WASHINGTON The confrontation between Reps. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) at a House oversight committee hearing Thursday may have been inevitable.

Since arriving in Congress in 2023, Crockett has been one of the committees most vocal Democrats . And Greene has been Greene, offering her trademark stream of inflammatory behavior, including a fake eyelashes jab at Crockett last week, to which the Democrat responded with her now-infamous clapback about Greenes bleach-blond, bad-built, butch body.

For Democrats, especially newer members of the House oversight committee, Thursdays hearing seems to have vindicated their strategy of aggressively mocking Republicans . Greene went personal, Crockett responded, and the chaos overshadowed the GOP-led committees push for criminal contempt charges against the U.S. attorney general, with even House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) shaking his head at the proceedings. It was just the latest episode of what some have termed failure theater for House oversight committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.).

It is a committee where you got to stay on top of your toes and be ready for some nonsense, Crockett told HuffPost. I didnt think that Id have to be ready for being attacked for my lashes in committee, but it is that type of committee where it is hand-to-hand combat all the time.

The daily combat is a strategy, Crockett said. We always look at it like were the truth-tellers, and were on the front lines of democracy because these are the people, they spread all the misinformation and disinformation and the Russian propaganda , she said.

Republicans have run the House for the past 17 months by lurching from one personality-based conflict to another, and theyre growing tired of Greene. Their collective shrug after Crocketts dig at Greene shows how theyve lost their appetite for governing through beefs.

Crockett showed an early willingness to fight on Greenes terms last year. In March 2023, she and Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), another outspoken first-term Democrat on the oversight committee, joined a Greene-led delegation to the D.C. Jail , where Republicans decried the supposed mistreatment of Donald Trump supporters locked up for rioting at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Its hard to argue with criticism of the D.C. Jail, a facility that has occasionally lacked working doors and functional air conditioning, and where inmates sometimes die. But Crockett and Garcia emerged from their tour noting that Jan. 6 defendants had their own unit away from the general population and more.

They have their own cells, they have access to laptops and tablets, Crockett, a former public defender and defense attorney, told reporters outside the jail. Coming out of Texas, I have seen so much worse.

A reporter asked why Democrats would even lend their credibility to the visit. I mean, there had to be somebody that was going to be willing to tell the truth, Crockett said. And she seems to have had the last word: The oversight committee hasnt held a hearing or taken any other public action on the issue since members visited the facility last year.