Mola Lenghi
Mola Lenghi is a national correspondent for ABC News, based in Washington, D.C. He reports across all ABC News programs and platforms, including “Good Morning America” and “World News Tonight with David Muir.”
Since joining ABC News in 2022, Lenghi has covered top stories, including the devastating 2025 wildfires in Southern California, the deadly Lahaina wildfires on Maui in 2023, the Mauna Loa volcano eruption on the big island in Hawai’i, the attack on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, and the “Rust” movie set shooting and subsequent involuntary manslaughter trial of actor Alec Baldwin. In 2023, Lenghi spent several weeks in Lebanon in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel, providing coverage of the escalating border tensions between Hezbollah and Israeli Defense Forces. In 2024, Lenghi traveled to Tehran to report on the 45th anniversary of the Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolution.
Before joining ABC News, Lenghi was a correspondent at CBS News, where he covered the initial months of the COVID-19 outbreak in New York City and around the country; the 2020 George Floyd protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota; the deadly riots in Kenosha, Wisconsin; the arrest and prison suicide of Jeffrey Epstein; the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise; the shooting of Boston Red Sox baseball player David Ortiz in the Dominican Republic; and the death of NBA basketball player Kobe Bryant.
Lenghi was also part of the news coverage of the 2018 memorial service for former Sen. John McCain in Washington. A few months later, he traveled to Houston to report on the memorial service for former President George H.W. Bush, followed by the funeral in College Station, Texas, where Bush was laid to rest.
In Washington, Lenghi covered the first Trump administration at the White House and on Capitol Hill; the historic 2018 midterm elections and subsequent government shutdown, which is now the second-longest shutdown in U.S. history; special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation; the firing of FBI Director James Comey; and the contentious Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
In the fall of 2017, Lenghi was part of around-the-clock coverage from Las Vegas, where he reported on the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
He also covered Florida’s preparations for and the impact of hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017. The following year, he reported from the North Carolina coast as Hurricane Florence made landfall, drenching the Carolinas and causing historic flooding.
Lenghi was previously part of the news teams at WUSA-TV in Washington from 2013 to 2017, KXAS-TV in Dallas/Fort Worth from 2010 to 2013, and WPDE-TV in Myrtle Beach from 2006 to 2010.
Lenghi covered Pope Francis’ historic first state visit to America and the life and death of Marion Barry, the former Washington, D.C., mayor and civil rights icon. While in Texas, he was also part of team coverage of the 2011 MLB World Series at the Rangers’ Ballpark in Arlington and the 2013 NCAA March Madness College Basketball Tournament at Cowboys Stadium.
Lenghi was born to Libyan parents who immigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s to escape Muammar Gaddafi’s dictatorship. In the aftermath of the 2011 uprising that toppled Gaddafi, he spent several weeks in Libya producing a series of stories on the country, from the initial hope of building a free and prosperous nation to its ultimate descent into chaos.
Lenghi is a graduate of Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina. He and his wife, who also works in news, live in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. — where they both grew up — with their son and their mini rottweiler, Maisie.
