Jasmine Crockett has been in Congress for less than two years, but she’s already made quite an impression. She went viral last fall for her memorably frank assessment of Donald Trump’s alleged storage of classified documents in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom: “These are our national secrets—looks like in the shitter to me.” Her clashes with Marjorie Taylor Greene—someone with a “bleach-blond, bad-built butch body,” in her phrasing—and other Republicans have made her a favorite of Democrats eager for a more combative approach to the MAGA movement. And an emotional speech at the Democratic National Convention in August cemented her as a rising star in the party.
I was eager to get her thoughts on what went wrong for the Democrats, who are reckoning with their loss in last month’s election—and when I got her on the phone this week, the Texas Democrat didn’t hold back.
Over the course of nearly an hour, Crockett offered effusive praise for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. But she also spoke candidly about her frustrations with Democrats’ “branding” failures, party “institutionalists,” and Black and Hispanic Trump voters—the latter of whom she suggested have a “slave mentality” when it comes to immigration politics. “The immigration thing has always been something that has perplexed me about this community,” the Texas representative told me.
In a conversation that has been edited for clarity and length, Crockett opened up about the 2024 election, how she’ll fight Trump, and why she is planning to start a podcast. “Democrats got to get out of their heads, and they have to understand that we are a product,” she said. “I think that it’s important that people understand that we are the party of equity and the party of freedom.”
Vanity Fair: I was just rewatching your speech at the Democratic National Convention, and it reminded me of the momentum that the campaign seemed to have, especially over the summer. It was clear the election was always going to be close, as you pointed out in that speech, but there really did seem to be so much energy around Vice President Harris. How do you think of that time now—that 107-day campaign—knowing how it all ended up?
Jasmine Crockett: I knew it was going to be close. I thought that we could pull it out. But I also understood that it wasn’t really going to be that much about policy. There were definitely speeches that delved more into policy than I did. I knew that it would kind of be a “vibes” election. I knew that this would come down to who people felt like they liked and trusted.
I don’t think there was anything more that the vice president could have done. I think that she ran a flawless campaign—from the amount of money that she raised, to the platforms that she was willing to go to and communicate [on], to the rollout of her policies. I think that there was nothing more that she could have done in this 107-day sprint that had never been done before, in so many ways—from a Democratic nominee stepping aside, another one being put in, to also being the first woman of color to actually do it. I think that she did everything right. I think that she was the perfect candidate. And I think that the people that were looking for perfection got exactly what they were looking for.
The problem is that that’s not necessarily what it takes to win, because we know that the most flawed candidate in the history of this country won the election, right? And so I think that this came down to communication, and I think the vice president would have had a better chance had our communication been consistent. We Democrats are very good at running the candidates with the best résumé, and I don’t think that we should shy away from that. I think that we should always have the best-qualified candidates. I don’t think that we should start getting behind 34-count convicted felons and uplifting them and pretending as if they are the best thing.
You don’t?
No, I absolutely don’t think that we should do that. But at the same time, I think that we have to stop kind of holding ourselves to what sometimes can be an impossible standard. And that’s what we saw with President Biden, right? You know, I’m like—I kept fighting and saying, Why are y’all tearing President Biden down? Like, do you guys realize that [Republicans are] standing with their man? And y’all were like, Get rid of Biden because he had a bad debate. Well, when Trump had a bad debate, they never acknowledged it. He just said, I’m not doing it no more, because I ain’t getting my ass kicked again. I mean, there is something to be said for just requiring this level of perfection out of nonperfect people, and I think Democrats really need to take a good look at themselves on that issue.
You mentioned that Vice President Harris was running a historic candidacy. She would have been the first woman elected president. She would have been the first woman of color. This was an intensely racist and sexist election cycle, whether it’s the lies Trump told about Haitian migrants in Springfield or questioning Kamala Harris’s race and ethnicity. None of this was surprising, because we know who Trump is. But we did also see Trump do better, somehow, with Black voters and Hispanic voters than he has before. I wonder if you could just expand a little bit on what your sense is of how race and gender figured into this election, because it obviously was an animating factor, but maybe in a more complicated way.
