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Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin, President Donald Trump’s new pick to lead the embattled Department of Homeland Security, is a supporter of strict immigration enforcement who, in the last year, has proven invaluable in getting key pieces of the president’s agenda across the finish line.
A first-term senator who identifies as Native American, Mullin is a self-described “bull in a China cabinet” who was instrumental in the Senate’s passage of the Trump-backed One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Lora Ries, a border security and immigration expert at the Heritage Foundation, predicted to Fox News Digital that Mullin will have a focused leadership approach as head of DHS.
“It won’t be about him. It’s about the mission, and it’s about carrying out the president’s agenda to maintain a secure border but also mass deportations,” she said.
Shortly after news of his appointment broke, Mullin called it a “big surprise” but said he is “excited” to take on the role.
Trump named Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., as the next head of DHS. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“The president and I have a really good relationship; we talk all the time anyway. I wasn’t, to be quite honest with you, expecting the call today. But it’s super exciting,” he told reporters outside the Capitol.
He said his focus as DHS secretary will be to “keep the homeland secure.”
“Nothing is going to prevent me from doing my job,” he continued. “I’m going to enforce the policies and the laws that Congress has passed, and we’re going to protect the homeland.”
Ries said Mullin’s appointment signals Trump doubling down on his agenda of maintaining a secure border. Ries also said she does not expect the transition from outgoing Secretary Kristi Noem to Mullin to disrupt the agency’s enforcement operations.
“We can’t waste any time, given we’re concerned with sleeper cells from Iran and other locations, terrorist threats that Joe Biden let into the country,” she added.
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Immigrants wait to be processed at a U.S. Border Patrol transit center after they crossed the border from Mexico Dec. 20, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. (John Moore/Getty Images)
At 48 years old, Mullin is a husband and father of six. He has served in the Senate for just over three years, entering office in January 2023. Before that, he served in the House of Representatives for about 10 years.
Mullin serves as the chair of the Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee. He does not serve on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the panel that he will soon sit before during his confirmation process.
He is also a member of Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s leadership team and proved a decisive asset in extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts last year.
It was, however, the relationships he built in the lower chamber that made him a de facto liaison with his former House colleagues. That role began when former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., with whom Mullin was close friends, was in leadership and has continued under House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.
That role as liaison, which Mullin previously told Fox News Digital he never wanted, made him an invaluable asset last year when Republicans were trying to pass Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” Mullin had already become a member of Thune’s whip team and offered to help bridge the policy gap between House Republicans and Senate Republicans to ensure the legislation was passed.
Both chambers were going back and forth on the bill, which Mullin told Fox News Digital last year wasn’t necessarily “a good indication that we were butting heads.”
“Everybody was very passionate about this,” Mullin said. “I mean, they’ve been working for a long time. We looked at it as maybe a once-in-a-generation opportunity for us to be able to get this done.”
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Senator-elect Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., at the U.S. Capitol Nov. 15, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
On Mullin’s website, he states, “We are a nation of laws, and those laws must be upheld.
“We must ensure our immigration laws are enforced, bring back the Remain in Mexico policy, finish building the wall, and end the liberal incentives that are fueling the worst border crisis in American history.”
Mullin has harshly criticized Democrats for moving to defund DHS, saying, “If we defund the Department of Homeland Security, they do a lot more than arrest illegals. You walk through the airport, they’re providing security. The Department of Homeland Security is there for a reason. … They protect us from threats at home and abroad, around the United States and across the world.”
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After the lapse in DHS funding, Mullin slammed the Democrats for “political theater,” saying he was focused on restoring the funding.
When asked if there were any lessons Mullin had learned from Noem’s tumultuous tenure atop the agency, he noted that he and Noem were close friends, but he had not yet had time to call her yet after receiving the news.
“Our families are friends. She was tasked to do a very difficult job. And I think she has, she has performed the best she can do,” Mullin said.
“Is there always lessons that can be learned? You know, listen, my wife and I, we have, over the years, we have been fortunate enough to purchase companies and grow our companies, and every day there’s something you can do better,” he continued. “And, so, I think there’s, there’s an opportunity to build off successes, and there’s also opportunities to build off things that maybe didn’t go quite as planned.”
Mullin said he and Trump are “great friends,” and “I look forward to working for him on his Cabinet. Of course, we still have this whole thing called confirmation, and we’re going to get started on that right away.”
Peter Pinedo is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
