Thirty years in rooms with presidents and secretaries of state, and the people she credits most are her grandmother, her mom, and her "Diplobabes"

My new episode of How She Led Me is with Elise Labott — and it’s a good one.

Elise spent decades as CNN’s global affairs correspondent, covering the State Department under seven secretaries of state and reporting from over 100 countries. Now she writes Cosmopolitics, her Substack on global affairs, and shows up everywhere from MSNBC to NPR to the BBC.

We didn’t talk only about foreign policy. We talked about who actually shaped her.

She opens up about the Diplobabes — a crew of women journalists who covered the State Department and who’ve stuck together for 15 years through layoffs, marriages, grief, and grandkids, and are still doing an annual “Diplomas” Christmas with white elephant gifts. She talks about her grandmother Libby, who took her in during her scrappy first journalism job and taught her that kindness costs nothing. We also talked her mom, Janice, who’s lived with MS for decades and refuses to slow down — including a 70th birthday trip to Vegas that ends in the best photo you’ll see all week. And she’s honest about the career grind too: getting suspended from CNN over a tweet, fighting to get on air, and learning to stop letting anonymous comments decide how she feels about herself.

Thirty years in rooms with presidents and secretaries of state, and the people she credits most are her grandmother, her mom, and her friends.

Watch the full episode now on How She Led Me.

Thank you for tuning in!