CNN‘s Jake Tapper left Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett scrambling after confronting her with a year-old quote that claimed Latinos who voted for Donald Trump have ‘slave mentality’.
Appearing on CNN, the senator hopeful told Jake Tapper: ‘I don’t believe that the people that voted for Trump believe in what they’re actually getting,’ before embarking on a confusing rant.
Tapper had just read the quote Crockett provided to Vanity Fair for a fawning feature published in December 2024.
‘I’m going to read a lot of the quotes just to put it in the context,’ the host warned.
‘The immigration thing has always been something that has perplexed me about this community,‘ Crockett was quoted as saying.
The quote continued: ‘It almost reminds me of what people would talk about when they would talk about kind of like slave mentality and the hate that some slaves would have for themselves. It’s almost like a slave mentality that they have’.
Tapper, at this point, cut in, first pointing out how at the time the piece was published, ‘around a million Latino voters in Texas were voting for Trump.’
‘Do they all have slave mentality?’ Tapper quickly asked.
Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett, seen here on CNN Tuesday, accused Latino Americans who voted for Donald Trump last year of exhibiting ‘a slave mentality’ last year in an interview
Roughly a million Latino voters in Texas – the state Crockett represents – voted for Trump in 2024
‘No, and that’s not what that said at all,’ a curt Crockett replied, before offering her explanation.
She began by saying she ‘did not say that every Latino has that type of mentality.’
Tapper clarified: ‘No, no…. the ones that vote for people who believe in… Trump’s immigration policies.’
‘So- so, I don’t believe that the people that voted for Trump believe in what they’re actually getting. That is number one,’ Crockett stammered.
‘What Trump said is that he was going to kick out the bad guys. And that’s what I was talking about.’
She added how she’s been ‘down to the border’ and parts of South Texas.
‘I’ve campaigned down there. And so, I am talking about exactly what was going on when I was down there on behalf of the Beto [O’Rourke] campaign.
‘In fact, when he was running for governor, I was sent as a surrogate. And I said, “talk to me about what is going on,”‘ Crockett went on.
She recalled asking at the time, ‘”Why is it that they believe that they can win Latinos down here? Like, I don’t understand what’s happening.'”
The Lead’s Jake Tapper grilled the third-year congresswoman about her past comments
The third-year congresswoman continued the confusing explanation by further recalling ‘people that were saying that they have fought and they had done everything the right way’, at the time.
‘And that there were bad people that were coming that were doing it the wrong way,’ Crockett added.
‘And so they were saying, “no, we left.”
‘And I mean, when you think about people that are leaving asylum, they are leaving areas and situations that they feel like are harmful to them.
‘So, yes, they’re like, “No, I don’t want to be in this dangerous situation.
‘And that’s what I meant. But at the same time, I knew what Trump meant because Trump had a record. Trump had a record of locking up kids and putting them in cages. So I knew what Trump meant.’
She went on to lament ‘Latino American citizens that have been arrested by this regime.’
‘Some of those people may have voted for Trump. I don’t know,’ she added. ‘But they agree that what he’s doing now is wrong. And it’s about right versus wrong and not right versus left.’
Trump beat Kamala Harris after being backed by 46 percent of all Latino voters – the most from any Republican in modern history
Trump is seen during a roundtable discussion with local Latino leaders in Miami the month before the election
Tapper ended the interview at this point, telling Crockett, ‘We’ll leave it there.’
In November 2024, Trump emphatically beat Kamala Harris after being backed by 46 percent of all Latino voters – the most by any Republican in modern history.
The result also saw Trump increase his share of the demographic substantially since his 2020 loss to Joe Biden, by a resounding 14 percent.
Crockett, 44, made a last-minute decision to enter the Texas senate race this week.
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