Your Pets Might Be Safer Under Markwayne Mullin Than Kristi Noem—But That’s About It

Anyone who was itching for the day of reckoning for Secretary of Homeland Security (and dog killer, RIP Cricket) Kristi Noem had about zero seconds to celebrate when she was finally fired on Thursday, because the guy Trump immediately picked to replace her is—surprise!—another horrible person from his cursed MAGA orbit. 

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) sucks. And if he’s confirmed as the next Secretary of Homeland Security, that spells a million bad things for a system that already mistreats pregnant women and girls.

Along with repeatedly railing against abortion access and proposing anti-abortion bills, he argued during a Senate debate in Oklahoma that abortions should be banned in all circumstances—even in cases of rape, incest, or when the mother’s life is in danger. “When it comes to the death of the mother or the child, I can tell you without question where my wife would be on this,” he said. “There’s no way my wife would sit and say that my life is more important than my child. Just like I would lay my life down for my child in a heartbeat, my wife would do the same.” Well, as long as his wife thinks that, then we should definitely force every woman in the U.S. to think the same. 

His views are bad enough on their own, but they’re especially alarming given the track record of the department he’s most likely about to lead. Under Noem, pregnant detainees were reported to have been shackled while miscarrying, deported despite needing medical attention, and trapped in Texas, where they can’t access abortion care. And as Mother Jones pointed out on Friday, Mullin in 2019 made clear how he would use the position to further eliminate reproductive rights. After Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) criticized the first Trump administration for cracking down so hard on immigration that people were too afraid to get abortions, he replied on social media, “Let me get this straight, we need to ensure ‘illegal’ immigrants have access to abortion? This is crazy on so many levels.” To use his own words, having this guy run the Department of Homeland Security is crazy on so many levels. 

Kristi Noem is out at DHS. Great.

Her replacement ALSO SUCKS.

Markwayne Mullin—former MMA fighter, opposes abortion even for rape and incest victims, supports private prisons, and repeatedly failed to disclose stock trades on time while buying shares in companies overseen by his own committees.

— Eliza Orlins (@elizaorlins.bsky.social) March 5, 2026 at 9:41 PM

“While there will be a new head of DHS, this administration’s inhumane anti-immigrant agenda is unchanged,” Reproductive Freedom for All wrote in a statement following Mullin’s nomination. “Reproductive freedom and safety are inseparable—and the Trump administration has spent the past year demonstrating that with relentless cruelty…These attacks are all part of a broader effort to control our bodies, our neighborhoods, and our lives—and the people bearing the heaviest burden are immigrant women and children who have the fewest resources to fight back.” 

Mullin is a former MMA fighter who was elected to Congress in 2012, first in the House for 10 years, then the Senate for two. He entered the Trumposphere during the 2020 election, in which he parroted claims via Twitter that the election was rigged and stolen. On Thursday, the Daily Beast reported that Mullin has made “a killing” in stocks related to Trump’s attacks on Venezuela and Iran. 

But you might recognize him for challenging a union leader to a fist-fight in 2023; hating on Matt Gaetz—though he flip-flopped once Gaetz was nominated for attorney general in 2024; floating the idea of executing journalists who publish stories he dislikes; or complaining about not being able to wear a seatbelt while driving in Washington D.C., because he claimed carjackings were so rampant. Most recently, at Trump’s State of the Union, he tried to wrestle a sign from Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) that read, “BLACK PEOPLE AREN’T APES.”

Oh, he also defended the federal agents who fatally shot Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good. After Good was killed, he said the ICE agent “didn’t have [any] option” but to “engage” with her, because her vehicle could be considered a weapon. If that’s what he believes, he probably didn’t need to be so terrified of all those imagined carjackers. 

To put a cherry on top of this giant horror-cake, Mullin is also a dedicated anti-trans activist—and in 2020 co-sponsored an anti-trans law that sought to block federal funding from schools that allow trans people to compete on the sports team they want. During a debate in 2022, he also said, “Democrats can’t even tell us what a woman is.” 

Mullin just needs a simple majority from the Senate, or 51 votes, to get confirmed. (The Republican Party currently holds a majority with 53 seats.) And he’d start as soon as March 31. So far, no Republicans have indicated that they plan on voting against him. 

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