Kyle Griffin — executive producer of MSNBC’s “The Weeknight,” a show so unwatched it makes public access television look like the Super Bowl — has sounded the alarm on President Trump’s new DHS Secretary pick. The crime? Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma doesn’t have a bachelor’s degree.
Somewhere, the ghost of Alejandro Mayorkas’s Berkeley diploma is weeping.
Griffin, who commands 1.2 million followers on X and approximately 772,000 television viewers (down from the show he replaced, because of course it is), posted this devastating exposé: “Markwayne Mullin looks to be the only currently serving senator without at least a bachelor’s degree.”
That’s it. That’s the whole attack. A man built a plumbing empire from scratch, ran an undefeated MMA career on the side, got elected to Congress, and then the Senate — and the crack journalists at MSNBC have cracked the case. No diploma. Lock him up.
Now, we should be fair and note that Mullin does have an associate’s degree from Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology. He would have finished his full degree at Missouri Valley College, where he attended on a wrestling scholarship, but his father fell ill when Mullin was twenty. So he and his new bride Christie went home to save the family plumbing business instead.
Over the next 28 years, Markwayne and Christie turned Mullin Plumbing into the largest service company in the region — you may have spotted the red vans with “The Red Rooter” logo — and along the way founded companies ranging from Mullin Environmental to an actual steakhouse. By 2021, the whole operation was purchased by a private equity firm for an undisclosed sum that was reportedly large enough to make your eyes water.
The horror! A man who creates jobs, builds businesses, and fights people professionally does not have a piece of paper from an institution that is currently busy teaching undergraduates about colonialism and gender-fluid interpretive dance.
FOX Business host Dagen McDowell put it perfectly: “Pompass media elitoid: Show me any and all useless university degrees that cost 6-figures a piece. Normal American: Show me the family business built with your grit, wit and wisdom that cost another fella high 8-figures to buy.”
Conservative commentator CJ Pearson offered the most important comparison: “Alejandro Mayorkas had a BA from Berkeley and a JD from Loyola Marymount and the difference between him and Markwayne Mullin is one of them won’t allow 20 million illegal aliens to cross the border.”
Let’s talk about Alejandro for a moment, since Griffin and his pals at MS NOW — that’s what they’re calling themselves these days, after rebranding in the wake of a 46% primetime ratings collapse — apparently think credentialed failure beats uncredentialed success.
Mayorkas, Berkeley-educated history major and proud owner of a Loyola Marymount law degree, stood before Congress and the American public and repeated, with full academic confidence, that “the border is secure” — in March 2021, July 2022, and November 2022. During his tenure, deportations cratered from 186,000 in 2020 to 72,000 in a single year. Nearly six million aliens wandered free, pending court processes that would never come.
But at least the man had his paperwork in order.
Meanwhile, Mullin walks the halls of the Capitol in a cowboy hat and boots, sometimes bouncing a rubber ball as he talks to reporters. He famously stood up during a Senate hearing and offered to physically settle a disagreement with the president of the Teamsters Union, before Bernie Sanders told him to sit down and reminded him he was a Senator. Which, fair point from Bernie — although you have to admit, watching Mullin submit the Teamsters boss in a rear-naked choke would have been the best C-SPAN moment in recorded history.
Forty-seven Republican lawmakers signed a letter backing Mullin for DHS Secretary. Senate Majority Leader John Thune calls him Trump’s “Senate whisperer.” He is, incidentally, only the second enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation ever to serve in the United States Senate.
But no bachelor’s degree. We regret to inform you.
Mullin told reporters his reaction to the nomination: “It’s just pretty humbling when you start thinking about it. A little kid from Westville, Oklahoma gets to serve in the president’s cabinet. That’s pretty neat.”
That quote alone should embarrass every over-credentialed bureaucrat inside the Beltway who has spent thirty years running the country into the ground from the comfort of their Georgetown rowhouse.
Here’s the thing about the 63 percent of Americans who also don’t have a bachelor’s degree — they built your roads, fixed your pipes, wired your house, and raised families while doing it. Kyle Griffin has never fixed a pipe in his life, and his ratings prove he can’t hold an audience either.
Maybe a little more time in the trades and a little less time on X would do him some good.
