Today in Congress, There Were Almost Two Fistfights

This is Totally Normal Quote of the Day, a feature highlighting a statement from the news that exemplifies just how extremely normal everything has become.

“It was a clean shot to the kidneys.” —Rep. Tim Burchett on his Tuesday encounter with former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy

In October, Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett was one of the eight Republicans who voted to “vacate” Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s speakership. It was a somewhat surprising move, given that Burchett is not a member of the attention-seeking far-right Freedom Caucus; he says the vote was a matter of principled belief in fiscal responsibility.

On Tuesday, McCarthy (allegedly) got his revenge while Burchett was speaking with NPR congressional reporter Claudia Grisales, who wrote on Twitter that McCarthy knocked Burchett toward her while passing them in a Capitol hallway. Here’s Burchett describing the incident to CNN’s Manu Raju:

Said Burchett: “Well, I was doing an interview with Claudia from NPR, a lovely lady, and she was asking me a question. And at that time, I got elbowed in the back, and it kind of caught me off guard because it was a clean shot to the kidneys. And I turned back, and there was Kevin.” Burchett went on to describe McCarthy as “a bully with $17 million and a security detail”—likely an allusion to his control over campaign fundraising accounts—and “the type of guy that, when you’re a kid, would throw a rock over the fence and run home and hide behind his mama’s skirt.” He added that such behavior is “not the way we handle things in east Tennessee.”

According to both Burchett and Grisales, the congressman then chased after McCarthy and confronted him, during which the former speaker denied having elbowed Burchett. “It was a little heated, but I just backed off,” said Burchett to CNN. “He kept scurrying, trying to keep people between me and him.”

At about the same time, Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin challenged Teamsters President Sean O’Brien to a fight at a meeting of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions:

“You want to run your mouth? We can be two consenting adults. We can finish it here,” Mullin said before Sen. Bernie Sanders restored order. The history between the two extends back to March, when Mullin accused O’Brien of wasting union members’ money and O’Brien suggested (with some evidence to support his theory) that Mullin’s claim of earning only a $50,000 salary while running his own plumbing business was an accounting trick. O’Brien later called Mullin a “clown” in a confrontational Twitter post, which the senator reads from in the video above.

Finally, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene accused California Rep. Darrell Issa of lacking testicles because he criticized her procedural approach to impeaching Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.

The congressional deadline to pass a continuing resolution that funds the operations of the federal government is Friday.