Markwayne Mullin Defends His Epstein Files Resolution After Blocking Gallego's Epstein Resolution

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Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill.

Transcript

00:00I appreciate that.

00:01You never said the senator said they've come back out and they don't come back out.

00:04I've never said I would come back out.

00:07That's right, no, I appreciate you coming back.

00:09Your resolution on Epstein.

00:11So you're just calling for the courts to release this information, is that right?

00:14You do, but what about the Justice Department?

00:16Well, here's the issue that we have is everything that the Justice Department has,

00:20and I don't care if it's with the FBI or if it's in Bondi's office, all has been heard by the courts.

00:26There isn't anything they had that the grand jury hasn't looked at.

00:29So you're going to have to have a judge release all that information or they can't release what they have.

00:34All their findings was heard in either New York or Florida at different times.

00:39And let's be honest, regardless if it's mine or if it's his resolution, it's just a resolution.

00:47It's not mining.

00:47It's not mining because this clear separation of powers here between legislative and judicial,

00:53the court still has to move forward.

00:55So President Trump, even though he's President of the United States, his executive branch,

00:59they cannot force the judges to release this.

01:02You saw the judge in Florida came out and said, no.

01:05Well, before we can get our hands on it, the judges have to agree to it.

01:09And I think by Pam Bondi calling on them and the president calling on them and then us here in Congress

01:18calling on them to release the information, hopefully the judges will see it different.

01:21But until they do, that judge sitting over that case that oversaw the grand jury, as you guys know,

01:27the grand juries are pretty tight-lipped.

01:30Most of the time they don't release that information.

01:32That's all our resolution does is say, hey, please release this.

01:35Would it be helpful if the Justice Department just released all the information it has?

01:39I don't think, like I said, I don't think they can because all the information they have

01:45had been heard by the court.

01:47They wouldn't have any information.

01:48Surely some investigative material that they haven't put out yet.

01:52Why would they?

01:53I mean, seriously, why would they have it

01:56if they hadn't released it all the way to the court?

01:58There was the files that Trump's name is apparently in.

02:01I mean, wouldn't you want to see that?

02:03Would Congress want to see that?

02:04Well, we've already debated that.

02:06I mean, the Wall Street Journal report that came out on that was absolutely ridiculous

02:10by an unnamed source.

02:12And the file that they're saying his name could possibly be on it,

02:16the president has made that very clear not just this year,

02:18years ago, that was because he kicked him off his course

02:21and told him he can't be part of his club anymore.

02:23So would you want to see that?

02:24Would you want to see that?

02:25If we could, the problem that I'm having is that if this information was heard by the grand jury,

02:30which I believe almost all this was heard by the grand jury

02:33because they were the ones that were putting out some subpoenas,

02:35any information that the court has seen through the grand jury,

02:38they cannot release it regardless if they have it or not unless the judge releases it.

02:43And that's why this stuff isn't being released.

02:46You saw that even the one judge that they've already asked has said,

02:50no, I believe it's going to repeat itself.

02:52Do you think that there is concern, though, for possible exposure for President Trump

02:56in these files?

02:57No, absolutely not.

02:58Because you know as good as I do, over the last eight years,

03:01the Democrats would already release anything and everything they had.

03:04The president has been very transparent on this, and I'm not concerned about that at all.

03:07I mean, my goodness, they're making stuff up about him.

03:09They made stuff up about Russia.

03:11Why would they go after Russia if they had something like him on Epstein?

03:16Have you spoken to the president about your resolution at all or offered any guidance as he navigates this?

03:20No, I haven't talked to the president at all about this.

03:22When the Big Beautiful Bill came to the Senate, you guys took out most of the money that had been

03:27put in by the House for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and refilling it.

03:31Is that something you guys could revisit?

03:33Obviously, it's at near record low levels right now.

03:36We want to refill it.

03:38The timing is right.

03:40We feel like crew prices are going to drop some more, especially as things begin to stabilize

03:45in, hopefully, in Russia and Ukraine and then also in the Middle East.

03:49We think the crew prices will drop.

03:52When the crew prices drop, then that's when we want to purchase and fill the reserve back up.

03:56Would that involve appropriations from you guys or some sort of legislation?

04:00Possibly.

04:00We've been working with the White House on that to find out what they would need from us.

04:04Through the Department of Defense, because it's a national security interest and because

04:11it is a national security interest, even outside of the Department of Defense, there's monies

04:15that could be put in there without us having to appropriate anything.

04:18But if we want to fill it all the way full, depending on the price of the crew,

04:21there may be additional monies that have to be appropriated.

04:23Senator, politically on the Epstein matter, are you concerned about the way the drip, drip, drip

04:28has come out or just the fact that Trump seems to have lost control of the narrative here?

04:31I don't think that Trump hasn't lost control.

04:33Trump is in control of the White House and what's been going on through the country.

04:37We just looked at our economy.

04:38I'm talking about the narrative about the story.

04:39There is no narrative.

04:40The Democrats have been trying to make this whole thing about transparency.

04:45And it's a joke.

04:46Some Republicans too, though.

04:48Yeah, but let's talk about the Democrats.

04:49Let's talk about the transparency of the Democrats.

04:51How transparent were they the last four years?

04:53They lied to us about all the PM.

04:54They lied to us about Russia.

04:55They lied to us about Hunter Biden's cover up.

04:58They lied to us about Hunter Biden's laptop.

05:01There was no transparency.

05:02Now, all of a sudden, they want to take this high ground and say transparency.

05:05President Trump has been very clear about this, Epstein, from the beginning.

05:09He has called on all the information to be released.

05:11What else could he do?

05:13It's a clear separation of power between the executive, between legislative, and judicial.

05:17And we're equal code branch.

05:21We can't force another branch to do something that's outside the Constitution.

05:25Judicial controls the Epstein files.

05:27They control the Epstein case.

05:29We can't force them to do it.

05:31We can call upon them to do it like the President has done.

05:33What else can he do?

05:35If you guys can think of something else, let me know.

05:36Do you have confidence in Dan Bongino?

05:39Sorry?

05:39Do you have confidence in Dan Bongino?

05:41Do you feel like he kind of blew the situation up?

05:43No, I like Dan.

05:44He's a good guy.

05:45In terms of the big, beautiful bill, if Congress does stay here over the month of August, are you

05:50concerned that you won't be able to get home and sell this to your constituents?

05:53Recent polls show.

05:53It's not terribly popular.

05:55You haven't polled Oklahoma.

05:57Oklahoma is very popular in Oklahoma, and President Trump's very popular in Oklahoma,

06:01and so it's not for us to sell.

06:04For me, I'd love to be back in Oklahoma and not here.

06:06Not to mention, I mean, I love you guys, but I love my family more.

06:10Will you be doing any events, whether in Oklahoma or with other senators around the

06:15country during August?

06:16We have a very busy schedule through August.

06:19Plus, I try to get a little bit of family time before my kids go back to school,

06:26but I think they go back to school the 17th, and my college boys go back to school,

06:31I think, on the 21st or 22nd.

06:33I don't actually know when they go back, actually.

06:34Were you disappointed that Laura Trump decided not to run in North Carolina?

06:41She'd been a great asset here, but all of us that have a family understand it's very

06:46difficult.

06:47There's a reason why there's only a few of us.

06:48I think there's five or six of us, maybe seven of us now, but that actually have kids,

06:55and it's difficult to actually be a dad or a mom and run the schedule we had to run up here in

07:01the Senate, so I think the family consideration, I haven't talked to her about it, but I bet

07:05you the family consideration played a big role in that.

07:08Are Republicans concerned about Roy Cooper?

07:12I don't know. I haven't looked into him at all. I mean, I would say concern. We'll do opposition

07:18research on everybody, but North Carolina, we always knew it was going to be a battle field.

07:25We expect that still to be true, and we're not going to lose it.

07:28As a former MMA guy, what's the reaction to the Hulk?

07:32I was sick about that. I mean, I was sick about that. I was surprised. I found out about

07:40actually about two hours ago, maybe an hour ago.

07:43I would say like 30, 45 minutes. Yeah, because I kind of had my head down,

07:46taking care of some other stuff, so it hurt me. I grew up with the guy, right? I mean,

07:52I had his little action figures, and I was never a Hulkster, but I might have tore my shirt a few

07:57times pretending to be him. Might have threw a couple of friends over their head, and I might

08:01have got thrown a few times, all of us pretending to be Hulk growing up, so it's kind of hard to see a

08:05dynasty like that leave. Have you met in the RNC and other places? Yeah.

08:09I mean, what does this mean for the cultural loss for Republicans?

08:14People come and go in the world, and it hurts. I think one of the biggest things that I fear

08:19is getting old. I tell my wife all the time, I don't want to die of old age. I want to die of an

08:22accident because it's hard. It's hard to see ones that we grew up with, especially ones we love,

08:29go through something, and I guess if you're going to go, he did his style. He sure didn't suffer.

08:35He went pretty quick, is the way I understood it, so I feel sorry for his family right now,

08:40because that's a big loss, a big hole to anybody that you have with that kind of personality.

08:44When I met him, he was, I don't know if he's on character 24-7 or not, but he was just like what

08:49you see on TV when I first met him, so I thought it was surreal, and his hand was huge.

08:55Thanks for your time. Have a good weekend.

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