Democrats' demands tied to Department of Homeland Security funding are merely "political theater" aimed at disrupting President Donald Trump's upcoming annual address to Congress, Sen. Markwayne Mullin said on Sunday.
"What we have been focused on and what I've been laser-focused on is DHS funding, trying to get away from this Democrat shutdown with DHS," the Oklahoma Republican said on CNN's "State of the Union."
Mullin framed the standoff as timed with Trump's upcoming State of the Union address and said the dispute is "nothing but a distraction."
"All this is political theater because the State of the Union that's coming up a week from Tuesday," he said.
"If this were really a serious conversation, they wouldn't be holding the TSA workers, FEMA, or the Coast Guard hostage over something that cannot be done by their ridiculous shutdown of DHS," the senator added.
Mullin said the Democrats' stated goal of stopping immigration enforcement "can't be done," and he pointed to long-term funding he said is already in place for key enforcement agencies.
"They're not stopping ICE from doing their job," he said. "They're not stopping the border patrol from doing their job.
"ICE and the Border Patrol are funded through the One Big Beautiful Bill up until 2028," Mullin explained. "The only thing they shut down are the federal agencies like FEMA, the Coast Guard, and TSA."
Pressed on whether he supported Democrat proposals involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, Mullin backed the use of body cameras but opposed visible photo identification.
"Body cameras, 100%. There's nothing wrong with that," he said. "As far as having like a photo ID exposed, absolutely not."
Mullin said he opposed exposing agents' identities because "the Democrats we've seen have been doxxing them.
"They went into their place of worship, where they thought they might be," he said. "They went into their hotels. They went into the restaurants. What are you going to do, expose their faces so you can intimidate their families?"
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