The Narrative

When an organization thinks it has a “public relations” problem, the chances are pretty good it has a real, fundamental problem.

I felt this dynamic multiple times in my 25-year career in public and media relations and crisis communications.

One CEO I worked for was frustrated by our languishing stock price, low employee morale, and poor customer service scores, and tasked me and my communications team with creating a slick pamphlet touting our many accomplishments as a way to sway opinion among all those audiences. Unfortunately, that story didn’t match the facts that all could see with their eyes, and the CEO was gone in a year.

I was reminded of that dynamic while watching Fox News in the hours after ICE agents shot and killed a second U.S. citizen in Minneapolis in the last week of January. The discussion among the host and guests on the show wasn’t about the wisdom or lack thereof in the tactics ICE is employing, but rather the need for the Trump administration to do a better job with “messaging” and explaining those tactics.

Politico had a story that day examining the rift in the Republican party over the administration’s ICE actions, highlighting this notion and the erosion of support among Americans about ICE tactics in general. “Republicans are split on the best way to address the eroding support, with some in the party viewing it as a messaging problem, while others argue that the administration’s policy itself is driving voters’ concerns.”

Deputy attorney general Todd Blanche went on Meet the Press the following morning to plant the flag on the messaging side of the issue, saying we’re all “missing the narrative” when it comes to what ICE is doing in Minneapolis, and that Minnesota’s governor and Minneapolis’s mayor are to blame for the deaths by not cooperating with federal officials on their ICE crackdown.

It’s actually not a complicated story when you think about it, and the narrative is simple: ICE has killed two American citizens in an American city in two weeks. Both were here legally, one unarmed, one legally armed. Neither had a criminal record, according to press reports and their families.

How does that comport with the administration’s desire to close the borders to illegal immigration and deport the “worst of the worst” in its immigration efforts, which, as I’ve noted in prior columns, is a welcome departure from the Biden administration’s disastrous open border policy?

The answer is equally simple: it doesn’t.

If I had to guess, the Trump administration will quietly adjust its tactics to better reflect how the majority of Americans feel about its approach to ICE in our cities, with pressure from electorally vulnerable, moderate Republicans turning the screws.

Having said that, it’s equally likely President Trump will double down and replicate the Minneapolis approach in more U.S. cities in the months ahead.

If so, it’s a lose-lose proposition for us all, a “narrative” no one can miss.