Kaitlan Collins taking on new role at CNN as Trump returns to White House

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, already busy anchoring the network’s news-heavy nightly show, will take on another high-pressure role as chief White House correspondent, the network confirmed Tuesday.

In doing so, the Prattville native will become CNN’s first prime-time anchor to also serve as its top White House reporter.

It’s a return gig for Collins, who in 2021 became the youngest chief White House correspondent in CNN history. She gave up the position in 2022 to serve as the co-host of CNN’s ill-fated morning show, which was based in New York.

Still, that role helped propel her to a spot in the network’s evening lineup in the summer of 2023 as the host of “The Source with Kaitlan Collins.”

Collins and her show will now split time between New York and Washington, where she will be at the center of CNN’s reporting on the second Trump administration.

CNN Chairman Mark Thompson said Collins is “the perfect person to lead coverage of the new Trump White House.”

For the past few weeks, Collins has been anchoring her show from West Palm Beach, Florida, near Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, where she’s been covering the president-elect’s transition and Cabinet appointments. Collins is expected to continue anchoring from Florida until Trump’s inauguration in January. (Semafor first reported that CNN was “considering” appointing Collins as chief White House correspondent.)

Collins, 32, started her career at the Daily Caller, the right-leaning news website co-founded by Tucker Carlson, where she was promoted after two years from showbiz gossip to the 2016 campaign beat. While covering the Trump White House, she started getting booked for occasional talking-head appearances on CNN before formally joining the network.

Since then, Collins has become one of CNN’s most recognizable journalists, so much so that she is regularly spoofed on “Saturday Night Live” by cast member Chloe Fineman.

While Collins’s show attracts a smaller audience than the 9 p.m. offerings on Fox News and MSNBC, she has bucked conventional programming strategy by emphasizing newsmaker interviews rather than commentary or analysis.

“Kaitlan is a political journalist of real depth and tenacity who already boasts an amazing record of scoops and exclusive interviews,” Thompson said in a statement. “I’m excited to see what new heights she scales as she combines this key new posting with her duties as a major CNN anchor.”

By Jeremy Barr