Teamsters President Sean O’Brien said in a Thursday interview that if he were to meet with Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), he hopes it would be civil, but that he would still likely wear his football equipment.
“I have no problem sitting down with anybody. I would have no problem sitting down with Senator Mullin. I will wear my football equipment because I don’t want to get bit, shot — or caned, for that matter. So I will have to protect myself,” O’Brien said in an interview with Fox News’s Neil Cavuto, noting they both have a history playing football.
O’Brien’s comments come after his feud with the Oklahoma senator reached a tipping point earlier this week, with Mullin challenging O’Brien during Mullin’s testimony in a hearing room.
When Cavuto pressed O’Brien to accept some blame for the escalation, O’Brien said, “Well, look, first off, I mean, that’s a setting that that should never occur.”
Cavuto cut in to ask whether he would have engaged with O’Brien, had other lawmakers not jumped in to stop the escalation of threatening rhetoric.
“If he jumped over the dais and put myself or anybody that was with me at risk, obviously, we do have a right to defend ourselves,” he said, stressing, “That is clearly not the objective moving forward for me.”
While O’Brien said he has not talked to Mullin and that there is no coffee meeting planned, he’ll “sit down and have coffee with anybody, despite his rhetoric and his violent tendencies.”
“Obviously, he has some issues that he probably should be dealing with,” he added. “But my issue is dealing with, you know, how we improve America, how we work together. And how we move forward from our differences.”
Mullin’s office signalled the senator was open to a meeting too. “Our favorite keyboard warrior can Google our office address anytime, anyplace,” a Mullin spokesperson told The Hill.
Updated: Nov. 17 at 10:57 a.m.