October 19, 2024 • 31 mins
Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett sat down with us to discuss what our future would look like under the presidency of Kamala Harris. We discuss her economic policy, her accomplishments, what she is doing to win votes from Black males, and we discuss the Clapback Queen, herself!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our
mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding. I am
your host, Rams's Jah and trust you will hear from
Qward very soon. This is a special episode. Recently we
got to sit down with the one and only US Representative,
(00:23):
Jasmine Crockett and have a fantastic conversation about politics. We
do often talk about politics on this show for the
benefit of you, our listeners, and for the benefit of us.
We are citizens in this country and voters the same
as everyone else, and who better to get some insight
from than the clapback Queen herself, and of course were
(00:48):
honored to be able to sit down with her or
over an hour. If you want the full uncut interview,
you can always check out our website Civiccipher dot com.
But we do want you to stick around because this
conversation discusses a number of things, many things of course
important to Black America, but a lot of things important
(01:10):
to America at large. Of course, we.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Are having to discuss the election season that we're in
and the candidates that we have to choose from and
so the Jasmine lets her feelings be known about that
true to form. So I just think it's a fantastic conversation.
We're really excited to share it with you, So stick
around for that and so much more right here on
(01:34):
civic ciper.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
So.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
One of the things that we talk about a lot
on this show is the state of things in the
political arena in recent years. We've seen a number of
villains rise to various moments throughout again recent history, and
(02:03):
we always have a new reason to be concerned about
our future. I won't spend too much time discussing that
because these villains have been well discussed and they're often
delineated on this very program. But another thing that we
get is we get heroes. And one of the heroes
(02:29):
that we've discussed on this program many times, actually we
have the honor of sitting with and talking to today
she is the Clapback Queen herself. Today we are joined
by the one and only Jasmine Kraft. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 5 (02:51):
Thank you so much. I did not know where you
were going with that.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
It definitely David thinks that I would be the one
wearing the case at the end of that, But I
appreciate your kind thoughts and words. Sure, sure, it's because
we are living in some very dangerous times.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Absolutely, absolutely. You know. One of the things that we
end up dealing with on this show is positioning black
women in a way that people can see them the
way that we see them. And often I put Q
(03:30):
in the in the Yeah, I put him out in
front to say this, but I'll say it this time.
On this show and all of our shows, we affirm
that the black woman is as close to God as
we can be on this planet. And so when we
suggest that you know, black women come to the rescue,
black women are wearing the capes, that's something that we
(03:53):
mean and when we've meant that the entire time that
we've been in this space, so you know, for our
long time listening as they understand that to be very true.
But there are some people who are new to the show,
of course, and people who are just now getting engaged
in politics. Maybe they've just come of age, or maybe
this particular election cycle is of interest to them. So
(04:17):
for those people, who admittedly is a very small amount
of folks, i'd imagine, but after those people who are
not familiar with who you are, give us a little
bit of background just to bring them up to speak
for the conversation.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Yeah. Absolutely, So I am, I guess technically considered a politician.
I hate to be classified as a politician, but since
I am the congresswoman that proudly represents Texas thirtieth Congressional District,
which is anchored in Dallas County, Texas.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
I am a freshman.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Our terms are two years at a time, and so
I'm in the second year of my first term. I
have been considered to be the most viral member of
Congress during this current term. And you know, in recent times,
I've done all these interviews where people have asked me
about the virality and do you know what's happening when
(05:13):
it's happening, and you know, are there things that you
can do to try to make it happen? And I
tell people all the time that it's the unadulterated, unfiltered,
raw moments, never the prepared remarks that go viral, and
just to kind of give the listeners a little bit
more acclamation. I am an attorney by trade, and so
(05:36):
I did criminal defense work. I did civil rights work
as well as some personal injury stuff. But I was
a trial lawyer. I wasn't a death lawyer. I was
the girl that showed up in court. And I've represented
anywhere from capital murder all the way down, and so
I tried cases for almost two decades before I come
into Congress, and I tell people all the time, I
(05:57):
don't really like people to come in front of me
and waste my fune five minutes, because that's all we
get is five minutes. And so my ability to cross
examine people and get my point across quickly has really
helped me in Congress. And knowing quote unquote my case,
knowing what it is that is the subject matter of
any potential hearing at any point in time, allows me
(06:21):
to be able to deal with whatever lies somebody tries
to lib out there. I tend to be the girl
that consistently wants to rise to the occasion of recognizing
that black folk are great, and no matter how many
times they try to disparage us, whether it's because of
(06:43):
the color of my skin or whether it's because I'm
a woman, I'm going to make you feel really bad
that you try to mesa.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
And so.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
But even in doing that, you know, I look at
representation completely different. My official title is that I a
US representative, and for so long I have heard so
many people say I just don't really feel like I'm
seen or heard or represented.
Speaker 5 (07:08):
And I never wanted to be that person.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
I wanted people to say, I have a representative that
is sitting at the table and making sure that my
position is heard.
Speaker 5 (07:19):
And it is those moments.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
In my opinion, that go viral because it is it's
not the norm, it's the exception. When the norm should
be whatever community you come from, your representative should sound
like you, look like you, and should be lobbying the
case for the issues that matter most for you.
Speaker 6 (07:42):
The first time we got to connect with you in
person was at the National Urban League National Convention, but
we have been cheerleaders and supporters in the stands waiving
on prom pomps for you long before that. At that time,
all of us were very excited some news that we
had just gotten regarding the Democratic ticket for the office
(08:06):
of president. Our vice president has been very vocal about
her feeling like she needs to earn people's votes, specifically
black men, so she doesn't feel she's entitled to them
just because she's black. What are some of the issues
you think are important to that base that she's trying
to reach in whose votes that she's now trying to earn.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Yeah, yeah, I love her, you know, thank you for
given that level set.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
And I'm just going to say this real quick before
I answer your question.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Please, I think as black people in general, we have
always been the ones that have never shied away from
hard work. We aren't given positions on boards, we're not
given positions in government, we're not given positions in schools
like we're not the legacies get admitted to these institutions.
(09:02):
We've had to work and earn every single thing that
we've ever gotten. And the fact that the vice president
is absolutely committed to going out and earning the votes,
taking her fight straight to the people. I mean, you know,
I think I don't sleep, and then I think about
her schedule and then I'm like, I'm like, but she
got a PJ so mah, because I'm like running through
(09:25):
the airport, like, yes, can you get me through screening
so I can get to my next city. But nevertheless,
I definitely don't have time to pity myself as I
have the privilege of going around the country and arguing
and making a case for why the Harris Walls ticket
is the ticket that is the Team USA ticket, to
ticket that will look out for all of us and
(09:47):
not leave anybody behind. I appreciate the fact that she,
as well as Governor Walls, are not afraid of hard work,
because they both came from places in which they weren't
born into fortune. They weren't given four hundred million dollars
when they entered this earth. Instead, they had to work
to get everything that they've ever gotten, and so that's
(10:07):
why they're not afraid of the hard work. As it
relates to black man specifically, I can say that I've
had a number of conversations with black men, and I
think one of the things that kind of frustrates me
in general when we start talking about the election is
that I really do subscribe to the idea that none
of us are amnaith no one, and so there isn't
(10:30):
one kind of happy pill for any one group of people.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
I will say that there.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Are some targets that are on specific groups that no
matter what your priorities are, the same targets.
Speaker 5 (10:46):
Are coming for you.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
And so I think it is important not only for
us to highlight the alternative and talk about the targets
that are on our collective backs, whether we're talking about
the fact that Donald Trump specifically wants to get rid
of criminal immunity for law enforcement officers.
Speaker 5 (11:02):
As we have just now gotten to.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
The point that we have prosecutors that have the audacity
to say that law enforcement isn't necessarily above the law,
we can still probably count on one, maybe two hands,
the number of prosecutions that we've seen in this country
for law enforcement officers that have gone out and shot
us did like we were dogs in the street, right,
And so that's a collective target because we have someone
(11:27):
where you know, there are those of us as someone
who's done the civil rights work and know how difficult
it is to get around qualified immunity and things like that,
because what we'll have is we end up being killed
and we don't get any criminal justice, and we usually
don't get any civil justice. And so as we've been
pushing the envelope for getting rid of qualified immunity so
(11:48):
that the civil remedies are available when one of us
is killed, now he not only doesn't obviously is not
going to support the civil side, but once I go
even further and say, for those few progressive prosecutors that
have thought that your life mattered enough that they would
actually prosecute a police officer. I don't want that to
(12:09):
happen anymore.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
And so that's a collective target.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Now when I talk to some other brothers about the
things that matter most of them, for some of them,
it's I will say, collectively, there's a number of them
that talk about small business ownership, and they don't like
the idea of potentially Democrats trying to push on quote
(12:34):
unquote hand me out like they want. They don't want
you to just say, oh, we're going to try to
get you a good job, you know, a good union
paying job. Like there are black men that are like,
I don't want to go work for somebody else, Like
I want my own business. What are you going to
do to help me create my own generational wealth and
have my own legacy to leave behind. And so I
(12:55):
think that's why you hear her really making the point
not just for black men, but like generally speaking, for
those that are saying, you know what, I want my
own small business. And so this five thousand dollars tax
benefit that you used to get when you start a
small business, She's like, you can't do nothing with five
thousand dollars. She's like, that's only going to help you
(13:16):
if you've got a concept of a business, right. She
was like, right, exactly right, So she's up in that
to fifty thousand. We've not really talked very much about
the record, but we know that there were a record
number of small businesses and black owned businesses specifically that
were able to benefit. As relates to everybody know about PPP.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
Wee, we've got in trouble with PPP. People got in
trouble with the PPP, but.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
You know, but it truly did, and we've seen a
record number of newly created black owned businesses because of
the loosening of the rains a little bit and making
sure and definitely the initial roll law out was bad.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
People.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Remember first of all, these were democratic policies that were
pushed to the House in the Senate, but it was
under Donald Trump who was still president when the first
policies were pushed through. And what we saw was that
the only people that got money where people they didn't
even need the money. We saw NFL and NBA teams
and all of them, they all had access to capital
(14:21):
and the little guys didn't. It wasn't until we got
rid of Donald Trump and we ended up with President
Biden that they actually started to make sure that those
small businesses that were complaining that the big banks weren't
giving them access to these loans. If people really think back,
it's like you try to go and apply for the
PPP law and they say all the money had already
(14:43):
been given out and it was the big guys that
got it. The small guy only started getting it when
Democrats controlled every lever the House, the Senate, as well
as the White House.
Speaker 5 (14:53):
So I think that that's one of the issues. Another
issue that has been brought.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Up his criminal justice reform, and so you know, there
also was this selective memory or it is just a
failure of us to really talk about and brag because
Democrats are terrible about bragging. Republicans will take credit for
stuff they am none to do, but Democrats won't even
brag on stuff they didn't.
Speaker 5 (15:15):
Done it right.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
And so you know, they felt as if there were
some changes that were made on the federal level while
Trump was in office. None of that again was initiated
under Trump. He signed it into law. So yes, should
we say, okay, thank you for signing it into law
if we can. But don't conflate that with that actually
being on his policy positions.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
That he actually lobbed.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
When we look at the things that he lobbed, he
lived and got us the Supreme Court. If you think
that Trump is looking out for us, just look at
our Supreme Court justices and right now their approval rating
is the lowest that is historically ever been.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
Because it's his justices. They got rid of affirmative action.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
And for those that you know, I don't know what
different opinions may exist around affirmative action. Affirmative action has
never been about a gimme. That's never what it did.
What it did is said, listen, all you got is
a bunch of lily white people. Those are the only
people you will consider. There is great lengths that exist
in some of these people that aren't lily white. That's
(16:19):
all it is. But you don't get there, and somehow
they gonna give you. Well, because you was an affirmative
action in mission hooding, you get an extra ten points
on every tense.
Speaker 5 (16:28):
Like that ain't what it is like. You got to.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Survive, like you've got to make it in and you've
got to survive. But it at least makes them actually
look at you and say, you know what, let's open
up this pool of candidates. And so now what we've
seen is we've seen a decrease in the enrollment of
diverse students at these IVY leagues and other pwis. And
(16:52):
what we've seen is that there's a higher demand for HBCUs.
And when we think back to Donald Trump, now, one
thing that presidents can do, presidents always do is they
put out their budget and that signals to the Congress,
these are the things that we want to do. This
is how I want to place money. But at the
end of the day, the budget belongs to the Congress.
It doesn't belong to the president. So he just kind
(17:13):
of like, this is my robap, please follow it. Especially
if we control if the same parties control the House,
it's in it. When Donald Trump put out his budget,
he wanted to zero out funding for HBCUs. That that
was his proposal, is to zero out HBCU money and
(17:34):
to give credit where credit is due. It was a
Bush that had initially agreed to this level of funding,
which is definitely not where we need our hbc used
to be.
Speaker 5 (17:45):
But it was.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Something and it was a Republican.
Speaker 5 (17:47):
It was a Bush that signed the initial funding into
law for our HBCUs. So this was two hundred and
fifty three million dollars.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
But Trump saw it as an opportunity to do a
photo app and so after a black woman in North
Carolina who attended a HBCU who taught at an HBCU,
doctor Adams. It was doctor Adams, my CBC colleague, who
fought to get that money back, and so once it
came back, he then invited all the HBCU presidents in
(18:18):
for a photo. And so everybody's like, see Donald Trump
was taking care to HBC's not really not really guys,
kind of like those STiMi checks, not really, not really,
not really guys. So they did that. But then when people,
you know, I was constantly kind of going in on
people before the vice president became the nominee, where people
(18:38):
felt away, they felt let down. They were like, well,
you know, she the vice president, but I mean, what
has she done. I'm like, first of all, if you
can't name five other vice presidents, we not about that conversation.
Let's start there, like we like you at least need
to be able to name five other vice presidents and correct,
but most people can't get to the names right because
(19:00):
most people don't look at a vice president at all.
I mean, a vice president is a supporting cast member,
and she has been integral. And I think that Joe
Biden takes a different stance. He tries to do more
of a partnership type of situation, kind of like what
he came into with Barack Obama. And so I think
that that's kind of how he tries to govern. That
(19:22):
led to a record sixteen billion dollars with a B,
not sixteen billion dollars for the investment into HBCUs. It
mattered that there was an HBCU grad that was sitting
there as a second in command, and not even just
from the monetary standpoint, I mean when we look at
(19:44):
Howard and the spike in applications just once she became,
because then it's not for so long there's been these limitations.
If you went to an HBCU and she's defied the limitations,
she's on the verb of becoming the most powerful person
in the world, and she graduated from AH and so
(20:09):
I think that that really tells if I had to
tell a story about black people in general, is that
we are more resilient than any other form of people
that we've ever met. When you think about our presence here,
they can talk about kicking us out and this and that,
But we ain't asked to come here. We got dragged here,
(20:29):
to be clear, right, like, we got dragged here, and
we labored and we built correct. We built this country
and we're still here. And while we still have so
many obstacles that we still get faced with, we somehow persist.
And if I had to send one message to my
black man is to know that like, there never should
(20:52):
be competition. I appreciate that you laid out kind of
the historical context of your show and being clearly you've
always uplifted black women. I see no reason for any
of us to fight one another.
Speaker 5 (21:08):
I love my black men.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
I know that I probably wouldn't necessarily be here but
for black men in my life, because it was a
group of black male lawyers that are like my brothers
that came to me and was like, you got to run,
and we know it costs money. We put money down.
The first people to bet on me were black men
like that was who was like, let me invest in you.
(21:33):
And so I think that we have to appreciate that collectively,
this world has never given us our due. And so
one thing is for sure, regardless as to whether or
not you agree with her one hundred percent or not
at all, one thing is for sure is that she
(21:53):
understands the struggles that this life presents to you more
than any white man ever will. And so, you know,
regardless of what's what. But like I keep saying, they're
gonna kick me off the trail because because I never
I never say what they tell me to say. Number
one and number two I remember, I'll make this final
(22:15):
point that y'all can move on. I went to North
Carolina and I was doing a fundraiser for the Victory Fund.
And this was soon after Arkawi's not r Kelly, that's
messed up. I don't call them mar Kelly Puffy. This
soon after child, I call them are a lot of birds.
Speaker 5 (22:37):
Yeah, that clearly in my mind anyway.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Nevertheless, and so I said, if you want a better
example of how this country views us, no matter how
much money we have and how the systems are inequitable,
look at Diddy situation and look at Trumps. Now. I'm
not saying either one of them is right. I'm not
(23:00):
saying even when them is wrong, y'all don't come from
the defense side. So I will give Trump his thirty
four felony convictions wrong because he been convicted. He still
got other stuff that he's technically presuming instant for his
same thing with Diddy. But here's the deal. Did he
has bad cases? Definitely, not thirty four counts of them
(23:20):
so far? He got him in one jurisdiction, he didn't
get let out, y'all. They did not release him right.
And here it is, Trump had close to ninety He
had over eighty something counts pending in four different jurisdictions,
then ultimately got found guilty and was going in talking
(23:43):
about the judges, talking about the judges starter in New
York doing all kinds of things. Now, in my experience,
the most cases I ever have for one defendant was
a little under forty. He had thirty something counts. He
didn't have a record. It was his first time, I mean,
in trouble, and he did it with a bang, for sure.
But the fans got him as well as the state.
(24:06):
He never got out like he never got released pre trial.
So I don't want people to be fooled into believing
that because he's been subjected to the criminal justice system,
that they're in any similar kind of level of understanding,
because I would argue that he's barely been subjected to
the criminal justice system, because I know, I've had to
(24:29):
represent protesters. I've had protesters to spend more time in
jail with the Donald Trump and you know, and I
got them off of air cases.
Speaker 5 (24:36):
So no, this isn't equitable. He doesn't understand.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
He wouldn't know what it was like to walk a
day in one of our shoes, where you get brought
up on charges that really are not significant at all,
and you are being forced into taking a plea. He
doesn't know that life like that is a completely different
life from what we experience in the black community. The
same people that feel like the criminal justice system has
(25:03):
never been just, but it's only been injust right. That's
he's living the type of criminal justice system we was
looking for, the one that said, oh I got all
these cases, but hey, you know what that person is,
let me let me be out.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
I'm gonna be good. I'm a clown. The judges and
everybody else.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Yeah, I mean literally like intimidating witnesses, all this kind
of you ain't catch a whole other fifty kind of
cases like this is it's it's insane, It's insane. What Yeah,
it's insane.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
You know, there's there's something that that I think is
really interesting that is taking place here. You're absolutely right,
you know, for all of the things that have happened.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Let's go back to.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Let's go back to like the me Too movement for
a second, where I think this concept started to jail.
You know, listen to black women, beat on black women,
believe black women, you know, all this sort of stuff.
And then of course that had swelled up to twenty twenty,
and then it skyrocketed ever since then. And then now
(26:10):
we're celebrating black grow magic and black boy joy and
all this sort of stuff, but hyper focused on our women,
you know what I mean. We need to find lost
black women, we need to dedicate more media resources, We
needed all these sorts of things, right, this concerted effort
that has in my estimation, included black men. It's so
(26:31):
interesting to see the breakdown of that when it comes
to voting for a black woman, right, and you know,
no one is going to agree one hundred percent with
anyone else. We're all different people. Right. No one is
going to get anything one hundred percent right. But one
of the things that I believed, that we understood in
(26:53):
the majority of the past decade is that if we
were working together, that cohesiveness would allow us to accomplish more,
to move the needle, to change and shape outcomes, particularly
for the black community. And if we shape those outcomes
around the sensibilities of black women, we would all be okay.
This is what I thought. So for me, it was
(27:14):
very interesting to see this breakdown right at this intersection
of what we have a black woman who can now
be the most powerful human being on earth, and black
men of all people are standing around like no, oh, no, right,
So let's uh, you know, in your in your opinion,
Let's take it back a little bit because in this
(27:36):
moment we're seeing the breakdown. But I'm curious what kind
of led up to that. So let me let me
ask the question this way. We recall covering sort of
an erosion of support from black men to the then
presumed Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, and that felt a little
(28:00):
weird because that group of people had historically been reliably democratic,
and then obviously, with the announcement of Kamala Harris taking
the reins of the future of the Democratic Party. There
had been some ground recovered, but as we've been discussing,
there are still some black men who are holding out.
(28:20):
And I wonder if there are some historical like, how
has this group of people gotten here? In your estimation,
having talked to black men around the country, what pieces
are many of us missing? Because I think we know
those pieces we can start trying to rebuild. Certainly, folks like.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Hell and message, I think, okay, So I'll say this way.
Democrats are very good at basis we can. You know,
you would imagine that projects on twenty five would have
been ours. I mean, we are the ones that speak
in these large kind of.
Speaker 5 (28:58):
Very deep, you know. But that's not what the other
side does.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
And when we look at the numbers across the board,
the numbers are clear that the more educated folk are
tending to kind of dig a little deeper, and we
are getting the lion's share of those that are more educated,
(29:24):
so to speak.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
And that's across the board.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
What I find is that Trump has been very good
at taking advantage of people that don't have the luxury
of time, people that are literally fighting to make sure
that they can keep a roof over their head, keep
clothes on the backs of their children, and keep food
on the table. And when your focus is on those things,
(29:54):
you don't have time necessarily to dig in.
Speaker 5 (29:59):
And learn it all. And he's taking advantage of that.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
And so one of the reasons that we see that
this team has said, I mean JD Van said, I'll
lie if it'll get me attention.
Speaker 5 (30:09):
So they're liars.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
And if they can just get a few people to
believe their lives they will make They will say they
have no ethics, they have no rules, they have no morals.
Speaker 5 (30:21):
They will say whatever to win.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
And so for those people that are like mm hmm,
that don't even sound right, right, like those people that
have the luxury of saying, let me go through my
research or let me consult with my such and such
somebody in my circle. Which is why I'm trying to
tell people get out of your circles. Like if you
vote in the right way, chances are your circle is good.
(30:45):
We need to start talking to people who aren't really
engaged in these kind of conversations.
Speaker 5 (30:51):
That's what we need to do.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
We end up in our little silos, you know, your
sororities and your fraternities and all this kind of stuff,
and all of y'all are talking, right, what are we
doing to actually start talking to other people, because again,
we have a shared fate and so we need to
start talking about the threats and we need to talk
about the possibilities. But if we're not engaging, and I
(31:12):
think that's what's happening, We're not engaging with a number
of the black men that have checked out,
Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our
mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding. I am
your host, Rams's Jah and trust you will hear from
Qward very soon. This is a special episode. Recently we
got to sit down with the one and only US Representative,
(00:23):
Jasmine Crockett and have a fantastic conversation about politics. We
do often talk about politics on this show for the
benefit of you, our listeners, and for the benefit of us.
We are citizens in this country and voters the same
as everyone else, and who better to get some insight
from than the clapback Queen herself, and of course were
(00:48):
honored to be able to sit down with her or
over an hour. If you want the full uncut interview,
you can always check out our website Civiccipher dot com.
But we do want you to stick around because this
conversation discusses a number of things, many things of course
important to Black America, but a lot of things important
(01:10):
to America at large. Of course, we.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Are having to discuss the election season that we're in
and the candidates that we have to choose from and
so the Jasmine lets her feelings be known about that
true to form. So I just think it's a fantastic conversation.
We're really excited to share it with you, So stick
around for that and so much more right here on
(01:34):
civic ciper.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
So.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
One of the things that we talk about a lot
on this show is the state of things in the
political arena in recent years. We've seen a number of
villains rise to various moments throughout again recent history, and
(02:03):
we always have a new reason to be concerned about
our future. I won't spend too much time discussing that
because these villains have been well discussed and they're often
delineated on this very program. But another thing that we
get is we get heroes. And one of the heroes
(02:29):
that we've discussed on this program many times, actually we
have the honor of sitting with and talking to today
she is the Clapback Queen herself. Today we are joined
by the one and only Jasmine Kraft. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 5 (02:51):
Thank you so much. I did not know where you
were going with that.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
It definitely David thinks that I would be the one
wearing the case at the end of that, But I
appreciate your kind thoughts and words. Sure, sure, it's because
we are living in some very dangerous times.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Absolutely, absolutely. You know. One of the things that we
end up dealing with on this show is positioning black
women in a way that people can see them the
way that we see them. And often I put Q
(03:30):
in the in the Yeah, I put him out in
front to say this, but I'll say it this time.
On this show and all of our shows, we affirm
that the black woman is as close to God as
we can be on this planet. And so when we
suggest that you know, black women come to the rescue,
black women are wearing the capes, that's something that we
(03:53):
mean and when we've meant that the entire time that
we've been in this space, so you know, for our
long time listening as they understand that to be very true.
But there are some people who are new to the show,
of course, and people who are just now getting engaged
in politics. Maybe they've just come of age, or maybe
this particular election cycle is of interest to them. So
(04:17):
for those people, who admittedly is a very small amount
of folks, i'd imagine, but after those people who are
not familiar with who you are, give us a little
bit of background just to bring them up to speak
for the conversation.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Yeah. Absolutely, So I am, I guess technically considered a politician.
I hate to be classified as a politician, but since
I am the congresswoman that proudly represents Texas thirtieth Congressional District,
which is anchored in Dallas County, Texas.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
I am a freshman.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Our terms are two years at a time, and so
I'm in the second year of my first term. I
have been considered to be the most viral member of
Congress during this current term. And you know, in recent times,
I've done all these interviews where people have asked me
about the virality and do you know what's happening when
(05:13):
it's happening, and you know, are there things that you
can do to try to make it happen? And I
tell people all the time that it's the unadulterated, unfiltered,
raw moments, never the prepared remarks that go viral, and
just to kind of give the listeners a little bit
more acclamation. I am an attorney by trade, and so
(05:36):
I did criminal defense work. I did civil rights work
as well as some personal injury stuff. But I was
a trial lawyer. I wasn't a death lawyer. I was
the girl that showed up in court. And I've represented
anywhere from capital murder all the way down, and so
I tried cases for almost two decades before I come
into Congress, and I tell people all the time, I
(05:57):
don't really like people to come in front of me
and waste my fune five minutes, because that's all we
get is five minutes. And so my ability to cross
examine people and get my point across quickly has really
helped me in Congress. And knowing quote unquote my case,
knowing what it is that is the subject matter of
any potential hearing at any point in time, allows me
(06:21):
to be able to deal with whatever lies somebody tries
to lib out there. I tend to be the girl
that consistently wants to rise to the occasion of recognizing
that black folk are great, and no matter how many
times they try to disparage us, whether it's because of
(06:43):
the color of my skin or whether it's because I'm
a woman, I'm going to make you feel really bad
that you try to mesa.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
And so.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
But even in doing that, you know, I look at
representation completely different. My official title is that I a
US representative, and for so long I have heard so
many people say I just don't really feel like I'm
seen or heard or represented.
Speaker 5 (07:08):
And I never wanted to be that person.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
I wanted people to say, I have a representative that
is sitting at the table and making sure that my
position is heard.
Speaker 5 (07:19):
And it is those moments.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
In my opinion, that go viral because it is it's
not the norm, it's the exception. When the norm should
be whatever community you come from, your representative should sound
like you, look like you, and should be lobbying the
case for the issues that matter most for you.
Speaker 6 (07:42):
The first time we got to connect with you in
person was at the National Urban League National Convention, but
we have been cheerleaders and supporters in the stands waiving
on prom pomps for you long before that. At that time,
all of us were very excited some news that we
had just gotten regarding the Democratic ticket for the office
(08:06):
of president. Our vice president has been very vocal about
her feeling like she needs to earn people's votes, specifically
black men, so she doesn't feel she's entitled to them
just because she's black. What are some of the issues
you think are important to that base that she's trying
to reach in whose votes that she's now trying to earn.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Yeah, yeah, I love her, you know, thank you for
given that level set.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
And I'm just going to say this real quick before
I answer your question.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Please, I think as black people in general, we have
always been the ones that have never shied away from
hard work. We aren't given positions on boards, we're not
given positions in government, we're not given positions in schools
like we're not the legacies get admitted to these institutions.
(09:02):
We've had to work and earn every single thing that
we've ever gotten. And the fact that the vice president
is absolutely committed to going out and earning the votes,
taking her fight straight to the people. I mean, you know,
I think I don't sleep, and then I think about
her schedule and then I'm like, I'm like, but she
got a PJ so mah, because I'm like running through
(09:25):
the airport, like, yes, can you get me through screening
so I can get to my next city. But nevertheless,
I definitely don't have time to pity myself as I
have the privilege of going around the country and arguing
and making a case for why the Harris Walls ticket
is the ticket that is the Team USA ticket, to
ticket that will look out for all of us and
(09:47):
not leave anybody behind. I appreciate the fact that she,
as well as Governor Walls, are not afraid of hard work,
because they both came from places in which they weren't
born into fortune. They weren't given four hundred million dollars
when they entered this earth. Instead, they had to work
to get everything that they've ever gotten, and so that's
(10:07):
why they're not afraid of the hard work. As it
relates to black man specifically, I can say that I've
had a number of conversations with black men, and I
think one of the things that kind of frustrates me
in general when we start talking about the election is
that I really do subscribe to the idea that none
of us are amnaith no one, and so there isn't
(10:30):
one kind of happy pill for any one group of people.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
I will say that there.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Are some targets that are on specific groups that no
matter what your priorities are, the same targets.
Speaker 5 (10:46):
Are coming for you.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
And so I think it is important not only for
us to highlight the alternative and talk about the targets
that are on our collective backs, whether we're talking about
the fact that Donald Trump specifically wants to get rid
of criminal immunity for law enforcement officers.
Speaker 5 (11:02):
As we have just now gotten to.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
The point that we have prosecutors that have the audacity
to say that law enforcement isn't necessarily above the law,
we can still probably count on one, maybe two hands,
the number of prosecutions that we've seen in this country
for law enforcement officers that have gone out and shot
us did like we were dogs in the street, right,
And so that's a collective target because we have someone
(11:27):
where you know, there are those of us as someone
who's done the civil rights work and know how difficult
it is to get around qualified immunity and things like that,
because what we'll have is we end up being killed
and we don't get any criminal justice, and we usually
don't get any civil justice. And so as we've been
pushing the envelope for getting rid of qualified immunity so
(11:48):
that the civil remedies are available when one of us
is killed, now he not only doesn't obviously is not
going to support the civil side, but once I go
even further and say, for those few progressive prosecutors that
have thought that your life mattered enough that they would
actually prosecute a police officer. I don't want that to
(12:09):
happen anymore.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
And so that's a collective target.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Now when I talk to some other brothers about the
things that matter most of them, for some of them,
it's I will say, collectively, there's a number of them
that talk about small business ownership, and they don't like
the idea of potentially Democrats trying to push on quote
(12:34):
unquote hand me out like they want. They don't want
you to just say, oh, we're going to try to
get you a good job, you know, a good union
paying job. Like there are black men that are like,
I don't want to go work for somebody else, Like
I want my own business. What are you going to
do to help me create my own generational wealth and
have my own legacy to leave behind. And so I
(12:55):
think that's why you hear her really making the point
not just for black men, but like generally speaking, for
those that are saying, you know what, I want my
own small business. And so this five thousand dollars tax
benefit that you used to get when you start a
small business, She's like, you can't do nothing with five
thousand dollars. She's like, that's only going to help you
(13:16):
if you've got a concept of a business, right. She
was like, right, exactly right, So she's up in that
to fifty thousand. We've not really talked very much about
the record, but we know that there were a record
number of small businesses and black owned businesses specifically that
were able to benefit. As relates to everybody know about PPP.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
Wee, we've got in trouble with PPP. People got in
trouble with the PPP, but.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
You know, but it truly did, and we've seen a
record number of newly created black owned businesses because of
the loosening of the rains a little bit and making
sure and definitely the initial roll law out was bad.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
People.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Remember first of all, these were democratic policies that were
pushed to the House in the Senate, but it was
under Donald Trump who was still president when the first
policies were pushed through. And what we saw was that
the only people that got money where people they didn't
even need the money. We saw NFL and NBA teams
and all of them, they all had access to capital
(14:21):
and the little guys didn't. It wasn't until we got
rid of Donald Trump and we ended up with President
Biden that they actually started to make sure that those
small businesses that were complaining that the big banks weren't
giving them access to these loans. If people really think back,
it's like you try to go and apply for the
PPP law and they say all the money had already
(14:43):
been given out and it was the big guys that
got it. The small guy only started getting it when
Democrats controlled every lever the House, the Senate, as well
as the White House.
Speaker 5 (14:53):
So I think that that's one of the issues. Another
issue that has been brought.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Up his criminal justice reform, and so you know, there
also was this selective memory or it is just a
failure of us to really talk about and brag because
Democrats are terrible about bragging. Republicans will take credit for
stuff they am none to do, but Democrats won't even
brag on stuff they didn't.
Speaker 5 (15:15):
Done it right.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
And so you know, they felt as if there were
some changes that were made on the federal level while
Trump was in office. None of that again was initiated
under Trump. He signed it into law. So yes, should
we say, okay, thank you for signing it into law
if we can. But don't conflate that with that actually
being on his policy positions.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
That he actually lobbed.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
When we look at the things that he lobbed, he
lived and got us the Supreme Court. If you think
that Trump is looking out for us, just look at
our Supreme Court justices and right now their approval rating
is the lowest that is historically ever been.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
Because it's his justices. They got rid of affirmative action.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
And for those that you know, I don't know what
different opinions may exist around affirmative action. Affirmative action has
never been about a gimme. That's never what it did.
What it did is said, listen, all you got is
a bunch of lily white people. Those are the only
people you will consider. There is great lengths that exist
in some of these people that aren't lily white. That's
(16:19):
all it is. But you don't get there, and somehow
they gonna give you. Well, because you was an affirmative
action in mission hooding, you get an extra ten points
on every tense.
Speaker 5 (16:28):
Like that ain't what it is like. You got to.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Survive, like you've got to make it in and you've
got to survive. But it at least makes them actually
look at you and say, you know what, let's open
up this pool of candidates. And so now what we've
seen is we've seen a decrease in the enrollment of
diverse students at these IVY leagues and other pwis. And
(16:52):
what we've seen is that there's a higher demand for HBCUs.
And when we think back to Donald Trump, now, one
thing that presidents can do, presidents always do is they
put out their budget and that signals to the Congress,
these are the things that we want to do. This
is how I want to place money. But at the
end of the day, the budget belongs to the Congress.
It doesn't belong to the president. So he just kind
(17:13):
of like, this is my robap, please follow it. Especially
if we control if the same parties control the House,
it's in it. When Donald Trump put out his budget,
he wanted to zero out funding for HBCUs. That that
was his proposal, is to zero out HBCU money and
(17:34):
to give credit where credit is due. It was a
Bush that had initially agreed to this level of funding,
which is definitely not where we need our hbc used
to be.
Speaker 5 (17:45):
But it was.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Something and it was a Republican.
Speaker 5 (17:47):
It was a Bush that signed the initial funding into
law for our HBCUs. So this was two hundred and
fifty three million dollars.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
But Trump saw it as an opportunity to do a
photo app and so after a black woman in North
Carolina who attended a HBCU who taught at an HBCU,
doctor Adams. It was doctor Adams, my CBC colleague, who
fought to get that money back, and so once it
came back, he then invited all the HBCU presidents in
(18:18):
for a photo. And so everybody's like, see Donald Trump
was taking care to HBC's not really not really guys,
kind of like those STiMi checks, not really, not really,
not really guys. So they did that. But then when people,
you know, I was constantly kind of going in on
people before the vice president became the nominee, where people
(18:38):
felt away, they felt let down. They were like, well,
you know, she the vice president, but I mean, what
has she done. I'm like, first of all, if you
can't name five other vice presidents, we not about that conversation.
Let's start there, like we like you at least need
to be able to name five other vice presidents and correct,
but most people can't get to the names right because
(19:00):
most people don't look at a vice president at all.
I mean, a vice president is a supporting cast member,
and she has been integral. And I think that Joe
Biden takes a different stance. He tries to do more
of a partnership type of situation, kind of like what
he came into with Barack Obama. And so I think
that that's kind of how he tries to govern. That
(19:22):
led to a record sixteen billion dollars with a B,
not sixteen billion dollars for the investment into HBCUs. It
mattered that there was an HBCU grad that was sitting
there as a second in command, and not even just
from the monetary standpoint, I mean when we look at
(19:44):
Howard and the spike in applications just once she became,
because then it's not for so long there's been these limitations.
If you went to an HBCU and she's defied the limitations,
she's on the verb of becoming the most powerful person
in the world, and she graduated from AH and so
(20:09):
I think that that really tells if I had to
tell a story about black people in general, is that
we are more resilient than any other form of people
that we've ever met. When you think about our presence here,
they can talk about kicking us out and this and that,
But we ain't asked to come here. We got dragged here,
(20:29):
to be clear, right, like, we got dragged here, and
we labored and we built correct. We built this country
and we're still here. And while we still have so
many obstacles that we still get faced with, we somehow persist.
And if I had to send one message to my
black man is to know that like, there never should
(20:52):
be competition. I appreciate that you laid out kind of
the historical context of your show and being clearly you've
always uplifted black women. I see no reason for any
of us to fight one another.
Speaker 5 (21:08):
I love my black men.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
I know that I probably wouldn't necessarily be here but
for black men in my life, because it was a
group of black male lawyers that are like my brothers
that came to me and was like, you got to run,
and we know it costs money. We put money down.
The first people to bet on me were black men
like that was who was like, let me invest in you.
(21:33):
And so I think that we have to appreciate that collectively,
this world has never given us our due. And so
one thing is for sure, regardless as to whether or
not you agree with her one hundred percent or not
at all, one thing is for sure is that she
(21:53):
understands the struggles that this life presents to you more
than any white man ever will. And so, you know,
regardless of what's what. But like I keep saying, they're
gonna kick me off the trail because because I never
I never say what they tell me to say. Number
one and number two I remember, I'll make this final
(22:15):
point that y'all can move on. I went to North
Carolina and I was doing a fundraiser for the Victory Fund.
And this was soon after Arkawi's not r Kelly, that's
messed up. I don't call them mar Kelly Puffy. This
soon after child, I call them are a lot of birds.
Speaker 5 (22:37):
Yeah, that clearly in my mind anyway.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Nevertheless, and so I said, if you want a better
example of how this country views us, no matter how
much money we have and how the systems are inequitable,
look at Diddy situation and look at Trumps. Now. I'm
not saying either one of them is right. I'm not
(23:00):
saying even when them is wrong, y'all don't come from
the defense side. So I will give Trump his thirty
four felony convictions wrong because he been convicted. He still
got other stuff that he's technically presuming instant for his
same thing with Diddy. But here's the deal. Did he
has bad cases? Definitely, not thirty four counts of them
(23:20):
so far? He got him in one jurisdiction, he didn't
get let out, y'all. They did not release him right.
And here it is, Trump had close to ninety He
had over eighty something counts pending in four different jurisdictions,
then ultimately got found guilty and was going in talking
(23:43):
about the judges, talking about the judges starter in New
York doing all kinds of things. Now, in my experience,
the most cases I ever have for one defendant was
a little under forty. He had thirty something counts. He
didn't have a record. It was his first time, I mean,
in trouble, and he did it with a bang, for sure.
But the fans got him as well as the state.
(24:06):
He never got out like he never got released pre trial.
So I don't want people to be fooled into believing
that because he's been subjected to the criminal justice system,
that they're in any similar kind of level of understanding,
because I would argue that he's barely been subjected to
the criminal justice system, because I know, I've had to
(24:29):
represent protesters. I've had protesters to spend more time in
jail with the Donald Trump and you know, and I
got them off of air cases.
Speaker 5 (24:36):
So no, this isn't equitable. He doesn't understand.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
He wouldn't know what it was like to walk a
day in one of our shoes, where you get brought
up on charges that really are not significant at all,
and you are being forced into taking a plea. He
doesn't know that life like that is a completely different
life from what we experience in the black community. The
same people that feel like the criminal justice system has
(25:03):
never been just, but it's only been injust right. That's
he's living the type of criminal justice system we was
looking for, the one that said, oh I got all
these cases, but hey, you know what that person is,
let me let me be out.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
I'm gonna be good. I'm a clown. The judges and
everybody else.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Yeah, I mean literally like intimidating witnesses, all this kind
of you ain't catch a whole other fifty kind of
cases like this is it's it's insane, It's insane. What Yeah,
it's insane.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
You know, there's there's something that that I think is
really interesting that is taking place here. You're absolutely right,
you know, for all of the things that have happened.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Let's go back to.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Let's go back to like the me Too movement for
a second, where I think this concept started to jail.
You know, listen to black women, beat on black women,
believe black women, you know, all this sort of stuff.
And then of course that had swelled up to twenty twenty,
and then it skyrocketed ever since then. And then now
(26:10):
we're celebrating black grow magic and black boy joy and
all this sort of stuff, but hyper focused on our women,
you know what I mean. We need to find lost
black women, we need to dedicate more media resources, We
needed all these sorts of things, right, this concerted effort
that has in my estimation, included black men. It's so
(26:31):
interesting to see the breakdown of that when it comes
to voting for a black woman, right, and you know,
no one is going to agree one hundred percent with
anyone else. We're all different people. Right. No one is
going to get anything one hundred percent right. But one
of the things that I believed, that we understood in
(26:53):
the majority of the past decade is that if we
were working together, that cohesiveness would allow us to accomplish more,
to move the needle, to change and shape outcomes, particularly
for the black community. And if we shape those outcomes
around the sensibilities of black women, we would all be okay.
This is what I thought. So for me, it was
(27:14):
very interesting to see this breakdown right at this intersection
of what we have a black woman who can now
be the most powerful human being on earth, and black
men of all people are standing around like no, oh, no, right,
So let's uh, you know, in your in your opinion,
Let's take it back a little bit because in this
(27:36):
moment we're seeing the breakdown. But I'm curious what kind
of led up to that. So let me let me
ask the question this way. We recall covering sort of
an erosion of support from black men to the then
presumed Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, and that felt a little
(28:00):
weird because that group of people had historically been reliably democratic,
and then obviously, with the announcement of Kamala Harris taking
the reins of the future of the Democratic Party. There
had been some ground recovered, but as we've been discussing,
there are still some black men who are holding out.
(28:20):
And I wonder if there are some historical like, how
has this group of people gotten here? In your estimation,
having talked to black men around the country, what pieces
are many of us missing? Because I think we know
those pieces we can start trying to rebuild. Certainly, folks like.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Hell and message, I think, okay, So I'll say this way.
Democrats are very good at basis we can. You know,
you would imagine that projects on twenty five would have
been ours. I mean, we are the ones that speak
in these large kind of.
Speaker 5 (28:58):
Very deep, you know. But that's not what the other
side does.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
And when we look at the numbers across the board,
the numbers are clear that the more educated folk are
tending to kind of dig a little deeper, and we
are getting the lion's share of those that are more educated,
(29:24):
so to speak.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
And that's across the board.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
What I find is that Trump has been very good
at taking advantage of people that don't have the luxury
of time, people that are literally fighting to make sure
that they can keep a roof over their head, keep
clothes on the backs of their children, and keep food
on the table. And when your focus is on those things,
(29:54):
you don't have time necessarily to dig in.
Speaker 5 (29:59):
And learn it all. And he's taking advantage of that.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
And so one of the reasons that we see that
this team has said, I mean JD Van said, I'll
lie if it'll get me attention.
Speaker 5 (30:09):
So they're liars.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
And if they can just get a few people to
believe their lives they will make They will say they
have no ethics, they have no rules, they have no morals.
Speaker 5 (30:21):
They will say whatever to win.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
And so for those people that are like mm hmm,
that don't even sound right, right, like those people that
have the luxury of saying, let me go through my
research or let me consult with my such and such
somebody in my circle. Which is why I'm trying to
tell people get out of your circles. Like if you
vote in the right way, chances are your circle is good.
(30:45):
We need to start talking to people who aren't really
engaged in these kind of conversations.
Speaker 5 (30:51):
That's what we need to do.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
We end up in our little silos, you know, your
sororities and your fraternities and all this kind of stuff,
and all of y'all are talking, right, what are we
doing to actually start talking to other people, because again,
we have a shared fate and so we need to
start talking about the threats and we need to talk
about the possibilities. But if we're not engaging, and I
(31:12):
think that's what's happening, We're not engaging with a number
of the black men that have checked out,
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