Biography

Briahna Joy Gray was born in Washington, D.C. in 1985 to Reuben Gray and Leslie Fair-Gray, both teachers. She was raised largely in North Carolina and spent parts of her childhood in Saudi Arabia and Kenya while her parents taught at international schools. She earned both her bachelor's degree and her law degree from Harvard.

She began writing for The Intercept in 2018, and in 2019 was named National Press Secretary for Bernie Sanders's 2020 presidential campaign — one of the most visible Black women in the campaign's leadership and a central voice defending its policy platform on national television throughout the primary.

After the campaign she wrote for Current Affairs and, from September 2022, co-hosted Rising, The Hill's daily web program. She was fired in June 2024 following a contentious on-air interview with the sister of an Israeli hostage held by Hamas — a departure that became a flashpoint in the broader argument over the limits of acceptable speech on Gaza in American media.

She hosts the Bad Faith podcast, an independent, listener-funded program known for long-form interviews and for pressing Democratic politicians on the gap between their rhetoric and their voting records. She remains an independent, aligned with the left of the party rather than in it.

Bad Faith & Independent Commentary

Bad Faith occupies a specific niche in left media: it is less interested in relitigating Republicans than in interrogating Democrats — particularly the distance between progressive branding and material policy outcomes. Gray's legal training shows in the interview style, which tends toward cross-examination.

Her firing from Rising made her a case study in the media consequences of dissent on Gaza, and considerably expanded her independent audience. She has been a consistent advocate for Medicare for All, and among the sharpest critics of AIPAC's spending in Democratic primaries — the same spending that targeted Cori Bush, Summer Lee, and Randy Villegas.

Gray is a genuinely contentious figure within left media, and has had public falling-outs with other prominent voices in this space. She is included here for her role in the Sanders campaign and her continued independent platform, not as an endorsement of every position she has taken.

Medicare for All
Racial justice
Money out of politics
Anti-war
Independent media
Left accountability

In the press