While delivering remarks for the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks Friday, Department of Homeland Security Sec. Markwayne Mullin said he had been up since 1:30 a.m. after being told of a potential deadly threat to the United States.
Mullin, who delivered his speech in Washington, D.C., said he returned home from the Republican midterm convention and was awakened in the middle of the night by a pressing phone call.
“I had no idea I would never sleep through the night again,” he confessed. “When I say that I was on the phone since 1:30 this morning, I got back from the convention, laid down my head on my bed at 1 o’clock; my phone rings, like it does every single night. I’ve been dealing with one of our five ICE partners since 1:30 because of a threat that’s come in.”
“A real threat, obviously,” Mullin continued. “Because of our partnership and our friends across the entire world, truly, we stopped something today.”
Despite building the story up during his remarks, Mullin said he would not be sharing any further information with the public or the media.
.@SecMullinDHS says he has been up since 1am, working with ICE partners to deal with a threat: “Truly, we stopped something today. And yes I know the media’s gonna ask later what it is, zero chance I’ll tell you.” pic.twitter.com/eAMXiv0pA9
— CSPAN (@cspan) September 11, 2026
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“And yes, I know the media is going to ask later what it is. Zero chance I’ll tell you,” he declared. “So don’t even ask, it doesn’t matter.”
During those same remarks, Mullin said another 9/11 style attack was inevitable given the “humbling facts” known to government officials.
“It’s probably not a matter of if; it’s more a matter of when something happens again,” he continued. “And it won’t be because we didn’t do our job. It’s because that one little person that wanted to tear down our American dream went unnoticed. People say, ‘What’s your biggest fear?’ That’s one of them. That’s one of them.”
He also slammed liberal sanctuary cities for not cooperating with federal authorities and accused them of putting all Americans at risk in order to shield illegal aliens.
“It’s tough to protect all the homeland. It’s tough to sometimes fight — and I’m not trying to get political here, but I will — sanctuary cities, where they don’t want us to go in to, and they’re harboring and abetting activities just like this.”
Mullin added, “They can say it’s for humanitarian purposes, but the truth is when you become a sanctuary city, and you’re not supporting law enforcement, and you’re not allowing law enforcement to do their job, it’s a safe haven that incubates terrorist activity.”
The secretary specifically called out cities like Seattle, Washington, San Francisco, California, Boston, Massachusetts, Fairfax, Virginia, and New York City.
“And it doesn’t just stay local,” he explained. “It bleeds into other parts of the country, too. What happens in one place in the country affects all of us. And so for one thing, we should all agree on is we should all be in the same boat. We should all be pulling on the same oar, trying to protect the homeland regardless of your politics.”
“We should all want our families to be safe,” Mullin concluded. “We should all want our neighbors to be safe. We should all be rooting for our first responders, for our law enforcement to succeed every single day. We should be constantly going after those criminals, no matter how big or how small it is.”
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