A House Oversight Committee hearing devolved into a fight over words on Wednesday after Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., repeatedly used a "slur" to describe transgender people in a hearing on USAID funding.
"USAID awarded $2 million to strengthen trans-led organizations to deliver gender-affirming health care in Guatemala," Mace said. "So to each of you this morning, does this advance the interests of American citizens paying for trannies in Guatemala to the tune of $2 million, yes or no?"
When Mace's five minutes were up, ranking member Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., made a point of parliamentary inquiry to the committee chairman to chide Mace for using the word "trannies," a term "that is considered a slur in the LGBTQ community, and the transgender community."
"Let me please finish without interruption," Connolly said, before Mace cut him off and repeated the term several more times.
"Tranny, tranny, tranny, I don't really care, you want penises and women's bathrooms, and I'm not going to have it OK, no, thank you - it's disgusting," Mace barked back.
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Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., interrupted and permitted Connolly to finish his thoughts.
"To me, a slur is a slur, and here on the committee, a level of decorum requires us to try consciously to avoid slurs. You just heard the gentle lady actually actively, robustly repeated it," Connolly said. "And I would just ask the chairman that she be counseled that we ought not to be engaged. We can have debate and policy discussion without offending human beings who are our fellow citizens. And so I would ask as a parliamentary inquiry whether the use of that phrase is not, in fact, a violation of the decorum rules."
Mace - who recently introduced a bill to ban biological men from women's spaces on all federal property - snapped back that she wasn't going to be "counseled by a man over men in women's spaces or men who have mental health issues dressing as women." The South Carolina Republican also made headlines last November with her push to ban biological males from women's bathrooms in the U.S. Capitol, inspired by the election of Sarah McBride, D-Del., as the first openly transgender woman elected to the House.
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With a slight smirk, Comer said, "I'll be honest with the ranking member - I'm not up-to-date on my politically correct LGBTQ terminology."
"We'll look into that and get back with you on that. I don't know what's offensive and what's not. I don't know much about pronouns," he said.
The hearing, which was about government efficiency and called "Rightsizing Government," began Wednesday morning and included as witnesses Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and Citizens Against Government Waste president Thomas A. Schatz.
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The hearing also fell into some confusion when Connolly demanded the committee subpoena the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), tech billionaire Elon Musk.
A review of USAID's recent history shows that it was repeatedly accused of financial mismanagement and corruption long before Trump's second administration, Fox News Digital previously reported.
Musk has led the charge against USAID - an independent U.S. agency established during the Kennedy administration to administer economic aid to foreign nations - as he leads DOGE's mission of cutting government fat and overspending at the federal level.
Fox News Digital's Emma Colton contributed to this report.
