A MAGA congressman from a border state admitted that Markwayne Mullin has no security qualifications to lead the Department of Homeland Security.
Texas Rep. Pete Sessions said Mullin contended that while Mullin may be lacking national security experience on all fronts, he at least has good social skills.
“Markwayne is a person who may not be skilled in all the policy aspects, but he is skilled in reading people and understanding the importance of the operation to the nation,” he said on C-SPAN on Wednesday.
“So, that’s where we are,” he added, in reference to the partial DHS shutdown.
Sessions also appeared to inadvertently criticize former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, whom Trump fired earlier this month over a host of controversies. Her time leading the department came to an abrupt end after a disastrous hearing before Congress, which Sessions contended “did not go as well as Kristi wanted.”
“I don’t think it went as well for a lot of people, as it turned out the president then decided he was going to have a new secretary of homeland security,” he said.
Sessions said Mullin is going to “reset the tone. The tone of probably not just DHS, but ICE in particular.”
The Daily Beast reached out to Sessions’ office for further comment.
Mullin was confirmed to lead DHS in a 54 to 45 vote in the Senate on Monday.
Democrats have criticized Mullin for his lack of experience, as he has never served in law enforcement, has no emergency response experience, and had no national security experience before assuming his role.
Before being elected to Congress, he had worked in his family’s plumbing business in his native Oklahoma. He also has experience as a professional mixed martial arts fighter and was inducted into the Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2016.
Just days before being tapped to lead DHS, he made a series of public gaffes, as he mistated who the president was twice, called the Department of Defense its real name, not MAGA’s preferred “Department of War,” and confused Trump’s war with Iran with the 2003 war in Iraq.
In his personal capacity, Mullin has made some questionable moves, including sticking his fingers up the noses of several sleeping travelers while on an AIPAC-sponsored foreign policy trip to Israel with other lawmakers.
This week, he came under renewed scrutiny for comments that resurfaced in which he threatened to drag his daughter’s boyfriend’s face over asphalt, and boasted about how he disciplined his children.
“I do spank, I have no problem with that. I can spank them, and I’m still upset, and they’ll come and crawl on my lap two minutes later and just love on me,” he said in 2023. “I’ve got to be more forgiving.”
The former Oklahoma senator made those comments while speaking to a hardline evangelical Christian group, whose mission is for evangelicals to take over every level of the government and reign as “elders” anointed by God.
