\n<\/p>\n
Senate Hearing for Homeland Security Pick Takes Heated Turn<\/strong><\/p>\n WASHINGTON:<\/strong> The U.S. Senate confirmation hearing for Markwayne Mullin, chosen by President Donald Trump to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), started with tension on Wednesday as he confronted the committee chairman, Senator Rand Paul, who is also a Republican.<\/p>\n Senator Paul, who leads the Senate Homeland Security Committee, began the session by challenging Mullin about some harsh remarks he had made in the past. Mullin, a senator from Oklahoma, had previously called Paul a “freaking snake” and expressed understanding for a 2017 incident where Paul was assaulted by a neighbor.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy do you think I deserved it? Tell me to my face,\u201d Paul pressed Mullin. He questioned why Americans should trust someone with anger issues to lead agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which is part of the DHS and responsible for enforcing immigration laws.<\/p>\n Paul raised concerns, saying, \u201cIt makes me wonder if someone who supports violence against political opponents is right for this role.\u201d Mullin chose not to apologize and clarified that while he understood the assault, he didn’t support it. \u201cNobody should be hit by surprise,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Mullin also suggested Paul fights with Republicans more than he cooperates with them. The Senate panel is made up of 15 members, with Republicans holding an 8-7 majority, leaving uncertainty about how Paul would vote on Mullin\u2019s nomination.<\/p>\n Despite the tension, Democratic Senator John Fetterman from Pennsylvania hinted he might support Mullin, expressing an \u201copen mind\u201d about the nominee.<\/p>\n If confirmed, Mullin expressed his desire to shift DHS away from constant media attention. He mentioned the previous DHS chief Kristi Noem, who was dismissed in part due to her management of a recent operation against undocumented migrants in Minnesota, which resulted in the tragic death of two American protesters.<\/p>\n \u201cMy aim in six months is for us not to be in the spotlight every day,\u201d Mullin stated. He also retracted a prior comment where he referred to one of the individuals killed in the Minneapolis incident as a \u201cderanged individual,\u201d admitting, \u201cI shouldn\u2019t have said that.\u201d<\/p>\n A strong supporter of Trump, Mullin was elected to the Senate in 2022 after a decade serving in the U.S. House of Representatives.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Senate Hearing for Homeland Security Pick Takes Heated Turn WASHINGTON: The U.S. Senate confirmation hearing for Markwayne Mullin, chosen by President Donald Trump to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), started with tension on Wednesday as he confronted the committee chairman, Senator Rand Paul, who is also a Republican. Senator Paul, who leads the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[9291,35030,15243,35031,7986,35029,13978],"class_list":["post-27155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business-news","tag-department-of-homeland-security","tag-homeland-security","tag-kentucky","tag-kristi-noem","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-senate-homeland-security-committee","tag-us-house-of-representatives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/indiabulletinusa.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/indiabulletinusa.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/indiabulletinusa.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indiabulletinusa.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indiabulletinusa.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/indiabulletinusa.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indiabulletinusa.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/indiabulletinusa.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indiabulletinusa.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indiabulletinusa.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}