Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin unloaded on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday, calling the New York Democrat "the definition of a lying, s***bag politician" after Schumer suggested that "nobody" in America "respects" ICE and U.S. Border Patrol. The broadside came hours after Senate Republicans adopted a budget resolution that could restore DHS funding through the remainder of President Trump's term, nearly 70 days after Democrats blocked the department's money.
The clash marks the sharpest public confrontation yet in a standoff that has left hundreds of thousands of DHS employees working without pay, forced hundreds of TSA workers off the job, and pushed the department to the brink of missing payroll entirely by early May.
Mullin's remarks aired on Fox News after anchor Bill Melugin played a clip of Schumer's comments. The Hill reported that Mullin reacted viscerally, telling the audience that hearing Schumer's words "makes my ears red."
The triggering statement came on the Senate floor, where Schumer objected to the scale of proposed DHS funding. Breitbart reported the fuller version of Schumer's remark:
"Adding $140 billion to an agency that nobody, 2 groups, Border Patrol and ICE, that nobody respects in this country."
That line set off a cascade of Republican responses. Mullin told Fox News:
"It takes a lot to get me upset. But Chuck Schumer, no one respects you. The definition of a lying, s***bag politician, that is you. You would be the definition if you Googled you right now."
He didn't stop there. Mullin accused Schumer of having had every opportunity to push reforms during the Biden administration and choosing not to act, because, in Mullin's telling, the senator preferred the status quo.
"You had time to change those during the Biden administration. You didn't because you're for open borders and you're for the criminals running amok in our cities."
Mullin also challenged Schumer's willingness to disparage the same law enforcement officers who protect him personally. "And for you to say that is so disrespectful to the law enforcement that is out there protecting you because he has a detail with him," Mullin said. "How about he walks around these city streets without a detail? I wonder how safe he would feel."
It is a fair question. Schumer enjoys round-the-clock security that most Americans, including the federal agents he belittled, do not. Telling the country that "nobody respects" the men and women who enforce immigration law is a statement that lands very differently when you never have to walk a city block unguarded.
President Trump weighed in on Truth Social the same day, writing that Schumer's remark was "one of the most egregious, incorrect, unpatriotic, and dangerous statements I have EVER heard from a 'professional' politician." Trump added, in his characteristic style: "HE MUST IMMEDIATELY APOLOGIZE TO THESE GREAT PATRIOTS, AND I MEAN NOW!"
The political fireworks obscure a real operational crisis. Democrats blocked DHS funding in mid-February, arguing the agency needed "widespread reforms" after carrying out the president's deportation agenda. That was more than two months ago. The department has now been shut down for almost 70 days.
Most DHS employees have continued working without pay during that stretch. But the cracks are widening. Hundreds of TSA employees have called out of work or quit outright, disrupting airport operations across the country. The people paying the price are not senators or cabinet secretaries, they are travelers, screeners, and the agents still showing up to do their jobs for free.
Schumer's growing list of political setbacks extends well beyond this fight. He has faced mounting calls from within his own party to step aside as Democratic divisions deepen on multiple fronts.
On Tuesday, Mullin warned that the situation was about to get worse. He told Fox News that emergency funds were nearly exhausted:
"So, the money is going extremely fast, and once that happens, there is no emergency funds after that. After we get through April... I've got one payroll left and there is no more emergency funds, so the president can't do another executive order for us to use money because there's no more money there."
That means DHS could be unable to pay employee salaries starting in early May. No emergency order can fix what an empty account cannot cover.
Early Thursday, Senate Republicans adopted a budget resolution designed to end the impasse. The Washington Examiner reported that the resolution now moves to the House, with Senate Republicans planning to advance a full funding package next month at a cost of between $70 billion and $80 billion. If the process holds, it could fund DHS through the rest of Trump's term.
The question is whether Democrats will continue to hold the line, and whether the public will tolerate a strategy that leaves border agents, ICE officers, and airport screeners working without paychecks while their elected leaders lecture the country about "respect."
Schumer's political troubles are not confined to DHS. He has also struggled to defend his positions under direct questioning on live television, reinforcing a pattern of evasion that has frustrated even sympathetic observers.
The shutdown has not been bloodless in a broader sense. In January, federal immigration officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens in separate incidents during immigration operations in Minneapolis. Democrats cited episodes like these as justification for demanding reforms before releasing any funding. But withholding pay from the entire department, including the TSA agents who have nothing to do with immigration enforcement, is a blunt instrument that punishes the wrong people.
Meanwhile, the Democratic minority leader's claim that "nobody respects" ICE and Border Patrol does not match the polling reality that most Americans consistently support border enforcement. It does, however, match the progressive base's hostility toward immigration agencies, a constituency Schumer has courted for years.
That same instinct for base appeasement has undermined Schumer's credibility on election security, where his resistance to common-sense reforms has collapsed under the weight of his own admissions.
Mullin's language was coarse. But the substance of his complaint is hard to dismiss. Senate Democrats chose to defund the department responsible for border security, airport screening, and immigration enforcement. They did it to extract policy concessions. And now, 70 days later, the people bearing the cost are not the politicians who made the decision, they are the federal employees who keep showing up to work without a paycheck.
Schumer, meanwhile, stands on the Senate floor with a taxpayer-funded security detail and tells the country that "nobody" respects the agents who protect it. Even by Washington standards, the irony is hard to miss, and Democrats are starting to notice.
When the people who guard your borders, screen your airports, and enforce your laws are working for free, maybe the last thing you should do is tell the country nobody respects them.
