Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett on the Future Under a Kamala Harris Presidency PART 2

Published Oct 19, 2024, 2:00 PM

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!

Keep on riding with us as we continue to broadcast the balance and defend the discourse from these hip hop weekly studios. Welcome back to Civic Site Forer I'm your host, Ramsey's job. Big shout out to q Ward. We are in the middle of a very special episode. We recently were able to sit down with US Representative Jasmine Crockett and have a fantastic conversation about the state of things in the political arena. Of course, the presidential election, the effect that we'll have on Americans, the effect that we'll have on black people, black men's role in the election, and so much more. We discuss her economic policy, We discuss a number of things including Jasmine Crockett herself, the legend, the clap back queen herself, and so that and so much more to stick around for. We have foregone a lot of the features for today's episode to fit as much of this interview in as we possibly can, but we could not get it all in. So if you do want the full unredacted interview, sure to check out our website civiccipher dot com. And now the remainder of our conversation with Jasmine Crockett right here on Civic Cipher.

Could you highlight some things that Vice President Harris while she's been in office have done that does benefit black people since they won't bragged about it as much as they should, and then people like to intentionally plan our faces and act like they don't know better, and some don't know better. Yeah, can we help educate people to some things that have been done that benefit.

Black people while she's been our vice president throughout her career. Yeah.

So one of the things that I think, well, it's very important to me as an attorney or recovering attorney, not practicing.

I don't even know what kind of attorney I am at this point because of my allows parties.

But one of the things that I always found so frustrating was I've I'm licensed in Texas, Arkansas federal courts, and sometimes fairness was just a matter of who was sitting on the bench. And so I think we've all been in those scenarios, whether it's for a family case or criminal case or a civil case where you walk in and you're like, well, who was this judge? And I hate this judge and it's kind of annoyed because it's like, well, you should have showed them the vote, right like, now't might about the judge after the fact, right Like, most people don't know judges' names. And even as we sit here in Arizona, I just brought it up yesterday about the judiciary. And I was saying, now, thank god for y'all's governor, who had y'all's back.

Who's a Democrat.

I said, Now, I don't know how the same state that elected this democratic governor elected these Supreme Court justices, these Supreme Court justices that were intent on taking us back to the eighteen hundreds, as it relates to brief prom And I said, and the interesting part is that I bet you none of y'all can name those Supreme Court justices. You don't know their names, right, And so I'm like, and I was trying to struss to them the importance have always shown up and always voting. But the point that I'm trying to make is that right now, as we're living in a time in which the courts have continuously been tearing our lives apart, I think one of the most important things that has happened is that this administration has appointed a historic number of people of color, specifically women of color, to the benches. It has been very quiet. But obviously we got our first woman, black woman Supreme Court justice, which I don't know why I took this long, but it did.

We finally got it.

Even when we look at the other courts, those trial level courts that people are going to be walking into, and that initial look will come from, say, somebody like a Tanya chuck In.

Right like we have.

This administration appointed more women of color to the bench than every other president combined.

And that was just in the first three years or so.

And this is with what I would consider to be some hostile Senate rules, because judicial appointments come out of the Senate. The House has nothing to do with it. And they have all these weird traditions that seemed to continuously hurt us. One it's called blue slips, and it allows senators like mine to say we won't accept any appointments, so they just get to wave them. And so now we are in a backlog in certain states, such as in their southern states, waiting and hoping that they can stack those benches with Republicans like these are. This is getting into the nitty gritty of things that people don't even know about. How difficult it it is to move things, and how insidious the Republicans are. Like when people say the Democrats don't fight or that we're weak, it's because they really do some evilshit. I mean, we ended up with this Supreme Court because they decided to change the rules every step of the way to get here, right, So that's how we ended up with the Supreme Court. But anyway, so despite all of the challenges, I think that it has been amazing to see what they've been able to.

Do on that.

I think one of the things that we don't talk about a lot is that we didn't get the George Floyd and Policing Act and acted.

We didn't get it, but from an executive standpoint.

It was this administration that decided that they would ban things like chokehols and things like that. So they took portions of the George Floyd and Policing Act when we could not get it through both chambers, and did as much of the legislation in the form of executive actions as they can. But you know, we don't have kings and queens here, at least not right now, and so you know, it does take the House and the Senate and the president, and there's limited powers that the president has, but the president has flexed it. The wealth gap as relates to black in this country, the wealth gap actually started to shrink. It's the most that is shrunk really, I think in the history of the country under this administration. And again we still haven't fulfilled for four years. But let me tell you, when people talk about the Affirmative Action decision, and regardless of whatever positions they take, I need people to understand that that's an economic decision, that's about economics, that's about widening that gap back up again. Because number one, we know that this country believes that you've got to get an education before you can get anywhere. That's just kind of how we set it up in this country. But more importantly, what they're trying to do is extrapolate this decision into other decisions as it relates to department heads for contracting. So the largest contractor of anything is the United States government, right, and so they want to limit access to getting those governmental contracts that would be based upon those groups that historically have been disadvantaged.

So this is an economic decision.

So I really need people to start like peeling back the layers and recognizing that the intentionality of this administration because one of the things that they quietly did was under the Department of Transportation, they have a civil Rights division, a division that will cease to exist if Donald Trump is back into office. That Civil Rights Division wanted to look at their policies around contracting, and they're trying their best to insulate and help to make sure that while they still weren't necessarily meaning their metrics, that they weren't going to start to backslide in case things go wrong. That's another one of those things that's been very under the radar. And when we talk about money, like I'm talking about big contracts, I'm talking about multi billion dollar contracts, whether we're talking about roads, whether we're talking about airports, that kind of stuff.

That the federal government pays for.

And the reason that it matters that people of color are able to get those contracts is because all the numbers bear out that the chances of a say, black owned firm, hiring black people are higher than somebody else.

So it helps us overall in our.

Capital into the community exactly. So how about this that is looking backwards, that's looking at right now, Let's look forward A lot has been said about the opportunity economy that's sort of being championed by the Harris Wallas administration. So discuss how that opportunity economy would impact the same black people that are asking the questions. Q mentioned what had you done for black people? Just look forward? What does the opportunity economy bring to the table for black people?

So I'm going to say that I feel as if Number one, I think I just laid out kind of how education plays a role in our economy.

But it's been the more traditional, very expensive college.

Right.

We know that this administration specifically understood that black folk and brown folk, with black folks specifically have been disproportionately burdened by student londby right, So even and this is looking back, but I'm gonna get it to as looking forward. So they relieved one hundred and seventy six billion dollars of student longday the.

Vast majority of that.

There's been a net positive impact for black people, I'll say that.

And so it's funny because I've been in.

These environments where I felt like they were controlled enough then I could ask the question. So like when I was speaking to my sorority, when I was speaking to the Omegas. I specifically asked people to raise their hand if they ended up taking out student loans when.

They went to college.

Usually it's almost a hundred percent of the room raises their hands right then I'd ask them if anybody.

Had their student loan.

They relieved.

I get usually thirty five percent or so of the room.

Wow.

I can only do that in a controlled environment. I did it in Essence, which everybody will show up to Essence and you know, don't know. And it was Angela Rai that wanted to know the amounts. I was like, now, girl, we was good to get some hands like. I was happy, you know that everybody even showed.

Up to Essence.

And the most that I've ever heard anybody say, it's two hundred and seventy thousand dollars.

Now, can you imagine.

How life changing it would be to get almost three hundred thousand dollars worth of dead off your back. The crazy part is that I've never heard anybody tell me less than six figures.

Wow.

There is so many people whose lives have been changed, and I get on them.

I say, if these people can go out and talk about tw one hundred dollars.

I'm going to need y'all to get out and talk about the real money, because because this is real, real, real money. Like I need y'all to talk about how now your debt to income ratio has been adjusted so now you can go and buy that home and build that generational wealth. I need you to talk about how you're able to now go get that business loan because you don't have this on their back.

Like I need you to talk about how.

Even though the cost of food may be more, you have more dollars in your pocket to afford the more expensive food. And so I say that to say that I do think that there will continue to be a strong push around student long Day. And I think that while the Supreme Court has really boxed us out of a lot, if we can get a democratically controlled House and Senate, we'll be in a better position to hopefully bring about even more relief for some people that have been paying their suit loans forever and literally cannot get ahead.

So that's one thing. I think.

The reason I brought up student loan deb is because some of much of it is coming from the traditional education. I personally believe that this administration will push for economic opportunities in what I would consider to be more forward thinking spaces. I don't think that we are moving in a way in which the only way that you can be successful is if you go get a four year degree. And we have seen a shift like there's legislation that I'm on to give out pel grant dollars for those that are going to two year institutions and things like that to make sure that they have access to capital as.

Well to get their education.

And as we continue to move into a more tech driven society as a whole, I think that they are going to be supportive of making sure whatever that education looks like, you are seen in an equitable space from the federal government and not out there having to fend for yourself unless it is a matter of going to the traditional educational routes. I think that also what we're seeing with the advent of manufacturing and how there has been a historic number of manufacturing over one hundred thousand new manufacturing jobs that have been created under this administration, the most that we've seen of any that I can think of. We lost over two hundred and fifty thousand manufacturing jobs under Trump. Under this administration, we've gained eight hundred thousand new ones. But I do want to say that manufacturing is even looking different and how we manufacture and what we're manufacturing, whether we're talking about the green economy or whether we're talking about cars and the more traditional things that we think of. The Chips and Science Act has been monumental. On my ride over here, we were talking about the large investment that was made for a chip factory right here in Arizona, same thing as happening in Ohio with Samsung. It's about a twenty six billion dollar investment for that particular facility, and then we also have a new facility that will be coming online in Texas as well. And so that is what it looks like when you have really good legislation. But this particular team has always looked out for workers. And it's not just those that are going into the corporate spaces, it's those that are going into all spaces. And I think that she wants to continue to push an agenda that will bring more and more jobs here to the United States and also balance out and make sure people are equipped for whatever transition may take place. Because of AI, A lot of people are nervous about AI. There's a lot of reasons to be nervous because it's kind of like, you know, the good and the bad that comes with it. But more importantly, people are getting concerned about their jobs and so making sure that people that were bringing new jobs so that we will be able to balance opportunities.

You've had some.

Very viral moments just doing your job, and there are people who do not participate in politics or actively follow it who know your name now because of that. In recent news, and thank goodness for you, you had another viral moment regarding Project twenty twenty five, and our former president likes to pretend that that has nothing to do with him, and he doesn't know who these people are, and he doesn't know what's in it.

He doesn't know what's in it. But there's some good things that are in it.

I think, he says, I think you mentioned his name being in that very very hefty document some three hundred times. Can we bring some attention to the very very obvious ways that Project twenty twenty five is detrimental to black people?

Yeah, Lord, have mercy is everything you know? I do tell people if you are confused about this election, Google Projects twenty twenty five and whatever your number one issue is, and if you like what it says, then vote for Trump. But if you dislike it, then you definitely need to vote for Harris. So that's number one. I'm not suggesting that anybody should really sit down and read it in totality. I will say that they want to get rid of diversity, equity, and inclusion, which is why I've argued that Project twenty twenty five has already been here. The Heritage Foundation is the one that was passing the anti DEI bills through the state houses. They were the one giving us to the Republicans. They were the ones that also felt like our history needed to be deleted to see RT bills that we don't hear about it anymore. That all came from the Heritage Foundation, as well as the six week abortion band that they called the Heartbeat Bill. They handed that out to the Texas House, they handed it out to Georgia, they handed out to They handed out like they that's what they do. So they've been doing this work, and so to live in a society where literally they're saying, if it's the federal government. I talked about the Civil Rights Division and Department of Transportation. They're saying no civil rights divisions at all anywhere, so that would be deleted. So Department of Justice, they have a civil rights division where they go in, they do environmental injustice stuff, they go after police in different areas. We just saw Tyree Nichols case. They've been indicted and they were charged. On the federal level, they want to deplete all resources as relates to Department of as relates to Department of Justice, or just any civil rights in any departments that we have. But as we're dealing with the hurricane and and we know the devastation that has been caused, I personally believe that it will have a disproportioned negative impact on us if they are allowed to get rid of any mention of climate change that has to that phrase has the come out of all federal documents, and they essentially really want to just kind of get the EPA. And we know when we think about Flint, Michigan, right, we know that again we have been subjected to the dirty water and the dirty air exactly, and they want to delete all references to that as well. So I think that that will absolutely harm us. But again, we already see what's happening the Chevron decision that came out of the Supreme Court.

In that particular.

Decision, it's basically saying, you know what, the Supreme Court is going to be the end all be all when it comes to figuring out how much poison is okay for our how much poison?

Not that they have any experts, hease whatsoever.

They're like, forget the experts, y'all got to bring to the Supreme Court and then we'll make the decision. So, like all of this has kind of been at play, and then you know, with Donald Trump essentially getting the immunity again from the Supreme Court again, another arm of the Project twenty twenty five, because it seeks to empower the executor so much more than the executor is supposed to be, kind of turning off the balance of our democracy as a whole. Yeah, because we're supposed to be three coequal branches of government, and so now giving him immunity and allowing him to do all this craziness.

Well, one of the things is that the DOJ operates separate and apart from the executor.

Yes, the president will have a nominee, but that's it, right, because guess what his son got convicted by this DJ. This is just that would never happen with Trump, okay, because he would absolutely be given power over the Department of Justice and be able to go after those that he wants to go after.

So those are just some of the things.

But I say that it is important for you to figure out what is your number one issue and figure out where do they stand on it.

So I know we're short on time, I want to ask just one more question for you. Obviously we want people to vote. Take a moment and explain why it's so important. You touched on it earlier, but why it's so important to do just a little bit more research to vote down ballot.

Oh my gosh.

You know, I wouldn't be sitting here with y'all if it wasn't for people that took the time to vote down ballot. People always ask where did you come from? And I'm like, I've always been the same. There's just more cameras on me now, Like that's it. But I only won my state house race by ninety votes. And you know, I told one of my city council people when she was running, I said, whatever you do when you get in that's just when the work begins. So you got to kick the door down, and so essentially they never should have let me in the door because I kicked it out right. It was like faces state House race in the state of Texas that year, but in record time, there's never been another freshman black member for sure of the state House and then got called up and went to the US House.

I mean, it just doesn't happen.

And it was because of the work, but it was because people decided to show up and voted my election. And I believe that you can have the representation that you seek if you just take the time to do the research and find out who these people are. My district knew who I was when they decided to send me to DC, and so my district is all good with me. The rest of the world is starting to figure out who I am, but my district knew me, and they made the concerted effort to make sure that they sent me to DC.

And you have that power.

It's not just about the president, because I'm gonna be perfectly honest and tell you that everybody else will affect your life a lot quicker. The chances of you meeting a president of the United States are kind of slim. The chances of you meeting you're a city council person or your mayor a little bit better, and ultimately we all work together. I am constantly on the road, I'm constantly somewhere other than Texas. But it's my local elected officials that call me and say, hey, we need money for these roads, these bridges, or whatever it is that they need money for. And then my job is on the federal level, was to figure out how I'm to go find that money and send it back home.

So everybody in this equation matters.

But more importantly, as I sit here in Arizona and I'm not campaigning in Texas, and even though we may have a pretty tight Senate race in Texas, I tell people all the time that I'm here for my constituents because those on the state level have decided that in January they're going to seek the death penalty for anybody seeking an abortion in state of Texas. I can't get freedom from my constituents in Texas. It's got to come by way of making sure that Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, that everybody shows up and that they cast the vote for the people that I know will do their best to protect my constituents. But right now, if people don't wake up and start voting on the state level, if they don't start voting on the federal level, we would have fair lines on the state level or county levels and things like that. The voting rights agg was protected. Sure, we can't even get it past now. So I mean, there's so many layers to this, but I just say that the people that you will always have better access to are the people down ballot, so don't skip them.

Well, you are more than an inspiration. It has been more than an honor. I'm going to speak for both of us. Been learn one hundred to finally talk to you after bumping into in New Orleans and DC, and now we get a chance to sit down and actually have a real conversation. Just an absolute joy. Before you go, make sure that for all those new folks that they get all your social media's and everything that you got going on.

Yes, so I can be found it jasmine for us on all social media platforms.

Fantastic And of course this is a conversation that we'd like to keep going. So for you our listener. If you want to chime in, you can do so using the red microphone talk back feature on the iHeartRadio app, or you can find me on all social media at Ramsy's Job. I am q Ward on all social media as well. And until next time, y'all peace.

And that's going to do it. Don't forget that. We do want you to hit the website civiccipher dot com because you can download the entire episode, not the edited episode. You can also download some of our other uploads that we've been putting up throughout the week. We definitely want to make sure that you are staying in contact with all the things that we're doing on the show and around the country. Once again, you can follow me on all social media at Rams's Job, you can follow q at Imqward, and of course you can follow the show at Civic Cipher. And we want to put particular emphasis on the YouTube that is YouTube dot com slash Civic Cipher. Big shout out to everyone who's been supporting us on this wild ride and we will see you next week.