Joshua A. Barro (born July 17, 1984) is an American journalist and creator of the newsletter and podcast ''Very Serious''. He previously hosted the weekly radio program ''
Left, Right, & Center'' based at
KCRW
KCRW (89.9 FM broadcasting, FM) is an NPR member station broadcasting from the campus of Santa Monica College in Santa Monica, California, where the station is licensed. KCRW airs original news and music programming in addition to programming ...
Los Angeles and served as a senior editor and columnist at ''
Business Insider
''Business Insider'' (stylized in all caps: BUSINESS INSIDER; known from 2021 to 2023 as INSIDER) is a New York City–based multinational financial and business news website founded in 2007. Since 2015, a majority stake in ''Business Inside ...
''.
Early life
Barro is the son of
Harvard University
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
professor and
macroeconomist Robert Barro.
After growing up in
Massachusetts
Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...
, Barro received a
bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...
in
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...
from
Harvard University
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
.
While in college, he spent a summer interning for
Grover Norquist.
Career
Barro previously worked as a senior fellow at the
Manhattan Institute for Policy Research,
as a real estate banker for
Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo & Company is an American multinational financial services company with a significant global presence. The company operates in 35 countries and serves over 70 million customers worldwide. It is a systemically important fi ...
, as the lead writer for ''The Ticker'' (a defunct economics and politics blog hosted by
Bloomberg L.P.
Bloomberg L.P. is an American privately-held financial, software, data, and media company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was co-founded by Michael Bloomberg in 1981, with Thomas Secunda, Duncan MacMillan, Charles Ze ...
), and as the politics editor at ''Business Insider''.
He appears regularly on
Bloomberg Television
Bloomberg Television (on-air as Bloomberg) is an American-based pay television network focusing on business and capital market programming, owned by diversified information and media private company Bloomberg L.P. It is distributed globally, re ...
and
MSNBC
MSNBC is an American cable news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. Launched on July 15, 1996, and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, the channel primarily broadcasts r ...
and has appeared on ''
Real Time with Bill Maher
''Real Time with Bill Maher'' is an American television talk show that airs weekly on HBO, hosted by stand-up comedy, comedian and political satire, political satirist Bill Maher. Much like his previous series ''Politically Incorrect'' on Comedy ...
'' on
HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...
and on ''
All in with Chris Hayes'' on
MSNBC
MSNBC is an American cable news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. Launched on July 15, 1996, and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, the channel primarily broadcasts r ...
. He is the former host, moderator and center of the weekly political roundtable radio show ''
Left, Right & Center'', based at
KCRW
KCRW (89.9 FM broadcasting, FM) is an NPR member station broadcasting from the campus of Santa Monica College in Santa Monica, California, where the station is licensed. KCRW airs original news and music programming in addition to programming ...
Los Angeles and heard on
public radio
Public broadcasting (or public service broadcasting) is radio, television, and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service with a commitment to avoiding political and commercial influence. Public broadcasters receive ...
stations across the U.S.
In early 2013, he was a prominent supporter of a potential
trillion-dollar coin, but by late 2013, he had changed his mind.
''
Time
Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
'' named Barro's Twitter feed one of "The 140 Best Twitter Feeds of 2013", one of ten in the Politics category. In 2012, ''
Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...
'' selected him as one of the "30 Under 30" media "brightest stars under the age of 30",
and
David Brooks listed him as part of the "vibrant and increasingly influential center-right conversation." A former aide to
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...
included Barro on a short list of Obama's favorite columnists.
In 2014, Barro left ''Business Insider'' to join ''The New York Times'' "The Upshot."
In 2016, Barro was rehired by ''Business Insider'' as a senior editor.
In 2018, he again left ''Business Insider'' to become a business columnist at ''
New York'' magazine. In 2020, he announced that he was rejoining ''Business Insider'' as a columnist covering politics, business, and the economy.
In early 2022, Barro left ''Business Insider'' and stepped down as host of ''
Left, Right & Center'' to pursue his newsletter and podcast ''Very Serious.'' He is a co-podcaster with Los Angeles lawyer Kenneth White, a/k/a
Popehat, in a podcast about litigation, "Serious Trouble."
Political views
Barro has expressed
heterodox political views, and has criticized both major parties.
Early in his career, Barro described himself as Republican but was critical of many of the party's policies. He also identified as a
neoliberal
Neoliberalism is a political and economic ideology that advocates for free-market capitalism, which became dominant in policy-making from the late 20th century onward. The term has multiple, competing definitions, and is most often used pej ...
.
Barro has spoken out strongly against traditional
Christian beliefs regarding homosexuality, stating that they "linger and oppress" and must be "stamped out ruthlessly".
After the
2012 United States elections, Barro became increasingly critical of the Republican Party and wrote that "the party's economic agenda, as embodied in the latest
Ryan budget, is simply terrible for the vast majority of Americans."
Barro called Congressional Republicans "crazy and awful".
Reactions by other conservatives in the media led ''
The Atlantic
''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
It was founded in 185 ...
'' to name Barro "the loneliest Republican".
Ezra Klein
Ezra Klein (born May 9, 1984) is an American American liberalism, liberal political commentator and journalist. He is currently a ''The New York Times, New York Times'' columnist and the host of ''The Ezra Klein Show'' podcast. He is a co-founde ...
said that, based on Barro's views, "He doesn't come across as much of a Republican."
On October 11, 2016, following the Republican Party's nomination of
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...
for president, Barro said he had left the Republican Party and registered as a Democrat.
Barro cited as reasons for his decision the "fact-free environment so many of its voters live in, and because of the anti-Democrat hysteria that had been willfully whipped up by so many of its politicians," which created a "vulnerability in our democracy."
In November 2024, after Democrat
Kamala Harris
Kamala Devi Harris ( ; born October 20, 1964) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 49th vice president of the United States from 2021 to 2025 under President Joe Biden. She is the first female, first African American, and ...
was defeated by Trump in the
2024 United States presidential election
United States presidential election, Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 5, 2024. The Republican Party (United States), Republican Party's Ticket (election), ticket—Donald Trump, who was the 45th president of ...
, Barro published a column entitled "Trump Didn't Deserve to Win, But We Deserved to Lose," wherein he broadly criticized the Democratic Party, including Democratic
governance of New York City, where he lives. Barro particularly criticized Democrats for ineffectively responding to issues such as inflation and immigration, adding, "I am unfortunately a Democrat." In February 2025, he wrote that "
e woke brigades in the Democratic Party aren't merely annoying. They have undermined Democrats' appeal to the same minority communities they are supposedly so focused on 'including.' "
Hamburger problem
In 2017, Barro argued that
progressives in the United States have what he calls a ''hamburger problem,'' by which he means they sanctimoniously scold the public about a host of inconsequential personal choices, such as eating ground beef burgers (it is unhealthy, harms animals, and contributes to global warming, among others). They have become in his words a movement of "moralizing busybodies", which harms their political appeal. He said: "All this scolding—this messaging that you should feel guilty about aspects of your life that you didn't think were anyone else's business—leads to a weird outcome when you go to vote in November."
Personal life
Barro lives in
Manhattan
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
and is
openly gay. In 2017, he married Zachary Allen, chairman of TIPAH Consulting and a former
Democratic National Committee
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is the principal executive leadership board of the United States's Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party. According to the party charter, it has "general responsibility for the affairs of the ...
official. He is an
atheist
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...
.
See also
*
List of LGBT people from New York City
New York City has been described as the gay village, gay capital of the world and the central node of the LGBTQ+ political sociology, sociopolitical ecosystem. It is home to one of the world's largest and most prominent LGBTQ populations. LGBTQ ...
*
New Yorkers in journalism
New York City has been called the Media in New York City, media capital of the world. Many journalists work in Manhattan, reporting about international, American, sports journalism, sports, business journalism, business, entertainment journalism ...
*
NYC Pride March
The NYC Pride March is an annual event celebrating the LGBT culture in New York City, LGBTQ community in New York City#Sexual orientation and gender identity, New York City. The largest pride parade and the List of largest LGBT events, larges ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Barro, Josh
1984 births
21st-century American journalists
21st-century American LGBTQ people
21st-century American male writers
American atheists
American columnists
American gay writers
American LGBTQ journalists
American male journalists
American political writers
Gay journalists
Harvard College alumni
Journalists from Massachusetts
Living people
Manhattan Institute for Policy Research
MSNBC people
New York (state) Democrats
The New York Times people