McConnell Declares It’s Not His Responsibility to Monitor Fellow GOP Members

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., stated on Tuesday that he is not responsible for controlling the behavior of other Republican members of Congress, especially when it comes to physically aggressive behavior.

McConnell expressed that he was unaware of two incidents earlier in the day where GOP lawmakers were involved in aggressive confrontations.

“It’s very difficult to control the behavior of everybody who’s in the building,” he told reporters, according to The Hill. “I don’t view that as my responsibility. That’s something the Capitol Police will have to deal with.”

During a Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing, Chair Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., had to verbally restrain Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., from engaging in a physical altercation with the president of the Teamsters union.

Mullin reportedly jumped to his feet during the committee hearing and challenged International Brotherhood of Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien to turn their social media sparring into a physical confrontation.

“You want to do it now?” Mullin asked, challenging the labor leader. “Stand your butt up then.”

“You stand your butt up,” O’Brien shot back at the senator from Oklahoma.

In an attempt to settle the conflict, Sanders reminded Mullin that he is a United States senator.

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., accused former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., of delivering a kidney shot by elbowing him in the back while he was speaking with reporters.

Burchett was one of the eight Republicans who voted with Democrats to remove McCarthy from the speakership last month.

“I was standing there and McCarthy elbowed me in the back,” Burchett told reporters after the incident.

“I said, ‘Hey, what the heck would you do that for?’ And he acted like, ‘Oh, I didn’t do anything,’ you know, and he’s just, he needs to go home back to Southern California,” Burchett said.