Manchin on GOP lawmaker’s suggestion for a duel with female senators: I’ll ‘step outside with him’

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) says he’s up for a duel with a GOP lawmaker who suggested he wanted to challenge female GOP senators to a duel over the party’s ObamaCare repeal plan.

Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas) on Monday raised the idea of dueling the female senators whom he blamed for killing the GOP efforts to repeal and replace ObamaCare by not supporting the bill.

Responding to his comments Tuesday morning, Manchin said, “I’d be okay to step outside with him.”

{mosads}He added that the GOP bill would throw his constituents from West Virginia “out in the cold” and defended ObamaCare, even as he admitted that it is not perfect and needs repair.

Farenthold on Monday said the fact that there are senators who “do not have the courage to do some of the things that every Republican in the Senate has to do is just absolutely repugnant to me.”

The Texas lawmaker targeted female Republican senators specifically and said if they were men from Texas, he would ask them to “step outside and settle this Aaron-Burr style.” Burr is famous for shooting and killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804.

Three female Republican senators have spoken against GOP leadership’s plan to repeal ObamaCare — Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska).