Oooh, Cage Fight! Or, the Great Mullin-Paul Confirmation Faceoff

“What is so appealing to men about a cat fight?” Elaine asked on a famous episode of Seinfeld. Just the use of the term is enough to make her friend Kramer stop in his tracks and exclaim, “Oooh, cat fight!”

Last week, instead of the female hair-pulling contests that, Elaine noted in exasperation, turn on so many men, our nation’s capital was transfixed last week by a male variant involving two U.S. Senators from the same party: Rand Paul of Kentucky and Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, the Trump Administration’s nominee to replace the late, unlamented Kristi Noem (nom de guerre “ICE Barbie”) as Homeland Security Secretary.

Trust me, I have seen more examples than I’d like of heated confrontations between our nation’s representatives and individuals testifying before them, but nothing even remotely like this.

Yes, it’s the Capitol Hill answer to the cage fight, those Ultimate Fighting Championships, with contests unapologetically brutal, in an enclosed area to prevent participants from going out of bounds.

Mullin first came across the radar screen of many of us in 1923, when he sparred at a Senate committee hearing with Teamsters head Sean O’Brien, challenging him to “stand your b—t up” over a social media post. Matters got so heated between the two that Senator Bernie Sanders, the panel’s chair, had to remind the two would-be gladiators to maintain Senate decorum. (Nice to know that the two men have apparently since reconciled.)

Senator Paul brought up that exchange in his own face-off with Mullin, and added to it. The background to this—and the resulting anger and bitterness on Paul’s part—are worth quoting in full:

Paul: Senator Mullin, if you have time to listen, you were confronted by constituents that were angry because you voted against my amendment to stop all funding for refugee welfare programs. Instead of explaining your vote to continue these welfare programs for refugees, you decided to transfer the blame. You told the media that I was a freaking snake and that you completely understood why I had been assaulted. I was shocked that you would justify and celebrate this violent assault that caused me so much pain and my family so much pain. I just wonder if someone who applauds violence against their political opponents is the right person to lead an agency that has struggled to accept limits to the proper use of force.

You might argue you were mad and upset about being confronted by your constituents, but Senator Mullin, your constituents are justifiably upset with you. By now, most of America knows that the Somali welfare fraud in Minnesota stole over $9 billion. But instead of defending your vote, you took to continue the vote to continue these refugee welfare programs, you chose to lash out at me. You went on to brag that you had already told me to my face that you completely understood and approved of the assault. Well, that's a lie. You got a chance today. You can either continue to lie or you can correct the record.

You have never had the courage to look me in the eye and tell me that the assault was justified. So today you'll have your chance. Today I'll give you that chance to clear the record. Tell it to my face. If that's what you believe, tell it to me today.

Tell the world why you believe I deserve to be assaulted from behind, have six ribs broken, and a damaged lung. Tell me to my face why you think I deserved it. And while you're at it, explain to the American public why they should trust a man with anger issues to set the proper example for ICE and Border Patrol agents. Explain to the American public how a man who has no regrets about brawling in a Senate committee can set a proper example for over 250,000 men and women who work at the Department of Homeland Security.

Did Mullin apologize, let alone “explain,” as Paul demanded? See what you think.

Mullin: I think everybody in this room knows that I'm very blunt and direct to the point and if I have something to say, I'll say it directly to your face. If you recall back in your back in my house days, we actually did have this conversation because of remarks that I made. You were in a room. I simply addressed that I said I could understand because of the behavior you were having that I could understand why your neighbor did what he did. As far as my terms, the snake in the grass, sir, I work around this room to try to fix problems. I've worked with many people in this room. Seems like you fight Republicans more than you work with us. I did address those remarks. I did explain your gimmicks by the amendment you put forth. And as far as me saying that I invoke violence, I don't think anybody should be hit by surprise. I don't like that. But if I do have something to say, everybody in this room knows. I'll come straight to you. I'll say it publicly and I'll say it privately, but I'll never say it behind your back. So for you to say, I'm a liar, sir, that's not accurate. And I got proof to say that because you have spent millions of dollars in my campaigns against me because we just don't get along.

However, sir, that doesn't keep me at all from doing my job. I can have difference of opinions with everybody in this room, but as Secretary of Homeland, I will be protecting everybody, including Kentucky, as much as I will my own backyard in Oklahoma. It's bigger than the partisan bickering that we have. It's bigger than the political differences we have. The truth is I have a job to do and I don't like to fail at anything at all. So I can set it aside if you're willing to set it aside. Let me earn your respect. Let me earn the job. I won't fail you. I won't back down from a challenge.

You have to ask, as MS-NOW’s Joe Scarborough did: Why didn’t Mullin just apologize? 

He was certainly risking his confirmation, as demonstrated by Paul’s committee vote against forwarding the nomination to the full Senate. Mullin was lucky to squeak by in committee, courtesy of a “yea” vote by (take your pick) maverick/renegade Democratic Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. Despite their experience with this feisty colleague, the Senate approved the nomination last night, 54-45.

It’s just another example of Congress letting Trump having his way with them. Back in 1989, the Senate rejected one of their own (and the hoary tradition of “senatorial courtesy” with it), John Tower. But Mullin is not even the worst nominee that Trump has sent up to Capitol Hill. All the President’s major nominees have been confirmed. Why should Mullin be any different?

Mullin is an example of a notable trend of the second Trump term: facho, or fake macho. As the Iranian War began, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth vowed “No stupid rules of engagement,” before a US military-guided weapon struck school building, killing 168 people, including over 100 children. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. went shirtless with Kid Rock in a bizarre workout video.

Not to be outdone, Mullin glories in his past as an undefeated professional mixed martial arts fighter. Like his new boss, he doesn’t so much stand his ground as dirty the ground beneath him. He sees an apology as groveling rather than a grace note and confuses rudeness with candor.

No question: cage fights like Mullin’s make for great spectacles. They don’t make for good, let alone great, government.

Quote of the Day (J. William Fulbright, on ‘The Arrogance of Power’)

“The ‘arrogance of power’…[is] a psychological need that nations seem to have to prove that they are bigger, better or stronger than other nations. Implicit in this drive is the assumption that the proof of superiority is force—that when a nation shows that it has the stronger army, it is also proving that it has better people, better institutions, better principles—and, in general, a better civilization.”—J. William Fulbright (1905-1995), U.S. Senator from Arkansas and chair, US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, “Address Delivered at Johns Hopkins University,” May 5, 1966

In 1966, unable to receive straight answers from the Johnson Administration about the course of the Vietnam War, J. William Fulbright helped give wide public currency to a phrase that had been gaining traction among Washington observers: a “credibility gap” covering the distance between what officials said and the reality on the ground.

In the decades since then, presidents and their advisers have certainly trimmed the truth. But aside, perhaps, from the Watergate era, I’m not sure that “credibility gap” has been used much. It is certainly time to bring that phrase back, as well as another one that Senator Fulbright popularized: “the arrogance of power.”

In Lyndon Johnson’s college days, biographer Robert Caro revealed, the future President’s friends nicknamed him “Bull Johnson” because, as one classmate said, he “just could not tell the truth.” But LBJ’s mendacity has been exceeded thoroughly by Donald Trump, who can barely move his lips without uttering an untruth.

Trump’s secret sauce as a liar? Lie so fast, so often, so much, without fear that one day’s statement might contradict an earlier one, that it will be impossible to keep up and eventually inure the public to what he says.

Trump voters could console themselves, based on the lack of new military commitments abroad in his first term, that his deceptions were at least not putting service personnel at risk. That assurance is now gone.

Trump’s credibility gap is a necessary precondition for aggrandizing not just America’s power but his personal sway. He couldn’t get the correct synonym for the invasion of Iraq (it’s “incursion”), but for him it might as well be an “excursion,” a holiday from history and truth.

Throughout these first few weeks of the war, it’s been bad enough that he hasn’t been able to offer a consistent rationale for the invasion, but he simply lied about the nature of the threat posed by Iraq. While it was true that Iraq’s stockpile of weaponry posed a threat to Israel, it in no way endangered the United States.

The “arrogance of power” and “the credibility gap” have particular consequences in matters of war and peace, not only because of lives endangered but also because of violations of international law that endanger order between and even within nations through shredding human rights. (See, for instance, Marc Weller’s mid-January analysis for the London-based think tank Chatham House, which explains why, despite Trump’s second-term disregard for the concept, without international law, “The aim of predictable and stable relations, and clear pathways for international transactions, would be destroyed.”)

In his book The Arrogance of Power, Fulbright offered a defense of international law that has, sadly, been forgotten over the past decade:

Law is the essential foundation of stability and order both within societies and in international relations. As a conservative power, the United States has a vital interest in upholding and expanding the reign of law in international relations. Insofar as international law is observed, it provides us with stability and order and with a means of predicting the behavior of those with whom we have reciprocal legal obligations. When we violate the law ourselves, whatever short-term advantage may be gained, we are obviously encouraging others to violate the law; we thus encourage disorder and instability and thereby do incalculable damage to our own long-term interests.

Song Lyric of the Day (Gilbert and Sullivan, on ‘Little Errands for the Ministers of State’)

“Oh, philosophers may sing
Of the troubles of a King;
Yet the duties are delightful, and the privileges great;
But the privilege and pleasure
That we treasure beyond measure
Is to run on little errands for the Ministers of State.”— “Rising Early in the Morning," from The Gondoliers: or, The King of Barataria (1889), libretto by W.S. Gilbert (1836-1911), music by Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900)

The image accompanying this post shows Rutland Barrington and Courtice Pounds as Giuseppe and Marco, the title characters in the 1889 production of The Gondoliers. 

Times have changed greatly since then, but it seems like all over the world, there’s still no shortage of people ready to run “little errands for the Ministers of State.” Only they're called bureaucrats rather than gondoliers.

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Mary Karr, on Prayer ‘In Times of Pressure or Anxiety’)

“In times of pressure or anxiety—like when Mother was dying—I’ll do a daily rosary for everybody. Or I’ll light candles and climb in the bathtub, try to put my mind where my body is—the best prayers are completely silent. Otherwise, I do a lot of begging. I just beg, beg, beg, beg like a dog, for myself and those I love. And I do the cursory, ‘If it’s your will . . .’ but God knows that I want everything when I want it…. The real prayer happens when I’m really desperate, like when I was going through a period of illness last year. Amazing what power there is in surrender to suffering. Most of my life I dodged it, or tried to drink it away—'it’ being any reality that discomfited me.”—American poet, songwriter, essayist, memoirist—and Roman Catholic convert—Mary Karr, “The Art of Memoir No. 1,” interviewed by Amanda Fortini, The Paris Review (Winter 2009)

Quote of the Day (Len Deighton, on What Led Him to Write Spy Fiction)

“I was 10 when World War II started. My parents were servants. We lived in a tiny mews house in central London. Our neighbor Anna Wolkoff was the daughter of a czarist admiral. We knew her. My mother sometimes cooked for her dinner parties. I remember her arrest, late at night. The police came. I watched out the window with my parents. We learned she was a spy. Antisemitic. A Nazi sympathizer. My dad fought the Germans in the trenches in World War I. In 1939 he commanded a civilian first-aid post. Anna’s betrayal had a profound effect on my family.”—British novelist Len Deighton (1929-2026), quoted in “By the Book: Len Deighton,” The New York Times Book Review, June 25, 2023

Like fellow spytale spinner John le Carre, Len Deighton—who died earlier this week—found in the genre a vehicle for exploring his childhood memories of trauma. In le Carre’s case, the trauma was inspired by his con man father, a cause of such embarrassment to the son, even into middle age, that it inspired his novel A Perfect Spy.

For Deighton, as indicated by the quote I’ve used, personal betrayal and the trauma it came from Anna Wolkoff. I couldn’t read about her case without seeing this as a British version of the spy-next-door cable drama of the 2010s, The Americans, starring Keri Russell.

Deighton might be known best for several espionage trilogies (e.g., the “Harry Palmer” books and the so-called “Game Set Match” sequence) that, like le Carre, de-romanticized the business of spycraft set out in Ian Fleming’s James Bond tales.

But the nightmare possibility created by Wolkoff—what if she and others like her had helped pave the way for a Nazi takeover of Britain?—may have inspired his 1978 foray into speculative fiction, SS-GB.

That novel is part of a small but intriguing genre of alternative history in which the Nazis remained in control of Europe, including:

*The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick;
*Fatherland, by Robert Harris; and
*Dominion, by C. J. Sansom.

Quote of the Day (Keith Richards, on How Records Represented ‘The Emancipation of Music’)

“I’ve learned everything I know off of records. Being able to replay something immediately without all that terrible stricture of written music, the prison of those bars, those five lines. Being able to hear recorded music freed up loads of musicians that couldn’t necessarily afford to learn to read or write music, like me. Before 1900, you’ve got Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Chopin, the cancan.  With recording, it was emancipation for the people. As long as you or somebody around you could afford a machine, suddenly you could hear music made by people, not set-up rigs and symphony orchestras. You could actually listen to what people were saying, almost off the cuff. Some of it can be a lot of rubbish, but some of it was really good. It was the emancipation of music. Otherwise you'd have had to go to a concert hall, and how many people could afford that?”—English rock ‘n’ roll guitarist and songwriter Keith Richards, Life (2010)

Movie Quote of the Day (‘Woman of the Year,’ As a Sportswriter Introduces His Date to the Game of Baseball)

Tess Harding [A sophisticated foreign correspondent played by Katharine Hepburn]: [In the stands at a major-league ballpark, observing the large crowd in attendance] “Are all these people unemployed?”

Sam Craig [A sportswriter, played by Spencer Tracy]: “No, they're all attending their grandmother's funeral.”— Woman of the Year (1942), screenplay by Ring Lardner Jr., Michael Kanin, and John Lee Mahin, directed by George Stevens

A lovely hat that Miss Harding is wearing, isn’t it? Except that it blocks the view of the large, angry-looking fellow behind her.

Oh, well—with the help of Sam, she’ll learn about not just the balls and strikes that affect the players, but appropriate attire for spectators like herself!