Rep. Nancy Mace, a GOP congresswoman and rising candidate for South Carolina governor, erupted in an expletive-laden tirade at Charleston International Airport this week—shouting insults, berating officers and threatening reprisals simply for doing their jobs.
Two Charleston County Aviation Authority officers were stationed curbside, waiting to escort Mace to her gate after she missed her scheduled pickup. Fifteen minutes late, the congresswoman finally appeared—seething and profane.
She spewed a nonstop barrage of obscenities. “You’re f–king incompetent,” she barked. “This is no way to treat a f–king U.S. representative.”
Her target wasn’t just the police. A TSA supervisor and an American Airlines gate agent watched in disbelief as Mace hurled the same venom at rank-and-file screeners.
Body-worn camera footage later confirmed the mix-up that sparked her anger: Mace arrived in a red BMW, not the white sedan officers were told to expect. Yet nothing about that fact warranted her outburst.
One officer noted in a formal statement: “Any other passenger behaving this way would have been detained.” He’s right. No civilian gets a free pass for threatening law-enforcement professionals.
Mace took to social media hours later, tweeting surveillance clips and accusing Attorney General Alan Wilson—a rival in the GOP primary—of “spying on me at the airport.”
Wilson answered back with clear-eyed authority: “Men and women risk their lives at our airports every day. They deserve respect. Not tantrums.”
This episode isn’t a minor squabble. It exposes a troubling sense of entitlement creeping into our public institutions. Conservatives must stand resolute: our guardians of security deserve deference, not degrading profanity from those who fancy themselves above the rules.
