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Who is Niall Stanage? Reporter gets fiery rebuff from Karoline Leavitt over question on ICE; ‘left-wing hack’
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt harshly rebukes journalist Niall Stanage during fiery exchange over ICE
A tense encounter at a White House press briefing on Thursday, January 15, saw Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt use sharp words to criticize journalist Niall Stanage, who pressed her with tough questions about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Leavitt proceeds to call him a “left-wing hack” as Stanage calls the ICE agent, Jonathan Ross's shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis “reckless.”
Read more: Leavitt calls Renee Good ‘lunatic’, says ICE shooting was ‘absolutely justified’
Who is Niall Stanage?
Niall Stanage is an associate editor at The Hill. He has covered U.S. politics for decades and contributed to media outlets such as The Guardian, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal before joining The Hill. He is known for his on-the-ground reporting from Washington and for asking probing questions during White House briefings.
In a similar instance, Stanage challenged the White House's defense of ICE. He cited statistics about 32 people who died in ICE custody and 170 U.S. citizens detained by ICE in 2025. He questioned how these figures “equate to them doing everything correctly”, attributing the claim to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
Read more: ‘Karoline Leavitt is a machine’, says Lara Trump amid WH press secy's pregnancy
Leavitt vs. Stanage
The exchange between Leavitt and Stanage heated up after Leavitt seeked to counter his framing and asked him, "Why was Renee Good unfortunately and tragically killed?” When he replied that an ICE agent had acted “recklessly,” Leavitt launched her rebuke, calling him “a biased reporter with a left-wing opinion,” and accusing him of posing as a journalist rather than reporting facts.
She further went ahead and rebuked him by saying, “Yeah, because you’re a left-wing hack. You’re not a reporter.”
“You shouldn’t even be sitting in that seat,” Leavitt continued, telling Stanage he was “pretending like you’re a journalist… a left-wing activist.”
After the heated exchange, Leavitt confronted Stanage about the number of Americans killed by illegal immigrants, notably Jocelyn Nungaray and Laken Riley.
She said, “Do you have the numbers of how many American citizens were killed at the hands of illegal aliens who ICE is trying to remove from this country? I bet you don’t. I bet you didn’t even read up on those stories.”
