A video of Virginia Foxx, a Republican congresswoman from North Carolina, has been making the rounds since she angrily shouted at an ABC reporter at a press conference on Wednesday. The reporter was not speaking to her and was instead trying to ask the new Speaker of the House Mike Johnson about his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Foxx can be heard yelling “Shut up! Shut up!” at an off-camera Rachel Scott, as Republicans booed and jeered at the question. This reaction came despite them literally attending a press conference, where questions from the press are expected. Johnson smiled smugly while ignoring the question.
Besides being appallingly rude and unprofessional, Foxx’s outburst has gotten some media attention for her crass behavior. The incident was discussed on The View, where co-host Sara Haines called her a “little nasty lady,” recalling the unfortunate wording used against Hillary Clinton in the past. She’s also gotten attention because it’s a bit funny, really. She is 80 years old, small, and has white hair, a walking little old-lady stereotype. But she is nobody’s sweet old grandma, and this is far from her first incident of just letting her anger rip, Bill O’Reilly style.
Just over a week ago, Foxx was caught angrily yelling at reporters and one of her House colleagues, Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), to get out of her way, saying, “I gotta get an elevator. Move! Move! Move! Move!” and “Get away from the damned elevator, Move!” as was reported by The New York Post. Donalds then intimated to the reporters that Foxx had a reputation around Congress, saying, “Listen, with Virginia Foxx, you know where you stand.”
In one episode that would be funny if it weren’t scary, back in May 2021, Foxx was fined for evading metal detectors that were installed after the insurrection. After throwing her bag under a table next to a metal detector, she ran through the detector, despite the officer telling her to stop. She then angrily chided a Politico reporter who later asked her about the incident, saying, “Why don’t you deal with things that are important?”
One of the grossest and meanest things Foxx has done in her official government capacity is much worse than telling someone to “shut up.” In 2009, she spoke out against a hate crime bill named for Matthew Shepard. Foxx claimed his murder was a “hoax,” and that he died during a robbery and not a homophobic attack. She said this while Matthew Shephard’s mother was present in the gallery. I wish someone would have made her shut up then.
(featured image: Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images)
