Three former staffers for Rep. Nancy Mace anonymously skewered their old boss as an attention-seeking opportunist who was eager to maximize her national exposure.
Mace, who has cast herself as a maverick on issues like abortion, was thrust into the national spotlight last month when she joined a mutiny against former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)
The former employees appeared displeased with her work to oust McCarthy, who fundraised for the South Carolina Republican in the past.
“She talks about ‘principles’ and ‘standing up for the people,’” an ex-Mace aide told the Daily Beast, “but at the end of the day, all she cares about is maintaining her weird C-list celebrity status by any means necessary.”
When asked about the report, a Mace spokesman told The Post: “No comment on that garbage.”
Mace was one of eight Republican rebels to push McCarthy out in an effort led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), a man whom she once slammed earlier in the year for scuttling McCarthy’s speakership bid. Mace also ripped him for fundraising off the endeavor at the time.
Yet after joining his revolt, she too, fundraised off toppling the speaker, defending the move by pointing to the onslaught of attacks against her. Mace’s actions befuddled many observers at the time.
“So many journalists, commentators and politicos have just scratched their heads looking for Nancy Mace’s grand plan,” a former staffer told the outlet. “Stop looking for the logic in Mace’s actions, because there isn’t any.”
Mace, who hails from a Lowcountry South Carolina district, was first elected to Congress in 2020 after unsuccessfully seeking to usurp Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) seat six years prior in 2014.
After ascending into the lower chamber, staffers were reportedly given a 2021 strategy memo, which some former employees claim she wrote herself, outlining the image she was seeking to cultivate.
“Nancy is ‘thoughtful’ and ‘hard-working’ on issues important to the Lowcountry,” the memo said, per the report.
The 2021 memo further branded “NATIONAL NANCY” as “THE freshman thought leader on federal issues.”
Responsibilities for her team featured in a staff handbook — which aides claim she also helped author — instructs the communications director to send out a press release a day, and directs their comms team to book her on national TV outlets as much one to three times a day, or a minimum of nine times a week, former staffers told the outlet.
“It is not normal for a member to prioritize media and comms over actual legislation like that,” one former staffer vented to the outlet.
“In my experience with and in other offices, comms serves to promote what the member is doing legislatively. In Mace’s office, legislation served to get her more media opportunities.”
Mace’s team quickly disputed the characterizations from her “disgruntled” former staffers.
“Congresswoman Mace is being attacked for taking a strong stand against the Washington establishment. They didn’t like a vote she recently took, so now they want to silence her. Good luck,” spokesman William Hampton told The Daily Beast.
The lawmaker has contended that the establishment is taking revenge on her for her ruling in toppling McCarthy.
While the three staffers who spoke to the Daily Beast were anonymous, one former staffer, Natalie Johnson, publicly knocked her old boss during the speakership kerfuffle last month.
“Lady, you bought a multimillion dollar home a block from the Capitol within six months of getting elected and then lied to press about living in your office. Please,” she wrote in a post featuring Mace’s vow not to “bend the knee to DC.”
“I have a close relationship with, and am extremely loyal to, every single person I’ve ever worked for. Except one,” she later added.
Mace claims that the pretext for her decision to turn against McCarthy was his failure to uphold his commitment to bring up her legislation on women’s issues for a vote.
He denied that.
Mace’s coastal low country district in the Palmetto State could get reconfigured amid a pending redistricting case before the Supreme Court.
The congresswoman hailed Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) ascension to the speakership late last month.