Nancy Mace doubles down with new trans bathroom bill

• McBride, who is set to be the first openly transgender member of Congress, has cast Mace's crusade as a distraction from "the fact that [Republicans] have no real solutions to what Americans are facing."

Driving the news: Mace said in a statement, "Women fought for these spaces, and I will not let them be erased to score political points with a small but loud activist class."

• The bill comes after Mace introduced a resolution earlier this week to ban transgender women lawmakers and staff from using women's bathrooms at the Capitol and House office buildings.
• Mace has been pressing House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to include the provision in the rules for the 119th Congress, but Johnson has been non-committal.

The other side: McBride has been counseling her soon-to-be Democratic colleagues to follow her lead in dismissing Mace's push as a diversion, one lawmaker told Axios — a dynamic first reported by NOTUS.

• House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), at a press conference on Tuesday, said: "Bullying a new member of Congress – This is what we're doing? This is the lesson that you've drawn from the election in November? This is your priority?"