Crockett Blames White Supremacists for 80% of Violent Crimes; Says Tired of ‘White Tears’ from ‘Mediocre White Boys’ on DEI

COATES: I want to bring in a Democratic congresswoman from Texas, Jasmine Crockett. She serves as the vice ranking member of the House Oversight Committee. She’s also part of a congressional subcommittee that will work with Musk’s DOGE. Congresswoman, thank you so much for joining me this evening.

There is a lot to unpack, especially the title he has. Now, as a special government employee, would that give him the right to be able to access the Treasury Department’s payment system or even USAID?

CROCKETT: No, absolutely not. I like that you laid out the description of the type of employee he is. This is the first that I’m actually hearing of it.

We thought that this may have been a classification. With this classification, you normally are not allowed to run anything. Absolutely not. So that’s already exceeding the scope of what you’re allowed to do with this type of classification. That’s number one.

Number two, with this type of classification, you’re looking at maybe about 120 days. This isn’t somebody that is supposed to be on full time forever. So maybe that’s why he wants to sleep on the job because he knows that it’s supposed to expire. But right now, we have an administration that could care less about what the courts say that they can do, that could care less about what the law says, that could care less about the Constitution.

And so, I think that we have to understand that we are not dealing with normal people. We are dealing with someone who has proven to be a criminal, proven to be disrespectful to us as Americans. And listen, we have to fight him the exact same way. We have to come back with the same type of energy, which means that if you want to play ball, then I’m ready to play ball.

Listen, you guys decided to do this while the House was out. Well, the House is back in as of tomorrow. And I can guarantee you, there will be some spicy things that I will be up to tomorrow because I am a duly elected member of the U.S. House. And we will have some things that we are trying to do. As of today, we know that —

COATES: Well, like what, for example?

CROCKETT: So, Rancor Meeks, who is the rancor for foreign affairs, he filed a privileged motion as relates to this trade war which, of course, Trump has, allegedly, resolved that very quickly. But he was exceeding his emergency powers. He was misusing his emergency powers to try to engage in this anyway.

So, at this point in time, if we’ve got to file privileged motions, if we’ve got to do amicus briefs, if we’ve got to physically show up some places and ask some questions — because you can’t keep us out. You may be able to say to whomever is running security somewhere that you’re going to keep employees out. But as a sitting member of Congress, especially one that serves on oversight, and I’ve got oversight over the entire federal government, you’re not going to keep me out of anything.

COATES: One of the things that’s been happening in terms of playing ball has been federal unions have been suing to block Musk’s ability to actually access the sensitive data for the Treasury.

CROCKETT: Yeah.

COATES: Congress, obviously, in a different position than a litigant, an average litigant. What could the Democrats do specifically, as oppose to being in the majority, to actually try to combat this? It doesn’t sound like there is the largest of appetites among Republicans to say that the mandate may have been for you to serve in office, but not to have this wide scope of authority for a non-elected official.

CROCKETT: Well, I’m definitely going to say that the mandate wasn’t there at all. The numbers are really small, kind of like his crowds. So, I’m not going to say that there was a mandate. But what I will say is that it is time for us to stand shoulder to shoulder with those that are going to file those lawsuits. We’ve got to make sure that they know that we are giving them access to our constituents, making sure that they know these are the stories of our constituents. These are the ones that are willing to testify about the fear that they are living through.

I get emails consistently about people saying, what the heck is going on? And here’s the reality. The reason that you have to have a certain level of clearance before you can engage in these types of actions or you may even have to be confirmed in some way is because, really, you can cause a lot of harm.

COATES: Hmm.

CROCKETT: And no one has explained, listen, if your whole job is to figure out where we can cut money, then sit down and look at the budget and say, line by line, listen, Mr. President, what you should do is in your proposed budget that you send over to the Congress, you should cut this, you should cut that, the same way that he decided during his first term that he was going to zero out money for HBCUs and Dr. Adams had to come and fight to get that money for HBCUs back.

COATES: I will note that if you are a special government employee, there are limitations for when you have to file disclosure or ethics. If you exceed a certain amount of time, it triggers even more oversight over —

CROCKETT: Yeah.

COATES: — who you are for the reasons you’re talking about. But I want to get to a new appointment that seems to be happening. President Trump is appointing Darren Beattie to a top State Department role. I know many will remember who Darren Beattie is. He was fired in 2018 for being a speechwriter. He was speaking at a conference attended by white nationalists.

And then a few months ago, he posted this, congresswoman. Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work. Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men. Your reaction to his appointment?

CROCKETT: He needs to go. I mean, this is very simple. We right now have a white supremacist that is sitting in the White House. He is backed up by other white supremacists. And if you really want to know who the criminals are in this country, you can Google it.

You don’t have to trust me. But the people that commit 80% of the most violent crimes in this country are white supremacists. Yet, for whatever reason, they sit and they serve at the pleasure of the president. They are the ones that were there on January 6th tearing our democracy down physically. And now, we have them tearing us down right here from within. Here is the problem —

COATES: Of course, congresswoman, I’m going to interrupt you, but President Trump, of course, has denied any allegations of the white supremacists, and that’s why he —

CROCKETT: I don’t care what he says. I don’t care what he says.

COATES: I know your point, but he did fire Darren Beattie in reaction, they believe, in part to his attendance at that conference. Does that change your opinion anyway?

CROCKETT: No, it doesn’t change my opinion because we saw what he literally recently just posted. And the coddling is for the white boys. That’s what’s happening right now. I am tired of the white tears. Listen, if you are competent, you are not concerned.

When I walk into Congress every single day, you know why I don’t feel away and why you can’t make me doubt who I am is because I know that I had to work 10 times as hard as they did just to get into the seat. When you look and you compare me to Marjorie Taylor Greene or me to Lauren Boebert, there is no comparison. And that is the life that we have always lived.

So, the only people that are crying are the mediocre white boys that have been beaten out by people that historically have had to work so much harder. This is why they don’t want us to have education. This is why they are trying to literally say we won’t fund the HBCUs, because they know that if they’ve already gone after affirmative action and they’re saying, you know what, don’t allow them to come in to say these PWIs, as we call them, don’t allow them to come into these institutions.

We know why they created the HBCUs in the first place. It was because they wouldn’t allow us into the white institutions. And so now they’re not allowing us in. And now they’re saying, you know what, we’re also going to defund the HBCUs. You know why? Because they don’t want any more Kamala Harris’s. They don’t want any more Jasmine Crockett’s.

But I got news for them. I don’t care what they do. We will fight to the end to make sure that we get our due because, again, if you want to talk about the people that shouldn’t be in this country, you probably need to look in the mirror, because the last time I checked, the Native Americans who summer ICE have been rounding up or the Puerto Ricans who are absolutely Americans, listen, the only people that came and colonized this place are your ancestors, Trump.

COATES: I’ll note that the Beattie position is for the acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a key role in helping to shape U.S. messaging abroad related to counterterrorism and violent extremism. Thank you, congresswoman, for your words tonight and for your insight.