Trump Said ‘Alligator Alcatraz' Would Hold ‘Menacing Migrants.' Most Don't Have Criminal Convictions
'It's known as Alligator Alcatraz, which is very appropriate because I looked outside and that's not a place I want to go hiking,' Trump said during a livestreamed event on July 1. 'But very soon, this facility will house some of the most menacing migrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet.'
Only one-third of the approximately 900 immigrants detained at the Florida facility have been convicted of a crime, the Herald reported. Those charges range from little as a traffic violation or illegal re-entry all the way to murder. Another 250 detainees only have immigration violations on their records but no criminal convictions or pending charges.
A Syracuse University analysis of government data found that almost half of the people in ICE custody as of late last month did not have a criminal conviction or charge. Many are in the U.S. to seek asylum.
Conditions at the detention center are inhumane, said Democratic lawmakers who visited the site on Saturday. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz called the facility, where immigrants are locked in cells made of chain link fencing with more than 30 other detainees, an 'internment camp.' Those cells are underneath tents, not permanent structures.
'They are essentially packed into cages, wall-to-wall humans, 32 detainees per cage,' Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said.
She also criticized the quality and amount of food given to immigrants there, noting that while guards received roast chicken and sausage, detainees were given a 'gray turkey and cheese sandwich, an apple and chips.'
'I don't see how that could possibly sustain them nutritionally or not make them hungry,' Wasserman Schultz said.
Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem defended the conditions in the Everglades detention center in an interview on Sunday.
'Our detention centers at the federal level are held to a higher standard than most local or state centers and even federal prisons. The standards are extremely high,' she said on NBC's Meet the Press.
Noem even balked at calling the fenced-in areas where detainees are held 'cells.'
'I've been there and I've seen these rooms that they are in. I wouldn't call them 'jail cells,'' Noem said. 'I would call them a facility where they are held and that are secure facilities.'
A Guatemalan woman whose husband is detained at the facility said that there are not enough facilities to maintain sanitary conditions. He reported there were not enough facilities to wash hands, and he was unable to take a shower for six days. He was eventually woken at 3 a.m. to take a shower because the lines were so long.
'The detainees are being held in tents, and it is very hot there. They're in bad conditions. … There's not enough food. Sick people are not getting medication. Every time I ask about his situation, he tells me it's bad,' she told CNN last week.
In addition to poor conditions, the the detention center's location is highly vulnerable to flooding and hurricanes. The facility may not meet modern hurricane codes. It has already flooded once, the day after its grand opening.
'They are in a facility that is very inaccessible to lawyers, to family members, to oversight,' Renata Bozzetto, deputy director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition, told The Washington Post. 'So the location being so remote and isolated is a problem. Being in an environmentally fragile ecosystem is a problem. Being constructed with temporary materials will be catastrophic in case of a hurricane.'
Rep. Maxwell Frost, another Democrat who toured the facility, said he wanted to investigate reports of backed up toilets and 'feces being spread everywhere,' but officials refused to allow them to see units where migrants were being detained. Instead, they were shown empty barracks.
'It is something everyone, whether you're Democrat, Republican or anything, should be deeply ashamed of,' Frost said. 'Immigrants don't poison the blood of this nation. They are the blood of this nation.'
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Associated Press
28 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Faith leaders hope bill will stop the loss of thousands of clergy from abroad serving US communities
Faith leaders across the U.S. are hoping a bipartisan bill, recently introduced in the U.S. Senate and House, might finally bring resolution to an immigration issue that has been hindering their service to their communities for more than two years. In March 2023, the Biden administration made a sudden change in how the government processes green cards in the category that includes both abused minors and religious workers. It created new backlogs that threaten the ability of thousands of pastors, nuns, imams, cantors and others to remain in the United States. The bill only tackles one small part of the issue, which sponsoring lawmakers hope will increase its chances of passing even as immigration remains one of the most polarizing issues in the country. Faith leaders say even a narrow fix will be enough to prevent damaging losses to congregations and to start planning for the future again. 'Unless there is a change to current practice, our community is slowly being strangled,' said the Rev. Aaron Wessman, vicar general and director of formation for the Glenmary Home Missioners, a small Catholic order ministering in rural America. 'I will weep with joy if this legislation passes,' he said. 'It means the world for our members who are living in the middle of uncertainty and for the people they'll be able to help.' Two thirds of Glenmary's priests and brothers under 50 years old are foreign-born — mostly from Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria and Uganda — and they are affected by the current immigration snag, Wessman added. So are thousands of others who serve the variety of faiths present in the United States, from Islam to Hinduism to evangelical Christianity, providing both pastoral care and social services. No exact numbers exist, but it is estimated that there are thousands of religious workers who are now backlogged in the green card system and/or haven't been able to apply yet. How clergy get green cards — and why border crossings created backlogs Congregations bring to the United States religious workers under temporary visas called R-1, which allow them to work for up to five years. That used to be enough time for the congregations to petition for green cards under a special category called EB-4, which would allow the clergy to become permanent residents. Congress sets a quota of green cards available per year divided in categories, almost all based on types of employment or family relationships to U.S. citizens. In most categories, the demand exceeds the annual quota. Citizens of countries with especially high demand get put in separate, often longer 'lines' — for several years, the most backlogged category has been that of married Mexican children of U.S. citizens, where only applications filed more than 24 years ago are being processed. Also in a separate line were migrant children with 'Special Immigrant Juvenile Status' — neglected or abused minors — from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Hundreds of thousands sought humanitarian green cards or asylum after illegally crossing into the U.S. since the mid-2010s, though the Trump administration recently cracked down on the program. In March 2023, the State Department suddenly started adding the minors to the general green card queue with the clergy. That has created such a bottleneck that in April, only halfway through the current fiscal year, those green cards became unavailable. And when they will become available in the new fiscal year starting in October, they are likely to be stuck in the six-year backlog they faced earlier this year — meaning religious workers with a pending application won't get their green cards before their five-year visas expire and they must leave the country. In a report released Thursday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services blamed the EB-4 backlogs on the surge in applications by minors from Central America, and said the agency found widespread fraud in that program. A 'narrow fix' bill to allow foreign-born clergy to remain in the US The Senate and House bills would allow the Department of Homeland Security to extend religious workers' visas as long as their green card application is pending. They would also prevent small job changes — such as moving up from associate to senior pastor, or being assigned to another parish in the same diocese — from invalidating the pending application. 'Even as immigration issues are controversial and sometimes they run afoul of partisan politics, we think this fix is narrow enough, and the stakeholder group we have is significant enough, that we're hoping we can get this done,' said Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who introduced the Senate bill in April after hearing about the issue in his Richmond parish. Two of the last three priests there were foreign-born, he said, and earlier this month he was approached by a sister with the Comboni missionaries worried about her expiring visa. Kaine's two Republican cosponsors, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Jim Risch of Idaho, heard from voters worried about losing many faith leaders. 'It adds to their quality of life. And there's no reason they shouldn't have the ability to have this,' Risch said. 'Religious beliefs spread way beyond borders, and it is helpful to have these people who … want to come here and want to associate with Americans of the same faith. And so anything we can do to make that easier, is what we want to do.' Republican Rep. Mike Carey of Ohio, with Republican and Democratic colleagues, introduced an identical bill in the House. Both bills are still in the respective judiciary committees. 'To be frank, I don't know what objections people could have,' said Lance Conklin, adding that the bill doesn't require more green cards, just a time extension on existing visas. Conklin co-chairs the religious workers group of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and often represents evangelical pastors. The need for foreign-born religious workers is acute, faith leaders say Faith denominations from Buddhism to Judaism recruit foreign-born clergy who can minister to growing non-English-speaking congregations and often were educated at foreign institutions steeped in a religion's history. For many, it is also a necessity because of clergy shortages. The number of Catholic priests in the U.S. has declined by more than 40% since 1970, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, a research center affiliated with Georgetown University. Some dioceses, however, are experiencing an uptick in vocations, and some expect more will be inspired by the recent election of Leo XIV, the first U.S.-born pope. Last summer, the Diocese of Paterson — serving 400,000 Catholics and 107 parishes in three New Jersey counties — and five of its affected priests sued the Department of State, Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The lawsuit argues that the 2023 change 'will cause severe and substantial disruption to the lives and religious freedoms' of the priests and the faithful they serve. The government's initial response was that the Department of State was correct in making that change, according to court documents. Expecting some action on the legislative front, the parties agreed to stay the lawsuit, said Raymond Lahoud, the diocese's attorney. But because the bills weren't included in the nearly-900-page sprawling legislation that Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed into law earlier this month, the lawsuit is moving forward, Lahoud said. 'We just can't wait anymore,' he said. ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Atlantic
29 minutes ago
- Atlantic
The Politics of Going Low
All the comforts of a Waldorf Astoria city-view suite did not, at that moment, seem to cheer Jasmine Crockett. The 44-year-old Texas Democrat known for her viral comebacks was frowning as she walked into her hotel room in Atlanta last month. She glanced around before pulling an aide into the bathroom, where I could hear them whispering. Minutes later, she reemerged, ready to unload. She was losing her race to serve as the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, she told me, a job she felt well suited for. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus were planning to vote for the senior-most person in the race, even though that person wasn't actually a Black Caucus member, Crockett complained. California members were siding with the California candidate. One member was supporting someone else in the race, she said, even though 'that person did the worst' in their pitch to the caucus. Crockett was starting to feel a little used. Some of her colleagues were 'reaching out and asking for donations,' she said, but those same colleagues 'won't even send me a text back' about the Oversight job. To Crockett, the race had become a small-scale version of the Democratic Party's bigger predicament. Her colleagues still haven't learned what, to her, is obvious: Democrats need sharper, fiercer communicators. 'It's like, there's one clear person in the race that has the largest social-media following,' Crockett told me. In poll after poll since Donald Trump's reelection, Democratic voters have said they want a fighter, and Crockett, a former attorney who represents the Dallas area, has spent two and a half years in Congress trying to be one. Through her hearing-room quips and social-media insults, she's become known, at least in MSNBC-watching households, as a leading general in the battle against Trump. The president is aware of this. He has repeatedly called Crockett a 'low-IQ' individual; she has dubbed him a 'buffoon' and 'Putin's hoe.' Perhaps the best-known Crockett clapback came last year during a hearing, after Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia made fun of Crockett's fake eyelashes. Crockett, seeming to relish the moment, leaned into the mic and blasted Greene's 'bleach-blond, bad-built, butch body.' Crockett trademarked the phrase—which she now refers to as 'B6'—and started selling T-shirts. At the time, I wrote that the episode was embarrassing for everyone involved. But clearly it resonated. Crockett has become a national figure. Last year, she gave a keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention and was a national co-chair of Kamala Harris's campaign. This year, she has been a fixture on cable news and talk shows as well as a top party fundraiser; she was in Atlanta, in part, for a meet and greet with local donors. At an anti-Trump protest on the National Mall in April, I saw several demonstrators wearing B6 shirts. Others carried signs with Crockett's face on them. Crockett is testing out the coarser, insult-comedy-style attacks that the GOP has embraced under Trump, the general idea being that when the Republicans go low, the Democrats should meet them there. That approach, her supporters say, appeals to people who drifted away from the Democrats in 2024, including many young and Black voters. 'What establishment Democrats see as undignified,' Max Burns, a progressive political strategist, told me, 'disillusioned Democrats see that as a small victory.' Republicans understand this, Crockett said: 'Marjorie is not liked by her caucus, but they get her value, and so they gave her a committee chairmanship.' Perhaps inadvertently, Crockett seemed to be acknowledging something I heard from others in my reporting: that the forthrightness her supporters love might undermine her relationships within the party. Some of Crockett's fellow Democrats worry that her rhetoric could alienate the more moderate voters the party needs to win back. In the same week that Democratic leadership had instructed members to focus on Medicaid cuts and tax breaks for billionaires, Crockett referred to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who uses a wheelchair, as 'Governor Hot Wheels.' (Crockett claimed that she was referring to Abbott's busing of migrants.) In an interview with Vanity Fair after the 2024 election, Crockett said that Hispanic Trump supporters had 'almost like a slave mentality.' She later told a CNN host that she was tired of 'white tears' and the 'mediocre white boys' who are upset by DEI. Unsurprisingly, Trump himself seems eager to elevate Crockett. 'They say she's the face of the party,' the president told my Atlantic colleagues recently. 'If she's what they have to offer, they don't have a chance.' Some of the Republican targeting of Crockett is clearly rooted in racism; online, Trump's supporters constantly refer to her as 'ghetto' and make fun of her hair. From the June 2025 issue: 'I run the country and the world' None of this appears to be giving Crockett any pause. The first time I met her, a month before our conversation in Atlanta, she was accepting a Webby Award, in part for a viral exchange in which she'd referred to Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina as 'child' and Mace suggested they 'take it outside.' Backstage, in a downtown-Manhattan ballroom, I asked Crockett whether she ever had regrets about her public comments. She raised her eyebrows and replied, 'I don't second-guess shit.' This spring, I watched Crockett test her theory of politics in a series of public appearances. At the Webbys, most of her fellow award winners were celebrities and influencers, but only Crockett received a standing ovation. A week later, Crockett flamed Republicans and the Trump administration during a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing about Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A 15-minute clip of her upbraiding ICE agents—'These people are out of control!'—has racked up more than 797,000 views on YouTube; I know this because she told me. On TikTok and Instagram, Crockett has one of the highest follower counts of any House member, and she monitors social-media engagement like a day trader checks her portfolio. She is highly conscious, too, of her self-presentation. During many of our conversations, Crockett wore acrylic nails painted with the word RESIST, and a set of heavy lashes over her brown eyes. The lock screen on her phone is a headshot of herself. Behind the scenes, the congresswoman speaks casually. At the Waldorf, I watched her deliver a quick Oversight-campaign pitch via Zoom. It was a virtual meeting of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, she'd explained to me beforehand. But then, after the call, she wasn't sure. 'CAPAC is the Asian caucus, right?' she asked. 'Yes,' the aide confirmed. 'That would've been bad,' Crockett said with a laugh. She can also be brusque. During our interview at the Waldorf, she dialed up a staffer in D.C. in front of me and scolded him for an unclear note on her schedule. Another time, in the car, after an aide brought Crockett a paper bag full of food from a fundraiser, she peered inside, scrunched her nose, and said, 'This looks like crap.' Still, Crockett is often more thoughtful in person than she might appear in clips. Once, after a hearing, I watched as she responded to a request for comment with a tight 90-second answer about faith and service. Another time, a reporter who was filming her tried to provoke her by asking what she would say to people who think she is 'mentally ill.' 'They can think whatever they want to, because as of now, we live in a democracy,' Crockett answered calmly, before taking another question. 'I don't want people to lose sight of the fact that this is someone with a very fine, legally trained mind,' Representative Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, a mentor of Crockett's, told me. Crockett's Republican critics like to say that she's a private-school girl playing a plainspoken Texas brawler for social-media clout. They're not wrong about her background. Crockett grew up an only child in St. Louis, not Dallas, and attended private high school before enrolling at Rhodes College, a small liberal-arts school in Tennessee. When Crockett was young, her father was a life-insurance salesman and a teacher, she told me, and she has talked often about his work as a preacher; her mother, she said, still works for the IRS. Crockett's stage presence precedes her political career. At Rhodes, from which she graduated in 2003, she was recruited to the mock-trial program after a team leader watched her enthusiastic performance as the narrator Ronnette in Little Shop of Horrors, her former coach, Marcus Pohlmann, told me. She won a national award during her first and only year in the program. As Crockett tells it, she became interested in the law after she and a few other Black students at Rhodes received anonymous letters containing racist threats. The school hired a Black female attorney from the Cochran Firm, a national personal-injury-law group, to handle the case, Crockett told me. The attorney became Crockett's 'shero,' she said, and inspired her to attend law school herself. When I asked for the name of her shero so that I could interview her, Crockett told me that she did not remember. I reached out to a former Cochran Firm attorney in Tennessee who fit Crockett's description; she remembered the incident in broad terms but was not sure if she had worked on the case or with Crockett. Although Rhodes College had no specific records of the incident, two people who worked at the college at the time told me that they recalled it. Crockett worked for a few years as a public defender in deep-red Bowie County, Texas, before starting her own law firm, where she drew attention for defending Black Lives Matter demonstrators. She was sworn in to the Texas state House in 2021 and became the body's third-most progressive member, according to the Texas Tribune, authoring dozens of bills, with an emphasis on criminal-justice reform. (None of the legislation for which she was the main author ever passed the Republican-dominated legislature.) 'Most freshmen come, they are just trying to learn where the restrooms are,' but Crockett 'came with a fight in her,' Texas Representative Toni Rose, a former Democratic colleague of Crockett's, told me. Having defeated an incumbent Democrat to win her seat, Crockett was already viewed as an agitator by some of her new colleagues. Then, in 2021, she became the unofficial spokesperson for a group of more than 50 Texas Democrats who fled to D.C. in a high-profile effort to stall Republican legislation. Her dealings with the press built up 'real resentment' with Democratic leaders, one Texas-based party strategist, who was familiar with caucus actions at the time, told me. (This person, like some others interviewed for this story, was granted anonymity to speak candidly.) 'When they broke quorum and it was important that everything be secret, she was on the phone to the press talking about what they were getting ready to do,' the strategist said. Both Crockett and her chief of staff at the time, Karrol Rimal, denied this version of events and told me that she had not given an interview before arriving in D.C. Rimal said that Crockett had agreed to do press only if the story would not be published until the Texas lawmakers crossed state lines. He added that state Democrats were sometimes jealous because Crockett 'outshined them.' The state-House drama was short-lived: After one term, Crockett became the handpicked replacement for 15-term U.S. Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson. Crockett sailed to victory, and less than a year later, her breakthrough moment arrived: While questioning a witness in a committee hearing, Crockett held up a photograph of several boxes in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom. The classified documents, she said, looked like they were 'in the shitter to me!' Trump critics praised her as an 'absolute star' and their ' new favorite Congresswoman.' Not everyone agreed. Johnson felt that the freshman congresswoman was dismissive of her experience and advice, according to two sources familiar with the relationship. 'I don't think it was a secret' that by the time Johnson died, in December 2023, 'she had had second thoughts about Jasmine,' the Texas-based Democratic strategist said. Crockett strongly denied this characterization and said that she had never heard it from those close to Johnson. I reached out to Johnson's son for his view, but he didn't respond. The race to replace the Oversight Committee's top Democrat, the late Representative Gerry Connolly, presented a multipurpose opportunity. Democrats could preview their resistance strategy for a second Trump administration. And Crockett, who'd run an unsuccessful, last-minute bid for a leadership position the previous year, could test her own viability as a party leader. In late May, Crockett brought me along to a private meeting in the green-walled office of a freshman member—Maxine Dexter of Oregon—where she made her pitch: The Democrats have a communication problem, Crockett said. 'The biggest issue' with Joe Biden's presidency wasn't 'that he wasn't a great president,' she explained. 'It was that no one knew what the fuck he did.' (Crockett acknowledged to Dexter that the former president is 'old as shit,' but said, 'He's an old man that gets shit done.') Crockett highlighted her own emphasis on social media, and the hundreds of thousands of views she had received on a recent YouTube video. 'The base is thirsty. The base right now is not very happy with us,' Crockett continued, and if any lawmaker could make them feel heard, 'it's me.' Crockett told Dexter that she had big plans for Oversight. She wanted to take hearings on the road, and to show voters that 'these motherfuckers'—Republicans—are all 'complicit' in Trump's wrongdoing. She wasn't worried about her own reelection. 'I guess it's my fearlessness,' she told Dexter. Dexter asked Crockett about her relationship with leadership. Another young firebrand, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, had bumped up against then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi when she arrived in Congress, Dexter noted. Crockett dismissed that concern, explaining that she had never wanted to 'burn it down' and prefers to be seen as working on behalf of the party. The national 'Fighting Oligarchy' tour featuring Senator Bernie Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez is a good idea, Crockett said, but it 'kind of makes people be like, Oh, it's about them, right? Instead of the team.' (Through a spokesperson, Ocasio-Cortez declined to comment. Crockett told me that the two have a positive relationship.) Read: Can you really fight populism with populism? By the end of the meeting, Dexter was ready to vote for Crockett. But she would never get the chance. Five days after Crockett's fundraiser in Atlanta, Punchbowl News reported that she had 'leaned into the idea of impeaching President Donald Trump,' which spooked swing-district members. Representative Robert Garcia of California was quickly becoming the caucus favorite. Like Crockett, he was relatively young and outspoken. But he had spent his campaign making a 'subtle' case for generational change, Punchbowl said, and he'd told members that the Oversight panel shouldn't 'function solely as an anti-Trump entity.' The same day the Punchbowl report was published, 62 Democratic leaders met to decide which of the four Oversight candidates they'd recommend to the caucus. The vote was decisive: Garcia, with 33 votes, was the winner. Crockett placed last, with only six. Around midnight, she went live on Instagram to announce that she was withdrawing her name from the race; Garcia would be elected the next morning. In the end, 'recent questions about something that just wasn't true' had tanked her support, Crockett told her Instagram viewers. She hadn't campaigned on impeaching Trump, she told me later; she'd simply told a reporter that, if Democrats held a majority in the House, she would support an impeachment inquiry. And why not? She was just being transparent, Crockett told me, 'and frankly, I may not get a lot of places because I am very transparent.' Some of Crockett's fellow Democrats find that candor refreshing. 'People don't necessarily agree with her aggressive communication style,' Representative Julie Johnson of Texas told me. 'I'm thrilled she's doing it, because we need it all.' Garcia, in a statement from his office, told me that Crockett is 'one of the strongest fighters we have,' and that, 'as a party, we should be taking notes on the kinds of skills she exemplifies.' But several other Democrats I reached out to about the race seemed uninterested in weighing in. Thirteen of her colleagues on the Oversight and Judiciary committees, along with 20 other Democratic members I contacted for this story, either declined to talk with me on the record or didn't respond to my interview requests. Senior staffers for three Democratic members told me that some of Crockett's colleagues see her as undisciplined but are reluctant to criticize her publicly. 'She likes to talk,' one of the staffers said. 'Is she a loose cannon? Sometimes. Does that cause headaches for other members? 100 percent.' Crockett said that people are free to disagree with her communication style, but that she 'was elected to speak up for the people that I represent.' As for her colleagues, four days before this story was published, Crockett called me to express frustration that I had reached out to so many House members without telling her first. She was, she told me, 'shutting down the profile and revoking all permissions.' Crockett does not have supporters so much as she has admirers. Everywhere she goes, young people ask for selfies, and groups of her red-clad Delta Sigma Theta sorority sisters pop up to cheer her on. A few days before she dropped out of the Oversight race, a congregation outside of Atlanta full of middle-aged Black Georgians was giddy to host her: Here was Jasmine Crockett, recounting her feud with Marjorie Taylor Greene. 'She thought she could play with me,' Crockett told Pastor Jamal Bryant, the leader of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church and a progressive activist. There were a few 'oh no's in the crowd. 'The average, maybe, person in my party potentially would have just let it go,' Crockett went on. 'I wasn't the one.' There were claps and whoops. 'I was steaming, and I was ready,' she said. 'I was like, 'Well, two wrongs gonna make a right today, baby, cause I ain't gonna let it go!'' The righteous anger in Crockett's voice was audible; people applauded for it, probably because it sounded a lot like their own. Crockett's fans are rooting for her to go bigger. And when I asked if she was considering running for Senate in the future—John Cornyn is up for reelection next year—Crockett didn't wave me off. 'My philosophy is: Stay ready so you don't have to get ready,' she said. Crockett imagines a world in which Democrats are associated with lofty ideals and monosyllabic slogans, like Barack Obama once was. When I asked her what the party should stand for beyond being against Trump, and what she stands for, she explained, 'For me, I always just say 'the people,'' adding that her campaigns have always been associated with 'fire.' Plenty of other Democrats believe that Crockett's approach comes dangerously close to arson. Her critics argue that it's easy to be outspoken in a safe Democratic seat; they might also point out that Crockett received 7,000 fewer votes in 2024 than Johnson, her predecessor, had in 2020. You can see James Carville coming from a mile away. 'I don't think we need a Marjorie Taylor Greene,' the longtime Democratic consultant told me. Crockett is 'passionate. She has an instinct for making headlines. But does that help us at the end of the day?' he said. 'You're trying to win the election. That's the overall goal.' Crockett is not Marjorie Taylor Greene; for one, she is not peddling space-laser, weather-control conspiracy theories. Yet Crockett's combative style could be a misreading of the moment, Lakshya Jain, an analyst at the political-forecasting site Split Ticket, told me. 'People think the brand issue that Democrats have is they don't fight enough and that they're not mean enough,' Jain said, but 'those are all just proxies for saying that they can't get stuff done for people.' In Congress, Crockett has championed progressive causes and introduced plenty of legislation, but none of the bills she's been the lead sponsor of has become law. Clearly, though, lots of real-life voters want Jasmine Crockett. At the church outside Atlanta, Pastor Bryant triggered a standing ovation when he declared, 'Jasmine Crockett for president' and '2028 is coming, y'all!' Outside, in the parking lot, someone shouted at Crockett, 'First Black-woman president!' June was a disheartening month for Crockett. She was soundly rejected by her own colleagues and shut out of a chance at institutional power. But when we talked in her hotel room in Atlanta, she'd framed the situation differently: If Americans on the outside could vote, she'd insisted, 'I absolutely feel like I know where it would go.'
New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
Jay Leno criticizes modern late-night comedy for alienating half the audience with partisan politics
Jay Leno reflected on why he always kept his jokes politically balanced while hosting 'The Tonight Show' for over two decades. The 75-year-old comedian recently sat down for an interview with David Trulio, the president and CEO of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, during which he was questioned about his approach to political humor. 'I read that there was an analysis done of your work on 'The Tonight Show' for the 22 years and that your jokes were roughly equally balanced between going after Republicans and taking aim at Democrats. Did you have a strategy?' Trulio asked. 'It was fun to me when I got hate letters [like] 'Dear Mr. Leno, you and your Republican friends' and 'Well, Mr. Leno, I hope you and your Democratic buddies are happy' — over the same joke,' Leno recalled. 'And I go, 'Well, that's good,'' he said. 'That's how you get a whole audience.' Leno went on to note how late-night comedy has changed amid the current divisive political landscape. 'Now you have to be content with half the audience because you have [to] give your opinion,' Leno said. 7 Jay Leno hosts 'The Tonight Show with Jay Leno' on Nov. 5, 2012. AP When Trulio asked if Leno had any advice for comedians today, the 'Jay Leno's Garage' host referred to his longtime friendship with late comedy legend Rodney Dangerfield. 'I knew Rodney 40 years,' he said. 'I have no idea if he was Democrat or Republican. We never discussed [it], we just discussed jokes.' 'And to me, I like to think that people come to a comedy show to kind of get away from the things, you know, the pressures of life, whatever it might be,' Leno continued. 'And I love political humor, don't get me wrong, but it's just what happens when people wind up cozying too much to one side or the other.' 7 Jay Leno rides his vintage 1910 Model O-O White Steam Car on July 14, 2025. Snorlax / MEGA 7 Jay Leno appears on 'The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon' on June 15, 2016. Getty Images While speaking with Trulio, Leno discussed how comedy could be used to create common ground. 'Funny is funny,' Leno said. 'It's funny when someone who's not….when you make fun of their side and they laugh at it, you know, that's kind of what I do.' 'I just find getting out — I don't think anybody wants to hear a lecture,' he continued. 'When I was with Rodney, it was always in the economy of words — get to the joke as quickly as possible.' 7 The New York Post front cover on July 27, 2025. Trulio pointed out that both Leno and Dangerfield achieved massive success during their careers, noting the two's 'approach worked in the marketplace.' 'Well, why shoot for just half an audience all the time? You know, why not try to get the whole [audience],' Leno replied. 'I mean, I like to bring people into the big picture,' he explained. 'I don't understand why you would alienate one particular group, you know, or just don't do it at all. I'm not saying you have to throw your support or whatever, but just do what's funny.' 7 Stephen Colbert during a shooting of 'The Late Show' on June 25, 2025. Scott Kowalchyk/CBS 7 Jimmy Fallon hosts 'The Tonight Show' on Feb. 21, 2013. AP Leno's comments come amid the uproar that ensued after CBS announced on July 17 that it was canceling 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' with the show's final episode scheduled to air in May 2026. At the time, the network clarified that the cancellation was 'purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night,' and noted, 'It is not related in any way to the show's performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.' Weeks ahead of the cancellation, CBS and Paramount paid President Donald Trump a $16 million settlement following his lawsuit against the news network for airing an edited interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the 2024 election. 7 Seth Meyers hosting 'Late Night with Seth Meyers' on Feb. 24, 2014. AP Colbert, who frequently blasts Trump on his show, criticized the settlement and described it as a 'big fat bribe' during an episode that aired days before the cancellation was announced. The host's supporters, including several politicians, have accused CBS and Paramount of canceling 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' for political reasons. Trump celebrated the news of the cancellation in a post on his platform Truth Social, which drew a fiery response from Colbert, who told the president 'Go f— yourself' during the opening monologue of his show on Monday. Several fellow late night show hosts and comedians have rallied around Colbert. 'The Tonight Show' host Jimmy Fallon and 'Late Night' host Seth Meyers, 'Last Week Tonight' host John Oliver and 'The Daily Show' host Jon Stewart attended Colbert's taping on Monday in a show of support. Stewart and Oliver previously worked alongside Colbert on 'The Daily Show.' On Friday, 'The Late Show' creator David Letterman slammed CBS' decision to cancel the long-running show as 'pure cowardice' and asserted that the network mistreated Colbert, who succeeded him as host in 2015. Fox News Digital's Gabriel Hays contributed to this report.
