The 37-Year-Old Journalist Has Signed a New Contract With CNN After Building a Career That Has Taken Her From the Obama White House to One of the Network’s Most Prominent Political Programs
Abby Phillip has signed a new contract with the network, according to Deadline, extending a tenure that has made her one of CNN’s most recognizable Black political journalists. The length and financial terms of the agreement have not been disclosed.
The new deal keeps Phillip at the network nearly a decade after she joined CNN in 2017 and three years after taking the helm of the 10 p.m. program “CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip.”
Phillip began her journalism career at Politico, where she covered politics and the Obama White House. She later worked at ABC News before joining The Washington Post as a national political reporter.
Her early career included an experience few journalists receive at such a young age — traveling 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.”
CNN hired Phillip in 2017. She later served as a White House correspondent and senior political correspondent and moderated a Democratic presidential debate during the 2020 election cycle.
In 2021, Phillip became the first Black woman to anchor CNN’s “Inside Politics.”
‘NewsNight’ Gives Phillip a National Platform
Phillip took another major step in 2023 with the launch of “CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip.”
The program has placed Phillip at the center of nightly political conversations, where she moderates debates, interviews newsmakers and presses guests representing competing political viewpoints.
Several exchanges from the program have also spread widely online, expanding Phillip’s audience beyond CNN’s television viewers.
But Phillip has said her move into television was far from an obvious career decision.
She previously described leaving what she considered her dream job at The Washington Post as a significant professional 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,” Phillip told Marie Claire. “I’m glad that I did.”
Phillip added another title to her résumé in 2025 with the publication of “A Dream Deferred: Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black Political Power.”
Her latest CNN agreement ensures that the journalist who once questioned whether television was the right move will remain one of the network’s leading political voices.
