WASHINGTON, D.C. –
On Capitol Hill Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin appeared before the House Committee on Homeland Security, ostensibly to testify about his department’s fiscal year 2027 budget request. Mullin delivered an opening statement, but not the one that he had prepared in advance. He said he felt compelled to respond to “false” accusations from committee Democrats.
Here is the transcript of Secretary Mullin’s statement:
MULLIN: “I sometimes wish that the members had to get sworn in, too, so what they said would be true and factual as well, because what the ranking member [Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS)] just said about, um, in his opening statement, I feel like I have to address ‘cause I’m just not sure I’ll have the opportunity to do that. So, first of all, I do thank you, Chairman, for allowing me to be here today. Ranking member, thank you, and thank you for allowing the Undersecretary Troy Edgar to be here with me. I do have an opening statement. I’ll send it for the record, but too often when we see opening statements, it’s about making a statement, and, you know, the false statements that were made, I feel like I just have to address.
“I mean, when you start talking about the “reckless” war in Iran, what’s reckless is a nuclear Iran. For 49 years, they’ve been threatening to, to—death to America. For 49 years, they’ve been attacking America, and for 49 years, not one single president was willing to stand up until President Trump. And thank God he did, because we know their behavior. We know what they would do with a nuclear weapon. They would completely destabilize the world, completely destabilize that region. And finally, President Trump is the president that’s willing to do something about it. Every single president since Jimmy Carter has looked at Iran, understanding they were a threat. Every single president since Jimmy Carter has had a plan to do—to deal with Iran, and not one of them acted on it, but President Trump did.
“You start talking about peaceful protesters and racism. Racism is a reckless term that is thrown around way too often. It’s just—it’s thrown around like it is true. And yet you can’t point to something that is actually racism. It’s just a term when you lack the words to actually describe your hatred towards President Trump, so you just use ‘racism.’ And what’s bad is you feed into what’s causing our ICE agents that are simply enforcing the law that Congress passed. They’re not going outside the law. They’re enforcing the law that Congress passed. We don’t pick and choose which law we decide to enforce. We enforce the law. And because they’re doing so, it’s racism? But yet their death threats are up by 8,000%, vehicular damage is up 3,300%, assaults up 1,300%. And what’s that due from? Peaceful protest? I have nothing wrong—I have no problem with people peacefully protesting. I believe in our First Amendment, peacefully. Delaney Hall — I’ve had officers bit, hit, scratched. We had one get threatened that they were going to kill him and his family. That’s peaceful? Damaging vehicles and property. That’s peaceful? It’s interesting when the [New Jersey] governor finally put state police there, how often you guys quit saying that it was being agitated by ICE, but yet the same behavior was happening with the state police until they pushed them back far enough where they’re out of camera shot, and all of a sudden the left media quit covering it. That didn’t look like peaceful protests to me. I’m okay with protest in a peaceful manner.
“You’re talking about Trump’s reckless behavior. What’s reckless is shutting down CBP and ICE. CBP — Customs and Border Protection. You want open borders? Because Ranking [member] Thompson, I’m pretty sure you already said you’re willing to shut them down again September 30, even if we reopen them. That’s law enforcement. Just say, I want to defund police. I want open borders, and I want illegals running wild in our streets, because ICE every day is taking the worst of the worst off the streets. They’re taking those that enter this country illegally off the streets, which is exactly what they were designed to do, and CBP is protecting our ports, our port of entries, and our borders, and yet we want to target them and defund them? That’s reckless.
“You’re talking about President Trump’s ill behavior towards children. Yet we have found over 120,000 kids that were missing underneath the Trump [sic] administration, when they lost touch of 340,000, which we fear most are now in trafficking rings. I didn’t hear anybody complaining about that. What we’ve done under the Trump administration is we went and rescued these kids. What is inhumane about that? Nothing. He’s doing the job that Biden administration turned a blind eye to. That shouldn’t ever take place. If anything we can agree on, our kids should be watched over.
“Now, I do look forward to answering all the rest of the questions because I’m running out of time, and I won’t have time to go through all the ridiculous accusations you made towards the Trump administration. But I do feel a privilege sitting here in front of you. I feel a privilege of being Secretary of our homeland and watching over the 275,000 employees that every day protect my yard and your yard, regardless if it’s blue or red. We’re here to protect the homeland, and that’s all we want to do.”
