NewsNation’s Kellie Meyer straps on the gloves for charity boxing event

She’s used to covering political fights as NewsNation’s Washington correspondent, but now Kellie Meyer is getting ready to jump into the fray herself as she enters the boxing ring.

Meyer will be putting on her boxing gloves Wednesday as part of a benefit to raise money to fight cancer.

“I’m definitely very scared. I’ve never done anything quite like this,” Meyer told ITK ahead of “The Beltway Brawl IV,” hosted by the nonprofit Haymakers for Hope at the Anthem in Washington.

“It’s very scary but very exciting,” Meyer said.

The 34-year-old journalist for NewsNation — which, like The Hill, is owned by Nexstar Media Group — has raised more than $10,000 that will be donated to the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center at Sibley Memorial Hospital to help fight multiple myeloma.

It’s a blood cancer that Meyer said her stepfather, Tom Warmouth, has been battling for 10 years. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) announced last month that he had been diagnosed with the same type of cancer.

“The reason why we’re doing this fight at all is to fight for those who can’t fight for themselves, who are battling cancer. So that just drove me even more to do this,” said Meyer, who grew up in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

While Meyer’s an amateur boxer like all the fundraiser’s participants, she first started taking classes in the nation’s capital seven years ago.

“I was covering Capitol Hill and the 2016 election, so it was a nice way to just have a place to go to release stress and all of that during those days, and for self-defense and things like that,” Meyer said.

Her training’s picked up since May, when after applying to join the Beltway Brawl, she first found out that she’d been chosen for the charity event.

“I was on the campaign trail actually, and then found out the day [2024 GOP White House hopeful Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis] announced his [campaign]. I was talking a lot about [former President Trump] and DeSantis sparring, and then I found out that I was going to be doing some sparring of my own,” Meyer recalled.

Some of the other boxers include: Pjer Šimunović, Croatia’s ambassador to the United States, political consultant Logan Dobson and Democratic strategist Michael Starr Hopkins.

And although she’s hoping for a TKO against her opponent Wednesday, Meyer said prepping for the match has already helped her in covering the daily slugfest that is politics.

“The personal impact it’s had on me, building my assertiveness or my confidence in approaching presidential candidates on the campaign trail, and asking them the tough questions, and just believing in yourself,” Meyer said.

“I never thought I could go into a ring and fight in a boxing match, and I’m doing it.”