Well, you can’t say that public affairs can’t command voters’ attention — provided, of course, politicians promise a no-holds-barred verbal fray as part of the deal.
Viral footage from a House Oversight Committee hearing on a contempt of Congress resolution against Attorney General Merrick Garland Thursday evening shows Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Democrat Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Jasmine Crockett of Texas trading verbal barbs about their looks and intelligence.
The hearing was ostensibly supposed to be about Garland’s refusal to turn over recordings of President Joe Biden’s series of 2023 interviews with Special Counsel Robert Hur.
However, Greene used the hearing to ask whether “any of the Democrats on this committee are employing Judge [Juan] Merchan’s daughter.”
This has been a sore spot for some Republicans, who have taken note that Judge Merchan’s daughter, Loren Merchan, is a rather prolific Democratic operative whose legislative clients have fundraised some serious bucks off of former President Donald Trump’s hush-money case in Manhattan, which Judge Merchan is presiding over, according to the New York Post.
The judge has imposed a gag order preventing Trump from talking about his daughter, despite the obvious appearance of a conflict of interest.
Crockett demanded that Greene explain “what that has to do with Merrick Garland” and asked her, “Do you know what we’re here for?”
“I think you know what you’re here for,” Greene replied. “I think your fake eyelashes are messing up what you’re reading.”
This exchange prompted a number of prominent Democrats to flip out, none more so than AOC.
Are you satisfied with the job Congress is doing?
“That is absolutely unacceptable!” Ocasio-Cortez shouted at the Georgia congresswoman.
“How dare you attack the physical appearance of another person?” she continued, asking the chair to “move her words down.”
“Are your feelings hurt?” Greene responded.
“Oh girl, baby girl!” AOC hit back. “Don’t even play!”
Greene then challenged AOC to a debate, with Ocasio-Cortez saying it was “self-evident” why she wouldn’t. “Yeah, you don’t have enough intelligence,” Greene hit back.
The Georgia congresswoman agreed to strike her words from the record, but AOC continued to demand an apology.
“We’re not going to do a smarmy apology. She has to actually apologize. And that needs to be up to Ms. Crockett as well,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “It needs to be sincere.”
After the chair of the committee, GOP Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, moved to strike the words, Crockett then launched a personal attack of her own under the auspices of asking what a personal attack constituted.
“I’m just curious. To better understand your ruling, if someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody’s bleached blonde, bad-built, butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?” she said.
“A what, now?” Comer said, adding “I have no idea what you just said.”
WARNING: The following video contains graphic language that some viewers will find offensive.
This video lays out what happened in tonight’s heated exchange in the oversight hearing pic.twitter.com/7QTmpsa1eA
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 17, 2024
This, of course, is a slam on Greene’s appearance, somewhat obviating the need for Greene to apologize. (Not to mention the fact that the use of the word “butch” to describe MTG, a former CrossFit instructor, is more than a little homophobic. But homophobia is OK so long as a Democrat does it, right?)
After Crockett continued to demand clarification, the Post noted, GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida told her to “calm down.”
“No! Don’t tell me to calm down because y’all talk noise and then you can’t take it!” she shot back. “Because if I come and talk s*** about her, y’all gonna have a problem!”
Crockett would later take to social media to go on about “PEOPLE IN GLASS HOUSES!” and “mentally deficient people who can’t read and follow rules.”
So MTG wanted to talk about my appearance in COMMITTEE?!
It’s against the rules to do…
She refused to apologize!
The chairman ruled that it was ok…
AND I asked for clarification about what qualifies as “engaging in personalities”
& basically wanted to know if I could…— Jasmine Crockett (@JasmineForUS) May 17, 2024
So, good to know that she continues to take the high road.
The committee later voted to send the contempt of Congress resolution to the full House — but not before Greene, AOC and Crockett explored both the bonuses and the drawbacks of the Streisand effect.
The Streisand effect, named after the singer/actress and noted Democrat donor Barbra Streisand, is when your actions to try to draw attention away from an issue instead draw attention to it. While this effect is hardly new, Streisand had it named after her when she tried to suppress online photos of coastal erosion in California which showed her mansion. The pictures, hardly viewed before then, became an internet sensation.
In this case, the exchange — otherwise petty, if energetic, chaos — drew attention to two facts.
First, both Attorney General Garland and the Biden administration don’t want Congress to hear the recordings of the president’s interview with special counsel Hur, despite the fact that they’re the source of considerable contentiousness over both whether or not Biden should have been charged with mishandling classified information and whether or not the president has the mental stamina to complete another term.
Second, while it’s not a fact that the media likes to emphasize, the judge in the Trump case — who hasn’t exactly been impartial, even by the low standards of the jurisdiction he presides over — has a daughter who’s a major Democratic operative.
Disagree with the means if you want to; heaven knows MTG has given both Republicans and Democrats enough reasons to do that over the past few months. As for the ends, however, you can’t deny it got results — and that’s almost entirely on AOC and Rep. Crockett. Nice work, you two.
