Bro has been watching too much tv.

Markwayne Mullin, the Oklahoma senator chosen by Donald Trump to lead the Department of Homeland Security who will be considered by the Senate on Wednesday, has never served in the US military, but he routinely speaks as if he did in interviews.

Two days after the US attacked Iran, for instance, Mullin told Fox News: “War is ugly. It smells bad. And if anybody has ever been there and been able to smell the war that’s happening around you and taste it, and feel it in your nostrils, and hear it, it’s something you’ll never forget. And it’s ugly.”

He knows this from the movies. No I know he can’t actually smell it from the movies, but he can watch actors pretending they can smell it in the movies. And it’s ugly.

Mullin did not serve in any branch of the US armed forces, but inherited a plumbing company and took part in a handful of mixed martial arts fights, so it is unclear what experience he describes in interviews. According to Axios, which spoke with people who have heard the conversations, the senator has privately hinted to colleagues that he was involved in dangerous private security work in Middle East war zones before running for Congress in 2012.

And that’s smelly stuff. Seriously smelly. Falafel for instance – you can smell that from feet away.

In response to questioning from Democratic senator Gary Peters of Michigan, Mullin said he has never traveled to a foreign country outside of vacation or mission work.

But the day after he spoke of the smell and taste of war, Mullin was asked for his thoughts on Iran by Buck Sexton, a conservative radio host and former CIA officer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. “You are a veteran, you understand war,” Sexton said in a phone interview with Mullin. “What do you make of what we’re seeing so far?”

“Well, first of all, let me clarify: I did special assignments outside of DoD, now DoW,” Mullin said, referring to the Department of Defense, newly rebranded the Department of War. “I never wore the uniform or the flag on my shoulder. Might’ve been in the same area … but the guys that signed the contract, I got to work alongside of those guys and they’re phenomenal individuals.”

And smelly.

This month was not the first time that Mullin has spoken as if he has been through combat when, in fact, he has not.

In an interview with Fox News on 7 January 2021, the day after he had tried to help Capitol police officers defend the House chamber from pro-Trump rioters, Mullin said: “Some people there got nervous, there’s a lot of members that was in that chamber that never dealt with a situation like that, and I’ll tell you, I’ve never dealt with a situation like that on US soil.”

We’re left wondering what soil he has dealt with it on. Norway soil? Tibet? Paraguay?

Mullin has made similarly cryptic comments in other interviews. In 2023, he told a podcast produced by the Senate Republican conference: “I had to go do something overseas one time, there’s another side of my bio that I’ll never talk about nor will I, but I had to go do something overseas and when I went over there I always let my beard grow out. I’d start letting him grow before I went.”

“When I do these trips, I always come back and shave my beard,” he added.

This guy is truly hilarious.