U.S. Senator Markwayne Mullin, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be Homeland Security secretary, tesifies before a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 18, 2026.
Evan Vucci | Reuters
A day after a testy confirmation hearing, a Senate committee on Thursday advanced the nomination of Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., to lead the Department of Homeland Security.
Mullin cleared his first procedural hurdle to leading the department despite prodding from his Senate peers on Wednesday over his temperament, DHS’ immigration policies and a trip he said he took abroad while a member of the House that he repeatedly said was “classified.”
“Throughout the nomination process, he has failed to be forthright and transparent,” Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., the top Democrat on the panel, said at the start of the hearing. “Sen. Mullin also showed that he doesn’t have the experience or the temperament to lead this critical department.”
The vote was 8-7, with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., chair of the Senate panel, the lone Republican vote against the nomination and Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., the lone Democrat voting in favor. Republicans hold an 8-7 majority on the committee.
Mullin’s nomination now goes to the full Senate, where he will need a simple majority to be confirmed. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters that vote could take place next week.
Mullin is poised to take over an agency at a time of peak public scrutiny and amid a funding lapse. DHS has been shut down since February, as Senate Democrats and the White House continued to negotiate over immigration enforcement policies.
Paul’s “no” vote came after he lashed out at the nominee the day prior. Mullin recently said he understood why Paul’s neighbor physically attacked him in 2017 and called Paul, a libertarian-leaning Republican who often does not vote with his party, a “freaking snake.” Paul called Mullin “unrepentant.”
“I just wonder if someone who applauds violence against their political opponents is the right person to lead an agency that has struggled to accept limits to the proper use of force,” Paul said.
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For a period on Wednesday, the scheduled committee vote on Mullin’s confirmation seemed uncertain as questions swirled around Mullin’s hazy description of what he described as a “classified” trip abroad.
After the public hearing on Wednesday, some committee members relocated to a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility to get more information from Mullin in an environment where he could talk about classified information.
“In 2015, I was asked to train with a very small contingency and go to a certain area,” Mullin said during the Wednesday hearing. “During that time, I was asked to go through, had to meet certain training qualifications.” The details of the trip remain unclear, though any doubt it cast was not enough to derail his candidacy in committee.
Mullin was tapped to lead the agency earlier this month after President Donald Trump ousted DHS Secretary Kristi Noem via a Truth Social post.
Fetterman declined to speak to reporters outside the hearing room following the vote, instead referring them to a statement posted to his X account.
“In January, I called on the president to fire Noem —and he did. I truly approached the confirmation of my colleague and friend, Senator Mullin, with an open-mind,” Fetterman said in the post. “We need a leader at DHS. We must reopen DHS. My AYE is rooted in a strong committed, constructive working relationship with Senator Mullin for our nation’s security.”
Noem has been lambasted by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle for her leadership. And polling on the Trump administration’s immigration policies flagged in the winter after two U.S. citizens were killed by federal agents during an immigration crackdown in Minneapolis in January.
Mullin, signaling a break from his predecessor, said Wednesday that he would require immigration agents to obtain judicial warrants to enter private property. He also seemed open to rethinking Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s role in immigration crackdowns.
“I would love to see ICE become a transport more than the front line. If we get back … into just simply working with law enforcement, we’re going to them, and we’re picking up these criminals from their jail,” Mullin said.
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