Nancy Mace calls herself Trump’s ‘lost daughter’ and reveals her top choice for his vice president

Nancy Mace and Donald Trump’s relationship has come a long way since he called her “crazy,” a “terrible person” and endorsed her primary opponent.

After flipping and supporting Mace this cycle, Trump and the colorful South Carolina Republican are now “joking” about their past hatred of each other, she said.

‘We make light of it, it’s quite funny. I sometimes joke that I am his lost daughter,” Mace told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview. ‘I like to build relationships, not burn them down.’

Trump had endorsed Mace — now locked in a high-dollar primary — weeks after she rejected former friend Nikki Haley from supporting him.

She and the president are now in regular contact, and Mace said she would “love” him to choose Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina as his vice president. “He started me going to church five years ago, and he’s just a wonderful person. He’s going to do wonderful things.’

Mace is one of eight Republicans who voted to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and now faces his wrath, she believes, in primary challenger Catherine Templeton.

Nancy Mace and Donald Trump’s relationship has come a long way since he called her “crazy,” a “terrible person” and endorsed her primary opponent

“We expect (McCarthy) to spend between $4 and 5 million in the primary to try to buy this seat.”

Mace said the former chairman’s political career is “in trouble” and he now wants revenge on Republicans who voted to impeach him.

‘He counters Donald Trump the nominee, he’s going against the party, since I’m the incumbent. And he’s doing this to, I think, divide the party, destroy the party. And it is very damaging,” the congressman said.

Mace is defending her seat in the Charleston area against front-runner Templeton, a former state agency head, and political newcomer Bill Young.

Mace said Templeton’s deeply conservative views and anti-abortion stance would lose her the general election if she were successful in the primary. “She was the last person they asked and the only one who said yes,” Mace said.

“I don’t toe the party line,” she said. “Forty percent of our electorate is made up of independent voters… I represent a pro-choice district.”

‘McCarthy has turned someone against me who is known to be against all exceptions. Opposition to exceptions for rape, incest, exceptions, opposition to exceptions for the life of the mother. So if you’re a young woman with an ectopic pregnancy, she’s okay with you dying. She’s fine. She officially said you should die.”

Mace is one of eight Republicans who voted to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and now faces his wrath, she believes, in primary challenger Catherine Templeton.

Mace is defending her seat in the Charleston area against front-runner Templeton, former state agency head, and political newcomer Bill Young

Mace has made a name for herself in women’s issues.

“We have such a slim majority anyway, and (McCarthy) did just as good a job in the 22nd cycle. “We lost seats that we should have won if we hadn’t stuck our hat in the sand on the abortion post-Roe.”

Life on Capitol Hill was “lonely” after she voted to boot McCarthy, Mace said. But she saw it as a “unifying event”: every Republican rallying behind current Speaker Mike Johnson after three crazy, speakerless weeks.

Since then, Johnson has lost more Republican votes than McCarthy in a motion to evict — 11 to McCarthy’s eight — but kept his job thanks to Democrats’ help.

Mace once said Trump’s “entire legacy was wiped away” during the January 6, 2021 riot. She told staff she wanted to be punched in the face by rioters so she could be “the face of the anti-Trump movement.”

Representative Nancy Mace pictured with Donald Trump as she worked on his campaign in 2016 – before being blacklisted

Trump, in turn, has called her a “big loser” and a “RINO.”

“Frankly, she’s despised by almost everyone, and who needs that in Congress, or in the Republican Party?” Trump said in a statement as he endorsed her 2022 opponent Katie Arrington.

DailyMail.com reported that she was blacklisted from his events in 2016 after working for his campaign.

But Mace now says Trump “respects” her for exactly the reason they were opponents in the past: that she doesn’t just go along with her party.

“I sometimes get into trouble when I go against the grain, but my constituents in my district, in my state, don’t want me to toe the party line. And I think he respects that.”

“If you go against the establishment like I do, I stand out like a sore thumb.”