Tuesday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing on the Southern Poverty Law Center took a sharp turn when Texas Democrat Rep. Jasmine Crockett abandoned measured debate and went on the offensive.
Targeting Republican colleagues, lobbing disputed statements attributed to the late Charlie Kirk, and publicly undermining the credibility of a sitting witness who happens to share one of the most iconic surnames in American civil rights history.
Dr. Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King Jr., was among those called to testify. Her presence at the hearing became a flashpoint when Crockett suggested Republicans had strategically placed her at the witness table to mislead the public.
“You want to tell people of color who is fighting for who? People of color do not feel comfortable or welcomed within your party, that’s why you have to parade someone who has the name Dr King attached to them so that people can be confused,” Crockett said directly to Republican members.
Crockett further argued that confusion was already spreading online among people who did not know who Dr. Alveda King was.
She questioned why neither Martin Luther King III nor Dr. Bernice King — whom she identified as children raised directly under MLK’s roof — had been summoned to testify instead.
Before targeting Kirk’s record, Crockett offered the committee her own working definition of a hate group, one she pulled from a Google search.
“A hate group is an organized group whose beliefs, practices, and primary purpose are centered on advocating malice, hostility, or violence towards people based on their immutable race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or disability,” she read into the record.
She then pivoted to Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, who died earlier this year. Crockett told committee members she had grown tired of hearing Kirk’s organization defended throughout the proceedings.
“I know some of y’all are, you know, capping for Charlie Kirk, because I done heard y’all talk about his organization over and over and over,” she said.
Three Kirk quotes followed in succession, each directed at witness Mary McCord, Executive Director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, with Crockett asking McCord to weigh in on each one.
The first quote had Kirk saying, “If I see a black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.” McCord called it “a racial stereotype.”
What Crockett left out was the circumstances that generated the remark.
Kirk made the statement in direct response to United Airlines’ CEO publicly announcing a plan to build pilot classes around racial and gender quotas.
Kirk had been raising questions about whether qualification or demographic box-checking would drive those hiring decisions.
TPUSA spokesman Andrew Kolvet dismantled Crockett’s use of the quote on the Charlie Kirk Show.
“That’s a bastardized out of context clip where Charlie was reflecting on the fact that the CEO of United was going to mandate racial quotas and gender quotas on the new pilot classes,” Kolvet said. “Charlie, responding to that says, I don’t do this now, but if you’re going to enforce it, I’m going to say hey, I hope he’s qualified, because guess what, that is an actual logical and rational reaction.”
The second Kirk quote Crockett introduced stated, “We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the mid-1960s.” McCord responded that it sounded like someone “who still adheres to racist views.”
Kolvet pushed back hard, arguing the full quote told a different story.
He noted that Kirk had explicitly stated he agreed with the law’s original intent but believed it had expanded beyond its constitutional boundaries — and had since been used to advance policies Kirk opposed, including transgender access to women’s sports and private spaces.
Crockett’s third Kirk excerpt had him saying, “America has freedom of religion, of course, but we should be frank, large dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America.” McCord said the comment came from someone who could not accept a multiracial, multireligious country.
Kolvet offered his own translation.
“Charlie said, ‘Listen, it’s not good to have whole neighborhoods that are established on like Sharia law,’” Kolvet explained. “It’s called common sense. We don’t want people that are subjugating other people, taxing them, creating streets named after Islamic conquerors.”
Crockett wrapped her remarks with a sweeping accusation aimed at the Republican side of the dais.
“White men are lecturing people of color, because the vast majority, actually, any semblance of diversity, comes from this side of the aisle,” she declared.
