anchor for the network’s digital election coverage in 2008 alongside former anchor Sam Donaldson and has been an on-set reporter and analyst in subsequent election cycles. For several years, Klein has highlighted polling and political geography on “This Week” segments called “The Breakdown.” He has covered voting results on interactive maps during network coverage of primaries and general elections.
