Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin has decried the rise of the Internet hampering the ability of lawmakers to make shady behind the scenes deals with each other on legislation.

He was part of a panel speaking at a conference hosted by the No Labels Party that was attended by Republicans and Democrats, The Federalist reported.

“If you go back and … actually read The Federalist Papers, you’ll understand [the Founders] wanted Congress to be dysfunctional,” the senator said.

“When people say, ‘Why don’t you all get along?’ It was never designed for us to get along,” he said. “It was designed for it to be a thoughtful process and heavily debated so it couldn’t move as fast it moves sometimes.”

The senator went on to say that it was important for lawmakers to make deals “in private” and how the Internet has made that next to impossible.

“The process can be worked out. It’s new, it’s different because of social media, because everything you do constantly leaks and people make the assumption before they get the facts, which is why it’s important when you’re working in groups like this, that … it stays private,” the senator said. “Which is one of the reasons why we meet where we meet. We don’t meet on [Capitol] Hill; we meet off the Hill. We have open conversations because we don’t want the media to get there, and [so] we work with people that we can trust.”

He said that when lawmakers are engaged in negotiations that they not “allow the process to get out yet on what [they’re] working with because social media and … your left media and your right media both jump to conclusions, and it kills the process before … you can even get started.”

The comments came around a week after Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst was hit with a pressure campaign on X to support Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary.