The DHS nominee admits at his Senate hearing that he should not have called a man killed by ICE 'deranged.'

Hon. Wednesday morning. Senate Homeland Security Committee. Three hours. The nominee for Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, testified. He answered questions. Some of the questions were good questions. Some of the answers were good answers. Two of the answers, hon, were retractions.

The first retraction, hon, was about Alex Pretti. Alex Pretti was a Minnesotan who was shot dead by ICE officers in January. In the days after the shooting, Senator Mullin, on a podcast, called Alex Pretti a deranged individual. The use of the phrase deranged individual about a man killed by federal officers in his own state in January is, by any reasonable measure, not the kind of thing the Senate looks past in a DHS confirmation hearing. Senator Mullin, on Wednesday, retracted the line. He said it was a mistake. He said he should not have said it. He said he would not say it again. That is a full retraction, hon. Three sentences. On the record.

The retraction, hon, did not bring back Alex Pretti. The retraction did not satisfy Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota, who pressed the matter for the better part of forty minutes. The retraction, hon, was, at the level of language, correct. It was also, at the level of timing, the kind of retraction that gets made about forty minutes before the committee vote.

The second retraction, hon, was about FEMA. The outgoing Secretary, whose place Mullin is taking, had issued a policy requiring her personal signoff on any departmental spending request over one hundred thousand dollars. The policy, hon, was the single most-criticized policy of her thirteen months in the job. It paralyzed the agency. It caused the delayed federal response in the Hurricane Erika cycle in October. It caused the delayed federal response in the Maine ice storm in January.

Senator Mullin, on Wednesday, said he would scrap the policy on day one. That is, hon, a good answer. That is a good answer to a good question. That answer, hon, also tells you everything you need to know about how the administration feels about the outgoing Secretary’s signature policy. The replacement is publicly committing to throw it out on the day he gets the badge.

Senator Rand Paul, hon, told reporters on the way out of the hearing that Senator Mullin had anger issues. The line, hon, was the same line he had used about the outgoing Secretary the previous week. The line, on Senator Paul’s part, is not new material. The line, on Senator Paul’s part, is the line he has used about every nominee in this cycle he intends to vote against. He said he would not vote for Senator Mullin.

One Republican opposing a Republican-controlled committee’s nominee, hon, is not a threat to confirmation. It is, however, a small dent in the narrative. The narrative, this week, is that the administration is united on DHS. The narrative, this week, is that the outgoing Secretary is being promoted, not demoted. The narrative, this week, is that the Pretti shooting is in the past. The narrative, this week, is the narrative. The facts, this week, are the facts.

You ever notice how the narrative and the facts run on parallel tracks and the Senate is the only place they are forced to share the same room?

Funny how that works.