WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump has chosen a cowboy-hat-wearing former MMA fighter who once nearly challenged a witness to fight and who likes to bounce a rubber ball to relieve stress to be the new leader of the Department of Homeland Security.
On Thursday, Trump announced Kristi Noem, the face of his disastrous immigration crackdown in Minnesota, would be replaced by the at-times confrontational and pugnacious GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma.
“I am super excited about this opportunity,” Mullin told reporters. “It came not as a complete surprise, but as a little bit of a surprise.”
“It’s just pretty humbling when you start to think about it,” he added. “Little kid from west Oklahoma gets to serve in the president’s cabinet. That’s pretty neat.”
Mullin, 48, is well-liked among his Senate GOP colleagues and by Trump. He’s been one of Trump’s top defenders on Capitol Hill, making seemingly nonstop appearances on cable news shows defending his administration, a strategy that almost certainly helped him get the nomination.
