David Sirota

David J. Sirota (born November 2, 1975) is an American journalist, columnist at The Guardian, editor for Jacobin, author, television writer, and screenwriter.

He is also a political commentator and radio host based in Denver.

He is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, political spokesperson, and blogger.

Sirota's career in political campaigns began when he was a research director for Illinois State Senator Howard W. Carroll's unsuccessful run for U.S. Representative in Illinois's 9th congressional district in the 1998 election; Carroll lost in the Democratic primary to Illinois State Representative Jan Schakowsky.

In 1999, Sirota served as Dwight Evans's deputy mayoral campaign manager in Philadelphia.

He was let go for "overzealous behavior" related to the creation of a fake website containing damaging racial comments attributed to Evans' opponent John White, Jr. Evans said he believed that Sirota had not created the bogus page, but had discussed it with the person who created it, who was his friend and former college classmate at Northwestern.

He served as a senior strategist for Brian Schweitzer's unsuccessful 2000 Senate campaign and successful 2004 gubernatorial campaign.

In 2003 Newsweek profiled Sirota as a "political operative" skilled at "hacking out a daily barrage of anti-Bush media clips, commentary, and snappy quotes" who made "guerrilla attacks on the Bush administration", and who was "well schooled in the art of Washington warfare."

According to the article, Sirota's main weapons were computer emails.

Sirota was described as the "Internet child of the Clinton War Room generation."

Former Clinton White House chief of staff John Podesta said of Sirota: "I just saw he had an eye for critique and the instinct for the jugular."

For example, Sirota unearthed a two-year-old comment that Colin Powell had made to the effect that "Iraq posed no threat to its neighbors, and possessed no 'significant capability' in weapons of mass destruction."

Sirota made Powell's statements more widely known.

Reporters pounced, and it became a public relations blow to the Bush administration.

Sirota was credited with having revealed that $87 billion for Iraq could have been used to erase huge state deficits at home, a fact that was repeated by Democrats nationwide.

In May 2005, Sirota became a contributor to The Huffington Post while writing his own blog.

He was a regular guest on The Al Franken Show and makes guest appearances on The Colbert Report, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, NOW, Lou Dobbs Tonight, CNBC, and NPR.

In September 2006, Sirota worked as a political consultant for Ned Lamont's U.S. Senate campaign.

Lamont defeated Joe Lieberman in the primary, but Lieberman ran as an independent and defeated Lamont in the November election.

In 2008, Sirota was co-chair of the Progressive Legislative Action Network (now renamed the Progressive States Network).

He was a senior fellow at the Campaign for America's Future.

Sirota then became a fundraiser for Joe Hoeffel in his first successful campaign for the House of Representatives in Pennsylvania's 13th congressional district.

Later he moved to Washington, D.C., and worked in the political department of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

His next job was as press aide and spokesperson for Bernie Sanders while he was serving as the at-large U.S. Representative from Vermont.

Sirota worked as spokesperson for the House Appropriations Committee.

While a fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal research and advocacy group, he created its Progress Report.

In March 2019, he began working as the senior advisor and speechwriter on the Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign.

In 2022, he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay for conceiving the story for Netflix's Don't Look Up alongside co-writer and director Adam McKay.

He is founder of The Lever (formerly The Daily Poster), an independent investigative news outlet.

Sirota was born in New Haven, Connecticut, but grew up in the Montgomery County suburbs outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

After being educated at the William Penn Charter School, he went to Northwestern University, where he earned a bachelor's degree with honors in journalism and political science.

He has lived in various cities around the country including Philadelphia, Chicago, San Diego, Washington, D.C., Helena, and Denver.

On March 19, 2019, the Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign announced it had hired Sirota to work as a senior advisor and speechwriter.

Sirota was accused of launching attacks against Sanders's Democratic opponents on Twitter and through articles for The Guardian on behalf of the campaign as early as December.

However, according to Sirota and The Guardian, the Sanders campaign did not engage in conversations related to his hiring until January.

The Guardian spokeswoman Deepal Patadia said after they were informed about the conversations Sirota quit filing columns for The Guardian.

On Twitter, Capital & Main stated on March 20, 2019,

Sirota continued to contribute to Capital & Main and interviewed Washington Governor Jay Inslee, a Democrat who launched a 2020 presidential campaign.

They talked about how Inslee planned to address the issue of climate change through his campaign.

Once The Atlantic revealed that Sirota had been advising the Sanders campaign prior to his official hire, Capital & Main’s publisher told The Atlantic that “Capital & Main did not, and would never, knowingly allow Mr. Sirota or any reporter to use our site to advocate for or against a political candidate.”