Some of the most interesting conversations I’ve had on this show are the ones where I’m actually talking to a peer — someone who’s been doing this work at the same time I have, in the same city, navigating the same chaos.
That’s this episode.
Deirdre Walsh has been covering Capitol Hill since 2006 — CNN first, then NPR, now NOTUS, where she’s helping lead a newsroom that is genuinely doing something different. I’ve known Deirdre for years, and this is one of those conversations where I kept thinking: more people should hear this.
We got into a lot of things. How being a parent changed the stories she pitched — when Congress was debating a social media bill and she was simultaneously fighting her teenager about Discord, she knew that story from the inside in a way no briefing book could give her. The camaraderie of the Capitol Hill press corps — the informal COVID pool, the shared files, the reporter-to-reporter trust that outsiders almost never see. The shrinking number of members she can trust not to spin her, and why that matters more than it might seem.
And a few things that surprised even me. There is a pickleball court on the fifth floor of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Ted Cruz plays basketball there. Kirsten Gillibrand plays tennis. The Pickleball Caucus has converted it twice a week. I did not know this.
But the story I keep thinking about is the STOCK Act loophole she cracked in 2012. She covered the bill for months. A source offhandedly mentioned that the House and Senate were interpreting the rules differently. She started pulling on that thread with her colleague Dana Bash. What they found: one chamber’s interpretation let congressional spouses trade on insider knowledge without ever having to disclose it. They reported it. Congress closed the loophole a few days later. “You always dream of making Congress react to your reporting,” she said. That’s the dream and she lived it.
The advice she carries from her first job — watching Judy Woodruff prepare — is simple: do the work you can control. Be ready. Then adjust.
That one lands.
