Tara Setmayer Biography

Tara Setmayer, who grew up among a predominantly democrat population, instead became a staunch conservative who worked in the U.S. House of Representatives as the Communications Director for Republican Representative, Dana Rohrabacher, of California, from 2006 to 2013. In this role, her responsibilities included handling immigration and federal law enforcement policy issues. During this time, she led the national effort to free unjustly imprisoned Border Patrol Agents Ramos and Compean through a presidential commutation.

In August 2013, she became an on-air co-host on the nightly one-hour political news program 'The Real News' on The Blaze TV. In December 2014, she joined CNN as a political commentator, following which she became known for her no-nonsense commentary and analysis on political issues that impact America's future. She briefly joined ABC News in May 2017 as a political contributor, but continued to appear on CNN political panels as a guest contributor before eventually returning to CNN. In September 2018, she began hosting the podcast, 'Honestly Speaking with Tara', which focuses on "politics, culture and common sense from a conservative point of view".

Tara Setmayer was a research fellow and communications specialist for the Coalition on Urban Renewal & Education (CURE), a non-profit organization that aims to address issues of culture, race and poverty from a Judeo-Christian conservative perspective. She has been a community liaison advocating on a variety of issues including affordable housing and services for the chronically homeless and children in South Florida for over two years. Later, she co-founded a faith based homeless program there with her mother. She has been a longtime member of the National Advisory Council for Project 21. She also served as a political trainer for GOPAC, a conservative organization specializing in educating, organizing and training grassroots Republicans.

In September 2017, she served as an AEI Leadership Network Member for the American Enterprise Institute. Next month, she joined the Board of Directors of 'Stand Up Republic', a non-profit organized which was formed following the 2016 election of Donald Trump with the aim of uniting "Americans across the political spectrum around the ideals of liberty, equality and truth" at a time when "the two major political parties moving toward ideological extremes".

Tara Setmayer landed into a controversy in October 2018 when she called rapper and Trump supporter Kanye West "an attention whore, like the president". Bakari Sellers, her co-commentator, maintained that "Kanye West is what happens when Negroes don’t read." Setmayer further added, "He’s all of a sudden now the model spokesperson. He’s the token Negro of the Trump administration?" In December 2018, reacting to the fact that newly-appointed Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney had previously called Trump a "terrible human being", she called most Trump surrogates hypocrites and cowards who sold their souls. She also added that while many were leaving the Republican Party, she decided to stay because "somebody has to stand by and hold them accountable". In March 2019, she stated that it was disheartening to watch "Republicans clap like seals to that lunacy of a yesterday by the president" at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

Tara Olivia Setmayer was born on September 9, 1975 in Queens, United States. Tara was raised by her mother in Paramus, a borough of Bergen County in northern New Jersey, where her grandfather, Emil Setmayer, served with the Paramus Police Department for 40 years before retiring as captain. She graduated from Paramus High School, a local public high school, in 1993. She next attended The George Washington University in Washington D.C. from where she completed her major in Political Science with a focus on public policy and journalism in 1998.

She is currently married to law enforcement agent Marcelle Love. The couple got married in a private ceremony at Castello di Caccamo in the coastal Italian city of Sicily on September 4, 2013.