Brianna Keilar


Brianna Marie Keilar is a senior political correspondent and anchor for CNN in the Washington, D.C. bureau. She previously worked as a White House correspondent, Congressional correspondent and general assignment correspondent for CNN in Washington. Prior to that, Keilar worked at CNN Newsource as a national correspondent, also in Washington. She began hosting CNN Right Now with Brianna Keilar on November 12, 2018.

Early life and education

Keilar was born in Canberra, ACT, Australia. Her father Glenn is Australian, and her mother Miriam was American. The Keilars were stationed in Australia at the time of Brianna's birth. In 1982, Keilar and her family moved to the United States and settled in Orange County, California. Keilar graduated from Mission Viejo High School in 1998, where she was voted homecoming queen in her senior year. Keilar then attended the University of California, Berkeley from which she graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 2001 with dual bachelor's degrees in Mass Communications and Psychology.

Career

Keilar joined CNN as a correspondent for CNN Newsource, providing breaking news coverage and reports from the nation’s capital for approximately 800 CNN Newsource partner stations. She had joined Newsource from CBS News, where she served as an anchor, reporter and producer for a CBS newscast that aired on mtvU, MTV's college network. She was also a fill-in anchor on CBS News’ overnight newscast, Up to the Minute, and a freelance reporter for CBS Evening News Weekend Edition. Keilar began her on-air career in Yakima, Washington at the CBS affiliate KIMA. She also co-hosted the morning drivetime show, "Billy, Blue and Brianna, too: The Morning Zoo" on contemporary hits station, KFFM.
While covering Congress, Keilar earned the 2009 National Press Foundation Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of Congress for her fall 2008 coverage of the $700 billion bank bailout. While covering the Obama White House, Keilar earned the 's 2014 Aldo Beckman Memorial Award for her coverage of the rollout of Obamacare. As a general assignment correspondent for the network, she covered a wide range of stories, including the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, where she was the first CNN correspondent on the ground. In 2013, she spoke at the commencement ceremony for her alma mater.
Keilar, a military spouse, began writing a column called "Home Front" in 2019, which tells stories of military families and tries to bridge the civilian-military divide.

Personal life

Keilar married Dave French on May 2, 2009. They later divorced. Keilar's mother died on May 17, 2016.
In July 2016, Keilar announced that she was engaged to Fernando Lujan, a director on the National Security Council at the White House. During CNN's New Year's Eve special on December 31, 2016, Brooke Baldwin announced that Keilar and Lujan had married the previous evening in Las Vegas. She gave birth to a baby boy named Antonio on June 8, 2018.