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Homeland Security Hires Labor Dept. Aide Whose Posts Raised Alarms
I've removed the links to Twitter. The New York Times article is a freebie.
Reposted by Radley Balko
https://bsky.app/profile/radleybalko.bsky.social
Daily Kos
@dailykos.com
DHS just hired a 21-year-old whose biggest résumé highlight is flooding government social media with white-nationalist slop. This is what federal “communications” looks like now.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/2/12/2368321/-Meet-the-baby-faced-bigot-behind-Homeland-Security-s-icky-social-media
Meet the baby-faced bigot behind Homeland Security's icky social media
It’s been impossible to ignore the Nazification of official government social media accounts run by the Trump administration. It’s a sea of AI slop openly promoting white nationalism and anti-...
www.dailykos.com
8:30 PM · Feb 15, 2026
@dailykos.com
DHS just hired a 21-year-old whose biggest résumé highlight is flooding government social media with white-nationalist slop. This is what federal “communications” looks like now.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/2/12/2368321/-Meet-the-baby-faced-bigot-behind-Homeland-Security-s-icky-social-media
Meet the baby-faced bigot behind Homeland Security's icky social media
It’s been impossible to ignore the Nazification of official government social media accounts run by the Trump administration. It’s a sea of AI slop openly promoting white nationalism and anti-...
www.dailykos.com
8:30 PM · Feb 15, 2026
DHS just hired a 21-year-old whose biggest résumé highlight is flooding government social media with white-nationalist slop. This is what federal “communications†looks like now.
— Daily Kos (@dailykos.com) 2026-02-16T01:30:05.740Z
www.dailykos.com/stories/2026...
Meet the baby-faced bigot behind Homeland Security's icky social media
by Lisa Needham
Daily Kos Staff
Thursday, February 12, 2026 at 2:00:09p EST
Attribution: AP
A banner of Trump hangs from the U.S. Department of Labor headquarters, on Sept. 23, 2025, in Washington. Peyton Rollins seems to have been the one behind pushing to get the banner hung in the first place.
It’s been impossible to ignore the Nazification of official government social media accounts run by the Trump administration. It’s a sea of AI slop openly promoting white nationalism and anti-immigrant sentiment. However, we don’t often get to put a name or face to the people who push this racist garbage, because our government is now a black box.
Somehow, though, The New York Times learned that the Department of Homeland Security just picked up Peyton Rollins to help run their social media. However, in keeping with the opaqueness of our government, even as DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin was saying there were no new personnel changes at the agency, Rollins was slapping his new title on his LinkedIn, which actually says he’s been at DHS for a month.
Did we mention he is 21 years old?
Previously, Rollins was at the Department of Labor, where his singular achievement seems to have been getting the creepy fascist banner of Trump hung on the Department’s headquarters. His tenure at the DOL also involved pushing aside career staff so that he could use DOL social media accounts to promote xenophobic fawning garbage about Trump.
{snip}
by Lisa Needham
Daily Kos Staff
Thursday, February 12, 2026 at 2:00:09p EST
Attribution: AP
A banner of Trump hangs from the U.S. Department of Labor headquarters, on Sept. 23, 2025, in Washington. Peyton Rollins seems to have been the one behind pushing to get the banner hung in the first place.
It’s been impossible to ignore the Nazification of official government social media accounts run by the Trump administration. It’s a sea of AI slop openly promoting white nationalism and anti-immigrant sentiment. However, we don’t often get to put a name or face to the people who push this racist garbage, because our government is now a black box.
Somehow, though, The New York Times learned that the Department of Homeland Security just picked up Peyton Rollins to help run their social media. However, in keeping with the opaqueness of our government, even as DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin was saying there were no new personnel changes at the agency, Rollins was slapping his new title on his LinkedIn, which actually says he’s been at DHS for a month.
Did we mention he is 21 years old?
Previously, Rollins was at the Department of Labor, where his singular achievement seems to have been getting the creepy fascist banner of Trump hung on the Department’s headquarters. His tenure at the DOL also involved pushing aside career staff so that he could use DOL social media accounts to promote xenophobic fawning garbage about Trump.
{snip}
Peyton Rollins, a new social media director at the Department of Homeland Security, has claimed credit for a huge banner with President Trump’s visage that hung from the Labor Department’s headquarters. Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times
Homeland Security Hires Labor Dept. Aide Whose Posts Raised Alarms
A young aide behind social posts that echoed white supremacist messaging will help run social media for the much larger Homeland Security Department.
A young aide behind social posts that echoed white supremacist messaging will help run social media for the much larger Homeland Security Department.
By Evan Gorelick
Feb. 11, 2026
The Department of Homeland Security has hired a social media manager from the Department of Labor for a key communications job, despite posts he made on Labor Department media accounts that raised internal alarms over possible white-nationalist messaging. ... Peyton Rollins, 21, was hired this month to help run Homeland Security’s social media accounts, which have become public bullhorns for President Trump’s mass-deportation efforts and come under scrutiny of their own for appealing to right-wing extremists.
Tricia McLaughlin, the Homeland Security spokeswoman, said her public affairs office had “no personnel changes to announce at this time,” but Mr. Rollins has put his new position on his personal website. He is now digital communications director, according to screenshots of a Homeland Security staff directory reviewed by The New York Times. At the Labor Department, he was digital content manager. ... Courtney Parella, a spokeswoman for the Labor Department, said only, “The department does not comment on internal or personnel matters.”
Mr. Rollins has spent most of the past year giving the Labor Department’s social media pages a makeover in Mr. Trump’s image. Current and former employees said career staff members had been pushed aside after Mr. Rollins’ arrival and rarely, if ever, crafted social media posts once he took control. Instead, Mr. Rollins personally posted social media content, which he has included on his personal website.
Agency posts of late have used evocative imagery, some reminiscent of the 1920s and 1930s, with phrases like “Restore American Greatness” and “the globalist status quo is OVER.” An image of Mr. Trump, with bombers flying overhead, was accompanied by the message, “One of one.” ... Mr. Rollins has also claimed credit for a massive banner with Mr. Trump’s visage that has hung from the Labor Department’s headquarters. ... Some employees who have since left the Labor Department said that the agency’s posts had grown increasingly questionable. ... “We’re used to seeing posts about things like apprenticeships, benefits and unions,” said Helen Luryi, who was on the communications team for the department’s Women’s Bureau until she left in April. “Then,” she continued in an interview, “all of a sudden, we get white-nationalist rhetoric.”
{snip}
Evan Gorelick is a New York-based writer for The Morning, the flagship daily newsletter of The Times.
A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 12, 2026, Section A, Page 15 of the New York edition with the headline: Homeland Security Hires Labor Dept. Aide Whose Posts Raised Alarms. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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