Nancy Mace Made That Epstein Meeting All About Her

The congresswoman seems to be someone whose own victimhood translates to political theatrics, if nothing else.

By Danielle Han | September 3, 2025 | 2:13pm

Politics

Nancy Mace Made That Epstein Meeting All About Her

After months of backtracking, deflecting, finger-pointing, and actually fleeing the nation’s capital, the House finally released its first batch of Epstein files on Tuesday (don’t let the bombast fool you: most of the 33,000 pages were already public). But not before Nancy Mace played the victim card—and centered her own trauma with the financier’s survivors.

The records were released after a two-hour meeting on Tuesday, in which the House Oversight Committee—which includes Mace (ew), Mike Johnson (double ew), James Comer (triple ew)—met with six of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims behind closed doors. Before the meeting concluded, the congresswoman sauntered out, avoiding reporters and wiping tears from her eyes. She tweeted shortly after: “Since it’s already being reported – Yes I left the Oversight briefing with Epstein victims early. As a recent survivor (not 2 years in), I had a very difficult time listening to their stories. Full blown panic attack. Sweating. Hyperventilating. Shaking. I can’t breathe. I feel the immense pain of how hard all victims are fighting for themselves because we know absolutely no one will fight for us.” She concluded: “GOD BLESS ALL SURVIVORS.” After Jezebel reached out to Mace’s office for comment, we were referred back to this tweet.

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Rep. Nancy Mace was visibly upset as she left the meeting with Epstein survivors at the Capitol. She declined to answer questions from reporters. pic.twitter.com/chEHwW9Ypt

— Kristen Eskow (@KristenEskow) September 2, 2025

Now, the I’m-an-empath act would be a lot more moving… if Mace weren’t someone who actively bullied trans folks and immigrants with cruel legislation, or bragged about watching ICE detentions (many of which involve unconscionable human-rights violations against pregnant people). But the congresswoman seems to be someone whose own victimhood translates to political theatrics, if nothing else. In February, she gave a nearly hour-long speech on the House floor about her ex-fiancé and three other men drugging and raping her, using handcuffs as props and wearing a red sticker that said “SURVIVOR.” She continued with the allegations during a House hearing in May, when she also shared nude photos of herself. The men have denied the allegations. Despite all the bravado, however, Mace has made no meaningful legislation to improve women’s livelihoods in the U.S., calls herself Trump in high heels, and claims the president “protects women.”

Alas, hypocrisy is continuing to define modern Republicans. Tuesday’s events were full of other lip-service histrionics, like Johnson saying to reporters that it was “heartbreaking and infuriating that justice has been delayed so long,” or Kentucky’s GOP representative, Tim Burchett, saying, “We got to rethink the whole files thing, apparently there’s some files they don’t want out.” Conveniently, these goons left out in their comments that they’re the reason the documents had taken so long in the first place.

The files were released amid mounting pressure—including from within the MAGA movement—to release all the records, a demand that has persisted through the lower chamber’s month-long recess. Before leaving for break in August, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) (who has broken party lines before) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Ca.) had designed a ploy to force a House vote in releasing the Epstein files. And much to Johnson’s chagrin, the chickens have come home to roost: on Tuesday evening, Dems lined up to sign the petition, with a handful of other GOP members (Massie, Mace, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Rep. Lauren Boebert) following suit. If Massie and Khanna can collect just two more GOP votes (and assuming they have the support of every Democrat), they could pull the maneuver off.

On Wednesday, Epstein survivors headed to Washington, D.C. to hold a press conference–and many of them are demanding the full array of files to be released. One key witness, Marina Lacerda, who publicly spoke for the first time on Wednesday, said: “Our government could have saved so many women, but Jeffrey Epstein was too important and these women didn’t matter.” She continued: “Well, we matter now. We are here today, and we are speaking, and we are not going to stop speaking.”

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