Congress

Mullin has more work to do to repair the relationship between DHS and Congress

Published

4 weeks ago

May 15, 2026

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has taken some steps to improve his department’s relationship with Capitol Hill. Lawmakers in both parties, however, say there’s much more to be done before the damage from his predecessor’s tenure is repaired.

Senate Republicans, largely adulatory of Mullin’s early efforts to change course at the Department of Homeland Security, acknowledge that the poor relationship between DHS and its Senate committee of jurisdiction is limiting productive engagement.

Tensions still exist between Mullin and the chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has lashed the Homeland Security secretary for not having what he considers the proper temperament for the role. The enmity between the two men burst out in public view during Mullin’s March confirmation hearing, when Paul upbraided Mullin for disparaging comments Mullin had made about a violent 2017 attack against the Kentucky Republican.

“There needs to be a good relationship between the secretary of Homeland Security and the chairman of the committee,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said. Declining to say if any members are working to smooth over the relationship between the two, Scott emphasized: “I think it’s important they figure out how to have a positive human relationship.”

Paul declined to comment on his relationship with Mullin. While Paul was also a critic of former Secretary Kristi Noem’s heavy-handed approach to deportations, his frustrations with Noem did not appear as personal.

The White House has also been slow to embrace Mullin as its go-to representative on Blue Light News for DHS matters. As funding legislation snaked its way through Congress in March and April, the White House mainly dispatched border czar Tom Homan to talk to lawmakers, casting Mullin into a less direct role in the push to end the monthslong shutdown of his department.

That omission is all the more striking given that Mullin, who represented Oklahoma in both the House and Senate, was hailed as a Capitol Hill dealmaker when he was nominated. Mullin had also vowed to be accessible and very communicative with Congress during his confirmation hearing. Early reports had also suggested he was trying to play a role during his confirmation process as a broker for a funding deal.

Many of those dynamics will be on sharp display this month when Mullin returns to testify before the House Appropriations Committee, his first public appearance before his former colleagues since he entered the Cabinet. His testimony at an oversight hearing, which has been postponed after it was initially scheduled for Monday, will give lawmakers their first chance to publicly press Mullin on his efforts at the department.

DHS said in a statement that “while serving in his new role as DHS Secretary, he’s continuing this leadership style and is in constant communication with leaders on Capitol Hill, his 22 agency heads, and the White House to deliver on President Trump’s promise to protect the homeland.”

The department added that “the secretary’s number one priority was re-opening DHS and getting the patriots who protect our homeland paid. His relationships with his former colleagues — on both sides of the aisle — were critical to getting DHS re-opened.”

Mullin is making inroads on Blue Light News. He and White House deputy chief of staff James Braid met with members of the Republican Governance Group on Wednesday, signaling Mullin may play a larger role in the unfolding effort to secure funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection via a to-be-negotiated reconciliation bill.

One bright spot has been the House, where Mullin’s relationship with Republican lawmakers is uniformly better. House Homeland Security Chair Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) said Mullin has briefed his committee since taking office. And both Garbarino and Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.), the top House appropriator on the subcommittee that funds DHS, said communication from DHS has improved under Mullin’s watch.

“We do have an open line of communication,” Garbarino said. “Dealing with his team has been very good, and I think the information coming out of HQ is not as siloed as it was previously.”

But Democrats still have many concerns about DHS and Mullin, at a time when slim margins in the House and Senate have made potential Democratic support useful in sticky legislative battles.

Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said he’s met with Mullin since his former colleague’s confirmation as DHS secretary. But when asked about Mullin’s leadership of DHS, he demurred.

“I think we’ve still got to wait and see,” Peters said.

There were high hopes from Republicans going into Mullin’s confirmation that he would repair what many saw as an unproductive relationship between DHS and Capitol Hill. Senators identified his predecessor’s rough relationship with Capitol Hill as one of the reasons for her downfall.

Noem “wasn’t as engaged with senators as some of her Cabinet colleagues,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) said. “That became a problem when she needed some support when she was getting attacked.”

While Mullin was not a major driver of negotiations to restore funding for DHS, the secretary was a fixture on news shows, arguing that Democrats were hurting U.S. national security by keeping his department shuttered. In particular, Mullin singled out Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer as a “lying scumbag politician” for what he characterized as dishonest messaging around Democrats’ opposition to funding legislation.

There’s no love lost with Senate Democrats over that. Schumer’s office said in a statement that Mullin “can throw around insults all he wants, but the facts are the facts: Senate Democrats passed bipartisan DHS funding bills twice, and House Republicans sat on them for more than 70 days — holding up funding for TSA, FEMA, the Coast Guard, and other critical agencies because they refused basic accountability for ICE and CBP.”

That caustic performance did not cost him with most Republicans. Amodei said in an interview that “my initial impressions are excellent. Communications culture has done a 180 … he’s been put there to be a leader.”

Congressional confidence in Mullin is likely to get him over these current hurdles, argued Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), a past chair of the House Homeland Security Committee.

“He’s a creature of Congress, and a creature not in a bad sense,” McCaul said. “We know him from the House. The Senate knows him. That always helps … there’s a level of trust with Markwayne there that helps a lot.”

Congress

Rick Scott lifts holds on Coast Guard promotions

Published

3 hours ago

June 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Rick Scott said Thursday he had lifted his hold on Coast Guard promotions as he works to resolve a dispute between the service branch and a shipbuilder in his state.

The Florida Republican said in a statement that he cares “deeply about these Coast Guard promotions” and that “though we’re still not done, I’m lifting these holds as all parties have been working together in good faith and are moving towards an amenable agreement that gets ships built and is fair to US taxpayers.”

Scott added that “the process still needs to be better” and that he would “fight to ensure there is more oversight and accountability of the Coast Guard and that we fix the Coast Guard procurement process going forward.”

Scott initially placed the hold in April on the elevation of officers within the service, preventing the Senate from approving promotions via unanimous consent.

Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in 2025 scrapped plans for two advanced cutters being manufactured at Panama City-based Eastern Shipbuilding Group. The shipyard announced in November it would stop work on the two remaining boats “due to significant financial strain caused by the program’s structure and conditions.”

Scott had been a longtime booster of the partnership between Eastern and the Coast Guard and said in April he had been working with the administration to resolve the dispute but was struggling to get traction.

While the Senate could have held roll-call votes to sidestep Scott’s blockage, service officer promotions are usually noncontroversial and leaders rarely choose to expend valuable and finite floor time to advance them if there is not unanimous consent.

Congress

Senate panel approves Department of War name change

Published

4 hours ago

June 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate Armed Services Committee voted this week to formally change the Pentagon’s name to the Department of War, moving a significant step closer to solidifying President Donald Trump’s rebrand of the Defense Department as permanent.

The move came during the committee’s closed-door deliberations over its defense policy bill, according to Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who announced the name change in explaining his vote against the legislation.

“It’s a juvenile move that sadly describes the reality of a president who has abandoned meaningful diplomacy in favor of starting doubtful wars in multiple locations and threatening even more,” he said in a statement.

Trump authorized the War Department moniker last year as part of a broader effort to present a more aggressive military to the world. The Pentagon has used it since, as have many Republicans on Capitol Hill.

But Congress must sign off for the name change to stick — and votes on both sides of the Capitol make it closer than ever to becoming a reality.

Details of the Armed Services vote, including who pushed for the change, were not immediately public. The committee voted 18-9 to advance the bill Wednesday evening and released initial details of the legislation Thursday.

The House Armed Services Committee approved the rebranding last week in its draft of the annual authorization legislation. The measure was adopted there in a narrow, party-line vote.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth quickly praised the decision. “The Department of War will officially be restored soon,” he wrote in a social media post after the House panel’s vote.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that a full renaming of the department could cost as much as $125 million. But supporters have argued changing the name would more accurately reflect the focus and strength of the department, sending a message to potential adversaries.

The name change’s inclusion in both the House and Senate panel’s drafts of the authorization bill — which has passed Congress annually for the last six decades — signals that the rebrand has a strong chance of becoming law.

Congress

Judge finds Lander not guilty in 26 Federal Plaza obstruction case

Published

4 hours ago

June 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

NEW YORK — A federal judge ruled Thursday that former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander is not guilty of misdemeanor obstruction for blocking an elevator while protesting outside an immigrant holding area.

Lander was hit with the obstruction charge last September while demonstrating in support of detained immigrants at 26 Federal Plaza in lower Manhattan. He was offered a deal to drop the charge but opted instead for a trial to bring attention to the federal government’s immigration policies.

Lander said he was there with state legislators to view the facility’s conditions, not to purposefully block an elevator — and that he would have moved if asked. In reading his findings, Judge Henry Ricardo described Lander’s testimony as consistent with video evidence, noting that his movements didn’t suggest he was purposefully trying to block the elevator and that Lander appeared “tired and a bit resigned.”

“No offense to Mr. Lander,” the judge said.

Lander — who entered the courtroom in good spirits and holding a Knicks hat — told reporters after the verdict: “I didn’t feel tired.”

“I felt an urgency to show up that day and try to fight what ICE is doing,” he said.

After a month’s delay, Lander finally had his first day in court Wednesday — less than two weeks before the primary election — bringing immigration even more to the forefront in the waning days of his campaign against Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman.

During the six-hour trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ariel Cohen framed it as a straightforward case — that it was well-documented Lander was sitting in front of an elevator and didn’t move after being told to do so multiple times.

Cohen pointed to Lander singing “We Shall Not Be Moved,” a well-known protest song popularized during the Civil Rights movement, while sitting in front of the elevator. But Ricardo was not swayed by that argument, reasoning that it was a chaotic moment and Lander was, in fact, moved, despite the song he was singing.

“Actions speak louder than words,” he said.

Ricardo said the government failed to prove Lander purposefully obstructed an elevator. He also said he didn’t weigh what was being protested or whether the protest was just — a stated goal for Lander in deciding to take the case to trial. Instead, Wednesday’s proceedings focused largely on elevator logistics and signage at 26 Federal Plaza, not the Trump administration’s immigration efforts.

“Do I wish that they had granted our discovery motions, sought harder to prove the case and given us the ability to hold ICE accountable? Yes, I wish that,” Lander said after the verdict.

Immigration policy has emerged as a flashpoint between Lander and Goldman, who is seeking a third term, especially as the Trump administration threatens to ramp up enforcement in the state.

Goldman, who often highlights his oversight visits at immigrant detention centers and his “triage center” to support detainees near 26 Federal Plaza, has repeatedly criticized Lander for his approach to immigration. On Wednesday, he referred to Lander’s case as “performative” and “self-promoting.” At a debate last week, Goldman chided him for the rhetorical refrain that he puts his “body on the line” for immigrants and for fundraising off of it.

“While Brad never did get the information he sought from ICE, I have all of that information from my weekly oversight visits and would be happy to brief him,” Goldman said in a statement.

Lander, who frequently conducts court watching shifts, was also arrested at 26 Federal Plaza while escorting migrants from immigration hearings last June, ahead of the mayoral primary. No charges were filed then. Lander on Thursday said he thinks the arrests are an effort “to intimidate people into not participating as part of that court watching, ICE watching movement.”

In response to a question about Goldman’s suggestion his actions are political theater, Lander claimed he wasn’t running for anything in September when he was arrested: “We were there to show up for our neighbors and the rule of law. This is much bigger than we are.”

When asked if the legal proceedings have been a distraction from his campaign, he said some of the most “meaningful work of the last year” has been “being part of a movement of Americans who are fighting back against the fascist White House and rogue ICE agents.”