Republican Nancy Mace to Democrat Jasmine Crockett: Let’s ‘take it outside’

A tense exchange between U.S. Reps. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, and Nancy Mace, R-South Carolina, led the Republican to offer to “take it outside” during a committee meeting Tuesday.

Mace said during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee meeting that Republicans shouldn’t take advice “from a group of people who can’t define what a woman is.” She said there should be “dignity and respect for women” on Capitol Hill, “which is why we should ban men from women’s spaces,” such as bathrooms, locker rooms and dressing rooms.

Mace, in Congress since 2021, has made an attack on transgender rights a political focus, filing bills to limit bathroom use and writing dozens of social media posts last year calling transgender people mentally ill and child predators.

When it was her turn to speak, Crockett shot back.

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Watch: The exchange between Crockett and Mace begins around the 2:25:00 mark:

“I’m so glad that we could finally end that nice little propaganda commercial break,” Crockett said. “Listen, I don’t know what Ms. Mace was talking about. I thought we were talking about government efficiency.”

Crockett said Democrats are ready to work on behalf of the American people, while her colleagues across the aisle seemed focused on targeting the most vulnerable people in the U.S.

“The fact that you just sat up there and somehow figured out how to tie trans folk to your argument makes no sense to me,” Crockett said to Mace. “But let me tell you something: Trans people ain’t going nowhere, just like when the racists wanted to make sure that Black people somehow were going to be dismissed in this country. We ain’t left, either.”

Crockett later offered an amendment to reinstate a Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. She dismissed the notion that civil rights only deal with Black Americans, explaining the term as “a class of rights that protect individuals’ freedom from the infringement by governments, social organizations and private individuals.”

She also defined it as constitutional rights to privacy, due process, voting and worship without discrimination and urged the committee to support her amendment and show the courage of lawmakers who passed the Voting Rights Act in the 1960s.

Mace said she believes in civil rights and civil liberties for all Americans but argued Democrats don’t respect women because the minority party doesn’t want to give women their privacy rights when it comes to transgender people.

“You all want men with penises — chicks with dicks — in the bathroom with us,” Mace said. “You want women to be forced to undress in front of men in the locker room and in dressing rooms.”

Mace said she didn’t want to hear Crockett talk about civil rights “because you can’t find the courage from the ‘60s to fight for women all around America, fight for women like me.”

“As a rape survivor, I shouldn’t have to explain to you why women have rights,” Mace said. “You’re making women feel unsafe in this country, and you’re making the opportunity for women and girls to be raped, to be sexually abused in this country even greater than they’ve ever, ever been. So don’t come over here with your attitude and talk to me about rights when you’re trying to take my rights as a woman, a rape survivor, away.”

“I don’t even know how we got there because I tried to make it clear how many civil rights — it doesn’t just boil down to one conversation,” Crockett said. “But I can see that somebody’s campaign coffers really are struggling right now so she gon’ keep saying trans, trans, trans so that people will feel threatened, and, chile, listen.”

Mace, mistaking Crockett’s use of the expression “chile” as the congresswoman calling her a “child,” immediately interjected.

“I am no child,” Mace said, talking over Crockett. “Do not call me a child. I am no child. Don’t even start.”

As Crockett tried to reclaim her speaking time, Mace, 47, said she’s a grown woman who has broken more glass ceilings than Crockett.

“If you want to take it outside,” Mace added, “we can do that.”

U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., asked Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., if committee rules allow members to incite violence, citing Mace’s comment.

“Hey, I have the First Amendment right to, young man,” Mace countered. “I’m not going to be called a child by any of you.”

She also insisted going outside could be an invitation to have a conversation.

Crockett tweeted from her congressional account one word: “Chile…”

On her campaign account, Crockett called Mace “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…”

Republicans can’t incite violence in Congress but also claim to be the party of law and order, Crockett tweeted.

“Last I checked,” she concluded, “threatening members in a committee room doesn’t exactly reduce the cost of eggs.”

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