Abby Phillip remains calm amid political chaos on CNN's 'NewsNight'

Abby Phillip prefers to lead a life of softness.

She bakes homemade sourdough bread and dreams of attending culinary school. Her favorite dish to prepare is beef short rib à la Martha Stewart. Phillip longs to play the piano again, a hobby she first took up at 5. Now 37, she spends any free time she can grasp away from the swarm of New York City’s bar-crawling social scene.

On one recent March morning, she compared her role managing a rotating panel of liberals and conservatives on her sometimes-combative CNN show to her off-air priorities: raising her 4-year-old daughter, Naomi.

"One of the things that you learn pretty early on is that if you match their energy with your energy, things just spiral out of control," Phillip told USA TODAY from her New York abode last month. "So sometimes you have to just sort of get people's attention calmly."

"NewsNight" premiered two years into President Joe Biden's term in 2023, swiftly finding an online audience with panelists across the political spectrum. She hosts an additional Saturday morning version, "Table for Five."

Phillip – the only Black woman to helm a primetime news program in the United States – has garnered praise for keeping her cool amid the show's heated hour-long runtime. Symone Sanders Townsend co-anchors "The Weeknight" on MS NOW at 7 p.m. and "Laura Coates Live" follows Phillip's program at 11 p.m. ET. But Phillip's show "NewsNight" occupies the most coveted three-hour block of evening programming to viewers.

Phillip has also fielded her share of criticism. Conservative media personality Megyn Kelly and podcaster Katie Miller, who is married to Trump immigration policy czar Stephen Miller, are among those on the right to label Phillip as biased. "I am not a Republican Party official or Democratic Party official," Phillip said in a contentious on-air conversation with Miller, who accused the host of being slanted during a discussion about free speech.

Dubbed "next-gen CNN" by The New York Times, Phillip rose to fame after reporting stints at Politico, The Washington Post and ABC News. She grew up in Bowie, Maryland, about 40 minutes from the White House, and joined CNN in 2017 to cover the first year of Donald Trump's first term. She became a star at the network by 2020, moderating a debate of Democratic presidential contenders that year and then adding deeper context to CNN's coverage of Trump's tumultuous White House exit.

'Americans with different perspectives' engage with Phillip

Six years later, on the April 8 edition of "NewsNight," Phillip was joined by The Root publisher Ashley Allison; Republican advisor Brad Todd; former Democratic National Committee spokesperson Xochitl Hinojosa; right-leaning strategist Shermichael Singleton; and journalist Reena Ninan.

"Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here they do," Phillip said in a pre-recorded opening, as she does at the top of each show.

The White House's ceasefire with Iran landed on the roundtable menu. Ashley Allison, the former national coalitions director for Biden's 2020 campaign, chimed in about Trump's handling of the war.

"Everyday Americans, including myself, are not going to know the intimate war plans, or at least, we shouldn't when you don't accidentally send them over Signal," Allison said.

That last reference was to Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth and other members of the Trump administration's use of an encrypted messaging service last year to discuss a covert military operation in Yemen, in a chat that accidentally included The Atlantic editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg.

"We should not know the war plans," Allison continued, arguing that Trump's original reason for entering the Iran conflict was unclear. "You had to put that in, huh?" Republican strategist Singleton joked, referencing the Signal shade. "I did. I keep my receipts," Allison responded.

While the program has produced lighter moments for political junkies, such as the Allison-Singleton banter, clips of occasional spats between panelists have made the show a messy must-watch for virtual viewers who casually tune in to the tussles on social media.

'It's important to just really tell the truth'

The content is reminiscent of the Elisabeth Hasselbeck vs. Rosie O'Donnell matchup on "The View." That daytime pair dished out opposing takes during the George W. Bush era, whereas "NewsNight" debuted as Trump resurrected his political career.

The show's star conservative commentator, Scott Jennings, made headlines in December after former Democratic state Rep. Bakari Sellers, of South Carolina, gave him a friendly nudge on the arm during a testy on-air debate about Trump and gas prices. "Don't touch me," Jennings fired back.

Phillip frequently challenges Jennings, but her most notable rebuke involved fitness trainer Jillian Michaels in August last year. During a discussion about the Smithsonian, Phillip chided Michaels for peddling false claims about the history of slavery in America.

The former "Biggest Loser" coach was parroting a longstanding claim, often circulated online, that misrepresented slave ownership in America by claiming that "less than 2% of White Americans owned slaves."

Phillip cut into the debate and said that she was "surprised" that Michaels was "trying to litigate who was the beneficiary of slavery and who was not." When Phillip asked Michaels what she'd meant by the comments, the former TV wellness guru responded that "every single thing is like, 'Oh, no, no, no. This is all because White people bad'" in reference to the museum's exhibits.

In a lengthy statement emailed to USA TODAY from a spokesperson, Michaels said Phillip mischaracterized their exchange on the air. Phillip told USA TODAY that clashes like the one involving Michaels are no laughing matter.

"It's important to just really tell the truth in moments like that," Phillip said. CNN noted in an April 7 press release that the show was nominated for a News & Documentary Emmy for the slavery debate segment.

Phillip on 'remaining calm' amid chaos

Phillip's even-keeled demeanor may account for the show's acclaim. "The show gets heated – there’s no denying that," Singleton said April 6 over email, but added, "Abby's ability to lead the discussion – even when it goes off the beaten path – speaks to her agility as a host."

"It helps that I'm the person who's not doing what everybody else is doing at the table and is remaining calm ... It's just how I actually go through the world," Phillip said.

Harkening back to her first time meeting Phillip in makeup at CNN, before "NewsNight" existed, Allison said, "Abby is able to do what she does on air because she does it off air." Phillip instantly knew Allison's name. "She was like, 'Oh my gosh, Ashley, how are you? How are you doing?'"

"That interaction with her from the first time is how she shows up on the show," Allison continued. "She hears people. She sees people. She'll push people if she thinks what they're saying might have some factual inaccuracies."

Genuine bipartisan friendships

Behind the scenes, friendships have bloomed between panelists. Phillip offered Sellers and Kentucky native Jennings, two of her most frequent and popular guests, as an example.

Jennings was once a key aide to former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, years before the seven-term Republican from Kentucky became persona non grata to Trump. Sellers, a Democrat, found his footing on the network after losing a buzzy race for lieutenant governor of South Carolina in 2014. Sellers, a CNN commentator since 2015, authored "My Vanishing Country," a memoir about the rural South.

Both men are Southerners who have bonded over fatherhood. "Some people think that's inauthentic," Phillip said. "I think that's real life because we all – I think, many of us have friends, we have family who have different points of view.

"I am friends with Scott Jennings," Sellers said in a phone interview. "I think that the first thing that we talk about when we see each other are our families ... you understand the pressures that we go through ... how the outside world sometimes views you."

Sellers said, "At the end of the day, we have a, you know, we have a level of dignity in our arguments that sometimes may not (have) shone through to viewers, but those individuals who know us know that our respect for each other is kind of unwavering."

'Is she perfect?'

Phillip is settling back into her soft offscreen life in New York after embarking on a promotional tour for a book she authored last year, "A Dream Deferred: Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black Political Power." Phillip traveled to Greenville, South Carolina, the hometown of the late civil rights icon, to revisit his storied life.

She mined the origins of Jackson's childhood in the segregated Jim Crow South and his political rise as the first Black man to launch a major presidential campaign. After Jackson's death in February, Phillip attended his March 6 funeral service in Chicago.

"He had all of these different chapters, and it struck me that we were getting, we were risking a whole several generations of people not knowing who he is," Phillip said.

The same knack for unplumbed context in political commentary helped her first carve out a singular lane in Washington.

It is rare for somebody like Phillip to become marquee talent on a broadcast like "NewsNight." There are no others who look like her – a Black woman – and none in her age bracket except Kaitlan Collins, 34, a CNN counterpart and personal friend.

Ava Thompson Greenwell, a Northwestern University journalism professor whose research explores Black women behind the scenes in the TV industry, said, "The reality is she is representing for a lot of Black women, and I think she does a great job."

"Is she perfect? No one's perfect, right?" Thompson Greenwell said.

Earlier this month, Phillip was joined by a panel that included Sara Fischer, an Axios media reporter; Neera Tanden, a former senior advisor to Biden; liberal YouTuber Leigh McGowan; and Peter Meijer, an American supermarket chain heir and ex-Republican congressman from Michigan.

The "NewsNight" anchor threw her show to a commercial break when McGowan squabbled with another guest, Noah Rothman, author of "Unjust: Social Justice and the Unmaking of America." There was an ad pause for peace.

Then a composed Phillip opened the next segment, continuing to make history in the same terrain she's spent years helping others understand.