Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., emotionally recounts a personal story of his son and President Trump’s support.
Breitbart reported that Mullin appeared before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday. The hearing was for his confirmation to serve as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) following the dismissal of Kristi Noem, who is currently facing a criminal referral.
When asked to recount a personal story involving his leadership qualities, Mullin chose to share a story about his son, Jim, who suffered a severe brain injury from wrestling in January 2020 that left him unable to walk normally and control his muscles.
“I’m going to try getting through without crying. It’s not about President Trump. It’s about my son,” Mullin had told the Senate.
“We almost lost him. For 26 hours, he had an extremely low pulse. There was a time they thought that they lost his pulse altogether, and when he woke up, he was just different.” He added emotionally, “I mean, here you had a world-class athlete that wrestled all over the world since he was 12 years old, and he couldn’t touch his nose. He couldn’t walk without shuffling his feet. He had short-term memory loss.”
He recalled that when President Trump learned of Tim’s injury, he immediately called Mullin and even offered his private plane to the Center for Neural Skills in Bakersfield, California.
“The president found out about it, and he gave me a call immediately,” Mullin said, adding that Trump “called almost every day for two weeks, checking on Jim.” He then added that President Trump had even visited his son in-person to share his support. Mullins credited this visit as the moment that jump-started his son’s memory.
Throughout that stressful and emotional period, Mullins revealed that President Trump checked in regularly, asking how he could help. He emphasized that President Trump didn’t do it for publicity. He did it to support his friend, and that speaks to his character.
“He didn’t do it for any other reason. I mean, here’s the president of the United States, and he did it just because he cared. We were acquaintances before that. We’ve been friends ever since.”
Fox News reported that during the confirmation hearing, when Mullins apologized for crying, Ron Johnson interrupted to tell him, “The American people need to hear that.”
