Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) railed against former Kevin McCarthy on Monday after the former House speaker mocked her inability to keep her D.C. office staffed, saying she needs “help to straighten out her life.”
Mace, one of the eight House Republicans who helped oust McCarthy from the speakership, responded by posting a video on social media calling the ex-GOP leader a “loser” and “disgraced former speaker,” urging her followers to donate to her re-election campaign.
During a visit to Capitol Hill last week, McCarthy—who left Congress late last year—took pointed swipes at some of the hardline GOP lawmakers who pushed him out of House leadership, including Mace. Meanwhile, the South Carolina lawmaker faces a tough primary challenge that includes her former chief of staff.
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“I hope Nancy gets the help she needs, I really do,” he told the press on Tuesday. “I just hope she gets the help to straighten out her life. I mean, she’s got a lot of challenges.”
McCarthy added” “No one will stay working for her. You can’t have somebody who just flips and flops based upon what TV station she gets put on. You want someone who’s willing to work, and so I hope she gets that kind of help.”
The ex-congressman was referencing a Daily Beast report that found that Mace’s entire D.C. staff had turned over since Nov. 1, with ex-staffers complaining of a “toxic” work culture driven by a “delusional” Mace. One of those former employees, Dan Hanlon, was fired on Dec. 1 and has since filed to run against Mace in her home district.
In a video that appeared to be filmed from her car, Mace tweeted that she was “living rent-free” in McCarthy’s head before begging voters to give her cash so she could “fight back against the corrupt DC establishment and their handpicked puppet.”
I heard the former speaker—disgraced former speaker—was talking a lot of smack this week and said that I need help. Well, guess what? I do need help,” she declared in the clip. “I need your help to raise a dollar, $5, $10, $100 for my campaign to hit back against the establishment, to hit back against corrupt DC, to hit back against people like McCarthy.”
Mace continued: “He put our majority at risk. He lied to the American people. He couldn’t even hold his speakership because he’s a loser. So, yeah, Kevin—I need help. I need help to raise money so I can hit back at you and your handpicked opponent, who’s now your puppet running in South Carolina against me.”
Aside from Hanlon, Mace faces a Republican primary bid from attorney Catherine Templeton, who previously served in former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s cabinet. “We need a consistent conservative who doesn’t flip-flop for fame,” Templeton recently said of Mace, prompting the congresswoman to call her “nothing more than a puppet in Kevin McCarthy’s bitter revenge operation.”
