Tara Setmayer

Tara Olivia Setmayer^[1] (born September 9, 1975), is currently an ABC News Political Contributor and former GOP communications director on Capitol Hill. She has appeared on ABC's The View^[2], ABC's Good Morning America and HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher. Prior to joining ABC, Tara was a CNN political commentator from 2014 through the 2016 presidential election cycle, and subsequently appeared on CNN political panels as a guest contributor in 2017. She currently writes for Cosmopolitan, and has contributed to The Daily Beast and CNN.com. She has also guest-hosted on SiriusXM's Patriot and POTUS channels. 

Setmayer analyses and commentates on political issues that impact America's future. During the 2016 presidential election cycle, she earned the reputation of being an outspoken conservative critic of Donald Trump and challenged his surrogates on the veracity of their claims.

Early life and education

Setmayer was born in 1975 in Queens, New York but raised in Paramus, a borough of Bergen County in northern New Jersey.^[3] Her family has been long time residents of Paramus, where her grandfather Emil Setmayer, served 40 years with the Paramus Police Department, retiring as captain and 71 years with the Paramus Company 03 Volunteer Fire Department. She was educated at Paramus High School, a public high school in Bergen County, New Jersey, from which she graduated in 1993, followed by The George Washington University in Washington D.C., where she majored in Political Science with a focus on public policy and Journalism.^[4]

Setmayer is bi-racial. Her mother is German and Italian and her father is from Guatemala.

Life and career

Setmayer is married and currently resides the New York City area.

Setmayer served as a former research fellow and communications specialist for the Coalition on Urban Renewal & Education (CURE), a non-profit organization dealing with the impact of social policies on America’s inner cities and the poor. She also served as a political trainer for GOPAC, a conservative organization specializing in educating, organizing and training grassroots Republicans intending to run for public office.^[5]

From 2006—2013, Setmayer worked in the U.S. House of Representatives as the Communications Director for Republican Representative Dana Rohrabacher of California, during which she handled immigration and federal law enforcement policy issues, and led the national effort to free Border Patrol Agents Ramos and Compean through a presidential commutation.^[5]

For over two years, Setmayer served as a community liaison advocating on a variety of issues including affordable housing and services for the chronically homeless and children in South Florida where she co-founded a faith based homeless program. She was a regular panelist on the women’s issues program To the Contrary on PBS, and was featured in several local and national publications including The Wall Street Journal, The Hill newspaper, and Ebony magazine, on terrestrial radio syndication and satellite, News & Notes and Tell Me More on NPR and XM Radio.^[5] As a media commentator, she has appeared on a range of television programs on CNN, CNN International, ABC, Fox News and HBO.^[5]

CNN

In 2014, Setmayer joined CNN as a conservative political commentator, contributing to a wide range of programs, including Erin Burnett OutFront, Anderson Cooper 360° and CNN Tonight. During panel discussion programs on the network, she has expressed strong opposition to Donald Trump.^[6]

References

External links

• Tara Setmayer — CNN profile
• Tara Setmayer on Facebook
• Tara Setmayer on Twitter