Republicans’ best weapon within the US Senate could be a Democrat | EUROtoday

Sen. Markwayne Mullin acquired a cold welcome from the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday as he started the primary steps of looking for congressional approval to switch Kristi Noem as head of DHS.

That was primarily as a consequence of his bothced dealing with of dangerous blood between himself and the committee’s chairman, Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican who typically breaks along with his personal occasion alongside libertarian ideological strains. The two have publicly feuded ever since Mullin provided sympathetic remarks to a neighbor who savagely beat Paul at his dwelling in 2017, inflicting severe accidents.

Paul ripped into Mullin on the listening to Wednesday, accusing the Oklahoma senator of being a supporter of political violence who was unfit to steer the company to which he was nominated and calling the previous MMA fighter unwilling to know the results and implications of his personal phrases. Addressing Mullin, Paul criticized “the sheer lack of any kind of self-awareness that you’re going to be leading thousands of men of women that are going to have the use of force…and you think a violent attack is just fine?”

“The fact he can’t bring himself to say that we shouldn’t settle political questions with violence, I think that would be a terrible example for ICE and Border Patrol,” Paul told reporters afterwards.

But even Mullin’s personal feud with the committee’s Republican chair may not be enough to derail his confirmation, thanks to the Republicans’ not-so-secret weapon: Sen. John Fetterman.

The Pennsylvania senator was, throughout 2025, the Democrat friendliest with the MAGA right and most willing to cross party lines on issues like immigration and foreign policy. On Wednesday, Fetterman signaled that he was willing to let bygones be bygones, even if Paul wasn’t.

“It’s higher to simply let all of it go and discover a approach ahead,” Fetterman suggested each Paul and Mullin throughout his allotted query time, throughout which he additionally instructed the president’s nominee: “My experience with you has been constistent kindness and professionalism.”

While nothing is certain, it looked probable on Wednesday that Fetterman will once again cross party lines and be the deciding vote to push Mullin’s nomination through committee. The senator’s office didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry from The Independent about whether Fetterman thought Mullin should apologize for his past remarks before being voted through.

He repeatedly stressed at Wednesday’s hearing that he would keep an “open mind” to Mullin’s potential confirmation. What the senator was interested in hearing from Mullin in order to make that decision, however, was wholly unclear.

Strikingly, Fetterman didn’t ask a single policy-related question of Mullin during his several minutes of allotted time — the Democrat, known for wearing sweat suits nearly everywhere, asked a few expository questions confirming details of their past attendance on a bipartisan congressional delegation, and spoke about plans for Fetterman and his wife to have dinner with Mullin’s family.

Sure, he also brought up the Democrats’ demands for reforms to ICE and immigration enforcement, but only as a means to clobber his own allies on the panel for voting against funding for the agency and to defend his own committment to pressing for reforms.

Punchbowl and other outlets have reported that Fetterman’s support for Mullin is not in question at all. And, Fetterman has claimed Democratic leaders weren’t pushing him to oppose Mullin’s nomination.

The love-fest was more akin to the reaction Mullin received from Republicans on the panel — minus Paul.

Besides Fetterman, Republicans on the panel happily shielded Mullin from tough questions and the furor of their colleague. Democrats, led by ranking member Sen. Gary Peters, pressed Mullin on the knee-jerk response he (and Noem) had to the shootings of two Americans in Minneapolis by ICE and immigration enforcement agents, which Mullin told the committee he regretted.

Paul told Semafor after the hearing that he would bring Mullin’s nomination up for a committee vote on Thursday, but confirmed he wouldn’t support him.

“I think he’s unfit. I think his temperament is not suitable. I think his anger issues are a problem, yeah, and so I won’t vote for him, but I’ve promised to at least get an expeditious vote,” the Kentucky Republican told Semafor. “They’ve had to have known for weeks that I couldn’t be real happy about a guy that won’t apologize and thinks that my assault was perfectly understandable.”

With Paul in opposition to the senator’s affirmation, Fetterman’s vote will seemingly determine the destiny of his colleague. Staff within the chairman’s workplace instructed reporters on Wednesday that preliminary plans have been for a vote to be held to advance Mullin’s nomination out of committee on Thursday.

At dwelling, Fetterman continues to get pummeled for his obvious heel flip. Conor Lamb, Fetterman’s former main opponent who spent a lot of 2025 partaking in cautious probing of the senator’s weaknesses among the many Democratic base, is now brazenly savaging him on social media each likelihood he will get.

Even because the senator has repeatedly burdened that he received’t swap events, it looks as if his voting base might have already not less than partially made that call for him.

A Philly Inquirer ballot publised final month discovered the senator’s approval score amongst Democrats in his dwelling state to be hopelessly languishing within the murky depths. Six in ten Pennsylvania Democrats say he’s doing a poor job as senator, whereas two in ten assist him. He’s hated by extra Democrats than even Sen. Dave McCormick, his Republican colleague on the state’s congressional delegation.

2028 continues to be a good distance away, nevertheless, and Democrats might have to come back to phrases with the truth that one in all their very own is usually batting for the opposite crew for now.