What GOP Lawmakers Were Up to Today: Shoving, Chasing, and Threatening to Brawl

The historic humiliations of Kevin McCarthy and his colleagues continue.

Tom Williams/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

As House Speaker Mike Johnson makes progress in his first test to avoid a government shutdown, his predecessor, the historically humiliating Kevin McCarthy, is being accused of shoving a fellow congressman in a “clean shot to the kidneys.”

The alleged altercation, as witnessed by an NPR reporter, sparked a chaotic chase down the halls of Congress on Tuesday, with McCarthy’s target, Tenessee Rep. Tim Burchett, one of the eight Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy from the speakership last month, reportedly shouting at the former speaker that he has no “guts.”

“He is a bully with $17 million and a security detail,” Burchett told CNN. “He is the type of guy that when you are a kid, he would throw a rock over the fence and run home to hide behind his mama’s skirt.”

The incident, exceedingly juvenile and yet shocking, is the latest entry into Congress’ workplace hostilities—conflicts that would surely, in nearly all other professional environments, prompt swift dismissals. But even for Congress, a body of government that continues to tolerate the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene, physical altercations like the one involving McCarthy and Burchett are relatively rare. (McCarthy has since denied that it was intentional. You can read Grisales’ account above and judge for yourself.) Yet, they’re emblematic of a larger rot plaguing Congress thanks in part to lawmakers—overwhelmingly Republicans—who shitpost with abandon and take to CrossFit videos to rail against policies they don’t support. Consider that McCarthy’s incident wasn’t even the only violent threat on the Hill today. 

“This is a time, this is a place. We can be two consenting adults. We can finish it here,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a former mixed martial arts fighter, told Teamsters president Sean O’Brien at a Senate hearing, in what appeared to be a challenge to a physical fight.

“You want to do it now? Stand your butt up then,” Mullin continued before Sen. Bernie Sanders interrupted, reminding Mullin that he was a US senator.

As Yale historian Joanne Freeman told Mother Jones in 2019, this blend of toxicity and strange machismo isn’t exactly new; Congress has a long history of violence, even murder. And much of these antics go back to lawmakers believing that their constituents want to see their elected officials threatening violence, which certainly resonates in our Trumpian times. As for McCarthy, the California Republican might be out of the speakership, but the doom loop of humiliation never ends.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate