Margaret Hoover

Margaret Claire Hoover was born on December 11, 1977, in Colorado. She is the daughter of Jean (née Williams), a flight attendant, and Andrew Hoover, a mining engineer. Hoover is a great-granddaughter of Herbert Hoover, who served as the 31st President of the United States from 1929 to 1933.

Her early education took place at Graland Country Day School, an independent co-educational day school located in Denver. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Spanish literature with a minor in political science from Bryn Mawr College in 2001. Prior to that, she attended Davidson College for two years but did not complete a degree there. Hoover studied Spanish-language literature and Mandarin Chinese and participated in study abroad programs in Bolivia, Mexico, and China.

Following her graduation, Hoover moved to Taipei and was employed as a research assistant and editor at a Taiwanese law firm. She arrived in Taipei on the day of the September 11, 2001, attacks and returned to the United States in 2002.

In her career, Hoover worked for the administration of President George W. Bush as associate director of Intergovernmental Affairs. She contributed to Bush's 2004 re-election campaign and served as Deputy Finance Director for Rudy Giuliani’s 2006–07 presidential bid. Additionally, Hoover worked as a staffer for Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart on Capitol Hill and served as an Advisor to the Deputy Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security.

Hoover is involved in several organizational boards, including the board of overseers at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Association, and the Belgian American Educational Foundation. She has also served on the advisory council of The American Foundation for Equal Rights and GOProud.

Politically, Hoover identifies as a Republican with libertarian views on social issues. She advocates for gay rights, including same-sex marriage, viewing individual freedom and marriage as core conservative values. In 2013, she signed an amicus curiae brief submitted to the Supreme Court in support of same-sex marriage in the case Hollingsworth v. Perry. She has publicly opposed Donald Trump and indicated that she found the 2020 presidential election to present a binary choice, with her suggesting she would likely vote for Joe Biden instead of Trump.

As a political commentator, Hoover contributed to Fox News from 2008 to 2012, appearing on programs such as Bill O'Reilly's The O'Reilly Factor, where she engaged in discussions on entertainment, culture, and politics. She became a CNN contributor in 2012. In 2014, Hoover hosted the Toyota Solutions Studio at the Women In The World conference at Lincoln Center, where she conducted interviews with various participants. She was announced as the host of Firing Line on PBS in April 2018.

Hoover hosts Firing Line with Margaret Hoover, a revival of William F. Buckley Jr.'s Firing Line, which originally aired for 33 years. Her version of the show debuted on June 2, 2018, on WNET in New York. The New York Times has noted that her hosting fosters civil and substantive discourse. In 2019, she was named Journalist of the Year by The Algemeiner for her work on the program.

In her personal life, Hoover is married to John Avlon, a former CNN contributor, Rudy Giuliani speechwriter, Newsweek columnist, and former Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Beast. The couple has two children: a son born in 2013 and a daughter born in 2015.

Her published work includes the book "American Individualism: How a New Generation of Conservatives Can Save the Republican Party," released in July 2011 by Crown Forum.