Markwayne Mullin: “The Taste of It”

This is an entirely fictional creative work. It does not represent the actual thoughts, words, or views of any real person. This is satire and literary fiction for entertainment purposes.

March 21, 2026
Markwayne Mullin — U.S. Senator (R-OK) and Trump's nominee for Secretary of Homeland Security

The Taste of It

March 21 2026

Got back to the apartment around 9. Brit called right after. She said she watched the whole thing and that I looked good, that I looked strong, but then she got quiet for a second and said the tears were real weren't they. I said yeah. She said okay. That was it. She knows me better than anybody alive and sometimes that means she doesn't have to say the rest out loud.

I ate a turkey sandwich from the fridge that had been in there since Monday. Didn't care. I was starving. Three hours in that chair and the only thing they gave me was water and I barely touched it because every time I reached for the glass my hand was shaking a little and I knew the cameras would catch it.

Let me just get this down because I need to think through it.

8-7. We got it. Fetterman came through. I still don't fully understand that guy. He looked at me during a break and just kind of nodded, like we'd been through something together even though we haven't. Maybe he just respects a fighter. Maybe he's got his own reasons. Either way I owe him and I don't love owing people I can't predict.

Rand. Man. Rand voting no didn't surprise me but it still burns. He sat up there talking about executive overreach and constitutional limits and I'm sitting there thinking brother I AM the constitutional process right now, I'm literally submitting myself to your authority, what more do you want. But that's Rand. He needs to be the smartest guy in every room and the loneliest vote on every board. Fine. We got it done without him.

The Pretti thing.

I need to be honest at least here. When I said what I said about that kid back in January I meant it. I was frustrated. The footage was chaotic. I spoke like a guy watching cable news not like a guy who might be running the department that failed to protect him. And today I sat there and I retracted it and I meant THAT too. Both things are true. The tears were real because I was thinking about what his mom must have felt watching me say that word — deranged — about her son on national television. That's real. That got to me.

But here's what I can't say out loud to anybody. The reason Trump picked me is because I'm the guy who says what everyone's thinking. I'm the guy who almost threw down with a Teamster president on live TV. I'm the guy who went overseas when nobody else would. That's my whole thing. And today I had to sit there and basically apologize for being that guy. Apologize for having instincts. And the room LIKED it. They liked watching me bend.

I keep thinking about Dad and the plumbing company. He always said the hardest part of running a business isn't the work it's the part where you smile at someone who's screwing you because you need the contract. I hated that lesson when I was 18. I understand it now.

260,000 employees. A funding shutdown. Iran. The border. This is the biggest thing I've ever walked toward and I'm walking toward it as the version of myself that cries on camera and says I'm sorry. Is that the guy who can run DHS? Or is that the guy who got THROUGH the hearing so the real guy can show up on Day One?

I don't know. I genuinely don't know which one is the act anymore.

Full Senate vote maybe by Thursday. Need to call Jim Lankford tomorrow, get a count. Need to work out. Haven't been to the gym in six days and I can feel it in my neck and my shoulders. When I don't move my body my head gets loud.

Brit said she's praying for me. I said pray I get confirmed. She said that's not what I'm praying for.

AFTER THE CAMERAS is a daily publication of speculative psychological fiction. Each entry imagines the private thoughts of a public figure on the day's biggest story. No entry represents real thoughts, statements, or beliefs of any individual. All internal monologue, emotional reactions, and private observations are entirely invented. External events referenced are real; inner experiences are fictional. All content is created for entertainment purposes only.