Senate Republicans didn’t just criticize Kristi Noem — they forced her out. Chaotic immigration enforcement, disaster relief paralysis, shameless self-promotion, and contempt for Congress made her untenable. Now they’re being asked to confirm Markwayne Mullin as her replacement. His record doesn’t just repeat her failures. It threatens to amplify them.
Republicans didn’t tolerate this from Noem. The question is whether they’ll tolerate it from her replacement.
Mullin’s record suggests he’ll amplify every problem that cost Noem her job if confirmed:
IMMIGRATION: REPUBLICANS DEMANDED ACCOUNTABILITY FROM NOEM. MULLIN DOESN’T THINK THERE’S ANYTHING TO ACCOUNT FOR.
When federal agents shot two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis, Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) became the first Republicans to publicly call for Noem’s resignation. Her offense: dismissing the killings and labeling both victims “domestic terrorists” without a shred of evidence.
Mullin didn’t just echo that dismissal — he led it. He called Alex Pretti, the ICU nurse fatally shot by federal immigration agents, a “deranged individual,” and said the officer who killed Renee Good had a “right to protect himself.” Noem defended the shootings after the fact. Mullin was cheering them on in real time.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) pressed Noem on DHS issuing over 400,000 administrative warrants signed by immigration officers — not judges — raising direct Fourth Amendment concerns about warrantless home entries. Noem at least acknowledged the question. Mullin has said nothing. He co-sponsored legislation to increase penalties on anyone who resists ICE officers, and has maintained total silence on the warrantless practices that put Kennedy on record against his own party’s DHS secretary.
The Republicans who ousted Noem over immigration overreach are now being asked to confirm someone who thinks the overreach didn’t go far enough.
SELF-ENRICHMENT: REPUBLICANS GRILLED NOEM ON $220 MILLION. MULLIN’S TAB IS BIGGER.
Sen. Kennedy didn’t let Noem off easy at her Senate Judiciary oversight hearing — he pressed her directly on a $220 million taxpayer-funded TV ad campaign featuring her prominently, awarded without competitive bidding to a firm tied to her and her former press secretary. It was a defining moment in her downfall.
Mullin’s profiteering from public office spans over a decade and dwarfs anything Noem was accused of:
He violated the federal STOCK Act by failing to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock and bond trades within the legally required 45-day window.
While sitting on the Senate Armed Services Committee — with access to classified military intelligence — Mullin purchased oil and defense stocks just five days before the U.S. launched military action against Venezuela. Those stocks have since risen 15–30%.
Kennedy asked Noem about a no-bid contract. Mullin apparently used a Senate committee seat for a trading tip.
If Republicans thought Noem’s self-dealing disqualified her, they have not explained why Mullin’s is different.
FEMA & DISASTER RELIEF: TILLIS SAID NOEM BROKE THE LAW. MULLIN HASN’T READ THE MEMO.
Noem’s FEMA mismanagement wasn’t a policy disagreement — Republicans called it illegal. She required personal sign-off on any DHS expenditure over $100,000, creating a bottleneck that left at least 1,000 FEMA contracts and grants frozen, per DHS’s own internal tracking. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) flagged slow-walked grants strangling her own state. Sen. Tillis was more direct: “You failed at FEMA,” he said, accusing Noem of violating federal law by diverting funds from the agency’s core mission.
Mullin has offered nothing on any of this. No commitment to reverse what Tillis called an illegal obstruction. No acknowledgment that FEMA was left to fail. His stated priority is keeping DHS “focused on protecting the homeland” — a formulation that doesn’t mention FEMA, disaster relief, or the 1,000 frozen contracts at all.
When pressed, his most extensive comment on the agency is that FEMA “needs to work” but is “just inefficient.”
That’s his answer — for a cabinet post overseeing disaster response for the most disaster-prone nation on earth, offered by a senator from Oklahoma, which has received more federal disaster declarations than any other state since 1980.
Tillis said Noem’s FEMA failures broke the law. Mullin doesn’t think they were failures at all.