[Music]
bang
bang bang bang like
someone was trying to break the door
down this was the moment
where i thought everything
was over i mean i thought i was going to
die
so on the floor of the of a special
house session
lawmakers were given a safe platform
to speak about their experiences during
the capitol hill siege
congresswoman alexander ocasio-cortez
once again slammed critics for
questioning
her version of events
sadly less than 29 days later
with little to no accountability for the
bloodshed and trauma of the sixth
some are already demanding that we move
on
or worse attempting to minimize
discredit
or belittle the accounts of survivors
in doing so they not only further harm
those who were there that day
and provide cover for those responsible
but they also send a tremendously
damaging message
to survivors of trauma all across this
country
so let's bring in republican
congresswoman nancy mace from south
carolina congresswoman mace was the
first woman to graduate from the citadel
she's a brand new member of congress but
she has already gotten into it over this
issue in tweets with aoc and other
members
of the squad representative mace good to
have you with us uh today
i just want to ask you good good
afternoon to you too
i want to ask you about that whole event
yesterday
uh where people could sort of step to
the podium
and talk about their experiences you
know it felt a little bit like
a therapy session nobody
belittles the how frightening this was
for so many of you but was that
right what was that exercise all about
really do you think
well in many cases yesterday what we saw
on social media you know in some cases
was that
that this was politicizing a lot of what
happened i mean if you politicize a
traumatic event like this and i've been
very vocal about the events of that day
and i have not belittled or minimized
anybody's experiences whatsoever i was
i was fearful that day i talked about
being barricaded in my office i've
talked about the trauma and trauma
affects everyone differently and if
and if folks needed to have time on the
floor to express
their feelings their emotions the trauma
that they experience and they have
every single right to do so but what we
don't have the right to do
is either allow the media to exaggerate
what actually happened
or to peddle in in false
rumors or false facts that happen i i
live in facts and not fiction
and there were no rioters in the
hallways
coming to our offices that day we were
fearful that that might happen but that
never happened and we were seven to ten
minute walk away from
the capitol dome where the violence was
transpiring this was a terrible day
in our nation's history and one that i
never want to witness again
so you and um and the others including
aoc
were as you say about a seven to ten
minute walk
away through the tunnels that connect
the capitol building
and the cannon house office building
where your offices are right
here's aoc mentioning the capitol police
and
we'll talk about why she may have done
that let's just watch this
to our capitol police who are willing to
defend us
we thank you and again to our staffers
we thank you
so she said that the capitol hill police
officer
it turned out to be one of them who was
banging on her door and saying where is
she where is she
no doubt looking for her to make you
know probably a high on the list of
people that they might have wanted to
encounter
right so is she doing a bit of clean up
on that topic with the capitol hill
police officers with this comment
right well earlier this week she was
disparaging our capitol hill police she
did it again last month i mean this is a
week where
we saw in the capital rotunda we paid
homage to
officer capital police officer brian
siknik
this was not the time and the place to
disparage the capitol police this week
and
and we need to support them the only
thing standing between members of
congress
in their offices and the violent rioters
on the capitol hill at the dome
were our capitol hill police they were
there to protect us and the reason they
evacuated us out of our offices that day
was because there were threats there was
a pipe bomb delivered to the
democrat and the republican national
headquarters and so
these were this was a traumatic event it
was a violent event five people died
that day something we should take very
seriously
and uh we need to to defend and protect
those who are there to protect us
it feels like this could have been an
event that would have brought
a lot of members closer together having
been through this
together and yet it feels like with this
um experience that everybody came out
and you know discussed about
their feelings and all of that last
night
it seems like it just is being used in
some ways to drive a deeper wedge and to
to
broad sweep all of you all of the
members of the of the gop
with you know you're sort of a little
bit like them too
right no absolutely and and the
divisions that we see and i said this
yesterday i'm tired of the division and
the american people are tired of it
at some point we have to look each other
in the eye we have to look ourselves now
look in the mirror
and say this this needs to stop the
divisiveness politicizing
every single decision every single vote
to the
highest extent possible is never going
to help our country it's never going to
hurt the american people
who are out of work their businesses are
shut down and kids aren't back in school
we have work to do
and it's time to get back to do our job
nancy mace thank you very much
representative from south carolina good
to have you back on the show thank you