Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling

Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling is an associate writer covering breaking news for The New Republic, with a politics beat that centers on how power is exercised and abused in the Trump era and beyond. Her coverage combines fast-turn reporting with sharp, colloquial framing to show the practical impact of presidential decisions, right-wing campaigns, and media maneuvering on institutions and ordinary people. Alongside daily political news, she regularly zooms out to examine the broader ecosystems of journalism, technology, and money that shape those stories.

Trump’s presidency, media bans, and everyday authoritarianism

Houghtaling’s core output tracks Donald Trump’s presidency day by day, focusing on the small decisions and public performances that reveal his broader governing style. She wrote a cluster of stories on Trump’s attempt to ban major outlets from the White House, documenting the initial ban on CNN, MS NOW, and Politico, his confusion about the consequences, and the immediate backfire when events went uncovered and he was left “essentially talking to himself” without a press pool. In related pieces, she followed his scramble to devise backup communication plans after the ban and highlighted how allies, including a MAGA congressman running for governor, adopted similar exclusionary tactics toward reporters.

Her headlines about Trump’s public persona - such as his boast that, at 80, he can walk up both ramps and stairs, or his celebration of Black History Month by listing his Black friends - use humor to underline the disconnect between his showmanship and his actual record.

She consistently pulls in legal and institutional checks on Trump’s agenda, covering the Supreme Court’s decision that allowed him to resume third-country deportations at least until arguments later in the year, and his response to adverse rulings by doubling down with new tariffs.

Her reporting on Trump’s economic and foreign policy decisions includes stories on his new tariffs after the Court rejected his earlier ones, on compounding economic failures that made 2025 a rough year for growth, and on his appeal to European partners to help lower diesel prices he had helped drive up. She also follows his more theatrical moves, from a strange plan involving a “hospital boat” for Greenland to his decision to release extensive files related to aliens rather than more politically sensitive records, always foregrounding what these choices signal about priorities and governance.

Right-wing influence, immigration enforcement, and protest politics

Beyond Trump himself, Houghtaling covers the wider right-wing ecosystem that advances and benefits from his agenda, paying particular attention to immigration enforcement and the politics of protest.

She reported on ICE protesters suing right-wing influencer Benny Johnson for labeling them “left-wing terrorists,” situating the lawsuit within a broader pattern of demonizing dissent. In another piece, she chronicled how more than 50 people in upstate New York intervened to stop Border Patrol agents from arresting two men, noting that the protest took place in a county Trump had won by more than 60 percent, underscoring local resistance even in Trump-friendly areas. Her work on immigration enforcement also covers a veteran and legal U.S. resident who sued the Trump administration after ICE detained him, as well as reporting that ICE officials ignored clear warning signs before a series of killings, framing these stories around accountability and systemic failure.

Houghtaling regularly follows Republican candidates and conservative officials whose campaigns intersect with allegations of abuse or extremism. She wrote on the three billionaires whose donations made up over 90 percent of a Republican governor candidate’s campaign funds in Wisconsin, examining how concentrated wealth shapes state-level races. In Michigan, she covered a GOP Senate candidate who refused to address why two pastors from a church facing child sex abuse lawsuits sat on his Faith Leadership Coalition, connecting the scandal to his political judgment. Her New York coverage includes a piece on a Republican candidate for governor who embraced 9/11 conspiracy theorists, and on Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration as New York City’s mayor, which sparked intense backlash from MAGA figures over three words in his remarks.

Across these stories, she treats protests, lawsuits, and grassroots organizing as central political events rather than side notes.

Journalism, tech billionaires, and money in elections

Houghtaling often steps back from daily political skirmishes to scrutinize the information infrastructure that underpins them, especially the business decisions reshaping American journalism.

In “The Incompetent Bosses Driving American Journalism Into the Ground,” she detailed how executive mismanagement and cost-cutting contributed to more than 800 journalists losing their jobs in the first weeks of a major election year, arguing that these layoffs erode watchdog coverage when it is most needed. A later piece on U.S. journalism’s “unlikely savior” looked at new funding models and philanthropic interventions, raising questions about sustainability and independence as newsrooms search for alternatives to failing corporate ownership. She also reported on a prominent New York Times columnist joining 60 Minutes in what she described as a pro-Trump overhaul, using that personnel move to illustrate how legacy outlets can shift their tone and politics through hiring decisions.

Her interest in power extends into the tech and AI sectors, where she traces how corporate strategy and campaign spending shape public life. In a feature asking whether Elon Musk is “serving two masters,” she examined his entanglements with U.S. and Chinese interests and the role of Tesla and federal programs such as USAID in that web.

Another article dissected heavy AI-related spending in an Ohio congressional race, including investments from companies such as Anthropic, treating the district contest as a case study in how emerging technologies buy political influence. Across these pieces, she brings the same fast, headline-driven style she applies to Trump coverage to structural stories about capital, ownership, and the future of the press.

Public health, housing, and long-tail crises

Although politics is her primary beat at The New Republic, Houghtaling frequently looks at how policy choices play out in public health and housing. She has covered Pennsylvania approaching 1,000 measles cases, including a fifth measles-related death, and noted Robert F.

Kennedy Jr.’s silence in the midst of the outbreak, tying anti-vaccine politics and public health outcomes together.

Her reporting on housing includes coverage of a large bankruptcy affecting thousands of rent-stabilized tenants in New York, which Zohran Mamdani would inherit as mayor alongside a growing tenants’ movement ready to fight back. Earlier work highlighted her interest in long-tail disaster impacts: she investigated lingering damage from Hurricane Sandy in public housing, revealing that some residents were still living without reliable running water, heat, or cooking gas years after the storm.

Houghtaling’s broader portfolio includes pieces in outlets such as The Daily Beast, The Guardian, Gothamist, and The Real Deal, expanding her politics and housing focus beyond The New Republic.

She has reported on topics ranging from wage theft and labor violations to protest movements, and wrote a widely noted Guardian essay on egg donation and the financial pressures tied to elite education. Across this work, her reporting keeps returning to the collision of policy, money, and lived experience, making her a consistent chronicler of how big structural choices land on individual lives.