Terry Moran
Terry Moran is a D.C.-based anchor for ABC News Live and the network’s senior national correspondent. A veteran and award-winning court reporter, Moran also leads ABC News’ coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Moran secured the exclusive interview with President Donald J. Trump on the first 100 days of his second presidency. During the 2024 presidential campaign—the eighth presidential cycle he has covered—Moran traveled the country, reported from the Republican and Democratic National Conventions and participated in ABC News’ election night coverage.
Prior to his current role, Moran served as ABC News’ chief foreign correspondent from 2013 to 2018. Based in London, Moran reported from dozens of countries, covering conflicts across the globe, including Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Central African Republic and beyond, and major international stories such as the migration crisis in Europe; Brexit; Pope Francis’ trips to the United States, Cuba, the Holy Land and more; terror attacks across Europe; and natural disasters from Italy to Nepal to the Philippines.
Moran was co-anchor of “Nightline,” where he led the program’s distinguished coverage of major news stories from 2005 to 2013. Moran reported extensively from overseas for “Nightline,” covering the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
In 2013, Moran had a rare look from within the war-torn country of Syria and reported on the conflict in the capital of Damascus. In May of 2012, he traveled to Bolivia to interview an American man who was imprisoned and went uncharged by authorities after accusations of money laundering. His report revealed the corrupt judicial system that exists there and the chaos within an unguarded prison.
Moran extensively covered the 2012 and 2016 elections for “Nightline,” where he reported on both party conventions, the presidential and vice presidential debates, election night, and the 2013 and 2017 inaugurations. Additionally in 2012, he reported for “Nightline” and all ABC News programs on the Supreme Court’s historic ruling to uphold the Affordable Care Act.
Moran led “Nightline”’s coverage of former President Barack Obama’s administration and his extraordinary presidential campaign in 2008. He has conducted nine one-on-one interviews with Barack Obama, dating back to 2006, giving him a unique insight into this president. Among his groundbreaking interviews are an exclusive and wide-ranging conversation about race in America just after then-Sen. Obama’s major speech on the subject in Philadelphia in March of 2008, an exclusive interview in Baghdad with then-Sen. Obama in August 2008, and a July 2009 interview in Florida with then-President Obama on health care, Afghanistan, and the power of prayer in the president’s life.
Throughout the 2008 campaign, Moran crisscrossed the country, interviewing and spending time covering the campaigns of late former Sen. John McCain, former Sen. John Edwards, former Gov. Mitt Romney, former Gov. Mike Huckabee and late former Gov. Bill Richardson. He anchored “Nightline” from Iowa, New Hampshire and other primary battlegrounds.
In March of 2009, Moran underwent DNA testing to discover whether he carried genetic markers associated with Alzheimer’s disease, which runs in his family. The resulting story was an emotional account of the toll the disease takes in America, and a powerful call to action.
In May of 2009, Moran reported from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on the raging drug violence that has brought the country to the brink of chaos. His interview with a confessed hit man in one of Mexico’s most notorious gangs exposed blatant corruption of U.S. law enforcement officials in the multi-billion-dollar cross-border drug-trafficking business.
In June of 2006, Moran traveled to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for a week-long “Nightline” series on the American detention facility there and the controversies surrounding interrogation techniques, conditions, and the legal status of the 200-plus men held there as “enemy combatants.” He was at Guantanamo Bay when the Supreme Court handed down its landmark ruling on the rights of the detainees, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, and he reported on the case and its impact for all ABC News programs.
Among the major domestic news stories Moran has covered for “Nightline,” he led the program’s coverage for a week from Blacksburg, covering the tragedy at Virginia Tech; spent a week reporting on the California wildfires in the fall of 2007, hosting “Nightline”’s critically acclaimed one-hour special from the fire zone; was on the scene in Los Angeles reporting on the huge immigration rallies there in May of 2006; and has chronicled the continuing struggle of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast to recover from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. He was on the Gulf Coast when the storm slammed ashore in 2005, reporting for all ABC News programs.
Moran has interviewed a wide range of celebrities, musicians and authors, including Kanye West, Keira Knightley, Khaled Hosseini (author of “A Thousand Splendid Suns”), Natalie Portman, Francis Ford Coppola and Ryan Seacrest. Prior to co-anchoring “Nightline,” he was ABC News’ chief white house correspondent for six years, covering the administrations of former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. In 2006, he was honored by the White House Correspondents Association with the Merriman Smith Award for excellence in presidential reporting on deadline. In 2007, he received the George Foster Peabody Award for his work reporting and anchoring the one-hour ABC News documentary “Out of Control: AIDS in Black America.” In 2012, Moran won a shared Emmy® with “Nightline” for Outstanding Continuing Coverage of a News Story in a Regular Scheduled Newscast.
In 2004, Moran was named anchor of “World News Tonight” Sunday, a position he held until joining “Nightline.”
A key member of the ABC News team covering the events of September 11, 2001, Moran continued to report on all aspects of the war on terror while covering the Bush administration. He reported from the White House throughout the war with Iraq during the spring of 2003. In November of 2003, he traveled to Baghdad to report on the U.S.-led occupation and the violent insurgency against it.
Moran covered former Vice President Al Gore’s presidential campaign. He traveled extensively, reporting on the primary battles between Gore and former Senator Bill Bradley in Iowa, New Hampshire and on Super Tuesday. During the hard-fought general election campaign, he logged thousands of miles with Gore and spent Election Day in Nashville, where he reported on the historic events that night. For the next 35 days, he covered the legal battle for the White House, and on the night the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of Bush v. Gore, it was from listening to Moran’s clear explanation of the Court’s opinion that Vice President Gore himself learned he had lost the presidency.
In 1999, Moran traveled to the Balkans to cover the war in Kosovo and its troubled aftermath. From the refugee camps in Macedonia to the Roma neighborhoods of Pristina, he investigated war-crimes stories and reported on the human impact of the ethnic-cleansing campaigns launched by both Serbs and Kosovars.
Prior to covering politics and policy, Moran spent 10 years covering law. From 1998 to 1999, he was the primary ABC News correspondent assigned to the U.S. Supreme Court. He filed stories on several major cases, including Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, a case that raised the issue of schools’ liability for student-on-student sexual harassment. Other legal stories he has covered for ABC News include the murder trial of British au pair Louise Woodward in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the fourth trial of Dr. Jack Kevorkian; the trial of the Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski; the Microsoft antitrust case; and the Portland, Oregon, trial of antiabortion activists sued for contributing to a website that the jury found illegally threatened abortion providers.
Prior to joining ABC News in 1997, Moran was a correspondent and anchor for Court TV. He received critical acclaim for his nightly coverage of the day’s events in the murder trial of O.J. Simpson and for his extensive reports during the trial of Erik and Lyle Menendez, when the Los Angeles brothers first faced charges for the shotgun murders of their parents. He also traveled to Bosnia and The Hague to cover the first international war-crimes trial since World War II—that of a Bosnian Serb named Dusko Tadic. In addition, he was Court TV’s correspondent for the Supreme Court confirmation debates over Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. Before joining Court TV, he was a reporter and assistant managing editor for Legal Times.
Moran has written for several publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New Republic Magazine, where he began his career in journalism.
