Representative Nancy Mace, known for her attention-seeking antics, called the police on a transgender advocate for foster youth, accusing him of assaulting her outside the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C., Tuesday night.

According to three eyewitnesses, James McIntyre simply shook the congresswoman’s hand during a reception following an event celebrating the anniversary of a child welfare law, and asked Mace to protect the rights of transgender people. Mace’s account was very different, however. In a post on X, the congresswoman claimed she “was physically accosted at the Capitol tonight by a pro-tr*ns man.”

“One new brace for my wrist and some ice for my arm and it’ll heal just fine. The Capitol police arrested the guy. Your tr*ns violence and threats on my life will only make me double down. FAFO. #HoldTheLine,” Mace’s post read.

Other foster care advocates present at the reception disagreed with Mace’s account. Elliott Hinkle, a consultant who has advised the federal government on issues affecting youth in foster care, said McIntyre shook her hand and made a comment about how many transgender youth are in foster care, adding, “They need your support.”

“From what I saw, it was a normal handshake and interaction that I would expect any legislator to expect from anyone as a constituent,” Hinkle, a former foster child and now an advocate for LGBTQ rights, said in an interview with The Imprint. According to Hinkle, one of Mace’s aides later asked McIntyre his name and to repeat what he told Mace. McIntyre had left the reception but was asked to return to the office building by Capitol police.

The police arrested the advocate after searching him for several minutes. A Capitol Police Department officer said to a reporter at the scene that they were responding to a call about an “assault.”

The South Carolina Republican has used fearmongering about trans rights as her pet issue to grab attention in recent weeks, attacking incoming Representative Sarah McBride, who will be sworn in next year as the first transgender member of Congress, with a Capitol bathroom bill that specifically targets her. Former aides have criticized Mace for the attention grab, and the Republican has sought to milk the issue by selling bathroom-themed merchandise.

Donald Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba is claiming that Tulsi Gabbard was never actually a fan of Syria’s fallen dictatorial regime—even though Gabbard publicly defended it.

During an appearance on Fox News Tuesday, host Laura Ingraham claimed that Trump’s nominee to be the next director of national intelligence had been wrongfully smeared as “an apologist” for Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, the dictator who fled Syria for Russia last week after rebels overtook Damascus.

“It looks like, both with Tulsi and with Pete Hegseth, that this stuff doesn’t seem to be sticking. Am I reading this right?” Ingraham asked, almost as if to clarify she’d gotten the Republican messaging right.

“Are you saying that perhaps they could create a dossier, or say that there’s a Russia-Russia hoax and continue it for years on end. I don’t believe it, Laura!” Habba deadpanned. “Yeah, no kidding. This is what they do when they’re desperate, we know this.”

Unfortunately for Habba, Gabbard, and the fate of U.S. foreign relations, Gabbard’s statements supporting Assad aren’t the invention of her critics or the liberal media.

In 2017, Gabbard, the then–Democratic Representative from Hawaii, met with Assad during a secretive four-day trip to Syria. She said she couldn’t turn down the opportunity to meet the leader responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Syrians.

“When the opportunity arose to meet with him, I did so because I felt that it’s important that if we profess to truly care about the Syrian people, about their suffering, then we’ve got to be able to meet with anyone that we need to if there is a possibility that we can achieve peace,” she told CNN’s Jake Tapper at the time. She also criticized Assad’s opposition, insisting that there were no moderate rebels left in the country.

“Let the Syrian people themselves determine their future, not the United States, not some foreign country,” Gabbard said.

During an appearance on MSNBC in February 2019, Gabbard proclaimed, “Assad is not the enemy of the United States because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States.”

Gabbard has been criticized for her coziness with a slew of autocratic leaders, including Assad, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Egypt’s Abdel Fattah Al Sisi. When Trump nominated her to become the next director of national intelligence, the reaction in Moscow was reportedly “gleeful.”

Habba went on to describe Gabbard and Hegseth, both of whom are unqualified and preposterous nominees in their own rights, as “really strong candidates, with really amazing backgrounds.”

Diversity, equity, and inclusion is one of the first items on the Trump Justice Department’s chopping block. And they’re willing to destroy the Civil Rights Division to do it.

Trump’s nominee to lead the key division, conservative San Francisco lawyer Harmeet Dhillon, is expected to do a clean sweep of DEI initiatives in universities, government jobs, and other public organizations, sources familiar with the plans told CNN. And if there was any doubt about the DOJ’s new priorities, Trump’s announcement of her nomination put that to rest.

“Harmeet has stood up consistently to protect our cherished Civil Liberties, including taking on Big Tech for censoring our Free Speech, representing Christians who were prevented from praying together during COVID, and suing corporations who use woke policies to discriminate against their workers,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Tuesday. “Harmeet is one of the top Election lawyers in the Country, fighting to ensure that all, and ONLY, legal votes are counted.”

Dhillon, yet another faithful MAGA soldier in the right’s broader culture war, will likely overturn Biden-era policies regarding transgender rights, critical race theory, police behavior, and voting.

Book banning, genitalia policing, and censoring American history to make white people feel better will now all be on the table for a Civil Rights Division that is historically known for fighting discrimination and enforcing protective policies like the Voting Rights Act. Under........

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