- Rep. Nancy Mace has become a polarizing figure among members of the GOP conference.
- A GOP lawmaker texted colleagues a video he said described his feelings about her, WaPo reported.
- The video, made by an attorney-turned-influencer, was called, “How to talk to a Narcissist.”
Rep. Nancy Mace often keeps her GOP colleagues guessing on her next move.
Once a favorite of establishment lawmakers like former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California, the South Carolina Republican voted to oust him in October in a move that stunned many within the GOP conference.
Days before McCarthy’s removal, Mace had voted against a 45-day stopgap spending bill that the then-speaker shepherded through the chamber with the backing of virtually every Democrat. Meanwhile, a little under 60% of the GOP conference supported the measure, which didn’t include spending cuts favored by hardline conservatives. (The eventual passage of the stopgap bill averted a government shutdown.)
A GOP lawmaker was so frustrated with Mace during the process that the individual sent out a link in a group text to a video entitled, “How to talk to a Narcissist,” according to The Washington Post.
Another House GOP lawmaker who was included in the text thread told The Post that the linked video encapsulated his feelings about the high-profile lawmaker.
“I didn’t get her at all, and was lost at sea for a few years, but what [the video] was describing is what we all experienced,” the lawmaker expressed to the newspaper regarding his efforts to engage with Mace on the budget. “[Narcissists] love the drama.”
Mace was one of eight House Republicans who voted with 208 Democrats to remove McCarthy as speaker, which sent the GOP conference into a tailspin. For three weeks, the chamber was without a permanent leader as an array of candidates — including Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, and Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota — tried unsuccessfully to secure the speaker’s gavel.
When many conservatives sought to rally around Scalise, Mace threw cold water on his nomination, telling CNN that she couldn’t “vote for someone who attended a white supremacist conference and compared himself to David Duke.”
Mace’s sentiments stemmed from a December 2014 New York Times report in which Louisiana reporter Stephanie Grace said that Scalise told her he “was like David Duke without the baggage.”
“I think he meant he supported the same policy ideas as David Duke, but he wasn’t David Duke, that he didn’t have the same feelings about certain people as David Duke did,” Grace told the newspaper at the time.
Scalise, in 2014, apologized for his 2002 appearance before Duke’s European-American Unity and Rights Organization, remarking that it was “a mistake I regret.”
Mace, who backed Rep. Mike Johnson’s successful speakership bid, earlier this month praised the Louisiana lawmaker as “a breath of fresh air.”
McCarthy criticized Mace during a CNN interview last week, stating that he doesn’t “think she’ll probably have earned the right to get reelected” in 2024.
Mace’s response: “We’ve moved on to a much better speaker who’s honest and trustworthy and is going to tell the truth.”
Insider reached out to a Mace spokesperson for comment.
