‘I Shouldn’t Have Said That’: Markwayne Mullin Takes Back His Attack On ICE Shooting Victim

Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) grilled his former Senate colleague Markwayne Mullin on Wednesday during Mullin’s confirmation hearing for Homeland Security secretary.

Peters, the ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, asked Mullin if he regretted his past statements blasting two Minneapolis ICE shooting victims earlier in the year.

“After DHS officers shot and killed two American citizens this past January, you joined top administrative officials in publicly blaming and disparaging the victims,” Peters began, adding:

Following the killing of Renee Good, Secretary Noem called her a domestic terrorist. You, sir, you called Alex Pretti, quote, “a deranged individual that came in to cause max damage.” Could we expect those kinds of quick responses? If you are confirmed as secretary—would you be, basically—well, you did, you responded as secretary. No, but we’re going to just expect that same behavior all over again.

Mullin replied, “No, Senator. I have a deep amount of respect for you. We’ve had our differences, but I do respect you. I think I said this privately when we had a conversation. Those words probably should have been retracted. I shouldn’t have said that, and as a secretary, I wouldn’t. The investigation is ongoing, and there is, like I said, sometimes going to make a mistake, and I’ll own it. That one, I went out there too fast. I was responding immediately without the facts. That’s my fault. That won’t happen as secretary.”

Mullin’s reply was notably different from that of his would-be predecessor, Kristi Noem, who refused during an early March Senate hearing to retract her claims that Pretti and Good were “domestic terrorists.”

Peters followed up, “So you regret that statement? I already said that, yes, sir. Would you want to apologize to the family of Alex Pretti?”

Mullin replied, “Well, sir, I just said I regret those statements. Is that the same as an apology? I haven’t seen the investigation. We’ll let the investigation go through. And if I’m proven wrong, then I will absolutely.”

Watch the clip above via C-SPAN.

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