iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — In an unusual breach of decorum, even for the divided Congress, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi chased Rep. Tom Marino across the House floor, taking offense at comments by the Pennsylvania Republican during debate on the border funding bill Friday night.
“We don’t have law and order,” Marino began as he wrapped up his comments on the border supplemental. “My colleagues on the other side don’t want to do anything about it.”
“Under the leadership of their former leader, when in 2009 and 2010, they had the House, the Senate and the White House, and they knew this problem existed,” he continued. “They didn’t have the strength to go after it back then. But now are trying to make a political issue out of it.”
Off-mic, Pelosi then seemed to challenge Marino’s assertion that Democrats did not do anything about the issue when they had majority control.
“Yes it is true,” Marino replied directly to Pelosi, who was House speaker in those years. “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.”
Marino then urged lawmakers to support the border supplemental because “apparently I hit the right nerve.”
After Marino concluded his remarks, Pelosi quickly crossed the chamber, enraged, pointing and sticking her finger in Marino’s face.
She then followed Marino up a Republican aisle, and continued arguing with him. Another Republican member spoke out to tell the chair that the House was not in order, in an effort to halt the bickering.
Pelosi finally relented as Republicans tried to get between Pelosi and Marino, and returned to the Democratic side of the chamber. The House voted to approve the $694 million border supplemental.
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