Mark­wayne Mullin finds his ‘coali­tion of pow­er’ in Trump’s Wash­ing­ton

“I’m not here to build ene­mies. Build­ing ene­mies doesn’t get any­thing accom­plished,” Mullin told the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er, sit­ting in his Sen­ate hide­away one Tues­day after­noon in between votes.

“We’re here to build rela­tion­ships, to move the ball for­ward,” he said.

Mullin, a plain-spo­ken Repub­li­can two years into his first Sen­ate term, makes no apolo­gies for where he aligns him­self on Capi­tol Hill — he is an ally of lead­er­ship, a fact that at times sets him in con­flict with rab­ble-rousers in the House. He was one of the most vocal crit­ics of ex-Rep. Matt Gaetz when he trig­gered the vote that oust­ed Speak­er Kevin McCarthy.

But Mullin’s gov­ern­ing phi­los­o­phy in Wash­ing­ton is one of addi­tion, not sub­trac­tion, and even extends to the Democ­rats with whom he is often at odds.

Sen. Cory Book­er (D‑NJ), the No. 4 Demo­c­rat in Sen­ate lead­er­ship, traced his friend­ship with Mullin back years, but said the two became clos­er after a recent din­ner in which Mullin was “just extra­or­di­nar­i­ly kind and car­ing.”

“I’m grate­ful we have a rap­port, we clear­ly dis­agree on a lot, but it’s impor­tant to have those rela­tion­ships. It sets the ground­work to get things done,” Book­er said.

That desire for coali­tion-build­ing has placed Mullin in the mid­dle of every ear­ly test for Repub­li­cans since they regained con­trol of Wash­ing­ton.

He’s act­ed as a House liai­son for Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader John Thune (R‑SD) amid sim­mer­ing ten­sions over bud­get rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and can often be seen shut­tling to the week­ly con­fer­ence meet­ings run by Speak­er Mike John­son (R‑LA). Mullin served five terms in the House before his elec­tion to the Sen­ate.

Mullin has even tak­en a per­son­al stake in some of Trump’s Cab­i­net nom­i­nees.

He helped Tul­si Gab­bard, a friend dat­ing back to their days in the House togeth­er, nav­i­gate her way to Sen­ate con­fir­ma­tion as Trump’s intel­li­gence chief and intro­duced Labor Sec­re­tary Lori Chavez DeRe­mer at her hear­ing in Feb­ru­ary.

Mullin had encour­aged Trump to nom­i­nate Chavez DeRe­mer as a labor-friend­ly pick who could win GOP sup­port.

In each case, Mullin has sought to demon­strate he can be the work­horse who brings Repub­li­cans togeth­er and cred­its his posi­tion of influ­ence to a lev­el of “trust” he’s devel­oped with col­leagues.

He acknowl­edged ide­o­log­i­cal dif­fer­ences with House con­ser­v­a­tives like Reps. Thomas Massie (R‑KY) or Andy Big­gs (R‑AZ) but reserved his crit­i­cism for unnamed law­mak­ers he said were oper­at­ing on polit­i­cal cal­cu­la­tion rather than “true belief.”

“Peo­ple in pol­i­tics, some of them, will hurt you a lot to gain them­selves a lit­tle,” Mullin said in a Feb­ru­ary inter­view. “I nev­er want that rep­u­ta­tion. I want peo­ple to know that ‘Man, we can find com­mon ground on any­thing.’”

‘Coali­tion of pow­er’

Mullin traces his empha­sis on rela­tion­ship-build­ing to the 1990s, when he took over his father’s plumb­ing com­pa­ny in Okla­homa at the age of 20. He recalled devel­op­ing “one cus­tomer at a time,” with his first major client, the own­er of a fran­chise chain of McDonald’s, serv­ing as a “spring­board” to what even­tu­al­ly became a mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar busi­ness.

“Rela­tion­ships up here mat­ter too, because a lot of peo­ple, they don’t come to you until they need some­thing,” Mullin said. “That’s very com­mon up here, espe­cial­ly in the Sen­ate because we get so busy. But when you start build­ing actu­al rela­tion­ships, when you do go to them, when you have an issue, it car­ries a lot of weight.”

On Capi­tol Hill, Mullin said it took miss­ing Valentine’s Day with his wife, Christie, ear­ly on to crys­tal­lize his com­mit­ment to fos­ter­ing rela­tion­ships.

“I was extreme­ly frus­trat­ed, you know — com­ing up here, I’m going to save the world, like a lot of fresh­men,” he said. “You’re on fire, and you get up here, with­in a month, you real­ize how irrel­e­vant you actu­al­ly are.”

“You know, all these peo­ple talk­ing about you have all this pow­er,” he added. “The only per­son who has pow­er in pol­i­tics is the pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States. Every­body else has a coali­tion of pow­er.”

‘One tough son of a b****’

Today, Mullin’s net­work extends to both ends of the Capi­tol. He is the rare sen­a­tor to main­tain rela­tion­ships in the House and is par­tic­u­lar­ly close with Rep. Jason Smith (R‑MO), a long­time room­mate who chairs the Ways and Means Com­mit­tee.

Mullin also runs a morn­ing work­out in the House gym attend­ed by law­mak­ers of both par­ties. At its peak, he esti­mat­ed that his class­es, which draw on his days as a pro­fes­sion­al MMA fight­er, attract­ed 16 to 20 reg­u­lars.

It’s in those class­es where Mullin devel­oped long­time friend­ships with mem­bers like Reps. Josh Got­theimer (D‑NJ) and Darin LaHood (R‑IL), while he keeps in touch with some who have since left Con­gress.

Mullin attend­ed the swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny for Gab­bard when she joined Trump’s Cab­i­net.

LaHood cred­it­ed the work­outs for a sense of “cama­raderie” he’s found over his nine years on the Hill, describ­ing Mullin as “one tough son of a b****” with a “soft heart.”

“I mean, he’s con­sis­tent, he’s reg­u­lar, and he doesn’t, you know, pull any punch­es on any­body,” LaHood said of Mullin’s work­outs, a com­bi­na­tion of car­dio and lift­ing weights.

Mullin joked that he couldn’t bring him­self to use the Sen­ate gym when asked why he kept the class­es going after he left the House, allud­ing to the advanced age of some sen­a­tors. 

“I was going to give it a shot, but the Sen­ate gym is more like a rehab cen­ter, and the House gym is more like a YMCA,” he said.

But Mullin read­i­ly acknowl­edged the gym has helped him stay plugged into House pol­i­tics. He also attends the Wednes­day lunch­es of the Repub­li­can Study Com­mit­tee in addi­tion to the con­fer­ence meet­ings run by John­son.

“I real­ized it was actu­al­ly good because a lot of the infor­ma­tion I get isn’t going to con­fer­ence,” Mullin said. “A lot of the infor­ma­tion I get is dur­ing those work­outs because mem­bers are talk­ing to me, regard­less if they’re in my work­out or not.”

Strad­dling two worlds

Mullin con­fessed to feel­ing some appre­hen­sion when he first arrived in the Sen­ate in 2023. He had grown accus­tomed to, and even rel­ished in, the irrev­er­ence and com­mo­tion of the House.

“My per­son­al­i­ty prob­a­bly fits more with House mem­bers because I like to joke around and kid and have a good time,” he said. “And I think the Sen­ate mem­bers — it took a lit­tle bit.”

Yet in one moment of can­dor, Mullin said the roller­coast­er style of gov­er­nance that has defined the House over the last cou­ple of years, with nar­row mar­gins fos­ter­ing dys­func­tion for the GOP, has been enough to damp­en his love for the cham­ber.

“I wouldn’t go back,” Mullin said when asked if he still con­sid­ers him­self a “House guy.” 

“No, no, no, no, no — see­ing what they’re hav­ing to go through, I’ve now devel­oped into real­ly hav­ing a lot of respect for the Sen­ate,” he said. “The House is a very thought­ful but chaot­ic body, and you get caught up in that. And it’s actu­al­ly fun because every day you’re mov­ing the chess pieces, but sta­bil­i­ty actu­al­ly says a lot.”

In a short time, Mullin has man­aged to repli­cate the suc­cess he found in the House. He was invit­ed to the Sen­ate GOP whip team, a role he held in the low­er cham­ber, and in Jan­u­ary was cho­sen to join the week­ly lead­er­ship meet­ings Thune holds in his Capi­tol office.

Mullin was one of the first Repub­li­cans to endorse Thune’s run for leader ahead of con­fer­ence elec­tions last Novem­ber.

Mullin has also found dis­tinc­tive ways to make his mark. His X account has become a fol­low-along series of updates on Sen­ate votes, while he increas­ing­ly posts videos explain­ing the process.

Mullin cred­it­ed Home­land Secu­ri­ty Sec­re­tary Kristi Noem, who over­lapped with him in the House, with mak­ing an intro­duc­tion to Thune, a fel­low South Dakotan. From there, Mullin built rela­tion­ships with Sen. John Bar­ras­so (R‑WY), now the GOP whip, and oth­er mem­bers of lead­er­ship.

He’s even man­aged to spark some of the play­ful­ness miss­ing from his ear­ly Sen­ate days as he fos­ters new friend­ships. 

Last month, Mullin chal­lenged Book­er to a joint appear­ance on NBC’s Meet the Press, an invi­ta­tion Book­er said he’d be glad to accept.

“What I won’t be doing is a cage match with him. I’m a big guy, but Mark­wayne clear­ly could beat down all 99 sen­a­tors,” Book­er said.

Mullin also has a qui­et feud over the Sen­ate can­dy desk he took over from Sen. Todd Young (R‑IN) in Jan­u­ary.

“I hon­est­ly had can­dy in my draw­er before I had the offi­cial can­dy draw­er because Todd Young was so awful at it. He was awful,” Mullin said, mock­ing the Indi­ana can­dy Young would pur­chase for col­leagues.

Young told the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er he may file a motion to vacate Mullin from the desk if he keeps buy­ing gener­ic can­dy from Wal­greens and CVS. (Mullin rotates that can­dy based on the hol­i­day, lament­ing that sen­a­tors did not like his selec­tion for St. Patrick’s Day.)

‘Just main­tain­ing rela­tion­ships’

Mullin pre­dict­ed that his foothold in the House is tem­po­rary and would fade the longer he serves in the Sen­ate. He’s already lost close col­leagues like McCarthy, who resigned from Con­gress fol­low­ing his 2023 ouster.

McCarthy returned to the House on Mon­day to cel­e­brate the depar­ture of his long­time aide, James Min, but has oth­er­wise been scarce.

“I’m just main­tain­ing rela­tion­ships. I don’t have time to real­ly build rela­tion­ships,” Mullin said. “So unfor­tu­nate­ly, as peo­ple retire, my influ­ence — I don’t know if I have any influ­ence — my rela­tion­ships will slow­ly dis­si­pate I guess.”

For now, the cross-cham­ber com­mu­ni­ca­tion has made Mullin an asset to Sen­ate lead­er­ship. He helped soft­en ten­sions over bud­get rec­on­cil­i­a­tion with a meet­ing set up between Thune and Smith in Decem­ber, short­ly after Trump’s elec­tion.

The two cham­bers have been at odds over whether to split his agen­da into two parts as bil­lions in bor­der and defense fund­ing get wrapped up in a tax bill Smith is craft­ing in the House.

House Repub­li­cans, too, have wel­comed Mullin’s shut­tle diplo­ma­cy, with Rep. Jodey Arring­ton (R‑TX), the House Bud­get chair­man, call­ing him a “con­struc­tive force” in con­fer­ence meet­ings where he lis­tens and some­times fields ques­tions.

When it comes to John­son, Mullin said the two have a “very strong rela­tion­ship” and text reg­u­lar­ly. They first met back in Johnson’s fresh­man term, when Mullin served as his for­mal men­tor.

“I don’t know if I would, you know, refer to him as a friend, in a sense of a friend that Kevin and I were or Thune and I, or Jason Smith and I, but I would con­sid­er him still a work­ing friend,” Mullin said.

Mullin’s bond with Trump

Mullin’s friend­ship with Trump began under more ten­u­ous cir­cum­stances. The pres­i­dent took a father­ly inter­est in his son Jim, who suf­fered a life-threat­en­ing brain injury while wrestling in 2020.

He recalled Trump, then in the throes of his reelec­tion cam­paign, offer­ing to send his plane when Jim need­ed to be brought to Bak­ers­field, Cal­i­for­nia, for treat­ment and him call­ing “con­stant­ly” in those ear­ly weeks to check on his recov­ery.

Mullin’s fam­i­ly ulti­mate­ly drove to Bak­ers­field due to the nature of the injury, and lat­er declined the finan­cial assis­tance Trump offered as Jim under­went 18 months of rehab. But Mullin described that expe­ri­ence as for­ma­tive to their rela­tion­ship.

Until then, he said his inter­ac­tions with the pres­i­dent were “strict­ly busi­ness.”

“As a par­ent, if some­one shows love to your kids, there’s noth­ing bet­ter, right?” Mullin said. “You can become my friend, that’s fine. Treat my kids with respect and love and act like you care on them — you know, I’ll do any­thing for you at that point.”

Since Trump has returned to the White House, the sub­stance of their con­ver­sa­tions has focused large­ly on con­firm­ing his Cab­i­net nom­i­nees.

Mullin told the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er he’s spo­ken with Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, as much as Trump as Repub­li­cans slow­ly acqui­esced to polar­iz­ing choic­es from Gab­bard to Defense Sec­re­tary Pete Hegseth.

Late­ly, the Sen­ate is oscil­lat­ing its atten­tion between rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and a gov­ern­ment fund­ing bill that is expect­ed to receive a vote on Thurs­day or Fri­day.

Mullin described Trump, who is noto­ri­ous for cast­ing a wide net when tak­ing advice, as end­less­ly inquis­i­tive and said their con­ver­sa­tions take place day or night.

“It’s not just a chit-chat. Every time it’s a ques­tion — he’s work­ing. He’s always work­ing,” Mullin said. “He’s always got some­place where he’s going with it, and then the con­ver­sa­tion will end just as quick as it starts.”

Part of their rap­port is built on Mullin’s “tough guy” per­sona. Mullin is famous for throw­ing him­self into dicey sit­u­a­tions, includ­ing an unsuc­cess­ful for­ay to Europe to help save Amer­i­can allies dur­ing the botched with­draw­al from Afghanistan.

Trump, in par­tic­u­lar, was instru­men­tal in fos­ter­ing a friend­ship between Mullin and Sean O’Brien, the pres­i­dent of the Team­sters union, after they near­ly came to blows at a Sen­ate hear­ing in 2023. 

FREEDOM CAUCUS GETS WHITE HOUSE BULLY PULPIT WITH RUSS VOUGHT APPOINTMENT

“I’m not putting that label on me. Don’t think that,” Mullin said. “But he likes a fight­er and some­one that also has a per­son­al­i­ty. And our per­son­al­i­ties get along pret­ty well.”

“That’s why he likes my boys, too, because all of them wres­tle and stuff,” he added.

To this day, Mullin says Trump will end each call ask­ing about his son Jim.