By now, there should be no surprises remaining or weirdness left unexplored in American politics but it was still a bit disorienting when Charles Sumner, the 19th-century senator and abolitionist who ran around Boston with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Longfellow, popped up in a conversation involving Markwayne Mullin, the self-styled plumber-and-cowboy senator from Oklahoma who is set to become the new secretary of homeland security.
During Wednesday’s senate confirmation hearing, Mullin came face to face with Rand Paul, the Kentuckian Republican who chairs the Senate committee on homeland security and who had an old and very bitter axe to grind. In vivid detail Paul recalled the day in 2017 when, while cutting timber in his back yard, he was attacked by a stranger with political grievances who struck him from behind, breaking six ribs and damaging a lung, an ordeal that caused medical complications and a full year in recovery. Paul reminded the hearing that afterwards, Mullin had called him a “freakin’ snake” and said he understood why he had been assaulted.
“Today I will give you that chance to clear the record,” Paul said to Mullin.
“Tell it to my face if that is what you believe. Tell it to me today. Tell the world why you believe I deserved to be assaulted from behind and 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 250,000 men and women who work at the department of homeland security.”
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For Paul, the moment represented a revenge he had waited to serve cold while for Mullin, the confrontation was a crossing point between his political past and future.
Since his arrival as a congressman in 2012, Mullin has styled himself as a man apart from the usual Capitol Hill set; unpretentious, blue-collar, with no fancy college – nor any college – networks to rely on as he made his way through national politics. He has sometimes been seen sporting a cowboy hat in the Senate chamber and jauntily bouncing a power ball while walking through the Byzantine corridors. He combines western courtliness with a macho persona, making much of what was, by all accounts, a very limited lifespan as an MMA fighter.
Some Democratic senators came to like him – which, in his week of weeks, proved crucial. Crucially, Donald Trump also came to like him. Mullin displayed unflinching loyalty to the former president in the weeks and months after the January 6th insurrection when Trump was ostracised by much of the Republican Party and out in the cold in Mar-a-Lago, when he would have been aware of the Oklahoman constantly defending his record and questioning the results of the 2020 election.
During Trump’s surging comeback in 2023 and 2024, Mullin was one of the more prominent faces and voices on the television networks and although branded by Trump as a “Maga warrior”, he is regarded as approachable and reasonable-minded by liberal-leaning media outlets who frequently seek his views. All of that paid off when Trump cast an eye around for a replacement for the deposed Kristi Noem.
More recently, Mullin contributed to the litany of appalling, premature remarks after the death of Alex Pretti, the Minneapolis protester who was gunned down by Ice officers in the street. On Wednesday, Mullin conceded that he regretted referring to Pretti as “deranged” but stopped short of issuing an apology to his family until the investigation into the events of that morning are complete.
But his most famous moment in the senate remains his challenge, in 2023, to Teamsters boss Sean O’Brien to turn a hot verbal exchange and into a formalised brawl. Rereading O’Brien’s tweet – “You know where to find me any time, any place, cowboy.” – Mullin pointed at the senate floor and said: “Sir, this is a time, this is a place. We can be two consenting adults. We can finish it here.”
He then invited the Teamsters boss to “Stand your butt up”.
“You’re a United States senator,” an outraged Bernie Sanders reminded his colleague that day. Afterwards, Mullin defended his action by giving television interviews and reminding people of the good ol’ days in the 1800s, “when they used to have canes”. It was at this point that Sumner was roused from his slumbers by Paul. A few days after delivering, in May 1856, his immortal speech known as The Crime Against Kansas, Sumner was savagely attacked and beaten unconscious by South Carolina congressman Preston Brooks.
“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?” Paul asked Mullin.
“What I was simply pointing out is some of the rules that still apply to this body. For instance, duelling with two consenting adults is still there,” Mullin replied.
In addition, Mullin was able to produce, as his trump card, the presence of a somewhat sheepish O’Brien sitting behind him, now with family and supporters. In the years since, the pair have apparently cultivated a friendship. “We talk all the time,” said Mullin. “I’ve been on his podcast. We have talked through this. That’s how you settle your differences, sir.”
Paul, a vociferous Trump critic, voted against the confirmation of Mullin in the committee’s vote on Thursday. As it turned out, Mullin needed the vote of Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman, who broke from his party to become the lone Democrat to approve of Mullin, allowing him to advance to a full Senate vote by 8-7. Fetterman’s break drew both howls of derision from within his party and praise from Republican supporters.
But it means the charmed political life of Mullin continues. He leaves nothing comparable to Sumner’s Crime Against Kansas behind in the senate but he will always have that tangential link. Mullin is expected to win approval in the full Senate vote and will enter Trump’s cabinet at the age of 48, completing a wild ride from Oklahoma to the inner sanctum of the Maga power base.
