A Jab at Fake Eyelashes Derailed a Congressional Meeting
It’s not every day that comments about fake eyelashes make their way onto the floor of the House of Representatives. On Thursday night, lawmakers reached a new low when Marjorie Taylor Greene made a jab about Jasmine Crockett’s eyelashes, causing the session to devolve into chaos.
The nation’s leaders were supposed to be debating whether or not Attorney General Merrick Garland should be held in contempt for refusing to turn over recordings of President Joe Biden’s interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur when Greene responded to a question from Crockett with an insult. “I think your fake eyelashes are messing up what you’re reading,” the far-right Georgia representative told Crockett, a Democrat from Texas. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was leading the session, moved to strike Greene’s comment from the record and asked her to apologize to Crockett, saying, “That is absolutely unacceptable.” Ocasio-Cortez added: “How dare you attack the physical appearance of another person?”
In response, Greene asked AOC, “Are your feelings hurt?” and later said, “Why don’t you debate me?” When Ocasio-Cortez responded, “it’s pretty self-evident,” Greene then told AOC, “You don’t have enough intelligence.” Greene finally agreed to have her comment about Crockett struck from the record, but was adamant about not apologizing, saying, “You will never get an apology out of me.”
House Oversight Committee chair James Comer eventually ruled that Greene’s comment didn’t break the House’s rules about personal attacks. Crockett then asked for clarification on the rules: “I’m just curious, just to better understand your ruling. If someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody’s bleach-blonde, bad-built butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?” Things went off the rails from there, with Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican from Florida, telling Crockett she was “out of control” and needed to “calm down.” “Don’t tell me to calm down,” Crockett said. “If I come and talk shit about her, y’all gonna have a problem.”
After an hour-long delay over the drama, the lawmakers went back to their original debate, ultimately voting along party lines to hold Garland in contempt.
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