Jasmine Crockett BURIES Trump after Rob Reiner scandal

I'm joined now by a candidate for the US Senate in Texas, Jasmine Crockett. Thanks so much for joining me. Absolutely. It's good to see you. So first off, congratulations on your announcement that you're going to be running for Senate. I want to dive into that race, but I want to tackle some breaking news first. Obviously, there was the tragic killing of Rob Reiner and his wife this weekend in Los Angeles. In the immediate aftermath of that tragedy, Trump had come out and basically posted, you know, posted a screed on Truth Social,

you know, saying that he died because of Trump's Arrangement Syndrome. He had the opportunity to walk that back, double down on his comments. Can I have your reaction to the fact that in light of a tragic killing of a beloved figure

in the entertainment industry, that Trump's initial reaction was to make it about himself and basically just dance over his grave.

Yeah, you know, I really have no words for where we are in this country. And I think that that will be a great segue into our conversation about why it is that I'm running for the US Senate. The fact that there are not more people that are disturbed. I mean, this stuff doesn't have to do with partisanship. Like, I don't really even understand the moment

that we're in, where it is acceptable for any leader in any respect, let alone the President of the United States after a tragic death, before having any information, and even if you have the information, the idea that you're like, yeah, it's basically because he was anti-MAGA, and it's almost

like you're giving a pass for it. And it's almost like there's a permission structure that if something happens to you, but you were anti-MAGA, it's okay. That is a problem. As we are sitting here saying, hey, let's denounce political violence, he continues to kind of flame these flames or send these messages that if it's on behalf of this,

then it's completely understandable. Like I don't understand any of the tragic deaths that I have seen, no matter who it is that is dying in an untimely way. And frankly, I still struggle with some things that are technically timely,

and ask questions about some of those deaths. And so the fact that this was someone beloved and beloved or not, I just think it was inappropriate. I think it was an inappropriate thought, and it definitely was inappropriate to go out there and post publicly in this way. And frankly, he just would have been done better by living by the old adage that they

tell you when you're a kid, if you don't have anything nice to say, then just don't say anything at all.

There was this whole crusade on the right in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's killing that the right was going to seek retribution against anybody who uttered an ill word, that people should be fired from their jobs. You know, you had even come out in the immediate aftermath of Charlie Kirk's killing and basically lamented the fact that he died, as did every other elected official, as did all of the, you know, major political commentators, whoever it was. And so what does this do to any perceived moral high ground that the right

was seeking to achieve in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's death to have Donald Trump immediately cut out their legs from underneath them?

Well, we know that the hypocrisy abounds. And so I think that this is yet just another example of that. But honestly, besides the hypocrisy, it's just kind of disgusting. I mean, I just can't imagine that anyone, whether you're the president or not, would take this type of moment and let that be the conclusion that you come to. And when you think about if this is where his head is, think about the very complicated issues that our president has to deal with. And if it's going to boil down to this kind of very

simplistic, really concerning type of thought process, I mean, just wonder, it makes me wonder more about like, where is our country headed and how bad of a shape are we in with him at the helm?

So I wanna switch over to your race for the US Senate in Texas. First and foremost, why did you think it was important to run this race?

Yeah, listen, a lot of people don't believe in Texas. You know, we have gotten people's hopes up time and time again. And for me, you know, to be perfectly honest, this wasn't a race that I was looking at. I wasn't looking at a race to go to the US House. And frankly, I wasn't looking at a race to go to the Texas House when I went. And everyone gets into politics for different reasons and runs for different races for different reasons.

But ultimately, I have continued to kind of walk this path that I felt like was more of a calling than anything. So it's definitely not an easy walk, that is for sure. But I wasn't looking at this, I was sitting in the house, everything was flowing, I was sitting in the house, everything was flowing. I'll say it that way. I won't say it was going great, but being in the house, I've been sitting

there and then the next thing you know, my name was put into a number of polls, just like different names have been put into the presidential polls. And so I then started to look, but I still wasn't really convinced that running for the US Senate was really a good option because I know that from an infrastructure standpoint, we have not necessarily been in the best position as Democrats.

We've not had the investments made and the state of Texas is a vast state. So I was very concerned that we lacked the organization to really get this done. So I still was like, eh, whatever. And then ultimately, as we started to move somewhere with the maps, I really

started to get very frustrated when the president said, hey, we want five seats out of Texas. And when the legislature decided to act on that and when ultimately we were waiting on the lower court to come out with a decision, I was like, whew, I can breathe a little bit because a Trump-appointed justice decided in a 160-page opinion that these maps on the face of them

were racially discriminatory, something that I had been arguing the entire time. So it was like, finally, okay, here we go, right? Yeah. And then about four days before the filing deadline, the Supreme Court said,

we're not gonna necessarily weigh in on whether or not they are or aren't, but we're not going to allow you guys to stop them from going into effect at this moment. And there had been an interview I did that kind of caught a lot of people's attention.

When I was on SiriusXM, I was doing an interview with Lurie, and she asked me about the redistricting and Senate. And I said, if they snatch five of our House seats, I may have to come and snatch a Senate seat. And from that, people were like, wait a minute, maybe she is serious.

And so ultimately, when we look at the power that exists in the House versus the Senate, we can talk about how we want to save democracy. And ultimately, my seat is a safe Democratic seat, and so another Democrat comes and fills that seat. But I thought that we need to run a different race. We have always run candidates that are amazing candidates.

They're amazing people. They've got great resumes, but they have no name ID, and these races are already expensive. So by the time we spend all the money to get their name ID up, people are just now learning their name and we're behind the eight ball in such a big state. So Colin Allred, who obviously I serve with on the federal level, he was known in the area that he was elected in, but he was not known throughout the state.

So he had to do a lot to kind of get known. And so he was behind the eight ball. Same thing happened with Beto. Beto worked his butt off. I mean, he went to all 254 counties trying to make sure that people got to know who he was.

But here it is, we have an opportunity for a Democrat to enter the race and have their name ID be as high as the person that actually has been Elected statewide for almost 30 years. That is a significant advantage that we've never had In addition to that when we were looking at internal pollings and trends because I also wanted to see Can I bring new people into the fold because at the end of the day if we have the same electorate? We can expect the same result. We have to expand the electorate.

And so people have wondered, like, how do you get them expanded? How do you get them involved? But we were asking the questions, if these candidates were on the ballot, would you be more or less inclined to vote?

And consistently, we saw a trend that people would be more inclined to vote who typically don't pay attention to politics. So with all these things, we decided to go for it because democracy requires it. And frankly, we know that the Supreme Court

needs some oversight and there's only one body that has oversight over the Supreme Court and that is the Senate. We know that there's only one body in which justices are confirmed through and that is the Senate.

And as a trained attorney, I think that I can add so much value to listening to people as they're going through the confirmation process and being able to ask them very real questions because I've been in those courtrooms and I know what to look for in a justice.

I think when we see Democrats running in red states, as Texas has shown itself to be, the question I often ask candidates is, what's your plan on getting independents or Republican voters to vote for you since they have that edge in terms of who their electorate actually is? Are you going for independent or Republican voters? Are you trying to build out a new subset of the electorate that hadn't voted before?

I know that I had spoken to Beto in the past and, you know, he's adamant about the fact that Texas is not necessarily a red state, it's a non-voting state. And so I'm just curious, in trying to win this state, which tack are you taking here? Are you trying to reach out to voters who had otherwise cast ballots for Republicans or are you going to go for a different tack, which is to bring about a new swath of the electorate that hadn't previously come out?

It's a little bit of both, but I will tell you it's more of the people that haven't been talked to than it is going and trying to win over Republicans. And I'm glad that you brought up Beto because Beto is the last Democrat that came anywhere near clenching one of these statewide seats. And so he thought about adding different people to the mix. Here's the deal.

We're not turning away anyone who wants better access to health care, education, housing, jobs. We're not turning anybody away. Right. But at the same time, where we are making our investments, we're making our investments into those people that haven't been talked to.

And the reason is this. Texas has one of the lowest voter turnouts in the entire country. We're only turning out approximately 50% of the registered voters. So that means that there's a lot of people that you can still talk to. I mean, only 50% are coming out. That means you got another 50% that you can talk to. And we've not seen excitement.

And excitement really matters in races like this. It can't just be enough to be anti-Trump. You got to have people to be excited for something and someone. And I think that that's something that we bring. tell you this quick story about a young man who approached one of our state representatives. In fact, you are probably very familiar with her, Nicole Collier. Nicole Collier is the state representative out of Texas who was locked in the chamber

soon after everyone returned from the quorum break this most recent time. Nicole Collier walks into a car wash. There's a guy there that asks her, are you planning to vote for Jasmine Crockett? Because she's running for US Senate. This is like a random conversation. I don't think he knew that she wasn't elected.

And she was like, yeah, she's actually my friend. And so she calls me and I said, hey, I'm getting on an elevator, I'll call you right back. I FaceTime her back. And when I FaceTime her back, we're on FaceTime, and I'm like, so, you know, Representative Collier told me that you were asking her about the Senate race. He said, I'm going to tell you right now that I've never paid attention to politics and

never cared until you came along. And I am so excited to vote for you. This was a young black man. So I was like, you know what? I said, Nicole, now go tell everybody what you just experienced. Because this is the test study. This is my theory of the case. And it's playing out already. The fact is, this was less than a week after I announced

my candidacy. And here it was, this gentleman who doesn't pay attention to politics, not only knows that I announced, but he knows what I announced for. And he's not only planning on going to vote. I did have to ask him if he was registered. He told me he is. He said he just doesn't vote.

And he also was talking to other people without me ever meeting this man a day in my life. That is what it's going to take.

So obviously we, you know, the blessing and the curse of the US Senate race in Texas, this primary, is that we have two young, dynamic candidates who are both very popular, both have a lot of juice behind them. And so for people who are deciding between you and James Tallarico in this primary,

how do you differentiate yourself from him?

Yeah, so one of the things is experience. You know, right now, everyone always says we're living in unprecedented times and James and I worked on the state level together. And so there's a lot that people can look to and understand kind of where he stands when the rubber meets the road when it comes to state issues. But on federal issues, you're pretty much just kind of having to guess and hope and it's different when you're in the ring.

That's number one. Number two, when it comes down to kind of a continuation of policies that we've worked on, whether it's me working on some of the legislation that I worked on for veteran spouses and military spouses, or whether it's legislation that I've worked on as it relates to reproductive access or whatever the legislation may be. We are put into a stance in which we can kind of continue

on our fight and hopefully elevate that fight. Whereas Mr. Tallarico has not necessarily played in this world, doesn't have these relationships built just yet to kind of continue to work on certain things. Ultimately, I ended up coming to the federal level. It was voting rights, right?

We broke quorum when I was in the state house. It was all about voting rights. So I've worked on voting rights legislation, and right now this is going to be so extremely invaluable in this moment. The other point is that we have to have someone that can really attract a diverse coalition. And so it's been demonstrated that we have a real strength as it relates to our diversity

within the state. And then the final point that I'll make is that I've traveled this country on behalf of other candidates, whether they were national candidates or more so local candidates. And so one of the things that I did when I was trying to figure out whether or not I would run was to see if we were gonna get some outside help because Texas is a big state, it is a big lift.

And so we've got assurances from elected officials all over the country, not just within the state, that they are ready to help and get their teams going. And so those are some of the things that we bring to the table, frankly, that no one else could. And I think when you look at something like what happened in California with Prop 50,

it seemed like it kind of sailed through. But the entire country got behind Prop 50 and everyone was pitching in. That's what we're going to need in Texas. And frankly, before I entered the race, what we saw was that nobody was talking about Texas. No one was really talking about the race. And once I got in, there was just this natural energy, whether it is love or not so much,

there was this natural energy that came with my candidacy. And I think that that is going to be so helpful in not only moving the state of Texas to make sure that we can send a Democratic senator to the U.S. Senate, but honestly, this is a big deal for the entire country. When we're talking about being able to move some of the most important legislation, the reason we've not been able to do so is because we didn't have the numbers in the Senate and we've got to change that Senate map, and that's exactly's exactly why literally I'm putting it all on the line and going in because I believe we can get

it done.

In the immediate aftermath of your announcement, you know, some Republicans, including Mike Johnson, offered up this public display of joy at the fact that you jumped into the race. I think Mike Johnson had some creepy moment where he rubbed his hands together. In any case, what was your reaction? Why do you, what was your reaction to their response? And why do you think that they put that

kind of display out there?

Yeah, they absolutely don't want me to be the one that they face in the general. I mean, listen, you don't normally put it out there. You know, I've been asked over and over, who is it you would rather face in the general election? Guess how many times I've answered that question? Zero, right?

I mean, I'm like, whoever comes forward is whoever it is that I plan to beat, right? But you would not normally play your poker hand and say, hey, this is what I've got. And so what they are trying to do is a head fake. And a lot of things that Republicans do is they love to throw bombs over to Democrats and get Democrats in disarray. We know that they were the first ones to say,

oh, Biden is so old, he's too old to be president. And so then Democrats were like, wait a minute, Biden is so old, he's too old to be president. And then what did they do? They elected an old, senile man, right? And so they love to kind of stir the pot amongst us because they love to make us very nervous.

But I know, I mean, and we've received information from various Republican strategists that they are concerned. Because when you look at a Barack Obama candidacy, when you look at a Barack Obama candidacy, when you look at a Donald Trump candidacy, what they were able to do is they were able to get to people that you couldn't even throw into the polls. And so if it

is that I am within the margin of error in any polling that is available, that's just telling you about the people that plan to vote. Now you add to that my potential ability to bring people in, such as the gentleman at the car wash. That is what makes them fearful. And they honestly want us to continue to say,

let's just go try to get their voters. Let's ignore the 50% of voters that are on the rolls, but they really aren't voting because no one's talking to them. That is what they want us to do because they know that they're going to double down on their people.

And frankly, by the time that they get to the polls, so many of those Republicans, no matter how dismayed they may be, they tend to come home. But we do know that we're seeing swings of approximately no less than 10 points all over the country in deep red parts of this state as well as obviously further up north. So I think we can ride a bit of a wave but I think we're gonna have to do some elbow grease and we're gonna have to do

this differently and so I am that different candidate that starts out not needing to try to get my name ID up, not needing to use the dollars to do that and also giving people whether you love my record like my record hate my record but knowing what a fight on the federal looks like federal level looks like with me. For folks who are looking to help your campaign where can they go? They can go to jasminephoresse.com we are taking all the volunteers and we are taking all the dollars. Great I'm gonna put that link

right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video. Representative Crockett, thanks so much for your time. Best luck in the campaign trail. Best luck in the campaign trail.

Thank you.