CNN commentator Van Jones slammed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) following her personal attacks on a fellow member of Congress during a House Oversight Committee hearing Thursday night.
The committee hearing, held to vote on whether to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress, divulged into chaos after Greene made a comment about the appearance of Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) and her “fake eyelashes.”
“I don’t think you know what you’re here for,” Greene said to Crockett, after the Georgia Republican made comments about former President Trump’s hush money trial. “I think your fake eyelashes are messing up what you’re reading.”
In response to the incident, Jones suggested that some lawmakers just want attention.
“I think that the standard of conduct has been pulled down slow by some of these folks in Congress,” Jones said Friday in comments on CNN. “They go there ’cause they want to be celebrities. I’m talking about Marjorie Taylor Greene and others.”
“Why do we even know her name? Marjorie Taylor Greene has never passed a bill,” he continued in the panel interview, highlighted by Mediaite. “She’s never chaired a committee. She’s never done anything but be a provocateur and a clown and get under the skin of people and this kind of stuff that goes on.”
After the eyelash comment, Crockett shot back at Greene later in the hearing, seemingly referring to her GOP colleague as “bleach blonde bad-built butch body.” The Texas Democrat, and many others, also accused Greene of making her comments laced with racial undertones.
While Jones seemingly agreed with the assessment, he added that she’s “a disgrace” regardless of the intent behind her remarks.
“Whether she’s racist or not, she is a disgrace to the American people. She’s a disgrace to that Congress,” he said.
Following the incident, several committee members railed against the episode as “disgusting,” “embarrassing,” and a “middle school fight.”
But despite the fracas, the committee ultimately voted to hold Garland in contempt in an effort to censure him for failing to turn over audio recordings of President Biden to use in their impeachment probe.