Assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin announced Tuesday that she would be leaving the Department of Homeland Security. Over the past 13 months, she has been the main mouthpiece for DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, tasked with selling the public on President Donald Trump’s ongoing immigration crackdown.
Accordingly, McLaughlin’s name has been attached to some of the most false and repugnant statements to come out of the administration, including smearing Renee Good and Alex Pretti after their killings at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis last month.
I can picture that being a relief for someone like McLaughlin, who day after day tried to convince the world that the indefensible is, in fact, in the public interest.
Video evidence later proved McLaughlin’s claim that Good “was using her vehicle to block-in law enforcement officers and obstruct lawful operations” to be a mischaracterization at best. Her statement that Pretti “violently resisted” officers was likewise shown to be false. And yet she is not leaving in disgrace for her lies, but instead voluntarily stepping down from a job she once called a “sacrifice.”
In many ways, McLaughlin and I are opposites. Aside from the obvious of differences of sex and race, while I considered trying my hand as a speechwriter or press aide when I was younger, I instead stumbled into journalism. As such, I’ve found myself in a career that prides itself on its devotion to the truth. Moreover, I’m fortunate enough that, rather than serving as a middleman for others’ beliefs, my work is now built upon my own ideas and opinions.
In that way, I imagine there’s something comforting in being a spokesperson. The words you provide to listeners, be they laymen or journalists, are your own — or at least they can (usually) be attributed to you. But the ideas within those words aren’t wholly original. They’re crafted on behalf of someone else, often in defense of something decided above your pay grade.
I can picture that being a relief for someone like McLaughlin, who day after day tried to convince the world that the indefensible is, in fact, in the public interest. “This feels like service,” McLaughlin told the Cincinnati Enquirer about her role in January. “This is sacrifice. And that’s part of what I signed up for.” The call to service is one that countless others have felt when joining up with previous administrations. But for McLaughlin, as with the others who have readily signed up for the second Trump administration, it’s hard to empathize with any notion of self-sacrifice she might claim.
Yes, choosing public service over the private sector is often a financial sacrifice. It’s possible that her annual salary — $195,000 for assistant secretaries — would be higher doing a similar job for a private company. Yes, there is the sacrifice that comes with being the public defender of an immigration policy that is becoming less popular and even in dealing with the reported behind-the-scenes chaos and power struggles that have consumed DHS.
And yes, McLaughlin’s work will follow her no matter where she lands next. Even before Good’s and Pretti’s deaths last month, McLaughlin had told enough lies as spokesperson by last November to warrant a roundup of the worst of them from Zeteo. None of them, including a claim that a video producer was arrested for throwing objects at law enforcement, have been retracted when proved false. It’s true then that any chance of her being seen as a credible source has been sacrificed on the MAGA altar.
Maybe McLaughlin is one of the PR specialists for whom a job is a job is a job — but at some point, even the most studied amorality tips into immorality The most distressing part about McLaughlin’s tenure wasn’t the obfuscation and bombast or her frequent targeting of federal judges who ruled against DHS. It’s how little it stood out amid her peers across the administration. Karoline Leavitt lies from the White House briefing room podium regularly in ways that Trump’s first press secretary, Sean Spicer, would never have dreamed possible. Her boss, White House communications director Steven Cheung, is even more confrontational, issuing statements as vapid as they are laced with insults. And they all have chosen to emulate their guiding star, the president of the United States, in both the style and substance (or lack thereof). McLaughlin didn’t say what was next for her in a statement in which she said she is looking forward to “to continuing the fight ahead.” It may be that she returns to Ohio alongside her husband, a GOP political strategist. But from there, depending on how the winds blow, she could easily appear on Fox News as a contributor or forge her own path as a former insider. There’s yet to be a shortage of opportunities for former Trumpists to cash in, either through unearned rehabilitation or leaning into their MAGA credentials. It’s hard to say, at this point, whether McLaughlin will choose to embrace Noem’s policies as her own or hold them at arm’s length. With most spokespeople I’ve encountered over the years, there tends to be some disconnect between the job and the person behind it. A mercenary mindset can be a necessity, given the inverse correlation between the best-paying accounts and depths of their notoriety. Maybe McLaughlin is one of the PR specialists for whom a job is a job is a job — but at some point, even the most studied amorality tips into immorality. There are some asks that are so great that they can’t be fully shed like a cloak at the doorway when returning home each night. McLaughlin may one day be on a book tour claiming that she never fully bought into Trump’s worst rhetoric. But there’s no deleting the words she at least found tolerable enough to be released under her name.
Hayes Brown is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He focuses on politics and policymaking at the federal level, including Congress and the White House. 
