Markwayne Mullin Does a Pirouette When Asked Point-Blank Under Oath: ‘Who Won the 2020 Election?’

Senator and Homeland Security secretary nominee Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) dodged a point-blank query from Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) during his Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday when she asked him, “Who won the 2020 election?”

The moment came as Slotkin grilled Mullin on the agency’s involvement with elections, when President Donald Trump has repeatedly asserted that he lost the 2020 election because it was rigged against him.

Noting that Mullin himself did not certify the 2020 election results, she asked Mullin directly, “Who won the 2020 election?”

Mullin dodged the question, saying instead that, “We know that President Joe Biden was sworn in to office. He was the president for the last four years.”

When Slotkin asked again, Mullin countered: “I believe my job as Department of Homeland Security secretary will be to make sure that we assure that the elections are fair and people can trust them.”

Slotkin then moved on to the possible federalization of elections and the presence of armed ICE officers at polling places.

Read the exchange below:

ELISSA SLOTKIN: Let me turn to elections.

MARKWAYNE MULLIN: Senator-

SLOTKIN: No, no. Let me turn to elections.

MULLIN: OK.

SLOTKIN: The Department of Homeland Security has the mandate since the Obama era for securing our election infrastructure. That’s an important job and you’ll be secretary. The president has continued to say that he won the 2020 election even though there’s been 60 court cases saying the opposite. He has said he wants to federalize the elections. He has said, name-checked cities, including Detroit. He has said voting machines are inaccurate. He has said in the State of the Union — I was on the Senate floor — paraphrased that if his side doesn’t win in November, then the elections are rigged, which is exactly what he said eight months before the 2020 election.
You have your own history. You did not certify the 2020 election. There are people at the Department of Homeland Security, three people specifically who are well-known election deniers now running election security functions. Who won the 2020 election?

MULLIN: Ma’am, we know that President Joe Biden was sworn in to office. He was the president for the last four years.

SLOTKIN: Who do you believe won the election?

MULLIN: I believe my job as Department of Homeland Security secretary will be to make sure that we assure that the elections are fair and people can trust them. And moving forward-

SLOTKIN: Does the federal government run the elections process, or do states?

MULLIN: It’s very clear in the Constitution that the states control state elections and then there is some federal oversight that’s on it, but the federal government can set some standards. So if you’re talking about the SAVE American Act, requiring you, which is within the constitution by the way, requiring individuals to be citizens of the United States. I don’t think it’s too much to ask somebody to prove they’re a citizen of the United States to vote in federal elections.

SLOTKIN: That’s not what we’re talking about. I’m talking about administering the elections. If you are the secretary of Homeland Security, do you feel that you have the authority to put uniformed officers at polling locations in 2026?

MULLIN: Ma’am, we said this in your office. The only reason why my officers would be there was if there was a specific threat for them to be there, not for intimidation, and I said-

SLOTKIN: So even though we didn’t need it during World War II. We didn’t need it during Vietnam, or the war on terror. We’ve never had to put uniformed military there. Now, you feel like that there’s going to be a reason for an armed threat to the United States that you feel they need to be there.

MULLIN: No, Ma’am, I can’t sit there and guarantee hypothetically what threat would be or not. I’m not putting the military, that’s not in my purview.

SLOTKIN: Uniformed, sorry. Uniformed officers.

MULLIN: But if there is a threat, a specific threat. Say it’s in a Jewish community. And there is a threat that is specific to that polling area, then we will work with local law enforcement. There will be a reason for us to be there and it will be known why we’re there.

SLOTKIN: I think the reason you’re here, and not Kristi Noem, is because Americans trust their local low enforcement now way more than they trust ICE. So I would just say if we ever get to the point where you are being asked to put armed ICE officers at polling locations, we have lost the plot as a country. We have fundamentally lost it. And until I hear someone tell me that this man, President Trump, will actually allow us to have a free and fair election, there is zero trust here and I cannot trust that he wouldn’t try and steal it — again. I yield back.

Watch above via C-SPAN.

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