Markwayne Mullin defended his ability to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Wednesday at a confirmation hearing that began on an unusually quarrelsome note when a fellow Republican senator accused him of encouraging violence.
Donald Trump earlier this month nominated Mullin, a first-term Republican senator from Oklahoma, to lead DHS, after the president ousted Kristi Noem amid public blowback against the administration’s aggressive approach to its mass deportation agenda, which resulted in the killings of two US citizens by immigration agents in Minneapolis.
Mullin’s confirmation hearing before the Senate committee on homeland security and governmental affairs came as the department he hopes to lead remains partially shut down, after Democrats refused to approve funding unless Trump and his Republican allies agree to impose new guardrails on immigration enforcement.
In his opening remarks, Mullin called for funding to be restored, while signaling he would avoid some of the mistakes made by Noem, whose publicity-heavy approach to leading the agency reportedly led to the president souring on her leadership.
“My goal in six months is that we’re not in the lead story every single day. My goal is for people to understand we’re out there, we’re protecting them, and we’re working with them,” he said. “But we have to get DHS funded.”
All signs point to a quick confirmation for Mullin, who was elected to the Senate in 2022 after serving five terms in the House of Representatives. Republicans have praised his nomination, and their control of the Senate gives them the numbers to push his appointment through, even if Democrats oppose him.
But the senator seems set to be opposed by the committee’s chair, Rand Paul, who opened the hearing by demanding from Mullin an explanation as to why he called Paul a “freaking snake” and said he “completely understood” why a neighbor had attacked him in 2017.
“Tell the world why you believe I deserve to be assaulted from behind, have six ribs broken and a damaged lung,” Paul said. “Tell me to my face why you think I deserved it, and while you’re at it, explain to the American public why they should trust a man with anger issues to set the proper example for [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and Border Patrol agents.”
Mullin responded by telling Paul, a Kentucky senator known for his libertarian streak, that it “seems like you fight Republicans more than you work with us”, but nonetheless tried to win his support.
“If you’re willing to set it aside, let me earn your respect. Let me earn the job. I won’t fail you,” Mullin said. “I don’t claim to be perfect. I make mistakes, just like anybody else, but mistakes, if you own them, you can learn from them, and you can move ahead. And I’ll make that commitment to you.”
Paul was unsatisfied, accusing Mullin of “a lack of contrition”, then playing a video of him threatening to fight Teamsters president Sean O’Brien during a Senate hearing in 2023, then defending it in subsequent interviews.
Mullin replied that O’Brien, who had accompanied him to the hearing, is now a “close friend” and they “agreed we could have done things different”.
Mullin has publicly supported the Trump administration’s hardline approach to immigration enforcement, including defending federal agents who in January killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
Under questioning from the committee’s top Democrat, Gary Peters, Mullin expressed regret for calling Pretti “a deranged individual that came in to cause maximum damage”.
“Those words probably should have been retracted. I shouldn’t have said that,” Mullin replied. “I went out there too fast. I was responding immediately, without the facts. That’s my fault.”
Asked by Peters if he wanted to apologize to Pretti’s family, Mullin declined, saying his death remained under investigation: “We’ll let the investigation go through, and if I’m proven wrong, then I will absolutely.”
Peters also honed in on comments that Mullin, who is not a military veteran, has made that seem to indicate he had seen combat, including when he told Fox News in a recent interview that “war is ugly, it smells bad”.
“Your statements in public interviews and your responses to the committee are, quite frankly, are confusing and they are inconsistent,” Peters said.
Mullin responded by saying that in 2015, he had been asked to “train with a very small contingency and go to a certain area”, though declined to reveal exact details, saying they were classified. That prompted Peters to ask: “Where did you smell war?”
Mullin repeated that the details were classified, prompting Peters say that he would seek more information about his activities and “if you’re portraying yourself in a truthful way”.
Mullin’s nomination collides with a standoff in Congress over funding for the homeland security department, which Democrats have refused to support unless the Trump administration and their Republican allies agree to a host of new guidelines including a ban on officers wearing masks and making random stops of people suspected of being in the country illegally, as well as the creation of a use of force policy.
Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, who sits on the homeland security committee, is thus far the only Democrat in the chamber to endorse Mullin. “I’m not sure how many fellow Democrats will vote to support our colleague [senator Mullin] as the next DHS Secretary, but I am AYE,” he wrote on X.
The homeland security committee has scheduled a vote on his nomination for Thursday, after which it can be considered by the full Senate.
