George Robert Stephanopoulos (born February 10, 1961) is an American television host, political commentator, and former Democratic advisor. Stephanopoulos currently is a coanchor with Robin Roberts and Michael Strahan on Good Morning America, and host of This Week, ABC's Sunday morning current events news program.
Before his career as a journalist, Stephanopoulos was an advisor to the Democratic Party. He rose to early prominence as a communications director for the 1992 presidential campaign of Bill Clinton and subsequently became White House communications director. He was later senior advisor for policy and strategy, before departing in December 1996.
George Stephanopoulos was born in Fall River, Massachusetts, the son of Robert George Stephanopoulos and Nickolitsa "Nikki" Gloria (née Chafos). His parents were of Greek descent. His father was a Greek Orthodox priest and dean emeritus of the Archdiocesan Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in New York City. His mother was the director of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America National News Service for many years. His sister is Mother Agapia Stephanopoulos.
Following some time in Purchase, New York, Stephanopoulos moved to the eastern suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, where he graduated in 1978 from Orange High School in Pepper Pike.
In 1982, Stephanopoulos received a Bachelor of Arts degree (summa cum laude) with a major in political science from Columbia University in New York, and was the salutatorian of his class. While at Columbia, he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa his junior year and was awarded a Harry S. Truman Scholarship. He was also a sports broadcaster for 89.9 WKCR-FM, the university's radio station. As a student, he lived in Carman Hall and East Campus.
Stephanopoulos attended Balliol College at the University of Oxford in England, as a Rhodes Scholar, earning a Master of Arts in Theology in 1984.
Stephanopoulos worked in Washington, D.C. as an aide to Ed Feighan of Ohio, a Democratic congressman. His job included drafting letters, memos, and speeches. His salary was reportedly $14,500 a year. He later became Feighan's chief of staff.
In 1988, Stephanopoulos worked on the U.S. presidential campaign of Michael Dukakis. He noted that one of his attractions to the campaign was that Dukakis was a Greek-American liberal from Massachusetts. After the campaign, Stephanopoulos became an executive floor assistant to Dick Gephardt, U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader; he held this position until he joined the Clinton campaign.
Stephanopoulos was, with David Wilhelm and James Carville, a leading member of Clinton's 1992 U.S. presidential campaign. His role on the campaign is portrayed in the documentary film The War Room (1993).
In the Clinton administration, Stephanopoulos served as a senior advisor for policy and strategy. His initiatives focused on crime legislation, affirmative action, and health care. His salary was reportedly $125,000 per year. At the outset of Clinton's presidency, Stephanopoulos also served as the de facto press secretary, briefing the press even though Dee Dee Myers was officially the White House Press Secretary. Stephanopoulos was regarded as a member of Bill Clinton's inner circle.
In 1994, after Paula Jones accused Bill Clinton of sexual harassment, Stephanopoulos and James Carville sought to discredit her allegations against Clinton. Both men suggested that Jones was just seeking cash for her story. Stephanopoulos also successfully sought to keep Jones's news conference off television. Stephanopoulos called NBC journalist Tim Russert, CNN chairman Tom Johnson, as well as several others, whom he convinced to keep her conference off television.
On February 25, 1994, Stephanopoulos and Harold Ickes had a conference call with Roger Altman to discuss the Resolution Trust Corporation's choice of Republican lawyer Jay Stephens to head the Madison Guaranty investigation as well as discussing if Stephens could be removed. The Madison Guaranty investigation would later turn into the Whitewater controversy.
In 1995, as he pulled out of a parking space in front of a restaurant in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C., his car collided with a parked vehicle. Stephanopoulos was arrested and charged with leaving the scene of an accident and driving with an expired license and license plates. White House press secretary, Mike McCurry, said that President Clinton told Stephanopoulos "not to worry about" the accident but to get his license renewed. The charge of leaving the scene of an accident was subsequently dropped.
In 1999 Stephanopoulos and James Carville were sued for defamation by Gennifer Flowers. Stephanopoulos had made comments about her allegations that she had an affair with Bill Clinton. He accused Flowers of doctoring her taped conversation with Clinton to make her story look credible. Stephanopoulos also called her story "tabloid trash", "garbage", and "crap". The suit was dismissed since his comments were not the basis for defamation.
Stephanopoulos resigned from the Clinton administration shortly after Clinton was re-elected in 1996. Stephanopoulos is credited as among the first inside the White House to recognize the damage the Lewinsky affair could cause to the Clinton presidency.
His memoir, All Too Human: A Political Education (1999), was published after he left the White House during Clinton's second term. It quickly became a number-one bestseller on The New York Times Best Seller list for five weeks. In the book, Stephanopoulos spoke of his depression and how his face broke out into hives due to the pressures of conveying the Clinton White House message. Clinton, referencing the book in his autobiography, My Life, expressed regret for the excessive pressure he placed on the young staffer.
Stephanopoulos's book covers his time with Clinton from the day he met him in September 1991, to the day Stephanopoulos left the White House in December 1996, through two presidential campaigns and four years in the White House. Stephanopoulos describes Clinton in the book as a "complicated man responding to the pressures and pleasures of public life in ways I found both awesome and appalling".
After leaving the White House at the end of Clinton's first term, Stephanopoulos became a political analyst for ABC News, and served as a correspondent on This Week, ABC's Sunday morning public affairs program; World News Tonight, the evening news broadcast; Good Morning America, the morning news program; along with other various special broadcasts.