On Tuesday, South Carolina representative Nancy Mace challenged her colleague Jasmine Crockett to “take it outside” in the middle of a House Oversight Committee hearing. You may know Mace from her ongoing attacks on trans rights, which recently included targeting freshman congresswoman Sarah McBride’s ability to use women’s restrooms at the Capitol. And, now, Mace seems to have made another work enemy.
It’s not clear what happened directly before the exchange, which took place at some point during a discussion of Crockett’s proposal to reinstate the House’s civil rights subcommittee. In clips circulating online, Crockett accused Mace of bringing trans issues into the conversation to push her own political agenda. “I can see that somebody’s campaign coffers really are struggling right now,” she said, addressing Mace, “so she’s gonna keep saying ‘trans, trans, trans’ so that people will feel threatened. And chile, listen —”
At that point, Mace cut in to say, “I am no child, do not call me a child, I am no child. Don’t even start. I am a grown woman. I am 47 years old.” She could be heard saying something about having “broken more glass ceilings,” while Crockett spoke over her, and then Mace said, “If you want to take it outside, we can do that.”
After some discussion, committee chair James Comer reportedly ruled that Mace had not been inciting violence against Crockett and claimed she could have been inviting her outside for a “cup of coffee or perhaps a beer.”
Later, Mace wrote in a barrage of tweets that she “wanted to take the conversation off the floor to have a more constructive conversation, not to fight,” claiming that she was “still in physical therapy” after being “assaulted by a pro tr*ns man a few weeks ago.” She also tweeted a clip of herself speaking during the civil rights subcommittee hearing, where she accused Democrat lawmakers of “making women feel unsafe in this country” by allowing “chicks with dicks” into locker rooms and bathrooms. “This is how you shut Jasmine Crockett down the next time she starts in on someone’s rights,” she wrote.
Crockett, who managed to wedge the words “bleach-blonde, bad-built butch body” into a House debate with Marjorie Taylor Greene last year after Greene refused to apologize for insulting her appearance, had some words of her own about the altercation. She recapped what happened on Tuesday afternoon, writing, “Today, I introduced an amendment to reinstate the Oversight Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. My Republican colleague threatened to physically fight me about it. Bless her heart.” She also tweeted, “Chile …”