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.








