White House Reporter Recounts Harrowing Story of How She Was Robbed at Gunpoint, Punched, and Pistol-Whipped in Broad Daylight

Iris Tao, a 26-year-old White House reporter for Epoch Times sister outlet NTD revealed in a story on Wednesday that she, like many others, was a victim of a horrific, violent robbery in Washington, DC.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, President Trump declared a “public safety emergency,” citing high crime and unsafe streets in the nation’s capital, and federalized the DC police force last week. He further authorized the use of National Guard troops and deployed federal agents across the city to tackle the rampant crime, homelessness, and illegal immigration crises.

The then-24-year-old Iris Tao said the Trump Administration’s federal takeover and crackdown on crime in DC reminded her of the traumatizing morning in 2022, when she was violently mugged outside of her apartment at 8:30 in the morning. She was beaten and robbed by a masked man that morning.

But if you ask leftists and local Democratic leaders, they’ll say everything is ok now because violent crime in 2024 hit a 30-year low. However, as The Gateway Pundit reported, this data appears to have been falsified and manipulated at the direction of Metropolitan Police commander Michael Pulliam, an allegation which is currently under investigation by the Department of Justice. It has been alleged that many crimes go unreported, and serious felony reports have often been downgraded to make it appear that violent crimes and felonies are less frequent.

Iris says the numbers, whether real or fake, don’t matter because “lived experience tells a different story,” pointing to the thousands victimized by violent crime last year and the more than 100 DC homicides to date in 2025. “These are not just numbers. Each one is a person. A life cut short. A family changed forever,” Iris writes.

Because of this, Iris, expecting her first child to be born this year, does not plan to stay in Washington, DC, much longer— at least not until “both the numbers and the stories prove that the city has truly changed.”

Like most parents, she wants to give her child a hometown where “he can walk freely, play safely, and live without fear.”

“And I hope—someday—we can live that vision here in our nation’s capital: a clean, beautiful, and truly shining city on a hill once again,” she says.

Excerpt from the Epoch Times:

It was 8:30 a.m. on a Saturday in January 2022. I had just left my building near The Wharf in Southwest D.C. when a man in a black ski mask appeared out of nowhere, pointed a gun at my face, and demanded my phone.

“Give me your phone,” he barked as he snatched it from my jacket pocket.

Then, with cold precision, he ordered me to hand over my wallet, laptop, and phone password.

Before fear even set in, instinct kicked in—not to protect my belongings, but to protect the sensitive information I carried. As a White House reporter for NTD Television, the sister outlet of The Epoch Times, I felt an overwhelming duty to safeguard my sources, colleagues, and loved ones.

“I can’t,” I said. “Don’t do this.”

He struck me across the face with the butt of his handgun.

My cheek went numb and flushed red.

“Help! Help!” I screamed as he ran off. A neighbor called the police. Later, an officer told me the assailant had fled into an apartment just a block away. They believed they knew who he was—but I never heard from them again.

I stayed surprisingly composed during the attack, but once I got back inside, the fear set in. He could have shot me. I could have died—just as my career was beginning. My parents and now-husband were hundreds of miles away.

Read the full story here.

But she’s not the only reporter who has been victimized.

Real America’s Voice correspondent Brian Glenn revealed during a recent press conference, where President Trump unveiled his plans to end the crime in Washington, DC, that he was previously robbed at gunpoint by a “teenage thug” in the nation’s capital.

WATCH:

And several others, who report here at the White House, have also been impacted by Washington, DC’s third-world crime, despite the narrative they’re forced to push, claiming that DC is a safe place and that Trump’s actions are unwarranted. 

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