BREAKING NEWS: Markwayne Mullin Defends Asking Teamsters Boss To Fight During Hearing

Forbes Breaking News

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) spoke with the press on Tuesday about his clash with the teamsters president during a Senate Health Committee hearing.

Transcript

00:00 We are talking.

00:01 Yes, sir.

00:02 Senator, just tell us why you think what happened today in the hearing happened.

00:06 Well, you should probably ask him that.

00:08 I mean, he's the one that kept tweeting at us.

00:10 We didn't respond until the fifth tweet.

00:12 And when he said, "Any place or any time, any place, and you know where to find me,

00:16 cowboy," I thought, "Well, this is the time, this is the place."

00:18 And you don't do that in Oklahoma.

00:19 You don't run your mouth unless you're going to answer the call.

00:21 Well, that might be the question.

00:22 Was that the place?

00:23 Is a Senate hearing the right place to challenge someone to a physical confrontation?

00:26 Well, I'd already challenged him to September 30th.

00:29 He could have done it then for charity.

00:31 I said April.

00:32 They have the, what's it called, the Smoking Guns Charity for the firefighters and police force.

00:37 We could have done it then.

00:38 I've been happy to.

00:39 But he said stand up, and so I stood up.

00:41 Yeah, but what about, I mean, just the idea that fighting is a way to solve a problem.

00:45 Is that kind of, are you concerned that that's the way the conversation is happening here on Capitol Hill?

00:50 People's been fighting for a long time.

00:52 I mean, go back to 1800s.

00:53 They used to have canings.

00:55 It was legal to do duels.

00:56 If you have a difference, you have a difference.

00:58 I didn't start it.

00:59 I didn't tweet at him.

01:00 I didn't go after him.

01:01 I have no beef with the guy.

01:02 I mean, I don't even know the last time I've gotten in a street fight.

01:05 I used to get paid to fight.

01:06 I'm not looking, I mean, what victory is it for me to beat up O'Brien?

01:11 That would be a shock, right?

01:13 But he said it, and I just simply responded.

01:18 If he wants to call it off and we just go have a cup of coffee, fine.

01:21 Let's sit down and have a cup of coffee.

01:22 I have no hard feelings.

01:23 It's not personal to me.

01:24 He just challenged me, and I accepted the challenge.

01:26 Do you regret this moment at all?

01:29 You should probably ask him.

01:31 I mean, he's the one that said it.

01:32 I don't regret asking him.

01:34 He said it any time, any place.

01:36 And has leadership talked to you at all about this?

01:39 No, not at all.

01:40 Have you begun any action to him at all, or has he reached out to you, O'Brien meaning,

01:45 reached out to you afterwards?

01:46 No, not--you know, I ended it and said, "If you want to end it here, that's fine.

01:50 You want to sit down and have a cup of coffee, I'll sit down and have a cup of coffee."

01:52 It's not personal to me, guys.

01:53 This is not--nothing personal.

01:55 It's just he made the challenge, and I accepted it.

01:59 It's just that simple.

02:00 What about just the general tension right now on Capitol Hill?

02:03 Do you feel as though things are--there's more angst than there has been at other times,

02:08 and is it preventing you from getting things done?

02:11 I don't--you know, I can only speak for my time here, right?

02:14 Ever since I've been here, there's always been a little bit of tension.

02:17 This is a total separate issue.

02:19 You know, this doesn't have to do with policy.

02:21 This doesn't have to do with politics.

02:22 This had to do with a guy calling me out, and I simply responded to it.

02:27 So I don't think the two are really comparable.

02:31 This has nothing to do with me against unions either.

02:33 I have nothing against unions.

02:34 I made that very clear at the end of the hearing.

02:36 I have nothing against unions.

02:37 A lot of good friends and family are union members.

02:40 This has to do with just his thug mentality.

02:42 I mean, look at his background.

02:43 Look at his history.

02:44 The guy has a history of this constantly.

02:47 I mean, he was the one--after he became president, he was the one to bring back the mob mentality.

02:50 What the heck is a mob mentality?

02:52 And then you're going to bring that mob mentality to me?

02:54 Okay, well, you can't run your mouth against me.

02:57 I'm just not that guy.

02:58 If you want to run your mouth, then we can settle it a different way.

03:02 But you don't do that, and especially somebody from Oklahoma.

03:05 Maybe you can do that from someone from New Jersey or New York.

03:07 I don't know.

03:08 I've never lived there.

03:09 But in Oklahoma, you don't do that.

03:10 It's the same thing.

03:11 You don't flip somebody off unless you want to get your finger broken in Oklahoma.

03:13 That's just the way it happens.

03:15 Here, people seem to use that gesture all the time, and it's not the same.

03:18 Wars matter in Oklahoma.

03:20 There were some tiffs also on the House side today.

03:22 More broadly, what do you think could be done to lower the temperature?

03:25 Yeah, you know--

03:26 --and bring more discourse here.

03:28 That old stuff with Burchett and Ken McCarthy, I don't--

03:33 Burchett is not a man of character, and I don't take that--

03:37 I take what he said with not even a grain of salt.

03:39 I don't believe a word that he says.

03:41 And do you feel confident that once this continuum resolution, if it ultimately passes--

03:46 I mean, you're not really solving any of the problems, right?

03:48 No.

03:49 I mean, how can you get all this stuff done in a short period of time?

03:51 You know, with a continuum resolution, we're going to kick the can down the road again.

03:55 Everybody here right now knows that we're probably going to do another CR in January.

04:00 In my opinion--I don't want to shut down the government.

04:03 Okay, keep the government open.

04:05 But at some point, we need to call a spade a spade.

04:07 Do a continuum resolution through the rest of the year.

04:09 Call it a funding bill.

04:10 Do a supplement for the Department of Defense.

04:12 And then let's start working on FY '25 because we're going to cut into that time.

04:15 If we don't start FY '25 before long, we're going to do the same thing with FY '25.

04:20 Do you wish Johnson had taken a different approach?

04:23 I don't think he could take a different approach.

04:24 I mean, it's the cards that was dealt him.

04:26 This is the only hand he had to deal--or had to play.

04:29 So I don't think he really had a different choice.

04:32 I think he's doing the best he can by splitting it up into packages,

04:34 giving us at least an opportunity to work through some appropriation bills.

04:38 But I don't even know how we'll have time to do that.

04:41 The bills are so different--so much different between the two.

04:44 Even by the time you go to conference, I don't think you can get them out of conference.

04:48 I mean, how long did NDA take last time to get out of conference?

04:51 So we've got a lot of work ahead of us, for sure.

04:54 All right, guys, we've got to go.

04:55 Thank you, Senator.

04:56 Thank you.

04:57 Was it necessary to do something so provocative at that hearing?

05:00 I don't know what provocative is.

05:01 I mean, he's the one that said stand up.

05:03 I just simply read his tweet.

05:05 Thank you.

05:06 Thank you.

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