'I'm gonna bite': GOP Senator refuses to back down after challenging witness to fight
Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin (OK) nearly got into a fight with a hearing witness at the U.S. Capitol Tuesday, and he's refusing to back down.
When Teamsters President Sean O'Brien appeared before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing, to review how unions help working families Mullin, who is from a Right to Work state and has long been a critic of unions, offered to fight him on the house floor.
Mullin stood up and began to take off his wedding ring as if he was actually going to battle the Teamsters leader, before committee chairman Bernie Sanders (I-VT) ordered him to act like a senator.
The day that followed the incident, Mullin used the incident to score interviews all over local and national media.
Speaking to one conservative host about jiu-jitsu, Mullin explained, "And by the way, I’m not afraid of biting. I will bite."
"Biting?" the host asked.
"I’ll bite 100 percent. In a fight, I’m gonna bite," Mullin said. "I’ll do anything. I’m not above it. And I don’t care where I bite, by the way."
Speaking to KWTV News9 on Wednesday morning, Mullin was pressed, "Senator, do you understand why people across the country are talking about this? They're being critical of you, saying that this is unbecoming of a senator. I know you said like any place, any time, but was this hearing with Health, Labor, and Education the place and time to have all this heated exchange?
He claimed he would not have done anything differently because "he had been tweeting at me for almost six months." O'Brien has called him out on social media many times, and has called him a "moron," "clown," and "full of s--t."
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Mullin explained he offered the Teamsters leader a "charity fight," where they would battle for cash. He justified the actions by citing former President Andrew Jackson who, he said, "knocked out a guy at the White House for being critical to him in front of his family" in the early 1800s.
Jackson was the president who marched Native Americans from their homes to "Indian Territory," which ultimately created Mullin's state.
Mullin also said that there is blood on the steps of the U.S. Capitol from a fight between an official and a reporter.
"There's a consequence for running your mouth like the way he did, and my — as I go back and, I'll say it again, I'm from Oklahoma. You guys are from Oklahoma. You don't behave that way. You don't act that way. And if I didn't call him out. What would people think of me, too, because you can't just simply say that kind of stuff, and it's not personal to me. I used to get paid to fight. But at the same time I'm going to let a thug and a bully sit there and think you can get away with this?" said Mullin.
Oklahoma critics of Mullin have called him a "redneck thug," noting the way he acted is not the way to behave.
"This is not the first time he has tried to start a fight! He should immediately be removed from this office! He is too violent!" said Kathy Fitzgerald Taylor on Facebook.
"When you can't win an argument with facts and logic, punching is all you got," wrote Oklahoma author Geonn Cannon. "Really says a lot about his lack of character. Also, proof of cowardice, challenging someone to a fight in a situation where you know other people will hold you back. 'Oh, boy, if Bernie Sanders wasn't holding me back right now, I'd give you such a thrashing! You'd be in the hospital, buddy! You're lucky this 82-year-old man is here to stop me.'"
See the video of Mullin in the radio interview and with News9 below or at this link:
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