The Scene
“Y’all just pray for me,” Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett told supporters of the Human Rights Campaign as she took the stage at their fundraising dinner. “Who knows what I’m gonna end up saying?”
Four minutes later, she called her state’s Republican governor, who has used a wheelchair since 1984, “Hot Wheels.” That remark, which Crockett claimed did not refer to Gov. Greg Abbott’s disability, quickly became the latest viral exhibit in the GOP’s bid to cast the 43-year-old Democrat as a one-woman left-leaning gaffe machine.
Rep. Randy Weber, R-Texas, has already launched a push to censure Crockett for her quip. And Republican lawmakers and conservative commentators were ready to amplify her Abbott remark, after condemning her embrace of protests against Tesla as a means of venting public ire toward Elon Musk.
Democrats have built their opposition to the Trump administration around Musk and DOGE, from protests outside the agencies it’s slashing to rallies in Wisconsin against his spending in a state supreme court race.
Crockett isn’t likely to become a Nancy Pelosi-style figure in election-year ads, but Republicans are working to neutralize Democrats’ strategy by associating it with figures like her — and by linking anti-Musk politics to attacks on Tesla products, which they call “terrorism.”
They have sometimes misstated what Crockett and Democrats are saying. Attorney General Pam Bondi last week said the second-term Democrat wanted Musk “taken out,” implying that she endorsed violence against the CEO, rather than “taken down,” as she’d put it on a livestream.
Crockett told Semafor that criticism of her comes from Republicans who are “nervous about me” and “afraid that people listen to me.” The Republicans now saying she insulted disabled people, she added, are seeking a distraction as they move to close the Education Department, “which provides resources for the community.”
“They’ve tried to claim I’ve gotten rich off of something nefarious in Congress. Then they moved on to claiming that I had a husband and was engaged in something nefarious with him,” she said. “Then they moved on to being outraged that I’ve gotten a private education, to now being mad that I’m supporting peaceful protests, as I have for years.”
Know More
Crockett is occupying a role that, during President Donald Trump’s first term, was broadly played by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — both are progressive lawmakers of color with experience getting mocked and criticized by the GOP base. She’s even literally inherited Ocasio-Cortez’s former spot as vice ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, the site of frequent partisan clashes with MAGA-friendly conservatives.
But unlike Ocasio-Cortez, the Texan doesn’t identify as a member of the House Democratic “Squad.” Crockett also served as a national co-chair of Kamala Harris’ 2024 campaign and was elected freshman class liaison during her first term, though her most recent campaign for a caucus leadership role went nowhere.
It’s clear, however, that she’s just as ready as a member of the Squad to tangle with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. Crockett has sought and gained more prominence as a Democratic communicator since a 2024 insult contest with Greene; she released merchandise to commemorate it, calling it the “Clapback Collection.”
Her current condemnations from conservatives amount to a new, riskier level of stardom. FBI Director Kash Patel has created a new task force to fight the “domestic terrorism” of anti-Tesla attacks, and the Trump administration has warned that it could use its powers to punish Tesla’s critics.
“They are cheering on Molotov cocktails, violent firebombing and firing guns,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, another favorite Crockett subject, said on a Friday episode of his podcast. “And I’ll tell you, somebody is going to be killed.”
Most Democrats, particularly those leading the charge against Musk, are careful to separate themselves from any violent act involving his products.
“There’s not a Democrat here that supports or condones violence. We believe that people should be held accountable for it,” said Texas Rep. Greg Casar, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
David and Kadia’s View
Democrats appreciate Crockett’s style, but they sometimes wince when she commands a news cycle with comments the entire party can’t endorse. How she handles the fallout from her Abbott and Tesla comments may determine how high the former public defender can continue to rise.
“She speaks for a lot of people who are upset and angry about the direction of the country,” said California Rep. Ro Khanna, another young and media-friendly Democrat. “But I think that what the party has to do is channel anger into aspiration about how we should behave, and treat people with respect and civility.”
One Democratic aide said of Crockett that “leadership sees her as talented and smart,” but “the gravitational pull of internet notoriety is too strong for some to withstand.”
A determining factor in this story will be how much more Crockett identifies with the so-called Tesla Takedown campaign. Like every elected Democrat, she has denounced vandalism, and activists’ planned protests this week (on Crockett’s birthday) are billed as peaceful. But the GOP readily describes them as potential threats.
“In her own home state, after she said that: This morning, three explosive devices found in Austin,” Bondi said of Crockett this week, implying that the Democrat’s Tesla Takedown call was inspiring anarchists and vandals.
In Bondi’s words, the Department of Justice is now working to “protect Tesla owners,” and classifying anti-Tesla vandalism as political terror. Pro-Trump commentators have been on the same page, suggesting that Crockett is endorsing anti-Tesla and anti-Musk revenge attacks.
“It’s just open fomenting of violence,” Alex Jones told his InfoWars audience last week. Pro-Trump conservative pundit Charles Downs filmed Crockett in a House office building, accusing her of “calling for violence on the 29th,” the date of the next Tesla Takedown protests.
Crockett put her hand on Downs’ phone to stop him from filming further. (Downs has filed a police report, calling the incident an assault.)
The linkage between Democrats and Tesla vandalism on the right echoes Republicans’ allegations of violent radicalism within the party after the 2017 shooting at a GOP congressional baseball practice, and during the protests and riots after George Floyd’s murder by police.
But the stakes now are different: Republicans are very comfortable defending Musk, whose companies have created tens of thousands of jobs and vast wealth, from Democrats who want him out of Trump’s White House.
And they are fine with using the state to threaten action against those Democrats.
Room for Disagreement
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., a Tesla owner, is simply amused by the Democratic anger with Musk’s company.
“A lot of people bought Teslas to virtue-signal, and now they own a $80,000 car that’s signaling virtues other than what they expected,” he said in an interview.
He was also uncomfortable with Republicans using the word “terrorism” to describe what was being done to the cars.
“That term is overly used by both sides,” he said. “It’s just vandalism and bad behavior.” With tongue in cheek, he suggested a different term than his colleagues might use to respond: “Maybe it’s an insurrection?”
Notable
- In National Review, Jeffrey Blehar argues that Crockett’s confident clap-backery is harming the Democrats. Not that he minds. “It is the artificiality of her attempts to spark outrage that makes them fall so weirdly flat.”
- In his Substack newsletter, Ken Klippenstein worries that the administration is mangling the definition of “terrorism” for political reasons. “Trump is now unleashing the deep state (their deep state) to go after associates and others who support or contemplate similar acts, in other words to criminalize and then stigmatize opposition.”