Rep. Jasmine Crockett: Republicans Would Rather Wreck the Country Than Protect Your Health Care

My Republican friends, I got a little bit of a better message in every now and then. So I wondered if that was the case in this fight. And as I've been paying attention, it strikes me that on one side you have the Democrats saying, look, the health care situation in this country is about to become very untenable if we do not do something. So we have to take a stand here.

And we're not just going to tell the voters, it's so bad, bad you got to give us a gavel back in November next midterms we're going to do something now. And then you got the Republicans saying well the Democrats are holding the government hostage and they want to give health care to undocumented folks and by the way since they want to play games we're going to fire a bunch of people not just furlough them. And I just kind of feel like the argument that the Democrats is making one makes more sense to me as a voter but two is more humane and it really feels like the Republicans are playing a little playing games on this and I don't think health care is a

game. It shouldn't be a game but clearly they have decided to make it a game and it's interesting that you bring up the retaliation. The Republican response to us allegedly holding the government hostage is to go out and hurt the people, the very people that are serving our country and serving our constituents. This tells you who it is that they are fighting for. They didn't say they were going to hurt the billionaires.

They said they were going to hurt the very people that make this government go. And honestly, I don't think they need a shutdown as an excuse to hurt them because we've seen the illegal firings and the illegal rifts and we've seen all the court cases and we've seen them have to go back because they're idiots and don't know who they're firing and then they're like, oh, never mind, I may need you back. So, you know, this is just another excuse for them to do the very inhumane things that they want

to do. We finally have a chance at a very clear message here. And I think that we're winning this fight finally and proof is in the pudding. That's why the Republicans aren't even here. The message is just health care over billionaires. There's two bills, the Republican bill that says they're going to give tax breaks to billionaires and kick 15 million people off their health care, jack up health care costs for tens of

millions more people, and then the Democratic proposal, which is let's keep your health care and fight for the American people and open up the government. I feel like every day of the week,

we can stand behind making sure folks have their health care while these guys try to give, I don't know, tax breaks to their best friends.

That may be Congressman Cassar, but the reality of it is very different. And the reality of it is, I got up this morning, and for about five hours, the only voice I heard and the only pictures I saw were Republican leadership on the balcony, doing press conferences, delivering a message. The Democrats didn't officially get in the game until

2 p.m. and here's the problem. Messaging requires impact immediately. You cannot wait in a moment like this to have it defined four hours, five hours after the leadership that is lying to the country. All right? They're lying to the country about the fact that the Democrats have proposed a bill that does what? Gives health care to who? Illegal immigrants.

Oh yeah, they're always going to blame an immigrant.

But it works, Congressman. That's why they do it.

That's why they do it.

And so what is the repost? What is the counteraction from Democratic members and leadership, why do you allow them to hold such strong, I guess, grip on the American psyche when it comes to these types of issues?

I think we have to not cave to it. I think that's the answer. Because if we stand strong and we show our real confidence in the truth, right, they're on the flimsiest of lies, which is the lie that Trump always goes to, go blame an immigrant. And if we give in to that, then we are beefing up, we're giving that gas. But if we stay strong and stay strong with the truth, which is our proposal is to keep

tens of millions of people on their health care at lower costs, and we stay confident in that, that lie eventually, flimsimsily has to fall apart. Now if your question to me is well what are you gonna do about the fact that oligarchs and Trump billionaires have bought up so much of the media and that you know whatever TV show you're putting on in the morning is...

No, it's my network!

Yeah, but let's ask your network about it. But the thing is we were up early in the morning putting the message out. We were out all day. I did like six different press conferences, every single local TV station. But yeah, your question to me is why don't you have as big of a megaphone as Donald Trump? We're not going to have that.

No, it's not a big megaphone.

But what we can do is have millions of people organized.

You were talking about the expediency of it.

You were talking about... of the House and Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader of the House. Those, yes, one megaphone may be a little bit larger by virtue of office, but the message, I think, is a bigger message for Democrats than Republicans.

Yeah. I mean, listen, I don't run comms for the caucus, so I'm not going to tell you what the comms plan is. But first thing I did was I was on syndicated radio. Young Jack texted me this morning and was like, hey, can you jump on? So first thing this morning, I was on black radio so that black folk could hear me, a trusted voice, and know what was going on as they were going into work.

I then got on with local news, because it is important that my district, especially since I'm not there right now, it is very important that my local constituents, the ones that sent me to DC, know that I have a message for them. So I got up, I did local news. All this evening, I am doing the national

news. But this is just what me and my team have set out for ourselves. I do know that the leader had a, I think he was doing a 24-hour YouTube stream. And so I know that they were kind of running different people on that stream to try to communicate. We are behind. I mean Michael this these are the facts like I'm not I'm not gonna sit here and lie. We are behind. They are way ahead. Congressman Kassar brought up the fact that yes they're buying up the media space but also just how to use the media. We're just now starting to get

with influencers. We're just now starting to get online in general, like we are far behind. I do think it is

interesting though that part of the schism seems to be within their own caucus. There was reporting today from the Wall Street Journal about the fact that you do have moderate House Republicans who are floating a year-long extension of these health care subsidies, but it's the Freedom Caucus that's saying that's a non-starter for them. And then you have that Fabrizio polling from July that is basically like, hey, Republicans, if you decide to go with this move and actually raise people's health care premiums, Democrats

are going to absolutely slaughter you come midterms. So there has to be someone, Congressman, in their caucus who knows that this is a political loser for them.

They know it's a loser and that's why they are floating these things of, well, trying to fix some of the problems they caused just in time for the elections. But we can't settle for just fixing their problem. We have to stand strong and actually fix the problems of the American people because I think that even though their propaganda is strong, Michael, I think that if we deliver in a big and meaningful way for people, where folks expect Democrats sometimes to cave, but actually deliver in a big way, don't just give them one little year of an

extension, then maybe folks can have another party to believe in.

There was a piece in the New York Times, there were a bunch of charts from Steve Ratner that I think help articulate this, and then I'll kick it over to you, Simone. Can we pull up Ratner's essay in the Times? Even upper-income Americans who buy insurance on the ACA exchanges will be hurt by the repeal of this tax break. That's because as coverage gets more expensive, healthier people drop their insurance first, forcing companies to raise premiums on the remaining customers to maintain profitability. Thanks to Republican legislators, a 55 year old couple making $85,000 annually could see

their health insurance costs more than triple to $24,535 a year. I think those types of illustrations are helpful, Simone, because I think sometimes when we have these conversations, like, oh poor people aren't gonna have health insurance. No, we are talking across the income spectrum about this affecting workers.

We are talking about everybody. You know, I disagree with the chairman. You know, I think that I, well, again, usually I would argue my Democratic friends are very much so behind the eight ball. I think that what has happened is you all have wrestled the narrative with something that is real. Steve Ratner is writing about this because that's what you all are talking about. Usually, shutdown fights are about budgets and taxes. This is about people's health care.

And to be very clear, this is not the economy where you can leave your job. If you don't have a job, it's very hard to get a job. And if you have a job, you need to keep your job. It is already very expensive. So to see that premiums, people's premiums, are going to go up by in some places 300 percent. People who are making good money can't really afford that.

On top of the Medicaid cuts. And so I actually do think this is strong ground to stand on. I wonder what is the, like, is there an off ramp? Like at what point will the, how does this end? Yeah, I don't know how this, how this ends. We know that the last time we experienced a Trump shutdown, because this is what Trump

does, if the American people have forgotten, the last time we experienced this, we know that it was the air traffic controllers that shut that thing down. Right? Once the planes stopped going, then you have the airlines calling. You had all of those that were engaged in logistics in any way. Those businesses were calling and was like, y'all need to fix this.

We don't care what you got to do because we are losing too much money. Unfortunately, the only language that this administration understands is the language of billionaires and dollars. And so I am hoping that there is some creativity as it relates to our federal workers to make sure that they start to speak the language of this administration. So I encourage all of our federal workers, listen, think hard, think long about how you can speak their language.

But I do believe that I think you're saying the same thing. I don't think Michael was criticizing the actual message. Our message is strong. He's saying you're not giving the message. Right. He's saying, yeah, because it has to be frequent, it has to be all over. I mean, you've got to literally blast it everywhere. And so we can't focus on just one medium. We've got to focus on all

types of mediums and we've got to deliver it in different ways. We have to have people telling their own stories about what's going to happen to them. I think it is important that you have pieces like this that are written so that people can see with their own two eyes and not just hear from those of us that are elected politicians because some people just tune us out as soon as we start talking because they say, well, y'all not saying the same thing. So one of y'all got to be lying. And I'm trying to tell you, the numbers to be pulled out of the health care ecosystem and that is what you're talking about. There are people that want to say, well, if it ain't got nothing to do with me, it ain't

my problem. If it ain't Medicaid or Medicare and I'm not on it, then it's not my problem. It is your problem because you may not have that specialist to go to, you may not have that hospital to go to or the cost coming in to pay to make sure that the lights stay on at that hospital. And that's what we've got to do is make sure that everybody knows that this impacts every

single one of us.

And to that point, you had Congressman Cassar, you had this, I almost called him speaker, Jeffries say in response to Trump's administration freezing $18 billion in funding for two major Democratic cities, including New York City, in their infrastructure projects. Let's take a quick listen to his response to that.

Do you think you're personally being targeted? The Trump administration is targeting the jobs, thousands of jobs, of hard-working Americans, working-class Americans and blue-collar Americans who are going to lose the ability to work at the Second Avenue subway site or at the other project that has been cancelled related to the Cross Harbor Tunnel.

I'd say they cancelled these projects, Congressman, because of DEI, but don't even get me started on that because that's a whole other show. But it goes to the heart of what you said, delivering in a big way. When we deliver in a big way, my question is, in the face of what leader Jeffries put on the table, which is truth, what Simone laid out and what the congresswoman just said

about how this will impact real people, two weeks from now, if we're still into this, what's the conversation to the American people in terms of making that delivery in a big way for them? Because at that point, a whole lot of people are going to be hurting real hard.

Right. Donald Trump wants us to be talking about the subway project that he canceled. Donald Trump wants to be talking about how he's picking a fight with Chuck Schumer or Hakeem Jeffries. But what the American people should be talking about, what we should be making sure folks are talking about, is that person in Mike Johnson's district who's going to have to

pay $16,000 more a year in health care costs. Those people in Texas that John Cornyn and Ted Cruz are fighting so hard to make sure people in Texas have to pay $10,000 more. And why, when people say, on God's green earth, why do I have to pay $10,000 I don't have? It's because they are so committed to tax breaks for the richest people on earth. That's the only reason why.

That's the conversation we need to make sure we're having, because those are the people being targeted. Not Hakeem, not me, not Jasmine.

OK, but what is the corollary, then, for Russell Vought trying in the middle of a government shutdown without any actual legal authority to fire federal employees.

He wants to intimidate us.

He wants to kill us.

Do you think that's it?

And it's also what he's always wanted to do.

Correct.

Correct. And he'll come up with any excuse to do it.

Because I think if you make it about federal employees, while I may be very sympathetic to them, I think it is about the services they provide and how folks are impacted and also about the fact that this is government overreach. I have to go to break, but I want final thought.

No, I agree with you. This is about our constituents. If we keep our constituents at the center of it, then I think that we win when we talk about the fact that the VA is going to have problems delivering services. When you talk about Social Security Administration is going to have problems delivering services? Because the people at Social Security on contract work, they answer the phones, and the contract

workers are not federal workers, they are not furloughed, they are just gone and not workers are not federal workers, they are not furloughed, they are just gone and not getting paid.