Sen. Markwayne Mullin is unrepentant about his behavior during a congressional hearing on Tuesday when he challenged a Teamster boss to a fight.
Afterwards, he even said that his voters would have been disappointed if he had withdrawn, and that he was willing to use unconventional tactics.
‘I’m not afraid to bite. 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, anyway.”
And he told Fox News that his voters in Oklahoma would have been “pretty angry with me” if he hadn’t backed up his words with action.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin defended his conduct during a congressional hearing on Wednesday when he challenged a Teamster boss to a fight and said his constituents would have been disappointed if he had withdrawn.
He was explaining his extraordinary actions when an angry confrontation with Sean O’Brien, the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, who appeared as a witness before a Senate committee, nearly turned into violence.
The two have feuded on Twitter in the past.
And it wasn’t long before they got back at it after Mullin read a series of critical reports about him that apparently challenged O’Brien to a fight.
“This is the time, this is the place,” Mullin said. “If you want to talk, we can be two consenting adults. We can finish it here.’
O’Brien replied, “I’d like to do it now.”
Mullin replied, “Well, stand up straight then.”
“Stand up straight,” O’Brien said.
As Mullin rose from his chair, Senator Bernie Sanders, who was chairing the session, shouted 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 ring as Senator Bernie Sanders tried to maintain order
“You’ve got your butt up,” O’Brien said as Mullin tried to goad him into a fight
Yet Mullin was unrepentant.
“I’m an Oklahoma man first and foremost, and you don’t do this in Oklahoma. Maybe you say something in New Jersey, I don’t know if I’m not from New Jersey,” Mullin told Fox News host Sean Hannity.
“But this is a mob boss, and you should 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 kidding.
‘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 someone do that and not call them out on it.”
Mullin was a frequent critic of union leaders.
And O’Brien has used X, formerly known as Twitter, to hit back, calling the Republican an “idiot” and “full of s***” after Mullin accused him of harassment at an earlier hearing.
That was the reason for their confrontation on Tuesday.
O’Brien told Mullin: “You challenged me to a cage match, acting like a 12-year-old schoolyard bully.”
They exchanged insults for several minutes and at one point the senator suggested they fight for a good cause
O’Brien instead said they should meet for coffee to discuss their differences.