Brakkton Booker
Brakkton Booker is a National Desk reporter based in Washington, DC.
He covers a wide range of topics including issues related to federal social safety net programs and news around the mid-Atlantic region of the United States.
His reporting takes him across the country covering natural disasters, like hurricanes and flooding, as well as tracking trends in regional politics and in state governments, particularly on issues of race.
Following the 2018 mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, Booker's reporting broadened to include a focus on young activists pushing for changes to federal and state gun laws, including the March For Our Lives rally and national school walkouts.
Prior to joining NPR's national desk, Booker spent five years as a producer/reporter for NPR's political unit. He spent most to the 2016 presidential campaign cycle covering the contest for the GOP nomination and was the lead producer from the Trump campaign headquarters on election night. Booker served in a similar capacity from the Louisville campaign headquarters of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in 2014. During the 2012 presidential campaign, he produced pieces and filed dispatches from the Republican and Democratic National conventions, as well as from President Obama's reelection site in Chicago.
In the summer of 2014, Booker took a break from politics to report on the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri.
Booker started his career as a show producer working on nearly all of NPR's magazine programs, including Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and former news and talk show Tell Me More, where he produced the program's signature Barbershop segment.
He earned a bachelor's degree from Howard University and was a 2015 Kiplinger Fellow. When he's not on the road, Booker enjoys discovering new brands of whiskey and working on his golf game.
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The Republican from Nebraska speaks with NPR's Steve Inskeep about the impeachment of former President Donald Trump, the future of the GOP and working with the Biden administration. -
The cremated remains arrived with ceremony in a motorcade with members of Sicknick's family and were carried by colleagues into the Capitol. His urn rests on a pedestal next to a U.S. flag. -
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state has 60 refrigerated units available if needed. He also said that 5,000 body bags were distributed to some of the hardest-hit counties. -
Tamika Palmer says she wants the officers who killed her daughter to be charged. "Even in the very beginning of this year, she kept saying 2020 was her year," she said. "And she was absolutely right." -
McAtee is remembered as a family man and the owner of Yaya's BBQ. He was shot and killed at his business Monday when police and National Guard were dispersing a crowd after curfew. -
From Broadway plays to playwrights giving writing lessons to online courses from Ivy League schools, here's a look at some things (but not everything!) that have suddenly become free. -
Trolls World Tour in April will be Comcast NBCUniversal's first film available at home on the same day as its global release. The company said some films in theaters will begin streaming Friday. -
The House intelligence chairman told NPR that President Trump should also be charged with obstruction: "It is difficult to imagine a more ironclad case of obstruction of Congress than this one." -
Democrats will soon control Virginia for the first time since 1993. Gov. Ralph Northam tells NPR: "With a Democratic Senate and House, I believe we can move forward with common sense gun legislation." -
A string of Jehovah's Witnesses have been convicted since Russia's Supreme Court banned the Christian denomination as an "extremist organization" in 2017.
