Amanda Carpenter

Amanda Carpenter is a political contributor for CNN. Prior to that she was the Communications Director for Senator Ted Cruz, and previously served as Senior Communications Advisor and Speechwriter to Sen. Jim DeMint.

For both senators, Carpenter crafted countless op-eds, speeches, talking points, briefing papers, jokes, press releases, tweets, Facebook posts, and other materials on a range of subjects before the United States Senate, including but not limited to economics, campaigns, healthcare, foreign affairs, and constitutional matters. Her work for them has been published in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, and other outlets.

Roll Call featured her in a 2014 front-page profile, "Ted Cruz's Twitter Torrent: Outspoken GOP Aide Takes on Own Party" calling her "Capitol Hill's most-followed staffer" on Twitter with more than 56,000 followers.

In 2013, she led the creation of Cruz’s viral #MakeDCListen speech and campaign that pollster Frank Luntz said produced "the best political soundbyte of 2013.” In 2011, she was named by the Washington Post as one of the "Top 10 Capitol Hill Staffers to Watch."

Before going to Capitol Hill Carpenter worked for Townhall.com and then The Washington Times, where she launched several multimedia products and wrote blogs, investigative news pieces, feature magazine items, and columns. In the 2008 election cycle, she was a blogger for Glamour Magazine’s “Glamocracy” blog. Politico named her as one of the top five "best new TV pundits" as she made hundreds of TV appearances on CNN, CNBC, Fox, and MSNBC-- including a regular weekly appearance on Fox’s highly rated “O’Reilly Factor.”

In 2006 she wrote a book for Regnery Publishing, a sister company of Human Events, "The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy’s Dossier on Hillary Clinton" that, notably, highlighted the conflicts of interest presented by Bill Clinton's Clinton Global Initiative. She writes for Conservative Review under a column titled "The Arena," (working tagline: No holds barred politics.) She lives in the DC area with her husband and two young children.