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Washington: The former GOP speaker elbowed one of the Republicans who had voted to oust him. A Republican senator rose to challenge an organised labor leader to a brawl during a hearing. Across the Capitol, the chair of a different panel compared a member of his committee to a cartoon character.
Tensions ran high on Capitol Hill on Wednesday (AEDT), as the marbled corridors of Congress devolved into a backdrop for heated clashes – some of them physical – among lawmakers who are rushing to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the week and salvage their Thanksgiving vacation.
Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy is alleged to have elbowed his colleague in the back, who then chased McCarthy down the hall while shouting at him.Credit: Bloomberg
The fights were the latest display of unruliness from a branch of government that has spent much of the year wallowing in its own dysfunction, only snapping out of it for long enough to narrowly avert a federal debt default and a lapse in government funding. This week appeared to be one of those times – the House was expected to pass a temporary bill that would stave off a shutdown at week’s end – but lawmakers were still behaving badly.
It began when former Speaker Kevin McCarthy had a run-in with Tim Burchett, one of eight Republicans who had voted to oust him from the speakership last month, in the basement of the Capitol. Burchett said he had been speaking with journalists in a hallway following party talks when McCarthy elbowed him in the back, then kept walking.
“It was just a cheap shot by a bully,” Burchett said later. “And then I chased after him. And we had a few words.”
A reporter who witnessed the incident posted an account on social media corroborating the story. But McCarthy denied there was an altercation, telling reporters he had merely been passing by Burchett in a narrow and crowded hallway.
Still, the vitriol of the exchange – Burchett ran after McCarthy calling him a “jerk”, a “chicken” and “pathetic” – reflects the hostility still simmering within the fractious Republican conference. The right-wing anger that led to McCarthy’s ouster continues to rage, while the former speaker and his mainstream allies remain livid that he was removed.
The unravelling of decorum was not confined to the House. Across the Capitol complex at a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin challenged a top labor leader to a physical fight.
Mullin and Sean O’Brien, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, have been feuding on social media. Mullin read aloud one of O’Brien’s posts calling him a “clown” and a “fraud,” and challenging him to a confrontation: “Any place, any time cowboy.”
“Sir, this is a time, this is a place,” Mullin said to O’Brien from the dais. “We can do it here.”
“OK, perfect,” O’Brien responded, adding, “I’d love to do it right now.”
“Well, stand your butt up then,” Mullins, a former mixed martial arts fighter said, rising from his chair and reaching to remove his wedding ring in apparent preparation to throw a punch.
Watch the altercation below
As the two men shouted at each other, independent Senator Bernie Sanders, the chair of the panel, intervened and repeatedly told Mullin to return to his chair.
“You’re a United States senator! Sit down, please,” he said, wagging his finger as Mullin and O’Brien continued to talk over each other from across the hearing room. “Hold it!” Sanders yelled, banging his gavel.
‘This place is a pressure cooker.’
The morning dust-ups carried into the afternoon, as Republican James Comer and Democrat Jared Moskowitz had an expletive-laden shouting match during a hearing of the Oversight Committee called to discuss the personal finances of US President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.
When Moskowitz pointed to reports of Comer’s own financial dealings with family members, Comer called the Florida Democrat, who was dressed in a blue suit and blue tie, a liar, adding, “You look like a Smurf”.
Some Capitol Hill veterans chalked up the silliness to fraying patience among lawmakers who have been asked to work without a break for several weeks in a row, an unusual phenomenon in Congress, where recesses are frequent.
“Today is another example of why Congress shouldn’t be in session for five weeks straight,” Doug Andres, spokesperson for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Weird things happen.”
There are deeper reasons, too.
In the weeks since Speaker Mike Johnson was elected to succeed McCarthy, a proclaimed moment of unity, the same Republican fissures that led to McCarthy’s ouster have erupted back into public view. The temporary spending bill Johnson is pushing, and that the House is set to consider, has none of the spending cuts or policy changes that hard-right Republicans had wanted.
By day’s end Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican who forced the vote to depose McCarthy, had come out against the spending plan – and filed an ethics complaint against the former speaker for the alleged assault on Burchett.
Flaring tempers were clearly on the new speaker’s mind during a news conference when he told reporters, “This place is a pressure cooker.”
He said he hoped quick passage of the spending measure followed by a week away from Washington would do his party good.
“This will allow everybody to go home for a couple of days for Thanksgiving,” he said. “Everybody can cool off.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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