It’s an age-old comms strategy: when things are awful, fire the messenger
Kristi Noem has been under intense scrutiny and political attack this winter (including from her own side), but the person out of a job is not the controversial Homeland Security (DHS) secretary, but the spokesperson who brought her invective to the public. It’s a classic tale in politics.
As the secretary for DHS, Noem is accountable for the catastrophic work of ICE officers in Minnesota, which included two shootings that many in the state, and far beyond, describe as murder.
There’s been more about Noem, of course: just over a week ago, she went on a trip to Arizona to find proof to back up Donald Trump’s claims of voting fraud in the 2020 and 2024 elections. What did she find? Zip. Here’s a report from the Arizona Mirror:
She called Arizona’s elections an “absolute disaster” and made the false claim that there is widespread voter fraud by illegal immigrants. But when pressed by reporters to provide examples, Noem could not provide even a single one.
“Oh, I’m sure there’s many of them,” she responded.
Voter non-fraud aside, it was the days and weeks of escalating chaos about ICE, though, that had Noem in trouble — but not on the firing line. The New York Times reported that Noem was able to get herself out of Donald Trump’s penalty box, even with calls for her to be sacked coming from conservative voices:
Mr. Trump’s apparent displeasure with the handling of the situation in Minnesota was quickly mirrored in conservative media. A New York Post front page called Ms. Noem “Iced Barbie.” On Fox News, a morning host argued that she should be replaced.
Nothing like that happened.
Instead, the person to walk the proverbial plank has been the voice for Noem’s department in media briefings.
Tricia McLoughlin echoed Noem’s invective, and provided a megaphone for how the Trump administration wanted to frame issues. When Renee Good was shot and killed in her car, McLoughlin was one of the first to describe Good’s case as “domestic terrorism.”
McLaughlin had a “talk first, defend later” strategy, saying things about immigrants, for instance, that could not be backed up by facts or were disproven by videotape. She also was not afraid of scandalizing the American justice system:
McLaughlin also has repeatedly attacked federal judges who have ruled against the administration, calling them “unhinged,” “deranged” and “disgusting and immoral.” In some cases, she has accused judges of endangering immigration agents or the public through their rulings.
According to media reports, McLaughlin had wanted to leave her role earlier, but stayed on. Her departure, announced this Tuesday, lets some of the steam out of the firestorm that Noem engendered with provocative, often unproven statements.
But the writing may have been on the wall. Just days earlier, so-called “border czar” Tom Homan — who had been swept in to command the ICE operation in Minnesota — said Trump had approved his plan to wind up what the government called a “surge” on immigration.
The departure of McLoughlin is a familiar note from political playbooks. Noem, evidently able to talk her walk back into the president’s favour, still has her job. The person who communicated her message does not.