Today, Explained - Jasmine Crockett isn’t backing down

Episode Date: February 7, 2026

Rep. Jasmine Crockett wants you to know she comes by her controversies and clap-backs honestly. This episode was produced by Jesse Ash, edited by Miranda Kennedy, fact checked by Andrea Lopez-Cruzado and Hady Mawajdeh, mixed by Shannon Mahoney and hosted by Astead Herndon. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) at a SiriusXM Town Hall. Photo by Leigh Vogel/Getty Images for SiriusXM. You can also watch this episode on video at youtube.com/vox. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at ⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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To Canadian residents except those in Quebec in the territories. Segregated funds are administered by Cooperators' life insurance company. Life insurance is underwritten by cooperators' life insurance company. Hi and welcome to Today Explain Saturday. I'm a Sted Herndon, and every week I'll be talking to someone in the news, in the culture, or just exploring an idea I can't get out of my head. Texas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett is a bona fide political star. In just two terms here in Washington, D.C. as a member of the House of Representatives, she's turned herself into a national name, known for her sharp attacks against President Trump, her Republican colleagues, and even some Democrats. But while the social media fame has gotten her millions and millions of followers,

it's also turned her into a little bit of a lightning rod, a favorite target of some Republicans and a nuisance to some Democrats, who argued that she could be putting her brand above the parties. Congresswoman Crockett's decision to run for Senate was controversial to say the least, and she's now locked in a neck-and-neck race against Texas State Representative James Tilarico. But the differences in this race so far haven't really been about politics. It's been about candidate preference, about which one of them is best positioned to win. And if Crocket has enough substance to go with all her style.

So we came to D.C. and decided to ask her. Thank you, Representative Jasmine Crocket for joining us today. Absolutely. How would you describe your base? Who is a Jasmine Crockett voter? I think a Jasmine Crockett voter is anyone that is frustrated with everything that they're seeing in politics, whether you identify as a Democrat, Republican or independent. There are a lot of people that have found themselves frustrated and feel as if it doesn't matter which party is in power. There's no one that sees them, hears them, or feels them or advocates for them.

I am the type of person that real people can relate to. I am not the type of person that politicos get excited about. And so my voter is real people. You are a relatively new member of Congress, but exploded in popularity at May 2024, for when you had a famous exchange with Marjorie and Taylor Green in the House Oversight Committee, she talked about your eyelashes,

and you replied with one of the great moments of American political alliteration saying she had a bleached bond, bad-built, butch body. I'm just curious, just to better understand your ruling, if someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody's bleached-blind, bad-built butch body,

that would not be engaging in personalities, correct? A what now? I wanted to ask a question that I've thought about since this happened. Did you practice that or was it off the cuff? No, I didn't practice that. These are, you didn't have that in your back pocket. No, I did not.

No, people have asked that over and over. You know, I actually sat there. I did write it down as we were going through this, like, back and forth about whether or not she was going to be allowed to continue on in a hearing. And as the back and forth was taking place between, like, leadership, I finally got word that they were going to allow her. her to disrespect me. And I basically understood the rules because as a lawyer, the first thing that you're supposed to figure out is what are the rules. And then I wanted to illustrate how

quickly something like this could devolve if we set this precedent while also making sure I didn't violate the rules. Yeah, I mean, but in showing how things can devolve if that space is opened up, I wonder if there is any cost to that. I mean, should we want our politicians, I mean, as much we love like the phrase or much as the phrase blew up, should we want our politicians to be clapback artists, you know? I mean, I think that in this moment, you have to understand that politics has changed. And one thing that the Democrats have struggled with

is that they continue to be viewed as the doormat for the Republicans. They continue to say, where's the opposition, where is the fight? And instead, we continue to say, these are the rules and we try to play by the rules as they literally are shooting people dead in the middle of the street and there's no accountability. And so the reason I personally, believe that the Democratic brand has been struggling as relates to their popularity is because

people feel as if the Democrats play by the rules. And frankly, I think Americans want everybody to play by the rules. Let me just level set there. I think whether you're a Democrat, Republican, or independent, they actually want a government that is very boring and just plays by the rules that keeps things kind of going. But unfortunately, that's not where we are. And so that's why there is kind of this fierce urgency. if now this is why you see a historic number of both Democrats and Republicans, in my opinion,

that are retiring both from the House and the Senate, because this environment is not a normal environment. And so to respond to it in a normal way, Democrats have tried that it's not worked out very well for us. And right now we're wondering whether or not our democracy is even going to survive. I definitely think that there is a clear argument that, you know, Donald Trump has sent political rhetoric left a thousand times, right? I'm not saying that it's kind of one-to-one. But, you know, when I see the moment on the House where you seem to accuse Republican Lee Zeldon of taking money from Jeffrey Epstein,

but it seemed like if it was not the same person, I wonder, like, is there times in which the rhetoric goes too far? There are times in which you should say, you know, maybe I messed that one up? No. Not in this environment. I don't. I think that, you know, we are really in uncharted territory. So I hear your argument that you're reflecting the urgency necessary.

And so that's why you won't give an inch. Correct. You spent much of your career as a public, earlier parts of your career as a public defender, as civil rights attorney. I wanted to know how that shaped your worldview. How did that lead? You know, what were you seeing at that time that said, hey, I want to get into elected office? Listen, I wake up every day scratching my head about elected office. So I don't know that there's ever been a point where I was just like, oh, my gosh, right?

I have always been the type of person that has wanted to solve for problems. I mean, that's what lawyers are supposed to do. Someone has an issue. They come to you. They want you to help them. And so as I worked as a public defender, I became acutely aware of how broken our system is. And so, you know, I have so many stories of my experiences as a public defender that have stuck with me. And also, like, what people don't understand is that when you are a public defender, you're representing indigent people.

And you're starting to learn the source of why certain things happen, right? Like, you start to learn how poverty can play a role in some people ending up in the system. I wanted to ask about how you view kind of the question of political authenticity. You're someone who comes up when people talk about authentic candidates and people who are willing to be themselves. You know, but politics is a performance in some ways. I mean, what does being yourself even mean? When you think about how you show up to politics, is this the authentic version? Are we seeing the Jasmine Crockett?

That's the real one. It's me. You know, we recently had a fundraiser down in Houston, and one of my classmates from law school was the one that was hosting it. And she's like, this is who Jasmine has always been. I've always been someone who has been intellectual. I was top 10% of my class at Texas Southern, my first year in law school. I was always very much kind of digging in and wanted to understand. I was always the person that would bring the receipts and wouldn't back down.

So, you know, you're always clapping back to? I was, I was always, yeah, there was always a pushback. If I feel like I am right on something, I've always been very clear about that. Well, I'm going to think more also about the policy and kind of your strategy to win, too. You know, the Houston Chronicle this week endorsed your opponent in the primary and said that when you were asked about your path to victory, you pointed to celebrity endorsements and turnout operations. Now, I know that you have said that the reason that you should be the preferred Democratic nominee is that you plan to expand the electorate. But how do you expand the electorate past the efforts we've already seen for many Democrats that haven't worked?

Yeah, I don't know what efforts we've seen. I'm saying if we're talking about celebrity endorsements or internal operations. We certainly heard that in 2024. The way that I evaluate this is that I'm starting more so at third base instead of starting at first base. And then when you are trying to engage people that have not been engaged, then, yeah, it does take keeping excitement and enthusiasm and the idea that one person can do that in a state of 30 million people and in a state that has more or some of the most expensive media markets in the country,

what you need to do is make sure that you can communicate to people that normally aren't communicated to. And so, yeah, you can go on CNN all day long. You can go on MS now all day long, and you're going to communicate to the same kind of group of people Texas has one of the lowest voter turnouts in the entire country, but the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. The goal has consistently been to go and get people that aren't a part of the base. And then what happens is the base feels like they are not getting courted.

And instead, they are being ignored and there's an assumption that they will come out. And so for me to do what we've consistently done, that is, consistently not worked, I don't think that that makes very much sense. Now, does that mean that there are Republicans? And I'm, like, doing like what we saw in Arizona and saying, no, no Republicans. That's absolutely crazy. You're saying that's just not the focus of what you're trying to do. That's just not the focus.

Your focus, if I hear correctly, is kind of the loyal base of Democrats, like the people who feel as if the party hasn't been focused toward them, particularly black voters. And then to reach people who have not traditionally voted, which you're saying in Texas, is a majority minority community. Absolutely. Okay. But, you know, even in that strategy, you would need, you know, just, you would still need to activate those non-voters, obviously.

And, you know, there has been some controversy with previous statements where you've said that Latinos seem to have a slave mentality when it comes to supporting anti-immigration Republicans. I mean, would it be easier to win those people over to your side if statements like that hadn't been made? Yeah. So I think we absolutely will be fine because here's the thing. You know, when you're running in elections, people love to just like go and cherry pick and not get full context of statements.

Number one, number two, one of the things that I talked about is I'm like, listen, we know that when it came down to Donald Trump, Donald Trump was like, oh, they're poisoning in the blood and, oh, they're criminals, they're rapists. He said all these things, and it did not impact him. In fact, to the extent that he actually got more support amongst Latinos than any Republican ever has. But the one thing that is impacting him is his policies. And when it comes down to it, I have a very strong record specifically as a civil rights lawyer. And I've been very clear that for me, as a black woman and the lens that I see things, it is in the lens of the black experience. I see a lot of the same hate that is spewed towards Latinos is hate that historically has been spued towards African Americans. And so my goal will be to make sure that we understand that there's more that unites us than divides us.

But the third best demographic that I have is Latinas in general. So I think, you know, there are those that want to make inflammatory type of feelings take place. And then there are those that know me because they've seen my work. And so I think that they are like, we know who she is. Yeah. I'm going to ask another question explicitly. Part of what's made this race more contentious is the question. of racism and sexism that seems to be swirling around it. Like, I've gotten into some Twitter

fights with folks on your behalf because the intensity of their opposition feels so wild at sometimes. But I wanted to also kind of put the critique to you directly from what I hear from maybe a certain group of a consultant class. Their argument has been that you represent a Democratic Party that has sometimes used race and gender as a shield and then doing things like comparing Trump's ICE to slave patrols that you've engaged in some language that has have driven people towards Republicans, right? That this may save your interest personally, but not the interest of the Democratic Party.

Can you respond to that? I mean, listen, again, my authenticity is not about me trying to do the bidding of a party. It is me understanding the anger, the fear, the trauma that is being inflicted on real people. And so I think that, you know, we know that I'm not the party pick. I've always been the people's pick.

You know, I ask, though, Because the specific claim is about whether race and gender have held Democrats back from critiquing certain candidates or have been used as a weapon by candidates to insulate themselves from criticism. I don't think that's a thing. Okay. Like, I run on my credentials. In this race, I have an opponent who taught two years at charter school. And then he went into elected office. And when he went into elected office, which is a part-time legislature, he then, you know,

became a consultant for charter schools. So I'm running on my credentials. I heard you. I owned my own business. I served in the state legislature. I serve on the federal level. I have tried cases both in state and federal. I have sat on boards. I have done community service. I have done, I am running on my credentials. And so when people critique me, when they critique me on things like, oh, how she talks, that's not an actual critique of substance. That is what I think people are frustrated with. If you have a critique about my policies, then go forth and talk about it, right? There are people that say, well, he says that he wants to tax the rich, yet he doesn't have a plan for that. And I did. So if you're going to critique me, and I think that that's where the problem comes in,

is because, number one, I get critiqued as if I don't have credentials. And he just gets assumed to be. Amazon presents Jamal versus the Shih Tzu. Descending from the gray wolf, Shih Tzu's live by their own untamed primal code of not giving a single Shih Tzu. But Jamal shopped on Amazon and bought dog treats, chew toys, and 32 ounces of carpet cleaner.

Hey, Jamal, you've been promoted to pack leader. Save the everyday with deal. from Amazon. I want to ask about some policy stuff. I hear you. But I want to get to two questions first. First, a former Senate candidate, Colin Allred, a black man who ran recently for Texas Senate endorsed you this week in a rather controversial manner, I would say.

He put out a video which called out your opponent for allegedly calling him a mediocre black man. You put out a statement in support of Allred. I wondered, like, had you talked to him about this incident before that video had come out? your reaction to it? No, I mean, you know, I've been in D.C. I've been working. And the most that I knew about anything that was going on was about the young lady because I do know influencers. The content creator who originally put this out. Correct. And so I watched the video. And I think

the reason that it was so jarring is because Colin Al-Rid is not the type of guy to like blow up. And so seemingly he felt like there was some veracity to the statement because I don't think that he ever would have done that without, you know, doing his own due diligence. You know, my response is that I really want to keep the focus on Texans, as I stated. And, you know, right now, Texans are hurting, whether it's affordability crisis or whether it has to do with, you know, the immigration issues, housing, education, health care, all those things. But I will say that I wanted to make sure that I made it clear that there's nothing mediocre about Colin Allred. And that is why I listed so many of his credentials. But when you talk about race and you talk about this particular race, it is interesting that black candidates who have actual resumes are seemingly more so dismissed. Now, I do want to clarify, Tyler Rico said that he,

use the word mediocre in reference to campaigning rather than his actual individual credentials. And I want to follow up. I mean, because you could see this and say, is this all read in Crockett using racism for politics? Like, you know, it could... I don't know how you could see that and do that unless you wanted to be disingenuous. That's that. But I did want to ask just generally about the kind of cancel culture, stand culture that has come with your internet celebrity. When you see people like Matt Rogers or Bowen Yang getting attacked in your name or saying or your fans flood in their comments or something.

Anytime a politician is making it too obviously about themselves, I'm already done. And don't waste your money sending to Jasmine Crockett. Do not do it. I must agree. Don't do it. You're going to waste your money. Do you think like, oh, no, even. Do you think, you know, that's kind of how the cookie crumbles?

Like, that's how the game is play. No, with the level of a text that I face. I mean, this is just kind of part of, unfortunately, kind of what comes with it. And I think that, you know, people for the vast majority of what I saw, they were very clear. Again, the attacks had nothing to do with substance, right? So, again, that is why, like, if people lead with substance and say things like, oh, well, you know, she believes in a child tax credit.

And we think that's stupid, right? Like, if you lead with substance, I think that you shield yourself from some of the critiques. But considering the fact that you're not politicos, considering the fact that you're not Texans, considering the fact that you haven't been talking about any other races in this country, and considering the fact that then you jump in and then you don't jump in with the actual substance, I think that you open yourself up to what looks like is something problematic.

I wanted to ask about, you know, I kind of was looking through your interviews and kind of wanted to kind of distill policy questions into kind of quicker ways to ask about it. The first is about affordability. You've criticized Trump's tax, you've criticized Trump's tax cuts called for, or raising of the minimum wage, the reversal of tariffs that the billionaire needs to pay their fair share of taxes. But you also have a fair amount of corporate supporters among your finance. Cryptocurrency Titans and Web3 developers have given heavy to your campaign. Pax representing Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, have also donated to your House campaigns.

Are donors like this consistent with a message of kind of breaking up corporate influence or breaking up kind of billionaire wealth concentration? Oh, absolutely. I represent Texas 30. And so, you know, when you start to talk about Texas and you talk about Lockheed, Goldman Sachs, or any of the others, number one is the employees that pay into these packs. That's number one. Number two, you know, I'm all down for the Freedom to Vote Act, which would have gotten rid of some of these things. But one of the things that has taken place is number one, these are the current rules. And so for me, I've wanted to win.

And so for me, I've given away over $600,000 just in my freshman term to down-ballot candidates, the candidates that are running all over this country so that hopefully we can get to where we need to get to so that we can make sure that we do what we do. At the end of the day, the maximum donation that any corporate PAC can make is $5,000 on the federal level. I've raised millions. And so I challenge anyone to see if there's any inconsistencies as relates to my values and my voting record. and looks like $5,000 was a payoff. And in addition to that,

when it comes down to, yeah, rolling back the tariffs, I mean, why wouldn't I want to roll back the tariffs? I also believe that, you know, if we had billionaires that were paying their fair share, we wouldn't have had this situation where they said, let's cut $1 trillion from Medicaid and Medicare. Our budget is about our priorities. So for me, the priorities are always going to be the people

that have elected me, and frankly, the better that we do as a whole in this country, the better that the people at the top do. So I see a distinction from like a kind of Zaramamam Dani-style billionaires shouldn't exist to you saying they should exist, but maybe pay their fair share as we are focused. Oh, absolutely. Got it. I want to ask about representation. What is the pitch to black voters beyond kind of identity politics first? We have seen communities devolve under a black president, under a black VP. What is the pitch to those voters beyond I look and feel like you? Yeah, no, I mean, I don't think that anybody should, you know, as I say, all skin folk ain't kinfolk. I mean, so that's not really a thing. I think it is more so about whether or not it is somebody who's actually engaged with the community, which is something that I do. I engage my entire constituency. So I think that the pitch has to be, who is it that is here to serve us as voters and who is it that's going to go off and forget us. So for us, we do quarterly town halls, teletown halls. We do them every single quarter where people are able to, number one, hear from me and know, exactly what I'm doing, and I hear from them. We also make sure that we do what we call mobile office hours.

So we don't force people into our office. Instead, we go to them, we listen to them, and we try to stay up on what matters. Most of them. We do that after hours so that you don't have to take off from work, but we come to you. So I think that it's more so about service. And honestly, that's what we're supposed to be as public servants. You know, I'm hearing you now talk about kind of a service forward public approach. And, you know, I can see that kind of in what you've laid out.

out and even in doing some of this research, but it's not like that's necessarily fully the reputation. You know, there has been some belief or criticism that's kind of a me-centric campaign. I mean, is there any validity to the argument that we could see, you know, that the campaign could be more about service or what you plan to do rather than who you are? I think I am service.

I mean, you know, there are those that have their own motivations for critiquing. And, you know, I think that the people are smarter. Is it just racism and sexism? I'm like, what do you think of this? I mean, I think there's a lot of things. I think it depends on who it's coming from. But I've been a black woman my whole life. So this idea that I'm going to go and be like, oh, well, they're being racist or

misogynistic towards me. Like, you think I didn't know I was a black woman when I woke up and decided that I was going to run for the United States Senate? You think I didn't factor in and make sure that we had enough room to account for that. We did. People love to underestimate certain people. And I think I'm on that list.

There are a lot of people that never thought that I would be in the U.S. House. There are a lot of people that never saw me being a national co-chair for a presidential campaign or never saw me actually gracing the stage at DNC as a freshman black woman or becoming the freshman leadership representative or becoming the fifth highest fundraising member of the House out of Democrats and Republicans. There's a lot of people that have always underestimated me. So for me, that actually gives me comfort because when you underestimate me, then that is my best opportunity to do what I do best. My last question is just kind of, we've talked so much about polls or Billy the Win or the general. I'm going to ask something that's beyond that. I know you want

this campaign to be remembered for its historic result in the end. But besides that, like, when people think about Jasmine Crockett and kind of this moment and what you kind of mean, maybe it's like to Democratic Party to this kind of position in politics, what do you think that is? Like, what do you represent? For me, I want that girl that never imagined herself in politics or even that little boy who never imagined a place in politics, but really just wanted real change for their country, for their community. I want them to recognize that it doesn't matter what family you've been born into and whether or not you have the opportunities to intern on the hill. You can do it too. I never looked at having a life in politics. My parents were not engaged in politics beyond voting. That is what it is to be American,

is to be this person that comes from, you know, just a regular background, but some of the somehow can ascend to one of the most powerful positions in this country just because you have a heart to really make this country better. That's what I want people to know. Thank you, Congresswoman. I appreciate your time. Absolutely. That's Representative Jasmine Crockett of Texas. Every Saturday, we'll be in your video and audio feeds with an interesting interview in culture or politics. You can also watch these Saturday interviews this week and every week on the Vox YouTube channel.

Just go to YouTube.com slash Vox and click the link in the show notes. This show was produced by Jesse Ash, fact-checked by Andrea Lopez-Cruzado and mixed by Shannon Mahoney, with thanks to engineers Patrick Boyd and David Tadashore. Our art director is Kuhn Nguyen. Vox's head of video is Christina Valis, and the executive producer of Today Explained is Miranda Kennedy. I'm Asted Herndon, and this is Today Explained.