CNN Parts Ways With White House Correspondent John Harwood

CNN White House correspondent John Harwood is leaving the cable news channel, he said Friday.

“[L]ook forward to figuring out what’s next,” Harwood tweeted, after noting that Friday would be his last day at the channel.

“We appreciate John’s work covering the White House, and we wish him all the best,” a CNN spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter.

It is not immediately clear what spurred on the departure.

Harwood joined CNN in Jan. 2020 from CNBC, where he had been chief Washington correspondent. At both CNBC and CNN, Harwood garnered a reputation for his sharp criticisms of President Donald Trump and the Republican party, which he called “fundamentally broken” in 2019.

And he has continued to analyze and critique the “broken” state of politics since Biden took office. On Thursday night, Biden attacked “MAGA Republicans” as a threat to America’s democratic values in a primetime speech.

“Biden’s assertion that Trump and extremist Republicans pose a threat to American democracy is, undeniably, true,” Harwood said afterward.

Harwood is the second notable CNN departure in recent weeks. Last month CNN canceled the Sunday show Reliable Sources, and parted ways with its anchor and CNN chief media correspondent Brian Stelter.

After the Reliable cancellation, THR reported that CNN staff were on edge about potential future changes. Harwood is unlikely to be the last CNN correspondent to leave in the coming months, with CNN CEO Chris Licht looking to overhaul a number of pieces of the channel’s programming.

Of course, the departures are only one piece of the puzzle. It’s the new hires and programming that will help shape CNN’s future under Licht, and those decisions are still TBD.