A meeting of the House Oversight Committee erupted into chaos when Nancy Mace challenged a Democratic lawmaker to a fight.
The Republican congresswoman, a lighting rod for controversy in recent months, was offended that Jasmine Crockett had called her “child” while criticizing her fixation on anti-trans messaging.
“Somebody’s campaign coffers really are struggling right now,” Crockett said of Mace. “So she can’t keep saying trans, trans, trans, so that people will feel threatened. And child, listen—”
Mace immediately interrupted, yelling: “I am no child! Do not call me a child. I am no child. Don’t even start. I am a grown woman, 47 years old.”
While Crockett tried to continue speaking, Mace kept screaming.
“I have broken more glass ceilings,” Mace shouted over Crockett. “You will not do that. I am not a child. I am not a child. If you want to take it outside.”
Meanwhile, the committee’s chairman, Republican Rep. James Comer, pounded his gavel and repeatedly called for order to no avail.
Shortly after the meeting, Crockett addressed the heated moment on X, writing: “Nancy Mace loved the ‘uneducated’ as Trump calls them. Please explain to me how the same damn Karen that called Cap Police on a child who shook her hand wanted to act like she wanted to fight me?! “ME… the same person who has represented real killers in court. She’s an attention seeking loser who clearly has some fundraising goals to hit… and to be clear that is the only thing that she will hit…
“SN: Republicans incite violence from the highest levels of government & ALSO claim to be the party of law & order,” she continued. “The two cannot be true! Do yourself a favor, decide to require better of your electeds. Last I checked, threatening members in a committee room doesn’t exactly reduce the cost of eggs.”
Meanwhile, Mace addressed the incident in a series of posts on X where she claimed that Crockett wants “to act all high and mighty” and that she was “playing the victim.”
In one post, complemented by a video of their altercation, Mace wrote: “I’m no child. And if I wanted a physical fight, you’d know it. That’s not what this was.
“I won’t be bullied by someone who wants to take away women’s rights while lecturing about civil rights,” she added. “I won’t be bullied by someone who thinks being scared of rape is a ‘fantasy.’ This ain’t political, it’s personal.”
Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost, another member of the committee, took to social media after the hearing to share his perspective on the incident.
“Nancy Mace asked Jasmine Crockett to ‘go outside,’” he wrote on X. ”Chair Comer ruled that threatening violence against another member is okay, as long as it’s in the form of a question! Wild.”
Mace made headlines in November for her successful campaign to ban then-incoming Rep. Sarah McBride, who is transgender, from using the Capitol Hill bathrooms corresponding to her gender identity.
Mace successfully campaigned to prevent transgender people from using the Capitol Hill bathroom corresponding to their gender. / Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images
The Oversight Committee outburst is not the first time that Mace has expressed an openness to violence.
As rioters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Mace reportedly pleaded with her staffers to let her “get punched in the face.”
“She literally begged us to let her leave the office and head to the floor so she could ‘get punched in the face’ and ‘get media attention,’” a former aide for Mace told the Daily Beast in January 2024. “That’s word for word what she requested.”
This is also not the first time that Crockett has clapped back at a fellow representative, having previously thrown a thinly veiled jab at Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene at a House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing in May last year.
After telling Crockett that she thought her “fake eyelashes” were “messing up” what she was reading, the Texas representative took a swipe at Greene by calling her a “beach blonde bad built butch body.”
Crockett even announced her own merchandise line, “A Crockett Clapback Collection,” a few days after the incident, boasting a shirt with her insult toward Greene printed on it as the first item to release.
In another House Oversight Committee hearing in September, Crockett didn’t hold back while criticizing President-elect Donald Trump, coining him as “simple-minded” and “underqualified.”
“This election is the best example of why y’all are so afraid of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion because then you can’t have a simple-minded, underqualified, white man somehow end up ascending,” Crockett said while referring to Trump’s presidential race against Vice President Kamala Harris. “Instead you’ve got to pay attention to the qualified black woman that is on the other side.”
A month later, Crockett went viral again for fiery comments she made on a “Dismantle DEI” bill proposed by Texas Rep. Michael Cloud where the term “oppression” was loosely thrown around by those in favor to describe the diversity policy.
“There has been no oppression for the white man in this country,” Crockett said during the House committee hearing. “You tell me which white men were dragged out of their homes. You tell me which one of them got dragged all the way across an ocean and told that ‘You are going to go and work. We are going to steal your wives. We are going to rape your wives.’ That didn’t happen. That is oppression.”
During a House Oversight Committee meeting, Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, spoke out against the “Dismantle DEI Act,” which could shutter federal DEI offices and programs. Crockett is defending her speech after it went viral on both sides of the debate.
Posted by USA TODAY Video on Friday, November 22, 2024
“It is white men on this side of the aisle telling us, people of color on this side of the aisle, that y’all are the ones being oppressed, that y’all are the ones being harmed. That is not the definition of oppression,” she continued.
Crockett later clarified in a post on X that she didn’t want to “bring race into anything” while discussing the DEI bill but claimed “THEY DID & always do & then they twist history & dilute the definition of words.”
