Markwayne Mullin is conservative, Christian, Cherokee, and the new head of DHS
B A PARKER, HOST:
Hey, everyone. You're listening to CODE SWITCH. The show about race and identity from NPR. I'm B.A. Parker.
GENE DEMBY, HOST:
And I'm Gene Demby.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Everybody wanted this job. I said, there's one man for this job, and I have no doubt he's going to be fantastic.
PARKER: On Monday, March 23, Senator Markwayne Mullin was officially confirmed as the new head of the Department of Homeland Security.
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PAM BONDI: So help me God.
MARKWAYNE MULLIN: So help me God.
BONDI: Congratulations, Secretary.
TRUMP: Yay.
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DEMBY: This is a huge job. The person in this job is in charge of ICE and Border Patrol and TSA, and they generally set the national tone on how we approach immigration enforcement.
PARKER: Yeah. Mullin is stepping in to replace Kristi Noem. Earlier this month, Kristi Noem was fired in the wake of some really high-profile bad press for the DHS.
DEMBY: Bad press, she says with understatement.
PARKER: I know.
DEMBY: As our listeners know, immigration officials shot and killed two people very publicly in Minnesota earlier this year, during protests about ICE raids that were happening in the Twin Cities.
PARKER: And Noem was known as being extremely hard-line. Some of her highlights included an ad campaign to convince undocumented migrants to self-deport, which I saw pretty much every day for, like, two months on TV.
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KRISTI NOEM: If you're an illegal alien living in the United States, this runway is your future.
PARKER: Then there was the more recent controversy. It was over a $220 million border security advertising campaign that featured Noem on horseback.
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NOEM: Anyone who searches for freedom can always find a home here. But that freedom's a precious thing, and we defend it vigorously.
DEMBY: There's also footage of Kristi Noem in a Salvadoran prison standing in front of a cell full of detainees, like, using them as a backdrop.
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NOEM: Here at CECOT today and visiting this facility. And, first of all, I want to thank El Salvador and their president.
DEMBY: The Trump administration still touts her as, quote, "the most successful DHS secretary in history," you know, even though they fired her. And she's been moved into this role as special envoy for Shield of the Americas.
PARKER: Whatever that means.
DEMBY: Yeah, nobody seems to know what that is.
PARKER: Yeah. So now we've got Senator Markwayne Mullin, and he's had a pretty unusual pathway to public office. He's a former professional MMA fighter. He also ran his family's plumbing and HVAC company for years, and then he was elected to the House of Representatives, where he served for 10 years. And he's been a U.S. senator for the state of Oklahoma since 2023.
DEMBY: That is a really interesting pathway to this job, but, like, what makes him, like, qualified to do this job? You know what I'm saying?
PARKER: An actual question that has been asked by many people. But one of the reasons he's on our radar, in addition to stepping into this big, important role, is that he's a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. So he's the first Indigenous person to head up DHS. But his politics are potentially a bit surprising. So, like, on most policy issues, he lines up pretty squarely with President Trump, which makes him a bit of an anomaly in Indian country writ large.
DEMBY: OK.
PARKER: Yeah. But then again, he's hugely popular with some prominent Indigenous leaders, including Chuck Hoskin Jr., the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. And among Cherokee people in general, our guest today says it's actually not uncommon to be white, highly conservative and Christian.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) ...Debt-free. A rancher, man of faith and father of three, Markwayne Mullin shares our conservative values.
GRAHAM LEE BREWER: He's not a traditional Republican, but he is a very traditional Oklahoman, I guess I'll put it that way.
PARKER: Our pal Graham Lee Brewer has been following Markwayne Mullin's career for years now, trying to understand this big question.
BREWER: Is he good for Indian people? Is Markwayne Mullin's political career something that benefits Native Americans?
PARKER: So I want to talk to Graham about who Markwayne Mullin is, what his politics might mean for Indian country, but also what we can expect having him step into this new role that has the potential to affect so many big policy things, including, for example, election enforcement.
DEMBY: Oh, man, yeah. I remember after the 2020 election, President Trump asked the Department of Homeland Security to seize voting machines in swing states, bananas.
PARKER: Yes, he did. So that's what we're getting into today on the show - what Markwayne Mullin's new role might mean for the country.
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PARKER: Graham, you've been on this show before. Can you just remind us, like, where you work, and where your focus tends to be on?
BREWER: Yeah. I write for the Associated Press' race and ethnicity team, and I cover Indian country specifically.
PARKER: All right. For some right now, Senator Markwayne Mullin's name came out of nowhere when President Trump nominated him to head the Department of Homeland Security. Now, when did you personally start following his political career?
BREWER: I first became interested in Senator Mullin about six or seven years ago when I was working at High Country News on the Indigenous affairs desk, and, you know, as I mentioned, he's a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, which is my tribe, and I really wanted to answer this central question of, like, is he good for Indian people? Is Markwayne Mullin's political career something that benefits Native Americans? The reason I got interested in answering this question is because I was kind of comparing him to another congressman from the state of Oklahoma, Tom Cole, who is a representative from southern Oklahoma, and he's a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation. Tom Cole's whole career, at least in Indian country, is really heavily defined by the good things that he does for tribal nations, protecting sovereignty, passing legislation that recognizes it and affirms it. And Mullin didn't really have that same kind of identity, and so I was kind of curious what his political acumen was when it came to sovereignty and policies that affected Native people.
PARKER: All right, so we're going to get to that question in a minute about whether Mullin is good for Indian country. But I wanted to talk to you about his politics and this nomination more broadly. I mean, from the onset, Mullin has been called this political outsider. So, like, right now, were you surprised by President Trump's nomination of him?
BREWER: Yes and no. And I'll explain what I mean by that. Yes, because he has no experience running emergency management systems. And so in that regard, you know, even at the topic of immigration, it's not something that I would necessarily put at the top of Mullin's kind of policy points and things that he's known for. But no in the regard that he has a very, very close relationship with the president. Over the last, I'd say, probably decade, Mullin's staff and himself have worked very hard to build that relationship. And about six years ago, Mullin's son suffered a wrestling injury. He's a high school wrestler.
And the president really responded to it and showed great interest in his son Jim's recovery. And the two really bonded over that and became very close. And since then, I've talked to former staff and people who worked closely with Mullin over the years, and they all say that Mullin has no problem speaking his mind to the president, which, as I'm sure you can appreciate, is kind of a rare quality, even among Republicans, to challenge the president.
PARKER: But also, OK, I think when trying to, like, break down who is Senator Mullin, like, what are his politics, generally speaking?
BREWER: His politics largely align with the president's. I'm having trouble thinking of any platform the president has put out there that Mullin has disagreed with. I think a lot of people would say that when you ask them, what do you think Mullin's policies are on immigration, they would tell you that they're whatever the president's are. Mullin has had opinions in the public that differ from the president's. I'm thinking specifically of the January 6 riots. You know, Mullin was kind of - had a moment in the press because he was very visibly part of the - part of that day. You know, there was that kind of famous photo of him...
PARKER: Like, ducking.
BREWER: ...Kind of ducking in the pews of the Congress floor. And, you know, there's the January 6 rioters at the door and the Capitol Police kind of barricading. And Mullin actually, you know, tried to engage with the rioters and to try to dissuade them and to get them to leave. And he called the Capitol Police heroes. And, you know, he was a witness to Ashli Babbitt's shooting death. And so - but the president has described these things very differently. He's pardoned the January 6 rioters. And so that's just, like, one thing that comes to mind. But at the end of the day, Mullin also, you know, aligned with the president that the election was stolen. And so I think that's one area that I'm very curious to see how he will - how it'll play out in terms of policy and action because, as you recall, in 2020, Trump tried to order DHS officers to seize ballot machines. And, you know, it begs the question that after the midterms or whatever, if Trump asks DHS to do that again and Mullin is in charge, what he'll do.
PARKER: It's interesting because it seems like Senator Mullin is really trying to, like, toe this line, this, like, really, like, complicated line. And, like, I know you wrote about him back in, I think, like, 2019, where you noted that, like, Mullin being a very conservative white Cherokee lawmaker wasn't a contradiction. But...
BREWER: No.
PARKER: Sorry.
BREWER: Oh. No, go ahead.
PARKER: No. Go ahead. No.
BREWER: (Laughter) Well, I was going to say, you know, when you were setting that up, it really made me think of the fact that Mullin is really kind of known for towing that line, even in Congress. He's kind of known as a peacemaker in a way, which is...
PARKER: Yeah.
BREWER: ...Really interesting because I think publicly, when you see Senator Mullin speak on television, certainly in some of these Senate committee hearings, like when he, you know, got into an argument with the head of the Teamsters union and said, you know, well, let's take this outside.
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MULLIN: Well, stand your butt up, then.
SEAN O'BRIEN: You stand your butt up.
BERNIE SANDERS: Oh, hold...
O'BRIEN: Big guy.
SANDERS: Stop it.
O'BRIEN: Is that your solution to every problem?
BREWER: A lot of people have this perception of Mullin based on those media appearances. But within the halls of Congress, he's kind of known as a dealmaker between the parties. So, you know, when he was in the House of Representatives, he started doing a bipartisan workout on the Capitol. And he made a lot of friends through that. Back then, Tulsi Gabbard was a Democrat. They became close friends. Representative Josh Gottheimer from New Jersey, former representative Joe Kennedy. These are all, you know, Democrats that if you ask them today what they think of Senator Mullin, they only have positive things to say about him. They say that he's kind. He's willing to listen. He's willing to change his mind, and that they think that he can kind of help build more bipartisan relationships as DHS secretary.
One of the things that I found really interesting when I was talking to Gottheimer, specifically about Mullin and what he thought his tenure as secretary would be like, not only did Gottheimer think that he would make a great DHS secretary, but he told me that Mullin was known for inviting Democrats and Republicans to his home to sit at his dinner table and hash out their problems. And I think that most people who see Mullin on TV and have this perception of him as a conservative firebrand would be very surprised to hear that.
PARKER: A pugnacious mediator.
BREWER: (Laughter).
PARKER: There's this very - like, I'm thinking about this very, like, glaring sight when I'm looking at pictures of President Trump's Oval Office. There's, like - there's a portrait of Andrew Jackson hanging in there. And just like the idea of working underneath the face who implemented the Trail of Tears. So can you talk about how Mullin's identity fits into the larger landscape of Cherokee identity?
BREWER: Yeah. That was an interesting moment when President Trump rehung the portrait of Andrew Jackson. And for listeners who don't understand the connection, Jackson was the driving force that led to the Trail of Tears, which was a horrific act of genocide against the Cherokee - not just the Cherokee people, but a lot of tribes. And a quarter of our tribe died along that trail. And that's why many of us are Oklahomans today because we were removed here. And so I think it really sent a message to Native people, and Mullin, I think, is going to - I'm really curious to see how his identity as a Cherokee person is going to play out at DHS. But to answer your question, you know, Mullin is really just kind of one in a long succession of Cherokee diplomats and politicians who have walked the halls of Congress or lobbied the president's office, you know, even going back to the moments that preceded the Trail of Tears, which was precipitated by the signing of the Treaty of New Echota.
Our chief at the time, Chief John Ross, you know, he was personally at the Capitol trying to get the president to put an end to the violence that was being perpetrated against his people by the state of Georgia. And so I think he's part of that long legacy, which is really complicated. You know, I think our tribe has been kind of intertwined with American democracy for so long. I mean, you know, we were the first tribe or at least one of the first, I think, maybe the first to adopt a constitution. We developed a court system. We created a newspaper that precedes The New York Times and The Washington Post. Our ancestors did all these things in an effort to assimilate, to show the American government that we can function as a government the way that you are functioning as a government, and we can coexist side by side. Of course, that didn't work, and we were removed. But those facets of American democracy - you know, judicial law and even journalism - they still exist today in the three iterations of the Cherokee people, which is the Cherokee Nation, the Eastern Band and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee.
So it's kind of an interesting historical through line that brings Markwayne Mullin to be the first Native American to run DHS. And I think, you know, his experience as a tribal citizen, his understanding of sovereignty and his understanding of the treaty and trust responsibilities that the government owes to tribal nations, it could actually play a really positive role in his tenure as secretary because, as we've seen with the - Trump's immigration crackdown, that through racial profiling, a lot of Native people have been swept up in DHS's jails. They've been stopped and detained. Some report that their tribal IDs have not been taken seriously by ICE officers. And so Mullin could have a direct impact on that. And not only could he use his strong relationships with tribal leaders, because he does have very good relationships with several tribal leaders across the country, not just here in Oklahoma, and he could also implement new training that ICE officers have to understand what a tribal ID looks like and to respect it.
PARKER: You talk about this a little bit, but, like, how has Mullin's relationship evolved with being Cherokee over the years?
BREWER: You know, I think that's - that might not be a question I can answer.
PARKER: Valid. Yeah.
BREWER: I can say that it's kind of a mixed bag when you talk to Cherokee Nation citizens about him as a Native person, what they think of him in that regard. You know, Markwayne Mullin grew up in eastern Oklahoma, solidly in the Cherokee Nation. He grew up in a small community. And I think, you know, the way he describes it when I've asked him in the past and when I've heard his - him respond to questions about it even recently is that, you know, when he was growing up, he didn't really think anything of being Cherokee in the regard that it didn't feel special to him because everyone around him was Cherokee. He was very much used to being immersed in that culture. And when he got to the capital, that's kind of when it dawned on him that he was unique.
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MULLIN: I never knew I was special for being Cherokee until I came to D.C. 'cause where I'm from, everybody's Indian or wants to be. And when I came up here, Tom Cole was the first one that came up to me and said, congratulations. We just doubled the size of our Native American Caucus.
BREWER: At the time, Tom Cole was the only Native American in Congress. This was before Deb Haaland. This was before Sharice Davids. And so - and I think that's when he really started to understand the potential power he had to help Native people as a member of Congress. But I also - at the same time, you know, you go back to some of these very traditional pockets of the Cherokee Nation, and there are people who question whether or not he's really - has their interests in mind.
And so, yeah, I really - Cherokee people are like American people. We have very, you know, varied political views and lived experiences, and, you know, we're not monolithic. Markwayne Mullin, in many ways, really illustrates that through his lived experience. And so, yeah, like I said, I think, you know, it really depends on who you ask here in the Cherokee Nation whether or not his identity as a Cherokee person is going to help him or help them. And I certainly think that he could have done more for Cherokee people as a senator than he probably could as DHS secretary. But I - at the same time, I think that his identity as a tribal citizen could play a really big role in how he decides to lead that department.
PARKER: I think - OK. Like, is Mullin good for Indian Country?
BREWER: I think that's a really difficult question to answer.
PARKER: Yeah.
BREWER: I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I think the immediate answer that I want to give is, yes, I think it's good to have a Native person in a position of power in the government. However, historically, having a Cherokee person in the room doesn't always mean that things are going to work out for us, right? I mean, we can see the historical - you know, the arc that has led us to Oklahoma. It wasn't good policy that led us here, right? And there were Cherokee people in some of those rooms who had some ability to impact the situation. But that's just a sentiment.
I've actually seen - I'm in a lot of Cherokee culture and community Facebook groups. And there's a lot of discourse in those about Markwayne Mullin right now because a lot of people in those groups grew up with him and know him personally. And that's a sentiment that I see shared time and time again, which is this could be good for us, but we all know that just having a Cherokee person in the room doesn't necessarily mean that the outcome is going to be good for Native people.
PARKER: Well, then what does it mean to have an Indigenous person heading up Homeland Security?
BREWER: I think just having a Native person as a Cabinet member means that that perspective is going to be represented. One of the hallmarks that - of the second Trump administration is that the treaty and trust responsibilities have been stripped away, and then tribal nations have to step in and say, hey, wait a minute. This funding or this program or this department, it was meeting a treaty - right? - that we established and is long established. These are some of the country's oldest legal obligations. And then those things will come back. We saw it at HHS with the laying off of all the people in the Indian Health Service, and then Secretary Kennedy had to rehire all of them. We saw it in the college system at places like Haskell and IAIA with funding and staffing levels. And so, you know - and like I said, some people have told me that Markwayne Mullin has no problem telling the president his opinion, even if that opinion disagrees with the president's. And so I think a lot of Native people are hoping that even though DHS might not have direct authority over certain areas of Indian Country policy that affect them, that he has the president's ear and that he might be able to advocate on their behalf.
PARKER: Coming up...
BREWER: There's these two Mullins in my mind, and I'm not sure which one we're going to get.
PARKER: Stay with us.
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PARKER: Parker.
DEMBY: Gene.
PARKER: CODE SWITCH.
DEMBY: Parker, you've been chopping it up with Graham Lee Brewer, who is of The Associated Press, and he's been telling you about what we might expect from Senator Markwayne Mullin, who is President Trump's pick to replace Kristi Noem at the Department of Homeland Security.
PARKER: Right. And before the break, we looked at what his nomination has meant for Indian Country specifically. But I also wanted to ask what we know about Mullin's relationship with immigrants, specifically undocumented immigrants, who will arguably be the most affected by DHS.
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PARKER: You told me an anecdote from Mullin's time running his, like, late father's small business that was informative for his - of his past relationship with undocumented people.
BREWER: Yeah. So I talked to Mullin's former chief of staff when he was in Congress, and one of the interesting things that he told me was that in Mullin's mind, when it comes down to immigration policy, he separates it into two separate categories, and that is border security and immigrant labor. And he wants a strong border, but he also understands the importance of immigrant labor. And the way that played out in his real life is that - so when Mullin was in his 20s, his father became ill and he took over the family business, Mullin Plumbing.
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MULLIN: Hi. I'm Markwayne Mullin of Mullin Plumbing, the Red Rooter, bringing a tip of the day. How do you clean your garbage disposal? Well, let me show you. Take your wooden spoon and a...
BREWER: And if you live in Oklahoma, you've seen the red Mullin Plumbing vans, you know, all over the place. They're everywhere. It's a very large business. And one of the things that - what happened a lot is that people would come to him as an employer and say, I'm trying to go through the legal process of becoming a U.S. citizen, and I need a sponsor. And so Mullin actually sponsored a lot of his employees through that system...
PARKER: Really?
BREWER: ...And was very proud of that. And from what I understand, after they were able to receive citizenship, he helped them, you know, get on their feet, really kind of welcomed them into his home. And that's - like I said, that's something that he took great pride in, even though he doesn't really talk about it very much publicly. In fact, I'm not sure that I've ever heard him talk about it publicly. But yeah, I think, again, like, that's one of those things that I think most people would be a little bit surprised to hear because, you know, he really has been - especially in recent months with the immigration crackdown, has really been supportive of the president's move. You know, he's said on social media that ICE officers should be, you know, respected and that they're valued members of our community and that they're doing good work. And he's suggested that the children of undocumented immigrants who were born here in the United States should be deported if their parents are, you know. And so these are some pretty hard-line conservative views on immigration. But at the same time, you know, like I said, he has utilized immigrant labor, and he's helped people go through the citizenship process as a sponsor.
PARKER: I'm thinking about just, like, the - like, comparing and contrasting Senator Mullin with someone like Kristi Noem. The way that Mullin has been talking, do we expect - like, what differences do we expect with a potential Mullin leadership?
BREWER: Well, I think the most obvious one to me as someone who covers Indian Country is his relationships with tribes. You know, Kristi Noem was banished from almost every reservation in her state when she was governor. She had very contentious relationships with tribal leaders there. She sent a letter as secretary to - it's called, you know, a Dear Tribal Leaders Letter, which is kind of - the government does this a lot, where they send letters to tribal leaders and - explaining a policy or something that they should expect to happen in the future. And she sent one recently to tribal leaders saying that there is no evidence that tribal citizens have been detained or even jailed by ICE. And we've talked to several people who tell us otherwise, that it happened to them. And so I think a lot of tribal leaders saw that letter as disingenuous. Mullin, on the other hand, has really, really good relationships with tribal leaders, especially here in Oklahoma. And so I think the most immediate difference between the two is that he's going to be able to use those relationships to hopefully carry forward a better, you know, kind of government-to-government consultation process with tribes.
And I also think that, you know, just his reputation as a - kind of a bipartisan dealmaker in Congress will also help him, you know, just on a basic level. I mean, we've definitely seen a lot of Democrats and even some Republicans who are not happy with Kristi Noem's tenure as secretary of DHS. And so, you know, I think Mullin comes into this position with an opportunity to really capitalize on that by listening, by being more available, and by being willing to change policy in a way that reflects what Congress and the American people would like to see out of DHS.
PARKER: OK. So, Graham, some of the reporting I've seen, including some reporting coming out of NPR, has seemed to, like, subtly position Indigenous people and immigrants against each other and basically suggesting that, like, Indigenous people should not have to suffer the same indignities that immigrants have come to kind of expect. And I'm curious what you make of that.
BREWER: Well, I think, you know, it's kind of insult to injury - right? - to be a Native person and then be told by Immigration and Customs Enforcement that you potentially don't belong here. Just on its face, that's a pretty insulting position to take. And so I think, really, that's more of what I've seen. I haven't seen any evidence that Native people have any animosity towards immigrants or undocumented immigrants, either. I think it's really more of the injustice of the whole situation, right? Like, our ancestors fought and died for our right to be here and to be respected and to - in many cases, to stay in our homelands and have access to those places. And so I think, you know, this flies in the face of generations of struggle. And so, really, I think that's the central conflict for Native people, is that it's not so much that they have, you know, hard-line opinions on immigration. It's that I, as a Native person, as a tribal citizen, should be able to walk anywhere in this country unbothered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
PARKER: Yeah. All right. So many members of the Trump administration have a reputation for being, like, fairly brusque. And in some ways, I think Markwayne Mullin fits that pattern.
BREWER: Sure.
PARKER: Like, I mean, like, he's been, like, you know, called out for his expressions of anger, you know, for, you know, like, the famous, like, trying to - like, asking the head of the Teamsters if he wanted to fight. But you've also described Senator Mullin as this kind of, like, likable and sensible guy who is popular with a lot of his colleagues, including Democrats. So, like, which - basically, which Markwayne do you think we're likely to see expressed as potential head of DHS?
BREWER: I think it's an excellent question. It's one I've thought about a lot, and it's also one that I have a really hard time coming to a conclusion on.
PARKER: Yeah.
BREWER: And that is because, you know, there's these two kind of Mullins in my mind, and I'm not sure which one we're going to get. And one is the kind, charismatic, bipartisan, you know, kind of broker of peace, if you want to describe him that way, and the other is the one that's incredibly loyal to the president. And I get the impression that he, you know, almost sees President Trump as like a father figure, you know? And the way he described Trump - Trump's interest in the well-being of his child, of his son Jim's recovery and offering to fly the family to California for treatment and to pay for the treatment, and, you know, checking in weekly on the progression of his rehabilitation and just taking a genuine interest in the well-being of his son. That really, really impacted Markwayne Mullin.
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MULLIN: Dang it. I hate getting emotional. See, if I talk about my kids, I get emotional. Other than that, you can't make me cry. But anyways, he grabbed my son and he said, do you know why I love your dad? Do you know why I love your dad? Christie tells the story better than I do. And he goes, no, sir. He goes, because he loves you. Because of you. 'Cause of you. Man, that's - he didn't do it for any other reason. I mean, here's the president of the United States, and he did it just because he cared. And so when you want to say why he's a friend, yeah, we were acquaintances before that. We've been friends ever since.
BREWER: I bring up that story because that's the other side of Mullin that I wonder if that's who we're going to get as DHS secretary. Are we going to get someone who is willing to listen and change their mind when necessary, or are we going to get someone who is going to do what the president asks, no matter the cost? And I think it's very possible that we'll get a secretary that's somewhere in the middle of that. But at the end of the day, you know, as DHS secretary, it's going to be his job to carry out the president's policies.
So I'm definitely going to be paying attention to how his relationships with tribes become a part of his tenure as secretary and certainly any training that he provides or mandates for ICE officers when it comes to their interactions with Native people and specifically dealing with tribal IDs. But I am also very curious to see how his time as secretary will play out if the president asks him as head of DHS to play any role in the election system. You know, like I mentioned earlier, you know, in 2020, he tried to get DHS to seize voting machines. And I wonder if - you know, Mullin is someone who voted to not affirm the election - if he would listen to that order or if he would disagree with the president.
And so, yeah, I think that - and, you know, I think let's be clear. You know, Markwayne Mullin is very untested when it comes to heading a department of this size and certainly one that deals with law enforcement and border security and national security. These are things that he's not really known for. And so I think a lot of people are kind of watching to see what kind of secretary he's going to be and if he has the wherewithal and the experience to be a successful DHS secretary.
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PARKER: Oh, boy. All right. Thank you, Graham.
BREWER: Yeah, of course.
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PARKER: This episode was produced by Jess Kung. It was edited by Leah Donnella. Our engineer was Robert Rodriguez.
DEMBY: And we would be remiss if we did not shout out the rest of the CODE SWITCH massive. That's Christina Cala, Xavier Lopez, Dalia Mortada and Yolanda Sangweni. As for me, I'm Gene Demby.
PARKER: I'm B.A. Parker.
DEMBY: Be easy, y'all.
PARKER: Hydrate.
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