Mike Pence hires former Department of Homeland Security press aide as press secretary

Katie Waldman, who is currently communications director for Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., has been named as VP Pence’s new press secretary.

 Vice President Mike Pence has hired Katie Waldman to be his new press secretary, NBC News has learned.

Waldman, who is currently communications director for Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., previously served as the public defender of the Trump administration’s policy of family separations as deputy press secretary at the Department of Homeland Security.

She begins her new position on October 1.

“She’s got extensive experience and she’ll be a great fit in our office,” said Marc Short, Pence’s chief of staff. “She’s shown she has the mettle to handle intense environments.”

Waldman, 27, will replace Alyssa Farah who left earlier this month to be a spokeswoman at the Department of Defense.

Waldman is an aggressive and sometimes polarizing communicator but has proven to be a loyal advocate for the Trump administration and its policies.

During her nearly two-year stint at DHS, she was given the agency’s immigration portfolio and empowered to be the lead spokesperson. She consistently defended the administration’s policy of “zero tolerance” that led to the separation of thousands of children from their parents after crossing the southern border.

That experience has proven that she is battle-tested several allies of Waldman according to the news from NBC News. 

“She impressed a lot of people in the administration with her work in DHS and on the immigration portfolio in the height of media interest,” said a former DHS official who worked closely with her and is not authorized to speak publicly in a new position.

Waldman will be reporting directly to Short. She’ll be the on-the-record spokesperson for the vice president during a critical time as the president and vice president head into an election year.

Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., who hired Waldman as his first press secretary after he won election to the Senate in 2014, said that Waldman is one of the hardest workers he’s ever met.

“She has a very strong personality,” Daines said. “She has incredible work ethic.”

A senior administration official who used to work at DHS with Waldman said that her experience working for the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, two senators and the administration gives her a wide variety of experience.

And, the official added, “she’s pro-Trump and that checks all the boxes.”