Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., suggested on X this weekend that journalists would write “less false stories” if violence were still used to handle disputes.
In the video, posted early Saturday, Mullin is in the Capitol and recounts how a reporter shot and killed Rep. William Taulbee there in 1890 a year after the Taulbee left office.
“There’s a lot we can say about reporters of the stories they write, but I bet they would write a lot less false stories — as President Trump says, ‘fake news’ — if we could still handle our differences that way,” Mullin says.
After The Oklahoman published a story about his comments, Mullin criticized it publication on X and indicated he had been joking.
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Mullin, a former MMA fighter, has made headlines for nearly getting into a physical fight in 2023 with the president of the Teamsters union, Sean O’Brien, during a Senate hearing. As the men got into a verbal altercation, Mullin told O’Brien to “stand your butt up” and stood up as Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., shouted at him to “stop it.”
