Frustrations, friendship and questions of temperament dominated the confirmation hearing for Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., as the Senate sprints to confirm him to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The hearing, led by Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chair Rand Paul, R-Ky., started with a tense exchange between him and Mullin and ended with questions about whether the committee would even hold a confirmation vote.

President Donald Trump tapped Mullin to replace outgoing DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. The Senate has little time to move through the process, given that Trump set a deadline of March 31 to have Mullin installed as the next Homeland Security chief.

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Paul plans to oppose him, meaning that unless Mullin can generate support from Democrats on the panel, his nomination will be substantially slowed.

It was fast, explosive and marred by the ongoing DHS shutdown, which entered its 33rd day on Wednesday. Below are top moments from the back-and-forth that will decide whether Mullin gets the job to lead the embattled agency.

‘Tell me to my face’

The hearing immediately opened with fireworks over Mullin’s comments that Paul’s 2017 assault, which left him with several broken ribs and the removal of part of his lung, was «justified.»

Paul accused Mullin of never having «the courage to look me in the eye and tell me that the assault was justified.»

«I just wonder if someone who applauds violence against their political opponents is the right person to lead an agency that has struggled to accept limits to the proper use of force,» Paul said.

Mullin shot back before launching into his opening remarks, saying Paul called him a «liar,» and argued, «everybody in this room knows that I’m very blunt and direct and to the point.»

«And if I have something to say, I’ll say it directly to your face. If you recall, back in my House days, we actually did have this conversation because of remarks that I made.»

«You were in a room. I simply addressed that,» he continued. «I said I could understand, because of the behavior you were having, that I could understand why your neighbor did what he did.»

‘Those words probably should have been retracted’

Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., the panel’s top Democrat, pressed Mullin on his accusation that Alex Pretti, who was shot and killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minnesota, was a «deranged individual that came in to cause max damage.»

Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Gary Peters, D-Mich., grilled Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., during his confirmation hearing to become the next DHS chief.  (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

«Could we expect those kinds of quick responses if you are confirmed as secretary?» Peters said. «Would you be — basically — were you responding as Secretary Noem, are we going to expect that same behavior all over again?»

Mullin didn’t push back against Peters’ question.

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«Those words probably should have been retracted,» Mullin said. «I shouldn’t have said that. If secretary, I wouldn’t. The investigation is ongoing.»

«And there is — like I said — there’s sometimes going to make mistakes, and I own that one. I went out there too fast. I was responding immediately without the facts,» he continued. «That’s my fault. That won’t happen as secretary.»

Fetterman breaks with Dems

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., is no stranger to bucking his own party, and he’ll likely do it again during Mullin’s confirmation vote.

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., speaks to a reporter as he arrives in the U.S. Capitol for a vote on Dec. 3, 2025. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

The pair became friendly during a congressional delegation trip and have maintained that relationship ever since.

And he recognizes that he’ll likely be the key vote to confirm his colleague.

«I came here and committed to come here with an open mind, and I’m going to continue to do that. It’s not going to be about gotcha moments for me. My experience with you has been consistent and professionalism,» Fetterman said.

But Fetterman also took a moment to blast his party for continuing to block DHS funding and noted that he was «the only Democrat that refused to shut our DHS down.»

«It’s a strange devotion. I don’t understand why you would shut the entire agency down just because you want those kinds of reforms on ICE that have absolutely no impact on ICE and don’t force any of those things,» Fetterman said. «I refuse to do that.»

Mullin’s classified trip

The nature of a shadowy trip Mullin took while serving in the House nearly derailed his expected confirmation vote on Thursday.

Peters questioned the lawmaker about an undisclosed trip taken between 2015 and 2016 and charged that «quite frankly, as we’ve had these conversations, you have not been forthcoming with me or this committee.»

«The story always seems to evolve, to kind of change, and as you know, candor, honesty, transparency are absolutely critical, particularly at this time, to try to build trust as the secretary of Homeland Security,» Peters said.

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Paul asked Mullin to explain the trip in a classified setting and threatened to cancel the hearing otherwise.

«I’m still willing to have the vote tomorrow, but I can cancel the vote tomorrow,» Paul said. «I’m still willing to have the vote, get this done and get it over with.»

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Mullin argued that, to his knowledge, only four people were aware of the details of the trip, and he did not have the authority to tell Paul or Peters.

«I would really enjoy sitting there and having a conversation with you, because I don’t want you to have questions or question my character on this,» Mullin said. «That’s very simple for me, but I can’t make that authorization. You guys know that.»

A reported airstrike on a hospital in Afghanistan that allegedly left hundreds dead is drawing growing scrutiny, not only over the strike itself but over what critics describe as a muted international response.

Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government said more than 400 people were killed and hundreds were wounded after a strike hit the Omid Hospital, a major drug rehabilitation facility in Kabul, Afghanistan, according to Reuters. Civilians, including children, also have been killed in escalating cross-border strikes in Pakistan, The Associated Press reported. 

The casualty figures have not been independently verified.

The strike comes amid a rapidly escalating military campaign between Pakistan and Afghanistan that has intensified over the past three weeks.

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Cross-border airstrikes and clashes have expanded across multiple provinces, with Pakistan targeting what it says are bases of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a militant group responsible for attacks inside Pakistan and designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. The Taliban government has accused Islamabad of violating Afghanistan’s sovereignty.

At a United Nations briefing Wednesday, a U.N. spokesperson said the conflict has now entered its third week, with widespread civilian impact. More than 115,000 people have been displaced, more than 300 shelters damaged or destroyed, and at least 25 health facilities closed or disrupted due to the fighting, according to U.N. humanitarian agencies.

Pakistan has denied targeting a hospital, saying the operation struck militant infrastructure.

«Since the beginning of this counterterrorism campaign, Pakistan has sought to defend and protect the people of Pakistan … by targeting terrorists and terrorist infrastructure that are incubated and nurtured by the Afghan Taliban,» the prime minister’s spokesperson Mosharraf Zaidi told Fox News Digital.

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Red Crescent volunteers carry the body of a victim who died in what the Taliban said was a Pakistani air strike on a drug rehabilitation hospital, in Kabul, Afghanistan, March 17, 2026.  (Sayed Hassib/Reuters)

Zaidi said the strike targeted weapons and ammunition at Camp Phoenix in Kabulm Afghanistan, and insisted, «There are no civilian hospitals in Camp Phoenix,» adding that reports of a rehabilitation facility being hit may be due to «secondary explosions» from stored weapons.

The United Nations on Wednesday, two days after the attack, condemned the reported strike, with Secretary-General António Guterres, through a spokesperson, «strongly condemning» an airstrike that «reportedly resulted in the death (and) injury of civilians at a hospital,» and calling for an independent investigation.

Still, some analysts say the response does not match the scale of the incident.

«U.N. officials swiftly condemned U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran’s regime as unlawful ‘aggression’ … Yet Pakistan’s airstrike on Kabul’s Omid Hospital — killing over 400 civilians — has drawn only a belated ‘strong condemnation’ … and standard pleas for ‘de-escalation’,» Executive Director of UN Watch Hillel Neuer told Fox News Digital.

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Afghan Taliban fighters patrol near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in Spin Boldak, Kandahar Province, following exchanges of fire between Pakistani and Afghan forces. (Reuters/Stringer/File Photo)

«This restrained response — no personal outrage from Guterres, no emergency session naming Pakistan, and no equivalent chorus from U.N. rapporteurs, or agencies like WHO, U.N. Women, and UNICEF — reveals rank hypocrisy,» he said. «When hundreds of vulnerable Afghans die in a hospital, the U.N. offers measured words. Yet when the U.S. or Israel can be blamed — justifiably or not — the condemnation is immediate and overwhelming. When some victims matter far more than others, the U.N. reveals its cynical political agenda. This double standard doesn’t uphold human rights, it erodes them.» 

Australian human rights lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky echoed that criticism in a post on X, calling the strike «an absolute massacre,» while noting what he described as a lack of global outrage: «World outrage? Zero. Could barely muster p17 in the newspaper here.»

President Donald Trump on Wednesday renewed his calls to release Tina Peters, a pro-Trump election worker who was convicted for her role in a scheme aimed at finding evidence of election fraud in the president’s 2020 election loss.

Peters, a former election clerk in Mesa County, Colorado, is serving a nine-year prison sentence following her August 2024 conviction on seven charges, including four felonies, related to a 2021 security breach of the county’s voting systems as she sought evidence to support Trump’s claims that his loss to former President Joe Biden was due to voter fraud.

Trump has been pressuring Democrat Gov. Jared Polis to release Peters, 70, since he returned to the White House last year.

«Free Tina Peters, a 73-year-old woman with cancer, given a nine-year death sentence in a Colorado prison by a Democrat governor, Jared Polis, and a corrupt political machine, for exposing fraud by the Democrats during the 2020 presidential election,» Trump wrote Wednesday on Truth Social. «Again, free Tina!»

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Polis has acknowledged that Peters’ sentence was «harsh,» given that she had no prior criminal record.

The governor recently noted on social media that Peters was sentenced to nine years in prison, while a former state lawmaker convicted of the same crime was sentenced only to probation and community service.

«Justice in Colorado and America needs to be applied evenly, you never know when you might need to depend on the rule of law. This is the context I am using as I consider cases like this that have sentencing disparities,» Polis wrote on X.

But Polis said his decision about granting clemency would be influenced by whether Peters has expressed remorse for her actions — something officials say she has not done.

«What she would have to show in any successful clemency application would be appropriate contrition, apology. That’s the kind of thing I would be looking for,» he previously told KUSA-TV.

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President Donald Trump has been pressuring Gov. Jared Polis to release Peters since he returned to the White House last year. (Hyoung Chang/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, whose office helped prosecute Peters, has emphasized that she has not demonstrated any remorse for her actions.

«Clemency should be based on remorse, rehabilitation, and extenuating circumstances — not on political influence, favor, or retribution,» said Weiser, a Democrat running to succeed the term-limited Polis.

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., who is also hoping to replace Polis as governor, similarly said Peters should not receive a pardon or have her sentence commuted.

«Donald Trump may be seeking revenge on Colorado, but surrendering to his political pressure will not make our state stronger or safer,» he said.

Trump has repeatedly defended Peters on social media and announced last year he was granting her a «full pardon,» though such a move would not apply to a state conviction, as that authority rests with the governor.

Earlier this week, a federal judge found that the Trump administration had threatened to withhold funding from Colorado, describing it as potential retribution for the state’s reluctance to pardon Peters. The finding came shortly after Trump’s symbolic pardon announcement.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly defended Tina Peters on social media. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo)

U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson wrote that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s threat in December to withhold millions of dollars in federal funding to Colorado’s SNAP program violated the Spending Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

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«This larger context gives the game away; the pilot project seems to be about punishment and nothing more,» the judge wrote.

A lawsuit also claimed this week that the Trump administration targeted a climate and weather research lab as retribution against Colorado officials for imprisoning Peters.

Fox News’ Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.