On Friday evening, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) charged at Rep. Tom Marino (R-PA) on the House floor and interrupted his floor speech after Marino accused her of ignoring the border crisis. She then chased after him again when he finished his speech.
Pelosi was seen multiple times on the C-SPAN cameras pointing her finger at Merino, who actually addressed her after the first interruption. According to Merino, Pelosi even called him an “insignificant person.”
After Marino said the country does not have “law and order” and his “colleagues on the other side don’t want to do anything about it,” he blasted House Democrats, like Pelosi, who failed to address the crisis while they were in power.
“You know something that I find quite interesting about the other side? Under the leadership of the former Speaker [Pelosi], and under the leadership of their former leader [Rep. Steny Hoyer], when in 2009 and 2010 they had the House, the Senate, and the White House, and they knew this problem existed,” he said, according to ABC. “They didn’t have the strength to go after it back then. But now [they] are trying to make a political issue out of it now.”
Pelosi made a beeline toward him across the aisle and Marino actually addressed her.
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“Yes it is true,” Marino told her. “I did the research on it. You might want to try it. You might want to try it, Madam Leader. Do the research on it. Do the research. I did it. That’s one thing that you don’t do.”
Soon after the incident, the House finally passed its border funding bill after getting conservatives on board. The House later passed a companion bill that would prohibit President Barack Obama from using federal funds to enact more grants of temporary amnesty.
A spokesman for Pelosi told ABC on Friday evening that Pelosi went over to Marino to tell him that House Democrats passed the DREAM Act, which did not become law, and said Marino apologized to Pelosi. Marino’s chief of staff Bill Tighe quickly disputed that report, saying Marino “did not apologize to Leader Pelosi and does not intend to do so, as he has nothing to apologize for.”
“She was entirely out of line in approaching him while he was recognized and delivering remarks on the Floor,” Tighe told ABC. “Her staff’s comment in your story about her accepting his apology in simply not true.”
Marino then Tweeted about the incident:
Rep. Pelosi called me an ‘insignificant person’ on the Floor of the House. I’ll ponder that for a while driving to Williamsport tonight…
— Rep. Tom Marino (@RepTomMarino) August 2, 2014
…so maybe I am not significant enough to question the former Speaker. But why then did she get so bothered by my comments?
— Rep. Tom Marino (@RepTomMarino) August 2, 2014
…of course I’ll be driving myself, with no staff or security. And I’m just a country lawyer who worked in a bakery until he was 30…
— Rep. Tom Marino (@RepTomMarino) August 2, 2014
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