Abby Phillip, host of NewsNight with Abby Phillip & author of A Dream Deferred

Tuesday, November 4, 2025

Abby Phillip anchors NewsNight with Abby Phillip, airing weeknights at 10 p.m. ET on CNN. Abby deftly moderates one of the most dynamic and exciting conversation shows on television. Each night, Abby brings together a diverse group of perspective to debate the day's biggest stories, driven by honesty, the facts, and the pursuit of common understanding. With her award-winning background in dogged Washington reporting, Abby brings unique context to the complexity of current affairs. Abby keeps the powerful honest in hard-hitting interviews and hosts interesting conversations with a variety of perspectives. Abby joined CNN in 2017 and has served in many roles, including as a White House Correspondent, Senior Political Correspondent and Anchor of Inside Politics Sunday. In January 2020, she moderated CNN's Democratic Presidential Debate in Iowa. She also anchored special coverage of Election Night in America surrounding the 2020 election. Abby has been an essential player in CNN's Special Coverage of a range of political events, including election nights, State of the Union Addresses and the January 6th Committee hearings. Abby joined CNN from The Washington Post, she previously worked at ABC News and Politico. Throughout her career she has covered multiple presidents, campaign finance, lobbying, and several presidential campaigns. Abby was named to the Time 100 Next list in 2021 and she was the recipient of the National Urban League's Women of Power award. She was nominated for a News and Documentary Emmy Award for her coverage of black maternal health on "The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper - Homebirth: Saving Black Moms." And she serves on the board of the News Literacy Project and the Senior Advisory Committee of the Harvard Institute of Politics. Abby was raised in Bowie, Md. and is a graduate of Harvard University with a degree in Government. When not on television, she spends time with her husband, daughter and their pup Booker T.

ABOUT HER BOOK A DREAM DEFERRED

Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader, activist, raconteur, and political candidate, finally gets a book worthy of his stature courtesy of CNN anchor Abby Phillip. Focusing on his presidential runs in 1984 and, especially, 1988, Phillip highlights how Jackson built an unlikely coalition that showed how Black political power could be consolidated. His experience working under Martin Luther King; his organizing the SLCC's Operation Breadbasket in Chicago and beyond; and his roots in the deep South combined into two astonishingly impactful presidential campaigns. Appealing to the working people of urban enclaves like that of Chicago, young people on college campuses, and Black people across the South, he created the modern Democratic coalition-one that has been used by all major Democrats seeking national success from With her expert reporting, natural storytelling skills, and a story so full of humanity, politics, and hope, Abby Phillip has written a rousing popular history that sheds new light on an American icon. "Jesse Jackson's presidential campaigns showed America that leadership could look different, that power could be shared, and that more voices deserved to be heard," said Phillip. "His movement laid the foundation for the coalitions that define our democracy today. This book is my effort to capture the urgency, the messiness, and the possibility of that era, and what it still has to teach us now." At a time when questions of representation, democracy, and belonging are once again at the forefront of American life, A Dream Deferred offers urgent lessons from a leader who pioneered modern coalition politics. The battles Jesse Jackson fought in the 1980s, over voter access, multiracial coalition-building, and the visibility of Black political leadership, mirror the very debates shaping our politics today. By revisiting Jackson's story, Phillip not only restores him to his rightful place in history, but also reminds us that the struggles of the past are inseparable from the challenges of the present. Get the book: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250806314/adreamdeferred/

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