With President Donald Trump firing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, his new replacement, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), will be in the spotlight.
MS NOW's Jen Psaki explored some of the things Mullin has said and done in the Trump era — and why it is a sign not much may change.
"Now, Trump's new nominee to run DHS ... did not kill his own puppy," mocked Psaki, referencing the infamous boast Noem made in her biography. "He does have some choice biographical details himself. I mean, you might remember a few years ago when Senator Mullin challenged a witness in a Senate hearing to a physical fight on the Senate floor. Mullin — I would note, a former MMA fighter — then defended that conduct by saying this."
"It's silly, it's stupid. But every now and then you get punched in the face," said Mullin in the clip.
"Do you know I don't? He's a senator," said Psaki. "I mean, anyway, after that, Mullin explained that he actually looked into the rules on whether or not he would be allowed to physically fight someone on the Senate floor. He pointed to the precedent that you used to be allowed to cane people, which, for the record, is not true. The story really is that the pro-slavery congressman who beat Senator Charles Sumner with a cane in 1856 was, in fact, arrested for that crime. But that is the kind of behavior Mullin seems to want to replicate anyway. And now he's in charge of DHS, and in all the important ways, we have no reason to think he will be any better than Kristi Noem."
For example, Psaki said, "After ICE agents fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis this year, after the Justice Department initially announced that they would not be investigating the officers involved in that shooting, here's how Mullin responded when asked whether those officers deserved investigating."
"If they're investigating anything, they need to be investigating the paid protesters and who's paying them to obstruct federal officers from doing their job," Mullin said in the clip.