Rep. Virginia Foxx scolds reporters and House colleague blocking her exit: ‘Get away from the damned elevator’

Capitol Hill reporters and one House lawmaker found out Thursday that you never get between Rep. Virginia Foxx and a “damned elevator.”

The North Carolina Republican was captured on video visibly frustrated with a large group of reporters peppering Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) with questions about the House speaker race and, more importantly, blocking her exit. 

“I gotta get an elevator. Move! Move! Move! Move! Move!” Foxx, 80, shouted as she tried to make her way through the scrum.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Virginia,” an apologetic Donalds responded, upon hearing the commotion.

“Oh come on, guys. Get away from the damned elevator,” Foxx, still struggling to get to one of the members-only lifts, grumbled.

After Donalds helpfully pointed Foxx toward the direction of an incoming elevator, the peeved lawmaker groused, “Go find a place to talk,” as she finally entered the elevator. 

“I love Virginia. I do. I love her,” Donalds told reporters, after the doors shut. “Listen, with Virginia Foxx you know where you stand. And in this town, wooh, I love that.” 

When a reporter joked that perhaps Foxx should throw her hat into the ring for the speakership, Donalds said, “Talk to her right now. She’ll probably saddle up.”

“Official Foxx Business. Nothing to see here, people,” Foxx posted on X, after video of the incident emerged.

“Lol I love Virginia Foxx,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) said in a tweet, also sharing the footage. 

“Idk why I just felt like I got in trouble lol But Rep. Virginia Foxx just scolded us and Byron Donalds,” video journalist JC Whittington, who captured one angle of the scene, tweeted. 

“Speaker Virginia Foxx would get this conference in line in a hurry,” one X user argued.

“Time to draft [Foxx] as Speaker,” another X user demanded. “She knows how to run a House.”