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Interview

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Let's bring in Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace of South Carolina who is a member of the House Oversight Committee, where some of these investigations will be taking place. So, Congresswoman, you're going to continue to serve on the Oversight

Committee in this new Congress. What do you make of the National Archives delaying, handing over information to the congressional committees for their investigations? They say they need to talk to the Justice Department first and defer to the special counsel.

REP. NANCY MACE (R-SC): Well, number one, I want to say that no matter what happens, either in an investigation within Congress, with an oversight, or the DOJ, that everyone is treated the same regardless of their political affiliation or the former president. Whatever the protocol has been today for the former president, it should be the same for President Biden. Both sides should be treated equally, in my opinion. I think that's best we can do for the American people at this juncture.

TAPPER: Do you see a difference in intent? There are two special councils, one investigating Trump, one investigating Biden. The Biden people are saying that this appears to have been accidental, inadvertent. Trump is on Truth Social saying, well, you heard Jamie's report about he brought the folders willingly because they were a cool keepsake or something like that. Does that matter to you?

MACE: Well, what matters is what is in the documents themselves. We don't really know a lot because we don't have access to the classified or even top secret information to know what either of them had. So, it's really difficult to compare from that perspective.

I treat classified information very seriously, especially when we're talking about information about our enemies, China, Russia, and other countries who are not our allies like Iran as well. And so, it's hard to compare if it's apples to oranges, or apples to apples, until we have more information.

CNN's Phil Mattingly just reported that part of Biden White House's new strategy is to attack House Republicans, not engage in details. What do you think of that approach?

MACE: Well, it's interesting because he hired a White House counsel for this, but this is really for President Biden, this is during his time after his vice presidency. So, that really doesn't count as much as, hey, he's going to have to have a -- it's a criminal investigation. He must have criminal attorneys.

And I guess one of the differences here between the former president and the current one is that for the last two years, the DOJ, FBI, National Archives, everybody knew apparently that former president had documents at Mar-a-Lago, that they knew where they were. They had access to them, at least mostly early, in part we believe.

And in this case with this current president, the last five years, no one knew about this. They were in multiple locations. No one is really certain who had access to them and when. I do think there are going to be a lot of questions that have to be answered from that perspective, too.

TAPPER: Yeah, I'm not sure how much access the National Archive had to the Trump documents.

I want to ask you about a different manner because --

MACE: Fair enough.

TAPPER: -- you said a few days ago, that your party, the Republican Party's approach to abortion is tone-deaf. You are antiabortion. You're pro-life. You have said that if the party really wants to reduce abortion, especially with the Democratic Senate and Democratic White House, they should be providing more access to birth control to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies.

That does make a logical sense, are Republicans taking your advice?

MACE: Well, I'll be drafting some legislation to that regard and we will see what both sides are willing to do. I represent a swing district, and it's important that we listen to our constituents and our voices. And I will tell you, the vast majority of individuals, Republican or Democratic in my district, when Roe v. Wade was overturned were very upset, frustrated, and angry.

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I held a number of town halls across my district in South Carolina, listening to those voices, and really understanding.

But about 90 percent of the country aren't on the fringes and they want to find some middle ground. And I'm willing to do that, and as you said, logic and common sense in this debate is what we should be focused on, it's where we can find common ground.

Birth control is easy. We have entire counties in South Carolina that don't have a single OB/GYN doctor. And so, if you're going to get serious about protecting women's rights, protecting their watch to life, that seems like a really very great place to start. You will see me falling legislation in that regard.

We also cannot ignore women who have been raped or girls, victims of incest. We have a backlog of about 100,000 rape kits that have not been processed in this country. That is something else we're going to be working on. But I plan on taking a lead on many of these issues, listening to every side of the argument.

TAPPER: I want to ask you because you're on the oversight committee. You're going to sit with Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene who said that a plane did hit the Pentagon on 9/11. And Paul Gosar, both of them spoke at a white supremacist conference in the last year or so.

It is not going to make the oversight committee's job tougher? The reason I ask is that, obviously it is an incredibly important job of Congress to provide oversight over the executive branch, but I wonder if some of these individuals -- I mean, you once posted a bat, a poop, and clown emoji in reference to Marjorie Taylor Greene.

MACE: I did. Yeah.

TAPPER: I wonder if that's going to make your job tougher, of

important oversight.

MACE: Well, I think that the same thing could be said for the left. We saw the 117th Congress that members of the squad have got in trouble for perhaps antisemitic remarks like Ilhan Omar, those numbers on the oversight committee.

But I will tell, you we have done a lot of great work. In fact, the last bill that I passed of oversight was that of Congressman Ro Khanna out of California. It was a quantum computing bill that the president signed into law at the end of the year.

So there are great opportunities to get good things done, with the right leadership in place. And I do believe in Jamie Comer as our chairman.

I am going to be handed a gavel. I love a chairmanship. I will be one of five or six committee chairman on the oversight committee. And I plan on working hard, as I always, have been trying to get what we do on oversight in that direction.

TAPPER: One of the reasons I also ask is because, I have seen a lot of oversight hearings and I am thinking about back when there were Benghazi hearings, or a lot of Benghazi hearings.

And Benghazi was a tragedy. It was a serious issue and a lot of horrible things happened that expose that there was insufficient diplomatic security, and exposed that the Obama ministration didn't have a plan for post-Gadhafi Libya. There was a whole thing about blaming this guy who made a video. There was a lot of legitimate stuff to investigate and bring to the fore.

But, so much energy, so much air time was devoted to people on your party's fringe. I'm obviously not blaming it for this. This was some years ago. But your party's fringe who would talk about just all these conspiracy theories. And I'm just wondering if you are worried, given the fact that you have individuals, I mean, Marjorie Taylor Greene said a plane did not hit the Pentagon on 9/11, you know?

MACE: Yeah. And it has always been my concern. I've been very outspoken against conspiracy theories. But again, this is something I have seen in just my two years in office. Now in my second term, I have seen it on both sides of the aisle. I have seen a lot of performance art, political performative art.

We saw that during the week at the speaker's vote, for example. We see it over and over again. That is one of the reasons that I believe that there is so much distrust in Congress and the federal government, and our processes because we politicize so much rather than getting to the meat and potatoes of what the American people care about. Number, one in a swing district that I represent. That is inflation.

Number two is abortion. And immigration and crime. And other economic issues. And those are the things that we really ought to be focused on. And I hope that it doesn't take away, but it does not distract from the work that Congress needs to be doing. And you will see me being a very strong and determined voice. I am trying to make sense of it all and trying to push through the noise to deliver results.

TAPPER: All right. Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace of South Carolina. It is always good to see. You thank you so much for being with us.

MACE: Thank you so much.

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