Australian-born American journalist Brianna Keilar currently co-anchors CNN’s morning show “New Day” with John Berman. She is based in the network’s Washington bureau and first joined in 2006 as a national correspondent for CNN Newsource. She has also served as a White House correspondent, senior political correspondent, Congressional correspondent, and general assignment correspondent for CNN. Previously, she was the anchor of "CNN Right Now."
Keilar was born in Canberra, Australia, and in 1982 at the age of two moved with her family to Orange County, California. She enjoyed popularity at Mission Viejo High School, where she was voted homecoming queen her senior year, before going on to earn dual bachelor's degrees in mass communications and psychology from the University of California, Berkeley.
Keilar’s on-air career began at the CBS affiliate KIMA in Yakima, Washington. She was a co-host of the morning drivetime show “Billy, Blue, and Brianna, too: The Morning Zoo” before moving to CBS News. There, she worked as an anchor, reporter, and producer for a CBS newscast that aired on MTV’s college network, MTVU. Additionally, she was a substitute anchor for “Up to the Minute,” CBS News’ overnight newscast, and freelanced for the weekend edition of “CBS Evening News.”
After joining CNN as a correspondent, Keilar covered national breaking news and reports from Washington, D.C. for approximately 800 CNN Newsource partner stations. While acting as a Congressional correspondent, she earned the 2009 National Press Foundation Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of Congress. She was also the recipient of the White House Correspondents' Association's 2014 Aldo Beckman Memorial Award for her coverage of the rollout of Obamacare.
Keilar is unafraid of allowing her emotions to show during hard-hitting segments. She has broken down in tears discussing school shootings and the deaths of Ukrainian children amid the Russian invasion. She has taken Fox to task for spreading false and misleading information, and has pushed for increased government accountability through her regular "Roll the Tape" segments on a wide variety of political topics and figures.
“We have to challenge lies. We have to challenge falsehoods and conspiracy theories. If you don't, they fester – unchecked and unchallenged,” she has said on her Twitter account.