Markwayne Mullin talks with reporters outside the US Capitol after President Donald Trump selected him to be Department of Homeland Security secretary to replace Kristi Noem on Thursday, March 5, 2026. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty
Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, President Donald Trump’s next pick for Homeland Security secretary, consistently uses his social media platforms to share anti-abortion and anti-trans content.
Mullin, a former MMA fighter who has long championed Trump and thinks of him as a “true friend,” has repeatedly referred to abortion as “murder.” Last month, he shared a clip on Instagram saying he would be arrested for “assault” of a “high school male pretending to be a girl” if a transgender wrestler went up against his daughter in the sport.
As Trump announced Thursday in a Truth Social post, Mullin is poised to replace Kristi Noem at the Department of Homeland Security after she reportedly fell out of the president and key Republicans’ graces.
If confirmed, Mullin will oversee the Trump administration’s mass detention and deportation campaign, an effort that has proved uniquely dangerous for pregnant people and transgender migrants. Under his leadership, the already hazardous situation could continue unchanged—or worsen. His appointment is also the latest in a string of Trump handpicking leaders who hold anti-abortion and anti-trans views.
For years, Mullin, whose social media bios read, “Christian. Husband. Father of 6.” has posted about his disdain for abortion access. In a 2021 post about Roe v. Wade’s potential overturning, he wrote, “May the Supreme Court finally stand up for the unborn.” A year later, he posted a grainy video of an anti-abortion speech from Ronald Reagan. In 2024, he shared photos of a meeting with top anti-abortion activists. “Every child, born or unborn, is a gift from God,” he wrote in a 2025 post.
Multiple of Mullin’s kids, like their father, are involved in some form of wrestling or fighting—a fact that he has repeatedly used to argue against transgender athletes. “Democrats can’t even tell us what a woman is,” an advertisement for his 2022 Senate campaign began. In a video posted to Instagram that appears to be filmed in a gym, Mullin says he can help with that, before introducing his daughter and son with their wrestling titles. In a video from about two years later, Mullin stands alongside fellow Trump Cabinet nominee Tulsi Gabbard at a college volleyball game as he thanks the athletes for “fighting for” his daughters.
And it’s not just lip service. Throughout his time in office, Mullin has repeatedly introduced or supported anti-abortion and anti-trans legislation.
Since Trump took office for the second time and under Noem’s tenure, immigrant rights groups have held that pregnant people have received inadequate care, queer and trans immigrants have alleged forced labor and sexual assault in detention facilities, and, according to federal officials, pregnant unaccompanied minors have been shipped to a substandard detention facility in Texas, a move that advocates believe is to keep them from having abortion access.
“While there will be a new head of DHS, this administration’s inhumane anti-immigrant agenda is unchanged,” Reproductive Freedom for All, an abortion rights group, wrote in a statement following Mullin’s appointment.
As the prospective head of DHS, Mullin would no longer directly pen this kind of legislation, but the role would grant him new leeway to control how detained immigrants receive reproductive or gender-affirming health care.
In a 2019 post, he hinted how he’d handle the job.
That summer, the then-newly elected Rep. Ilhan Omar wrote in a post that “no one should fear receiving medical care because they are undocumented,” adding, “We must ensure that all people in our country have access to reproductive health care.”
One day later, Mullin responded, referencing Omar and writing, “Let me get this straight, we need to ensure ‘illegal’ immigrants have access to abortion? This is crazy on so many levels.”
