Representative Lauren Boebert, a Colorado Republican, said during a livestream on Friday that she was “insulted” by a group of students confusing her for former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Boebert went on Rumble, a conservative streaming platform, on Friday to voice her dissent of the $1.2 trillion spending bill that House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, put on the floor on Friday. The bill, which funds government agencies like the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), was passed by a vote of 286 to 134 in the House.
The congresswoman, who voted against the bill, was criticizing part of the spending package that she said would give $5 million to “a group that specializes in transgender medicine” when she segued into an anecdote from Capitol Hill on Thursday.
“You want to be an adult, you want to spend your own money to change your body up, sure. You know, I’m a fan of Botox,” Boebert said. “Okay, actually, sidenote, let’s tell a little story here—I may need some more.”
The congresswoman continued: “Yesterday, I was walking on the Capitol Hill complex and this group of students got really excited and I hear them, they go, ‘Hey that’s Nancy Pelosi,’ another says, ‘Oh my gosh, yeah that is. That’s Nancy Pelosi.’ I started looking around, it’s me! Like, oh Lord, oh Lord, I need some Botox. I don’t think I’ve ever been so insulted in my life.”
She then quipped: “Well, until we spent $1.2 trillion on groups that specialize in transgender medicine today.”
When Newsweek reached out to Pelosi’s office via email on Saturday about Boebert’s comments, a spokesperson for Pelosi sarcastically asked, “Who?”
Newsweek reached out to Boebert’s office via email for comment.
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Representative Pelosi, a California Democrat who took office in 1987 and had been in a House leadership position from 2002 to 2023, took a lot of heat from Republicans during her tenure, including from Boebert.
In December 2022, Boebert shared her contempt after a room in the Capitol complex was named in honor of Pelosi, saying in a video posted to social media, “I can’t think of anything less important, or frankly anyone less deserving.”
Meanwhile, Johnson’s $1.2 trillion bill passed hours before the government was set to partially shut down with the help of Democrats. In total, 101 Republicans and 185 Democrats voted in favor of the bill, while 112 Republicans and 22 Democrats voted against it.
After months of delaying a government shutdown with stopgap bills, Congress managed to keep the government funded till September 30 after the Senate passed the $1.2 trillion spending package by a vote of 74 to 24 in the early morning hours of Saturday.
The bill was passed after funding for federal agencies expired yesterday at midnight, however, the government did not shut down because the White House was confident that the bill would be passed by the Senate and signed by President Joe Biden on Saturday.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.