How the Mullin hearing went off the rails
WASHINGTON (AP) — President opened the hearing With provocative courage: Say it to my face.
Senator Rand PaulThe Kentucky Republican has made it clear he doesn’t have much respect President Donald Trump Friend, candidate to lead Department of Homeland Security Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin. He says he will vote against him.
Their differences go back a long way.
Mullin called out to him: “scary snake” He sides with Paul’s neighbor who left the senator multiple broken ribs After a surprise attack, a neighbor beat a senator who was doing gardening in front of his house.
Paul calls Mullin a liar with anger management issues who doesn’t have the temperament to manage troublemakers Department of Homeland Security This is Trump’s front line mass deportation agenda.
“Tell the world why you believe I deserved to be attacked,” Paul said Wednesday. as he hammered By order of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
“Explain to the American people why they should trust a man with anger issues to set the right example for ICE and Border Patrol agents.”
Mullin was a mixed martial arts champion and led workout sessions at the House gym, including for then-Rep. Former House speaker Kevin McCarthy, sitting behind supporters in the front row, took a page from the paper. Trump administration playbook.
Fight, fight, fight. He wasn’t backing down.
“If I have something to say, I’ll say it straight to your face,” Mullin responded.
Fits Warrior Cabinet
Mullin explains why he was chosen for the job as the president’s favorite to take over the struggling agency Secretary Kristi Noem heads towards the exit.
He repeated what he said about Paul: “You can understand why your neighbor did what he did.”
“I make no apologies,” Mullin said at one point.
In a tumultuous season filled with heated committee hearings, the change was like few others.
Trump administration officials and those seeking to join the Cabinet are feuding with members of Congress, especially Democrats, who oppose the president’s people and policies. But broadsides from fellow Republican Paul, who has confronted Trump as a GOP outlier, offered a rare bipartisan rebuttal. The vote, expected next week, showed Mullin’s narrow path to Senate confirmation.
And it didn’t stop there.
Mullin was grilled for three hours about his personal character and public expertise in the Homeland business. He’s not a policy geek mired in the intricacies of immigration enforcement, FEMA or other Homeland Security operations. He’s not a known management expert either, as he took over the family plumbing business before joining Congress.
What Mullin brings to the job is his relationship with Trump (he called the president a “friend”) and his reputation as someone who tactfully brings together people from across political walks of life, constantly bouncing a stress ball as he walks the halls of Congress.
Senators push Mullin on secret trip
GOP colleagues praised Mullin’s character, and Mullin broke down in tears as she described how she adored Trump’s son, Jimmy, who had health problems while he was busy campaigning in 2020.
But Mullin confused senators about a secret trip he said he took to a foreign country several years ago that he said had war zone-like conditions.
Senators said the FBI, which vets background checks on executive branch nominees, had no record of such a trip, and committee leaders insisted that Mullin meet them later at a secure facility and discuss what they called his “super-secret” mission to a foreign country.
“I didn’t say it was ‘super secret,'” Mullin snapped.
But it was the opening statement that set the tone for the debate, signaling the narrow support Mullin is expected to receive in a committee vote on Thursday.
Paul began by calling for an end to the political violence that has spread across the country, from the 2011 shooting of former Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords at a Congressional event outside a Tucson grocery store that launched her own political career to the 2017 shooting of a gunman at congressional baseball game practice while warming up in the batting cage.
“Now more than ever, it is imperative that our nation’s leaders reject violence and lead by example,” Paul said.
He played a video of Mullin nearly fighting with a union leader and told him: “Keep your ass up” — at another Senate hearing in 2023.
Mullin admitted that he and Paul just had their differences.
“We don’t get along at all,” he testified.
Mullin said he and union leader Sean O’Brien of the Teamsters, who was sitting behind him in the audience, were friends.
“If you want to put it aside, I can put it aside,” Mullin said to Paul.
Paul came back, “You think I’m somehow going to put this aside?”
