Fox’s Chad Pergram Reminds Viewers of That Time Markwayne Mullin Almost Came to Blows With a Witness

Fox News’s Chief Congressional Correspondent Chad Pergram joined America Reports on Thursday to discuss the breaking news that President Donald Trump had fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and replaced her with Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK).

“Thanks so much for letting you gather some more information. Chad Pergram joining us now from Capitol Hill. He’s got more on the Senator and his qualifications to be Homeland Security Secretary, Chad,” began anchor John Roberts.

“Well, you have to think about somebody who would be confirmed in the Senate. And usually the Senate looks at people who are one of their own, somebody who is known, even if you disagree with their policies, as somebody who’s pretty confirmable,” Pergram replied, adding:

That we don’t know yet. Chris Coons, the Democratic Senator from Delaware just a couple of moments ago, I said when he was asked about Markwayne Mullin and whether or not he thought he could do the job, he said, “We’ll see,” but he said it would be hard, you know, to do any worse basically than Kristi Noem, at least in the eyes of Chris Coons.

This is something where this is going to be a safe seat in Oklahoma where they could appoint somebody. You know, you’re not going to change the vote matrix in the Senate there. It’s going to be a Republican. And they’re not going to have any problems probably getting re-elected in a special election or whatever they would have to do, but they have to get through that process of confirmation.

You might remember that really for quite a period during the second part of President Trump’s first administration that they had acting Homeland Security Secretaries. And I think at the end of the day we’ll look back at those two hearings in both the Senate and the House of Representatives the past couple of days on Capitol Hill as not even the—the camel that broke—uh, the straw that broke the camel’s back, but kind of a hammer. I mean, I mean, it was pretty obvious to some people on Capitol Hill that Kristi Noem was probably living on borrowed time. But again, Markwayne Mullin, who is somebody close to the President, he’s somebody who is dialed in closely with the Senate Republican leadership and, you know, it would not be surprising to me to probably have a couple of Democrats who might vote for him because they like him personally and they view him as an honest broker. He’s somebody who has worked across the aisle.

However, you might have some people who question his temperament. You might remember a couple of years ago where there was a witness—you know, a labor union witness testifying—and he challenged him to a fight. Markwayne Mullin is a former MMA fighter, and he actually took his wedding ring off and jumped across the dais as though he was going to fight him. And, you know, they restored order, and Bernie Sanders, who was the chairman of the committee, admonished Mullin. So that might be a strike against him. But again, generally, I want to come back to people who are in the Senate. They’re usually people who they can confirm without too many problems. And keep in mind, they don’t have to get 60 votes to break a filibuster on a high-level nomination like this for a cabinet secretary. They just need a simple majority, the way they changed the Senate precedent several years ago, guys.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.

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