Sen. Markwayne Mullin, President Donald Trump’s nominee to become Homeland Security secretary, told the Senate on Wednesday that his relationship with Trump began with a personal crisis that reshaped the bond between them. Mullin traced the connection to 2020, when his son suffered a severe brain injury during a high school wrestling match, setting in motion an experience Mullin said he remembers as both frightening and formative.
Mullin said Trump’s attention turned into something more personal after the injury. He said Trump invited Mullin and his son onstage at a rally later that year, and he told senators that Trump then asked Jim Mullin—who was 15 at the time—to sit on his lap and talk about rehabilitation.
Mullin told senators he believed the moment helped create an enduring friendship rather than a fleeting political gesture. He recalled that Trump had “taken a special interest” in the teenager during the family’s recovery and, Mullin said, continued calling afterward to ask how his son was doing. Mullin also told the hearing he would try to recount the story “without crying,” and he described how his son struggled with basic abilities after the injury.
Mullin told senators that the injury left his son with short-term memory loss and that he “couldn’t touch his nose or do basic math equations,” while he began to recover and relearn skills. In recounting that period, Mullin also said Trump remained concerned even as the president faced “one of the toughest elections he had been in,” according to remarks Mullin made at the confirmation hearing.
Mullin said his bond with Trump grew from that consistent attention. He added, “We were acquaintances before that. We’ve been friends ever since,” language that appeared in the account he gave of how the relationship changed after the 2020 moment. Another line he had previously used at a campaign rally in 2024 also described Trump’s role in the family’s story, when Mullin told supporters: “You know, someone loves your kids, you’re going to love that guy forever,” and described Trump as “a friend of yours.”
The nomination positions Mullin, 48, to lead a department whose immigration crackdown became a target of widening criticism under Kristi Noem, who was fired earlier this month. As Mullin prepares to join Trump’s cabinet, the hearing added focus to the blend of personal trust and political loyalty that has long shaped Trump’s picks, with Mullin described by supporters as both a fierce defender and someone who maintains relationships beyond party lines.
Mullin’s Senate confirmation process included testimony that reflected on his background as well as his relationship with Trump. The AP account said Mullin became an Oklahoma Republican who later drew bipartisan ties in Washington, and it described how he has built friendships with Democrats through early-morning fitness workouts and shared interests, including with people such as U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a Democrat from New Jersey, who attended the hearing in support.
The AP report also described Mullin’s role inside political circles as he moved from the House into the Senate. It said he served multiple terms in the House after running for an open seat in Oklahoma’s sprawling 2nd Congressional District in 2012, before joining the Senate in 2023, and it said he later supported Trump’s messaging in Congress, including taking public positions tied to immigration policy.
Mullin has been a staunch supporter of Trump’s immigration crackdown, the report said, including cheering on construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall and defending federal immigration agents following shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota. It also said Mullin has argued on national television that children born in the U.S. to immigrants in the country illegally should be deported along with their parents.
If confirmed, Mullin would become the first Native American to lead DHS, the report said, noting that he is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Patrice Kunesh, identified in the report as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former commissioner of the Administration for Native Americans during the Biden administration, said Mullin should meet with tribal leaders and hear their concerns, including urging better training for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers on identifying tribal IDs.
The hearing unfolded as senators weighed Mullin’s past work in Congress and his potential approach to DHS leadership, while the story he told about the 2020 injury framed his relationship with the president as grounded in personal concern. MSI previously reported that Mullin faced Senate pushback over his DHS nomination today, and Wednesday’s testimony put his personal narrative and political role into the center of a confirmation moment that could define the next phase of DHS leadership.
Mary Clare Jalonick and Rebecca Santana contributed to this report from Washington.