Live updates: Texas GOP issues arrest warrants in redistricting showdown with Democrats
Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R) signed the warrants, which allow for the Democrats' arrests, as Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday called their protest 'crazy bluster' and said the state would push ahead with redrawing maps.
'Democrats are freaking out because they are realizing Texas has the authority to redistrict, and we're going to do so in a way that's going to lead to these additional seats that will vote Republican, and they will be serving in Congress in the next session,' Abbott told Fox News's Sean Hannity on Monday night.
Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Ken Martin told CNN on Monday night that Republicans are getting what they asked for: 'Donald Trump, Greg Abbott, Ken Paxton, they said they wanted a showdown. And guess what? That's exactly what they're getting. A showdown.'
The Texas House needs two-thirds of its members present to vote; Democrats' absence has deprived the chamber of that quorum. It will convene its second legislative day, likely without Democrats, on Tuesday.
In Washington, President Trump is set to join CNBC for an interview Tuesday morning and sign an executive order on later in the afternoon.
Just days ahead of his new tariff scheme taking effect and in the wake of a weak jobs report, he faces concern from Republicans on Capitol Hill.
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Boston Globe
12 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Texas Democrats plea for donations to extend their walkout and block Trump's redistricting plan
Advertisement 'We're getting a lot of small-dollar donations,' Wu told The Associated Press, 'and that's going to be used to help keep this thing going.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up A political group led by Beto O'Rourke, a former Texas congressman who ran unsuccessfully for governor and Senate, gave money to the Texas House Democratic Caucus to help cover the up-front costs, according to a spokesperson for the group, Powered by People. O'Rourke this week has been holding events in red states to fire up Democrats and encourage donations. Powered by People has not disclosed how much it contributed. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, said Wednesday he's launching an investigation into whether O'Rourke's group has committed bribery by a 'financial influence scheme' benefiting Democrats who left Texas. Advertisement In response, O'Rourke said he would be undeterred by the threat of an investigation and used it as a fundraising opportunity. Lawmakers face travel costs and potentially huge fines By departing the state, Democratic lawmakers have prevented Republicans from obtaining the quorum needed to conduct business. Democrats hope to run out the clock on a special legislative session that ends Aug. 19. But Republican Gov. Greg Abbott could immediately call another session, raising the prospect of a prolonged and an expensive holdout. Not only could Texas Democrats face thousands of dollars in out-of-state lodging and dining costs, they also could eventually face fines of $500 for each day they are absent, which under House rules cannot be paid from their office budgets or political contributions. Texas has a part-time Legislature where lawmakers receive $600 a month, plus an additional $221 for expenses each day they are in session. On Wednesday, state Sen. Jose Menendez joined Democrats from other states at a rally in Boston, where he noted that the potential daily fine for quorum-breaking lawmakers is nearly as large as their entire monthly legislative salary. 'They need your prayers, they need your thoughts and they need you to get behind them,' he said. Some Democrats in the Texas Senate have traveled out of state this week to support their House colleagues, but lawmakers in that chamber are not leaving the state to hold up legislative business. 'This fight is for the people' Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat and billionaire, has welcomed the Texas lawmakers to his state but said he has not financially supported them. Texas state Rep. James Talarico, who has built a national following in recent weeks, said the lawmakers told Pritzker they didn't want him to fund their trip. Advertisement 'We've already been inundated with donations from across the state of Texas, from across the country, just regular people donating $5, $10, $15,' Talarico said this week. 'And that's appropriate, because this fight is for the people and it should be funded by the people. We don't have billionaires who are funding this operation.' The House Democratic Caucus has set up a website seeking donations of between $25 and $2,500 — with a default amount of $250. Earlier this week, Abbott asked the state's highest court to remove Wu from office and ordered the Texas Rangers to investigate possible bribery charges related to how Democrats are paying for the walkout, alleging anyone who financially helped them could be culpable. Wu, a former prosecutor from Houston, said the bribery suggestion is 'monstrously stupid.' 'No member is leaving because they might get a campaign contribution that might restore some of the money that they're spending,' he said. How left-leaning groups are helping Before Democrats decided to leave Texas, Wu said he called potential allies for assurance 'that there would be resources that would come to our assistance.' But he said that's no different from an aspiring candidate asking others for support before officially launching a campaign. Wu, who is chair of the Texas House Democratic Caucus, said he has participated in online sessions with representatives of dozens of Democratic, progressive and redistricting-oriented groups. Not all are financial supporters. Some are providing help in other ways, such as by coordinating publicity. The Democratic National Committee has helped with communications and organizing, as well as providing help from a data analytics team, Chair Ken Martin said. Texas Democrats aren't worried that they'll be forced to return home in the near future because of a lack of money, said Luke Warford, founder of Agave Democratic Infrastructure Fund, a Texas fundraising and organizing group. He said longtime Democratic funders understand the high cost of competing in tougher U.S. House races if Republicans succeed in redrawing the map. Advertisement 'Of course having most of the delegation out of the state is going to rack up a bill,' Warford said. But 'when you think about it in the context of what Donald Trump has to gain and what Democrats might lose in the short term, it's just not even close to the cost of trying to win back either these races or a bunch of other races in the country.' The Democratic lawmakers have been holed up at a hotel and conference center outside Chicago that was evacuated Wednesday after an unfounded bomb threat. Many lawmakers have been dining and meeting together, and are prepared to keep doing so. Democratic state Rep. John Bucy III, speaking by phone from the hotel, said he isn't concerned about how the costs ultimately get covered. 'There's too much at stake here to be worried about those things,' Bucy said. 'Our hotel bills seem so minor compared to what we're trying to do — to protect democracy.' Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti in Washington, Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire, John O'Connor in Springfield, Illinois, and Leah Willingham in Boston contributed to this report.
Newsweek
13 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Bill and Hillary Clinton Warned of Jail Time if They Defy Subpoena
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Former President Bill Clinton and Secretary Hillary Clinton could face jail time if they defy a congressional subpoena regarding an investigation into the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a Republican congressman has implied. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer said on Wednesday that if someone defies a congressional subpoena "you can hold them in contempt of Congress." "If someone doesn't comply with a subpoena, we've seen it happen in the past, in both my committee, as well as on the Jan. 6 committee, when the Democrats had the majority, and you can hold them in contempt of Congress, and with a Republican attorney general, that's something that I think that the Clinton legal team is going to think long and hard about," he told NewsNation's "The Hill." Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, President Donald Trump's senior trade adviser, were briefly imprisoned after ignoring subpoenas to appear before the January 6th Committee investigating the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Bill and Hillary Clinton speaking in New York City in 2023. Bill and Hillary Clinton speaking in New York City in 2023. Jamie McCarthy/GETTY This is a developing story. More to follow.
CNN
13 minutes ago
- CNN
Are Respectability Politics Over? - The Assignment with Audie Cornish - Podcast on CNN Podcasts
Audie Cornish 00:00:01 I'm Audie Cornish, and this is The Assignment. At this point, it's clear Democrats are taking a different approach in the age of Trump 2.0. Jolanda Jones 00:00:09 I'm a lawyer. A part of my practice is criminal defense work. There is no felony in the Texas Penal Code for what he says. So respectfully, he's making up some shit. Audie Cornish 00:00:21 This is Jolanda Jones. She's a Texas state rep and is among that group of Democrats who fled their legislative session to shut down votes on new Republican redistricting maps. And he has no Jolanda Jones 00:00:33 legal mechanism, and if he did, subpoenas from Texas don't work in New York, so he gonna come get us how? Subpoenas in Texas don't work in Chicago, he's gonna come and get us, how? Audie Cornish 00:00:43 Jones is also running for Congress, and with her blonde, short afro, hoop earrings, and the mantra, authentic and unafraid, she's the opposite of, say, a Kamala Harris. Similarly, Texas Democrat Jasmine Crockett got the National Magazine profile treatment. You may already be familiar with her more viral work. Jasmine Crockett 00:01:05 'If someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody's bleach-blonde, bad-built, butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct? A what now? Speaker 4 00:01:16 If you could tell Donald Trump anything tonight, what would you tell him? Jasmine Crockett 00:01:22 I would tell him to grow a spine and stop being Putin's hoe. Audie Cornish 00:01:29 'The Atlantic called Crockett a Democrat for the Trump age, embracing a coarser style of politics already all the rage in the GOP. So how, why did the multicultural generation of politicians that followed Barack Obama dump respectability politics and embrace the fighting words of Donald Trump? Stay with us. The politics of respectability are not, well, respected these days. It originated in post-Civil War and World War II racial uplift movements. The idea was that pristine presentation and education and good breeding would help black people be seen first as human and, later, worthy of civil rights. Today, young people brush it off as a kind of pull-up-your-pants scolding from political elders. The shift from respectability politics to the politics of dark, woke clapbacks is usually the kind of thing I would be asked on TV as the only black person on an all-white panel. Jasmine Wright 00:02:37 Now there's two. Audie Cornish 00:02:39 Now there are two. This is Melik Abdul. He's a Republican political analyst. And journalist, Jasmine Wright. She works for the NOTUS newsletter here in Washington. She covered Kamala Harris in both the 2020 and 2024 campaigns. And she's young, like young enough that she actually couldn't vote when Barack Obama ran for president in 08. Melik Abdul was old enough to vote for Obama, which he did twice. But in 2016, he left the Democratic Party and voted for Trump. Which he's done three times now. Notice that I situated both in relation to Barack Obama, because I don't know, it just seems like any conversation about modern respectability politics starts with him. One of the things people forget is that when the Obama family came out, was presented to America, there was a conversation about the presentation themselves, who they were. And I remember the New Yorker cover, which was supposed to be satire Melik Abdul 00:03:39 The gun. Audie Cornish 00:03:40 Where it showed the couple in the White House where Obama was depicted as kind of Osama, like in Muslim garb. And Michelle Obama was depicted as having an afro and black panther gear, which is like the furthest possible thing from this woman who went on to tell us when they go low, you go high, I think. So the reason why I set the table with that is even at the time of Obama, There was this conversation about like. What would make you acceptable? What would make not threatening as black people in public? And we were all like reckoning with that in real time. Melik Abdul 00:04:21 And reckoning with that in real time is a very good way to describe it. And when I say I still consider myself the founder and forever CEO of the Obama nation, like how much I went hard for Barack Obama just cannot be described in words. And I remember when he had to talk about race. Audie Cornish 00:04:42 He had to get a formal speech about it, yeah. Melik Abdul 00:04:43 Yeah. Yeah. And it was related. I think that was around the Jeremiah Wright time. And we remember the comments that Jeremiah Wright made. Jeremiah Wright 00:04:51 No, not God bless America, God damn America. The Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human beings. Barack Obama 00:05:03 I made it clear at the time that I strongly condemned his comments. But because Reverend Wright was on the verge of retirement, and because of my strong links to the Trinity faith community, where I married my wife and where my daughters were baptized, I didn't think it was appropriate to leave the church. Melik Abdul 00:05:18 And even me, as a huge Barack Obama supporter, I was saying to myself, whoa, whoa. What is, what are we doing here? But this was one of the things that he had to do. Jasmine Wright 00:05:28 Yeah, but I feel like black people were like, hmm, we'll accept that. Yeah, I mean, the community was like, this has to happen so that he could be president. So we're fine with this. You know, I think that at the same time that you can assign Obama blame for saying that I think the community largely accepted that and moved on because that was the price of him ascending to power and him marking this new chapter. For black people in this country. So I think a lot of the things that, yes, he did do, but the community also let him get away with it. Audie Cornish 00:06:04 One of the things about the Jeremiah Wright incident is obviously there was like bigotry there, people were talking about et cetera. I think the other thing was the undercurrent of anger that Obama, who later it became a joke about his disposition, was distancing himself from the angry black man trope. Whatever the heck Jeremiah Wright was saying, that was not a figure that was going to be acceptable. In the world of respectability politics in which you are trying to cross over, you're trying to appeal, you are trying to show you are different and not a threat. And it's weird to be looking back at that now in a moment where you have more and more name calling, like vicious commentary, like the kind of tough language that we were all like, oh, how dare you, you know, at that time. Seems like a typical day on social media now. Melik Abdul 00:07:01 'Oh, absolutely now. And with Jeremiah Wright, it was part of a sermon where he was talking about us bombing Hiroshima, and he talked about a lot of the things that America was doing. And in that he said, God damn that America. And he was talking about America that had done all of those things. It was interpreted in a much different way. And I agree, Jasmine is right. That was part of the protection that we gave Barack Obama. Jeremiah Wright, bro, you're messing it up for Barack Obama, so we just went along with that. And by the time you got to Kamala, and I think that Kamala Harris and Cory Booker are polar opposite from Barack Obama because I was a believer of Barack Obama like I believed him. And with Kamala-Harris, I understand that there is a. Woman component to that, but also a black woman component to that. So she is very buttoned up because that was the standard. And I would say not just for black women, but for women in politics in general, when you come here to Washington, DC, you are buttoned-up. And even though you may be progressive in your voting, you are very conservative in how you present yourself. And that was out of necessity. I don't think that same necessity is there now, which is how we get to a Jasmine Crockett. She not caring about, you know, toeing any type of respectability line. The thing is whether or not it actually works for her, I'm not convinced. Audie Cornish 00:08:27 Right. And Jasmine Crockett, of course, is the sophomore congresswoman from Texas. And she's one of the reasons why I wanted to have this conversation, because there was this big profile of her in the Atlantic where they talked about her being a Democrat for the Trump age. But some of the things they were pointing out is that in a way, she reached national prominence because, like, she's really also good at insulting Republicans and insulting Trump. And some of those things have come back to bite her. Famously, she called Marjorie Taylor Green, she accused her of having a bleach blonde bad built butch body. Say that six times. But if you can't, I think they sold them as t shirts. She's called Trump, Putin's hoe, a dictator, a wannabe Hitler, and even said that she's called them so many things she's running low on inventive insults. What she's also said is like, in a way she argued that she's speaking the language of the moment, that she is. Punching through in this very crowded marketplace of the attention economy. And I thought, oh, I can't imagine Kamala Harris doing any of this. Jasmine Wright 00:09:39 Yeah, I mean, I think just to go back to the Colbert interview, right? Kamala Harris 00:09:44 Recently, I made the decision that I just, for now, I don't wanna go back in the system. I think it's broken. Jasmine Wright 00:09:52 That is the version of Kamala Harris that we saw in 2024. And you're right, I think in this economy, even though it's only been, you know, eight or nine months, I think we have moved past that. And the country has moved past that in part dragged by Donald Trump. I don't think it's just, Audie Cornish 00:10:05 And we say attention economy, we should say specifically, like that ability to command attention and earned media that Trump pretty much blew everyone out of the water when he came out of scene in doing that. Jasmine Wright 00:10:17 Exactly. And I don't think it's just black people that have moved further away from respectability politics. I think it is actually all people involved in this political moment, in part because that language that they used just two years ago doesn't work anymore. I don t even know if Tim Walz calling Republicans weird would work in this moment right now because it is not fiery enough. I think that the Vice President, you know, she has consistently been careful, she has consistently wanted to use language that at times feels crowdsourced, maybe because it is, but because it offends the least, but says the most for her. I think that she has constantly had this pressure on her shoulders about what it is to be the first black woman in various positions that she's had, and it has caused her to, in some ways, second guess, a lot of what you would want to say in the public arena. And for a lot of people, that feels inauthentic, that feels not candid enough for what they want from her. I remember somebody telling me once that when she is speaking, you know, at a panel or in these speeches, and it feels like she's wandering through her thoughts, what some people now call word salads, it's because she is literally choosing the right words to say in her brain at the same time that she is speaking. And so this is somebody who believes in this idea so deeply that your words matter and that any inaccuracy in your words is telegraphed to the most amount of people in the worst way possible. I don't think that many other people right now have those same careful considerations about what they're saying. Audie Cornish 00:12:05 To your point earlier, it's not just a black politics thing. But in a way, that's why I wanted to talk about it because it has finally reached black politicians. So for a long time, we've seen the dirt bag left, which is where people are being like, ironic, I'm not really racist, I'm just saying this thing. Like it's part of a kind of a white movement in progressive circles. And then this year I was reading about dark woke, right? Which was the idea of like, for a Democratic party that had spent all its time, kind of what people would say, policing language around racial and gender politics. Now they were like, you know, we are gonna insult people too. We're gonna have fun too. We know how to have a laugh, we're not scold. I was reading this New York Times story about it and my favorite quote is this one where this former kind of digital director for the Wisconsin Democratic Party says, Republicans have essentially put Democrats in a respectability prison. And that an extreme imbalance in strategy that allows Republicans to say stuff that really grabs voters' attention, and we're stuck saying boring pablum. Melik Abdul 00:13:14 Yeah, you know, I'll say that social media is a just a cesspool like Twitter. It's just a Audie Cornish 00:13:21 Great review. Yeah. Melik Abdul 00:13:22 It has become financially profitable and it also gets you social media capital to be just as nasty as you want to be. And in this era of Donald Trump, and I use myself as a Black Republican, being moderate won't get you booked many places. That's why I mentioned I've been doing this for years. And so it doesn't matter how many times I've be critical of Donald Trump, which is often, or support Donald Trump. At the end of the day, there's nothing sexy about it. So the easiest thing that you had to do, whether you came from the Democratic Party or you just found Donald Trump in your politics is throw on a MAGA hat and you're gonna get booked on social media. Particularly I'm talking about conservative outlets like Fox News and others. Like I couldn't get on Fox News if I wanted to simply because I am not critical enough of Donald Trump and then I'm not supportive enough of Trump for them. So in this space, people want drama, they want nastiness and those are the things and you see and that's what Jasmine Crockett is playing to. Audie Cornish 00:14:31 Sorry Melik, but can I ask something that I've often wondered? People used to joke when Trump came around that like, oh boy, like you could not have a black candidate with three baby mamas and a trail of bankruptcies. Like respectability politics meant a bunch of people who have Donald Trump's same exact resume, persona and attitude are just completely like precluded from politics. Like you're not an option behaving this way. Melik Abdul 00:15:00 No, and that's totally right. And even looking back, I do say, you know, some of the things that I said, well, Barack Obama couldn't do that. But at the same time, I say, well, Barack Obama didn't try to do it. You know, he did. Audie Cornish 00:15:12 Could he have? Melik Abdul 00:15:13 He he did get some pushback. I remember. 00:15:15 No, I don't think he could have. No, no, I feel like all he did was sort of like play basketball and was like hey brother and like give dap around but like There's only so far he could go Melik Abdul 00:15:27 Yeah, we saw what Barack Obama did when it came to Henry Louis Gates. He got pushed back for telling the truth about a police officer acting stupidly. That's just what happened when you're arrested in the front door of your own home. We saw it again, which when he said that my my son could look like Trayvon Martin. If you listen, even to this day, the number of people who say that Barack Obama divided the country because he was all about race when he told the truth. So yeah, there are many things that Barack Obama would have gotten pushback, but I say this as somebody, you know, on the other side now, I also know that he didn't try. Like with Jasmine Crockett, she goes all in. Now we can say that she shouldn't be doing it. It's not an appropriate thing for her to do. But she's not concerned about how people view her because she's really speaking in this moment. And maybe what it is is that Barack Obama was the president who happens to be black, But I just think that things are much different now. But I don't think if another black candidate runs for office that they would be so restricted or they would restrict themselves in the same way. Audie Cornish 00:16:32 Let me let Jasmine jump in. I saw your finger up Jasmine, which is Jasmine Wright 00:16:35 'I think you can say that, but even now, I mean, Jasmine Crockett is continuously being called ghetto by both the right and sometimes the left being called hood. They view her as inauthentic because at one point maybe she talked with a little bit more respectability politics a few years ago than she is now. And so people are calling her out for potentially putting on errors. And so I think that there's a question to ask, and maybe this is not necessarily about black women, but it is about women in general, you know, or about both. But, you know, if you don't like the careful consideration that Kamala Harris displays, but you also don't, like the rambunctious, outwardly antagonistic, insulting appearance and all that kind of stuff that Jasmine Crockett displays, then where is the middle? What do people like? I think that Jasmine Crockett is is being rung through the ringer right now, and I'm not saying that that's good or bad, I'm just saying that people are consistently, Republicans are consistently even some Democrats behind the scenes are consistently ragging on her for this type of personality that she is putting forward saying, yes, that messages - this what somebody said in the Atlantic - yes, that messages well to some part of our base, but it's not for other parts of our base. And so I think that there is consistently this compartmentalizing of black women in the political spectrum. And it comes from both sides, both a Kamala Harris and a Jasmine Crockett. And so I think that maybe the answer is that the country doesn't know what type of black women they want. Audie Cornish 00:18:10 I'm talking with reporter Jasmine Wright and political analyst Melik Abdul. We'll be right back. To your point about people talking about her, I guess I'll call it code switching, like the woman has, you know, a JD in like three states and the federal government. She was in the Texas legislature. You know, at a certain point, she played whatever game it's very clear to be in these spaces, it's Texas for God's sakes. Jasmine Wright 00:18:42 And it doesn't necessarily fit into the boxes in which people believe that they should. I mean, I think that this is, I think you can call it code switching. I feel like there's probably a term that's like more aggressive about the way that she's going about it. But I think people have a lot of thoughts about Jasmine Crockett, and I don't think that they're necessarily positive. She obviously lost oversight. It's not just because of her personality. It could be because of experience and other things. But part of it is because of personality. And so I don't think that Audie Cornish 00:19:08 Being on a key committee, you mean, right? And I think she pointed out, look, Marjorie Taylor Greene, they put her out there. They're not like, oh, you're too much, go away. Jasmine Wright 00:19:18 Go away. She made a great point that Marjorie Taylor Greene acts a certain way and nobody, she said, in the Republican caucus actually likes Marjori Taylor Greene, these are her words. But she said they recognize her importance in the republican conversation and the republican movement. And so they put her on a bunch of important house committees. Democrats have not done the same for Jasmine Crockett, who I think she's basically saying that she fulfills the same. We have two examples from very two different sides of the pendulum here and neither are completely accepted in this new political moment that we have. And so my question is, what version of a black woman do politicians want to see? Because I don't think that it is either of these two right now. Melik Abdul 00:20:08 Yeah, so I'll say I think that Jasmine Crockett, so MTG appeals to a certain Audie Cornish 00:20:14 Well, no, no. Hold on a second. Can you answer that question that we're hearing here? Because a lot of black men have voted for Trump, right? Like a lot of black men disliked Kamala Harris for a variety of reasons related to policy. But there's also this right here. It's also this thing where like I, too, don't know what would be the version that would be acceptable even to black men in my cohort. Melik Abdul 00:20:44 Yeah, so if you think of, you know, I don't know the perfect answer to that, and a lot of that may be having to do with the fact that we haven't seen it. We could have talked about the person who would have become the first black president, but we wouldn't have probably assumed that that would be Barack Obama, just because you know different backgrounds. So I don't know when it comes to black women, because I haven't see it yet. Audie Cornish 00:21:08 Yeah, but there's so many black women lawmakers out there, like, that's not... Jasmine Wright 00:21:11 I disagree with this idea that we wouldn't know that Barack Obama would be the version of the first black president. I mean, if you just look at his credentials, if you look at this personality, that is a version of a black person who could be the first black president. He's so amiable. He is so willing to take on what people perceive as racist comments and flip them in kind. He so quick on his feet. He's so gregarious. I just don't know if that is, sure, we did. Audie Cornish 00:21:39 Yeah, that was not a resume anyone looked at and said, this person doesn't want to be president, right? Like he immediately wrote a book in the Senate, like. Jasmine Wright 00:21:47 He was in the Senate for four years talking so whimsically about what the nation could be under the correct president or presidential rule. So I don't know if I actually buy that, that we couldn't see that this is a person that could be our first black president. Melik Abdul 00:22:00 No, and what I'll say to that is that it wasn't until we saw him at the DNC convention, I think it was in 2004, that we saw a different representation of what a national Black politician would look like. Prior to that, it was those who were vested in the civil rights. Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, those were like the archetypes. Until we saw Barack Obama, it's like, oh, wow. And that's why I mentioned Kamala. There are a number of Black politicians, black women, of course, who are out there. I think that the biggest problem for Kamala Harris is that she's not politically agile. And because she's not, she looks uncomfortable in these spaces. So where a Hillary Clinton or a Jasmine Crockett or any of these other women are able to pivot just on a dime. You throw them something, they're gonna throw something back at you. Kamala, Harris, where she's very thoughtful. And I think because Kamala Harris is not a natural. Audie Cornish 00:22:59 Yeah, retail politician. Retail, yeah. Melik Abdul 00:23:01 Retail. Yeah, a retail politician. That's what we see. And then unfortunately, she's judged, you know, by that. Audie Cornish 00:23:09 I had a few, like, moments because I have one foot in Gen X and sort of one foot in millennial and I was thinking about, you know, W.E.B. Du Bois and double consciousness and this idea that for a time you were conscious of how you were seen as a Black person. I see myself, I also know how other people are perceiving me and I have to modulate, curate. Try and align those things. Like our way of, at times, trying to make sure that what we are saying is being heard the way we are actually fricking saying it. And for her, that that is compounded in the national spot. Jasmine Wright 00:23:51 Yeah. I mean, it's like extrapolated to the millionth degree. I think somebody who has spent so much time watching her, covering her for, you know, six years, to your point of like not being politically agile. Yes, I agree. I think that Hillary Clinton, while she was a little bit, you know, maybe more specific on certain substantive, particularly when we're talking about foreign policy, maybe even on the economy, there were still consistent critiques. That she was a different person in private, that she a much more comfortable person in the private, and that what she was trying to display to the public never actually got there. I think that the former vice president is the same way. I have spent a lot of time with her. Audie Cornish 00:24:33 Kamala Harris would have been the perfect candidate for 1996 in terms of black candidates, right? Like a law and order black Democrat, totally quaffed, the smooth hair, like it was for that age. We are now in a different age and generationally, particularly on the left, but I would argue also on the right, people want something different because they have spent years watching social media. So you kind of want your politicians to be able to do it too. It's like the generational version of, to bring back George W. Bush, like would you want to have a beer with this person? Some of it is like, do you speak the language of the internet? Like, do you know how to clap back? If we're in this moment of dark woke, if we're this moment matching Trump's energy, then respectability politics has no place in this, right? And I reached out to a Democratic strategist, a black Democratic strategists to be like, hey, this is a story, would you want to be in it? And they basically were like, sorry, I'm the wrong person. I wish there was more respectability politics. I don't want to deal with these people. Talking about kind of young Democratic activists, like most sane people, who wants to be called names? Yeah. And I was like, I think people Are afraid of the youngs a little bit Jasmine Wright 00:25:59 I mean, the youth are snappy, they're going to get you. And I just say, you know, all this last thing about the vice president, but Kamala is somebody who can snap back as somebody who has been in private. She has snapped back on me multiple times, but I think it's just a fear of being perceived a certain way and part of being perceive to black, maybe. But yes, I think that there's a generational shift and I think what it requires of somebody the vice president's generation or somebody who maybe thinks like the vice president is this idea of radical honesty, like what people, particularly young people want as someone that can be transparently honest about what is happening in society and being able to relate that back to them in a way that is plain smoke spoken and in a way that feels authentic and candid. And I don't think that those three things are what people necessarily think about with somebody like. Vice President Harris, but it is something that people think about with Jasmine Crockett, even if it's not put in the most polished box. So I don't know if I have an idea of like who would be the best version of somebody who could fill what is not necessarily respectability politics, but maybe like the new evolution of it, which is being honest, being open, but also, you know, not taking crap from somebody. I don't know who that is, but I think that that's what people want. Audie Cornish 00:27:20 Maybe it's Republicans. I mean, Melik, when I think about the irony, when I look at the Republican side of the leisure, is that some of the, like, really fascinating young Black politicians out there, especially in Congress, they feel more like Obamas than Crockett's. Melik Abdul 00:27:37 'I think that that is just the more moderate to the extent it exists nowadays in the party. I think it's people who are much more moderate. We will never have another Donald Trump. You've seen many people try to be Trump-like and go on to lose over and over again. Audie Cornish 00:27:53 But why are they picking that model if you're in an era where Trump has built a coalition that does include more black and brown men, Why still present yourself in the model of the Obama era? Like why isn't there a version that is closer to what people are experiencing Melik Abdul 00:28:10 Yeah. So I wouldn't say the it's more of an Obama era or even respectability politics. I think this is just different politicians. Like Donald Trump is such a, and I keep going back to being a once in a lifetime, we'll never see someone as a, as combative, nasty when he wants to be as Donald Trump. Audie Cornish 00:28:30 But I don't think we're gonna be in a more moderate politic. I mean, not to be cynical as a reporter, but it just feels like that is over. I think I was reading a profile of Eric Adams and one of his like very key advisors. And she was quoted as saying like, when they go low, you dig for oil. And I was like, You know, it's done. It's done, like people are not playing the nice game anymore. And often when I hear the phrase respectability politics, it's from younger people as an insult. It is a little bit like, ugh. Jasmine Wright 00:29:14 It's basically them saying that people aren't being transparent. They can't really say what they want to say. Their delivery is boring, and it's basically untethered to the reality that they exist in now. It doesn't shape young people's lives in the way that it shaped people's life generations before us. They no longer feel tethered the idea that what they say has to be crowdsourced for approval, and they've also grown up in the age of Trump. Where they've seen one politician continuously be successful, also not adhering to this idea of respectability politics. Audie Cornish 00:29:50 'I mean, and also, I guess it's like no matter what you do, what's said of you will be the same, right? So one of the things about respectability politics, yeah, like it has its roots and sort of black feminism, 1800s, but the idea was like racial uplift. And if you behave a certain way, social codes that you adhere to, and to be clear, this came from black women in particular, when people look at the history of it. This was key to being seen as human. This was key, to navigating public space. This was the key to navigating politics when you're demanding the right to vote. Later on, during the civil rights period, if someone turns a dog on a person in a tie, the person who looks unhinged is the cop who turns the dog on the protester, right? Not the protestor. It was always trying to show dignity, even in extreme circumstances. And it feels like- for a younger generation that has not grown up with any of that concern. As you said, they've kind of grown up in the era of like, well, no matter what you look like or what you do, you could still be harmed in a police stop. You could still called low IQ by the president of the United States. Like, it doesn't matter. And as a result, they seem a little more nihilistic about that racial uplift ideology. Jasmine Wright 00:31:12 I mean, but I think that's also coupled with young people growing up in a time where we have high inflation and where access to college has been basically upended by this idea that you're going to just be saddled with student loans, no matter what you do, where you go for the rest of your life. That young people haven't been able to really purchase housing at a consistent rate since 2007. I mean I think then it's all coupled together with their economic reality. That nihilism is being fueled by the fact that they feel that their options are really dwindling and that they can no longer have the lives, the same lives that their parents had. So what do I care if I curse in public? And I think that one thing that if we look at the policy effect of respectability politics, it's that so often what people are looking for is just a straight and honest answer. And at times respectability, politics inhibits. You're not able to say the straight and honest answer. But any time that you talk about young people, you can never divorce this economic reality that they're living in, which is so much more different than what the grandparents have. Audie Cornish 00:32:19 Because you can't reach that Obama level in a way. Because it involves a house, a wife, a college degree. Yeah, exactly. Well, I think when it comes to whatever black and brown candidate that might come along, I also think what they won't need is an anger translator. If anyone remembers that joke from Key and Peele where the comedian is standing behind Obama being his real self, right? Like, I think. Whoever comes next in this generation of politicians, black and brown politicians, maybe they won't need that translator. Maybe they will get to be one person themselves. Yeah, I agree. Jasmine Wright and Melik Abdul, you can catch Jasmine's White House reporting at It's a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that's part of the Allbritton Journalism Institute. And Melik Abdul is a GOP strategist. I wanna thank you both for coming on the show today and I wanna think you all for listening. See you next week.
