Politico hires Banco to cover health care

Politico editor Carrie Budoff Brown, managing editor Sudeep Reddy and Politico Pro deputy editor Clea Benson:

We’re thrilled to welcome Erin Banco to POLITICO, joining our powerhouse health care team with a focus on the pandemic response and the CDC.

Erin joins us from the Daily Beast, where she’s racked up scoop after scoop over the past year with critical accountability journalism on the Covid-19 crisis and the government’s response. As a national security reporter for the past three years, she’s also covered the intelligence community, foreign policy and various congressional investigations into President Trump and his allies. Before the Beast, Erin worked at the Star-Ledger in New Jersey as an investigative reporter. Earlier, she was a Middle East correspondent for the International Business Times (now Newsweek Media Group) and a freelancer covering the Arab Spring, the Syrian civil war and the rise of ISIS. Her 2017 book, Pipe Dreams, focuses on the development of the oil and gas industry in the northern Kurdistan region of Iraq.

Originally from Medfield, Mass., Erin attended The University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she majored in Arabic and journalism. She earned a master’s in public administration from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs in 2014. She’s an avid runner and former Team USA member in synchronized figure skating. She lives with her husband, whom she married in October 2019.

Erin starts Tuesday. Please join us in giving her a warm POLITICO welcome.