The Senate’s new casual dress code, which allows lawmakers to forgo a suit and tie with dress pants on the chamber floor, is “an abomination to the way government should conduct itself,” Fox News co-host Harold Ford Jr. said Monday on The Five.
“If you have a health issue or a medical issue that requires you not to be able to dress, I get it. But if you’re able to dress, you should wear a shirt and tie and jacket—a suit and real shoes on the Senate floor and the House floor,” said Ford Jr., a former Democratic congressman who cited his prep school years in Washington, D.C. as one reason for his stance.
Ford Jr.’s conservative colleagues proceeded to target Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), whose collection of hoodies and basketball shorts in the chamber has long been criticized on Fox News airwaves.
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The junior Pennsylvania senator “looks like he’s in a gang or he’s working out somewhere,” complained co-host Jeanine Pirro. Greg Gutfeld then opted for a crass joke about the senator’s stroke last year that would seem better suited for his 10 p.m. comedy-style show, if anywhere. “When asked if he was happy about the change, Fetterman blinked twice for ‘yes,’” he blurted out.
Since learning of the relaxed dress code, which Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) confirmed Sunday, some conservatives in Congress have likewise decried it as an example of lowering standards.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), despite having been quite sympathetic to Jan. 6 rioters, nevertheless voiced concern Sunday about “etiquette and respect for our institutions.”
In response, Fetterman on Monday pointed out that Greene showed explicit photographs of Hunter Biden during a July House Oversight Committee hearing. “Thankfully, the nation’s lower chamber lives by a higher code of conduct: displaying ding-a-ling pics in public hearings,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
