Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett, known for colorful language, came under fire Tuesday for calling Gov. Greg Abbott “Governor Hot Wheels” at an event over the weekend.
“We in these hot a– Texas streets, honey. Y’all know we have Governor Hot Wheels down there,” Crockett said Saturday in a speech at the annual dinner of pro-LGBTQ rights organization the Human Rights Campaign in Los Angeles. “The only thing hot about him is that he’s a hot a– mess.”
Republican politicians were quick to pile on after a clip of the quip circulated, with some calling for her to be censured.
“Jasmine Crockett is despicable,” Attorney General Ken Paxton wrote on X.
“Crockett’s comments are disgraceful,” tweeted U.S. Sen. John Cornyn. “Can you imagine if a Republican said something like this? It would be on front page of NYT and all over CNN.”
In fact it was covered by CNN, The New York Times and numerous other outlets back in 2015 when a Republican — Donald Trump — brazenly mocked a reporter with a disability. Serge Kovlaski, then a reporter for The New York Times, had previously covered Trump while with the Daily News. A congenital joint condition, arthrogryposis, causes one of his wrists to be permanently bent with his hand curled over, which Trump mimicked during a rally in South Carolina.
The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) called the U.S. Representative “Crazy Crockett.”
“Jasmine Crockett is the perfect spokesperson for today’s Democrats: out of touch and completely unhinged,” said NRCC press secretary Mike Marinella, according to The Texas Tribune. “When you’ve got no message and no agenda, all that’s left is hate.”
Abbott was paralyzed from the waist down in 1984 when a tree fell on him while he was jogging, crushing several vertebrae.
Crockett’s tone at the Human Rights Campaign dinner was in keeping with colorful invective she has lobbed at Republican politicians and billionaire Elon Musk since Trump took office.
At Saturday’s dinner, Crockett quickly moved on from the Abbott remark to urge attendees to continue pushing back against the Trump administration.
“The power belongs to the people,” she said. “And it’s time for the people to rise up and say, we are tired of this bulls—t in DC.”