Lawmakers take feuds to new heights: Drake, Kendrick Lamar have nothing on Congress

The Kendrick Lamar vs. Drake feud — already dubbed the biggest beef in recent rap history — is a story of two successful individuals, who have large egos, fed up with one another.

Sound familiar?

Beefs — both personal and policy-based, some of which can take a petty turn — are a tale as old as time on Capitol Hill, where clashes between some of the country’s most prominent public figures, fueled by uber self confidence and a strong determination to achieve legislative goals, frequently erupt. 

Sometimes, those battles spill out into the open.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) spearheaded an effort to remove former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) from the top job last year, the pinnacle of their long-running brawl that is still alive and well months later.

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) dubbed Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) a “Smurf” during a House Oversight Committee hearing, prompting the Democrat to sport a blue tie with the cartoon character at a subsequent meeting.

And, of course, there is the bitter battle between Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, which hit a fever pitch this week when, after weeks of waffling, the Georgia Republican moved to force a vote on the GOP leader’s ouster, which failed in resounding fashion amid staunch opposition from conservatives, Democrats and former President Trump.

If Kendrick and Drake are setting records for recent rap history, the 118th Congress may take the cake for clashes on Capitol Hill.

“We are living in a moment where people just want to argue with themselves, and it’s really kind of sad,” said Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.). “It’s like, let’s find a reason to dislike one another.”

The past year and a half has featured some of the most heated, animated, colorful and consequential fights in Congress, a theme that has been on full display since the start of the session.

In the first week of the 118th Congress — as House Republicans struggled to elect McCarthy as Speaker — Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) lunged at Gaetz, who was leading the opposition to McCarthy, a stunning scene on the floor that was captured by cameras in the chamber. Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) grabbed Rogers’s face in a dramatic fashion to hold him back.

And that was just how the two-year term began.

Motion to vacate madness

Headlining the list of feuds for the 118th Congress — thus far, at least — is the rivalry between McCarthy and Gaetz, which made history in the House on a pair of occasions.

First, Gaetz led a group of conservatives in withholding support from McCarthy’s Speakership bid last January, prompting the election to drag out for 15 ballots — marking the longest Speaker fight since before the Civil War.

Then, after weeks of back-and-forth — including when McCarthy dared Gaetz to “file the f—ing motion” during a private GOP conference — the Florida Republican staged a vote on the Speaker’s ouster, which was successful after seven Republicans and all Democrats joined him in the effort.

The vote marked the first time in history the House voted to remove a Speaker — and the beginning of the end of McCarthy’s congressional career. Shortly after, he resigned from the House.

Months later, the two are still feuding. McCarthy threw his support behind Gaetz’s primary challenger and called the Florida Republican “the Hunter Biden of the Republican Party” in an interview with Politico, prompting the GOP firebrand to take a shot at the Californian’s record against him.

“I whooped Kevin McCarthy in Washington. I don’t think he’s going to fare better when I’m playing home-field advantage in North Florida,” Gaetz told Politico.

The lower chamber got another taste of motion-to-vacate drama this week, when Greene forced a vote on Johnson’s ouster — a gambit that fell flat after Democrats and Republicans overwhelmingly opposed the effort.

The vote, however, heightened the tensions between Greene and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), her co-sponsor on the resolution, and the rest of the GOP conference.

“The Motion to Vacate attempt was only a headline-grabbing, petty political stunt to distract from our duties and raise money,” Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) wrote on the social platform X after the vote.

“I have some sympathy toward our colleagues who are lashing out at us right now, because they’re gonna go home and take an ass whipping from their base because they voted wrong here tonight,” Massie told reporters the same evening.

Petty politics

Not all beefs on Capitol Hill have had such far-reaching effects.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), a former mixed martial arts fighter, challenged the Teamsters president to a fight during a hearing in November, telling the witness “you want to run your mouth, we can be two consenting adults, we can finish it here,” before saying “stand your butt up” and rising to his feet.

The brawl did not happen, in part thanks to an intervention by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who urged the senator to “stop it” and “sit down,” with his trademark hand gestures.

Then there was the time that Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), who voted to oust McCarthy, accused the California Republican of elbowing him in the kidney in a Capitol hallway more than a month after the historic vote. McCarthy, for his part, denied the “cheap shot,” as Burchett described it.

More recently, Moskowitz and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) went at it on X after the Florida Democrat questioned Sanders’s stance on antisemitism. Ocasio-Cortez called Moskowitz’s comments “shameful,” and Moskowitz responded by noting that members of his family were killed in the Holocaust.

“We see each other at work, we are both better than doing this here,” Moskowitz added.

But Ocasio-Cortez was not done — she responded with a screenshot that showed Moskowitz liking a tweet that, in response to The New Yorkers’s initial post, said “What’s the Hebrew translation for F— Off Lady?”

“Is that what this is?” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. Moskowitz appears to have removed his like from the post.

And then there are the name-calling clashes, which Greene has come to champion.

The Georgia Republican labeled Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) “Colonel Sanders” — a reference to his trademark goatee — after the Freedom Caucus member opposed her effort to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.). And Greene called Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) a “p—-” after he knocked her for lacking “maturity and experience” when handling the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

One of the GOP firebrand’s offensives did, however, land her in hot water: The House Freedom Caucus voted to remove the congresswoman from their ranks in part because she called Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), another member of the group, a “little bitch” on the House floor.

Greene, for her part, did not show any signs of sadness after her ejection from the group.

“I’m not a member of the burn-it-all-down caucus anymore,” she told reporters.

Why the beef?

The source of the tense vibe on Capitol Hill is up for debate: the razor-thin majority House Republicans are grappling with, the nature of working in a divided Washington, or the general polarization plaguing the country, to name a few options.

Some, however, say the fierce atmosphere is baked into Washington: The nation’s capital — especially Congress — has always been an epicenter for intense debate and integral policymaking and, as a result, has seen its fair share of battles.

“You’ve got, you know, closely divided House, Senate, and then a Republican Congress that has some divisions about how to best manage it. That’s all that’s happening. And it’s just happening in full public display,” Roy said.

“I’ve never been bothered by that, the sausage getting made, you fight it out and then you go to the next fight … that’s our job.”

The Texas Republican pointed to the history of clashes in D.C.

“We had a secretary of Treasury and a vice president duel. That happened in our history. We’ve had gunfire in the House chamber. We’ve had canings,” Roy added. “None of that’s going on. Now I’m not projecting that we should have those, I’m just saying like, shit happens, and like, we’re just going through, you know, debates about really important issues.”

Johnson, for his part, is urging calm on Capitol Hill following the rancorous stretch that, most recently, featured Greene’s failed ouster vote.

“Hopefully, this is the end of the personality politics and the frivolous character assassination that has defined the 118th Congress. It’s regrettable and it’s not who we are as Americans,” he said Wednesday. “We’re better than this. We need to get beyond it.”

But with the November elections around the corner and the House GOP conference still a tinderbox, the temperature on Capitol Hill is unlikely to tick lower anytime soon.

One lawmaker, however, has a solution to bring down the heat.

“If everyone agreed with me we would be much better off,” Burchett facetiously told The Hill.