Alex Marquardt is the network’s Chief National Security Correspondent based in CNN’s Washington bureau.

Since rejoining the network in May 2017, he has helped lead domestic and international breaking news coverage on a wide range of stories, including the war in Ukraine, the January 6 insurrection, Black Lives Matter protests and ongoing foreign policy and national security issues.

Marquardt was in Ukraine when Russia invaded in February 2022. He previously spent most of his career as an award-winning foreign correspondent for ABC News based in Moscow, Jerusalem, Beirut and London. During that time, he was on the front lines of the wars and uprisings in the Middle East as well as reporting on the refugee and migrant crisis and the wave of terror attacks across Europe. Marquardt was among the first correspondents in Cairo as the revolution there exploded, he made many trips into Syria to report on the war from both the regime and rebel sides, he was on the ground in Gaza in 2012 and 2014 during the wars with Israel and traveled across southern and eastern Ukraine after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Before his international posts, Marquardt was an “embed” reporter with CNN during the 2008 presidential election. He traveled with and covered a number of candidates, including then-Senators Obama, Biden, and Clinton, as well as Governors Romney and Huckabee.

Marquardt has won Emmy, Edward R. Murrow and Gracie awards, notably for an undercover investigation of underage sex trafficking in the Philippines.
Marquardt got into journalism first as an NBC Page and then later as an anchor for Channel One News. He graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service after growing up Europe and the Middle East.