(DailyVantage.com) – On Wednesday, progressive Democrat Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and conservative firebrand Byron Donalds duked it out on the steps of Capitol Hill.
The lively conversation between the two freshmen Congressmen was captured on video. Donalds (R-FL), who recently gained a lot of publicity when he was nominated for Speaker by anti-McCarthy Freedom Caucus members back in January, starts of the dispute by saying “It’s cool to have two people from my state be president, I don’t know about New York though.”
Bowman, the insurgent AOC-endorsed candidate who defeated incumbent Eliot Engel (D-NY) for New York’s 16th congressional district back in 2021, charged back at Donalds saying “Who in your state can be president? DeSantis? Come on man…” Bowman went on to call DeSantis a “white nationalist” along with a slew of other insults.
The two continued sparring for a while more. At one point, President Biden’s name was entered into the conversation. Bowman, responding to an anti-Biden jab made by Donalds, said “Biden passed three pieces of legislation after an insurrection…” Bowman claimed that Biden would “wipe the floor” with DeSantis.
Though the exchange was heated at points, the two left off amicably. The mood appeared to be light with both Congressmen laughing. At the end of the exchange, Representative Andre Carson (D-IN) embraced the two by putting his arms around them and saying “Here’s some handsome black men!”
Representative Bowman posted the video of the two sparring on Twitter with the caption “Watch me destroy @RepDonaldsPress in a debate on the Capitol steps!”
Conservative author Raheem Kassam commented on the video saying “Destroy? You just repeated generic left wing tropes…”
Some, however, found the exchange to be a reminder that two people with totally ideologically opposed worldviews could treat each other with respect. One Twitter user commented “We need more of this.”
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