Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) has burned a lot of bridges in her short time in Congress, and her former staffers — even the ones who can’t stand her — are worried about her mental health.
The South Carolina Republican made headlines by accusing her ex-fiancé of physical and sexual assault in a “scorched earth” speech on the House floor last February, and then went on a high-profile October meltdown against police officers at the Charleston airport.
Insiders told New York Magazine that they’re concerned for her well-being.
“Looking at the floor speech and what went on there, it’s very clear that that was the breaking point to me,” said a former staffer. “Because you’ve now gone from standing up for people — whether rightfully, wrongfully, performative or not — you were on this mission, and now this is about you.
“The whole frame shifted, and she centered herself in it all. That’s when it became apparent to me that this is broken.”
“She’s deteriorated,” added a second staffer, “and it sucks.”
Republicans saw her willingness to take risks and enthusiastically embrace the demands of the attention economy as political strengths, even if she sometimes came across as a little nutty. But former staffers think she might actually be struggling with mental health.
“Something’s broken,” said a former staffer. “The motherboard’s fried. We’re short-circuiting somewhere.”
Mace likely abused House rules by ordering staffers to bring liquor to keep parties going well past midnight at her home or routinely making aides clean up her Airbnb rental properties instead of paying for a maid, and she was obsessed with monitoring her reputation online and instructed staffers to set up burner accounts to defend her or boost her performance on Reddit forums dedicated to the “hottest women in Congress,” according to the report.
“We were scared of her,” said one of the former aides. “She would make staffers cry. She would threaten to fire them, take their money away, not give them raises, not to give them days off, religious days.”
“The closer you get to her, the harder she messes up your brain,” added another former staffer. “It’s a classic story of ‘never meet your heroes.’”
Aides expressed concern about her drinking and cannabis use, which some said was excessive, and all of them agreed Mace was an extremely difficult boss.
“After six months I was like, ‘Man, this is one of the worst people I’ve ever met – I’m going to move back to South Carolina,’” said one former staffer.
Mace’s support in the South Carolina GOP gubernatorial primary has plummeted since her airport outburst, dropping her into third or fourth place, and she’s now the subject of a House Ethics Committee inquiry about her lodging expenses. A longtime associate said he hopes she leaves politics behind.
“Unlike her disgruntled ex-staffer crew, I actually don’t hate her,” said Austin McCubbin, a former consultant for Mace. “I want the best for her. I think the best thing for her is to no longer be in the media all the time, and to enjoy private life outside of electoral politics.”
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