WASHINGTON — Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security, faced fellow senators on Wednesday at a heated confirmation hearing.
The meeting was confrontational right from the start and ended on a similar note. Mullin has been tapped to take over DHS at a crucial time. The U.S. is locked in a war with Iran and the Trump administration faces a backlash for its aggressive immigration enforcement tactics. DHS funding lapsed on Feb. 13, leading to major delays at airports, and the two parties haven’t reached a deal.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., the chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, used his opening statement to confront Mullin for reportedly calling him a “freaking snake” and saying he “completely” understands why a neighbor assaulted Paul in 2017.
“Tell me to my face why you think I deserved it,” Paul told Mullin, while also bringing up Mullin's attempt to challenge a labor union leader to a fight during a 2023 committee hearing. “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 ICE and border patrol agents.”
“I just wonder if someone who applauds violence against their political opponents is the right person to lead an agency that has struggled to accept limits to the proper use of force,” Paul said.
Paul and the top Democrat on the committee, Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, later pressed Mullin repeatedly for details about classified travel he said he had taken in the past.
As Peters noted, Mullin has long suggested that he did sensitive work abroad but has been light on details. He quoted Mullin telling Fox News this month that he knew the “smell” and “taste” of war, though he did not serve in the armed services — as noted at the time by Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan of New York, a veteran.
Mullin told Peters that there was a “misunderstanding” and that the travel was an “official trip” he took as a member of the House in 2015 and 2016 “and it is classified.”
Mullin has been picked to take over for DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, whom Trump fired earlier this month after a rocky tenure. The president has selected Mullin to replace her by March 31, although he still needs to be confirmed by the Senate first.
Republicans control 53 seats in the chamber, and Mullin needs 50 senators to secure confirmation. Early expectations are that he will get enough votes in the end, as Republican senators have been deferential to Trump’s picks.
But the clashes with Paul suggest it may not be smooth sailing for him to secure unanimous support from Republicans, who hold an 8-7 majority on the committee.
Still, Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania said he would keep “an open mind” and that his experience with Mullin “has been consistent kindness and professionalism.”
Foreign travel
During the hearing, Paul and Peters pressed Mullin for more details about his "classified" travel as a House member. Mullin first became a senator in 2023 after serving in the House for a decade prior to that.
"It is classified," he said. "But in 2015, I was asked to train with a very small contingency and go to a certain area, which was scheduled for 2016. ... I have spoken in general about my experiences, but I’ve never spoken specifically on details, on dates or on the mission.”
“Some of it may be public,” he added. “But it would be very small. Most of it, because of my recollection, which we’re going back 10 years — I think there’s only four people read in on it.”
Mullin declined to say where the trip was or who the four people read in on it were, citing classified information. Asked who classified it, Mullin said the House, later adding: “I’m assuming.”
Peters and Paul offered to discuss the travel with him in a SCIF, a secure facility for discussing classified information.
Peters accused Mullin of not being “forthcoming with me or this committee."
Paul said he asked the FBI explicitly if Mullin had done “any kind of classified work” and that it should have shown up in paperwork for his nomination and could be viewed privately by the committee. Peters said no such paperwork was provided to them, and he asked the FBI about it.
“I said, ‘Well, I don’t see anything for Sen. Mullin. Why is that? They said, ‘Nothing showed up,’” Peters said.
Mullin said he had “nothing to hide” and had “no issues” with discussing details in a SCIF if authorized to do so.
Paul seemed to threaten to hold up Mullin’s nomination.
“I’m still willing to have the vote tomorrow, but I can cancel the vote tomorrow,” he said.
By hearing’s end, they agreed to have an initial meeting in a SCIF to discuss the issue on Wednesday afternoon. Paul did not attend in person, sending staff instead, according to a source familiar with the secretive meeting.
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who was present to support Mullin during Wednesday's hearing, later told NBC News that he'd checked with his former staffers and with Paul Ryan, who was speaker of the House at the time, and that Mullin's story of being approved to take that official trip is "100% true."
After the meeting, Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., an ally of Mullin's, told reporters that the DHS nominee's travel was related to "dealing with a whistleblower issue that happened to be overseas ... so there’s a lot of nondisclosure that has to happen in any kind of situation like that.”
Mullin was not "careful" in his language, said Lankford, who introduced the Oklahoma senator at the beginning of the hearing. "I would use more the term of 'nondisclosure' than 'classified,'" he said.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., left the briefing calling it “weird,” saying, “there is no need for this exchange to be classified, and why it was classified, and frankly, who classified it is still a mystery.”
“His answers raise additional questions," said Blumenthal. "And all of them go to his credibility, I continue to have really serious doubts about whether he has been fully forthcoming."
Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., also raised the issue of credibility upon leaving the SCIF.
Blumenthal suggested that Paul "should seriously consider waiting a while" to hold a committee vote on Mullin's nomination "so we can get responses to these questions.”
Paul said Wednesday night that the committee will proceed with a vote Thursday morning on whether to send Mullin’s nomination to the full Senate.
Whenever that happens, Paul said he plans to vote no.
“Senator Paul already knows he can’t support the nominee, but he wanted to ensure all committee members have the information they need to make their own decisions. He knows enough to know how he is going to vote,” a spokesperson for Paul told NBC News about his attendance at a meeting regarding Mullin's foreign travel. “He facilitated the meeting to make sure everyone else got the information they needed.”
If Paul does vote no, Mullin would need one Democratic vote on the committee to be advanced to the full Senate, and Fetterman appears to be his best hope.
“It’s just nothing shocking, or it’s not some Tom Clancy, you know, book thing,” Fetterman said after leaving the SCIF himself.
Asked if anything he heard in the briefing affects his position on how he would vote on Mullin, Fetterman said, “I’m taking in everything, and that’s where, where I’m still at. I mean, I haven’t seen anything shocking."
ICE
Democrats pushed Mullin on how he would take a different approach to ICE than Noem.
“I do believe there is a better approach. And I think working with municipalities, I would love to see ICE become a transport more than the front line," Mullin said.
He also walked back comments he made disparaging Alex Pretti as a “deranged individual” after the 37-year-old Minnesota man was killed by immigration enforcement officers.
“Those words probably should have been retracted. I shouldn’t have said that,” Mullin said under questioning from Peters. “I went out there too fast. I was responding immediately without the facts. That’s my fault. That won’t happen as secretary.”
“I regret those statements,” Mullin said, while adding that he “absolutely” will apologize if the investigation of the Pretti shooting proves him wrong.
But Mullin declined to take back his comment that the shooting of another Minnesota protester, Renee Good, was “absolutely” justified.
“It’s very clear that an officer had to make a split decision,” Mullin said in response to Democratic questioning. “In that case ... a car was running towards him and did strike him. At that point, that car becomes a lethal weapon.”
Mullin said the federal investigation into Good’s death is “going on,” and he would take a look at it if confirmed.
He also said he would revoke a policy put in place by Noem to personally review all DHS spending over $100,000 when asked about it by Democratic Sen. Andy Kim of New Jersey. “Absolutely ... that’s called micromanaging,” Mullin said.
Fight with Paul
Paul persisted in demanding that Mullin answer for his comments about the Kentucky senator getting violently assaulted by a neighbor years ago.
“I did not say I supported it. I said I understood it,” Mullin said.
Paul also played a montage of Mullin threatening to fight Teamsters President Sean O’Brien at a Senate hearing, to which Mullin noted that “my good friend Sean O’Brien” was sitting behind him and that the two have since reconciled their differences.
“Sir, I get it. It’s about character assassination for you. That’s the way this game is played. I understand it,” Mullin told Paul. “And you are making this about you.”
Mullin pushed back on Paul in his own statement.
“I have to address remarks the chairman made calling me a liar. Sir, I think there’s — everybody in this room knows that I’m very blunt and direct to the point. And if I have something to say, I’ll say it directly to your face,” Mullin said.
The senator did not deny making the remarks or apologize to Paul.
“It seems like you fight Republicans more than you work with us,” he told Paul. “We just don’t get along.”
“As far as me saying that I invoke violence, I don’t. I don’t think anybody should be hit by surprise. I don’t like that,” Mullin told Paul, while adding: “Let me earn your respect.”
“I’m not perfect. I don’t claim to be perfect,” he said.
