Gabe Fleisher: The Boy Who Scooped Bill De Blasio
Gabe Fleisher Image by Courtesy of Gabe Fleisher
One Wednesday in May after a school exam, Gabe Fleisher tripped across a Facebook event from a county Democratic Party page in Iowa that said Sioux City was the first stop on Bill de Blasio’s “Presidential announcement tour.” This was interesting — because de Blasio had not yet announced he was actually running. So Fleisher, now 18, Tweeted it.
Fleisher’s email newsletter, “Wake Up to Politics,” has 50,000 subscribers, including a contributing editor at The Atlantic, an anchor at MSNBC and the founder of Politico. Fleisher, who lives in a suburb of St. Louis, Mo., has pushed through a police canine unit to get to Jeff Sessions. He’s interviewed Nancy Pelosi. He’s covered primary debates. But in the summer, like any nice Jewish boy, he takes a break from politics and goes to camp.
Gabe Fleisher Image by Courtesy of Gabe Fleisher
What’s the last thing you listened to on your phone? “The West Wing Weekly” podcast
Earliest Jewish memory: My upsherin at age 3!
Hero: Ralph Carr, the late governor of Colorado who was the only elected official to oppose Japanese-American interment (and the subject of my Bar Mitzvah d’var torah)
2019 memory Being able to interview New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio after scooping his presidential announcement
What is your favorite thing about being Jewish? Feeling a connection to fellow Jews all around the world, transcending nationality and culture
What app can you not live without? Twitter, for better or for worse
Weekend ritual: Sleeping in
Read more:
Gabe’s scoop in the New Yorker
Gabe’s newsletter in the New York Times
Follow Gabe Fleishman on Twitter @WakeUp2Politics and Instagram: @wakeuptopolitics
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion My Jewish moms group ousted me because I work for J Street. Is this what communal life has come to?
- 2
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
- 3
Politics Meet America’s potential first Jewish second family: Josh Shapiro, Lori, and their 4 kids
- 4
Fast Forward How Coke’s Passover recipe sparked an antisemitic conspiracy theory
In Case You Missed It
-
Film & TV In ‘The Rehearsal’ season 2, is Nathan Fielder serious?
-
Fast Forward Pro-Israel groups called for Mohsen Mahdawi’s deportation. He was arrested at a citizenship interview.
-
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
-
Opinion This Nazi-era story shows why Trump won’t fix a terrifying deportation mistake
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.