GOP Congressman Chalks Beyoncé’s Historic Grammy Win Up to ‘DEI’

Congressman Burgess Owens (R-UT) has joined the disproportionately vocal minority of critics who were unimpressed by Beyoncé’s historic win at the Grammy Awards last Sunday. In addition to becoming the first Black woman in Grammy history to win Best Country Album, the “Texas Hold ’Em” songstress won Album of the Year for the first time in her long career.

In an interview with video journalist Nicholas Ballasy at the Capitol on Friday, Owens called Beyoncé’s triumph “the closest thing to DEI we’re going to see right now.”

Though Owens admitted that he does not listen to country music, he seemed pretty convinced that fans of the genre “do not appreciate” Beyoncé taking home this year’s award. “You put all that hard work [in], develop your fan base. You go out and you work to develop a reputation and all of a sudden somebody comes out of the blue, because she’s popular in something else, and she is the best. Nobody respects that. And unfortunately, because of that, Beyoncé will not be respected by that core group of people that she’s now singing to.”

Ballasy asked Owens if he felt that Beyoncé’s win had “diminished” the award for future winners, to which he responded, “I think it diminishes her. I think it diminishes the awards. And I think you have a lot less people watching as time goes on. Fairness is what our country is all about.”

Owens then somehow managed to shoehorn in some praise for Donald Trump, concluding with a bizarre non-sequitur about transgender women in sports: “That’s why we’re so excited about what President Trump did with protecting women from men. We do not like unfairness. We see that, we turn away.”

Many have pointed out that, far from being a “DEI” recipient with her monumental win, Beyoncé is an example of the Recording Academy’s goal of “expand[ing] country music’s boundaries.” It’s also an acknowledgement that Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé’s eighth solo studio album—which features collaborations with legends of the genre like Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson—was, indeed, a country album.