On Thursday, during a congressional hearing, Republican Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina submitted what appeared to be flirtatious text messages into the official record. She asserted that these messages were sent to her by CNN panelist Michael Eric Dyson, who had previously criticized her on air.
In a segment of “CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip” aired on August 15, Dyson, a professor at Vanderbilt University, harshly criticized Mace for her mispronunciation of Vice President Kamala Harris’s first name. During the House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing on Thursday, Mace responded to the Democrats’ outrage regarding the mispronunciation, pointing out that several members of their party had also been reported to have made similar errors.
“My colleagues across the aisle said that those that can not pronounce Kamala’s name correctly are elementary aged children. I would like to enter into the record an article by Newsweek saying Bill Clinton pronounces Kamala Harris name wrong during [his] DNC speech,” Mace said.
“Bill Clinton along with Al Sharpton, rapper Lil John — let’s not forget that Joe Biden can’t say her name right, neither can Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor,” Mace continued. “And this morning on ‘Morning Joe,’ Joan Baez called her a camel. So I don’t want to hear it. It’s fake outrage.”
The legislator proceeded to display purported screenshots of text messages she received from Dyson, in which he referred to her as “gorgeous” following his accusation that she echoed white supremacist rhetoric.
