Jasmine Crockett has definitely made a name for herself, mostly by insulting Republicans with the kind of language that was, until recently, considered inappropriate for a member of congress. Some of her fans think she’s great.
In poll after poll since Donald Trump’s reelection, Democratic voters have said they want a fighter, and Crockett, a former attorney who represents the Dallas area, has spent two and a half years in Congress trying to be one. Through her hearing-room quips and social-media insults, she’s become known, at least in MSNBC-watching households, as a leading general in the battle against Trump. The president is aware of this. He has repeatedly called Crockett a “low-IQ” individual; she has dubbed him a “buffoon” and “Putin’s hoe.” Perhaps the best-known Crockett clapback came last year during a hearing, after Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia made fun of Crockett’s fake eyelashes. Crockett, seeming to relish the moment, leaned into the mic and blasted Greene’s “bleach-blond, bad-built, butch body.” Crockett trademarked the phrase—which she now refers to as “B6”—and started selling T-shirts…
Crockett is testing out the coarser, insult-comedy-style attacks that the GOP has embraced under Trump, the general idea being that when the Republicans go low, the Democrats should meet them there. That approach, her supporters say, appeals to people who drifted away from the Democrats in 2024, including many young and Black voters. “What establishment Democrats see as undignified,” Max Burns, a progressive political strategist, told me, “disillusioned Democrats see that as a small victory.”
But the Atlantic story goes on to suggest that not all Democrats are fans of Rep. Crockett’s approach. Recently, she was running to be the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. Her basic pitch to fellow Democrats was that she had a big following on social media and was seen as a fighter.
In late May, Crockett brought me along to a private meeting in the green-walled office of a freshman member—Maxine Dexter of Oregon—where she made her pitch: The Democrats have a communication problem, Crockett said. “The biggest issue” with Joe Biden’s presidency wasn’t “that he wasn’t a great president,” she explained. “It was that no one knew what the fuck he did.” (Crockett acknowledged to Dexter that the former president is “old as shit,” but said, “He’s an old man that gets shit done.”) Crockett highlighted her own emphasis on social media, and the hundreds of thousands of views she had received on a recent YouTube video. “The base is thirsty. The base right now is not very happy with us,” Crockett continued, and if any lawmaker could make them feel heard, “it’s me.”
Crockett told Dexter that she had big plans for Oversight. She wanted to take hearings on the road, and to show voters that “these motherf***ers”—Republicans—are all “complicit” in Trump’s wrongdoing.
She apparently won over Rep. Maxine Dexter with that pitch, but within a few days her campaign to be the ranking member over the Oversight Committee was in shambles.
Five days after Crockett’s fundraiser in Atlanta, Punchbowl News reported that she had “leaned into the idea of impeaching President Donald Trump,” which spooked swing-district members. Representative Robert Garcia of California was quickly becoming the caucus favorite. Like Crockett, he was relatively young and outspoken. But he had spent his campaign making a “subtle” case for generational change, Punchbowl said, and he’d told members that the Oversight panel shouldn’t “function solely as an anti-Trump entity.”
The same day the Punchbowl report was published, 62 Democratic leaders met to decide which of the four Oversight candidates they’d recommend to the caucus. The vote was decisive: Garcia, with 33 votes, was the winner. Crockett placed last, with only six. Around midnight, she went live on Instagram to announce that she was withdrawing her name from the race; Garcia would be elected the next morning. In the end, “recent questions about something that just wasn’t true” had tanked her support, Crockett told her Instagram viewers.
And this, according to some critics insider her own party, is Crockett’s problem. She’s a loose cannon, as liable to create problems for herself and fellow Democrats as she is for President Trump.
Senior staffers for three Democratic members told me that some of Crockett’s colleagues see her as undisciplined but are reluctant to criticize her publicly. “She likes to talk,” one of the staffers said. “Is she a loose cannon? Sometimes. Does that cause headaches for other members? 100 percent.”
Case in point, when Crockett learned that the author of the Atlantic piece had contacted a lot of her fellow Democrats for comment, she wasn’t very happy. Maybe she had a good idea what some of them were likely to say about her. She tried to retroactively cancel the profile days before it was published.
…four days before this story was published, Crockett called me to express frustration that I had reached out to so many House members without telling her first. She was, she told me, “shutting down the profile and revoking all permissions.”
So, yeah, a loose cannon does not seem like an exaggeration in this case. What has she actually accomplished as a legislator? So far, nothing at all.
In Congress, Crockett has championed progressive causes and introduced plenty of legislation, but none of the bills she’s been the lead sponsor of has become law.
Crockett has her fans on the far left but like AOC she’s seen as a mixed bag for the party, i.e. someone who isn’t interested in accomplishing much beyond garnering attention for herself.
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