Vice President Mike Pence's newest hire already seems pretty comfortable in the White House.
Pence has tapped Katie Waldman as his new press secretary, Pence's Chief of Staff Marc Short confirmed to NBC News on Thursday. She was previously a deputy press secretary in the Department of Homeland Security, is currently Sen. Martha McSally's (R-Ariz.) communications director, and, as The Washington Post's Nick Miroff notes, is dating President Trump's adviser Stephen Miller.
Waldman served under former DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen during the height of the Trump administration's family separation crisis, and with her focus on immigration, became one of the leading defenders of the "zero tolerance" policy. Perhaps uncoincidentally, Miller was reportedly the "architect" of that policy that split migrant children from their parents at the border, as well as several other hardline immigration ideas.
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Regardless of who drew it up, Waldman's unflinching defense of the Trump immigration agenda "impressed a lot of people in the administration," one DHS official tells NBC News. "She's shown she has the mettle to handle intense environments," including the intense media scrutiny of DHS throughout the past year, Short added. Waldman starts Oct. 1, and will be Pence's top spokesperson as he and Trump head into an election year.
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