Sen. Markwayne Mullin is unrepentant about his behavior during a Tuesday congressional hearing when he challenged a Teamster boss to a fight.
Afterwards he even said his constituents would have been disappointed if he backed down and that he was plenty ready to use unconventional tactics.
‘I’m not afraid of biting. I will bite,’ said Mullin, 46, a former mixed martial arts fighter during, an interview with ‘Undaunted Life: A Man’s Podcast.’
‘I don’t care where I bite, by the way.’
And he told Fox News that his constituents in Oklahoma would have been ‘pretty upset with me’ if he had not backed his words with action.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin defended his behavior during a Wednesday congressional hearing, when he challenged a Teamster boss to a fight, saying his constituents would have been disappointed if he backed down
He was explaining his extraordinary actions when an angry confrontation with Sean O’Brien, the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, who was appearing as a witness before a Senate committee, almost erupted into violence.
The two have sparred on Twitter in the past.
And it did not take long for them to get into it again after Mullin read a series of critical posts O’Brien had made about him, apparently challenging him to a fight.
‘This is the time, this is the place,’ Mullin said. ‘If you want to run your mouth, we can be two consenting adults. We can finish it here.’
O’Brien shot back: ‘I’d love to do it right now.’
Mullin replied: ‘Well, stand your butt up then.’
‘You stand your butt up,’ O’Brien said.
When Mullin stood up from his chair, Sen. Bernie Sanders, who was chairing the session, yelled at him to sit down and banged his gavel.
‘This is a hearing, and God knows the American people have enough contempt for Congress, let’s not make it worse,’ Sanders said.
Mullin drew himself up to his full height and threatened to fight O’Brien, even removing his wedding band as Sen. Bernie Sanders tried to maintain order
‘You stand your butt up,’ said O’Brien as Mullin tried to goad him into a fight
Yet Mullin was unrepentant.
‘I’m a guy from Oklahoma first, and in Oklahoma you don’t do this. Maybe you run your mouth in New Jersey, I don’t know I’m not from New Jersey,’ Mullin told Fox News host Sean Hannity.
‘But this is a mob boss, and you’re supposed to be intimidated because he’s the boss of the Teamsters.
‘You’re not going to run your mouth at me and expect me to sit there. And you should have seen the fear in his eyes when I stood up, I’m not joking.
‘I’m not looking for a fight, I used to get paid to fight professionally, but I’m not going to sit back and let somebody do that and not call them out on it.’
Mullin has been a frequent critic of union leaders.
And O’Brien has used X, formerly known as Twitter, to punch back, calling the Republican a ‘moron’ and ‘full of s***’ after Mullin had accused him of intimidation during a previous hearing.
That was what sparked their Tuesday showdown.
O’Brien told Mullin: ‘You challenged me to a cage match, acting like a twelve year old schoolyard bully.’
They traded insults for several minutes and at one point the senator suggested they hold a fight for charity
O’Brien instead said they should meet for coffee to talk through their differences.