'Concerning': GOP senator grilled by CNN anchor over curious defense of Cabinet nominee
A CNN anchor grilled a Republican senator over his defense of an embattled Cabinet nominee for President-elect Donald Trump;
Kaitlan Collins, host of "The Source" asked Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) on Tuesday night about his fiery defense of Fox News weekend co-host Pete Hegseth, who underwent a contentious nomination hearing earlier in the day to become Trump's Pentagon chief.
"Senator starts bringing up the fact, 'What if you showed up drunk to your job?' How many senators have showed up drunk to vote at night?" he asked his colleagues, to a smattering of laughs. "Have any of you asked them to step down and resign from their job? And don't tell me you haven't seen it because I know you have."
Collins homed in on the accusation and pressed Mullin on whether he wanted to name any senators he's known to drink on the job.
"No and — my whole point was senators on the other side of the aisle was trying to act like they had more morals than Pete Hegseth. And they don't. If you're going to hold someone accountable for their behavior, then hold everybody accountable," said Mullin.
He acknowledged he isn't the "most moral man or the perfect individual."
"I'm absolutely not," he said. "But I wasn't the one calling him out."
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Mullin demanded that lawmakers who want to hold the likely future Defense secretary to that standard hold everyone else to the same standard.
"It's a complete hypocrisy what they were showing," he said.
Mullin then blasted lawmakers for bringing up Hegseth's adulteries.
"There's multiple members of Congress that's had affairs on their wives and they haven't been called to step down," he said.
Mullin also defended questions over Hegseth's qualifications to handle the job, noting the only requirement is that he's a U.S. citizen.
"That's it. Other than that it's the president's choice and the Senate has the right to advise and consent. And he meets the qualifications to be the secretary of Defense," Mullin said.
But Collins grilled Mullin on his initial accusation, noting that senator's showing up to work could prove "concerning" to taxpayers who pay them. To boot, she questioned his statement as a sound defense of Hegseth.
"How is the behavior of a sitting senator a defense of someone who wants to run the Pentagon?" she pressed.
"It's not," Mullin conceded. "What they were saying is he was incapable of doing his job. And Kaitlan what I was trying to get to is, if you're capable of doing your job and you're able to still drink on the job, or late in the evening, then don't tell me that Pete can't. And Pete had already said he's not going to drink but they just kept hammering it."
Watch the clip below or at this link.