Manu Raju

Manu Raju (born February 9, 1980) is an American journalist who serves as the chief congressional correspondent at the news network CNN, covering the United States Congress and campaign politics. He is also anchor of the Sunday edition of CNN's Inside Politics with Manu Raju. Raju previously reported for Politico as a senior Capitol Hill correspondent and for other D.C. news outlets as well. Raju has won multiple journalism awards for his reporting on D.C. and his coverage of campaign politics. Raju moderated debates for the 2014 United States Senate election in Colorado and the 2014 Colorado gubernatorial election. He has regularly interviewed major political figures on national TV, including house speakers Paul Ryan and Nancy Pelosi, Republican senate leader Mitch McConnell, former senate minority leader Harry Reid, and senators Marco Rubio, John McCain, and Lindsey Graham. Early life and education Raju grew up in Darien, Illinois, the son of Tonse N. K. Raju and Vidya Raju who migrated from Karnataka, India, in the 1970s and both later worked at the National Institutes of Health. His father, Tonse Raju, is a neonatologist and formerly a professor of pediatrics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His grandfather Gopalakrishna Adiga was a poet from India who wrote in Kannada. Raju attended Hinsdale South High School, graduating in 1998. He attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison, graduating in 2002 with a degree in business administration. During college, Raju worked as the sports editor for The Badger Herald student newspaper. Career Raju first started working on the assignment desk at WMTV in Madison, Wisconsin, before moving to Washington, D.C. in 2002. There, he took a job with Inside Washington Publishers, covering environmental policy. He later worked for Congressional Quarterly, The Hill, and Politico, where he reported for seven years before joining CNN in September 2015. Before joining CNN, Raju was a regular guest on many networks and programs, including NBC's Meet the Press and CBS' Face the Nation. When he was hired by CNN, Erik Wemple of The Washington Post called the move a "towering get" for the network.