Mullin says Teamsters chief apologized after confrontation at Senate hearing

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) says Sean O’Brien, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, apologized to him after both drew headlines for challenging each other to a physical fight at a hearing last year.

Mullin told reporters at the Republican National Convention on Thursday that the two met after former President Trump told the senator months back that he wanted the pair to meet once more. 

Recounting the call with Trump, Mullin said the former president told him, “Hey, I just met with Sean. I'd like for you to to meet.”

“His point was he’d liked to bring the unions, the Teamsters, into the Republican Party, and so Sean and I worked out a deal to go sit down at a restaurant to talk,” he said. He added that, when they did meet, O’Brien “stood up and apologized.”

The Hill has reached out to the union for comment.

“He said, ‘Out of all of the people that I should have read their bio on I should read yours and I didn't,’” Mullin, a former MMA fighter, told reporters. 

“And I found it humorous and we sat down and we had a great two-hour conversation. Since then, him and I have talked very often,” he said. “He's a workout fanatic. He's a guy that pulled himself up from his own bootstraps and grew up in a blue collar household.”

While he said he wouldn’t consider him and O’Brien “best friends,” he added that he was happy “to see that he was up there.”

O’Brien delivered remarks at the Republican convention earlier this week. 

“It wasn’t a message that you typically hear at a Republican convention, right?” Mullin said of the remarks. “But he still brought the message and the fact is, he will admit to you that a big chunk, maybe as many as 50 percent of his members, are Republicans.”

Mullin and O’Brien captured national attention last November after the two clashed at a Senate hearing on unions.