The Republican leader of the U.S. Senate believes unruly behavior among his party's lawmakers — which Tuesday included a former House speaker allegedly issuing a kidney “sucker punch” and a senator challenging a teamster to a fight — is the cops’ problem.
“It’s very difficult to control the behavior of everyone who’s in the building,” minority leader Sen. Mitch McConnell said. “I don’t view that as my responsibility, that’s something the Capitol police will have to deal with.”
In a press conference Tuesday afternoon, McConnell denied he’d heard about the nationally breaking news that former speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was seen to “shove” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), and Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) got testy with teamster Sean O’Brien over tweets.
"Sir, this is a time, this is a place," Mullin told O'Brien in the U.S. Capitol building. "Stand your butt up.”
When a reporter asked McConnell to respond to the reports, McConnell appeared to smile and said, “Frankly I hadn’t heard what you just indicated.”
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The reporter also noted an enraged Rep. James Comer (R-KY) compared Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) to “a smurf.”
CNN reporter Stephen Collinson scorned such Republican antics Wednesday as a joke "on Americans deprived of a serious, functioning government" in a political analysis.
“Some people might see the gravity of global crises – including heart-breaking footage from the Middle East following the horrendous Hamas terror attacks against civilians and the carnage in Gaza wrought by Israel’s response – as a reason for greater seriousness among the nation’s leaders,” Collinson wrote.
“Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, however, suggested that policing the Capitol was beyond even his wily capacity to enforce discipline within his conference.”
