Carney has witnessed and participated in some of the most critical moments in modern history.
On Sept. 11, 2001, he was one of just a handful of journalists on board Air Force One with President George W. Bush as the World Trade Center Towers collapsed. He was in the Oval Office serving as a top aide to President Barack Obama as the he prepared to tell the nation Osama bin Laden had been eliminated.
As White House Press Secretary from 2011 to 2014, Carney was the primary spokesman for the Obama Administration.
A native of Virginia, Carney received a bachelor of arts degree from Yale University before starting a career in journalism at The Miami Herald. He joined TIME in 1988 as Miami bureau chief. He was dispatched in 1990 to Moscow to cover the historic transformation of the Soviet bloc and the collapse of the U.S.S.R. In 1993, he moved to Washington to cover the Clinton White House, a job that lasted through the impeachment and trial of Clinton to the 2000 presidential campaign of George W. Bush.
Carney made the transition from reporting to the White House in 2008, when he ended a 20-year career at TIME to become Vice President Joe Biden’s communication director.
He held that position for the first two years of the Obama Administration. In January 2011, Obama asked Carney to become White House press secretary, a position Carney held for longer than any of his recent predecessors.
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