Nancy Mace explains tears after Epstein victims meeting

Rep. Nancy Mace has opened up about what prompted her to walk out of a meeting in tears after hearing from survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's abuse last week. During a high-profile meeting between a group of survivors and lawmakers last Tuesday, Mace was pictured leaving the session early, visibly upset and with tears welling up.

Addressing the matter in a five-minute video posted to X on Sunday, the South Carolina Republican disclosed that she became emotional after relating to some of the survivors’ tragic stories. ‘I was okay until the third victim spoke. And it really hit close to home,’ the congresswoman says in the selfie video taken at what appears to be a park in South Carolina.

The video also features cinematic background music and a revelation she suffers from cleithrophobia, a specific phobia characterized by an intense and irrational fear of being trapped or confined. ‘She talked about her fear coming to the Capitol , and when she got into that elevator in the building, the Capitol, she asked herself, am I safe?’ ‘When she said that, I thought, God, you know, that's her story. That's my story... I have a fear of being in elevators with people I don't know.’

The Republican called her fear of being in elevators with strangers ‘a quirky thing’ that similarly happens to her at the Capitol, where she regularly has to use the lifts coming and going from votes. Mace, 47, has been open about her own journey as a sexual assault victim, so much so that earlier this year she spoke about her experience publicly on the House floor.

During her nearly hour-long speech, the South Carolina lawmaker accused four men of sexual abuse, including her former fiancé. All of the men have denied Mace’s accusations. The Republican noted in the video how the survivors’ testimony made her feel less lonely.

‘I think it really struck me that I'm not alone, and there are lots of us out there that have been fighting for years, and we don't have justice,’ she said. Mace previously addressed her tearful exit from the meeting last week in a post to X. ‘As a recent survivor (not 2 years in), I had a very difficult time listening to their stories. Full blown panic attack. Sweating. Hyperventilating. Shaking. I can’t breathe,’ she wrote at the time.

Mace also mentioned how the Justice Department’s Epstein investigation does not add up. ‘Look at the Epstein saga, over 1000 victims, only one accomplice,’ Mace said in the video. ‘You can't tell me there are over 1000 victims and there is only one accomplice. Doesn't add up.’ The lawmaker is one of a select few Republicans who have signed onto a petition to force a vote on releasing more DOJ files on the deceased New York [child predator]. The handful of other Republican signatories includes

That discharge petition, authored by Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., could force the entire House of Representatives to vote on releasing more Epstein-related files. Speaker Mike Johnson and GOP leadership may be powerless to stop the vote should the petition gather 218 signatures. Currently, 215 members have signed one.

The DOJ has given Congress over 32,000 pages of DOJ documents, but advocates for the petition say it would prompt the Trump administration to release additional, undisclosed documents. However, many of the files released had already been previously reported. Few new details other than flight logs were provided in the release.

The day after the private meeting between lawmakers and the survivors, the group of nearly a dozen women spoke at a press conference on Capitol Hill to advocate for the release of additional files and for child sexual abuse reform. Many of the survivors were speaking publicly for the first time, offering details not yet widely reported. Chauntae Davies, a former actress, shared that Epstein's longtime girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell , first introduced her to the financier because he could help her career.

That introduction was the start of a long pattern of abuse, including trips to the [chid predator's] private island and different homes. 'His [Epstein's] biggest brag, forever, was that he was very good friends with Donald Trump ,' Chauntae Davies, a former actress, shared. 'He had an 8x10 framed picture of him on his desk, with the two of them, they were very close.'

She also claimed to have been 'taken on a trip to Africa with former president Bill Clinton and other notable figures.' Marina Lacerda, 37, named as 'Minor-Victim 1' in Epstein's 2019 indictment, spoke out about the abuse she faced and called on Congress to take further action at the event. Lacerda, according to the 2019 indictment, met the financier in 2002 when she was just 14. She was recruited to go to his Manhattan home to give him a massage, which later led to years of abuse. Pictured: Family members of Virginia Roberts Duffey