Senate confirms Markwayne Mullin as DHS secretary

WASHINGTON (CN) — The Senate on Monday confirmed Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin as the new secretary of the Homeland Security Department, after he secured key Democratic support in a procedural vote over the weekend.

Mullin’s confirmation to replace outgoing DHS Secretary Kristi Noem closes the book on what’s been an unusually fast confirmation process for a Cabinet-level secretary — one that’s progressed despite an acrimonious hearing last week where the senator and a fellow Republican lawmaker aired out a deeply personal conflict.

The Senate Monday night voted 54-45 to confirm the DHS nominee to his post. Helping Mullin across the finish line were two Democrats: Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman and New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich. It comes just a day after the upper chamber approved a procedural measure teeing up a final vote this week.

Fetterman’s support for the Oklahoma Republican was expected after he expressed approval for the nominee during a hearing last week in the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, and then later voted to favorably report him out of the panel and onto the Senate floor. But Heinrich had not publicly said he’d back Mullin, only writing in a statement after Sunday’s vote that he considered the senator a “friend” and that they’d had an “honest and constructive working relationship.”

“I would like a secretary who I can call and have a constructive conversation with about my state and the unique terrain that exists in the southwest and the proper mix of structure, technology and personnel necessary to effectively secure our border,” Heinrich wrote.

The New Mexico Democrat said he would also vote to confirm Mullin on Monday night.

President Donald Trump tapped Mullin for DHS secretary earlier this month, just days after firing Noem. The president reportedly became angry at Noem after she told lawmakers Trump had been involved in a roughly $220 million DHS advertising campaign that prominently featured the outgoing secretary.

During his committee hearing last week, Mullin said he hoped to lead a DHS that made fewer headlines. “My goal for six months from now is that we’re not the lead story every day,” he told the panel at the time.

The Oklahoma Republican told Senate lawmakers he regretted his own comments suggesting the two Americans killed by federal agents earlier this year in Minnesota were violent agitators, though he would not criticize the administration for using similar language.

Mullin also signaled that he’d reverse a year of agency guidance permitting immigration enforcement to forcibly enter homes without a signed judicial warrant. DHS last May said agents could use administrative warrants signed by agency officials to conduct such searches, a departure from longstanding practice.

But while Mullin positioned himself as someone who would recenter DHS, he still faced scrutiny from lawmakers over his history of harsh comments about his fellow senators, as well as one pugilistic outburst during a Senate hearing.

The nominee clashed hard last week with Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who demanded he apologize for past comments that he “understood” why Paul had been assaulted outside his home by a neighbor in a 2017 incident that left the senator with lifelong injuries.

Mullin refused to show remorse, claiming he had not endorsed violence against Paul but that he merely understood why the assault had taken place. He implored the senator and other members of the committee to move past the conflict.

Paul opposed the DHS nominee in last week’s committee vote and is expected to vote against his confirmation on Monday.

Mullin was also forced last week to address a 2023 episode during which he threatened to fistfight Teamsters president Sean O’Brien during a Senate hearing. The Oklahoma senator insisted that he did not condone political violence — and O’Brien himself sat behind the nominee at his hearing as a gesture of goodwill.

And the prospective DHS secretary baffled lawmakers probing his past allusions to military service, providing a convoluted explanation in which he claimed he’d been part of a classified, four-person trip to an undisclosed location in 2016 that required him to undergo military survival training.

Mullin insisted he took the excursion as an official trip while serving as a House lawmaker but refused to publicly provide more details and declined to tell senators who had classified it.

The committee found his comments so confusing that they met with Mullin at a secure location in the Capitol for a classified briefing on the supposed trip. But both Democrats and Republicans leaving that meeting provided little clarity on the nominee’s claims and called into question whether the travel was in fact classified.

If Mullin is confirmed Monday night, he will take over for Noem at the end of the month. The outgoing secretary has been reassigned to lead a new regional security initiative recently unveiled by the Trump administration.

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