Very early Thursday morning, as Congress worked through their formal certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral college victory, a fist-fight nearly broke out between Representatives on the House floor, according to reports. The incident unfolded amidst remarks from Rep. Conor Lamb (D-Pa.), who condemned “the… lies that you’re hearing in this room tonight” from his Republican colleagues, whose rhetoric, Lamb observed, inspired a violent Wednesday attack on the Capitol building from Trump supporters. As Lamb spoke, Reps. Andy Harris (R-Md.) and Colin Allred (D-Tex.), among others who were involved in the incident, began vociferously arguing.
A statement from Allred’s office said that the Congressman “approached his colleagues on both sides of the aisle with the hopes of diffusing the situation and bringing down tensions” after seeing an initial incident involving Harris erupt, adding that Allred apparently said, addressing Harris: “Are you serious, man? Haven’t you had enough violence for today?” Harris, for his part, insisted that “nothing physical ever happened, or was going to happen” — but on video footage, fellow legislators clearly leap into action in an apparent attempt to help diffuse the situation, meaning that the argument clearly appeared to be on the verge of a physical altercation to the people who were actually in the room at the time.
In footage, someone shouts out, “Sit down!” and another individual replies, “No, you sit down!” Check out some footage below:
Looks like House Republicans are causing more disruptions on the floor of the House of Representatives. After a bloody day of violence and death, they haven’t learned their lesson. pic.twitter.com/G1p6P6uMRO
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) January 7, 2021
According to one reporter who was on the scene, Harris was “shouting” that Lamb “called me a liar!” as the incident unfolded. That reporter, HuffPost’s Matt Fuller, also said that a member of the House indicated to him that the initial incident “mostly” involved Harris and Rep. Al Lawson (D-Fl.), whose interactions sparked the intervention from bystanders like Allred.
A member says it was mostly Al Lawson (D-Fla.) v. Harris, not Allred, though Allred was in the scrum.
Harris was mostly reacting to a line by Conor Lamb (D-Pa.), fwiw.
— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) January 7, 2021
After violent rioting at the Capitol building forced a temporary halt to the proceedings to formally confirm Biden’s electoral college victory, a significant number of Congressional Republicans still voted to set aside some of Biden’s electoral votes, no matter the glaring real-world example of the consequences of their brazenly anti-democratic antics. There has never been any meaningful legitimacy to their claims of widespread election fraud.
