Breaking News from Pod Save America - Trump HUMILIATED During Brutal Confirmation Hearing

Episode Date: March 18, 2026

Trump’s DHS pick implodes in a brutal confirmation hearing. Jon Favreau and Jon Lovett break it down. CHECK OUT OUR SPONSOR: ZIP RECRUITER - http://ziprecruiter.com/CROOKED Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, love it. Mark Wayne Mullen, who is Donald Trump's pick to lead Homeland Security, now that he has shit-canned, Christy Knoem. He's a senator from Oklahoma. He had his confirmation hearing today in front of the Homeland Security Committee. And it started in, I think, an unorthodox way. He and Rand Paul, who was the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, they have a past. Yeah, yeah. It's a rocky past.

A heated rivalry, as it were. A heated rivalry. It ended the same way. Somebody got fucked. We'll let you guys be the judge of who got fucked in this exchange. Here's how the hearing opened between Rand Paul and Mark Wayne Mullen. Tell the world why you believe I deserve to be assaulted from behind, have six ribs broken and a damaged lung. Tell me to my face why you think I deserved it.

And while you're at it, explain to the American public why they should trust a man with anger issues to set the proper example for ICE and Border Patrol agents. Explain to the American public how a man who has no regrets about brawling in a Senate committee can set a proper example for over 250,000 men and women who work at the Department of Homeland Security. When a phone call was made, I made it to you and I tried to talk to you. You didn't engage at all. In fact, you said, get your paperwork in. It's got to be a three days in between. You offer no apology. Sir?

And you offer no apology today. And no regrets? Haven't heard the word apologize, haven't heard the word regret, haven't heard I misspoke, and it was heated, and I made a mistake. I haven't heard any of those words. Sir, actually, it wasn't heated,

and I'm not apologizing for point, not your character. Good, good. So you're jolly well fine, and you went to American public, and the people up here to vote that may or may not vote for you to know that you supported the felonious violent attack on me from behind. I did not say I supported it. I said I understood it. There's a difference. In the days after the fight you said and I quote, sometimes people just need to be punched in the face. Is that still

your opinion that political disputes can sometimes and often only be resolved by violence? No, I don't always agree with that. I don't believe in political violence. I've made that very clear. But sometimes people do need, theoretically speaking, sir, I get it. It's about character assassination for you. That's the way this game is played. I understand it. And you are making this about you, which is fine, but that doesn't keep me as sex care of my security. It's character assassination when you were the one lauding the assault? Who do you think started that character assassination? I'm just repeating what you have done in character assassination. I'm repeating your support for the assault. So that's somehow something I started.

No, sir. What I'm saying is you're adding a lot to it. In the days after the fight, you did many interviews in which you justified the violence as historically justified by precedence, such as caning and dueling. Is it today your opinion that the caning of Charles Sumner was not only justified but argues still for resolving our political differences with violence? What I was simply pointing out is some of the rules that still applied to this body. for instance, dueling with two consenting adults is still there. I was pointing out what is still... It's been illegal for 170 years. There's no precedent for legal dueling.

Even then they fled the country. Do you realize that the man that beat Charles Sumner with a cane, he beat him until he was unconscious. You know why no senators intervened? Because his friend held a gun on the other senators, and he kept beating him and beating him until he crushed his skull. That's what you're insinuating as the power. precedent of the Senate and that's what you

live by. That is a very very dangerous sentiment. So it started off well. We had just two consenting, dueling adults getting attacked from behind. First of all, shout out to Ram Paul

for making sure everyone knows the true history of the caning of Charles Sumner, which was whitewashed in our history for a long time. Beat the ever loving shit out of that guy. Good for him. Good for him. Good for him. No more of that revision of the pre-Civil War era. Good. That's important.

I could get a Netflix series on that. Yeah. Now that it's like another kind of death by lightning. Yeah, death by lightning too. Let's do Caning. Yeah. Let's do Caning. I'm for that. You know, brain damage by Caning. Death by Lightning, brain damage by caning. So they don't seem like they're friends.

And it does seem, I will say that Ray and Paul's opposition to Mark Wayne Millen, after the hearing, he did say, he would not be voting to support him. Not a big surprise after that. It does seem rather personal. Yes. Yes.

Which I'm okay with. It does. He does. A good personal grudge from a Republican against Donald Trump cabinet secretary. Absolutely. It does get at something about this job, right? This is someone who would be overseeing ICE. And he does say that later.

Yeah. And he does say that. He does, it does seem quite personally. You could see that Rand Paul has that kind of like intensity of someone. that has just really is just genuinely just genuinely fucking hates this guy they do not like each other no and i hadn't realized because i forgot because it was 2017 like randpaul goes on about like how badly he was injured and he was in the hospital and was on a respirator i mean like he was really fucked up and i just want to say i think we are much like charles sumner i think maybe we were a little

bit glib about rand pa because we we was all it was such a it was a silly thing it involved leaves i'm not looking to run a cabinet agency right now but i i apologize i retract whatever glibness I retract. Yeah, and I don't think you're on the short list. No, no, not this time around, but who knows. Potsave America Breaking News is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. What's the latest trend in hiring? It's skill-based hiring, which emphasizes capabilities over education and direct experience. According to experts, this leads to faster hiring and better job performance. If you're an employer who's adopted skills-based hiring, the best way to ensure that your applicants have the right skills is with ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter recommends smart screening questions to help you hone in

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Went on from there. And then the rest of the senators, I guess, decided to ask about his qualifications and his knowledge about Homeland Security and the department that he's about to lead, potentially, if he gets confirmed. And you guys can be the judge whether these were shining moments for him. I'm not going to be the smartest guy in any room I walk into. What is the primary mission of Homeland Security? investigations. From the IG or from us? I'm sorry for from Homeland Security

Department there's HSI is within Homeland Security. What is their primary mission? Well it's not a trick question either. No I I understand that and every agency sir we are we have specific missions that we are targeted to to look at our aspect of protecting the homeland in different directions have different paths and in different agencies region-wide there are 22 of them there we all need to be in the same boat, we're on the same direction, working for one common goal. And as I said, let's protect the homeland, bring peace of mind, and secure the, and secure the confidence of the American people.

Okay, so HSI, and I've had, being from Arizona, we're very familiar with CP, ICE, and HSI. HSI specifically is very important because they specialize in dealing with human trafficking, human smuggling, you know, counterfeit, bank fraud, things of that nature. Actually, I have a lot of friends that have worked for them forever. You say you don't want ice in the news. You say you want to rebuild trust. Your predecessor was fired because she couldn't manage that.

And, you know, people had to go in and bring the temperature down. Can you, without other words, just state clearly what you'd be willing to do to fundamentally reform ice and put into law to do so since that trust is gone? Ma'am, as you know, I can't make the law. You guys make that for me. But you're going to be the secretary. Yes. I agree. I can't make the law. I can work within the parameters.

I fired five rounds and she had seven holes. Put that in your book, boys. Shouldn't we be disgusted by an agent that fires at a U.S. citizen, no criminal record, she was charged. Senator Blumman. The charges were dismissed. Wouldn't you agree with me that that agent should not be carrying a firearm? I'm not familiar with the investigation, sir. and I don't know if the investigation is completed. As secretary, I'm sure

I'll be briefed on this. I didn't actually totally understand this locked in question. Like, what would you do to reform Homeland Security? The lock thing was a strange, but yeah. He didn't have any answers on anything really. Well, he wasn't planning to have this job until quite recently, and he doesn't seem to have been, like, not knowing HSI is crazy. Well, and it does, like, this is, I think his problem in this hearing

because he won't answer the specific questions because it would require indicting Donald Trump in the way that they've conducted the agency undernome. But he also doesn't have any kind of clear principles or precepts that he would be applying, right? Like, for example, even if he would say, I want to make sure border patrol and ICE are focused on immigration,

but we're going to make sure HSI does their core mission that we need for Department of Homeland Security to go after human traffickers, et cetera. He just doesn't know, he doesn't have that, like, set of principles or knowledge to draw on, it seems. But it's wild because this guy's been in the, the Senate for quite a while. He was in the House for quite a while before that. I feel like just hanging around the hill representing people and working with government, you might know what Homeland

Security does. You might have some ideas on what you're going to do on Homeland Security. I don't know. He definitely heard about the investigation where they shot the woman five times and then bragged about it because it was everywhere. Yeah, you should have, you're not familiar with it. There's another moment. Well, yeah, let me just confess. Yeah. Yeah, the, uh, do a little work with Claude on your way to the hearing in the car, you would be better prepared than this. Maybe he was just prepping the whole time for the Rand Paul exchange. Jeez.

Maybe that's what he was doing. Yeah. Um, so, you know, some of the coverage of this already is being like, well, he, he's, there was a softer tone, a softer side of, of Mark Wayne Mullen at the hearing. And, you know, at one point, he does talk about how, um, he would be for, he would be four judicial warrants, breaking into homes unless he was, you know, they were chasing. someone into a home or something like that. And then there was this moment when he was asked about his previous comments about Alex Prattie. After DHS officers shot and killed two American citizens this past January, you joined top

administrative officials in publicly blaming and disparaging the victims. Following the killing of Renee Good, Secretary Nome called her a domestic terrorist. You, sir, you called Alex Prattie, quote, a deranged. individual that came into cause max damage. Could we expect those kinds of quick responses if you are confirmed as Secretary? Would you be basically, well you did, you responded as Secretary Nome. We're gonna just expect that same behavior all over again? No, Senator, I have a deep amount of respect for you. We've had our differences, but I do respect you. I think I said this privately when we

had a conversation. Those words probably should have been retracted. I shouldn't have said that and as Secretary I wouldn't. The is ongoing and there is like I said there's sometimes going to make a mistake and I own it that one I went out there too fast I was responding immediately without the facts that's my fault that won't happen as secretary so you regret that statement I already said that yes sir would you want to apologize to the family of Alex Prattie well sir I just said I regret those statements is that the same as an apology I haven't seen the investigation we'll let the investigation go through and if I'm proven wrong then I We will absolutely. So yeah, what did you make of that? It was an actual, basically the first time, I think, someone has retracted something that they said about, everyone else has either been fired or, and now he's the first one to actually retract a statement about that.

Yeah, so bars on the floor. Yes. So I'm glad he said this. Clearly, he went out and spoke based on what Noam and Miller and the administration were saying, and he just took that at face value. And I, you know, he's somebody that wants to. confirm the biases of the administration, whatever. I'm glad he says that he retracts it. It is strange that he said, well, do you want to apologize? And he said, no, I'm going to let the investigation conclude. Again, like they've attached some great cost to just saying, if that was wrong and I'm sorry. Obviously, I shouldn't have said that. And I, and I, and even in this moment, it is more important for him to kind of protect his

ego and pride and behave like a Trump person than to do the politically expedient thing, which is to say that was wrong. We should never have someone from Homeland Security speak like that, right? He can't even do that, even when he's doing better than the administration. I actually don't even think it's his ego, though I'm sure he has a big one. I think like it's the White House, which is like you know, rule number one in the Trump administration, never say sorry, never apologize. You can say, you know, retract, they let him say, but you don't want apology in the headlines. You don't want sorry in the headlines anywhere. It was interesting because after that they asked him about Stephen Miller saying that and

Stephen Miller retract it and he was like you'll have to ask Stephen Miller which is fine I get that but like it is interesting that Stephen Miller is the only ones who still has a job who hasn't been fired or hasn't retracted now his statements about Alex Pready and again Stephen Miller and they

ask him about Renee Good too and he does a whole investigation thing Malin does but again that's they called both Alex Prady and Renee Good domestic terrorists they said Alex Prady showed up to cause maximum damage just going to kill law enforcement. And Nome said it, Miller said it, Mullen said it, fucking Bovino said it, and now they're all gone except Miller still hasn't answered for it at all.

And Blumenthal presses him not just on the quote by Miller, but by the quote of 3,000 per day. And Mullen basically drops it. But based on what we saw here, Mullen clearly doesn't have that much expertise on the issue areas, doesn't know a lot of the details, would then be just a functionary meant to execute the same policy as before he clearly is unwilling to stand up to these. people. So now that Rand Paul is a no

he it's a guess who might vote yes Federman. So Rand Paul said afterwards he still expects him to get confirmed even though he's a no and I think that's because after the meeting Mullen met privately with Federman Mullen also went to a skiff because he

talked about this trip he did in 2016 when he was in the house and he told everyone it was classified and he couldn't talk it and then they said they went to a skiff afterwards a secure room so they could talk about classified information and it's not clear if it was classified or there was a non-disclosure agreement but there was like something sketchy the senators were like Lankford came out a Republican from Oklahoma and said it was like mountain out of mole hole was not a big deal but there's some some sketchiness about a trip he made and then apparently he's meeting with Fetterman so

Federman said and Federman said he's like keeping an open mind man so that sucks yeah the Because with Grand Paul's a no, you could deadlock it in the committee. That doesn't mean they still don't have other paths to get him through one way or another. But that would be a, I think, would be a genuine roadblock if the committee was deadlocked on him. But pretty bleak. Pretty bleak. Well, at least we're no-on caning. Yeah.

Basic, although Mullen still didn't really take a firm position on it. That is true, actually. That is true. Yeah. So that's where we are. Please subscribe to Pod Save America. So, you know. We'll keep flogging these subscriptions.

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