Trump official gets venomous sendoff on MS NOW for 'leaving behind a badly scarred' agency
February 17, 2026
MS NOW's Antonia Hylton profiled departing Department of Homeland Security official Tricia McLaughlin — a woman who, in her Hylton's words, is "known for hercombative posture to the pressand a relationship to the truththat is at times tenuous."
Hylton opened the segment on Tuesday night with a clip of McLaughlin, a key media-facing figure, accusing Democrats of inviting terrorism against border officials.
"There's a highly coordinated campaign of violence againstour law enforcement," said McLaughlin in the clip. "There areforeign terrorist organizationswho are going after our lawenforcement who are shooting atthem. The Democrat Party hasdecided that violence againstlaw enforcement is okay. Theserioters, these Democratpoliticians, are protecting theworst of the worst criminal,illegal aliens among us. Theseagitators, these rioters areprotecting these criminals.They're talking about this isracially based. Absolutely not."
"For the past year,McLaughlin has basically beenthe main gatekeeper forinformation out of DHS, and shehas provided journalists, including myself, withnon-responses," said Hylton. "Outrage at ourlines of questioning, evensmears for the immigrants whosestories we've told on thisnetwork. Blame for theprotesters, for the violencethat they suffered, suggestingRenee Good, for example, was adomestic terrorist, saying AlexPretti violently resisted theofficers who shot him to death.And when DHS social mediaaccounts began to push out asteady stream of content thatexperts warned were full ofracist dog whistles and whitenationalist content, McLaughlindismissed criticisms as cherry-picking."
Furthermore, Hylton continued, "like her bossKristi Noem, McLaughlin hasfaced questions about possiblecorruption. Last year,ProPublica investigated a $220million DHS contract to producea series of video ads starringKristi Noem, and the mainbeneficiary of that contractwas a company whose CEO ismarried to, you guessed it,Tricia McLaughlin. She toldProPublica, quote, 'My marriageis one thing and work isanother. I don't combine them.'"
"McLaughlin explained how sheviews that work in an interviewlast month with her hometownpaper, the Cincinnati Enquirer," she continued, "Quote: 'Media is so much of thebattle, so to speak, on theimmigration issue. So much ofthe debate is a publicrelations debate. It's a PR war.'McLaughlin often fought dirtyin that war, and now it appearsshe's throwing in the towel,leaving behind a badly scarreddepartment after setting itscredibility, and at times herown, on fire."
"Make no mistake: DHS is still, according toexperts and judges, regularlyviolating people's rights,taking orders from Donald Trumpand Stephen Miller, of course," said Hylton. "And they have the massive warchest that they got in Trump'sbig budget bill. And even thisshutdown can't keep theiragents off the streets rightnow, but their momentum isslowing. Their agency is inlimbo, and their spokespersonis now out the door."
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