Senator Mullin Responds After Heated Exchange With Union Leader

Oklahoma’s junior United States Senator is defending his actions one week after comments he made during a hearing on organized labor led to a fiery exchange with one of the witnesses and grabbed national headlines.

In an interview in his Capitol office Wednesday, Senator Markwayne Mullin said three of the witnesses on the panel, each the head of a large national union, were using the hearing to -- he said, unfairly and wrongly –– paint CEOs in the private sector as greedy bullies.

Then it was his turn to talk.

"You talk about CEO's that are making all this money...and what do you make, Mr. O'Brien?" Mullin asked Sean O'Brien, General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

"Well, I'm glad you asked that question," O'Brien began. But before he could continue, Mullin cut him off: "Yeah, I know what you make."

Senator Mullin then stated that records show O'Brien's salary in 2019 was $193,000, while some workers he represents -- starting UPS 'Feeder' drivers -- average $35,000 annually.

O'Brien said that was not accurate, but Mullin said O'Brien needed to check his facts.

"I wanted to prove their hypocrisy." Sen. Mullin (R-OK) said in an interview Wednesday, one week after the exchange.

Sen. Mullin repeated what he said at the hearing that he is not 'anti-union', stating that he has good relationships with unions in Oklahoma and that many have endorsed him in his campaigns over the years.

But he said, at hearing where the majority was praising the efforts of unions, he wanted to "set the record straight" and told of how unions harassed and intimidated him and his employees when he was building a successful plumbing company.

"What is wrong with giving an employee a choice?" Mullin asked, "If they don’t have a choice, then that means you’re bullying them to make them join a union."

Mullin then challenged O'Brien to cite one instance where he had actually created a job.

"You're out of line, man," O'Brien responded.

"Don't tell me I'm out of line," Mullin shot back and then told O'Brien he needed to "shut his mouth."

"When the Teamsters boss wanted to start running his mouth the way that he did, you could obviously see immediately his tactics, what type of guy he is," Mullin explained.

With each man talking over the other, the hearing was threatening to completely break down, but Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), gaveled it back to order, ordering Mullin to give O'Brien a chance to respond to his questions.

"The fact is that I control the time," Mullin said, "[the witness] doesn’t control the time, it’s my time. I didn’t give him my time and that’s when Bernie Sanders wanted to pipe in."

Mullin feels Sanders could have handled the situation better and said the fact that the Vermont Senator called out Mullin's behavior but not the behavior of the Teamsters boss doesn't surprise him, given his "socialist leaning."

"It’s unfortunate that he’s actually chairing the labor committee because he’s biased in every aspect of it," Mullin said.