Background and career
Christopher Loffredo Hayes (; born February 28, 1979) is an American political commentator, television news anchor, and author. Hayes hosts All In with Chris Hayes, a weekday news and opinion television show on MS NOW. Hayes also hosts a weekly MS NOW podcast, Why Is This Happening? Hayes formerly hosted a weekend MSNBC show, Up with Chris Hayes. He is an editor-at-large of The Nation magazine.
Hayes was born in the Bronx, New York City, one of two sons of Roger and Geri Hayes. His mother is of Italian descent and his father is of Irish Catholic ancestry. His father moved to New York from Chicago while studying at a Jesuit seminary and began community organizing in the Bronx. Roger Hayes spent several years leading community organizing at the Community Service Society of New York and works as an assistant commissioner for the NYC Department of Health. Hayes's mother was a school teacher and works for the NYC Department of Education. Hayes was raised Catholic, but stopped attending services in college and does not consider himself to be religious. He is a childhood friend and schoolmate of comedian Desus Nice. Hayes attended Hunter College High School in New York City; his classmates included Immortal Technique and Lin-Manuel Miranda. Hayes directed the latter in Miranda's first musical. He attended Brown University, majoring in philosophy and graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 2001. Speaking of "intellectual formation" at Brown with Ezra Klein, Hayes stated: "I was a philosophy major, but I was very much in this sort of analytic school. But the intellectual culture of the place I was with and the people I was with was very influenced by postmodern critique, by Foucault... particularly." At Brown, Hayes met his future wife, Kate A. Shaw.
Beginning in August 2001, and for four years, Hayes was a contributor to independent weekly newspaper Chicago Reader, for which he covered local and national politics. In late 2003, he began a four-year stint at In These Times, a labor-focused monthly magazine based in Chicago where he was a senior editor. From 2005 to 2006, Hayes was a Schumann Center Writing Fellow at In These Times. From 2006 through 2007, Hayes was a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute and a contributing writer for The Nation. On November 1, 2007, The Nation named him its Washington, D.C., editor, succeeding David Corn. Hayes wrote extensively on issues central to the liberal community, including what ails the Democratic Party in the post-9/11 era and how the labor movement is changing. He also reported on progressive activists' work to resuscitate the "public option" during the 2009–10 health-care fight, when many political insiders wrote it off as dead. Hayes was an adjunct professor of English at St. Augustine College in Chicago and a Bernard L. Schwartz fellow at New America Foundation from 2008 to 2010.
Hayes guest-hosted The Rachel Maddow Show in July 2010 while Maddow was traveling in Afghanistan, and he later often filled in for Maddow when she was absent due to his twinlike resemblance to Maddow. Hayes has also hosted other MSNBC shows such as The Ed Show, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, and The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell. On November 5, 2010, MSNBC announced that Hayes would be filling in for Keith Olbermann during Olbermann's suspension. However, the network later backtracked after finding out that Hayes, too, had made political contributions—the issue over which Olbermann was suspended. Hayes is also the most frequent guest on Late Night with Seth Meyers.
On August 1, 2011, MSNBC announced that Hayes would host a two-hour morning show on Saturdays and Sundays, each going into depth on current issues. The first airing of Up with Chris Hayes was on September 17, 2011, and featured a live interview with Nancy Pelosi. On May 27, 2012, Memorial Day weekend, Hayes made comments on air regarding the use of the word "heroism" as applied to American servicemen killed in action, stating, "I feel uncomfortable about the word because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war. And I don't want to obviously desecrate or disrespect the memory of anyone that's fallen, and obviously there are individual circumstances in which there is genuine, tremendous heroism, you know, hail of gunfire, rescuing fellow soldiers, and things like that. But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic. But maybe I'm wrong about that." His remark generated widespread controversy. Hayes initially defended his comment by urging people to listen to what he had actually said. Nonetheless, he apologized on his blog. Furthermore, on his June 2, 2012, show, he devoted a discussion to his comments and the disconnect between civilians and the military.
On March 14, 2013, MSNBC announced that Hayes would take over the time slot formerly hosted by Ed Schultz, who would move to the weekends. At 34 years old, Hayes became the youngest host of a prime-time show on any of the major U.S. cable news channels. All In with Chris Hayes, Hayes's first prime-time show, premiered on Monday, April 1, 2013. The show won an Emmy in 2015 and again in 2018.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
