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Texas Democrat Jasmine Crockett defended Kamala Harris after the head of the Federal Communications Commission criticized the Biden-Harris administration’s diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
During a House Oversight Committee hearing regarding the so-called “policy failures” of the Biden-Harris administration, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr took issue with diversity, equity, inclusion efforts tied to the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment program, which aims to provide “internet for all.” Carr’s remarks come as former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies have labeled Harris as the “DEI” vice president.
In his testimony, Carr asserted to the GOP-led House panel that the $42 billion program “is being used to pursue a climate change agenda, DEI requirements, technology biases, price controls, preferences for government-run networks, and rules that will undoubtedly lead to wasteful overbuilding.”
Later in the hearing, Rep Crockett fired back about his comments regarding the DEI initiatives.
“This election is the best example of why y’all are so afraid of diversity, equity and inclusion. Because then you can’t have a simple-minded, underqualified white man somehow end up ascending. Instead, you have to pay attention to the qualified Black woman on the other side,” she said, referring to Trump and Harris.
Since Harris announced her candidacy in July, Trump and his allies have launched personal attacks against her, including about her race.
The former president questioned Harris’s race at a National Association of Black Journalists conference in July.
“I didn’t know she was Black,” Trump said. “She happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
As Harris has repeatedly stated, she is both. Her mother was from India, and her father is from Jamaica.
But even before Trump’s remarks, some in his party accused her of being a “DEI hire,” while others referred to her as “colored.”
Crockett is no stranger to voicing her opinions. She has made headlines repeatedly in the past for her zingers.
At an Oversight Committee hearing in June, Georgia Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene mocked Crockett’s “fake eyelashes,” prompting New York Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to ask if her comment could be stricken from the record, in violation of House rule against making personal attacks.
Crockett then asked Chair James Comer: “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?”
