OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Sen. Markwayne Mullin, Donald Trump’s nominee to replace Kristi Noem as Homeland Security secretary, traces his close bond with the president to a scary personal moment in 2020, when Mullin’s son suffered a severe brain injury during a high school wrestling match.
At a rally later that year, Trump invited the Oklahoma Republican and his son on stage. He afterward asked Jim Mullin, then 15 years old, to sit on his lap and tell him about his rehabilitation. Trump had taken a special interest in the teenager, offering to fly the family to medical specialists and pay for treatments.
“You know, someone loves your kids, you’re going to love that guy forever,” Mullin told a crowd at a campaign rally in 2024. “He’s a friend of yours.”
It’s a relationship poised to grow even closer as Mullin, 48, prepares to join Trump’s cabinet as the next leader of the Department of Homeland Security, the massive agency whose immigration crackdown became a target of widening criticism under Noem, who was fired earlier this month.
Trump’s selection of Mullin, one of his fiercest defenders in the U.S. Senate, is a reflection of a president who places high value on loyalty and personal relationships. The goal is to steady a department vital to Trump’s centerpiece policy of mass deportations with a trusted ally.
During his Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday, Mullin was asked to describe how his connection with Trump came about.
Mullin said he’d try to tell the story without crying and then relayed the details of how his son woke up after the injury a “different kid.” He couldn’t touch his nose or do basic math equations and had short-term memory loss, Mullin explained.
Throughout the family’s ordeal, Mullin said the president would call and ask how his son was doing.
“He was running in one of the toughest elections he had been in, and the guy was still that concerned about my son,” said Mullin. “We were acquaintances before that. We’ve been friends ever since.”
Mullin is one of the few people who can disagree with Trump and still maintain his respect, said Mike Stopp, the senator’s former chief of staff.
“He has no problem telling the president what he thinks,” he said. “They’re at that point in their relationship.”
Mullin was 34 and the owner of a fast-growing plumbing company in 2012 when he decided to run for an open seat in Oklahoma’s sprawling 2nd Congressional District, which stretches from the foothills of the Ozark Mountains to the Red River border with Texas.
A political newcomer, Mullin was particularly upset with a provision of the Affordable Care Act that would have mandated providing health insurance to his employees, said Trebor Worthen, Mullin’s campaign adviser at the time.
“Markwayne was fed up,” Worthen recalled.
In the largely rural district, Mullin’s hiring of blue-collar workers and his experience in cattle ranching resonated with voters in both parties and gave him an everyman appeal. “Anybody who lives in Oklahoma or who has family in Oklahoma, you know somebody like Markwayne Mullin,” said Worthen, who spent a year traveling the district with Mullin in a red diesel pickup truck.
Mullin won handily and vowed to only serve three terms in Congress — a promise he broke when he announced plans to run again in 2018, saying he “didn’t understand politics” when he made the pledge. Despite some criticism, he easily won reelection and served a total of five House terms before joining the Senate in 2023.
After arriving in Washington, Mullin was known for forging friendships with Democrats, many of which he developed while leading early-morning workouts inside the members-only House gym.
A former mixed martial arts fighter and collegiate wrestler, Mullin grew close to powerful players in both parties during the fitness sessions. His workout partners have included former Massachusetts Democratic congressman Joe Kennedy III, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Noem.
“What I like about him is he’s willing to not just share his views but to listen to yours, which really helps when you’re trying to get something done, especially in a bipartisan way,” said U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a Democrat from New Jersey who met Mullin through the workout group and considers him a close friend. Gottheimer was at Mullin’s confirmation hearing in a show of support.
Also there in support? The man Mullin almost got into a brawl with during a 2023 Senate hearing: Sean O’Brien, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. He sat directly behind Mullin at Wednesday’s hearing, during which Mullin said the two had worked through their differences and that he considered O’Brien a “close friend.”
Since joining the Senate, Mullin has taken a leading role in amplifying Trump’s messages in the hallways of the Capitol and behind closed doors. He tamped down concerns over cabinet picks, including Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. And he has helped Senate Republican leaders navigate the occasionally tricky relationship with his former colleagues in the House, walking across the Capitol to deliver messages from one side to the other.
He also supported Trump’s failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election, casting his vote in the House even after helping confront rioters during the Jan. 6 attack by Trump supporters on the Capitol.
Mullin led a group of Republicans who helped police barricade the doors to the House as lawmakers huddled inside. As a group of rioters tried to break down the doors, Mullin talked to them through the broken glass in the doorway and tried to convince them to retreat.
He later visited police officers who were injured in the attack.
“They weren’t cowards. They stood the line and took a beating,” Mullin told C-SPAN in a 2021 interview.
Mullin has cheered on construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall and defended federal immigration agents following the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota. He said on NBC’s “Meet The Press” last summer that children born in the U.S. to immigrants living in the country illegally should be deported along with their parents.
Stopp said the senator has needed immigrant labor while running the family plumbing business. “He hired folks who were on visas. He helped them go through the citizenship process. He was very proud of that,” Stopp said.
Mullin, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, would be the first Native American person to lead the agency. His role as DHS secretary would give him authority over the training of federal immigration agents, who have come under criticism for stopping, and in some cases detaining, tribal citizens or calling into question their tribal IDs.
“He should meet with tribal leaders and say, ‘Let me hear your concerns,’” said Patrice Kunesh, a former commissioner of the Administration for Native Americans during the Biden administration and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. She also hopes Mullin would institute better training for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers on identifying tribal IDs.
“Direct consultation with tribal governments, tribal leaders, would be incredibly important,” she said.
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Mary Clare Jalonick and Rebecca Santana contributed to this report from Washington.
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