Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) has confirmed some details of a reported argument with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) in the congressional women’s bathroom.
Earlier this week, the Daily Beast reported that on Jan. 3, the first day of Congress this year, the two far-right lawmakers got into a shouting match in the Speaker’s lobby ladies’ room just off the House floor, citing multiple sources. According to the report, Greene exited a stall and confronted Boebert for accepting support from Kevin McCarthy during her re-election campaign but refusing to vote for him in the House speaker election. Boebert told her, “Don’t be ugly,” and “ran out like a little schoolgirl,” a source told the Daily Beast.
Neither of the women would comment to the Daily Beast on the report.
However, during an interview on the conservative radio show “The Dana Show,” an excerpt from which was posted online Wednesday, Boebert volunteered some details about the exchange.
“So I actually kind of love that that story came out because of how I was quoted,” Boebert said. “So yeah, we’re talking in the congressional ladies’ bathroom. I’m there with [Rep.] Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.). And you know, people are upset about what’s going on in the speaker’s race. It had been a couple of days, we were not electing Kevin McCarthy, and we hadn’t received the concessions that we wanted.”
She said that Greene approached her and started “being kind of nasty about it.”
“No one else had been nasty about it. Everyone had been very professional,” she added. “And so when she started going after me, I looked at her and said, ‘Don’t be ugly.’”
Host Dana Loesch jumped in, noting the women had once been allied. “You guys were kind of like BFFs there for a while, weren’t you?” she asked.
Boebert seemed to dispel that notion.
“There was there was nothing against her, we travel in the same circles, have the same policy views on a lot of things ― not everything ― but on many things,” she said. “But yeah, I looked at her, said, ‘I don’t have time for this, so don’t be ugly.’ And that’s something that my granny used to say to me when I was being a brat.”
Quoting the line online Wednesday, Boebert tweeted: “Be kind. Don’t be ugly,” which sparked confusion among Twitter users who noted that the platitude seemed the opposite of her MO.
The temperature has been increasing between Greene and Boebert in recent weeks, and it’s not the first time tensions boiled over in public. Last month, Greene slammed Boebert on Twitter for refusing to support McCarthy’s speakership, accusing her of “high school drama” and noting she only just won reelection by a hair. Boebert, for her part, has on multiple occasions mocked Greene for embracing absurd conspiracy theories about Jewish space lasers.
Greene, breaking from a bloc of her usual far-right allies, fervently supported McCarthy’s leadership bid, effectively guaranteeing her return to committee assignments after being stripped of them in 2021 for hate speech.
