Sparks flew during Wednesday's confirmation hearing for President Trump's surgeon general nominee, Dr. Casey Means, when Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) called out Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Mullin began calling out what he sees as pure Democratic hypocrisy. Ranking member Sanders had used his opening statement to accuse the Trump administration of spreading misinformation, and Mullin wasn't about to let that slide without a rebuttal.
He reminded the room that Biden's own surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, had been smacked down by the Fifth Circuit Court in 2023 for attempting to censor free speech on social media. "That's misinformation," Mullin said flatly, adding that Sanders had been "completely silent when that took place."
From there, Mullin turned his fire on the Affordable Care Act.
“When we start talking about healthcare not being affordable, the ranking member and I actually agree on that,” Mullin continued. “The problem is you supported the … same tools that got us to where healthcare is unaffordable, because ACA, affordable healthcare, which is completely unaffordable, has risen three times faster than inflation itself. Yet we still support it. Not we, you, the Democrats—“
Sanders couldn't help himself and jumped in: "I support a national healthcare program which will cut the cost of healthcare—"
Mullin cut him off: "I'm sorry, it's my time."
"But you're attacking me," Sanders shot back.
"No, I'm pointing out facts."
Sanders pushed harder: "You're gonna attack me, I'm gonna respond."
Mullin held firm: "I'm pointing out facts. You can say what you want, I'm just pointing out facts."
"No, you're pointing out lies," Sanders snapped.
But he wasn’t. The numbers are the numbers — premiums have risen three times faster than inflation, and Democrats want to keep defending the law they voted for that caused it. He took direct aim at Sanders' doom-and-gloom predictions about Trump and RFK Jr.'s approach to healthcare reform. "How dare they look at a healthcare system that is broken and unaffordable and try to make changes?" he said sarcastically. "But yet the definition of insanity is what? Doing the same thing, expecting different results, so we should just sit here and accept it?"
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He also went after the political class for its reflexive hostility toward asking hard questions about vaccines and autism. "How dare we look into vaccines — to just simply look to see if maybe vaccines may be a partial cause to autism, when it's rising at a rate faster than any country in the nation? How dare us look at science?" The sarcasm was thick. "Science is supposed to be perfect? I thought science was always supposed to be studied."
He even offered a challenge to the Democrats; “Let's look at the healthcare system. We can agree on that one, I just don't wanna socialize it. But we can agree that it is absolutely not affordable. 100% not affordable, yet it was supposed to be affordable. That's what we were sold by Obamacare. So how about we work together and say, ‘Hey, so scrap ACA, admit it doesn't work, admit you guys made a mistake, and let's work at something with President Trump to make affordable healthcare healthy and affordable for everybody.’”
Of course, he didn't expect any takers. "There's zero chance you guys could do that. Zero chance."
After wrapping his remarks, Mullin acknowledged he'd gone long. "Anyways, I ranted too long."
Sanders couldn't resist. "Yes, you did."
"I'm sorry, I didn't ask your opinion on that,” Mullin snapped back.
"Got it!" Sanders quipped.
"And if I cared about your opinion, I would ask you, but I don't care about your opinion. You're part of the system, you're part of the problem. You've been sitting here longer than I've even been alive. This is your problem. You should've fixed this a long time ago. You've been wailing on it so long, what have you been doing?"
MULLIN: “ACA is unaffordable.”
— Markwayne Mullin (@SenMullin) February 25, 2026
BERNIE SANDERS: “You’re attacking me.”
MULLIN: “If I cared about your opinion, I would ask you, but I don’t—you’re part of the problem—because you’ve been sitting here longer than I’ve even been alive!” 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/Ug6ogSwYPr
Ouch.
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