A heated exchange kicked off between two US representatives at a House Oversight Committee meeting, with one asking the other if she wanted to “take it outside”.
Nancy Mace and Jasmine Crockett clashed during a discussion about civil and transgender rights on Tuesday as Texas Democrat Ms Crockett criticised Ms Mace’s rhetoric about transgender people.
Addressing South Carolina Republican Ms Mace, who has made controversial comments about trans rights, Ms Crockett said: “I can see that somebody’s campaign coffers really are struggling right now.
“So [Ms Mace] is gonna keep saying ‘trans, trans, trans, trans’ so that people will feel threatened, and child, listen…” Ms Crockett said before Ms Mace interrupted.
“I am no child, do not call me a child, I am no child,” Ms Mace said, prompting committee chair James Comer to unsuccessfully call for order.
“If you want to take it outside, we can do that,” Ms Mace said, addressing Ms Crockett.
Republican Maxwell Frost tried to defend Ms Crockett, suggesting Ms Mace had incited violence against her.
After some discussion, Mr Comer ruled that Ms Mace’s remark had not been a call to violence, saying she could have been asking Ms Crockett to go outside to “have a cup of coffee or perhaps a beer”.
Ms Mace later shared a video of the exchange on X, saying she “went the f*** off” at Ms Crockett, but denied she was challenging her to a fight.
She added in a later post: “I’m no child. And if I wanted a physical fight, you’d know it. That’s not what this was.”
Another of her tweets said: “Let me be clear: I wanted to take the conversation off the floor to have a more constructive conversation, not to fight. At no point was there any intention of causing harm to anyone.”
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Ms Crockett said on X that she had been threatened, and she called Ms Mace “an attention seeking loser who clearly has some fundraising goals to hit”.
“And to be clear that is the only thing that she will hit,” she added.
Ms Mace has been criticised by the trans community after proposing a ban on transgender people using the US Capitol toilets that match their gender identity in November – just after Sarah McBride became the first openly transgender person elected to serve in Congress.
She later said the proposal, which was enacted by House Speaker Mike Johnson, was “absolutely” meant to target Ms McBride.