CBS host Margaret Brennan thought she had the question that would put the DHS Secretary on the defensive.
"Given that rap sheet and how long you'd been monitoring," she asked Markwayne Mullin on Sunday's Face the Nation, "how come those officers didn't notice that a child was put in that car?"
Mullin didn't take the bait. "We knew his pattern of life, but we didn't know the five-year-old was in the vehicle," he said. "Who did know who was in the vehicle was Oscar."
Then he made it personal, the way a father would. "As a father of six kids, no way would I ever put my kids in danger," Mullin said. "He knew he was being sought after. He knew the police was looking for him because, like I said, he just evaded a month ago. I would have immediately got out of my vehicle to protect my child. There's no way I would have been selfish enough to put my child in danger. He was absolutely selfish enough to put his child in danger."
The man in the car is Oscar Belgal, 28, an illegal immigrant from the Dominican Republic who has been in the country for three years. On Thursday afternoon, October 8, ICE officers moved in to arrest him in the Marble Hill section of the Bronx. They boxed his car in, showed their badges and ordered him out. He refused. According to DHS, Belgal rammed two government vehicles and then accelerated toward the officers, using his car as a weapon. An ICE officer fired, and Belgal was wounded. His five-year-old son was in the back seat and wasn't hurt.
Brennan had opened the segment as if ICE were the problem. She cited a "CBS tally" of 30 DHS shootings under the Trump administration. Then she described an NYPD video that she said showed "a man dressed as a civilian with a gun drawn approaching a car and then punching in the window," and asked when DHS would release the body camera footage.
Mullin answered by explaining what the video leaves out. "What you're seeing is a pole cam," he said. "What you're not seeing is the audio footage or a different angle where you have multiple officers that are actually approaching this individual named Oscar with a long, very long, extensive rap sheet."
Then he read the rap sheet on national television. In three years in this country, Belgal racked up four felony robbery charges, two felony assault charges, felony larceny, misdemeanor assault, weapons possession, possession of stolen property, and two felony charges involving dangerous drugs. He also has strong ties to the Trinitarios gang, which Mullin linked to a Customs and Border Protection officer who was shot last year.
The previous month, Belgal had already gotten away from officers once. "We knew he was armed. We knew he was dangerous, and we knew he was going to evade," Mullin said. "We would have loved for him to exit the vehicle like we asked him to. He decided not to, and unfortunately, because of the selfish behavior, he put his five-year-old at danger."
As for the footage, the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations are investigating. "When it's completed, we'll release all the information," Mullin said.
Then he turned the question on New York's leaders.
Socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the shooting "unconscionable," demanded that the president end all ICE enforcement in the city, and spent two hours on the phone trying to get Belgal released. Mullin pointed out that seven days before the shooting, an NYPD officer was stabbed in the same neighborhood. "Not one time did the governor, not one time did the mayor have a press conference or talk about how awful it was that these criminals are stabbing NYPD officers," he said.
Brennan jumped in to defend them, saying they had released a statement and visited the officer in the hospital.
Mullin went right on to the point Brennan's questions had avoided: New York City had Belgal in custody and let him go. "This guy should have never been on the streets because we had a detainer on him and asked the New York City to hand him over to us when they had him in their possession," Mullin said. "He was on probation. He's an illegal. He should have never been on the streets to begin with."
ICE asked New York to hand over Belgal and the city refused. That decision put him back on the street, behind the wheel of that car, with his son in the back seat.
Brennan moved on to her next topic.
Mullin used to be a professional MMA fighter, and he ran a plumbing business in Oklahoma before he ever ran for Congress. He has spent his career being underestimated by people who assumed he'd fold under pressure. On Sunday, Brennan asked why the officers didn't know a five-year-old was in the car. Mullin told her the only person who knew was the man driving it.