Paula Reid Reportedly Headed to MS NOW After Quitting CNN

UPDATED: As CNN is set to be taken over by new leadership when the Paramount/Warner Bros Discovery merger goes through, the network’s chief legal affairs correspondent, Paula Reid, has decided to quit.

Oliver Darcy’s Status newsletter was the first to report Reid’s exit, while Variety sources later revealed that she declined the opportunity to renew her contract. Those sources also cited the uncertainty of new management at CNN as part of the reason Reid decided to leave.

She is said to be headed to MS NOW, according to a report published by Variety on Wednesday, July 1.

“As a general matter of practice, we don’t comment on personnel matters,” a spokesman for MS NOW told Variety. “As everyone in Washington knows, Paula Reid is an exceptional reporter, and any news organization would be fortunate to showcase her journalism.”

Reid joined CNN in 2021 as senior legal affairs correspondent before being promoted to chief legal affairs correspondent in 2023. Before that, she spent a decade at CBS News, working her way up from an intern to White House correspondent who regularly appeared on CBS Evening News, Face the Nation, and CBS This Morning. She was also a fill-in anchor on CBSN.

During her time at CBS News, Reid covered the 2016 Hillary Clinton email controversy, the Unite the Right rally in Virginia, and Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

While at CNN, she has covered various Supreme Court matters, including state investigations into former President Biden and current President Trump. She was part of the team that broke the news that Trump had been caught on audio tape discussing a classified document he kept in his possession after his first term in office.

Reid has drawn Trump’s ire in the past, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. She regularly attended the president’s daily press briefings and pressed Trump on his administration’s slow response to the virus. In a May 2020 interview with the New York Post, Trump complained about Reid’s questioning, saying she was “Nothing like Donna Reed, I can tell you that.”

Her exit comes amid Paramount’s merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, which will see CNN and CBS News fall under the same umbrella. There has been growing concern among viewers and staffers that Paramount CEO David Ellison will transform CNN into a more Trump-friendly network in an effort to appease the president.

CBS News has already faced these criticisms since Ellison appointed Bari Weiss as the network’s editor-in-chief in October 2025. In her first few months in the job, Weiss has overhauled CBS Evening News and fired several 60 Minutes staffers, including correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi, Cecilia Vega, and Scott Pelley.

Last week, the New York Times claimed that Ellison is considering putting Weiss in charge of CNN or pairing her with a more experienced TV executive. Sources told the outlet that Anderson Cooper, who left 60 Minutes after 20 years earlier this year, doesn’t want to work for Weiss.

Reid has yet to comment on her departure.