Rep. Elise Stefanik lashed out Monday against Kathy Manning (D-NC) who accused the New York Republican of ripping off her angry letter to Ivy League schools, reports show.
Stefanik took to X Monday to defend the letter — condemning university boards of MIT, Harvard, and University of Pennsylvania for dodging straight questions about condoning antisemitism — that a Manning spokesperson told Politico was an undisclosed joint-effort.
"Desperate and deranged Democrats are now attacking us for uniting the country around calls for these university presidents to be fired," Stefanik's statement reads.
"Because Kathy Manning got much less support for her weaker letter, she is now trying to do a hit piece to help panicked Democrats who are clearly on the wrong side of history protecting these university presidents."
Manning's spokesperson Gia Scirrotto told Politico that Stefanik "chose to take our language and use it as her own.”
The key difference was an incendiary demand that these college leaders resign from their positions, Politico reports. So when Stefanik moved ahead, Manning, through her spokesperson, claimed to be sidelined when the letter was submitted and publicly consumed.
The Dec. 8 letter reads: "Given this moment of crisis, we demand that your boards immediately remove each of these presidents from their positions and that you provide an actionable plan to ensure that Jewish and Israeli students, teachers, and faculty are safe on your campus.... The world is watching —you can stand with your Jewish students and faculty, or you can choose the side of dangerous antisemitism."
Politico reviewed email correspondence between Manning and Stefanik, that was provided by Manning's spokesperson.
For her part, Stefanik claims in her tweet that the accusations were meritless, and that Manning was essentially too trepidatious.
After sending the first draft to her office, Stefanik said she and her staff returned it to Manning with "significant edits."
According to Stefanik, Manning went "radio silent" as she shared the version with her fellow Republican Congress members.
"Our offices then decided to go in different directions with two separate versions of the letter when Rep. Manning did not want to call for the firing of the presidents among other significant edits she refused to accept," the post reads. "This is something that happens everyday on Capitol Hill."
"Our updated version of the stronger letter with significant edits got much more bipartisan support because it was right thing to do."
Stefanik pointed appeared to question Manning's toughness.
