Washington, D.C. – On Sunday, U.S. Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), joined Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo. The Senator discussed how Chuck Schumer put himself above the American people and the ridiculous games he played with bipartisan nominees. Highlights below. Over the weekend, Senator Mullin also recorded a social media video for Oklahomans breaking down the Trump nominee process and what comes next.
The full interview can be found here.
On Chuck Schumer holding President Trump’s bipartisan nominees hostage:
“So, first of all, we have 61 nominees that have been voted out of the committee to report to the floor that’s got bipartisan support, and President Trump was very engaged for three days with myself and a few other members negotiating, really, the hostage release. I hate to say it that way, but that’s what it is because President Trump’s the first president in history not to be able to have one single nominee go through by UC, that’s unanimous consent, or by a voice vote.”
On President Trump telling Schumer to go pound sand:
“So, we’re trying to break the logjam… And then they kept dropping the number of nominees to the point where President Trump, late last night, just said go pound sand. We’re not doing this anymore. He’s not going to hold the American taxpayer hostage for Chuck Schumer’s fear to stand up to his base, because that’s what it really is about. He can’t figure out how to sell this because he’s running scared of AOC running against him who could probably beat him in a Senate race in New York.”
On the negotiations with Senate Democrats:
“Well, they wanted something in return, and that is negotiating, right? You negotiate a little bit, but they kept changing their price because they never wanted a deal. Now, keep in mind, none of us wanted to work with the Biden administration but we all do feel like, regardless of who the president is, they have the right to put their people in place. And so, we held our nose in 2021 and actually struck a deal to be able to allow 44 bipartisan nominees to go through underneath the Biden administration. Unfortunately, we thought we was working like the senate is supposed to work.”
“What’s happened now, their hatred towards President Trump, their fear, literally, their fear of their base has kept them from being able to move forward at all. And so, when I say, by the price going up, they kept going. You had Elizabeth Warren, you had Brian Schatz, you had Cory Booker demanding them not to work with Republicans at all. Don’t work with this president. I mean, my goodness, we saw the rant that Cory Booker had just this week against his own colleagues for working with us on a bipartisan manner. So, Schumer kept demanding more, because he knew that he would get to the point where we couldn’t accept it.”
On plans to change Senate rules in September:
“And I’m proud of President Trump… I said, sir, I’m proud that you did this, because we put them on notice and said we’re not going to play games with you anymore. So now you’re forcing us to change Senate rules, which, honestly, in the long run, is the best thing. So soon as we get back through August, we’re going to be working on rules change. When we get back, we’re going to have to implement those rules change.”
On the effectiveness of Leader Thune and Senate Democrats choosing the hard way:
“And I want to compare the difference between where we were at in ’17 to where we’re at today, just because I want to show the leadership and effectiveness of Leader Thune. In 2017, we only had 55 confirmed at this same time, and they weren’t filibustering all of them. Because Thune made it very clear, we can do this the hard way, or easy way, you remember him saying that in the beginning, they chose to do it the hard way. So, the Senate has stayed in more consecutive days than we have in 15 years. We’ve taken more votes than we have in 35 years, and we’ve confirmed 131 people.”
On Chuck Schumer’s ridiculous demands for NIH funding:
“He wanted to award these schools that have taken advantage of the taxpayer dollars, and these very liberal schools too, and so he wanted a high number for NIH money, which was going to be a hard sell. And I think that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. We’re like, nope, we’re done. Sorry. We’re walking away.”
###