The Reality of Project 2025 (with Heather Cox Richardson and Rep. Jasmine Crockett)

This week, Red Wine & Blue held a virtual event with two inspiring women: Heather Cox Richardson and Representative Jasmine Crockett. More than 45,000 people joined us on Zoom and hundreds of thousands watched the livestream!

Heather and Jasmine talked about so much — Project 2025, the power of local organizing, and what it’ll take for us to rebuild a healthy United States of America. If you missed the event, you can listen right here!

For a transcript of this episode, please email comms@redwine.blue.

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Transcript

The Reality of Project 2025 with Heather Cox Richardson 
and  Representative Jasmine Crockett


Katie Paris: My name is Katie Paris, and I am the founder of Red Wine and Blue, which is a community of over 700,000 women who are working together all across the country to defeat extremism one friend at a time. We host events and trainings most nights of the week, and we get shit done, and we have a pretty good time doing it. So we need you with us, so we're glad you're here, and we hope that it is the first of many times that you're with us. 


Okay, so let's talk about what we're here to talk about tonight. Two years, exactly two years ago today, the Heritage Foundation announced Project 2025. Today, it's clear that it's no longer just a blueprint. It is being implemented piece by piece, day by day. No matter how hard they try to exhaust us, though, we need to come together. The fact that you all are here right now shows that you know that. It shows that you know that no matter what, we are not alone and we are definitely not giving up our fight for this country. Right now, we need to be the trusted messengers and we need to remain focused. 


So with that, I'm so excited to introduce the woman who really needs no introduction, Heather Cox Richardson, who keeps us calm every day with her newsletters. Thank you, Heather. Let me please ask you the question that has become the most loaded question of 2025. How are you?


Heather Cox Richardson: Tired. 


Katie: Yeah. 


Heather: I'm tired. And we can talk more about that. But I just have to say, when I see that intro go by, one of the things that's so cool about Red Wine and Blue is that I know a lot of those people now. And one of the things that we hear so often, especially from traditional media, is that people are isolated and people aren't gathering together. And I always say, right out loud, not just under my breath, “that's because you're not in the right places.” And I was actually at a meeting the other day in which I said, it was a meeting of men and women both around a table, and I said women are organizing online and every woman at the table nodded and the men were all like “what? what?” And it's just it's just a really cool thing to be part of. So welcome everybody, this is a good group of good people, we have fun, and I'm always thrilled to do these things with you.


Katie: We're always thrilled to have you. All right, so I've got to take us back for a minute to last summer. We had our first event about Project 2025, and it was due to all the demands we were hearing from our communities to arm people with what is this thing? What can we do about it? It was last July. We had about 40,000 friends join us on one of these Zooms. And at that point, 70% of voters had no idea what Project 2025 was. Within about a month of that, we really changed that. We helped get that number down to where today about 13% of Americans don't know what Project 2025 is.


But despite raising the recognition of what Project 2025 was, despite the fact that it was deeply unpopular, majorities of voters across the board rejected it, he still won. So now that he's in office, Heather, why is it still important to keep talking about Project 2025 and fighting this in particular? 


Heather: Just to be clear about people not liking it, an NBC News poll showed that once people knew about Project 2025, only 4% of Americans liked it. 4%. That means 96% didn't like it or didn't really have an opinion about it. But it was wildly unpopular. And you remember that Trump ran away from it and said, oh, I know nothing about those people and so on. 


But in fact, one of the key authors of Project 2025 is Russell Vought, who is now Donald Trump's director of the Office of Management and Budget. And what we have seen is that many of the pieces coming out of the Trump White House, exactly as Vought said before the election, were being written by the people involved in Project 2025. So we're seeing it implemented and it dovetails with a lot of other things as well. 


Not only Project 2025, which we'll talk about, but it dovetails with what the broligarchs in the tech industry are trying to do. And it dovetails in many ways with what Stephen Miller and the people who are attacking immigrants want to do. So it's very much part of our lives, even if you think that it was something from before the campaign or before the election. It's still with us and we are starting to live it. And that's a really frightening thing.


Katie: Heather, to me, it's so striking that Donald Trump won this election, yet the agenda that we did all learn about was so deeply unpopular. It reminds me that today, yes, we are still the majority. You know, Americans reject this agenda. This is not who we are. But yet he won the White House. So what do we need to do going forward? 


The way I look at it, Project 2025, it broke through the noise. You know, it sort of became this electric thing folks started to know about. Maybe there was some disbelief that it would actually happen. And maybe still there is some disbelief that this is actually happening because people live in these filter bubbles and are not necessarily getting all of the information that they would be if they were reading your newsletter, for example, every day. But to me, it seems like there's an opportunity to break through because there are so many issues. But if we can give it this container of Project 2025 and connect the dots somehow, that there could be real power in that. What have you found from communicating about it through your newsletter?


Heather: Well, I think you've put it exactly right. I think that the reason people reacted as they did to Project 2025 is because it was a container that said, hey, all this stuff is going on. But it was so extreme, the idea of creating this super strong president and gutting the entire U.S. government and education and business and all the pillars of American society, that people didn't really think it was going to happen. It sounded like scare tactics. And you, in fact, heard that, I assume. I certainly got it in my emails. 


Katie: All the time. You're exaggerating. They'll never do that.


Heather: Well, now, of course, we're sitting here watching it happen around us. And to put all this in another bucket and to see where Project 2025 sits in what's happening right now, I think it's important really to accept something that took me a long time to accept. And that's that the goal of Project 2025 and the goal of the people I just called the tech broligarchs, the Elon Musks and Peter Thiels and so on, is literally to destroy a modern America. Not just to get rid of the government, although you're seeing that everywhere, but also to get rid of education, to get rid of science, to get rid of business, to get rid of all the things that we think of as being central to what it means to live in this country. 


They literally want to take them down to the ground because they believe that they have been corrupted by what they call liberalism with a derogatory sense. Liberalism literally means constructing a political system that enables individuals to prosper, to do what they do best. And that involves things like being treated equally before the laws and having clean water and clean air and access to health care and access to education. Those are not radical things. Those are things that have been central to the American project from the very beginning. And it's expanded the number of people that were covered by that. They literally believe that that has destroyed the country, that that's a bad thing. 


And this is why they're telling you, for example, that the economy used to be bad under Biden. It wasn't. It was the strongest economy in the world. That's why they're talking about how our healthcare system is poisoning us. In fact, we had the best healthcare system in the world. They want to destroy that and replace it with an entirely new system. And the people who are behind Project 2025 want that to be based in Christianity. They are trying to impose a theocracy on us. And just today, the person who was in charge of putting together Project 2025, the head of the Heritage Foundation, published an article in, and I believe it was in Signal Magazine, that said, “Now that Donald Trump is president, we can get back to the idea that America is a Christian nation and start reinforcing Christianity around the country and getting rid of all that horrible secular stuff we had before.” That's really scary. 


And I think people need to get that this is not just a question of having a Republican in or a Democrat in, and maybe they'll tinker a little bit around the edges. This is literally a destruction of our legal system, our business system, our religion, you know, our idea of the separation of church and state, education and the government, all of, and the media, all of it, take it down to nothing so they can rebuild something entirely new. And since that has us cozying up with a, you know, a tiny strong man who has a dying economy and opens up concentration camps for profit in the form of the president of El Salvador. It's not a direction I'm real comfortable going.


Katie: Yeah. I mean, as a Christian, all of this is so completely offensive to me. Using religion as a political weapon is not the intent of any faith that I have ever followed or been taught so far from actually being a faith and really just being used for politics. 


So Heather, I am excited tonight to share something. We're actually launching something brand new tonight during this event. And it's in direct reaction to exactly what we've been talking about, that Project 2025 is something that people heard about and so many people were told, “oh, you're exaggerating,” just like you and I heard. Now it's actually happening. And people have asked throughout our community for something to help connect the dots, basically between what we heard over and over again could happen, or they promised was going to happen, and now actually is happening piece by piece by piece. 


And so we saw various trackers online that were sort of not very digestible, weren't differentiating sort of the big picture from the tiny minutiae details. And we wanted something for our community that really covered the big issues that our women are most focused on, most impacting our families and our communities. And also to include with it additional tools about how is this impacting where I live? And also, what can I actually do about this? So I'm not just, you know, we're not doom scrolling. We are connecting with one another and we are taking action. And this is an action we heard that folks wanted to take. We had multiple organizers from our team say, this is what women want.


Our team pulled together, led by Rebecca on our team, and did all the research, working with researchers who do this stuff professionally. And we put together just an incredible resource. Julie, I think, or Drew, if you want to drop that into the chat while we've got it paused so people can see, this is the new Project 2025 tracker. And right there, there are options that you can take a look at it yourself. It's broken down by issue. There's next steps and actions you can take. And you can share it right there, direct to social media as well with your friends.


And what we found last year is that one way that a lot of women were spreading the word about the threat of Project 2025 was downloading our materials off the website and having events locally in their communities to share this information. And that is what we want to see again. And I know it's going to happen without even having to ask for it, because that is the genius and creativity of women organizing events locally. 


But Heather, I wanted to ask you, having a resource like this, it reminds me of what you do every day. And you talk about how you are documenting history. The newsletter isn't just to put out some content on Substack and Facebook every day. You are participating in a historical project here. We're going to be updating this regularly. Why is it so important to document history like this?


Heather: Well, so this tool that you have just produced, I really like because I feel like there's so much stuff coming at us all the time that isn't connected. You know, when they cut funding for the National Institutes of Health, for example, what does that really have to do with Head Start? And when you again, when you put it all together and say we are destroying the modern American state and everything that goes with it. I think that's really important. I also think it's really important for people to focus on what they're planning to put in its place. And that's where Project 2025 comes in. 


But the importance of keeping a record right now, it's important for our society to know where we've been and so on and so forth. But on a very personal level, I think it's really important for us to have actual facts in front of us as a strong man is trying to take over. Because, for example, today in the Oval Office, when President Donald Trump was meeting with President Bukele of El Salvador, Stephen Miller, who's the deputy White House chief of staff, literally said on national TV that the Supreme Court had decided unanimously in favor of the Trump administration. He said that. The Supreme Court unanimously decided against the Trump administration. So, you know, you've got to have that record and your footsteps of how you got there so that you're not, so you don't sit there going, “wait a minute, what really happened here?” And you can trust the sources and things that I put there and that you people do so that you know that that is real because once you lose reality, a strong man takes over.


Katie: All right, so let's, there is so much in Project 2025. Can you talk to us, Heather, about the pieces that you are most concerned about?


Heather: I can, but maybe we should take advantage of the representative's time because she's here.


Katie: She's here! Welcome!


Rep. Jasmine Crockett: Super excited to talk to people that are intelligent, people that live in reality, people that actually want to show what patriotism really looks like in the form of loving on their neighbors instead of hating on their neighbors. So, so excited to join you for this conversation.


Katie: Well, we are totally thrilled. We're all kind of starstruck. But for anyone who has been living under a rock, this is Representative Jasmine Crockett of Dallas, Texas. This is our Congresswoman who has millions of followers on social media. And she's one of these people who goes viral because she deserves it and she knows her stuff better than anyone like that well. And so if you haven't heard of Jasmine Crockett, like you're welcome for tonight, you know, because this is... This is just a total treat to have you here. 


And I have been, everyone has been so excited about the idea of both of you two women who are out there telling the truth every single day to your followings and doing it so bravely, just like having you both on the same screen. It's just real… we're so grateful to have you both here together. 


Heather: Well, if I can throw something in, the reason that I watch virtually everything that you do, Representative, is because you remind me very much of two other brilliant people I know who shape space by the way you make arguments. You can tell you've spent time in a courtroom, but what you do that they don't. I mean, you shape that space incredibly intelligently and leave people in the dust, but then you code switch. and undercut them as well. And I don't think I've ever seen anybody code switch as well as you do for such important rhetorical and political effect. So if you have not watched Representative Crockett, you really should. And if anybody wants some ideas, I have a couple of favorite videos.


Rep. Crockett: I appreciate that. And I appreciate both of you. And just to kind of comment on that just briefly. When you talk about my style, I tell people as we just had the new crop of freshmen come in, I tell them that you've got to find your own legislative legs and that you have to be you. And authenticity is what comes through. And when I think about the time that I've spent in a courtroom, you know, when I stand up in front of the judges and I've got to argue, whether it's objections that we're arguing or motions or whatever pretrial motions we may have, then I'm going to speak in legalese so that the judge knows what I'm talking about. I'm going to make sure that I have precedence because that's usually what carries the day, at least in a normal courtroom. I'm going to do all those things that I've been trained to do. 


But at the end of the day, if I'm trying a case to a jury of people that just walked in one day for jury service, and they're coming from every part of our community, the reality is that the average person that makes it to a jury typically isn't a lawyer, just to be perfectly honest, because most lawyers are going to strike them from the jury in the first place. So when I talk to a jury, I talk to them in a way in which I feel like they can understand. 


When I'm sitting in Congress and I've got five minutes, I've got to make sure that I understand who my audience is, which it's not just my colleagues who a lot of times are ignoring the arguments that I'm making and I'm trying to make arguments that they should be able to follow, but also as the people sitting at home. The people that I represent and those that I don't represent… I want them to understand what it is that I'm talking about. And so I don't want to necessarily speak in a way in which it's off-putting, but more so a way that makes it clear that I have been and I am an everyday person just like them. I just happen to have this as a job right now.


Katie: How would you translate that into advice for women who are watching on this Zoom and feeling like, you know, just kind of overwhelmed by all the noise, all the chaos, wanting to be able to connect with people who they know about their concerns about what's going on? And finding ways without pulling out their hair and screaming their heads off, you know, but you have this way, exactly as you said. You're authentic, you're relatable. Can you just give advice to other women who may not be members of Congress, but who really care a lot? 


Rep. Crockett: Yeah. So, the first thing I'll say is that if you are not a member of Congress, you are absolutely a lot more influential than the average member of Congress. And you need to harness that power. You need to recognize that there is this off-putting kind of thing that happens with me, right? If I'm trying to reach someone who's not necessarily on the same side of the aisle as me, then it is off-putting because they just look at me and all they hear or see is Democrat before they even listen to anything that I have to say.


Whereas if you are a neighbor, a friend, a coworker, a family member, then you are going to be who you are first before you are going to be someone who say is just looking out for the party. You're not even a party kind of stand. Right. Like you're just an everyday person. And I think that that is the most powerful thing that you can be right now, because it is the rest of us that are feeling the pain. It is. The normal person that is just saying, you know what, I woke up this morning and all I cared about was how I was going to take care of my family. And that's it. Like nothing else really fazed me, but how I was going to take care of my family. 


So that means do I have work? Is this work that is valued? Am I going to be paid a fair wage for my work? Am I going to be able to provide food as well as shelter for my child? Will my child have access to health care? Will my child have access to an education? Or for those that are even living in that kind of squishy generation where you're having to be a provider for not only your child or your children, but also for your parents, your aging parents, right? And so literally, like just being able to talk about your struggles, whether it is the cost of food, whether it is the cost for a home, whether it is being employed, right? Whether it is getting your fair wage, because we know that women are not getting paid the same. 


So I want you to understand your power. You can't really begin to flex it until you believe it and understand that it exists. So let me just tell you, you have so much power because people are caught off guard by you. Because they don't look at you as just a politician. They look at you as someone who already has a level of rapport that honestly, the rest of us have to build and create to get people to listen to us. So that's number one. 


Number two, I think telling your real stories in your authentic way. One of the things that I told a very good friend of mine who's also in Congress was, who was trying to figure out what to do with social media. And I said, listen, you are not me and I am not you. And what she does is she stress bakes, okay? She's a stress baker. And the beneficiaries of that is my staff, right? So when she gets really stressed out, she ends up baking all this stuff and then she brings it into the office the next day. Well, I said, “why don't you do, say, some lives or just some videos when you're talking about the things that are stressing you out and you're sharing a recipe at the same time?” I was like, those that are cooks or those that are interested in seeing what you're cooking, then they will pay attention. But for me, that is not going to work because I am not a cook, sis. 


So I think that people need not be afraid to be who they are. The fact is, you're right. Like I don't really see very many politicians that are necessarily like me, but I haven't tried to be anything that I'm not. And so that's what I would say is, is be your very real self. If you are, you know, loud and abrasive, that's fine. Go ahead and do that. Like just be true to who you are and understand that there is power in your voice.


And the final point that I'll make is that we have to say things in soundbites. As terrible as it may be, you don't know how terrible somebody's attention span is. But as we have kind of joined the TikTok age, as it used to be the microwave age of times, just understand that they may not be able to listen to your entire story. So the thing is, you want to draw them in and get to kind of the most devastating part of your story first. And then if they ask more questions, then that allows you to kind of further elaborate.


I unfortunately learned today as I was doing an Instagram Live, I was talking to a gentleman who had gone to Capitol Hill and he was there because it is Black Maternal Mortality Health Week. And he went to tell the story of his wife and his wife's unfortunate and preventable death that now has him with two children by himself because she was ignored. And I wanted to tell him how great he was and that kind of stuff. And then he tells me that his wife actually interviewed me when I was in the state house. And he shows me a picture of the flyer of our interview.


And I say that all to say that everything that's happening right now, it's not happening in a vacuum to other people. It is happening to all of us in one way or another. I think that what's been so powerful about the Find Out movement is the people that were okay with harm happening to other people and now realizing that it's happening to them too. I think the better we are able to connect the dots that this harm is not going to be limited to Democrats or to Black people or to, you know, non straight people. You know, like letting them understand that there is this kind of underlying base that connects us. 


And that's what's truly great about us is the fact that the United States is unlike anywhere else. We are this amazing fabric of people from all backgrounds. And we are so different religiously and our languages and everything. And that's to be valued, not disrespected. And I think once we get back there, we can really start to make progress. 


Katie: Jasmine, we are launching tonight a new Project 2025 tracker that is tracking the implementation of Project 2025 in very plain language, breaking it down sort of policy by policy and really focusing on the issues that this community cares about. You just named pretty much most of them. And also giving people ways to understand how it's impacting their states and local communities. And then most importantly of all, how to fight back. 


And just when you think you have been speaking about Project 2025 since the beginning, Heather and I were talking about how it wasn't so long ago that people were saying, “That's not going to happen. Come on. You're just exaggerating.” And now this is what we're seeing. Why is it so important to continue to speak about Project 2025 to our friends, to our families in our communities right now?


It's important to keep talking about it because as soon as they feel like they've gotten away with it and that they can do everything in the dark, then that's exactly what they will do. Right now, it's like we've put a microscope on the things that they're doing. And that's what they hate the most is when you have an informed electorate. And the more informed we are, again, so many of these things, I don't think that they're Democratic, Republican or Independent. It's literally right versus wrong. It's good versus evil that we are dealing with.


And one of the reasons that they did not want to embrace Project 2025 is that all the numbers showed that universally it was disliked. So what did Donald Trump say? He said, “oh, no, no, no, I don't know what that is. I mean, no, no, I have nothing to do with it.”  And who does he go and put over at OMB? Oh, just one of the authors of Project 2025. Like, who does he put into all these positions? Like, Project 2025 superfans and or writers, right? 


And literally, they are going through and they are decimating when we talked about, “oh, they're going to get rid of the Department of Education.” And Republicans are saying, “no, no, no, no. I mean, that's not going to happen because we in Congress, we have to vote for it.” Well, it seems like y'all vote for whatever he tells y'all to vote for, number one. Number two, it seems like y'all haven't checked in with your boss to let him know that we've got a vote on it. And number three, you have decided that if I can't do this the very legal way that I'm supposed to, which is putting it on the floor and making sure that there's a vote, I am just going to starve it of resources. 


And that's what we see. We see, you know, those loyal civil servants that are being fired. I mean, who would have ever thought we would be in a situation where our federal government would be fighting in the courts arguing why we should be able to fire civil servants. Like that seems like an oxymoron to me. Because the federal government used to be one of the safest jobs that you could have. It was the safest thing you could do is work for the federal government. And you knew chances were you could live a middle class lifestyle and you would have a good retirement and there would be stability. You wouldn't have to deal with all of the wackiness of, say, the market. Right. You wouldn't have to deal with that. You would be shielded. And now it is like, truly, if somebody did a survey, it obviously would be the worst place to work in America.


So what we have to do is make sure people understand, because what we see is that as we've had these special elections, no special election has won back any less than 15 points. And so we are swinging these elections by educating people on this very unpopular policy that they are implementing from getting rid of the Department of Education and to doing things such as Schedule F, which is all about making those federal employees are only the loyalists. 


So the only people that will be there, this is why we have an attorney general that seemingly, and y'all can correct me if I'm wrong because I've been a little busy, but I know that I saw that there was a terrible thing that happened at the governor's mansion in Pennsylvania. Terrible. Terrible. I don't really care whether we're talking about a Democratic governor, Republican. I don't really care. It is wrong. Political violence is wrong. And it is defined, in my opinion, as going after somebody solely for the purpose of you disagreeing with their political beliefs or whatever. Right. 


So here it is. The governor's mansion where the governor and his family was sleeping ended up under attack. To the extent that I don't know how much damage was done as it relates to this very historic kind of place. But I don't really know that I've heard anything out of the Attorney General. Like, I really don't. Like, I know I logged on to social media here recently and I saw that she made a post about, you know, “political violence won't be tolerated.” And she was talking about Tesla's! She was talking about Tesla. And I was just like, this is what happens when you have loyalists that are in place. 


Or we know that there has been this curbing of free speech in our country, like they are tearing apart the Constitution. Like that is what Project 2025 stands for. Right? So they've gone after free speech rights in the form of snatching students off the street because they disagreed with the type of speech that they used. And they said, “nope, we're taking your visa back. And guess what? We're kicking you out.” Like, that's not who we are supposed to be.


Or the fact that they now want to go after the freedom of the press because now they decided that they want to go after a network simply because they decided or had the audacity to have Zelensky on to tell the truth about how terrible it is to deal with the Trump administration versus, you know, any other normal American administration. Like and now it's like, “no, no, no. Yank all their credentials.” Like he is a baby wannabe Putin. 


And that is what the game plan is for Project 2025. is to not have any resistance, to only have loyalists, to consolidate power within the executive branch, which that started before he was elected when they ended up giving him the level of immunity that he got, immunity that was never needed by any other president until we ended up deciding that we were going to have a criminal in chief. 


So it is important that people understand that democracy does not stand in and of itself. It is something that requires a level of competency as well as a lack of corruption to actually be able to permeate and exist. And right now, when we talk about the fragility of our democracy, we are there. When we talk about being in a constitutional crisis, we are there. And these are things that are set up by Project 2025. 


So if people really believe in true freedom and true freedom isn't “I agree with you” or “I disagree with you” or “I understand who you are” or “I don't.” True freedom is literally being able to live whoever you are. Free to say what you need to say so long as you're not hurting anybody. Free to go and get jobs wherever you need to be able to do that. Free to go and get an education and go as far as you need to go with that. Free to love who you want. Like that is what freedom really stands for. And right now they can talk about being patriots. They can talk about freedom, but they have no idea of what that really looks like.


Katie: We are very focused on freedom and acting locally at Red Wine and Blue. And one thing that I hear people thinking about is like, or I hear them saying often is like, “well, we had a couple of special elections, but now we got to wait till 2026 to do anything.” And you just talked about how, you know, MAGA, basically any election that's come up, they've either lost or, you know, they've lost about 15 points in terms of support in some of these very red districts. And you just said that the reason why we need to keep talking about Project 2025, this agenda that Heather reminded us something like three or 4% of Americans actually are in favor of. 


So this reminds us how much we are the majority. We are America here. I read just the other day there are actually more open seats on the ballot in 2025 than there were in 2024. Over 100,000 local elections this year. Can you just speak on that for a second? I think sometimes people think that's not a big deal or maybe they don't know about it. But even when they do, these municipal races, these school board races, we're going to have some big ones later in the year, too. But every single month between now and November, we have elections on a lot of Tuesdays. And why does that matter? And what is the opportunity? What message does it send?


Rep. Crockett: With this administration, it has become clear, a lot more clear to so many more people how important it is to have the best local elected officials that you can find, right? Because the resistance is coming from everybody but on the federal level. Like, I mean, there is no resistance from the Republicans on the federal level. And your protections are coming from the mayors of your cities. Your protections are coming from your school boards. 


You know, I'm very well aware of school boards that have decided that they are not going to participate in allowing ICE to come in and raid their schools so that they can go and grab children. Those are decisions that are made by your local school board. Whether or not your school board is allowed to teach history, that is a decision that is made by your local school board. I mean, I get that they have tried to act like it is the President himself who decides what kids play what sports with who. But it ain't. Because we ain't never talked about the president talking about who playing the sports. Right? Or, you know, what history we teach. Like this is so like in the weeds and in the minutiae. This is not what we do on the federal level. 


But what they have decided is what types of strings are we going to pull? And it's so much more difficult when the resistance is everywhere versus one. Right. And so if you're saying, how am I going to push back? And, you know, do I know whether or not my local law enforcement is going to say, “oh, yeah, we're ready to go and round up anybody”? Forget these real crimes that we've got with the murders and the rapes and the robberies that are taking place. Forget all of that, because Donald Trump really wants us to go out and find that, you know, migrant worker.  That farm worker. Like that's who they want us to go and round up. Or that construction worker, the one that is making sure that you can have a roof over your head. Yeah, we're going to send our local law enforcement. 


So it is the city council. It is your city government that decides what it is that your police department is going to do or not going to do and where their priorities are going to lie. So this is an opportunity for us to make sure we're meeting the moment when we look at the court cases that have been filed all around the country, the court cases that they are losing hugely, hugely, however he says it, right? Like “bigly.” Let me say it that way. Those court cases, it's the attorney generals around this country, those state AGs that are filing the vast majority of those cases and winning and fighting back against the administration.


So, no, don't believe that you have to wait until the midterms. Let me tell you, the fight is on. And listen. I know that it is daunting to think about running for office, especially in this moment. But I do want to say that some of you, especially women, the story that I've always heard, especially my predecessor, she used to tell me about another woman who is amazing, a former federal judge that we had, who asked her to run for office. But nevertheless, they talked about the fact that women usually have to be asked to run for office six times before they will consider it, right? 


I just want you to understand that there is this insane level of incompetence currently in our government. And if we can have this 34-count convicted felon who had filed bankruptcy six times, who had been found liable for sexual abuse, who had been found liable of fraud, who literally had other indictments in at least three other jurisdictions. And if we just would have let him cook, he probably would have ended up finding himself in some more hot water. If he can become president, I'm gonna need y'all to stop doubting yourselves. If your heart is in it, stop waiting for a savior. You are who you have been waiting for. So if you believe that this is something that you want to do, then do it.


Katie: Yeah. And we will have your back. Everybody on this Zoom call will have your back. I don't know, it's getting hot in here, I'm getting excited, Jasmine! I think you're going to be inspiring a whole lot of women. We're going to be having a whole lot of new Jasmines following your footsteps today. 


We are so grateful for your time and know that you're in district and know how valuable that time is with your constituents. I know that there are thousands of people who just want to say thank you to Jasmine, who just want to say, like, you're amazing. 


Rep. Crockett: Let me tell you, you do not have to thank me. I believe that servant leadership looks like understanding who the priority is. And the priority has to be the people. And so as you're either gonna go out and be the candidate or you're gonna go out and seek the candidate. Just know it is so important that we keep the eye on the prize and the prize will always be the people. If we can do that, everybody wins. Everybody wins. 


And so I know you mentioned earlier the distractions and it has to be us that keeps everything clear eyed. We can't allow the distractions to kind of get us lost in the sauce. You know, for so many people, especially when I go out and I talk about the various things that we allowed them to distract us with and divide us with. One of the things that I tell people all the time is that. “Tell me what that had to do with the things that matter in your life,” whether it was the trans kids, right? “Tell me if they're the ones that are firing y'all from y'all's jobs right now. Tell me if they are the ones that are threatening to take the Medicaid, the Medicare or the Social Security. Tell me how that impacts you.” 


And it's not that I'm, you know, the type of person that tries to convince people that they have to see the world the way I do. And I think that's where we kind of get lost because we want to say “this is only right. This is civil rights. This is what we should do.” Right? But we ain't got time to convince people of our position. What we do have time to do is just be honest about it and say, “the reason you may be losing your farm has nothing to do with that trans kid that you thought you were voting against. The reason you may be losing your farm has nothing to do with the war, right?” Because I know how passionate people were about the war as well. 


And so it is so important that we just take the time and focus our friends and our families and our neighbors and say, yeah, you know, we see the sideshow that they're putting on. But at the end of the day, you tell me what matters most to you. Is it your kids? Or is it this rhetoric around the fact that you have rounded up these gang members that you claim to be gang members who haven't been given due process so that we can find out that they really are gang members? We know that y'all have messed up because y'all mess up all the time. I mean, just look at Signalgate, right? Like we know that y'all are just terrible and incompetent. So why should we trust you, right? Like why should we believe that you know what you're doing as you are violating people's human rights and constitutional rights and free speech rights and all the things. 


So just make sure that we don't get so caught up in trying to convince people that, yes, we should have bodily autonomy over our bodies. I believe that through and through, this isn't a Democratic speaking point. This isn't as a Black woman who lost her or almost lost her life giving birth. I have never had a child. But I truly believe in the full spectrum of healthcare because I listened to experts. I listened to doctors and science. And frankly, it just ain't my business. 


So at the end of the day, like, yeah, people may feel whatever way they feel, but how is that impacting your life? And that's what we've got to do is we’ve got to focus people. How is it going to impact you what I do with my uterus? If the answer is it ain't, then maybe we should just focus on the things that we can control, the things that we should be focused on controlling. So do your best not to kind of get into the back and forth with people about what they believe and why they believe it, because some people I just don't think can be convinced. 


Kind of like the crazy HHS secretary who supposedly now believes, at least in the measles vaccine, if you don't believe in no other vaccine, even though it took children dying before he was like, I believe in it, right? Some people, you just can't save them from themselves, but you can redirect them and focus them. And so I think that that's where we have to spend our energy is making sure that we can decipher the distractions and help people to kind of focus. So I thank you. I appreciate all y'all's messages. I see somebody must be from Hawaii because I know that phrase. But thank you so much. 


I promise you we are going to save this world. I know that times may seem so dark. But when you look at history and you look at the triumphs, they came in our most destitute situations. And we are here now. We are definitely in a valley. But I truly believe that the mountain is where we are about to go just so long as we stay strong. And we believe that we can and should win.


Katie: We will keep showing up because we know you will, too. We're in this together. 


Heather: Thank you for fighting so hard. It's been such a joy. I have a million more questions I want to have the answers to, but your constituents are, in fact, first on the list, I'm sure.


Katie: We’ll just get on a Signal chat. 


Heather: I would actually love that. 


Katie: Sounds good. Thank you so much. Thank you, Congresswoman. Heather, she does have an unusual talent. And I think it must be fascinating for you who is writing the newsletter every day, sort of interpreting at sort of those deepest levels and to see her communicate out through a different platform. Are you often seeing echoes of what you're observing and writing about?


Heather: Yeah, I think it's really interesting. A couple of things there I think that were really interesting was the first, that the idea that you are your own savior is a real message, I think, to American women who for 40 years have been told that they should take a backseat. And that's something that I think is really important right now. 


But also the way she talked about servant leadership. Because, of course, we're seeing the exact opposite right now. But our great heroes have always been those who practice servant leadership. And that, I think, is what we're seeing a lot of. I do want to, though, add one thing to what she said, because I've heard it in two other places today aside from her. And that's that when people say, you know, “how do I talk to people? How do I make this message get out to people who are maybe not otherwise paying attention?” One of the things that somebody, a couple of people suggested were short videos talking about what matters to you. Minute and a half on whatever your social platform of choice is. You know, the degree to which Republicans convinced everybody that the economy was bad by posting pictures of how much their groceries cost. You know, we can do all of those things. 


And there, you know, this idea of saying to people, this really matters to me because, you know, for me, everyone's like, “you care about NOA?” Yeah, I care about NOA. My husband is a fisherman. He goes out on the water every day. If you'd asked me, you know, when I was seven, if I would care deeply about the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, I would have been like “the what?” And yet that's really important to me. And somebody could sit there and say, “oh, yeah, she's probably scared every time he gets out on the water,” as I am. Those stories make all of this real in a way that just simply saying, “oh, they're slashing the budget” really doesn't.


Katie: That's one way I really hope people use this tracker about how Project 2025 is implemented, because we've broken it down really simply into what has actually happened in plain language. Think about, oh, I've seen that showing up in my life. Let's think about what is our version of those receipts, right? I don't have to give you all the ideas out there. You all are so creative. You're the ones who came up with the idea for this tracker yourself. So let's use it and let's work together. 


I want to ask you this too, because she brought this up, you know, just sort of speaking to there's extremism, there's incompetence. Heather, sometimes I wonder, and I hear this conversation online a lot too, you know, because it's like one day it's tariffs on everybody, then it's just on some people. This is this pattern that we've seen over and over again of yes today, no tomorrow. Sometimes it's difficult to know what's real, what's bluster. Is this a pattern we should expect to continue? Is this part of the strategy of overwhelming us or is it just pure incompetence?


Heather: So it is a strategy among rising strongmen to create confusion so people don't understand what's going on. But it's always important to remember with this administration that in many ways, Donald Trump is just a figurehead. He is not mentally in good shape. You could see in today's press conference, for example, he couldn't answer some of the questions he deferred to other people. You know, he never would have done that even eight years ago. 


And there are a number of different impulses within that administration. And a lot of those people don't like each other. So you have the Project 2025 people and the people who are trying to destroy the country to bring back or to create a new theocracy. Then there are the tech people who want to destroy the government because they don't like regulation. They don't like the laws that require them to put things out to bid and stuff. And they want to create a technocracy that's tied up in Bitcoin, for example – not Bitcoin, I shouldn't have said that, in cyber currency, for example. And then you have the people who just simply hate brown and Black people. And that's people like Stephen Miller. He wants a strong government. 


So at the end of the day, at least two of those groups want a strong government, but two of them think they need to take the government down to nothing before they create a strong government. He wants a strong government to start. So sometimes you see things that simply don't seem to make sense. And what you can do is you can sit there and say, who's driving this? Elon Musk wants more immigrants in the country. Look what we're doing. That's Stephen Miller who's doing that. Similarly, Elon Musk wants free trade everywhere. The Project 2025 people want to contain America and they turn to the kind of tariffs that Peter Navarro is looking for. So the confusion is usually sort of a strategy for a strong man. But in this case, never lose sight of the fact that for all that the Trump people are talking as if they're incredibly strong and they're going to be dictators. In fact, there are deep divisions within their organization.


And Project 2025 highlights this. Because Trump was so malleable, he just wanted to get in office so all those court cases could go away, he promised different things to different constituencies. Which I think is exactly what I said when we first talked on this 2025 project last summer or whenever it was, two summers ago, I don't even remember. 


Katie: Last summer.


Heather: Just last summer. And I kept saying it is going to be impossible both to protect abortion and to get rid of abortion. It is going to be impossible to create great wealth and put on tariffs. And now we're seeing that play out, that in fact, Trump is underwater in his popularity. And he had two real things that he pushed for that people liked, his approach to immigration, And he has said to people that he was only going to deport criminals. And now we know that 90% of the people he sent to El Salvador have never been convicted or charged with a crime. Convicted anyway. You'd have to check the Bloomberg article about that that came out yesterday to make sure they weren't accused. But 90% of them have no criminal record, that's the way to put it. 


So you have him weak on that and now you also have the economy. So many people said “I don't like this, I don't like that, I don't like that, but I, you know, I love that he's going to be so good for the economy.” The economy is already in terrible shape because of these tariffs and because of his being all over the map with everything. But remember, they haven't kicked in yet. So the fact that people are unhappy now just over the threat of them and they're starting to see that people are starting to put tariffs on things and that Americans are going to be the ones paying for them.


When these things go into effect, and what he did by taking some of them off was he took them off from countries we don't do a lot of trade with, but raised them on China. That's now a 145% tariff on Chinese goods coming into America. And that's basically, you know, all your household goods at places like Walmart or at most department stores, places like that, are now going to be prohibitively expensive. And that's gonna hurt as well. 


So when people are like, “it's over,” which I see all the time now. “He's won, it's over.” We're in really bad shape because of the attacks he's making on business, on the courts, on education and so on, especially right now in the courts. But this is not over. And it's really important to remember how much power the 96% of us have and how much power we have both to run for office and to help people run for office and to change the public conversation. Because really between now and the next, I don't know, the next, I keep pointing to September is going to be the crucial time. 


Katie: And we do have, as Jasmine described, an enormous amount of power as trusted messengers in our communities. And some of these elections come down to one vote. I mean, a handful, dozens of votes. We have an enormous opportunity to protect our communities and also to send a really loud message about where the majority of Americans actually stand. 


Heather, you have been, some of your newsletters, you have been sharing a few things that have been giving me hope. You just spoke now about the various factions within the coalition that Trump relies on and why we're seeing so many conflicts within it. And those fissures do create opportunities because we're much more unified in our opposition right now to what's going on and painting a vision for the country we actually want. What is giving you hope right now, whether it is seeing certain people speak out you'd never expect or everyday Americans getting together like we are right now? What's giving you hope right now, Heather?


Heather: Well, I do take hope from the sorts of divisions that I see, but mostly, as usual, I take it from the American people. And what happened on April 5th, I thought was really fabulous because people turned out in numbers between three and five million people. That's between one and two percent of the American population. And every political scientist will tell you that when you get about 3, 3.5 percent of a population in the streets, you create incentives for the government to change. Regime change. 


So, you know, and there's a lot of things coming together. We have spring coming, which is always a hopeful season. And we have the summer when people will be out protesting. And that's going to matter, especially for people like you and me, Katie, because one of the things that everybody is talking about is the concern that the president will invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 on April 20th. In fact, what his executive order said was that The Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security should report to him by then whether or not he should use it for controlling the southern border. Now, there's a lot of things going on on the southern border right now that are very disturbing. But the president could use the Insurrection Act without advice from the Defense Secretary or the Homeland Security Secretary. So that's always there. 


But it's going to be a lot harder, as Representative Crockett was saying, for, you know, the vast majority of Americans who support Trump to look at people like you and me and say we're terrorists. And so the more older white Americans, female, but men we'd love to have you with us, people we can have out there in front of the cameras protesting this, the more effective it will be. And it's time that we stepped up and gave some shield to some of the people who have been doing so much work in the past.


So I look at that and I think, listen, nobody likes where we are. But we must push back because where we are going is significantly worse. And I think there are a number of us who have been in situations in our lives where we've, as a friend of mine said, “it's like going to the dentist and having some root canal work done. You don't want to do it. It's going to suck. But you have to do it because on the other side, you're healthy again.” And that's what we need to do is build a new healthy United States of America that does not just getting us back to where we were 100 days ago, but that gets us back to where we could have been if the last 40 years hadn't been spent moving more than $50 trillion from the bottom 90% to the top 1%.


Katie: And you know what, Heather, it doesn't suck spending time with you and all of everyone who's with us on this Zoom tonight. You know, I mean, like us getting together, us resisting together, standing up in opposition, using our voices. It tells me that I'm not alone. And all of these women out there, no one is alone. I can guarantee it. And we've proven that tonight. We want to keep proving that to you. And what we hear is that sometimes actually connecting the way we do to change our communities together. It doesn't suck. It feels like friendship and what's better than friendship. 


Thank you for being here tonight, Heather. Let's go. We got lots of work to do in the days ahead. So I'll see you again. Thank you everybody for being here. 


Heather: Thank you as always, Katie, it's always a joy.