Crockett has been a lightning rod for controversy, including mocking GOP Rep. Byron Donalds for his interracial marriage
Kamala Harris held “secret” White House meetings with “rising stars” of the Democratic Party to help boost their careers. One of her handpicked protégés was Rep. Jasmine Crockett, the Texas Democrat who mocked Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R.) disability, attacked Florida Rep. Byron Donalds’s (R.) interracial marriage, and smeared Charlie Kirk on the day of a memorial service for the murdered conservative activist.
Harris details the “Stars Project” in her memoir 107 Days, a 320-page lament about Harris’s ill-fated presidential campaign. Harris also writes about her work as vice president, which included recurring meetings with a tight group of senior aides to “brainstorm about the younger talents in the party.”
According to Harris, she would invite the up-and-comers to the White House or her residence to discuss their political futures. “I think you’re very talented. What are you working on, and how can I help you?” Harris would tell her guests. She identifies Crockett alongside Reps. Lauren Underwood, Lateefah Simon, Maxwell Frost, and Robert Garcia, according to the book.
Crockett, speaking at the DNC convention last year, recalled the White House meeting with Harris, though she did not portray it as a talent recruitment initiative undertaken by the vice president.
According to Crockett, Harris told her, “You are exactly where God wants you. Your district chose you because they believe in you, and so do I.” Crockett noted that “the next month I went viral for the first of many times to come, for hitting Republicans with a dose of their own medicine.”
“That brief but impactful interaction gave me my legislative legs, and I’ve been running ever since,” said Crockett.
Harris’s grooming of Crockett comes as welcome news to Republicans, who seek to paint Crockett and controversial Democrats like Rep. Ilhan Omar (Minn.) and New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani as the faces of the party.
Crockett has racked up a lengthy catalogue of inflammatory remarks in just three years in Congress. On Sunday, Crockett smeared Kirk, who was assassinated on Sept. 10, as a racist. She lamented that only “two caucasians” in Congress voted against a resolution last week honoring Kirk.
Speaking at a Human Rights Campaign event earlier this year, Crockett mocked Abbott, who is paralyzed from the waist down, as “Governor Hot Wheels.” She also referred to members of the Trump administration as “mediocre white boys.”
In June 2024, she attacked Florida gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds, a black man, over his marriage to a white woman. “I feel like they give him his talking points and he’s like ‘Yes, massa [sic]. I got it,’” Crockett said of Donalds.
It is unclear if those remarks came before or after she visited with Harris, who is married to a white man.
Harris’s mentorship of Crockett could reinforce the longstanding critique of Harris’s lackluster political instincts, which many Democrats have blamed for her decisive loss to President Trump last year.
Harris took heat for picking Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, bypassing popular Democrats Pete Buttigieg and Josh Shapiro, the governor of swing-state Pennsylvania. Harris writes in 107 Days that she decided against selecting Buttigieg because he is gay, believing that voters would not be able to stomach a ticket with a black woman and a gay man.
Harris, who dropped out of the 2020 Democratic presidential race weeks before the first primary, says that she sought advice on her VP pick from a variety of sources, including her 17-year-old godson.
“To get a young person’s opinion, I called my godson, Alexander Hudlin, seventeen years old and very much a creature of the zeitgeist. He was for Walz. ‘Auntie, I like him,’” Harris writes.
