The US representative Nancy Mace, a Republican firebrand running for South Carolina governor, is drawing scrutiny after a police report described her berating airport police and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents as she was being escorted to a gate last week.
The profane incident at the Charleston international airport threatens to derail her run as she said she would sue the airport authority for defamation and false reporting.
An initial incident report from the Charleston county aviation authority police department first obtained by Wired describes Mace cursing at airport staff, saying that this was no way to treat a “f---ing US representative”. She invoked the name of South Carolina senator Tim Scott, saying that the Republican lawmaker would not be treated as she was, according to the report.
Mace’s conduct was sufficiently outrageous for an American Airlines gate agent to approach officers in disbelief, according to the report. A TSA supervisor also said that “he was very upset with how she acted at the checkpoint” and that Mace had “talked to several TSA agents the same way” and that they would be “submitting a report to his superiors about her unacceptable behavior”.
TSA agents are working without pay while the government remains shut down.
Mace’s response to the report on Wednesday was to cite the shootings of Charlie Kirk and Donald Trump as justification for her concern for her personal safety, and to accuse airport staff and airline employees of a “coordinated and conspired” effort “to create false and misleading incident reports” regarding her conduct. At a press conference on Wednesday, Mace said she had retained legal counsel – Larry Klayman, a conservative activist and founder of Freedom Watch – and intends to sue both American Airlines and the Charleston international airport.
“I’m not going to be the next person shot and killed in cold blood,” Mace said. “Last Thursday morning, I absolutely, 100% confronted the airport employees who put my safety at risk. Did I drop an F-bomb? I hope I did. Did I call them incompetent? If I didn’t, they absolutely earned it.” Mace claimed that she “personally had more than two dozen security breaches” at the airport.
The TSA has not yet responded to a request for comment.
The reaction of legislators and government officials in South Carolina has largely been to rally around the airport staff.
“I have used that airport since long before I was ever in Congress and every interaction I have had – without exception – has been positive,” Scott wrote in a statement published to Facebook. “Because I have lived with death threats for longer than I can remember, the airport police do take extra security precautions, for which I am grateful.”
Scott’s rebuke was followed by a bipartisan letter on Wednesday signed by more than 60 elected officials in the Charleston tri-county area within Mace’s district, defending the airport and its staff. Signatories include every state senator representing Charleston county, most of its house members, Charleston’s Republican mayor, William Cogswell, and others.
The letter describes the importance of the airport and its employees. “It is important that we recognize and respect the essential role these individuals play in safeguarding the traveling public,” it reads.
The South Carolina Fraternal Order of Police also took issue with Mace’s behavior in a letter issued on Tuesday. “No law enforcement officer should be met with hostility, public ridicule, or profanity while performing their duties,” the letter said.
Mace is no stranger to public controversy. In 2020, she was one of seven Republican lawmakers to reject the argument that Congress had the right to overturn an election and was highly critical of Trump’s role in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. Trump subsequently endorsed a primary opponent to Mace’s 2022 congressional campaign, which she ultimately still won.
She has since transformed into a Trump ally and outspoken culture warrior on immigration and transgender rights. Mace has said that she loves to cruise the web for videos of ICE agents making arrests.
A poll in October by Winthrop University found Mace in a statistical tie in the governor’s race with South Carolina’s lieutenant governor, Pamela Evette, among Republican registered voters in the state, with about 47% of GOP voters undecided.
