How NOT to handle a crisis

Paging Jamaal Bowman.

(New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman)

Here are the facts as we currently understand them.

1. On Saturday morning, New York Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman pulled a fire alarm in the Cannon Office Building on the way to a House floor vote on keeping the government funded and open.

2. That move led to the evacuation of the building.

3. Bowman’s decision to pull the fire alarm coincided with, as the New York Times put it, House Democrats “stalling a vote” on the spending legislation so that they could ensure Republicans weren’t trying to pull a fast one over on them.

4. In a statement explaining himself, Bowman said that “I was trying to get to a door. I thought the alarm would open the door, and I pulled the fire alarm to open the door by accident.” He added: “I was just trying to get to my vote and the door that’s usually open wasn’t open, it was closed.”

5. Republicans went ballistic. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said that Bowman’s actions “should not go without punishment” and even drew a comparison to the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol. (Yes, really!)

6. On Monday, Bowman’s office sent out talking points to other Congressional Democrats with suggestions on how to defend the New York Democrat from GOP attacks. One of the suggested talking points? “I believe Congressman Bowman when he says this was an accident. Republicans need to instead focus their energy on the Nazi members of their party before anything else.” (Yes, really!)

7. On Monday afternoon, Bowman threw his staff under the bus distanced himself from the Nazi comment. “I just became aware that in our messaging guidance, there was inappropriate use of the term Nazi without my consent,” he said on Twitter X. “I condemn the use of the term Nazi out of its precise definition. It is important to specify the term Nazi to refer to members of the Nazi party & neo-Nazis.”

Got all that?

This is a colossal, epic fail — by both the Congressman and his office. Let’s go through it piece by piece.

First of all, Bowman’s initial explanation makes no sense. He is a grown-ass adult — and therefore has to know that pulling a fire alarm, well, sets off the fire alarm. It does not, in fact, open a door. Also, no one pulls a fire alarm by “accident.” Not a thing.

Here’s a look at the door (and fire alarm) in question via a pic from Breitbart News (I know, I know — but a picture is a picture).

That, um, is pretty clearly labeled. And nowhere does it suggest that by pulling the fire alarm that the door will open.

So, on its face, Bowman’s explanation makes no sense. None.

Now, I am not suggesting that I KNOW why Bowman pulled the fire alarm. I do not. If he says that he didn’t do it to delay the vote — even though Democrats were in the process of delaying the vote — then I guess I take him at his word although my general belief is there are very few coincidences in politics.

Then there is the memo of talking points that the Bowman team put out. Which, had they asked me (they didn’t), I could have told them to immediately stop doing what they were doing.

The reason is simple. The memo violates Cillizza’s 1st rule of politics: Never — and I mean NEVER — compare anything to the Holocaust or Nazi Germany. There is nothing in our modern political world that compares to it. It’s gross. And it’s always guaranteed to get you in more trouble, not lessen your problems.

Releasing a statement urging a comparison between House Republicans and the Nazis is political malpractice. And gives further fuel to the Bowman story.

Now. Do I think Bowman should be expelled from Congress — as New York Rep. Nicole Malliotakis is trying to do — for pulling a fire alarm? No. Is it a little rich that Republicans, who seem to be totally comfortable with Donald Trump facing 91 counts of wrongdoing, are up in arms over this? Yes.

But, regardless of his reasons, Bowman did a dumb and dangerous thing. And made it worse in trying to make it better.