Bulwark podcaster Tim Miller says the U.S. is at war with the leading state sponsor of terror, but President Donald Trump appointed a man with no counter-terrorism experience over Homeland Security.
“At the same time, [Defense Secretary Pete] Hegseth is a meathead, and the shoe designer at the top of the FBI [Kas Patel] is preoccupied with visiting all the places on his bucket list,” said Miller.
Miller went on to describe Trump Homeland Security appointee Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) as “a masculine Kristi Noem” with roughly the same level of intelligence.
“I'm not sure exactly the differences between the two of them,” Miller said.
Miller’s guest speaker David Frum, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush, took particular issue with Mullin and Trump’s other leaders being in charge at a time of self-imposed war.
“The United States is now engaged in a global war spanning from the Caspian to the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean against the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, so designated year after year by the US State Department,” said Frum. “The leading state-sponsored terrorism uses a lot of terrorism, and Iran has a long history of activating terror networks all over the world, including in the United States. So you would think it would be, for the administration leading the war, a matter of vital concern to have a non-bozo as head of the Department of Homeland Security and maybe also a non-bozo at the FBI.”
Miller pointed out that the creation of the Department of Homeland Security happened in the wake of a terror attack, “and they don't even pretend as if Mark ‘McQueen’ Mullen has any ... expertise or background or ability in that way.”
In fact, Miller pointed out that Trump instead refashioned the department “entirely around their immigration plans and their deportation agenda.”
“Whatever you think about illegal immigration — and I probably am more hawkish about it than you — it’s a threat to the labor market. It's not a threat to anybody's safety,” said Frum. “And DHS needs to have the mandate of American safety first. And that means competent, efficient, experienced counterterrorism, counter-espionage professionals, not, as I say, the team of bozos.”


