CNN’s Paula Reid Gets Personal About the Key to Her Professional Success and Breaks Down Trump’s Hectic First Week

In a wide-ranging interview, CNN’s Chief Legal Affairs Correspondent Paula Reid broke down the kickoff of President Donald Trump’s second term, her transition from practicing law to journalism, and what she sees as the key to her professional success.

“President Trump said he would do certain things, be it, pardon people related to January 6th and birthright citizenship, begin deportations and he’s done all of those things,” Reid said of the first week of Trump’s presidency. “What’s important for our coverage, though, is to look at exactly what the promise was and what exactly was delivered. That’s the challenge right now. But as of now, it’s clear they’re [the Trump administration] coming in more experienced. They had a plan so that they could hit the ground running on day one. This is everything that they said they would do.”

Reid discussed her analysis of Trump’s first several days in the White House, her commitment to speaking truth to power during a changing media landscape, and how she manages motherhood while working in the fast paced news industry at a top national cable news network.

Reid started her career as a law clerk after graduating from Villanova University School of Law in 2008 and passed the bar exams in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania. She soon discovered she was most passionate about sharing stories about how the law impacted and influenced peoples’ lives. It was then she decided to take a leap of faith, and became, as she jokingly called herself, a “geriatric intern who had no experience in journalism.” From there she worked her way up to reporter at CBS News, which eventually led to the position as White House Correspondent. During her tenure at the Tiffany Network, she covered the Justice Department, the White House, and legal affairs.

“I realized that my favorite thing about my job in the clerkship wasn’t filing paperwork or God knows it wasn’t dealing with the judge, but it was telling stories about how the law was influencing people’s lives, families, businesses. And I thought, ‘wow, these people can do this as a career. Can I?’ And at the moment, it seemed like a decent time to take a risk because even the most stable, solid legal jobs were being taken away from people,” she said. “People were being laid off. All of my law school classmates, most of them, were losing those jobs. And so I said, ‘you know what? I’m going to try this.’ And so I saved up a little money and I got an internship in local news and I fell in love with news.”

In 2021, Reid departed CBS News for CNN.

While covering the Covid-19 pandemic and the first Trump White House, Reid was going through the harrowing process of in vitro fertilization with her husband, Jason Kolsevich. The process was successful and they have a young daughter.

Reid’s husband has taken on the role of stay-at-home parent, to which the television reporter credited as integral to her professional success.

“My husband and I got married, and when we just did the math, after we had our daughter, he didn’t really want to go to a job where most of the money would be eaten up by taxes and childcare, and so he is a full time stay at home dad,” said Reid. “Right now that is my great asymmetrical career advantage because my daughter is the most important thing. I never worry about where she is. They cook together. They have a little herb garden that they’re working on. She’s always safe. She’s always with him. In terms of career, I’m not having to worry about daycare. I am not having to worry about a nanny, pre-school sickness, any of that. So at this stage of my life, that is the greatest blessing in my life. It is my number one luxury that my husband takes care of our daughter. And I am not having to deal with all of the responsibilities that I do think disproportionately fall on women and do adversely affect their careers.”

Reid added that her ability to have her husband with her daughter full time has enabled her career to flourish.

“I’m a control study, right? My first year back from maternity leave, I broke some of the biggest stories. I got a promotion. I was nominated for a Pulitzer. I’m pretty sure that none of that would have happened if I didn’t have this, even if I was going 50/50. So I’m so grateful to him. It’s not something that everybody can swing. But right now, that is the biggest advantage that I have in terms of being able to balance, balance, career and motherhood.”

As the media landscape continues to evolve, Reid is committed to the ethos of journalism which is to hold power to account.

“The major networks are not what they work and their influence continues to be diminished. Social media, which is effectively in an echo chamber at this point, you have influencers giving people their news that has just really come up in the past 4 or 5 years. Even Twitter, where a lot of people were kind of aggregating their news in the last Trump administration, it’s now X. We know it’s not what it used to be. A lot of people are fleeing because they believe that, too, has become an echo chamber. And I do believe that one of the challenges is anytime you enter the arena, you just have these camps, these amplifiers of spin and nonsense coming at you.” Reid continued, “But it makes the mission just the basic reporting of facts every single day that much more important. But I do think it’s challenging for a number of reasons, and a lot of it has to do with the state of our industry.”

Reid predicted that the newly inaugurated Commander in Chief will continue to test the limits of his executive powers throughout the next four years.

“President Trump has not really tried at all to tamp down and it’s clear that he’s sending messages to his adversaries, including firing inspectors general: ‘If you’re not on board with me, you’re going to lose your job.’ They’re supposed to be the independent watchdogs,” explained Reid. “It is chilling. But I go back to saying this is a lot of what they said they would do. Elections have consequences.”

Watch the full Mediaite interview with CNN’s Paula Reid on YouTube.