Washington, D.C. – Monday evening, U.S. Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) hosted a live telephone town hall event with thousands of Oklahomans across the state. During the call, Senator Mullin addressed the recent devastating wildfires and took questions on DOGE cuts, border security, returning education to the states, and tariffs, among other topics. Click here to listen and see below for highlights.
On the devastating wildfires impacting Oklahoma:
“First, as we start this tele town hall meeting, we want to keep in mind that there’s a lot of families that are still hurting from the wildfires that took place and that are actually still taking place across Oklahoma. Christie’s, my wife, aunt and uncle who live in Stillwater, they lost their house and everything in it. And I know our family’s not any different than anybody else. All of us were impacted in some way. Our family is here to help personally, plus our office is here to help too. So, if there’s anything that comes up from the federal assistance side, we’ve been coordinating closely with Governor Stitt. Of course, you know, he lost his house out on the ranch, and had issues there too. But I can tell you him and I have talked on a regular basis. He is working with us on the federal side, in the coordination, making sure that it takes place. But if there’s a question that you have, someone that you that you know, or you may have been personally impacted, don’t hesitate to reach out to our office.”
On waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government:
“The President was very clear. I mean, promises made, promises kept. I can’t repeat that enough. Promises made, promises kept by the President. When he came out there and he said he was going to hold the government accountable for the people again, and make the government work for the people again, and that’s exactly what he’s doing. And you see the left losing their loving mind over it, because he’s actually doing something that, truthfully, you can go back and find the video that Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi talked about it in a forum in 2010… where they literally talked about exactly what DOGE is doing, except the Democrats never did it, and President Trump is doing it.”
On returning education to the states:
“Keep in mind, there was 4,200 employees that worked for the Department of Education, and they set policy for teachers to teach, and none of them were teaching. They were never designed to be educators… They weren’t teaching the students, but yet, they were trying to tell our teachers in Bixby, Oklahoma, or in Choctaw, Oklahoma, or Chickasa… how to teach their students in their classroom. And what President Trump is saying is, let’s put it back in the hands of the teachers. Let’s take the money, let the school board, and allow the superintendent and allow the principal and allow the teachers to be involved in how to educate their kids.”
“Where we went wrong was, we took the Department of Education and started thinking a lot of people from Washington, DC knew best how to teach our kids… You’re just going to see a lot more involvement out of your local school boards and a lot more responsibility going to your superintendent, your principal and your teachers in the classrooms.”
On deporting criminal illegal aliens:
“The President’s well within his authority to do it, he should be able to do it. I mean, why is it bad to be deporting illegals that are here illegally? Obviously, they’re here illegally. These same judges didn’t do one single thing to stop the previous administration from allowing these criminals to come into our country, and now when we’re trying to deport them out of our country, now all of a sudden, these judges are speaking up? That’s a problem… They don’t want them in their neighborhood.”
On false rumors about cuts to benefits:
“The President has made it very clear, we’re not cutting benefits to anybody, not anyone on Social Security, not anybody on Medicare, Medicaid or VA benefits. That’s absolutely not happening. Now are we looking at making cuts because they’re bloated? Yes. Are we looking at shrinking the workforce in some of these places? Absolutely. The critical ones, no. But the government has absolutely impregnated itself since COVID… We’ve just seen a lot more employees coming in than we should have.”
On tariffs:
“That’s why you see a huge boost in manufacturing coming back to the United States. You’re seeing foreign companies that have been shipping their products into the United States, now they are saying that they’re going to invest in our manufacturing, which is exactly what the President wants. And at the same time, we’re not looking for a trade war for anybody. We’re just looking to be treated fairly, and fairly means the same. We want you to be treated just like we’re being treated.”
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