Rep. Rosa DeLauro erupted during a heated Capitol Hill exchange, telling Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin that he should be “put in his place” as tensions flared during the discussion.
DeLauro, a veteran liberal lawmaker known for her combative style and signature purple hair, was pressing the administration over its child separation policy involving undocumented migrant families when the confrontation unfolded.
The 83-year-old congresswoman was attempting to draw attention to family separations at the border, saying that 3,900 children had been removed from their parents, when Mullin cut in.
“450,000 kids were lost under the Biden administration and you didn’t say a word about it,” he claimed, prompting an angry response from DeLauro.
“Mr Secretary! Mr Secretary! Do not interrupt!” she said, pointing her finger as she tried to regain control of the exchange.
Mullin fired back: “Don’t you point your finger at me.”
DeLauro refused to back down, responding: “I will point my finger at you!”
Mullin then accused her of hypocrisy, adding: “Don’t you be a hypocrite, you should be as upset about the 450,000 kids that were lost.”
Liberal Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro snapped that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin should be ‘put in your place’
The Congresswoman was trying to highlight family separations at the border, claiming 3,900 children had been taken from their parents when Mullin interrupted, calling out her hypocrisy
She continued: ‘I am upset! Mr Chairman, could you put him in his place?’
‘You should be put in your place,’ quipped Mullin.
Republican Committee Chair Mark Amodei stepped in to tell Mullin to let the Democratic member continue with her questions, after he kept interrupting the lawmaker to trade jabs.
‘Mr. Secretary, if you would like four minutes for a closing statement when everybody’s done, I’ll give you that. But while members are on their eight minutes, I need them to have their eight minutes,’ Amodei said.
Mullin refused to comply with Amodei’s request, leading the Republican chair to step in again: ‘Mr. Secretary, the floor is hers. Actually, I gave it to her. You know, there is a chairman of a committee. That’s me. I gave it back to her.’
The Homeland Secretary continued clashing with DeLauro, forcing Amodei to step in again and order Mullin to stop interrupting.
‘We are going to have something resembling order here,’ Amodei said. ‘The time is the ranking member’s. If you would like to respond later on there are methods to do that but it’s not a who can talk louder into the mic.’
‘I will not let her sit there and lie and accuse me of something that’s ridiculous,” Mullin barked back.
Republican Committee Chair Mark Amodei stepped in to tell Mullin to let the Democratic member continue with her questions, after he kept interrupting the lawmaker to trade jabs
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‘You know, this is the legislative branch and it’s my hearing and so I’m going to try to some extent to control it moderately,’ Amodei added.
The White House responded favorably to Mullin’s treatment of DeLauro, with Steven Cheung praising the secretary on X.
‘Blue-haired Democrat freak widely gesticulating in a fit of rage. Secretary Mullin remains calm, cool, and collected as he shuts her down with the truth,’ he said.
DeLauro again hit back, making a reference to Cheung’s weight in a quote-tweet.
‘Widely is crazy coming from you,’ she wrote about Cheung.
Earlier in the argument, Amodei threatened to postpone the hearing unless both sides agreed to not interrupt each other.
‘This is not Meet the Press or Fox News or whatever for anybody involved, it’s what’s the question, what’s the answer,’ he said.
Mullin is Trump’s second DHS secretary, having replaced Kristi Noem in March after a string of personal and professional scandals marred her tenure and prompted Democrats to cut off funding to the department for months.
Mullin, like Noem, has repeatedly claimed that 450,000 minors went missing during Biden’s tenure after crossing the southern border on their own.
Homeland Security claimed earlier this month that it had located 146,000 of those minors.
DeLauro has often been combative with members of the Trump administration, in this month alone she’s duked it out with Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth and Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.
