Tricia McLaughlin Tried To Flex Her Lavish Lifestyle With An Unflattering Private Jet Pic

While she may not garner quite as much attention as her boss, Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, can be just as disgustingly out of touch as Kristi Noem. On New Year's Day 2026, McLaughlin took to Instagram to show off her lavish lifestyle, but in doing so she ended up being relentlessly mocked for her overcrowded private jet pic. The photo shows a rather unhappy-looking McLaughlin sitting with three other similarly grumpy women onboard a cramped private plane. McLaughlin appears to have a a boxed charcuterie board on her lap, and the cabin of the plane is clearly overfilled with baggage. 

triciaohio/Instagram

As one commenter quipped in response, "It's giving one way ticket to hell," while another simply wrote, "Disgusting." Like several other prominent women in President Trump's administration, McLaughlin has undergone a full MAGA makeover but fortunately, she has thus far avoided getting the complete "Mar-a-Lago face" that has become the latest conservative trend. But her questionable actions and statements are concerning, starting with her husband making a deal with the DHS that netted his consulting firm a lucrative deal to film an ad campaign for Noem. 

According to ProPublica, the department hired Strategy Group to create it, bypassing the normal bidding process by claiming a national emergency and paying them over $200 million. McLaughlin's husband, Benjamin Yoho, is the CEO of Strategy Group. At the time, she pled ignorance, clarifying simply, "My marriage is one thing and work is another. I don't combine them."

Tricia McLaughlin's tasteless outfits are truly the least of her problems. As the mouthpiece for the Department of Homeland Security, McLaughlin is often on TV or releasing statements to defend their questionable actions, which leads to her making claims that don't quite add up. In May 2025, she proudly stated that a Democratic lawmaker had "body-slammed" an ICE officer at a New Jersey facility. Video of the incident, as reported by the Daily Beast, does not feature any members of Congress performing the iconic wrestling move. In October of the same year, McLaughlin implied on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Marimar Martinez had attacked ICE agents before they shot her five times. But, as CNN pointed out, the government's case against Martinez quickly fell apart, and the US Attorney's Office was ultimately forced to file a motion to dismiss the charges. 

Then, just seven days into 2026, ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot Minneapolis resident Renee Good in the head three times, killing her. The Monday after the shooting, McLaughlin went on Fox News to rather dubiously claim that the mother of three was "stalking and harassing our law enforcement officers for hours that day," (via X). This statement doesn't match what happened; Good was shot shortly after 9:30 a.m. and, per the Associated Press, had just dropped her youngest child off at school at the time. McLaughlin subsequently went on CNN to proclaim that Renee Good was committing an act of domestic terrorism and continued to make false claims despite widespread video evidence to the contrary.