A House Oversight meeting turned chaotic on Thursday when Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett and Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene threw insults at one another — and even Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez got into the mix.
The hearing — held to discuss holding Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress — got heated after Greene mocked Crockett for wearing fake eyelashes.
Here’s what you need to know about the situation and what’s been said in the days since.
➡️ Who is Jasmine Crockett?
In 2023, Crockett became the U.S. representative for Texas’s 30th Congressional District, which represents portions of Dallas and Tarrant counties. Before her role in Congress, Crockett served in the Texas House of Representatives. She was previously a public defender and later opened her own law firm, where she represented a number of clients, including more than 400 protesters whom she represented pro bono.
🚨 What happened at the hearing? What did Marjorie Taylor Greene say about Crockett?
Republicans are moving ahead with contempt charges against Garland for not complying with subpoenas for audio recordings related to an investigation into President Biden’s handling of classified documents.
On Thursday, Crockett suggested that Greene wasn’t aware of the purpose of the hearing. Greene, the controversial representative for Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, responded to the congresswoman, “I think your fake eyelashes are messing up what you’re reading.”
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer called for order, while Ocasio-Cortez called for the committee to mark down Greene’s “unacceptable” words, as they constituted a personal attack on Crockett. This gives the speaker the chance to withdraw words deemed out of order.
This, however, only led to a more contentious exchange, with Greene retorting: “Are your feelings hurt?”
Ocasio-Cortez fired back: “Oh girl, baby girl. Don’t even play.”
Greene agreed to strike her words, but refused to apologize for them, as the swipes between her and AOC continued. Comer, meanwhile, continued to call for the women to cease. Greene called for Ocasio-Cortez to “debate” her before saying that the congresswoman didn’t have “enough intelligence” to do so.
🗣️ Crockett strikes back
Comer eventually ruled that Greene was not violating House rules with the comment about Crockett’s appearance. Crockett then asked, “I’m just curious, just to better understand your ruling: If someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody’s bleach-blond, bad-built butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?”
The House quickly descended into chaos again, with Comer begging everyone to stop “yelling.”
Democrats then sought to enforce rules to prevent Greene from speaking further, but Republicans voted to allow her to continue. Comer called for a recess to address rule debates and reminded members to maintain “the House’s standard of decorum” upon returning.
💬 Crockett calls Greene’s comments ‘racist’
Crockett made clear she did not approve of Greene’s comments about her appearance in a Thursday post on X. “So MTG wanted to talk about my appearance in COMMITTEE?!” Crockett wrote. “This is what happens when mentally deficient people who can’t read and follow rules or just don’t give a damn… somehow end up in CONGRESS!”
She also called Greene’s comments racist in a Friday interview with reporters, stating that Greene’s words were more of the same from MAGA Republicans.
When asked to clarify, Crockett stated, “A lot of times when I would go viral, instead of them trying to address the things that I laid out in a very factual way, what they would try to do is say, ‘Oh, look at her hair,’ or ‘Look at her nails,’ or ‘Look at her lashes,’ and they would all then associate anything I do as a form of beautification with being quote-unquote ‘ghetto.’”
She added, “I am not the only woman in Congress that wears lashes, and there are women on her side of the aisle that wear lashes as well, as well as hair extensions. But she’s never felt like that was a dig that she needed to take at anyone except for me, a Black woman who sits on the committee.”
🚨 Greene says her remarks were ‘facts,’ not ‘attacks on personalities’
Greene — who is notorious for her outspoken, and often outlandish comments — wrote on X on Friday, “Every single committee hearing. Every single floor speech. Democrats attack, smear, and hurl personal insults against President Trump. Just like Jamie Raskin did in his opening statement last night. How ridiculous is it that the Speaker runs his mouth about decorum when our opposition refuses to follow it at all. AOC isn’t intelligent. Jasmine Crockett has fake eyelashes. These aren’t attacks on personalities. These are just facts.”
Raskin, the top Democrat on the committee, called the situation a “failure of leadership” from Comer.
“When the chairman of the committee declined simply to rule her words out of order, and to have them taken down, as [Ocasio-Cortez] immediately moved to do, when he refused to do that, at that point, it unleashed the chaos in the committee,” he said.
Raskin also said it’s “worth investigating” whether lawmakers were drinking during the hearing on Thursday after Axios reported that Rep. Melanie Stansbury complained that noncommittee members were “drinking inside the hearing room.”
