Takeaways from Mullin’s testy DHS confirmation hearing

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▪ Mullin’s confirmation hearing

▪ US tries to limit economic impact of war

▪ Japanese prime minister visiting DC

▪ Chavez celebrations canceled

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) faced scrutiny from senators on both sides of the aisle during his confirmation hearing to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as he tried to signal a new direction for the department.

Mullin appeared before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee as part of the first public step of his confirmation process, making news with pledges to carry out several reforms at DHS to chart a different path than outgoing Secretary Kristi Noem.

President Trump is hoping for Mullin to be confirmed by the end of the month, in time to take over for Noem. But he didn’t receive the warm welcome that senators often receive from their colleagues when they’re nominated for a position in the executive branch.

Here are three takeaways from the hearing:

1. The scrutiny facing Mullin is bipartisan

Fireworks exploded in Wednesday’s hearing almost right away, with committee Chair Rand Paul (R-Ky.) pressing Mullin on a personal controversy between the two senators.

Mullin received attention last month for comments he made calling Paul a “freaking snake” for often breaking with the GOP on crucial votes.

Paul said the public is wondering if Mullin has the temperament to lead DHS. He also accused his GOP colleague of justifying an assault against the Kentucky lawmaker from a neighbor in 2017.

“Instead of explaining your vote to continue these welfare programs for refugees, you decide to transfer the blame. You told the media that I was a ‘freaking snake’ and that you completely understood why I had been assaulted. I was shocked it would justify and celebrate this violent assault that caused me so much pain and my family so much pain,” Paul said in his opening remarks.

Mullin pushed back, arguing he only said he understood why the attack happened and not that he was defending it.

“As far as my terms ‘snake in the grass,’ sir, I work around this room to try to fix problems. I’ve worked with many people in this room. Seems like you fight Republicans more than you work with us,” Mullin said, refusing to apologize.

Paul further accused Mullin of having “anger issues,” citing a past heated confrontation between the Oklahoma senator and a labor official that nearly became physical. 

Mullin also faced pushback from Democrats about his temperament and past comments.

Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) pressed Mullin on remarks he made implying he had been on military missions despite not being a veteran or member of the intelligence community, while Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) felt Mullin didn’t go far enough in explaining reforms he would make to DHS operations.

Mullin’s nomination took a hit as Paul made clear after their exchange that he will not support his confirmation. That won’t necessarily sink the nomination, however, as Democratic Sen. John Fetterman (Pa.) has said he plans to support Mulin, a key vote for advancing the nomination out of committee, The Hill’s Rebecca Beitsch reports.

2. Mullin is breaking with Noem on multiple policies

Although Mullin’s vision fell short of what many Democrats are hoping to see at DHS, he did commit to a few policy reforms to steer the department differently than Noem.

He committed to overturning one of Noem’s most controversial policies in ending the requirement that the secretary review all expenses of more than $100,000 for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The policy has led to billions of dollars in disaster assistance funding being held up.

Mullin also seemed to back the idea that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers need a judicial warrant to arrest and deport someone instead of a DHS-issued administrative warrant that the department has sometimes used.

“I have made it very clear to the staff, and I think when you and I spoke, that a judicial warrant will be used to go into houses, in a place of businesses, unless we’re pursuing someone that enters in that place,” he told Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).

Still, Mullin’s policy reform proposals were limited.

When Slotkin asked how he would like to see immigration policy changed, Mullin only said he would like to see more cooperation with local law enforcement in turning over individuals to ICE. He also didn’t commit to ending staffing cuts at FEMA when pressed by Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.).

“Some of these agencies … not some, all of them got very bloated,” Mullin said.

3. The administration wants to turn the page on DHS drama

Even with potentially limited reforms, Mullin made clear he wants to move past the drama that has consumed the department and its leadership for much of the past year.

Mullin said during his testimony his goal is for DHS to not make news headlines every day, which would be a major change from what has defined the department for months.

“I hope that I’m not on the news six months from now every day,” he said. “I hope DHS is just able to be laser-focused on doing their job, and it isn’t controversial about taking care of the homeland.”

And the push to have no-drama leadership would come at a critical time for DHS, the administration and Trump himself.

If Mullin is confirmed, he would be responsible for turning down the temperature over DHS while still promoting Trump’s core immigration agenda focused on border security rather than domestic sweeps.

More Americans in recent months have suggested they don’t approve of Trump’s handling of immigration, a major change seen during Noem’s tenure that has rippled effects on the president’s overall approval rating.

Mullin would also be charged with taking over the helm of a massive department that has been without new funding for weeks, with growing concerns about delays at airports and other impacts the longer it goes on.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Key moments from the hearing.

▪ The Hill: Mullin agrees to meet with committee behind closed doors.

Smart Take with Blake Burman

Long lines continue to form at airports across the country, as Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers are on the job without getting paid. We aired our Viewer’s Voice segment last night, where I put your questions to members of Congress. One of them was about why Congress continues to get paid while TSA workers do not. 

Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.) told me it’s the right question to ask and then suggested a big change that would have significant consequences. “In the Senate, we need to move past the filibuster rule. I believe that’s part of the problem is you can hold up the opposition party; you can hold up the majority party and not let votes happen and simply just make life difficult.”

That’s likely a ways off, if at all, as nuking the filibuster would have decades-long ramifications. How could the stalemate end? Chris Sununu, who represents Airlines for America, told me this week, “I think the breaking point is really when the American public pushes on their representatives.”

Burman hosts “The Hill” weeknights, 6p/5c on NewsNation.

3 Things to Know Today

The FBI is investigating Joe Kent, who resigned as director of the National Counterterrorism Center, over an alleged leak of classified information, NewsNation reported. The probe was underway before Kent resigned in protest of the Iran war, a source told the outlet.

Senate Republicans defeated a Democratic-sponsored motion to advance a war powers resolution to pause Trump’s strikes against Iran. The body knocked down the motion mostly along party lines.

Democrats stormed out of a closed-door briefing that Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche gave on the Epstein files. They vowed to enforce a subpoena that has been issued for Bondi to testify on the documents.

GO (Y)OUR OWN WAY: The U.S. is taking its own steps to try to secure the Strait of Hormuz and mitigate rising oil prices after members of the international community widely rebuffed calls from the president to send warships to the waterway.

U.S. Central Command said the military dropped multiple 5,000-pound deep-penetrator bombs Tuesday targeting “hardened” antiship missile sites along the Iranian coastline near the strait. The attacks are key as Tehran’s ability to launch drones, lay sea mines and fire antiship cruise missiles have contributed to other countries’ unwillingness to get involved in reopening the area to international oil shipping.

This is one of a few steps the Trump administration is taking to try to ease costs following the president’s reversal on asking for assistance from the international community.

The price of gas has been steadily rising over the past few weeks since the war began, with AAA now estimating the average national price for regular gas is at its highest point since 2023.

The Treasury Department reduced some sanctions on Venezuelan oil companies Wednesday to try to boost the global oil supply, while White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the administration is temporarily loosening shipping rules to address what she called “short-term disruptions.”

The administration is issuing a 60-day waiver of the Jones Act, a century-old law that requires shipping between U.S. ports to be conducted by U.S.-flagged ships. Bloomberg, which first reported the move, noted the waiver could allow foreign ships to carry products such as oil, coal, gasoline and other products between U.S. ports.

Still, the impacts of these moves may be minor on gas prices while the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed, The Hill’s Rachel Frazin reports.

The situation may worsen if Iran follows through on a threat to attack oil and gas facilities in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The threat came in response to an attack on Iran’s South Pars natural gas field.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is weighing whether to seize Iran’s oil depot on Kharg Island, off the coast of the mainland, to try to force Tehran to reopen the strait, The Hill’s Ellen Mitchell reports. But doing so would require a major escalation in the form of U.S. boots on the ground, a development that has so far been avoided and may be unpopular, as polls have suggested.

▪ The Hill: Foreign leaders show new willingness to defy Trump.

▪ The Hill: Gulf states walk tightrope.

ARTFUL DODGE: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard toed a careful line as she and CIA Director John Ratcliffe dodged questions about the lead-up to the military offensive against Iran.

One of the most notable moments during their testimony before the Senate Intelligence panel came during a back-and-forth between Gabbard and Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.). The senator pressed her on whether Iran posed an “imminent nuclear threat” before the U.S. launched its strikes.

Gabbard skipped over a portion of her prepared remarks in which she had planned to say Tehran’s nuclear program was “obliterated” during the U.S. strikes on Iran last June and there have been “no efforts since then” to try to rebuild their enrichment capacity.

Ossoff asked if this was the intelligence community’s assessment, and she replied that it was.

“The White House stated on March 1 of this year that this war was launched and was ‘a military campaign to eliminate the imminent nuclear threat opposed by the Iranian regime,’” Ossoff said.

Gabbard said the president is the only person “who can determine what is and is not an imminent threat” and asserted it is not the intelligence community’s responsibility to determine what is an imminent threat.

“It is precisely your responsibility to determine what constitutes a threat to the United States,” Ossoff said.

Gabbard, a former Hawaii congresswoman who long promoted noninterventionist principles before joining the Trump administration, has attempted to walk a fine line on the Iran war and has not been as public-facing on the conflict as other senior leaders.

The difficulty was compounded after the resignation of her close aide and top counterterrorism official Joe Kent, who stepped down from his role in protest of the war Tuesday. Kent alleged in a letter to Trump that Iran didn’t pose an imminent threat to the U.S. before the strikes began.

Intelligence chiefs have regularly weighed in on the intelligence community’s assessment of threats to national security before Congress and elsewhere, making Gabbard’s nonanswer that much more striking.

Other members of the administration are also wrestling with how to handle Kent’s accusations.

Vice President Vance, seen by many as the presidential heir apparent to Trump in 2028, addressed Kent’s resignation during a campaign-style event in Michigan on Wednesday.

“The president has said this, I’ve said this. Nobody likes war, and I guarantee the president of the United States is not interested in getting us in the kind of long-term quagmires that we’ve seen in years past,” he said.

While much of Trump’s base has remained behind him in supporting the war, Kent is the first major administration official to resign in protest of the conflict.

Questions remain over whether Trump’s coalition can stay together or if it might start to erode on account of the war.

▪ The Hill: Gabbard fends off questions about Fulton County raid.

▪ The Washington Post: Gabbard says Iranian regime is degraded but intact.

FUNDING REQUEST: The Pentagon has asked for Trump to request more than $200 billion in funding from Congress for the war in Iran, The Washington Post reported.

A supplemental funding request for operations against Iran has been expected as the conflict has extended to a third week. But the ask from the Defense Department would significantly surpass the cost of the campaign so far, the Post noted.

Sources told the outlet some White House officials don’t believe the request has a realistic chance of being approved in Congress, and the Pentagon has considered several different funding proposals in recent weeks.

Democrats seem likely to oppose an additional funding request, and GOP congressional leadership has floated the possibility of trying to advance a funding package through the reconciliation process.

FOREIGN VISIT: Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is visiting Washington, D.C., Thursday at a contentious time for relations between the U.S. and its traditional allies.

Takaichi’s state visit, her first to the U.S. since becoming the head of the Japanese government, will be an all-day affair, starting with a bilateral meeting and ending in a dinner.

The trip was originally supposed to be just a celebration of the long-standing friendship between the two countries, but it has taken on new significance as Trump looks for military help with Iran, The Washington Post reported.

The rapport between Trump and Takaichi got off to a strong start when he visited Tokyo in the fall, but the stakes are much higher for the meeting and the U.S.-Japanese relationship.

FED RATE DECISION: The Federal Reserve voted to keep interest rates steady amid significant economic uncertainty from the war in Iran.

The Federal Open Market Committee, which is responsible for setting the central bank’s borrowing costs, voted to keep interest rates between a range of 3.5 to 3.75 percent. The vote was 11-1, with committee member Stephen Miran voting for a 0.25-point cut.

The decision did not come as a surprise given the economic turmoil facing the country and world amid the Iran conflict and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. But the war has made the Fed’s job more difficult as another factor impacting the economy, along with the pressure campaign from the president to lower rates.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday after the decision that he won’t step down as the leader of the bank until a successor is confirmed and wouldn’t depart the board of governors until the Trump administration concludes its criminal investigation into him and his handling of the Fed’s renovations.

Though Powell’s term as Fed chair ends in May, staying on as chair pro tempore until a replacement is confirmed would follow the precedent of past chairs. Trump has nominated former Fed board member Kevin Warsh to succeed him.

▪ CNBC: Fed notes ‘uncertain’ impacts from Iran war.

TERRORISM LINK PROBE: The FBI and IRS have reportedly launched an initiative to investigate nonprofit groups for links to domestic terrorism.

CBS News reported Bondi ordered law enforcement agencies and federal prosecutors to prioritize groups and individuals who belong to the anti-fascist antifa movement or are considered “extremist.”

“These domestic terrorists use violence or the threat of violence to advance political and social agendas, including opposition to law and immigration enforcement; extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders; adherence to radical gender ideology, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, or anti-Christianity,” Bondi said in a memo.

Which groups could be targeted remains unclear. Bondi’s memo came after an executive order from the president declaring antifa a domestic terrorist organization, though the movement’s decentralized ideology has raised questions about what kind of legal implementation is possible.

The president will participate in executive time at 8 a.m. He will greet the Japanese prime minister at 11 a.m. and have a bilateral meeting with her at 11:15 a.m. He will participate in a policy meeting at 3 p.m. and have dinner with the prime minister at 7:15 p.m.

The House will convene at 9 a.m.

The Senate will meet at noon.

Today at noon: Join editors from The Hill for a live conversation and audience Q&A on the stories shaping Washington. Register here.

CHAVEZ ACCUSATIONS: A report from The New York Times detailing wide-ranging accusations of sexual misconduct against civil rights and labor movement leader César Chavez is rippling through the Latino and labor communities.

The Times reporting found extensive evidence that Chavez committed sexual abuse against several women over multiple years. Ana Murguia and Debra Rojas, the daughters of longtime organizers who had marched in rallies alongside Chavez, told the outlet that they were abused for years as girls during the 1970s.

United Farm Workers (UFW), the labor union that Chavez co-founded, announced Tuesday as the Times story came out that it would cancel its annual celebration honoring Chavez’s birthday, calling the allegations “shocking, indefensible and something we are taking seriously.”

“As a women-led organization that exists to empower communities, the allegations about abusive behavior by Cesar Chavez go against everything that we stand for,” UFW said in a statement.

Dolores Huerta, who co-founded UFW with Chavez and is now 95 years old, told the Times that Chavez sexually assaulted her. She said he raped her inside a vehicle in a secluded grape farm in California in 1966.

Huerta told the outlet that she chose not to report the assault to police because of their hostility to the labor movement and fear that no one in the union would believe her. She said she was stunned by Chavez’s aggression but eventually became numb to it.

“Unfortunately, he used some of his great leadership to abuse women and children — it’s really awful,” Huerta said.

Chavez has received praise for his lifetime efforts advocating for civil rights, particularly for farm workers of Mexican or Filipino descent, protesting poor pay and work conditions and organizing workers. He has been compared to Martin Luther King Jr. for his civil rights advocacy.

Various other celebrations of Chavez’s life had been canceled in recent weeks with little explanation before the report came out.

▪ The Hill: California officials praise Huerta, women alleging abuse.

▪ The Hill: Senator ‘reworking’ bill to establish national park named for Chavez.

SAFETY REGULATIONS: The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is tightening safety measures a year after the fatal collision between a military helicopter and an American Airlines jet near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the administration is suspending the use of visual separation between airplanes and helicopters. Instead, air traffic controllers will be required to use radar to “actively manage” aircraft to keep them separated at lateral or vertical distances.

The National Transportation Safety Board determined an “overreliance on visual separation” was a contributing factor to the crash in January 2025, which claimed 67 lives.

Visual separation happens when air traffic controllers advise pilots about nearby aircraft, allowing them to remain visually clear of others.

The FAA identified two instances in just the past month when visual separation wasn’t adequate as a safety tool, requiring helicopters to turn to avoid colliding with an aircraft.

▪ The Hill: Official says airports may close if DHS shutdown continues.

Where does the ‘Special Relationship’ stand after war with Iran? Eliot Wilson writes in The Hill.

Joe Kent’s resignation letter is dangerous because it’s half true, Michelle Goldberg writes in The New York Times.

And finally … It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for the weekly news quiz!

The first day of spring is Friday, so this week’s assessment will see if you’re ready for the equinox.

Be sure to email your responses to jgans@thehill.com — please add “Quiz” to your subject line. Winners who submit correct answers will receive deserved newsletter fame on Friday.

What is the latest day spring can start in the Northern Hemisphere?

While Washington, D.C, has become known for its annual bloom of cherry blossoms, what country has also historically been known for them?

Daylight saving time was used periodically throughout the start of the 20th century, but when did it begin to be used consistently in the U.S.?

Which of these flowers do not bloom in spring?

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