NewsNation announced on Tuesday that it will have special programming surrounding the fourth Republican presidential primary debate ahead of its inaugural presidential primary debate next month.

Before the debate, NewsNation plans to broadcast programs from the debate location. These programs will include the political panel program The Hill, which NewsNation’s chief Washington correspondent, Blake Burman, will moderate. 

Broadcasting from the front of the Frank Moody Music Building, The Hill, will start on Monday, December 6. Meanwhile, on December 5, Connell McShane’s NewsNation Now (weekdays from 3 to 5 PM ET) and Leland Vittert’s On Balance (weeknights at 7 PM ET) will broadcast live from The Quad, which is the center of the University of Alabama campus. 

Leland Vittert, NewsNation’s chief Washington anchor, will also broadcast live from the exact location. On the day of the debate, the entire NewsNation lineup will be live from Alabama, including Connell McShane’s NewsNation Now, The Hill, and more. 

Chris Cuomo will host Countdown to the Republican Primary Debate, a two-hour news special that NewsNation will air before the debate. Vittert will report live from inside the debate hall.

On December 6 at 8 p.m. ET, the University of Alabama’s Frank Moody Music Building in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, will host a debate. NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas will co-moderate the event alongside Megyn Kelly, a current SiriusXM Radio personality, and Eliana Johnson, the EIC of The Washington Free Beacon.

The network will air a special post-debate show immediately after the event. Cuomo and Vittert will host the show, and political editor Chris Stirewalt and various NewsNation reporters and contributors will provide additional analysis and commentary.

Finally, the University of Alabama will continue to host the live broadcast of NewsNation Now with Connell McShane, The Hill, and Elizabeth Vargas Reports on Thursday, December 7, the day following the GOP debate.

CNN has announced the addition of Barak Ravid as a political and foreign policy analyst.

Currently, Ravid serves as a politics reporter and Middle East expert for Axios. He also writes for Walla News in Israel.

Ravid has covered the Middle East for the last 18 years, mostly focusing on Israel’s foreign policy and relations, and how the United States has influenced its strategy in the region. He worked in Tel-Aviv before shifting to being basked in Washington, D.C.

In 2021, Ravid released his first book, “Trump’s Peace: The Abraham Accords and the Reshaping of the Middle East”. The book — which was written in Hebrew — details the historic peace deals between Israel, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates.

A former Israeli soldier, Ravid will continue to be based in Washington, D.C. in his new role with CNN.

CNN’s Jake Tapper is one of the country’s most high-profile Jewish anchors and recently spoke with colleague Oliver Darcy for a lengthy interview.

Among the topics was the rise of antisemitism across the globe, and Darcy asked whether Tapper has seen a spike in bigoted attacks toward him. The CNN host notes what it’s like to be a religious minority and applies it to the way he covers the news.

“My faith only guides my journalism in the sense that I know what it’s like to be a religious minority so I apply that across the board to Muslims, Mormons, Catholics, and to everyone else,” Tapper told Darcy. “I don’t assume that because someone is of one particular faith that they have certain views.

“That’s about it. I see the war as a journalist and as a human. I want the human suffering to end now. And I would prefer a world where all peoples can live with democracy and self-determination. 

“This is a time where antisemitism is without a doubt on the rise and I’ve certainly seen an uptick online, but ugly words are just that: words. It’s nothing compared to what the people in Israel and Gaza and the West Bank are currently going through.”

Jake Tapper was recently in the news regarding his Jewish faith after radio host Mark Levin called media figures like Wolf Blitzer, Tapper, and MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell “self-hating Jews”. In response, both CNN and the White House condemned the comments from Levin.