House Republicans Descend Into a Flame War of Open Letters and Obscene Tweets

Matt Gaetz and Nancy Mace are running out of friends.J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.Things are getting wild on Nancy Mace’s Twitter account.
The South Carolina congresswoman—an on-again-off-again Trump ally who once told the only funny joke about January 6—was one of the eight Republicans who voted with Democrats a few weeks back to remove Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy. She then helped kill House Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s (R-La.) bid for the top job, noting (quite reasonably!) that she “could not in good conscience” ignore Scalise’s 2002 speech to an audience that included attendees of a “white supremacist conference.” Instead, Mace backed fellow right-wing flame-thrower Jim Jordan, whose failed attempts to become speaker finally came to an end (at least for now) on Friday.
None of this has endeared Mace to most of her GOP colleagues. On Thursday evening, for example, Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.) demanded that Mace apologize “for causing this mess” after Mace urged her colleagues to keep taking votes until Jordan somehow prevailed. Murphy then proceeded to block Mace on Twitter, prompting Mace to tweet—and I’m not making this up—”What a [cat emoji].”

If you want to vote against the people who elected you that’s on you @RepGregMurphy, but I’m gonna stand with them, not Washington.
(For context. Tried to reply but he blocked me after posting this. What a 🐱). pic.twitter.com/b4EThaJj6z
— Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) October 20, 2023

“This is exactly what’s wrong with this place,” Mace wrote in a separate tweet about Murphy, “too many men here with no balls…” Murphy, refusing to be out-classed, responded the next morning: “I have been blessed to be a surgeon for 35 years and saved thousands of lives both her and abroad. Oh I got ‘em. And they are real….”
It was into this swirling cauldron of balls and cat emojis that Mace, supposedly in collaboration with the other seven Republicans who had voted to oust McCarthy, dropped one of the most absurd political documents I’ve ever seen. “We stand by our actions,” they declared Friday, after Jordan lost his third straight floor vote. But, they courageously added, they would be willing to accept “censure, suspension or removal from the [GOP] Conference” if their colleagues would just agree to make Jordan speaker.
Amazingly, not even the list of signatories on this letter was accurate. One of the anti-McCarthy Republicans, Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, has vocally refused to back Jordan because of Jordan’s refusal to acknowledge that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. Buck immediately told reporters that he had nothing to do with the letter. (Mace, too, was once an outspoken critic of Trump’s election lies, but that hasn’t stopped her from backing Jordan.)

Throw stones at me, it’s fine. This is about keeping promises, leadership, and doing the right thing for the people we represent.
All 8 Republicans who removed McCarthy as Speaker offer “censure, suspension or removal from the conference” to elect Jim Jordan as Speaker. pic.twitter.com/y0MARZaibX
— Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) October 20, 2023

Which brings us to Saturday afternoon, when Rep. Tom McClintock released an blisteringly sarcastic response to Mace and her friends (including, perhaps unfairly, Buck). “Dear Wayward Colleagues,” the California Republican began. “Your letter of October 20, in which you graciously offer to martyr yourselves as long as you can get your way, is perhaps the most selfless act in American history.”
McClintock goes on like this for eight paragraphs, before concluding, “I modestly suggest that you plan your martyrdom in the only way that truly matters: to have the wisdom to see the damage you have done to our country and to have the courage to set things right before it is too late.”
Read the whole thing below:

NEW: Rep. Tom McClintock is taking aim at the members who ousted McCarthy’s recent vow that they would be willing to be disciplined and expelled from the conference in order to get Jordan the gavel, with the California Republican clapping back in a sassy new letter. pic.twitter.com/UgY8WhcOWR
— Juliegrace Brufke (@juliegraceb) October 21, 2023