After Wednesday morning testimony from DHS secretary nominee Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), CNN journalist Dana Bash, host of Inside Politics, helped push a Democrat conspiracy that DHS and ICE agents would be used to subvert the results of the upcoming midterm elections. Similarly, MS NOW primetime host and former Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki followed with the same questioning on her show in an interview with Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ).
Is there really a difference between a supposed news host on CNN at noon and a former Democrat press operative’s opinion show on primetime MS NOW, which just changed their lineup to add more opinionated content throughout the day?
On the CNN postgame coverage of the Mullin hearing, Bash mostly spent time with coverage of reforms Democrats want for DHS, the actual cause of the ongoing partial government shutdown which CNN This Morning host Audie Cornish admitted yesterday.
After yesterday’s Mullin DHS confirmation hearing, CNN’s Dana Bash made sure to mention the “really important topic” of the conspiracy of DHS agents being used to interfere in the Midterm elections. pic.twitter.com/nGYa5SczTx
— Nick (@nspin310) March 19, 2026
With one of her last questions to the panel, Bash brought up the “really important topic”:
There’s one other really important topic that I want to get to. And that is Senator Elissa Slotkin pushed Mullin about the question of what he believes the role of Homeland Security law enforcement officers, those who would report all the way up the chain to him, would be in this coming or any election. Let’s watch that.
Bash played clips from a conversation between Mullin and Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) where the senator asked if he had authority to place officers at midterm election polling locations. Mullin told her he would only dispatch ICE if there was a “specific threat” and “not for intimidation.”
After the clips played and Slotkin implied there will not be a “free and fair election,” Bash continued to push a conspiracy that she says it not just about the Democrats playing politics:
This is a really big deal, because this isn’t just Democrats sort of doing this for political reasons. And obviously, there are politics at play here. But I’m sure you’ve all talked to people who are genuinely concerned about how the elections could play out if the president wants to use the kind of tools that Senator Slotkin just referred to.
In response to Bash’s spun question, AP White House reporter Seung Min Kim followed her implication and feared of “intimidation.”
It’s no surprise that Bash, someone who has just currently given softball interviews with Governors Gavin Newsom and Wes Moore, and had an activist on to say she was assaulted by ICE, continued to help spread leftist conspiracies.
MS NOW host and former Biden Press Sec. Jen Psaki had very similar comments on her primetime opinion show.
Was there really that much of a clear difference in questioning and framing between a progressive opinion host on MS NOW and journalists on a CNN political show? pic.twitter.com/RjHarKw5bm
— Nick (@nspin310) March 19, 2026
In a very similar framing, Psaki, the one who left the White House in the middle of Biden’s term to host on MS NOW, followed the lines of Bash and fear of some conspiracy to change election results:
I mean, not only has Trump already shown time and time again that he has no qualms asking cabinet secretaries to break the law, doesn’t really care about the impact on them.
But courts all over the country are already furious with the Department of Homeland Security, specifically because of how frequently the agency breaks the law. DHS is also in charge of election security at a time when Trump really wants to mess with elections. So, it should be quite alarming that today, Trump’s nominee to lead the agency would not answer this very simple question.
There really was not much of a difference between Bash, Psaki, and even the AP reporter’s statements in two shows that supposedly differ in their approach, news gathering versus progressive liberal opinion.
But sure, just continue to stoke fear. What’s the risk in that?
The transcript is below. Click “expand”:
CNN’s Inside Politics with Dana Bash
March 18, 2026
12:49:50 PM Eastern
DANA BASH: (…) There’s one other really important topic that I want to get to. And that is Senator Elissa Slotkin pushed Mullin about the question of what he believes the role of Homeland Security law enforcement officers, those who would report all the way up the chain to him, would be in this coming or any election. Let’s watch that.
[Cuts to video]
SEN. ELISSA SLOTKIN (D-MI): If you are Secretary of Homeland Security, do you feel you have the authority to put uniformed officers at polling locations in 2026?
SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OK) (DHS Secretary Nominee): Ma’am, we said this in your office, the only reason why my officers would be there, if there was a specific threat for them to be there, not for intimidation. And I said we would be –
SLOTKIN: So, even though we didn’t need it during World War II, we didn’t need it during Vietnam or the War on Terror, we never had to put uniformed military there. Now, you feel that there’s going to be a reason that there’s going to be an armed threat to the United States that you need to potentially be there?
MULLIN: No, ma’am. I said, I can’t sit there and guarantee hypothetically what threat would be or not.
SLOTKIN: If we ever get to the point where you are being asked to put armed ICE officers at polling locations, we have lost the plot as a country. We have fundamentally lost it. And until I hear someone tell me that this man, President Trump, will actually allow us to have a free and fair election, there is zero trust here.
[Cuts back to live]
BASH: This is a really big deal, because this isn’t just Democrats sort of doing this for political reasons. And obviously, there are politics at play here. But I’m sure you’ve all talked to people who are genuinely concerned about how the elections could play out if the president wants to use the kind of tools that Senator Slotkin just referred to.
SEUNG MIN KIM (AP Reporter and CNN Analyst): Right. And I believe before that exchange, she asked him basically, first of all, who won the 2020 election. And, you know, the Senator said it was Joe Biden who was ultimately sworn in, in January 2021. And again, it’s just facing that question of the election lie from President Trump that so many of his nominees had to face.
But yes, that is so crucial, because we know, first of all, how fixated the president is with the midterms right now, because it will determine the fate of the last two years of his presidency. This is why he has really focused on finding any which way to make sure that Republicans at least keep – or Republicans don’t lose the House.
Because if you think about it, you have impeachments, you have investigative powers, you have the thwarting of the policy agenda that the president has, along with so many other things that a Democratic-led House can do. So that’s why he’s focused on mid-century redistricting. He’s focused on the SAVE America Act that has now become his top legislative priority.
And this is a fear that you’re hearing from a lot of local election administrators, local secretaries of state, that there could be this sort of intimidation tactic. Elissa Slotkin is clearly trying to get the Senator on the record as to what he would do or not do as DHS secretary. But then, she points out there are other times in U.S. history where there were not these, you know, where there were not these law enforcements that were needed in similar times of war or, you know, unrest at home.
(…)
MS NOW’s The Briefing with Jen Psaki
March 18, 2026
9:28:31 PM Eastern
JEN PSAKI: Here’s some headlines recapping Markwayne Mullin’s confirmation hearing today, The New York Times wrote that he struck a softer tone than Kristi Noem. Politico said that Mullin presented himself as a different kind of DHS Secretary.
But as much as Mullin tried to act like he wouldn’t just be another Trump lackey, he had a very tough time giving a straight answer to some very simple questions.
[Cuts to video]
SEN. MAGGIE HASSAN (D-NH): If directed by the president to take an action that would break the law, would you follow the law or follow the president’s direction?
MULLIN: To answer your question, the president would never ask me to do that.
[Cuts back to live]
PSAKI: That’s funny. I’m almost certain he will. I mean, not only has Trump already shown time and time again that he has no qualms asking cabinet secretaries to break the law, doesn’t really care about the impact on them.
But courts all over the country are already furious with the Department of Homeland Security, specifically because of how frequently the agency breaks the law. DHS is also in charge of election security at a time when Trump really wants to mess with elections. So, it should be quite alarming that today, Trump’s nominee to lead the agency would not answer this very simple question.
[Cuts to video]
SEN. RUBEN GALLEGO (D-AZ): Do you believe that Joe Biden won Arizona in the 2020 presidential election?
MULLIN: Sir, I’m not familiar with what the former secretary did here. And nor am I here to debate what happened in 2020.
SLOTKIN: Who won the 2020 election?
MULLIN: Ma’am, we know that President Joe Biden was sworn into office and he was the president for the last four years –
SLOTKIN: Who do you believe won the election?
MULLIN: I believe my job as Department of Homeland Security Secretary will be to make sure that we ensure that the elections are fair and people can trust them.
(…)
