A congressional hearing devolved into an angry confrontation between a senator and a witness on Tuesday after Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma challenged Sean O'Brien, the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, to "stand your butt up" and settle longstanding differences right there in the room.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the chairman of the Senate panel that was holding the hearing, yelled at Mullin to sit down after he challenged O'Brien to a fight. Mullin had stood up from his seat at the dais and appeared to start taking his ring off.
"I appreciate your demeanor today. It's quite different. But after you left here, you got pretty excited about the keyboard. In fact, you tweeted at me, one, two, three, four, five times," Mullin said, holding up printed out versions of O'Brien's posts on X. Mullin read one of O'Brien's posts aloud, in which he called Mullin a "greedy CEO," a "clown" and a "fraud."
"'You know where to find me. Any time, any place, cowboy.' Sir, this is a time. This is a place," Mullin said, pointing the floor in between the dais and the witness table. "If you want to run your mouth, we can be two consenting adults. We can finish it here."
Mullin read aloud O'Brien's original tweet at the hearing Tuesday: "Greedy CEO who pretends like he’s self made. In reality, just a clown & fraud. Always has been, always will be. Quit the tough guy act in these senate hearings. You know where to find me. Anyplace, Anytime cowboy."
The tweet also said "#LittleManSyndrome" and showed a photo of Mullin at a debate where he was standing on a pedestal at a podium.
The feud between the senator and the union boss began months earlier.
Mullin told O’Brien to “shut your mouth” in a heated exchange during a prior hearing in March.
In a social media post later, in June, O’Brien ragged on Mullin as a “clown and a fraud.”
“Quit the tough guy act in these senate hearings. You know where to find me. Anyplace, Anytime cowboy,” O’Brien wrote on X.
“I don’t have a problem with your differences. But I do have a problem when you can’t respect or trust the individual that’s in front of you,” Mullin said. “I have respect and trust for the other ones. I can trust what we say. I can trust what happens among friends that it will stay among friends. I don’t trust Burchett. … He’s a man that lacks character.”
Burchett confirmed that he was booted from the early-morning workout, saying the senator “berated” and “yelled at him” until he left — which Mullin denied — and that Mullin’s friendship with McCarthy was the main reason.
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