{"id":665375,"date":"2026-03-18T22:05:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T22:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/665375\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T22:05:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T22:05:15","slug":"markwayne-mullins-confirmation-hearing-was-hilarious-and-he-might-lose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/665375\/","title":{"rendered":"Markwayne Mullin\u2019s confirmation hearing was hilarious\u2014and he might lose."},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for the Slatest<\/a> to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.<\/p>\n

Sen. Markwayne Mullin\u2019s nomination for Homeland Security secretary is not a particularly controversial one, as Trump appointments go. He\u2019s spent a dozen years in the House and Senate, he gets along well with his Republican (and many Democratic) colleagues, and most importantly, everyone will be glad to see Secretary Kristi Noem go.<\/p>\n

The issue for Mullin is that there\u2019s one Republican colleague he absolutely does not get along with, and the feeling is mutual. It\u2019s a senator whom Mullin recently called<\/a> a \u201cfreaking snake.\u201d Mullin also said he understood why that senator\u2019s neighbor \u201cdid what he did\u201d\u2014beat him to a pulp\u2014in a 2017 assault. That senator is Rand Paul, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, which confirms DHS nominees.<\/p>\n

During Wednesday\u2019s Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing into Mullin\u2019s nomination, bygones would not be bygones. It didn\u2019t take long to recognize that the core of the hearing would be an honor dispute between two strong-willed men.<\/p>\n

Paul opened the hearing by describing his attack in rich detail: The six broken ribs, the damaged lung, the infections and pneumonias, the coughing of blood, the chest tubes.<\/p>\n

\u201cTell the world why you believe I deserved to be assaulted from behind, have six ribs broken, and a damaged lung,\u201d Paul addressed the nominee. \u201cTell it to my face why you think I deserved it. And while you\u2019re 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

A hearing like this, in which the nominee has recently joked about an assault on the committee chairman, is a rarity. But the opportunity was nevertheless there for a sort of staged closure: Mullin could apologize, say he got carried away, and pledge to work with the chairman going forward.<\/p>\n

Mullin did not choose that path. When he first responded to Paul, Mullin acknowledged that the two \u201cjust don\u2019t get along,\u201d and aggressively said to Paul that it \u201cseems like you fight Republicans more than you work with us.\u201d When Paul pressed him again about his lack of apology, lack of contrition, and inability to even say he \u201cmisspoke,\u201d while ribbing him about his \u201clow impulse control\u201d and presentation of \u201cmachismo,\u201d Mullin didn\u2019t waver.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did not say I supported\u201d the attack, Mullin said. \u201cI said I understood it.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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Paul then noted that there\u2019s a \u201cpattern\u201d of Mullin using violent rhetoric, and played a clip reel of Mullin in past hearings and interviews. There was, of course, the incident in which he nearly got into a fight<\/a> with Teamsters President Sean O\u2019Brien during a hearing. But there were also some interviews in which Mullin\u2014somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but not entirely\u2014talked about how sometimes people need to get punched in the face, how canings and duels were appropriate ways to settle disputes, and how he\u2019s \u201cnot above biting\u201d in a fight.<\/p>\n

Mullin observed, in his response, that O\u2019Brien was sitting immediately behind him in the current hearing, as the two had since made up and become friends. Things only got more absurd as the exchanges between the chairman and the nominee petered out. Paul asked him whether he believed caning and dueling were still reasonable ways for people to settle disputes. Mullin suggested that \u201cdueling between two consenting adults\u201d could still be an option.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been illegal for 170 years,\u201d Paul said. \u201cThere\u2019s no precedent for legal dueling. Even then, they fled the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

The personal hostility of the chairman, combined with most Democrats\u2019 reflexive opposition to anyone Trump would nominate to run his Department of Homeland Security, meant that Paul and the top Democrat on the committee, Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, were often teaming up against Mullin.<\/p>\n

One thread that Peters pulled on was whether Mullin had inflated his background. As the Washington Post reported<\/a> before the hearing, Mullin has never served in the military, but he has often told stories alluding to being in hairy situations \u201coverseas\u201d while on \u201cspecial assignments.\u201d He has referred to the \u201csmell\u201d of war. In the hearing, Mullin described an \u201cofficial,\u201d \u201cclassified\u201d trip from a decade ago which only \u201cfour people\u201d were read in on. He refused to offer any more details in an open setting. As Paul and Peters tried to get more information, they lost their ability to not wryly make fun of him, with Paul describing it as \u201cthis super-secret mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I did not say \u2018super-secret,\u2019 sir,\u201d Mullin responded.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly four people know?\u201d Peters said. \u201cThat\u2019s pretty secret!\u201d<\/p>\n

When Mullin was asked whether it was related to his role on the House Intelligence Committee, Mullin said he wasn\u2019t on that committee at the time of his mission. He was, he said, on the Energy and Commerce Committee.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it was an Energy and Commerce top-secret effort?\u201d Peters said, as dryly as he could.<\/p>\n

\u201cSir, what I\u2019m getting upset about a little bit here is your tone, that you\u2019re saying it in a condescending way,\u201d Mullin responded. \u201cI did what I was asked to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the end of the hearing, committee members agreed to meet in a secure facility on Wednesday afternoon to hear Mullin regale them with his tales of daring from a decade ago. They plan to vote on his nomination on Thursday.<\/p>\n

After the hearing, Paul confirmed that he would not support Mullin.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there are anger issues. There\u2019s a lack of contrition both about the violence perpetrated on me, really the violent episode he was involved in in the Senate committee, where he\u2019s told the media, frankly, that he doesn\u2019t regret it,\u201d Paul told reporters after the hearing. \u201cThe fact that he can\u2019t bring himself to say that we really shouldn\u2019t settle political questions with violence, I think that would be a terrible example for ICE and for Border Patrol agents.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \n
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    The Homeland Security Committee comprises eight Republicans and seven Democrats. Why, then, did Mullin so freely refuse to apologize to the Republican committee chairman for joking about his maiming? While we can\u2019t dig into his mind, Mullin likely knows that he seems to have the support of at least one Democrat on the committee: Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman. Fetterman announced<\/a> his support for Mullin shortly after Trump announced his nomination.<\/p>\n

    While Fetterman was gracious to Mullin during his questioning, though, he was unusually coy about the status of his support. He said at the end of his time that he would \u201cremain with an open mind\u201d as he listened to the rest of the hearing.<\/p>\n

    I asked him after the hearing whether he was still a certain yes on the nomination.<\/p>\n

    \u201cI mean, I got some B\u2019s in math in school, so yeah, I\u2019m aware of the math there,\u201d he said, acknowledging the swing nature of his vote. \u201cI think I\u2019m familiar with the circumstances we find ourselves in.\u201d<\/p>\n

    So I asked the question again: Is he a yes?<\/p>\n

    \u201cAccept the mystery,\u201d Fetterman pronounced.<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n

    Sign up for Slate’s evening newsletter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":665376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[7033,69,409,50,80,26390,5620,16854,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-665375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","category-us","tag-democrats","tag-donald-trump","tag-immigration","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-rand-paul","tag-republicans","tag-senate","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116252451135910755","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}