CNN and Fox News personalities ripped into lawmakers on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee over Thursday night’s mayhem, where they traded insults and threw the committee into disorder that lasted nearly an hour.
The Thursday night hearing to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress spiraled into chaos as Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) went back and forth after Greene insulted Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) over wearing “fake eyelashes.”
Barbs were thrown around, with several members joining the brouhaha. Eventually, the 24-20 vote passed along party lines.
CNN anchor Kasie Hunt was dumbfounded after watching the highlights and asked a panel of analysts on CNN, “Who wants to take a whack at this?”
“I mean, these are people who are elected,” Hunt said on “CNN This Morning” as she facepalmed.
“Why are these people even acceptable, this is disgusting how they are behaving,” said Meghan Hays, a former aide to President Biden. “They have enough to attack each other on their views. They don’t need to attack each other on their eyelashes and their hair.”
Conservative strategist and Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell followed up, saying the “depressing” development Thursday night is not unusual for the lower chamber.
“It’s not just these three women, I watched the men behave, calling each other names,” Longwell said, referring to the incidents in the lead up to last year’s vote to elect Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as the Speaker of the House. “The House is in absolute chaos and we have been electing a lot of clowns in this country and we are getting a circus.”
On “Fox & Friends,” the hosts laughed and cracked jokes after watching the turmoil during the lower chamber.
“James Comer, like me, I’d never heard the term ‘bleach blonde butch body.’ He goes, ‘You said what now,’ that was the best comeback ever,” host Brian Kilmeade said as his co-hosts, Ainsley Earhardt and Lawrence Jones, burst into laughter.
“Ladies, you got to go this low? Come on,” Earhardt said after summarizing some of the insults the House members threw around.
Jones said the common thread is that both Greene and Ocasio-Cortez are “despised” by their own parties.
“To see them go ahead … was just a moment,” Jones said and later added, “Their parents must be so proud. I mean, to make it all the way to Congress and then act so trashy at a committee hearing.”