Dana Ruth Bash (née Schwartz; born June 15, 1971) is an American journalist, news anchor, host of Inside Politics and co-anchor of State of the Union on CNN.

Early life and education

Bash was born Dana Ruth Schwartz in Manhattan into a Jewish family, to Frances (née Weinman) Schwartz, an author and educator in Jewish studies, and Stuart Schwartz, an ABC News producer who served as the senior broadcast producer for Good Morning America. Bash's maternal grandmother, Teri Vidor Weinman, and her family were Hungarian Jews. Weinman escaped to the U.S. with her husband in October 1941, but her parents and sister were murdered at Auschwitz concentration camp after the occupation of Hungary in 1944.

Bash moved with her family to Teaneck, New Jersey, and shortly thereafter to Washington, D.C., returning to Montvale, New Jersey, as a preteen. Bash attended Pascack Hills High School in Montvale. She graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in political communications from George Washington University. While at college, she interned at NBC, CBS, and CNN. In May 2018, Bash received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, New Hampshire.

Career

After college, Bash joined CNN as a producer of their weekend programs such as Late Edition, Evans & Novak, and Inside Politics (later occasionally filling in for regular host John King). Later, she began producing programming specializing in coverage of the United States Senate, eventually becoming CNN's Chief Congressional Correspondent.

Bash was one of the women honored at Elle magazine's 2014 "Women in Washington Power List" event.

Bash was host of the 2019 Democratic presidential primary debate where Kamala Harris was noted for making her "that little girl was me" statement to Joe Biden.

In 2021, Bash joined Jake Tapper to become co-host of CNN's Sunday morning show State of The Union.

In April 2023, CNN announced that Bash would succeed John King as solo anchor of Inside Politics.

In 2024, she co-moderated a Republican primary debate in Iowa alongside Tapper between Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis. She also co-moderated the 2024 presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, also alongside Tapper.

In September 2024, in an interview with Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, Bash and Tapper misrepresented a statement from Michigan U.S. congresswoman Rashida Tlaib in an interview with the Detroit Metro Times, falsely rendering her criticism of Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel as antisemitic. After rebuke from the Detroit Metro Times, Tapper said in an interview with Nessel that he "misspoke" and that he "was trying to characterize [Nessel's] views of Tlaib's comments".