The man who got into a vicious argument with Nancy Mace in a skincare aisle has given his side of the story, saying the congresswoman is “playing the victim card” after her “meltdown.”
The voter, now identified as Ely Murray-Quick, had a now-viral run-in with the South Carolina Republican in an Ulta Beauty store in Charleston on Saturday.
Mace posted a video on X afterwards, saying that she was accosted by the “unhinged lunatic” wearing “daisy dukes at a makeup store.” Her clip has been viewed over seven million times.
However, Murray-Quick has now responded, and claimed he was simply asking Mace if she would be holding more town halls this year.
Appearing on Laura Coates Live on CNN Monday night, he told the host he was “expecting a proper response, a response that you would expect of elected representatives from our state. Maybe even a schedule.”
What he got, however, was a sweary rebuke. Mace “decided to tell me to f–k myself,” the small business owner had earlier told LGBTQ+ news site The Advocate.
He also rubbished the Trump acolyte’s assertion that he was “aggressive” and “in her face,” saying that he was at least eight feet away from her at all times.
“Nancy Mace likes to play the victim card, but that’s not what happened here. I asked a simple question,” he told Laura Coates. “As a resident of the state of South Carolina and she couldn’t she couldn’t answer it. She couldn’t meet the demand of the people.”
He added in his chat with The Advocate: “I think it speaks a lot to her character that this is the type of language she decides to use to someone who is in the same space as her who asked her a simple question.”
Mace, who has been vocal about suffering abuse in the past, stood by her story on Fox News Monday evening. She told Sean Hannity that her brush with Murray-Quick is the third encounter with a constituent to rattle her in recent weeks.
She added: “This guy approached me and I will tell you I felt threatened and harassed and as someone who’s experienced trauma in her life and a lot of women will understand what I’m talking about, when some guy gets in your face and approaches you in an aggressive manner that he did, and you feel like you are in danger, instinctively, as women who have been through trauma and survived domestic abuse, you have two options.
“You can fight or flee and I’m a fighter. I’ve never stood back down from a fight.”
However, Murray-Quick said there was “no aggression.” He told The Advocate: “I was appropriately six to eight, maybe even 10 feet away at all times. There was no physical confrontation. There was no aggression. She wasn’t locked in the aisle. She was free to leave and not answer my question if she had chosen to.”
On CNN, Murray-Quick showed his own video of the fiery interaction, which shows him calmly approaching Mace—and never “in her face” as she claims.
The conversation, however, does quickly devolve into a swearing match. At the beginning, Murray-Quick politely asks Mace when she will next hold a town hall.
Mace says that she’s done “dozens” of town halls, but Murray-Quick demands to know when her next one will be. Mace suddenly begins to accuse the man of “harassing” her and her tone changes noticeably as she pulls out her own phone and starts recording the man.
Responding to this, a spokesperson for Mace said that “if you harass a Congresswoman in public while wearing daisy dukes, maybe you’re the problem.”
The statement went on: “The Congresswoman has every right to stand up for herself when she’s being harassed.”
The tone of the argument mutated once more when Mace randomly asserted: “And by the way, I voted for gay marriage twice.”
Murray-Quick, who did allude to being a member of the gay community in his conversation with Laura Coates, was visibly taken aback.
“What does that have to do with me?” he asked.
“I’m just saying. It has everything to do with you,” Mace responded.
Murray-Quick responds: “You think everything about me has to do with gay marriage?”
“I do,” she replied as Murray-Quick questioned: “That’s your first stance when you speak with me? There’s no other humane conversation you can have about me?”
The Advocate called this comment, and her obsession with Murray-Quick’s “daisy dukes” a revealing snapshot of Mace’s “behavior toward LGBTQ+ constituents.”
Some unhinged lunatic, a man, wearing daisy dukes, at a makeup store, got in my face today. Dems are nuts. So I went off – and I won’t be backing down.I hold the line 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Try me. pic.twitter.com/Uv181Ovys0
— Nancy Mace (@NancyMace) April 19, 2025
Back in the clip, Mace at this point tries to change the subject back to town halls, but an irate Murray-Quick persists, asking: “There is no other humane thing you can talk about me then say, ‘Oh, I support gay marriage’?”
Mace then claims to have hosted a dozen town halls last year, and said Murray-Quick could have attended. He said he was asking about this year.
Mace then went on a MAGA-style rant about the left. “Because you people on the left are crazy. You’re absolutely f—ing crazy,” she told Murray-Quick.
The encounter ended with the man calling Mace “a nasty b—-” and walking away as they trade barbs. Mace then attacked him on X, writing that an “unhinged lunatic, a man, wearing daisy dukes, at a makeup store” confronted her.
Mace, meanwhile, has come under fire for skipping out on a town hall held by the Lowcountry Accountability Alliance in South Carolina in March, claiming that it was “driven by left-wing extremists and paid agitators with a clear agenda.”
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