Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Marjorie Taylor Greene had a heated exchange Thursday evening during what was supposed to be a contempt hearing for Attorney General Merrick Garland.
The House Oversight Committee had originally been convened to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt for refusing to comply with a subpoena to hand over an audio recording of President Biden’s interview with a special counsel.
The hearing quickly spiraled out of control, with lawmakers bickering with one another. Less than an hour after the hearing was underway, Greene took shots at her Democratic colleague, Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas.
‘Do you know what we’re here for?’ Crockett asked Greene, who shot back: ‘I think your fake eyelashes are messing up what you’re reading.’
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer pleaded for order amid audible groans in the chamber.
Ocasio-Cortez weighed in saying: ‘I do have a point of order, and I would like to move to take down Ms. Green’s words. That is absolutely unacceptable. How dare you attack the physical appearance of another person… move her words down.’
‘Are your feelings hurt?’ Greene asked.
‘Oh girl, baby girl!’ Ocasio-Cortez shot back. ‘Don’t even play!’
Ocasio-Cortez pushed to have Greene’s words ‘taken down,’ which is a procedure to give a speaker the chance to withdraw their words or amend them if they are deemed out of order.
Comer suspended the hearing while lawmakers weighed striking Greene’s words. Ocasio-Cortez could be heard during discussion: ‘No way is that being allowed’ and ‘not today.’
‘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.’
Greene later agreed to strike her words but refused to apologize and insulted Ocasio-Cortez’s intelligence, prompting the Democratic Congresswoman to move to strike those words as well.
Later, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., who pushed for the court clerk to report the words, asked Greene again if she would apologize, to which she responded: ‘You will never get an apology out of me.’
Crockett later reacted to the brouhaha on X.
‘So MTG wanted to talk about my appearance in COMMITTEE?!’ Crockett wrote on X. ‘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!’
The Associated Press contributed to this report.