Natalie Johnson, a onetime aide to South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace, tore into her former boss over a bigoted bill to ban Delaware Rep. Sarah McBride, who is transgender, from using women’s bathroom facilities in the U.S. Capitol.
“‘Protecting women’ in Congress would be introducing a bill to bar Matt Gaetz, a sexual predator with an affinity for underage girls, from ever walking those halls again, rather than dropping a messaging bill that’s sole goal is getting on TV,” Johnson wrote on X on Wednesday.
Johnson was referring to former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, whom Donald Trump had nominated to be attorney general and who recently withdrew that nomination amid allegations of child sex trafficking.
“If you think this bill is about protecting women and not simply a ploy to get on Fox News, you’ve been fooled,” Johnson also wrote on Wednesday.
Mace also appears to be fundraising off her anti-trans bathroom bill. Johnson posted a screenshot of a fundraising text for Mace that said, “I don’t want to see your junk in my bathroom. It’s Rep. Mace[.] The Trans Mob wants to k*ll me. But I FOUGHT BACK,” and included a URL that redirects to Mace’s campaign website.
Johnson replied to the text on X, writing, “I don’t want to see your botched, cheap hooker-inspired boob job on my television. Can we introduce a bill to bar that?”
McBride, for her part, called Mace’s attack out for precisely what it was: “a blatant attempt from far-right extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing.”
“We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars,” she said.
As McBride pointed out, the irony is that while Republicans like Mace are stirring up controversy with divisive, culture-war bills, critical issues affecting everyday Americans—such as high housing prices, the lack of affordable health care, and the child care crisis—remain largely unaddressed.
After Ron Filipkowski, editor-in-chief of MeidasTouch, wrote that Mace had “posted 262 times on X in the last 36 hours about the bathroom,” even a member of Trump’s former White House chimed in.
“If I tweet 262 times in 36 hours about *anything* please come do a wellness check,” wrote Alyssa Farah Griffin, who was Trump’s White House director of strategic communications and who currently co-hosts “The View.”
GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson reaffirmed his support of Mace on Wednesday, writing in a press release that the Capitol and House office buildings would officially segregate bathroom facilities according to “biological sex.”
As the GOP continues its crusade against transgender people and LGBTQ+ rights, many like McBride are urging lawmakers to stop wasting time on divisive rhetoric and focus on the policies that benefit Americans.
