Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., scowls in the Capitol on September 29, 2023. | Source: Bill Clark / Getty
We can now apparently add “Karen” videos to the few things that are guaranteed in life along with death and taxes.
In this latest instance of a white woman trying to exert power over a Black person who is simply doing her job, it just so happened that a Republican Congresswoman from North Carolina unwittingly became the next contestant on the proverbial Summer Jam screen of Karening.
MORE: The Fight For House Speaker: Understanding The Madness On Capitol Hill
And it all happened Tuesday night as a group of House Republicans rallied around House Speaker nominee and Lousiana Rep. Mike Johnson during a press conference. When ABC News reporter Rachel Scott, a Black woman, asked Johnson about his recent history as an election-denying Trump sycophant – she didn’t put it that way – the group of Republicans shouted her down.
Among them was North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx fixed her face to carry the kind of countenance that may or may not have resembled how Carolyn Bryant Donham looked when she lied about Emmett Till in 1955.
“Shut up!” Foxx spewed at Scott, an award-winning respected journalist.
Scott later took to social media to recount the experience.
“I asked Mike Johnson if he stands by his efforts to try to overturn the 2020 election. Members started boo’ing,” Scott posted on the app formerly known as Twitter. “I also asked if he would support more aid to Ukraine and Israel.”
Scott said her questions were greeted by House Republicans telling her to “Go away! Go away!”
Scott also said Johnson responded, “We’re not doing any policy tonight.”
But it was Virginia Foxx who stole the show.
Watch below.
The viral incident was being widely reported on Wednesday as House Republicans finally elected a new House Speaker after multiple failed votes with multiple failed candidates.
Johnson, of Louisiana, will fill a position left vacant for most of the month after Republicans ousted Rep. Kevin McCarthy. The development means that Congress can get back to legislating after House Republicans were splintered over who their next leader would be.
To be sure, in 2020, Johnson was among the Trump Republicans who promoted lies that the presidential election results were rigged. According to NBC News, Johnson “led the amicus brief signed by more than 100 House Republicans in support of a Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate the 2020 election results in four swing states won by Biden: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.”
The New York Times called Johnson “the most important architect of the Electoral College objections.”
Ladies and gents, your new House Speaker.
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