When Fox News star Laura Ingraham reported that a Democratic congressional candidate protesting outside of an ICE facility in Illinois was thrown to the ground by an ICE agent, Ingraham — sharing the takedown on video — lauded the agent and said, “Good work.”
Former MSNBC host and Zeteo News founder Mehdi Hasan responded asking: “How is this not a fireable offense from Ingraham? She is explicitly celebrating and endorsing and encouraging nonviolence [sic] against Democratic congressional candidates.”
How is this not a fireable offense from Ingraham? She is explicitly celebrating and endorsing and encouraging nonviolence against Democratic congressional candidates. https://t.co/pZFhpOWakA
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) September 20, 2025
(Opposing Hasan’s view, MAGA adherents argue that Ingraham is celebrating effective policing, and contend that the Democratic candidate was a legitimate target of the action.)
Kat Abughazaleh, the Democratic congressional candidate who was thrown to the ground by the ICE agent, replied to Hasan: “That’s me in the video. And a Fox News host just celebrated me being assaulted by ICE. If ICE will do this to a congressional candidate with a big platform, just imagine what they’re doing to the people they’re kidnapping.”
I’m running for Congress to free our neighbors from the hellholes that are ICE detention facilities.
— Kat Abughazaleh (@KatAbughazaleh) September 20, 2025
The American dream shouldn’t be dependent on whether you have documents or not.
I hope you’ll join me in this fight:https://t.co/zpQKjHNWRI
Abughazaleh is a journalist, social media influencer, and political commentator known for her work with left-leaning nonprofit Media Matters for America, where she often criticized former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson.
[NOTE: By July 2025, Media Matters was “under siege by Trump and Musk,” the New York Times reported, outlining the organization’s challenges in the face of lawsuits filed by Musk and investigations by “Mr. Trump’s Federal Trade Commission and Republican state attorneys general” — which critics say are part of the administration’s retribution campaign.]
Abughazaleh is running in the primary in Illinois’s reliably Democratic 9th congressional district, which includes Chicago and Evanston. She is running for retiring Rep. Janice Schakowsky‘s seat, which Schakowsky has held since 1999.
It’s the second time this month that a Fox News personality has drawn attention for allegedly applauding or suggesting violent action in what critics like Hasan portray as “fireable offense(s).”
Fox News star Brian Kilmeade recently suggested on-air — after a homeless, mentally ill suspect was identified in the murder of Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte — that some mentally ill homeless people might be executed by lethal injection. Mentally ill homeless people could be jailed, Kilmeade said, “or involuntary lethal injection, or something. Just kill ’em.”
Kilmeade later apologized for the remark, saying afterwards on Fox & Friends: “I wrongly said they should get lethal injection. I apologize for that extremely callous remark. I am obviously aware that not all mentally ill, homeless people act as the perpetrator did in North Carolina and that so many homeless people deserve our empathy and compassion.”
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