Video ‘The Five’: Kimmel doubles down on Markwayne Mullin plumber dig ‘The Five’ assesses how late-night host Jimmy Kimmel is doubling down on his swipe at DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
Kristi Noem may still be grabbing headlines, but we shouldn’t overlook her replacement at DHS, Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma. Here are four reasons why Mullin, confirmed by the Senate in record time, could be the right man for the job.
Unlike many other politicians, Mullin has worked with his hands and broken a sweat. He can ride a horse, drive a truck, haul sheetrock and unlike Chuck Schumer, likely grill a burger. He ran a company that employed more than 150 people in the state he represents — a plumbing business providing real services anyone can understand, not a consultancy or lobbying group or NGO feasting off government grants. Clinton once told voters "I feel your pain," but like millions of regular Americans, Mullin really knows what it’s like to suffer under arbitrary, dumb, or unnecessary policies. He reportedly got into politics after an Obama-era regulation shut down one of his businesses.
While he is a solid Trump supporter and conservative Republican, he had no truck with those who entered the Capitol illegally on January 6, 2021. At the time, he reportedly helped Capitol police barricade the House chamber, and from the look of him at the time, the first man through any breach would not have fared well. His air is of a man who went to Washington because he felt it a duty, not because of perks, fame and future financial rewards.
DHS SECRETARY MARKWAYNE MULLIN SIGNALS CLOSER SCRUTINY OF CUSTOMS AT MAJOR SANCTUARY CITY AIRPORTS
Like Hulk Hogan coming in to save the day, Mullin just got tagged into the remaining three years of Trump’s term — and the boss’s promise to deport millions of illegal aliens. Mullin is following a DHS secretary who has had a tough time in the ring. Noem inherited a nightmare. She went from governing a state with a population under a million to managing 22 federal departments and 260,000 employees. It would have overwhelmed most people.
After four years of an open border, rampant abuse of pardons and paroles, and a mix of purposeful mismanagement and incompetence, Noem was tasked with cleaning up. The Augean stables were a newly-detailed late-model Bentley by comparison. Noem achieved a lot: under her leadership, the border was mostly sealed. The number of illegal arrivals plummeted more than 90%. Bogus parole programs were stopped. Fraud was investigated instead of tolerated. Interior immigration enforcement, moribund under Biden, was resumed with great fanfare.
Perhaps too much fanfare, because the huge challenge of enforcing deportation was the Achilles heel in Noem’s performance, through which came a poisoned arrow in the form of the Ryan Pretti and Renee Good shootings by ICE officers in Minnesota. The Democratic mainstream has hardened its position from Clinton’s reform-but-enforce to now opposing almost any immigration enforcement.
Whatever really went down in the Twin Cities, the net result was a public relations disaster. By playing to the base over swing voters, seeming to put show over metrics, and presiding over the agency when things to get out of hand in Minneapolis, Noem had become a liability to Trump and Republican mid-term hopes. Mullin gets to throw off this baggage and make his own impression.
He has a welcome measure of self-control.
Ben Franklin once said that any three people can keep a secret — as long as two of them are dead. He died the year Congress decided that the future capital of the United States was to be in 10 square miles of what was then literally, and remains figuratively, a swamp. Scandals plague Washington like malaria once used to. But the vaccine that prevents it is clean living and a skeleton-free closet. No doubt Mullen will be under extreme scrutiny as Secretary of DHS. But provided his past is the no-nonsense westerner we’ve seen so far, he can survive the spotlight. He appears immune from capture by the Washington establishment blob.
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While affable and upright, he does have a temper. He is indeed "blunt and to the point," as he testified in his confirmation hearing. But his relatively calm and measured response to goading by Sen. Rand Paul showed some growth. "Let me earn your respect," he asked Paul, using "sir" in address throughout, as people still do in his part of the country. In an age where elitist politicians use profanity in a token effort to be "real," Mullin’s attempted self-control stands out — even if he doesn’t always succeed.
He’s a brawler and can take a hit.
In his brief career as a mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter, Mullen had a 5-0 record and made the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. The Senate is no picnic, but being a political appointee in a Trump administration is like covering yourself in honey and beating a beehive with a stick. You have to hold your friends close and your enemies closer. Democrats want your seat, and other Republicans want your job.
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Mullin has Trump’s confidence. He knows how the Hill works and he has allies in the Senate. The half of America that still respects borders and puts public safety ahead of left-wing ideology is rooting for him to succeed.
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Simon Hankinson is a senior research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center and author of "The Ten Woke Commandments (You Must Not Obey)" from Academica Books.
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