Rep. Harshbarger calls Black congressman ‘boy' in interview
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE) — During an interview with the podcast FAME Ministries, Representative Diana Harshbarger (R-Tennessee) called Representative Al Green (D-Texas) 'boy.'
FAME Ministries posted the podcast to their Facebook page on Friday. During the podcast, she also referred to transgender people as 'fairies' then said she wanted to 'love them into the love of Christ.'
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Around 35 minutes into the podcast, the interviewer asked about Congresspeople holding signs during the State of the Union. Harshbarger responded, 'I wanted to go over there and grab a few of them, but Al Green was over here with his cane, and I'm like, 'Gosh dang it, boy, put that…' He does not need that cane. That cane is a prop. I swear it's not real.'
During the event in question, Green was removed from the House after heckling Trump and shaking his cane at him.
Green held a press conference on Tuesday responding to Harshbarger's comment where he called the words slurs. He said that his parents were often referred to as 'boy' and 'girl' when he was growing up.
'Friends, it's not about Al Green,' he said. 'It's about whether Black people in this society are going to allow slurs such as this to be normalized. We cannot allow the normalization of these kinds of slurs.'
Green also quoted the 23 Psalm from the Bible saying that his cane was a 'comforter' to him that would allow him to defend himself in a situation where the police were there to defend him. He also said it helped him with climbing stairs.
On Tuesday, Harshbarger posted the clip in question to Facebook and wrote the following:
'The weather is warming up, so naturally, the snowflakes are starting to melt!
I was discussing one of my colleague's erratic behavior during President Trump's Joint Address, and now he—along with the rest of the Radical Left—is blowing it out of proportion in a desperate attempt to get attention.
BOY oh boy, you just can't catch a break between the FAKE NEWS and young men wielding canes!'
Representative Diana Harshbarger
Around 36 minutes into the video, the interviewer mentioned the Biden's administration's involvement with transgender people. Harshbarger responded, 'I've never saw so many fairies in the White House dancing around. I'm like, 'I don't know where they got them.' But look, my job is to love them into the love of Christ, and I've got to watch what I say.'
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In the podcast, Harshbarger also discussed her Christian faith, the importance of families, federal spending and debt and flood relief in Northeast Tennessee and Western North Carolina. She represents Tennessee's first Congressional district in Northeast Tennessee.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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