By The American Tribune | Created at 2026-09-18 10:26:14 | Updated at 2026-09-19 12:46:07
1 day ago
Representative Brandon Gill (R-TX) wasn’t interested in playing along when an Al Jazeera reporter cornered him with a loaded question about deaths in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. The reporter repeatedly demanded an answer while avoiding Gill’s much simpler question: Who do you work for? Once someone else finally identified her network, Gill immediately shut down the interview and told the Al Jazeera crew to “get lost.”
The confrontation began as Gill walked through a hallway with reporters and staff gathered around him. Gill represents Texas’ 26th Congressional District and has made support for President Donald Trump’s border and deportation agenda a major part of his work in Congress. The woman pursuing him was Natasha Del Toro, a correspondent for “Fault Lines,” an investigative program produced by the Qatar-backed Al Jazeera network. Rather than introduce herself and her outlet before questioning Gill, Del Toro opened with an accusation pointed at the Trump administration.
“So more than 50 people have died in ICE custody since Trump took office again,” Del Toro began. Gill stopped her before she could continue and asked, “Who are you?” She said, “Natasha Del Toro? I’m with Fall Lines. It’s a program called Fall Lines,” but Gill wanted to know who had sent her and which outlet would be using the footage. “With whom?” he asked after she named her program.
Del Toro kept giving Gill the title of the show instead of the network behind it. “I’m with Fault Lines. It’s a program called Fault Lines,” she said in the video. When she tried to brush past his question by saying, “I just want to ask you questions,” Gill held his ground and replied, “No, I’m asking you who you are, who you’re with.”
Del Toro accused Gill of refusing to answer questions even as she continued dancing around the identity of her employer. “I’m a journalist,” she protested before another woman nearby finally cut through the exchange and said that Del Toro worked with Al Jazeera English. Gill turned back toward the reporter in apparent disbelief and asked, “Al Jazeera?”
That was all Gill needed to hear. “I don’t have any desire to talk with Al Jazeera,” he said before telling the crew, “You guys can get lost. I don’t have anything to say to you guys.” Gill kept moving as Del Toro followed him down the hallway, repeating the ICE claim and attempting to pull him back into the interview.
Watch the blunt exchange here:
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Gill’s refusal appeared to be aimed squarely at Al Jazeera, a network whose financial and political relationship with the government of Qatar has generated controversy in Washington for years. In 2019, a group of Republican lawmakers led by Senator Chuck Grassley asked the Justice Department to determine whether Al Jazeera should register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The lawmakers pointed to the network’s Qatari government funding and argued that its American operations could be carrying out political activity on behalf of a foreign actor.
The Justice Department later ordered Al Jazeera’s American digital subsidiary, AJ+, to register as a foreign agent of Qatar, finding that it engaged in political activities and acted under the direction or control of the Qatari government. Al Jazeera condemned the order and maintained that its journalism remained independent. The network has also faced accusations of sympathetic coverage of Hamas: Israel closed its local operations in 2024 on national-security grounds, while the Palestinian Authority later suspended Al Jazeera in the West Bank after accusing it of broadcasting misleading reports, fostering discord, and interfering in Palestinian affairs.
Del Toro continued pursuing Gill after he had made clear that he would not participate in an Al Jazeera interview. “Are you concerned about that?” she shouted after again claiming that more than 50 people had died in ICE custody. “I’m not,” Gill replied. Del Toro tried to invoke press freedom, telling him, “It’s our constitutionally protected right to ask questions,” but Gill had already given the Al Jazeera crew his answer: “I’m not talking to you guys at all. Get lost.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video.
