DHS chief throws MAGA ex-Border Patrol boss under the bus: 'He's irrelevant'

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin had few words Monday for his loudest MAGA critic: "He's irrelevant to me."

Asked at a press conference about retired Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino and "the criticism he's been leveling at the department," Mullin didn't blink. "I never met the guy. He's irrelevant to me. I don't know who he is," the secretary said, then moved on.

The dismissal came as Bovino has been on a very public tear against Mullin and other Trump insiders. The former commander — once the face of the administration's aggressive immigration crackdown in Chicago and Minneapolis — was ousted in January after federal agents under his command fatally shot two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. He retired in the spring.

Since then, Bovino has pulled no punches. Speaking last weekend at the far-right Remigration Summit in Porto, Portugal, he mocked Mullin's background in his family's plumbing business.

"Mullin's a great guy, great plumber, no doubt about that," Bovino said. "He could probably fix a leaky faucet. But a hundred million illegal aliens is not a leaky faucet."

Bovino also called out White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and top Trump campaign aide Chris LaCivita by name, accusing them of "pushing to dial back" mass deportations and "steering the president toward caving to anarchists."

On the ongoing clashes at the Delaney Hall detention center in Newark, Bovino was equally blunt — arguing on X that Mullin was putting agents at risk by withholding tear gas. "I don't know who's holding these guys back, but basic riot control starts with gas," he wrote. "Hesitation isn't compassion — it's dangerous weakness."

Mullin's office told NewsNation that ICE arrested six protesters Wednesday for allegedly assaulting federal officers but did not address Bovino's tear gas allegations directly.