The Daily Show guest host Leslie Jones took a cue Tuesday from Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), who threatened to fight the president of the Teamsters union during the middle of a Senate hearing, by saying she wanted to square up against three of Mullin’s GOP colleagues: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
Jones first showed a video of the confrontation during a Senate committee hearing titled “Standing Up Against Corporate Greed: How Unions are Improving the Lives of Working Families.”
As Mullin stood up, committee chairman Bernie Sanders (I-VT) tells him to “sit down” and “stop it,” adding: “You’re a United States senator!”
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Jones joked she was looking forward to a physical altercation.
“Bernie, shut up! They was about to fight! I want to see that!” she exclaimed. “But you know what? I knew this dude was trouble from the moment I heard his name, ‘Markwayne,’ all one word. His parents didn’t even love him enough to pick one single name for him. They just shoved two names together and called it a day.”
“‘Calm down, Markwayne,’ isn’t some shit I want to hear on C-SPAN,” Jones continued. “It’s what you hear when you watch an episode of Cops.”
Mullin defended his actions in several television interviews Tuesday night, even suggesting that canings and duels be brought back to Congress. Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, meanwhile, told CNN that the Oklahoma senator—who has a wrestling and mixed martial arts background—was “focused on being a bully.”
Jones said that if senators are getting in dust-ups now, she has her opponents already picked out.
“Is that what America has come to? People fighting in the Senate? Because if it is, I want in! Lindsey Graham, I want you in the ring!” she boomed as applause rang out. “Ted Cruz: bring your weird ass so I can beat your ass!”
And as for McConnell, Jones tried to get his attention: “Mitch! Mitch! Mitch!” she said, snapping her fingers. “Oh, somebody already hit him.”
