CNN host Jake Tapper on Tuesday pressed Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) about remarks made last year in a Vanity Fair article, when she said the way Latinos talk about immigration reminds her of the “slave mentality.”

“The immigration thing has always been something that has perplexed me about this community. It’s basically like, I fought to get here, but I left y’all where I left y’all,” Crockett told the publication nearly a year ago. “And I want no more y’all to come here. If I wanted to be with y’all, I would stay with y’all, but I don’t want y’all coming to my new home.”

“It almost reminds me of what people would talk about when they would talk about kind of like slave mentality and the hate that some slaves would have for themselves,” she continued. “It’s almost like a slave mentality that they have now about the time that they have.”

Tapper, who hosts CNN’s “The Lead” and read her comment on air Tuesday evening, asked if the million Latino voters in Texas who voted for President Trump, “all have slave mentality?”

“No, and that’s not what that said at all to be clear. It did not say that every Latino has that type of mentality …, ” the Texas Democrat responded. “So, I don’t believe that the people that voted for Trump believe in what they’re actually getting. That is number one.”

“What Trump said is that he was going to kick out the bad guys. And that’s what I was talking about,” she added.

The remarks have warranted criticism from Democratic leaders who are weary of her newly announced Senate campaign. Some of Crockett’s fellow party members and a ban of elected Texas Republicans have questioned her ability to win statewide.

However, the firebrand lawmaker told CNN in an earlier interview that she’s not aiming to capture Trump voters but rather speak to communities that have been “historically ignored.”

“Our goal is to definitely talk to people. No, we don’t, we don’t need to. Our goal is to make sure that we can engage people that historically have not been talked to, because there’s so many people that get ignored, specifically in the state of Texas,” Crockett said Monday during an interview with CNN’s Laura Coates.

“Listen, the state of Texas is 61 percent people of color. We have a lot of good folks that we can talk to,” she added.

Moments before Crockett announced her campaign, former Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas) suspended his bid for the upper chamber. Allred said would instead run for a seat in the House after losing a previous bid to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) last year.

Texas has not had a Democratic senator for 37 years.

“Jasmine Crockett about to learn the hard way that most Texans are very different from her district, her base & her values,” Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Texas) wrote Monday in a post on social platform X. “She’ll be pummeled for her progressive socialist agenda & get crushed by the Republican nominee for Senate.”

“The Texas political cemetery is filled with blow hards like her who have no idea what it’s like to run statewide.” Abbott added.

Trump shared similar remarks on Tuesday.

“She’s a low-IQ person. I can’t imagine she wins,” Trump told reporters while en route to a speech in Pennsylvania. “Maybe she’ll get the Democratic nomination, but I think it’s a gift to Republicans.”

He added later, “I’ve watched her for the last two years. I can’t even believe she’s a politician, actually.”

Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.