Is Leland Vittert Married? Here's What We Know About the NewsNation Host's Love Life
Leland is a charismatic leader and an autism advocate, but has he heard those wedding bells ring?
Published May 20 2025, 4:38 p.m. ET
When news anchor and journalist Leland Vittert was a host on Fox News from 2010 to 2021, he was noted as one of the company's more moderate voices, offering a balanced view on a broad array of topics.
But in 2021, he shifted from Fox News to NewsNation.
As host of NewsNation's On Balance show, Leland has racked up an impressively loyal audience of viewers who tune in for his take on modern politics and news topics, delivered in a fairly centrist and moderate way.
But what do we know about his personal life? Is Leland married? Here's what we know about his personal life, including his partner Rachel Putnam and the diagnosis he has been very open about.
Leland Vittert is not married, as far as we know.
Whether at Fox or NewsNation, Leland is known to viewers as a no-nonsense and "calls it like he sees it" anchor with a particular expertise in foreign affairs, especially after he spent years overseas covering foreign conflicts.
But what kind of relationship does he come home to at night?
As far as we know, Leland is not married. He has been with his partner, Rachel Putnam, for at least a few years. At the end of September 2023, he announced that he had proposed to Rachel, and she said "yes."
The engagement announcement came as the two visited Adare Manor Hotel, and Leland posted about it on Instagram.
He captioned a photo of the two posing in front of the manor, "Much to my relief and very pleasant surprise @rachelputnam1 said 'yes'!"
It's unclear if the two have tied the knot in secret since then, but it would seem that they are still engaged as of May 2025.
Leland has been open about his diagnosis of Autism.
While Leland and Rachel keep their private life together fairly quiet in the public eye, we do know a few things. For one, the two seem to enjoy traveling together, and Leland shared a photo of himself and Rachel smiling in April 2025, which he captioned, "Wedding season!"
And we also know that Leland has been diagnosed with autism. Leland wrote a book called Born Lucky, which detailed how he was diagnosed with autism and how his father's support and advocacy helped him thrive throughout his life (per NewsNation). His father, Leland explained, refused to let his son be defined by the autism diagnosis.
In the book, Leland explains that his father's lessons helped him open up, find his niche, and learn to succeed. He wrote, "Those lessons took me from a kid who could barely talk and didn’t understand basic social interaction, to the White House North Lawn, the battlefields of the Middle East, and now the anchor desk of two networks."
Leland called it "difficult" to open up about such a private experience in a book that he knows people will read. But he felt that it was necessary.
He shared, "Parents need a North Star of hope. I am proof love and dedication means your child doesn’t have to be defined by their diagnosis, whatever it is. You can hear my voice crack a few times last night when we announced the book — in some way, if this book gives hope to other parents, it will make all those nights and countless hours my dad dedicated to me all the more worth it" (via NewsNation).
Born Lucky releases on Sept. 30, 2025.