Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told the Ruthless Podcast that the Trump administration has arrested 2,210 terrorists in the United States, framing the figure as proof of a shift from defense to offense at the Department of Homeland Security.
Fox News reported that the exclusive interview was released Thursday morning. Mullin cast the number as part of a broader push under President Donald Trump to stop releasing high-risk encounters and to pursue threats more aggressively.
The claim carries clear public-safety stakes. Mullin said many of those arrested entered after claiming asylum under fake names, and he argued the prior administration cut large numbers of them loose. Earlier this month, ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, DHS announced it had detained 2,150 known or suspected terrorists.
Mullin delivered the headline number in plain terms as he sat for the podcast interview.
"Underneath President Trump, we’ve arrested, so far as my numbers walking into here, 2,210 terrorists in this country,"
He tied the arrests to how people crossed and how they were processed. Mullin said most of them came over, claimed asylum, and gave a fake name. Some were caught, he said, but a lot came in and were released under the Biden administration.
He drew a sharp line on labels. There is a difference between a suspected terrorist and a terrorist watch list, Mullin said. Then he closed the point: these were terrorists.
That distinction matters for readers tracking enforcement language. DHS’s earlier announcement used “known or suspected terrorists,” while Mullin’s podcast number was stated as terrorists arrested. Investigators and the public will still need clear, case-level breakdowns of charges, status, and nationalities to compare the two tallies side by side.
Mullin said the operational posture changed because Trump gave DHS authority to stop playing defense only.
"One directive we had is we're no longer just playing defense,"
He expanded the point with a cybersecurity example and a wider enforcement message.
"We're on the offense. President Trump has given us the authority to go on the offensive. For instance, cybersecurity. We're no longer sitting there and just protecting as you try to attack us. We're swimming upstream now. We're going after the people that are coming after us. We're aggressively going after individuals. I want to put you on offense."
In Mullin’s account, the same offensive approach covers border-linked terrorist arrests and digital threats. He presented both as one directive rather than separate silos.
Conservative readers following immigration enforcement will hear an echo of other federal cases that treat entry fraud, identity lies, and unlawful presence as serious legal problems, including recent work such as an ICE arrest of a Peruvian national who pleaded guilty to illegal voting in Kansas.
Mullin did not stop at the new arrest total. He also described what he said happened under the prior administration after DHS encounters.
According to Mullin, 97 percent of individuals DHS encountered under Biden were released within 27 hours. He used that figure to explain why, in his view, people who should have been held were instead cut loose after asylum claims and false names.
Fox News’s account presents that release statistic as Mullin’s claim from the interview. No separate primary table or audit breakdown appears in the available package beyond his statement. The legal and safety question is straightforward: if dangerous people were processed and released that fast, the public needs durable custody rules, identity checks, and removal timelines that hold.
Related fights over identity records and citizenship checks continue in other lanes of federal law, including when the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to revive access to a DHS citizenship database for voter roll checks.
Ruthless Podcast co-host Josh Holmes praised Mullin’s pace and turned the discussion toward politics around border security and ICE. Holmes said Mullin inherited a department shaped by hard-edged Democratic attacks on those tools.
"You also inherited a department that the reason it was shut down is that Democrats have demagogued everything to do with border security and ICE in particular,"
Holmes also contrasted old deportation habits with faster removals.
"Under the previous DHS administration, there was some kind of prioritization of the lowest-hanging fruit of deportations rather than what you're talking about, which is that people need to get the hell out of here as fast as possible."
The exchange put institutional will at the center. Holmes framed prior practice as chasing easy cases. Mullin framed the Trump directive as hunting the people coming after the country, including terrorists who entered through asylum channels with false identities.
Election-integrity enforcement has run on a parallel track in federal court, as seen when federal prosecutors charged 16 people in a noncitizen voting crackdown spanning seven states.
Mullin is an Oklahoman who served in the House, won a Senate seat in 2022, and was nominated by Trump in March to lead DHS. The Senate confirmed him 54-45 on March 23.
He described the workload in blunt personal terms. He thought he was busy as a senator. Then he said he has not slept through the night in six months, and he insisted he was not joking.
That tempo claim matches the posture he advertised on air: arrests already counted in the thousands, an offense order from the president, and a public argument that watch-list hedging is not the same as calling terrorists what they are.
Database fights show how contested DHS information tools remain, including after a Biden-appointed judge shut down a DHS citizenship database after 67 million voter records were scanned.
Mullin’s 2,210 arrest figure and the earlier DHS notice of 2,150 known or suspected terrorists detained sit close together in time. Authorities have not, in the material here, released a public crosswalk showing whether the cohorts fully overlap, partly overlap, or measure different actions such as arrest, detention, or removal.
Mullin did state a categorical line. He said these were terrorists, not merely watch-list names. He also said many used asylum claims and fake names, and that large-scale quick releases defined the prior period he criticized.
ICE appears in the surrounding enforcement picture, including imagery of agents moving a detainee in Ventura, California, and in Holmes’s comments on border security politics. The podcast itself is the venue for Mullin’s latest numbers. Photo captions separately place Mullin at Washington events, including the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and the Department of Justice, on other dates.
Similar charging themes appear in coverage of how the DOJ charged 16 defendants in alleged noncitizen voting cases across seven states, another reminder that identity fraud and unlawful participation remain live federal issues.
Mullin walked into the interview with a specific arrest total and used it to sell an offensive model. The governing questions now are documentary and operational.
Investigators and DHS will need to show how the 2,210 count was built, how cases move from arrest to detention to removal, and how asylum fraud and false-name cases are charged. The public will also need clarity on how “terrorist” classifications are assigned when officials also use “known or suspected” language in formal announcements.
Mullin’s own contrast supplies the policy test. If Trump restored authority to hunt threats upstream, including in cybersecurity and in terrorist arrests inside the country, results will show up in custody rates, charging decisions, and sustained removals rather than rapid releases after brief encounters.
Law-and-order government is not a slogan contest. It is whether the people who entered under fake names and terror ties stay in custody, face charges, and get removed before the next attack window opens.
