Katie Halper
Halper was born and raised in New York City's Upper West Side, on Riverside Drive. She graduated from the Dalton School, and from Wesleyan University in 2003. She is Jewish, but considers herself secular. Her father is a psychiatrist and her mother is an English professor and novelist. After graduating from Wesleyan, Halper worked as development director for the Downtown Community Television Center (DCTV), a nonprofit media education center and documentary production house. She also coordinated living wage and labor campaigns in New York City and Florida. Halper has also taught history at her "alma mater", the Dalton School. She began her career performing as a stand-up comedian. She has performed comedy at venues including Symphony Space, The Culture Project in New York, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the D.C. Comedy Festival, and at Netroots Nation. She also performed on the annual Seminar Cruise of "The Nation" magazine. She has performed with Lizz Winstead, Markos Moulitsas, The Yes Men, Cynthia Nixon, and Jim Hightower. Her first film as director was entitled "La Memoria es Vaga" (2005), a documentary about the Valle de los Caídos and historical memory in post-Franco Spain. It was screened in the United States and Spain. Halper was co-producer of Tim Robbins and the DCTV film "Embedded Live" (also 2005), based on Robbins' play of the same name. "Embedded Live" was shown at the Venice Film Festival and Sundance Channel. She was associate producer of Estela Bravo's "Free to Fly: The US-Cuba Link" (2004), about restrictions on travel between Cuba and the United States. "Free to Fly" was shown at the Havana Film Festival and Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival. Halper directed and produced the film "Commie Camp" (2013). "Commie Camp", originally entitled "Another Camp Is Possible", is a documentary about the Jewish summer camp Camp Kinderland, where Halper went and her mother and grandmother worked. She also co-directed "Facing Fascism: New Yorkers Remember the Spanish Civil War", a video for an exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York. She was outreach director for Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein's documentary "The Take" (2004). The documentary is about a workers' movement in Buenos Aires, Argentina and was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, and Film Forum. Articles by Halper have been published in "The New York Times", Comedy Central, "The Nation", Gawker, "The Huffington Post", Alternet, Daily Kos, OpenLeft, "The Raw Story", "Jacobin", "Salon", "Vice", "The Guardian", and Feministing, where she was a guest columnist. She has been featured as a commentator on MSNBC, "The Young Turks", RT, Fox News Channel's "The Ingraham Angle", "The Hill"s "Rising" with Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, "The New York Times", "New York Magazine", "Los Angeles Times", "In These Times", "Jezebel", Gawker, MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann", "The Sam Seder Show", "The Marc Maron Show", Sirius Radio, WBAI, XM Radio's "P.O.T.U.S.", and "The Alan Colmes Show". Halper is a national director of Living Liberally and the co-founder of Laughing Liberally, both of which promote political action through social interaction. Halper was co-host of the podcast "Morning Jew" with Heather Gold. She hosts "The Katie Halper Show", a weekly WBAI radio show and podcast. The show received attention when, during an interview with Halper that was released as a podcast on March 25, 2020, Tara Reade, a former Senate staff assistant of Joe Biden, alleged that Biden sexually assaulted her in a Capitol Hill office building in 1993.<ref name="Halper_3/31/2020"></ref> A Biden spokesperson said that the allegation was false. In 2019, Halper and Matt Taibbi launched and co-host the podcast "Useful Idiots", which was distributed by "Rolling Stone". The podcast has since featured interviews with Tulsi Gabbard, Ro Khanna, Andrew Yang, Bernie Sanders, Michael Moore, Tim Robbins, Glenn Greenwald, Norman Finkelstein, Aaron Maté, Dennis Kucinich, Noam Chomsky, Adam McKay, Lowkey, Rashida Tlaib, and Roger Waters. In March 2021, Taibbi announced that "Useful Idiots" would no longer be released by "Rolling Stone" and would instead be moving to Substack.
Career ; Podcasting
She is the host of the podcast "The Katie Halper Show" and co-host of the podcast "Useful Idiots" with Matt Taibbi.