Purple-Haired Congresswoman Tries To Bully Zeldin In Hearing… Gets BODIED By Facts And Reason

She’s the leading Dem on the appropriations committee and was trying to hold funding questions over his head… not realizing that SCOTUS itself had struck down the bureaucratic overreach she accused him of ending.

For a party that spends so much of its time trying to use the courts to enforce its will on areas they can’t prevail in ordinary legislation, you might expect their leaders to pay attention when SCOTUS makes a major change to the rules of engagement.

Rosa DeLauro, Connecticut-03, has served in office since Bush Senior’s administration. As her hair might suggest, she’s part of the AOC/Bernie-bro hard-left coalition. She just had her 83rd birthday, and she’s running for re-election.

Importantly for this video, she’s sitting as the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, which is responsible for budget allocations. She’s upset with Lee Zeldin, the head of the EPA, for removing Obama-era 2009 ‘endangerment finding’ in which federal greenhouse gas regulations were anchored. It was strictly an in-house agency policy that had no basis in legislation, and therefor was an example of bureaucratic overreach. This issue was specifically brought all the way to SCOTUS, where the courts substantially reduced their authority of make sweeping changes absent any legislative authority in which it was anchored.

You can see Lee Zeldin attempt several times to educate her on the finer points of law, but she stonewalls any attempt on his part to explain that he was obligated to work within the parameters of the SCOTUS ruling… and frankly as a legislator, so was she.

It went as well as you would expect.

She can’t even get the rhetoric out right. Her rant begins with, ‘when climate change is flooding our streets’. (That’s literally an incoherent thought fragment.) It only gets worse from there.

Nothing infuriates an uninformed Congressional Dem more than when they realize they voluntarily triggered a debate with someone who actually knows what they are talking about, reads federal statute and adheres to Supreme Court precedent. Today’s self-implosion by @rosadelauro was… pic.twitter.com/6HTgVjQCiE

— Lee Zeldin (@epaleezeldin) April 27, 2026

Here, in his own words, is the caption Zeldin attached to the video.

Nothing infuriates an uninformed Congressional Dem more than when they realize they voluntarily triggered a debate with someone who actually knows what they are talking about, reads federal statute and adheres to Supreme Court precedent. Today’s self-implosion by @rosadelauro was quite remarkable to witness. Without apology or regret, I will always adhere to the best available reading of federal statute pursuant to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Loper Bright.

[Editor update: It got worse. Rosa went on to suggest Lee Zeldin should kill himself (by consuming glyphosate):]

When you don’t have anything good to say, some advise to just not say anything at all. As for @rosadelauro, she apparently believes that when you don’t have anything good to say, you should instruct the person you are debating to kill themself. https://t.co/E5bwHhfSxt pic.twitter.com/AW9rFP0Fzc

— Lee Zeldin (@epaleezeldin) April 28, 2026

[End update]

The ruling is here.

In short, it shot down the Chevron Deference, which had empowered agencies as ‘experts’ who could be the final arbiter of what policy is reasonable.

That deference created legal absurdities, and when it was struck down, so was the EPA’s power to enforce Obama-era CO2 standards.

It really doesn’t matter how loud her bluster gets, it’s still rooted in ignorance of the law she herself is also supposed to conform with as a legislator.

That she’s been at this 35 years and still doesn’t understand her job goes a long way to explaining the public’s low opinion of Congress critters.