‘NewsNight’ anchor Abby Phillip signs new deal to remain at CNN
TheGrio...
From covering the Obama White House to leading “NewsNight,” Phillip has repeatedly taken career risks that have made her one of CNN’s most prominent Black journalists.
Abby Phillip is staying put.
The CNN anchor has signed a new contract with the network, according to Deadline, securing her place at CNN; the terms and length of Phillip’s new deal have not been disclosed.
But the significance of Phillip’s continued presence at CNN goes beyond one contract.
At 37, she has already built the kind of journalism career that once might have seemed unlikely for a young reporter who initially had no interest in becoming a television personality.
Phillip began her career at Politico covering politics and the Obama White House before moving to ABC News and then The Washington Post, where she became a national political reporter. CNN came calling in 2017, and Phillip has since become one of the network’s most recognizable political journalists.
One of her earliest career-defining moments came when she was still remarkably young: flying aboard Air Force One as a White House correspondent.
“I was like 22 years old,” Phillip recalled in a 2025 interview with Marie Claire. “I was walking onto that plane as a White House Correspondent. And it was crazy. It was so surreal.”
Her career continued to rack up milestones. In 2021, Phillip became the first Black woman to anchor CNN’s “Inside Politics” after previously serving as the network’s senior political correspondent and White House correspondent. She also moderated a Democratic presidential debate during the 2020 election cycle.
Then came “CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip.”
Launched in 2023, the 10 p.m. program gave Phillip a larger platform to moderate political debates, interview newsmakers and bring together competing perspectives on the biggest stories of the day.
The show has also given Phillip moments that have traveled well beyond the television screen, particularly when her measured but pointed questioning has gone viral.
Yet Phillip’s journey has never been about following the safest path.
She once described leaving what she considered her dream job at The Washington Post for television as a major risk.
“I look at it as an open door that I chose to walk through despite the risks to my career, despite the chance I could suck at it,” she told Marie Claire. “I’m glad that I did.”
That willingness to keep walking through unfamiliar doors may be the defining feature of Phillip’s career. In 2025, she added author to her resume with her book, “A Dream Deferred: Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black Political Power.”
And now, with a new CNN deal reportedly in place, she has another opportunity to show what happens when you keep betting on yourself.