We’ll see if he has the power to do What he NEEDS to do to run his Department or things Stepthen Miller wants….
The Senate voted to confirm Sen. Markwayne Mullin as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security late Monday, installing the Oklahoma Republican at the embattled national security agency amid global instability and frustration over immigration enforcement.
The Senate voted 54 to 45 to confirm Mullin days after a Senate hearingin which he portrayed himself as an experienced lawmaker ready to restore DHS’s credibility after a surge in immigration enforcement escalated in January when federal officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens, Renée Good and Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis.
Mullin, who voted for himself in the narrowly divided Senate, was seen chatting, smiling and embracing colleagues on the Senate floor during the vote. The chamber filled with applause when the result was announced.
The senator is poised to take over the agency created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as the U.S. is at war in Iran and travelers are enduring hours-long waits in airport security lines because of a partial DHS budget shutdown that began Feb. 14. The Senate confirmed Mullin, 48, two weeks after President Donald Trump nominated him to become the ninth DHS secretary.
He is expected to be sworn in after Secretary Kristi L. Noem departs at the end of the month.
Mullin has emphasized that he will continue Trump’s immigration agenda, but in a streamlined way targeting criminals and people eligible to be deported. In written answers to Senate questionnaires, he said he would work to improve morale and workforce readiness at DHS and build a department “that runs on systems, not personalities.”
The vote was mostly along party lines. Two Democrats, Sens. John Fetterman (Pennsylvania) and Martin Heinrich (New Mexico), voted with Republicans to confirm him.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, the committee’s top Democrat, both opposed his nomination. Both said he lacked the temperament and qualifications to lead the agency when it is facing scrutiny for excessive use of force….
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The largest number of people he has had work for him is 150.
Now he will helm an agency with more than 260,000 employees, the third largest in the United States after the Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Approval for Trump’s immigration agenda has sunk in the polls spurring worries among Republicans that they will lose ground in both houses of Congress in the November mid-term elections and imperil the president’s agenda….
image..Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma) answers questions during his confirmation hearing on March 18…Alex Kent/The Washington Post
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