Senator recounts Trump’s private support after son’s brain injury, growing emotional as he describes calls and hospital visit during campaign.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) grew emotional at his Homeland Security confirmation hearing Wednesday as he described how President Donald Trump repeatedly checked on his then 15-year-old son and even visited him in the hospital after a serious brain injury during the 2020 election year.
"Dang it, I hate getting emotional," Mullin said, pausing to collect himself before the Senate Homeland Security Committee. "See if I talk about my kids, I get emotional."
The story Mullin told was one he said had never been done for cameras or headlines—a private, sustained act of kindness by a sitting president in the middle of one of the most competitive elections of his career.
On Jan. 17, 2020, Mullin's son, Jim—described by the senator as "a really world-class athlete"—suffered a serious brain injury. Jim was unconscious for 26 hours, and when he finally woke up, Mullin said, he was a different person. "We almost lost him," the senator told the committee.
Word reached Trump almost immediately. The president called Mullin directly, and despite not fully grasping the extent of Jim's condition at first, Trump apparently heard something in the senator's voice that told him everything he needed to know.
"The president didn't understand the severity of it, but he heard it in my voice, and immediately went to work," Mullin said.
Trump offered the use of his personal plane to help the family, and over the following two weeks, he called nearly every day to check on Jim's condition. Then, in a gesture that clearly still moves Mullin years later, Trump made an unscheduled detour to Bakersfield, California, to visit the injured teen in person.
Mullin said Trump's own staff tried to pull him away. Twice, aides told the president they needed to leave. Both times, Trump waved them off.
"On the third time they came over to him ... He says, 'Hey, I guarantee you that plane won't leave without me'—for the next 15 minutes, he did nothing but love on my son," Mullin said.
Mullin said the visit appeared to have a visible impact. The interaction seemed to jolt something in Jim's memory, and his attitude shifted from "we're going to get through it" to "I'm going to get through it," according to the senator. Trump continued to call regularly in the weeks that followed, often asking, "How's his buddy doing? How's Jim doing?"
In perhaps the most striking moment of the story, Mullin recalled Trump kneeling down to his son and telling him directly why he cared about Mullin.
"He said, 'Do you know why I love your dad? I love your dad because he loves you, because of you, because of you,'" he recounted.
Mullin said that Trump's attention was never performative.
"He didn't do it for publicity. He didn't do it for any show," Mullin said. "He was running in one of the toughest elections he had been in, and the guy was still that concerned about my son."
"Man, that's—he didn't do it for any other reason. I mean, here's the president of the United States, and he did it just because he cared," Mullin added. "We were acquaintances before that. We've been friends ever since."
The emotional interlude came amid a broader, and at times combative, confirmation hearing in which Mullin fielded sharp questions on immigration enforcement, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funding, and his personal temperament. The committee chairman, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has had a long-running public feud with Mullin, said a vote to advance the nomination would be held Thursday.
If confirmed, Mullin would take over as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security on March 31, replacing outgoing Secretary Kristi Noem.
