COLUMBIA, S.C. — Minutes before 10 p.m. Friday, after Democratic speakers led the audience in jeers to Republicans’ efforts to slash jobs and health care, and encouraged people to get involved and vote, line dancing broke out.

That mix of politics and fun, mostly the latter, is what makes Rep. Jim Clyburn’s (D-S.C.) annual fish fry in the state’s capital city so popular, attendees said.

“We all came out, and everybody’s enjoying themselves,” said Shantell Zimmerman, 58, of Columbia.

“It brings out the community,” agreed Dionne Brown, 55, of Irmo, who’s been attending the event for six years. “Then we actually get to discuss our views and takeaways.”

Hundreds of people attended the event that started in 1992, the year voters first elected Clyburn to the 6th Congressional District, as a thank you to the voters who couldn’t afford the Democratic Party’s high-dollar fundraisers.

Over time, the “World Famous Annual Fish Fry” — which includes free food and drinks — has become a must-attend event for Democrats seeking local, statewide and national office.

This year was no different, even if Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — Kamala Harris’ 2024 running mate — said they’re not running for the 2028 nomination.

“I know I’m not running,” Moore told reporters Friday. “But the thing I’m also very clear about is that anyone who’s talking about 2028 is not taking 2025 very seriously.”

Moore and Walz, as well as Clyburn and former Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison of Columbia, emphasized the importance of focusing on what’s happening now in Washington, D.C.

Proposed cuts to government safety nets like Medicaid and billionaire Elon Musk’s efforts to rapidly slash federal spending were among the topics the governors touched on Friday during speeches at the fish fry, as well as the state Democratic Party’s Blue Palmetto Fundraising Dinner the same night.

“I taught school long enough to know it’s because they’re weak and they’re bullies, and when you stand up to them, they fade away,” said Walz, a former high school geography teacher.

While both declined suggestions that they’re running for president, there’s wide speculation otherwise. Their addresses at the events in South Carolina — which last year got promoted from holding the Democratic Party’s first-in-the-South to first-in-the-nation presidential primary — sounded a lot like campaign speeches.

Walz will also speak Saturday at the state Democratic Party’s annual convention.

Lucy Owens, an Anderson County delegate to the state convention, discounted the governors’ refusals, saying the 2028 presidential campaign has clearly begun.

“They’re all going to come through here. They’re the first ones,” she said of Moore and Walz.

In 2019, the fish fry drew more than 20 potential candidates hoping to appeal to South Carolina Democrats.

The following year, Joe Biden won the South Carolina Democratic primary, a victory that ended up vaulting him to the presidency. South Carolina’s primary was elevated for 2024 as Biden’s thank you to the state.

With Biden gone, the Democratic party in flux, and Harrison no longer leading the national party, South Carolina maintaining its first-in-the-nation status is in question.

Clyburn’s comments Friday suggest he knows it won’t. He doesn’t care if the state is first, just that it’s early, he said.

“The most important hitter on a team is the cleanup hitter. He comes in fourth place,” Clyburn told reporters at his event. “I’m not concerned about whether or not we’re first, second, third. Please, let us be at least four.”

That would take South Carolina back to having the first primary in the South.

In the aftermath of Trump’s landslide victory and the Republican Party gaining control of both chambers of Congress, the Democratic Party is in a reset. Walz and Moore, the first Black governor in Maryland’s history, are among the early faces of it.

Winning South Carolina, which changed the trajectory of Biden’s 2020 presidential run, will be crucial for Democratic hopefuls.

Owens, the Anderson County delegate, pointed to the stage where Walz and Moore spoke, saying every Democrat who wants to be president will eventually appear in that exact spot.

“They got to come through here. Not South Carolina. They got to go right there,” she said.

Both governors received raucous ovations from South Carolina Democrats, drawing cheers, standing ovations and even a few laughs as they took shots at the GOP.

Owens said “they’re both very great candidates,” and she’s “excited” to hear more from them over the coming years.

That was the general consensus from attendees who spoke with the SC Daily Gazette. But they were significantly more familiar with Walz because of his time on the campaign trail last year with Vice President Harris.

“I know less about Wes Moore than I do about Tim Walz, but I think he’s a good speaker,” said Laura Lowery, a 69-year-old from Fountain Inn. “I think he’s done a good job in his state as well.”

Moore has recently come under fire for vetoing a bill that would establish a commission to examine state and federal policies from 1877 to 1965 and come up with recommendations for reparations.

South Carolina Rep. John King, D-Rock Hill, had asked the state party to remove Moore as the keynote speaker at Friday’s Blue Palmetto Dinner because of the veto. Party leaders never responded to questions about that request.

But for at least some attendees, the veto perturbed them too. “I didn’t understand why he would do that,” said Tonya Winbush of Anderson.

But once Winbush, a 50-year-old Army veteran, heard Moore speak about his time in the Army, as well as his pardoning of 175,000 people with convictions for cannabis possession, her opinion changed.

“I think when you don’t know the whole story and you just listen to sound bites, which is what we do a lot, we’ll make brash judgments about people, when we are really fighting the same fight,” she said.

– This story first appeared in the South Carolina Daily Gazette, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. SC Daily Gazette maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seanna Adcox for questions: info@scdailygazette.com.

Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: editor@marylandmatters.org.

A $96 billion deal with Qatar Airways will give Boeing its largest order ever for South Carolina-made planes, the White House announced Wednesday.

The order of up to 210 jumbo jets is part of an estimated $1.2 trillion economic trade deal between the U.S. and Qatar agreed to while President Donald Trump is visiting the country, according to a White House fact sheet.

The agreement is for 130 of the 787 Dreamliners made in Charleston County and 30 of the 777 planes built in Washington state, with an option for an additional 50 planes of some combination of the two, according to a Boeing news release.

The order breaks three records for Boeing, the company said: It is the largest ever for its “widebody jets,” generally meaning jets with two aisles that can carry lots of passengers on long flights. It is the largest for the 787 Dreamliners made in North Charleston. And it is Qatar Airways’ largest-ever order.

Boeing employs about 8,200 people in South Carolina, most of them in Charleston County.

“We are deeply honored that Qatar Airways has placed this record-breaking order with Boeing, one that solidifies their future fleet with our market-leading widebody airplane family at its center,” Stephanie Pope, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said in the release.

The purchase will make Qatar Airways the largest operator of 787 Dreamliners in the Middle East.

The airline already operates more than 150 Boeing airplanes, including 777 and 787 passenger jets and 777 Freighters, according to Boeing.

Since 2014, Qatar Airways has ordered 94 777X planes and 30 Dreamliners, according to data from Boeing.

The aircraft will be powered by engines from GE Aerospace.

Producing and delivering the planes will support 154,000 domestic jobs annually and more than a million positions over the course of production, according to the White House.

Deals like the Boeing agreement will help “drive innovation and prosperity for generations, bolster American manufacturing and technological leadership, and put America on the path to a new Golden Age,” the White House said.

A Boeing spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The company’s CEO Kelley Ortberg joined President Donald Trump and other officials in Doha for the announcement.

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham emphasized that this was Boeing’s largest ever widebody and 787 order, dubbing the deal a “game changer” for the company and South Carolina.

“Qatar Airways’ purchase will ensure the Charleston plant has work for many years to come and it is a validation of the work product coming from the Charleston Boeing facility,” Graham said in a statement. “The Boeing workforce in South Carolina has a lot to be proud of – they consistently work hard and provide great airplanes.”

SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. SC Daily Gazette maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seanna Adcox for questions: info@scdailygazette.com.

Congresswoman Mace doubles down on offensive language to transgender USC student

by Shaun Chornobroff, SC Daily Gazette
April 22, 2025

COLUMBIA — Following a contentious exchange with a college campus audience, U.S. Rep Nancy Mace doubled down on offensive language toward a transgender student and then posted a video of the interaction on social media.

After approaching the stage, University of South Carolina student Harley Hicks, who uses she/they pronouns, asked Mace to apologize for using the word “tranny.”

Is that “derogatory to you?” Mace asked after a speaking event hosted by USC’s chapter of Turning Point USA, a nonprofit that advocates for conservative viewpoints on high school and college campuses across the country.

“Well, yeah. Of course it f------ is,” Hicks responded.

Mace, who’s considering a run for governor in 2026, then repeated the word three times, as seen in the video she posted on X.

After the interaction, Hicks grabbed a potted plant, which Mace said her security team thought Hicks was going to throw at her. Mace repeated the claim on a Fox News appearance after the event.

Talking to a pair of reporters, the 20-year-old student denied that claim.

“I’m like a shark, more afraid of her than she is of me,” said Hicks, who added that being at the event as a trans person was one of the bravest actions she’d ever taken.

“If I were attacking her, you’d have seen a very different video,” Hicks said.

About 60 people attended the roughly 35-minute event at USC’s student life center.

It quickly devolved into a question-and-answer session as people in the audience interrupted Mace’s speech by shouting questions about immigration, abortion, student loans, and her repeated use of the phrase “lunatic left” to describe Democrats.

Monday’s interaction comes after multiple controversies between Mace and trans people.

In February, the 1st District congresswoman was criticized for using the same offensive language she used with Hicks during a House Oversight Committee hearing on spending by the United States Agency for International Development, known as USAID, which the Trump administration has halted.

Mace accused USAID of “funding some of the dumbest, I mean stupidest, just dumbest initiatives imaginable, all supported by the left,” citing a list of diversity and transgender advocacy initiatives funded around the world.

Following the election of Delaware Rep. Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender member of Congress in November, Mace led the charge to ban transgender women from using women’s restrooms in the U.S. Capitol and House office buildings. House Speaker Mike Johnson then issued a rule that “all single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings — such as restrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms — are reserved for individuals of that biological sex.”

Mace then introduced legislation to expand the rule to all federal buildings, as well as a separate bill applying the rule to restrooms nationwide.

The 47-year-old congresswoman didn’t mention McBride by name but alluded to her at Monday’s event.

“I was the first woman last year in Congress when we had somebody who was elected, who was a biological male dressed as a woman, who decided this isn’t going to happen in the United States,” Mace said.

“It’s not going to happen in South Carolina. It’s not going to happen anywhere, if I decide to put a stop to it,” she added.

Over the weekend, an interaction between the congresswoman and Ely Murray-Quick at an Ulta Beauty store went viral after both the constituent and Mace posted video from their perspective.

Murray-Quick questioned Mace about not holding any in-person town halls, something she has been consistently criticized for in recent weeks. By the end of the video, both Mace and Murray-Quick had traded curse words.

The congresswoman has pointed to threats against her and staffers as the reason there has yet to be an in-person town hall in 2025. On April 8, she held a telephone town hall without advance notice or promotion.

Mace was the first to curse in the video that’s pinned to the top of her X profile. When asked by a pair of female reporters ahead of the event why she started cursing and if that behavior was appropriate for a member of Congress, Mace criticized them.

“To shame a woman for standing up for herself is completely ridiculous. That’s what you’re doing. You’re shaming a woman for standing up for herself,” she said. “Either of you, how do you think that makes other women feel?”

Minutes later, Mace took the stage and told the crowd that she had to “call out the insanity” with reporters who “were offended that an adult female used a curse word.”

“I’m like, have you seen my interviews?” she said.

It only took four minutes before Mace’s speech was interrupted by people in the audience.

When asked about mass deportations of immigrants without proper authorization, Mace said, “We did it under Obama, we did it under Biden, we did it under Bush and beyond. If it was good enough for all of those presidents then, it’s good enough for Trump today.”

When asked if it was necessary for immigrants to receive due process with judicial proceedings, Mace said “they didn’t have due process on the way in, they shouldn’t get it on the way out.”

Her take received a mix of cheers and yells from an outraged crowd.

While the event was held by a conservative group, the most vocal members of the audience disagreed with Mace. One even asked if her faith in God is genuine.

“Yes, I went to church yesterday,” Mace said.

Mace has publicly said she’s mulling a run for governor.

Others publicly considering a bid include Attorney General Alan Wilson, Lt. Gov. Pam Evette and U.S. Rep Ralph Norman, as well as state Senators Josh Kimbrell and Sean Bennett.

Holly Sox, a 58-year-old Gilbert resident, was among the attendees Monday.

Though a lifelong Republican, she said she started voting for Democrats last year due to the rhetoric of Mace and the Make America Great Again movement.

“This MAGA crowd has corrupted and co-opted what I grew up believing,” said Sox, who was wearing a shirt with the face of U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, who Mace has sparred with.

The final question of the event came from a self-identified Democrat, who asked how Democrats can trust that Mace will have a real conversation with people she’s labeled part of the “lunatic left.” When the congresswoman said she’ll have a conversation with anyone, the person followed by asking if that extends to the trans community.

“It applies to everybody,” she said. “But I’m not going to allow some guy in a skirt to be in my bathroom or in my locker room undressed.”

SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. SC Daily Gazette maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seanna Adcox for questions: info@scdailygazette.com.

COLUMBIA — South Carolina’s senior senator said Monday that Congress should require people to work longer in the future to collect full Social Security retirement benefits, though he offered no specific age suggestions.

“Why is that?” U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham asked rhetorically at the Columbia Rotary Club’s monthly meeting.

“There are less people working and people living longer,” the South Carolina Republican said to answer his own question.

Something must be done to keep the program solvent and ensure payments continue well into the future, he told a room full of constituents mostly 60 and above, according to a show of hands by age group.

Americans can start receiving monthly retirement benefits as early as age 62. But under a deal struck during the Reagan administration, anyone born after Jan. 1, 1960, can’t collect full benefits unless they wait until they turn 67.

But that 42-year-old deal didn’t solve the problem indefinitely.

The federal government’s Social Security reserves for retirement benefits will be depleted in 2033, according to an annual report last May to the Social Security Board of Trustees.

Graham stressed Monday he believes the program that aids almost 1.3 million South Carolinians must continue.

“Social Security really matters for a lot of people, and I don’t want to lose it,” he said. “So, let’s sit down together and … save it.”

More than 73 million people nationwide received Social Security benefits in January 2025. Not all of them are retired. About 4.9 million people received payments due solely to a disability. Recipients also include young survivors, according to figures from the Social Security Administration.

In 2021, the program began paying out more in benefits than it collected from workers. With officials predicting that benefit reductions of some sort will be necessary in less than a decade, Graham proposed looking at the past for inspiration to fix the future.

The agreement that raised the age to 67 was negotiated by President Ronald Reagan and Democrat House Speaker Tip O’Neill in 1983. The two hammered out a deal that was praised for solving short-term issues but also allowed long-term security.

“That really helped Social Security. We probably have to do that one more time,” Graham said Monday.

Graham said he hopes President Donald Trump “will entertain that thought before he leaves office.”

The 69-year-old senator from Seneca lost both his parents by the time he was 22 and had a sister nine years younger who needed support.

In the wake of his parents’ deaths, Graham moved in with his aunt and uncle and said he was helped tremendously by Social Security benefits given to family members after somebody dies.

“If it weren’t for Social Security survivor benefits, we’d have had a hard time making it,” Graham told the audience.

During her unsuccessful run for president last year, former Gov. Nikki Haley proposed raising the retirement age for younger generations and limiting benefits for the wealthy in order to prevent Social Security from going bankrupt. She never gave specifics on those ideas, but some South Carolina voters held even the suggestion of raising the age against her.

Conversations about the future of Social Security and other government programs like Medicare and Medicaid come at a time when Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency are flexing their cost-reducing muscles.

The Social Security Administration announced Feb. 27 it would soon implement “significant workforce reductions.” The next day, the agency clarified that the goal is to reduce its workforce from 57,000 to 50,000. Rumors of a 50% reduction are false, reads the Feb. 28 release.

At a time when Republicans are publicizing their efforts to cut spending, the future of Social Security and other assistant programs could be a potential campaign issue.

Graham is seeking a fifth term in 2026 to the U.S. Senate.

According to his last quarterly campaign filing, he has $15.6 million in the bank available for his campaign. His reelection bid is co-led by fellow U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and Gov. Henry McMaster.

SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. SC Daily Gazette maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seanna Adcox for questions: info@scdailygazette.com.

Attorneys for one of the men accused by U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace of being a sexual predator have issued a “demand for action,” giving the congresswoman 10 days to produce evidence or publicly apologize for what they call “outrageous” allegations.

In a letter sent to Mace on Thursday, attorneys for Brian Musgrave outlined three possible scenarios: Provide evidence that he was involved in the alleged crimes, retract the allegations against him and publicly apologize, or prepare to be sued.

“You upended Brian’s life when you accused him falsely of being a rapist, a predator, and a sex trafficker,” wrote attorneys Eric Bland and Ronald Richter Jr. in a letter provided to the SC Daily Gazette and other outlets late Thursday.

“He is none of those things,” the letter continued, calling him a “loving husband” to his wife of 22 years and “loving father” to his two children.

“The damage you have inflected upon Brian and his family is immense,” they wrote.

Mace’s spokeswoman declined Friday morning to directly respond to the letter. Instead, she referred the Gazette to what Mace said from the House floor regarding Musgrave.

Mace seemed to address the allegations herself through a post on X late Thursday: “Witness intimidation is real, and it is illegal. Hold the line,” she wrote without being specific.

In a nearly hour-long, bombshell speech on the U.S. House floor Feb. 10, Mace accused Musgrave, Patrick Bryant (her ex-fiancé), and two other men of sexually assaulting women and girls and secretly recording the abuse. She was among the victims, Mace said.

All four vehemently denied the allegations immediately following her speech.

The letter from Musgrave marks the first threat of a lawsuit.

Speeches from the U.S. House floor are protected by the “speech or debate” clause of the U.S. Constitution, which shields members of Congress from lawsuits for what is said in either chamber.

Musgrave’s attorneys questioned whether her speech — which had nothing to do with pending legislation — is actually covered by that clause, and they’re willing to go to court to test it.

“You may view the floor of Congress as a sanctuary for slander. We do not,” the letter reads.

It noted that when Musgrave disputed the allegations on social media, Mace blasted back Feb. 11 with her own posts. They included a line saying he “must have missed the part of my speech” when she said she documented evidence with metadata.

Produce the metadata that links Musgrave to the alleged crimes, “and we will cease our pursuit of this matter,” the attorneys wrote.

After Mace’s speech, the State Law Enforcement Division confirmed that Bryant is being investigated for assault, harassment and voyeurism. The investigation began in December 2023 after SLED was contacted by U.S. Capitol Police, SLED said in a statement Feb. 10.

Mace and Bryant broke up in late 2023, which would be after Mace said she found evidence on his cellphone.

Bryant has repeatedly denied the allegations and pledged to cooperate fully to clear his name.

Another man accused by Mace as being a predator told The Post and Courier he was recently interviewed by SLED and told he was not a subject of the investigation.

He responded Friday morning to news of the letter from Musgrave’s attorney: “Only 9 days left to retract and apologize,” wrote Eric Bowman of Sullivans Island.

A SLED spokeswoman said Friday there’s nothing new to report. The “investigation is active and ongoing,” her statement read.

Musgrave’s connection to the Isle of Palms condo where Mace said she was sexually assaulted while unconscious after being drugged is that he’s a partial owner. It’s an investment and place for family vacations where Bryant, described as a “lifelong friend,” periodically lived as a paid tenant, according to the letter.

“We are struck by your conviction that something inappropriate happened to you (and perhaps to others),” it reads, before listing a string of things he denies doing: “He did not rape you. He did not drug you. He did not film you. … He did not assist anyone in perpetrating any crimes against you.”

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. SC Daily Gazette maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seanna Adcox for questions: info@scdailygazette.com.

U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace accused four men, including her ex-fiancé, of “some of the most heinous crimes against women imaginable” during a nearly hour-long prepared speech Monday night on the House floor.

The 1st District congresswoman said she discovered thousands of photos taken with hidden cameras as well as recordings the “predators” made of themselves sexual assaulting women over years. She was among the victims. Some were underage girls, she said.

“None of you will get away with it,” said Mace, who has represented the Lowcountry since 2020. “None of you will because tonight is about justice for all of the women that you all raped, that you all filmed, that you all photographed, that you all abused for years.”

All four men strongly denied the allegations to The Post and Courier after the speech.

“I categorically deny these allegations. I take this matter seriously and will cooperate fully with any necessary legal processes to clear my name,” her ex-fiancé, Patrick Bryant of Charleston, told the newspaper.

The two broke up in late 2023, which would be after Mace said she found the evidence.

The State Law Enforcement Division confirmed after her speech that Bryant is being investigated for assault, harassment and voyeurism.

The investigation started Dec. 14, 2023, after SLED was contacted by U.S. Capitol Police. Multiple interviews and search warrants have happened since. A “well-documented case file” will eventually be available. But the “complex” case is ongoing and involves multiple lawyers, SLED said in a statement.

Once the investigation is complete, the file will be sent to a prosecutor for review, it concluded.

The statement did not name any of the other three men Mace called out in her speech.

One reached by the Gazette said he will “fight this in a court of law.”

“I unequivocally deny all the allegations made against me which are baseless, repugnant and defamatory,” Eric Bowman responded in a text.

‘This monster stole my body’

Mace’s speech started with a declaration that she was going “scorched earth.”

Mace said she first discovered the crimes after confronting Bryant about a text she received. He initially put his phone in a safe but later gave her the combination.

She looked through his phone and saw a woman unconscious being sexually assaulted. She also found photos of a teenager undressed “in the kind of underwear a child would wear.”

Mace then said she saw another video of a slender woman with long brown hair. The woman was unaware she was being filmed, Mace said.

She turned up the volume and heard her own voice. The congresswoman zoomed in on the video. There was no denying it was her.

“My entire body was paralyzed, and I couldn’t move,” an emotional Mace said. “Were my feet on the floor? Was I breathing? I had no idea. I could feel pain shooting out of my heart, out of my chest.”

“This monster stole my body. It felt like I had been raped,” she said.

It happened in 2022, she said, while she and Bryant were at a function on the Isle of Palms. She had two vodka sodas and blacked out, something she said had never happened before.

“My memories of that night are like flashes in and out of dark, flashes in and out of the night,” she said. “I was raped that night.” Mace said she could not be sure if it was Bryant who did it.

On one camera alone, she said, she found 10,633 videos, plus numerous photos of adult women and about a dozen photos of underage girls.

“I found file after file,” she said, adding that it seemed most were unaware of what was happening.

The night before she left Bryant in November 2023, ending a 19-month engagement, Mace said she was physically assaulted by him. She added she still has a mark to this day from it.

“Rather than see this mark as a scar, I see this mark of a free woman, free from a monster,” Mace said.

Mace mentioned her Christian faith throughout her speech. She also mentioned how the daughter of Ethel Lance, a 70-year-old victim of the 2015 Mother Emmanuel shooting, forgave the killer.

“I don’t want to forgive. I don’t want to, but I know that as a woman of faith, I have to,” Mace said.

Throughout her speech, the phone number of a hotline for victims was displayed on a poster beside her. Mace encouraged any victims of the men to call (843) 212-7048.

Attorney general accusations

Mace also accused Attorney General Alan Wilson, an expected foe in the 2026 governor’s race, of not addressing the crimes against her and other women — which he called “categorically false.”

Nancy Mace yet to announce bid for SC governor, but jabs at potential opponents

During her speech, Mace stood next to a poster of Wilson that read “Do Nothing Attorney General,” a moniker she has routinely used to describe him.

Mace said she turned evidence of her findings over to the attorney general, who failed to take any action with it and at one point refused further evidence.

But Wilson said neither he nor anyone in his office had any knowledge of the accusations until her speech. His office has not received any reports or requests for assistance from any law enforcement agency or prosecutor’s office, his office said in a statement released shortly after the speech.

Beyond that, it is not the attorney general’s job to start a police investigation, the statement noted.

“Ms. Mace either does not understand or is purposefully mischaracterizing the role of the attorney general” as the state’s chief prosecutor, it said.

As for her claim that Wilson refused to receive evidence, his office said, “the attorney general would always direct any citizen to provide evidence of a crime to the appropriate law enforcement agency, which would be responsible for the investigation.”

The lengthy statement also pointed out that Wilson and Mace have been at multiple events together over the past six months and that Mace has Wilson’s personal cellphone number.

“Not once has she approached or reached out to him regarding any of her concerns,” it read.

Mace has made stops around the state in recent weeks as she contemplates a gubernatorial bid. Gov. Henry McMaster is ineligible to run again, creating wide-open field.

So far, only former reality TV star and state Treasurer Thomas Ravenel has announced a run for governor, which he did on X last week.

But Mace, Wilson and Lt. Gov. Pam Evette are the three most expected to run. Mace has been highly critical of both Wilson and Evette on social media.

Transgender controversies

Mace has also been making headlines for recent comments surrounding transgender people.

She introduced legislation in November seeking to ensure that people on federal property had to use the bathroom associated with their birth sex after Delaware elected Sarah McBride, an openly trans woman to the Senate.

Mace also used insensitive language towards trans people during a House Oversight Committee hearing Feb. 6. The day before, she received a personal shoutout from President Donald Trump when he signed an executive order prohibiting transgender athletes from competing in female sports.

During her speech on the House floor, Mace touted multiple pieces of legislation she introduced to protect women. This includes the Prison Rape Prevention Act, which requires prisoners to be housed based on their biological sex. She said she introduced the bill “so a woman can’t be raped by a man who thinks he’s a woman.”

She doubled down on her critics.

“I’ll take all of the arrows and all of the attacks, if it means I’m taking these attacks for each and every one of you,” Mace said. “I’m doing this today because we can’t delay justice. Justice victims like myself need to move forward.”

Mace cannot be sued for her accusations. The Speech or Debate Clause protects members of Congress from lawsuits for what is said on the floor.

SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. SC Daily Gazette maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seanna Adcox for questions: info@scdailygazette.com.

A Greenville businessman is the first Republican to announce a bid to take on U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham next year.

Mark Lynch, owner of Jeff Lynch Appliance Center, officially kicked off his campaign Monday at the store his father founded more than 70 years ago.

He’s running to the right of Graham, saying South Carolina’s senior senator — first elected to the seat in 2002 — is not a strong enough ally to President Donald Trump.

“Lindsey is not one of us, we all know that,” Lynch said while holding a Graham mailer. “I’m running for the United States Senate to remove a 30-year veteran named Linsey Graham.”

The event followed Lynch’s campaign announcement, posted on social media last week, that accused Graham of betraying Trump and Republicans. His posts refer to Graham as a RINO, which stands for Republican in Name Only.

Acknowledging Graham’s sizable campaign war chest, Lynch said he plans to put between $4 million and $5 million of his own money into the campaign — possibly more if necessary.

Graham has more than $15.6 million available, as of his latest campaign filing.

“We the people spoke during Trump’s election, and we are going to speak again,” Lynch said. “Lindsey Graham doesn’t have the money that God does.”

He touts that his business employs 110 South Carolinians. And “in his spare time,” he’s an addiction counselor, avid marksman and guitarist for a band name Concealed Damage. He’s also a deacon at his church, Burnsview Baptist, in Greer.

Lynch, a father of two and grandfather of four, previously tried to oust a state senator. In 2020, Lynch challenged state Sen. Scott Talley of Spartanburg County and lost by less than 6 percentage points.

Lynch’s Feb. 5 social media post entering the race came a day after Graham announced that his 2026 re-election co-chairs are Gov. Henry McMaster and U.S. Sen. Tim Scott.

SC’s Sen. Lindsey Graham wants to ‘claw back,’ redirect clean energy funding to border control

“I have never known anyone who works harder for South Carolina than Lindsey Graham,” McMaster said in the release. “As our senator, Lindsey Graham is always on the front lines of the fight – where conservatives can count on him to stand with President Trump.”

Graham has had a sometimes-rocky relationship with Trump since the 2016 presidential campaign, which Graham briefly entered. He exited the race in December 2015 ahead of South Carolina first-in-the-South presidential primary, which Trump won. Graham declined to endorse anyone that November. But he’s been a strong ally since.

Last month, Graham did say he thinks Trump made a mistake in some of his pardons of people involved in the Jan 6., 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol.

“Pardoning the people who went into the Capitol and beat up a police officer violently I think was a mistake, because it seems to suggest that’s an OK thing to do,” Graham told NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”

On Sunday, both Graham and Scott were among lawmakers accompanying Trump to the Super Bowl in New Orleans aboard Air Force One.

“Lindsey Graham is a conservative fighter, a colleague, and a friend, and I am proud to endorse his campaign and serve as co-chairman,” Scott, who leads the national committee to elect Republicans to the U.S. Senate, said in Graham’s Feb. 4 announcement.

Graham, who Republicans have blasted in the past as being too willing to compromise with Democrats, has a history of attracting — and besting — GOP challengers. In 2014, he fended off six Republican opponents without needing a runoff. In 2020, he easily defeated three GOP challengers to his right before taking on Democrat Jaime Harrison, who lost by double digits in what was then the most expensive U.S. Senate race ever.

Graham was first elected to the state House in 1992. Two years later, he became the first Republican since Reconstruction elected to represent South Carolina’s 3rd District in the U.S. House.

In 2002, voters elected him to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, who left office after turning 100 and died six months later.

SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. SC Daily Gazette maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seanna Adcox for questions: info@scdailygazette.com.

COLUMBIA— U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace has yet to publicly announce she’s running for governor, but she’s already taking jabs at potential GOP opponents.

South Carolina’s First District congresswoman criticized Lt. Gov Pam Evette and Attorney General Alan Wilson while speaking to primary voters Monday during the Richland County Republican Party meeting.

The appearance in Columbia is one of many she plans on making around the state as she mulls a run for governor in 2026. The 47-year-old single mom plans to make a decision in the next month or two, she told reporters.

Gov. Henry McMaster, who is already the state’s longest-serving elected governor in state history, is ineligible to run for a third term, leaving a wide-open field to replace him.

No one has formally announced for the primaries that are still 18 months away. Candidates can’t officially file for the race until mid-March 2026.

But a de facto race is already heating up.

Mace alluded to her impending governor’s bid during another trip through Columbia last Friday.

“Just see that big beautiful dome, capitol of South Carolina. I could get used to that,” Mace said on X, formerly Twitter, in a video from in front of the Statehouse.

Wilson, who’s in his fourth term as South Carolina’s top prosecutor, has been the primary focus of Mace’s criticism, both on social media and in front of voters. That suggests she knows he’s her biggest competitor — at least, among expected opponents.

And on Monday, Wilson was on Mace’s home turf, telling the Beaufort County Republican Party that he’s considering a run, The (Hilton Head) Island Packet reported.

Mace has been condemning Wilson in a barrage of recent posts on X. She continued her scathing remarks Monday, calling Wilson one of the nation’s worst attorneys general.

“He has no business even thinking about running for governor, and I will take him out,” Mace said. “I will personally make sure that he is never governor of South Carolina.”

She also referred to Wilson, who’s had two stints as chairman of the Republican Attorneys General Association, as a “do-nothing attorney general.”

She implied she’d do a better job as governor prosecuting crime, though she is not an attorney, and that’s not the governor’s or lieutenant governor’s job.

“I know what the system is like, and I know why it’s so important to have a governor, a lieutenant governor and an attorney general who will actually prosecute child trafficking,” she said.

Evette declined to comment for this article. Wilson defended himself in a statement to the SC Daily Gazette.

Spokeswoman Jacqueline Lane noted it was Wilson who pushed to create the state Human Trafficking Task Force, which he leads. She also said he was prosecuting child sex crimes as an assistant attorney general — when McMaster was attorney general — even before he was elected to the post.

Last year, he pushed for legislation criminalizing artificially-generated child pornography, but the legislation died with the end of session.

“Any statements that he hasn’t protected children or victims of sex crimes is blatantly false,” she said in the statement.

Mace, the first woman to graduate from The Citadel, first won elected office in a January 2018 special election to the South Carolina House representing parts of Charleston and Berkeley counties. She replaced a GOP legislator who resigned amid a years-long Statehouse corruption investigation started by Wilson, who handed the case to a Democratic solicitor he later unsuccessfully tried to fire.

In 2020, Mace ousted one-term Democrat Joe Cunningham to flip the coastal congressional district back into Republican control.

After that close election, the district was redrawn as part of the Legislature’s decennial redistricting process to favor a Republican. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the map last May. She easily won re-election in November with more than 58% of the vote despite never debating and barely recognizing her Democrat challenger.

She won last year’s GOP primary with the endorsement of President Donald Trump, two years after winning her GOP primary against a Trump-backed challenger.

On Monday, she said she wants Trump to weigh in on her potential run before she makes a decision. That conversation will be a crucial factor, she told reporters.

“I think that anyone that wants to run statewide or any election, really, in 2026 or 2028 beyond, will need the President’s support,” Mace said.

Early in her congressional tenure, the two had a rocky relationship. Mace condemned Trump in her first speech in the House following the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. And Trump blasted her after she was among House Republicans who voted in the aftermath to impeach him.

But she’s since become one of Trump’s most fervent allies. In July, she spoke at the Republican National Convention.

And, after angering many Republicans for joining with the hard-right House Freedom Caucus to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy in fall 2023, she helped his successor, Mike Johnson, hang on to the speaker’s job earlier this month.

According to the Washington Post, it was Mace who got Trump on the phone with Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina’s Fifth District, who flipped his vote to support Johnson after the call.

On Monday, she told voters the nation needs more bold leaders like Trump and ones “who will him implement his agenda.”

Wilson, who’s spent much of his own tenure fighting the Obama and Biden administrations in court, said he intends to do just that. “It’s nice to have a partner in the White House,” his spokeswoman said.

As for the Jan. 6, 2021, riot she once condemned, Mace said she supported Trump’s decision to pardon nearly 1,600 people charged in the mayhem.

“The folks who were at (the Capitol on Jan. 6) have served their time for the crimes they’ve did,” she said. “They’ve done that, and I support President Trump.”

SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. SC Daily Gazette maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seanna Adcox for questions: info@scdailygazette.com.