OFF THE RAILS: Rand Paul beef with Markwayne Mullin adds surreal layer to bizarre hearing
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Listen to your favorite MSNOW shows anytime as a podcast. Enjoy new episodes of Morning Joe, Deadline White House, and The Rachel Maddow Show. Every small d democratic muscle that we have is flexing. Plus The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, The Beat with Ari Melber, The Weeknight, and more. On the go wherever you get your podcasts. For ad-free listening to all of your favorite shows, subscribe to MSNOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. OK, there was quite a competition from the clown car on Capitol Hill today between the nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security. This guy, you can see him right there, Mark Wayne. Well, we're going to talk about him a lot tonight. And the current director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, on who could be more evasive, more uninformed and really more sycophantic, which may be what it's all about.
And then tonight, we got an unexpected late entrance into that competition from the attorney general. Because Pam Bondi just held a closed-door briefing on the Epstein files that went so badly that Democrats on the House Oversight Committee walked out of it. And they walked out. You can see them on the left there, Congressman Garcia right there. They walked out with steam coming out of their ears. Pretty pissed off. Congressman Maxwell Frost, he was there. He was in that meeting today. He's hustling over to the studio, and he's going to tell us exactly what went down and what happens from here, most importantly. But I do want to start tonight with those two hearings on Capitol Hill today that really, it happens at pretty much the exact same time.
You could have got popcorn out, coffee, snacks, all the things. Tulsi Gabbard testified as part of a Senate intelligence hearing on worldwide threats, just one day, of course, after her top deputy resigned in protest over Trump's war with Iran. So there was that. Now, around the corner, another part of the Capitol, Mark Wayne Mullen was testifying in his Senate confirmation hearing. And that Mullen hearing kicked off with an absolutely bonkers exchange between the DHS nominee and the committee's Republican chairman, Rand Paul. A sort of Republican on Republican nerdy but aggressive food fight. And just to give you a sense of what an unmitigated disaster this was, I want you to watch this moment from Fox News.
When the conservative network gave a play-by-play, they were basically giving a play-by-play, like it was a boxing match, and then abruptly they cut away as soon as the fighting started. I'm going to secure Kentucky and take care of Kentucky. All right.
What is the significance of Markwayne Mullin's confirmation hearing?
So these gentlemen have a history, Dana. Yeah. Quite clear. I have to say, I didn't realize that Rand Paul and Mark Wayne Mullen had this kind of a personal animosity. It seems like Rand Paul is very angry with him. So we'll see where that goes. But in the meantime, we've got another hearing that's about to kick off. Because any moment the nation's top intelligence and law enforcement officials testifying at a Senate hearing on worldwide threats. Boy, this looks like it's getting heated, everyone. Something may be about to happen. Republicans are fighting. Conservatives, cover your eyes. And quick, let's go to the other hearing where perhaps possibly likely nothing is happening. Do you ever watch NFL Red Zone?
It's like the channel that flips between football games happening at the same time to show you the most exciting parts of each game to kind of keep you hooked on the action and keep you watching because they're going to show you the most important plays and the key parts of the game. Well, Fox News was kind of like the opposite of NFL Red Zone today, using the fact that there were two hearings to cut away from the spicier one whenever something interesting actually happened, which was still a tall order for the folks at Fox because, like I said, a lot happened in both of these hearings. So that DHS hearing began with this big fight between the chairman of the committee and the nominee, one that has been, by the way, simmering for a long while now.
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