Trump Target Brian Stelter Returns to CNN in Time for Debate

Time is a flat circle, especially so for Brian Stelter this week.

The former CNN anchor announced he would return to the network and his “Reliable Sources” newsletter Tuesday—just two months after his successor Oliver Darcy left the network.

Stelter was fired in 2022 during CEO Chris Licht’s ill-fated era at the network, as part of a purge of those known for their critiques of Donald Trump and other Republicans. Stelter then went off to write a book focused on Fox News and the 2020 election, later taking a job as Vanity Fair’s special correspondent.

He announced his return, in typical fashion, through a message to the “Reliable Sources” email list.

“The media industry has matured, CNN has evolved, and I have changed a lot since I signed off two years ago,” Stelter wrote. “I loved my old life as the anchor of a Sunday morning show but, to borrow some lingo from my video game blogger days, I finished that level of the game. Time for new levels, new challenges.”

He starts Sept. 9, the day before the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

“I’m very happy to welcome Brian back to CNN in this new role,” CNN CEO Mark Thompson said in a statement. “Brian is one of the best global experts in media commentary, and as the founder of the Reliable Sources newsletter, he is the perfect choice to lead Reliable Sources into its next chapter.”

The news came less than a month after Darcy, who worked under Stelter for years before taking the helm of the newsletter in 2022, chose to leave CNN to launch his subscription-only newsletter, Status. The launch came complete with a splashy New York Times profile that painted him as “CNN’s media chronicler” who “strikes out on his own.” (Darcy did not respond to a request for comment, but Stelter said in his Tuesday email he believes their two products would “complement each other wonderfully.”)

CNN confirmed it approached the former anchor with the lofty new title of “Chief Media Analyst” shortly after Darcy left, launching a sprint to pull it all together before the network’s public timeframe of a fall relaunch. In his email on Tuesday, Stelter promised he would “reimagine the Reliable Sources digest,” indicating a likely redesign to distinguish it from Darcy’s Reliable Sources-like offering.

Stelter was part of a contingent of vocal CNN stars who were nixed after Warner Bros. board member John Malone publicly demanded the network “evolve into actual journalism” and stray away from critiques of right-wing figures. Reporter John Harwood also got fired, while Don Lemon was bumped to a morning show before his eventual ouster last year.

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Bringing Stelter back, however, offers the network’s critics a chance to claim CNN is returning to its era of verbal lashings of Republicans. Stelter made many enemies at Fox News—Sean Hannity frequently described him as “Humpty Dumpty,” while Greg Gutfeld often tried to make him the butt of a joke. When Stelter was fired, Trump suggested he should “REST IN PEACE!”

But CNN’s rehiring of the star media reporter indicates such pressures mean less to the company than it did during the Licht era, particularly as it goes through its own reinvention.

The network plans to offer its first digital subscription product by the end of the year, and Stelter’s revamped Reliable Sources—an established brand with a known quantity at the helm—could be part of such an offering.