Michael Grunwald (born August 16, 1970) is an American journalist and author who covers public policy and national politics. A senior writer for ''

Politico Magazine ''Politico'' (stylized in all caps), known originally as ''The Politico'', is an American political digital newspaper company founded by American banker and media executive Robert Allbritton in 2007. It covers politics and policy in the Unite ...

'', he previously worked as a journal for ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe,'' also known locally as ''the Globe'', is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Boston Globe'' is the oldest and largest daily new ...

'', ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' and ''

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 ...

''. He wrote a boom about the

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

Everglades The Everglades is a natural region of flooded grasslands in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Florida, comprising the southern half of a large drainage basin within the Neotropical realm. The system begins near Orlando with the K ...

. He is the author of two widely acclaimed books, ''The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida and the Politics of Paradise'' (2006) and '' The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era'' (2012). He is currently working on a book for Simon & Schuster about food, land and

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

Life and career

Education and occupation

Grunwald graduated 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 ...

in 1992. He started his career as a metro reporter for ''The Boston Globe'', then joined ''The Washington Post'', where he served as a national reporter, New York bureau chief and outlook essayist; he wrote the ''Washington Posts lead news story on the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

. In 2007, he became a senior national correspondent for ''

'', where he wrote cover stories on topics like the future of

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, the decline of the Republican Party, and 2009 Person of the Year

Ben Bernanke Ben Shalom Bernanke ( ; born December 13, 1953) is an American economist who served as the 14th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014. After leaving the Federal Reserve, he was appointed a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Insti ...

. His cover story about the policy roots of the

Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina was a powerful, devastating and historic tropical cyclone that caused 1,392 fatalities and damages estimated at $125 billion in late August 2005, particularly in the city of New Orleans and its surrounding area. ...

disaster won a $50,000 award from the Understanding Government Foundation; he donated the award to

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

charities. His 2012 cover story "One Nation Subsidized" used his own daily life in Miami as well as government data to make the case that "most Americans are makers ''and'' takers, proud of our making, blind to our taking." Grunwald was also a provocative columnist at ''Time'', defending the failed Solyndra loan and arguing against tax deductions for charitable donations. Grunwald joined ''

'' in 2014, where he helped start the public policy site '' The Agenda''. He has mostly written at ''Politico Magazine'' about wonky topics like the federal government's dysfunctional $3 trillion portfolio of credit programs, the failure of U.S. transportation policy and President Obama's policy legacy. He has also written longform political stories about the 2016 campaign, America's political culture wars, and the growth of

Trumpism Trumpism, also referred to as the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, is the political movement and ideology behind U.S. president Donald Trump and his political base. It comprises ideologies such as right-wing populism, right-wing ...

through the

retirement community The Villages.

Books

Grunwald wrote his first book, ''The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise'' (2007) after doing a four-part series for ''The Washington Post'' in 2002. It's the story of man and nature on the Florida peninsula, focusing on the steady destruction and troubled attempted restoration of the Everglades, and it's still considered one of the indispensable histories of Florida. Grunwald also wrote the foreword to the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas classic about the Everglades, ''River of Grass''. His next book was ''The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era'' (2012), a NYT best-seller, it is the inside story of the

Obama administration Barack Obama's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. Obama, a Democrat from Illinois, took office following his victory over Republican nomine ...

and its response to the

2008 financial crisis The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...

. He describes the discussions and debates that led to the government's anti-recession measures such as the

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) (), nicknamed the Recovery Act, was a Stimulus (economics), stimulus package enacted by the 111th U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in February 2009. Developed ...

(ARRA). Taking a positive review of the President's efforts, Grunwald defends the economic measures as full of important, long-term investments while charging Republican Party opponents as being hypocritical and self-serving. Grunwald was the ghostwriter for Obama Treasury Secretary

Timothy Geithner Timothy Franz Geithner (; born August 18, 1961) is an American former central banker who served as the 75th United States secretary of the treasury under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013. He was the President of the Federal Reserve Bank o ...

's memoir about the

, ''Stress Test''.

Personal life

Raised in Greenvale, New York, Grunwald resides in South Beach,

with his wife Cristina Dominguez, a lawyer who is now the executive director of Sai Aryurvedic Institute, and their two children.

Awards

Grunwald journalism awards including the

George Polk Awards The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by Long Island University in New York in the United States. A writer for Idea Lab, a group blog hosted on the website of PBS, described the awar ...

for National Reporting and the Worth Bingham Prize for

investigative reporting Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, racial injustice, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend m ...

. ''The Swamp'' and ''The New New Deal'' both received the gold medal for non-fiction in the Florida Book Award.

References

External links

Michael Grunwald

Grunwald on Time
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grunwald, Michael 1970 births Living people American male journalists Harvard College alumni People from Nassau County, New York Journalists from New York (state)