NBC News’ Hallie Jackson once said she had her “dream job” in covering the White House. Now she is set to conduct one of the most consequential interviews of the 2024 campaign.
Jackson, 40, will interview Vice President Kamala Harris at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington DC on Tuesday, marking Harris' first NBC News sit-down interview since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee. The interview will first air on Tuesday’s NBC Nightly News at 6:30 p.m. before airing on MSNBC, Today, and the streaming channel NBC News NOW.
NBC said Jackson had already had “exclusive access during the Vice President’s campaign stops in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin on Monday alongside former Rep. Liz Cheney.”
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The conversation will air just two weeks before Election Day, offering a prime opportunity for the Peacock network—and Jackson—to set the tone for the campaign’s final two weeks.
Jackson is currently NBC’s senior Washington correspondent, the host of Hallie Jackson NOW on NBC’s streaming channel NBC News NOW, and the Sunday host of NBC Nightly News. In 10 years, Jackson‘s star has ascended rapidly through the halls of 30 Rock, making her one of NBC’s top stars.
A Lower Makefield, Pennsylvania, native and Johns Hopkins University graduate, Jackson first joined NBC News at their Los Angeles bureau in 2014 after stints at local Hearst networks throughout the Northeast. Then-head of worldwide newsgathering David Verdi described her as a “dynamic addition” in a note to staff, praising her work as both an on-air reporter and her experience on digital platforms—a salient observation given her eventual role as the face of NBC’s streaming platform.
She hit the ground running at 30 Rock, where she was eventually sicced on Sen. Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign. She became one of the faces of MSNBC’s “Road Warriors” group, a coalition of campaign reporters that birthed stars in Jackson, Kristen Welker (now the host of Meet the Press), Katy Tur (an MSNBC staple), and Kasie Hunt (now at CNN).
As Jackson’s fame rose in covering the campaign, so did her responsibilities. She hosted the 1 p.m. hour of MSNBC‘s news block in the final months before the 2016 election, and after Donald Trump won, the Peacock bosses named her NBC’s chief White House correspondent and the host of MSNBC’s 10 a.m. hour. She made a name as a dogged reporter, telling The Hollywood Reporter in 2017 she refused to tolerate then-Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s curtness—and false claims— at White House press briefings.
“You just can’t ever let up on that stuff,” she said. “The administration feels that they get a bad rap; that a lot of the coverage is negative, that a lot of coverage is pointed against them. But you can’t let any of the aggressiveness at briefings throw you.”
Even a late-term pregnancy and laryngitis did not stop Jackson from moderating a February 2020 debate, which did not feature Harris.
Jackson was previously married before she gave birth to her first child, Monroe, with NBC News colleague and producer Frank Thorp in March 2020. (Thorp, a Capitol Hill producer for NBC since 2011, field-produced some 2016 presidential election coverage, according to his LinkedIn. It‘s unclear which candidates he covered or whether he worked directly with Jackson.)
The weight of the many hats she wears, Jackson said in a 2020 interview, was not lost on her.
“I have a literal front-row seat that lets me press the people in charge of leading this country, and it’s a responsibility I don’t take lightly,” she told Darling.
It‘s been apparent in some of her interviews. Jackson pushed back against Mike Pence aide Marc Short in 2020 after he refused to answer questions regarding a maskless crowd, even after he claimed he did. “No, you didn’t!” she shot back.
Jackson also shut down Trump‘s 2020 campaign spokesperson Hogan Gidley after Gidley refused to answer her questions regarding Trump’s 2020 debate prep, rebuking his repeated attempts to evade her queries.
“Please, I’ve asked four times,” she said, as Gidley tried to pivot from her debate-focused questions. “We don’t have 45 minutes. You know how these things work.”
The dynamic between Jackson and Harris will be intriguing to watch, particularly after Harris' last cable news sit-down with Fox News’ Bret Baier pushed the vice president off talking points she’s made central to her campaign.
The interview will also be a test for both network and candidate. NBC has promised to release the full transcript of Jackson‘s Harris interview, allowing audiences to get a full glimpse at her questioning after CBS chose to not do so after Harris’ 60 Minutes appearance.
