10 Photos of Markwayne Mullin: Will He Replace 'ICE Barbie' Kristi Noem As DHS Secretary?

Markwayne Mullin will be nominated as the next US Secretary of Homeland Security in Washington at the end of March, after Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he was firing Kristi Noem from the post and moving her into a new envoy role, according to a statement on his Truth Social platform.

The news came after months of mounting controversy around Noem's leadership of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including a deadly immigration operation in Minneapolis and a bruising row over a taxpayer-funded advertising blitz. In January, federal agents shot and killed two US citizens, Renée Good and Alex Pretti, during 'Operation Metro Surge' in Minneapolis.

More recently, Trump was reported to be angered when Noem told lawmakers that he had signed off on a roughly $200 million DHS media campaign in which she fronted appeals urging migrants to self-deport. Bloomberg, citing a source, reported that the president did not appreciate being tied publicly to the figure.

Trump announced that Noem's removal as secretary will take effect on 31 March. In the same breath, he moved to reassure his base that the hardline immigration agenda would continue without interruption, writing that he was 'pleased' to elevate Markwayne Mullin, the Republican senator from Oklahoma, into the DHS hot seat.

'I am pleased to announce that the Highly Respected United States Senator from the Great State of Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin, will become the United States Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS),' Trump posted, adding: 'I thank Kristi for her service at 'Homeland.''

Markwayne Mullin Steps Forward As Trump Shuffles Kristi Noem Aside

Trump's solution to the Noem problem is not to change course, but to change personnel. He has offered Kristi Noem a soft landing as a special envoy for what he calls a new 'Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere', a role that he has described in broad terms but not yet defined in formal detail. Her shift is being framed by the White House as a reassignment rather than a demotion, although the reality is that she is losing one of the most powerful jobs in the US government.

Into that vacuum steps Markwayne Mullin, a political loyalist with a very different life story from the woman he is poised to replace. If the Senate confirms him, he will inherit an agency at the centre of Trump's mass deportation drive, battered by lawsuits, congressional scrutiny and public anger over aggressive tactics on American streets.

Noem's exit is the first Cabinet change of Trump's second term, underscoring how unforgiving this White House can be when a secretary's political cost begins to outweigh their usefulness. The clash over the $200 million ad campaign appears to have been a tipping point. Bloomberg reported that Trump was 'upset' that Noem had told Congress he approved it, and the president later insisted he had not personally signed off on the project.

Whatever the private conversations, the public result is clear enough. Noem is out, Mullin is in, and the machinery of DHS is expected to keep turning.

Who Is Markwayne Mullin, Trump's Pick To Replace Kristi Noem?

For many outside the United States, Markwayne Mullin is hardly a household name. Inside Republican circles, though, he has long been seen as a rising star with a biography that ticks several boxes for a Trump-era conservative.

Mullin is a successful businessman and working cow-calf rancher who still lives on his family ranch near Westville, Oklahoma. He and his wife, Christie, have been married for 28 years and have six children: Jayce, Jim, Andrew, Larra, Ivy and Lynette. The large family and ranching background give him a decidedly traditional conservative profile, one that sits comfortably with Trump's rural base.

Before arriving in the Senate, Markwayne Mullin spent a decade in the US House of Representatives. His political career grew out of a much more domestic drama. As a young man, he attended Missouri Valley College on a wrestling scholarship, but when his father fell ill he and Christie put their studies on hold to rescue Mullin Plumbing, the family business. They not only saved it, but expanded it into what has been described as the largest service company in that region, later branching out into Mullin Environmental and Rowan's Steakhouse.

Mullin eventually completed his formal education in 2010, earning a degree in Applied Science in Construction Technology from Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology. He was also awarded an honorary doctorate from Bacone College in 2018. His CV highlights him as an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation, making him the first tribal citizen to serve in the US Senate in almost two decades, and only the second Cherokee Nation citizen ever to sit in that chamber.

There is also a more colourful line on his biography. Long before committee hearings and classified briefings, Mullin was an undefeated mixed martial arts fighter, with a reported 5–0 record, and he was inducted into the Oklahoma Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2016. It is the sort of detail that plays well in campaign ads, but it also feeds Trump's fondness for surrounding himself with people who project physical toughness as well as political loyalty.

In the Senate, Markwayne Mullin has built influence on heavyweight committees including Armed Services, Appropriations, Health, Education, Labour, and Pensions, and Indian Affairs. A Nasdaq article has pegged his net worth at around $65 million, reflecting both his business interests and his long spell in public office, although that figure is based on public estimates rather than a detailed accounting.

What is less clear is how Mullin will handle the storm he is walking into at DHS. The department has been central to Trump's promise to deport large numbers of undocumented migrants, a project that has drawn fierce criticism from civil liberties groups and uneasy questions from moderates in both parties. The Minneapolis shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, carried out by federal agents during an immigration sweep, have already become a symbol of what opponents say is a reckless, militarised approach.

Supporters of Trump's strategy will hope that Markwayne Mullin brings the same combative energy he showed in the House and Senate to defending those policies. Critics will be looking closely at whether a millionaire rancher and former MMA fighter can also demonstrate the kind of restraint and legal rigour that DHS's sprawling enforcement apparatus urgently needs.

For now, all that is certain is that Trump has swapped one loyalist for another, and that the man who once built a plumbing empire out of a family crisis is about to inherit a department operating permanently in political emergency mode.