Kentucky Rep. Hal Rogers issued an apology Tuesday night for cursing at Ohio Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty when she asked him to put his mask on in the U.S. Capitol’s subway system. Beatty, who is chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, claimed that during the altercation Tuesday morning the Republican lawmaker got quite hostile when she told him to put on his mask.
“He poked me in the middle of my back and said, ‘Get on the train,’” Beatty said, according to the Associated Press. “And I said, ‘Don’t you ever touch me.’”
And that’s when he told her, “Kiss my ass.”
“My words were not acceptable and I expressed my regret to her, first and foremost,” Rogers said in a statement, according to CNN.
Well, actually, Rogers expressed his regret after 56 members of the Congressional Black Caucus stood on the steps of the House demanding he do so and publicly.
Read as: Make your apology as loud as your disrespect.
“Maybe the question is, had a Black man poked a White woman and then told her to kiss his blank blank, you tell me what you think would have happened,” Beatty told CNN’s John Berman.
She has since accepted Rogers’ apology.
Here’s how the incident unfolded according to AP:
Earlier Tuesday, Beatty, D-Ohio, ran into Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., outside her congressional office. Rogers, who has served in Congress since 1981, was maskless when they entered an elevator.
Beatty asked him to put on his mask and Rogers begrudgingly agreed, she said in an interview with The Associated Press shortly after it happened.
Rogers proceeded to take his mask off when they got off the elevator and the two crossed paths again upon entering a train in the Capitol complex. That is when the interaction became hostile.
Beatty once again asked Rogers to put his mask back on.
“He poked me in the middle of my back and said, ‘Get on the train,’” she said. “And I said, ‘Don’t you ever touch me.’”
According to Beatty, Rogers replied, “Kiss my a—.”
In a video obtained by The AP, Beatty can be heard asking Rogers for an apology on the train.
According to AP, Republican lawmakers like Rogers have been fined thousands of dollars in fines for refusing to wear their masks in Congress, particularly in the House.