Majorie Taylor Greene Insults Jasmine Crockett, Sends Oversight Committee Hearing Into Chaos

WASHINGTON — The House Oversight Committee fell into chaos Thursday night after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) made an offhand remark about Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas).

Crockett and Greene got into it almost right away, with Crockett suggesting Greene didn’t understand the purpose of the hearing.

“I think your fake eyelashes are messing up what you’re reading,” Greene said.

An uproar ensued, with Committee chair James Comer (R-Ky.) calling for order, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) demanding the committee “take down” Greene’s words, essentially reprimanding her for insulting another lawmaker.

“That is absolutely unacceptable, how dare you attack the physical appearance of another person,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

“Are your feelings hurt?” Greene said.

Comer soon suspended the hearing for several minutes so lawmakers could confer with their parliamentary experts, and Greene agreed to “strike” her words, but she refused to apologize, and then she and Ocasio-Cortez resumed their back-and-forth.

“Come on guys,” Comer pleaded.

“Why don’t you debate me?” Greene said.

“I think it’s self-evident,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

“Yeah, you don’t have enough intelligence,” Greene responded.

Eventually, after several more minutes of parliamentary arguing, the committee voted to allow Greene to finish her allotted speaking time. But Crockett wasn’t finished.

“I’m just curious, just to better understand your ruling,” Crockett said. “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?”

“What now?” Comer said.

Members started shouting, and eventually Comer called for a five minute recess. After they came back, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Col.), herself one of the most inflammatory Republicans in the House ― but also a foe of Greene ― tried to calm things down.

“I just want to apologize to the American people,” Boebert said. “When things get as heated as they have, unfortunately, it’s an embarrassment on our body as a whole.”

The hearing was supposed to showcase the ongoing Republican effort to hold U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress, but it got off to a late start because several Republicans spent the morning at Donald Trump’s trial in New York, and by the time Comer called the meeting to order, lawmakers might have been crankier than usual.

“I think these 17-hour days might not work for us,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said at one point.