Subcommittee Ranking Member Crockett’s Opening Statement At Hearing On Trump and Republicans’ Attacks on American Elections
Washington, D.C. (September 15, 2026)—Today, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Oversight, delivered opening remarks at a hearing on Republicans’ continued efforts to sow distrust in American elections, interfere with voting and fuel false claims of widespread voter fraud, instead of addressing the rising cost of living and other pressing issues facing American families.
Below are Ranking Member Crockett’s remarks at today’s hearing.
WATCH Ranking Member Crockett’s opening statement.
Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett
Subcommittee on Oversight
Hearing on “Restoring Election Integrity: Oversight of Voter Fraud in New Jersey”
September 15, 2026
Thank you so very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses for being here. Thank you to our tireless elected official who decided to travel to D.C. for this hearing.
You know, it seems like we continue to have hearings that are offering solutions in search of a problem. And today, I want to make sure that we focus on real problems, not these that are kind of somewhere swarming around in the theoretical world.
In 49 days, you, the American people, can end this country’s toxic, narcissistic relationship with unified Republican control of government. Now that they’re back from their creepy cult convention that took place in my district, right there in Dallas, the Republican love bombing is in full effect.
They’re offering y’all $5,000. Yes, $5,000. If you just put the Republicans back in control like they are right now, make sure that they continue to maintain control of the House, make sure they continue to maintain control of the Senate, and make sure that they still are sitting in the White House. And unfortunately, we will never have enough spines in this building or the other to make sure that we can evict the person who never should have been reelected. But that’s a whole other issue.
But let’s talk about the conversation around $5,000 being offered by the President of the United States at this midterm convention. Some who know the law may say that, well, it’s against the law. Some that don’t know the law would actually say it as well. It sounds like a bribe because it is a bribe. In fact, we call it vote buying or vote bribing. That is what the President of the United States decided to do.
Yet our conversation is going to be, or at least my good friend, the Chairman, wants it to be, about the “problem with the illegals.” And I’m doing quotes for a reason, y’all. They want to blame the Biden Administration for Trump’s cost-of-living crisis, telling you that immigrants or trans people are the reason for all your problems and how only they can help improve your life. Y’all, if they wanted to do that, they would. They would need you to vote them back into office. They could actually effectuate real change.
But let’s go through the record because I want to tell you about some of the problems they’ve caused, right? The fact that they actually are in control of every lever of government has led to not only American citizens being killed on the streets by ICE, but also so many immigrants. In fact, we are at a historic high as it relates to immigrant deaths.
We could talk about the unconstitutional, illegal war that’s taking place in Iran. That has only happened, again, because they control every lever of government. And frankly, it is costing us American lives, as well as plenty of our tax dollars.
We could talk about the Big Ugly Bill that, for a number of people, has made them be put into a position in which they can’t afford health care, and if they can’t afford the health care, it’s only gone through the roof. Or we can talk about some of their other failed promises.
We can talk about the fact that they offered a DOGE check. I know that you may not remember DOGE, but DOGE was the thing that Elon was going to do to save us all kinds of money. But if I run you back to our actual debt, let me tell you, it ain’t going down. It’s going up a lot, and you still didn’t get your DOGE check.
Or we can talk about the tariffs because the tariffs were illegal as well. Actually, not were—they are. They’re illegal, and they made the cost of everything go up. So that’s probably why he’s offering the $5,000, because you’ve been out of way more than $5,000. But nevertheless, it’s his fault.
And so he said y’all were going to get a tariff check. Now listen, my bank account works a little different. Maybe y’all got it and I didn’t, but last time I checked, I don’t know anybody that got a DOGE check nor a tariff check. So I really would not fall for this new scheme of offering $5,000. Not to mention, it is illegal.
So I think we should have a hearing, Mr. Chairman, about whether or not we are going to enforce the law on people that attempt to do vote buying. But I will continue on.
Gas is more than $4 nationally. Diesel fuel is the highest it’s ever been. We’re still at war. The DOJ is still protecting pedophiles and hiding at least half of the Epstein files, again in violation of federal law. Trump is still trading stocks while in office.
Republican-led states are removing hundreds of thousands of people from their voter rolls, including in a state like mine, where in Texas, they put over a million people in suspense. In Texas, let me tell you what else they did in Texas, because this is what Republicans do when they have control. They decided in Tarrant County, our third-largest county, our county that is trending the right way in Texas, they decided between the primary and the general election, because Republicans were behind Democrats by approximately 40,000 votes, which means that they were now going to be knocked out of power, they said, let’s cut one-third of the voting centers. Let’s make it more difficult for people to vote.
That sounds like a problem to me, but I guess the Republicans will continue to remain silent about those things.
The Republicans, in fact, want you to ignore it all. They want you to believe that there are thousands of non-citizens voting in elections. Over the past 44 years, only 100 of the more than 1 billion votes cast in presidential elections have been potential voter fraud. Let me repeat that: 100 of the more than 1 billion, with a “B”, votes cast in presidential elections have been potential voter fraud.
And in states that have conducted audits of their state elections, only 700 of the more than 140 million votes have been associated with non-citizens.
Let me just say Trump is mentioned in the Epstein files 38,000 times. That’s more than 53 times the amount of alleged non-citizen votes in state elections and more than 300 times the amount of potential voter fraud in presidential elections.
I’m just saying, if your name is mentioned 38,000 times alongside sexual predators, you’re probably guilty of something. But I digress.
Trump has already made more than 21,000 stock trades in just one year in office, more than 30 times the amount of non-citizens in state elections, and more than 200 times more than non-citizen votes in presidential elections over the past 44 years.
Yet Republicans still haven’t held a single hearing on that topic.
Look, we all know that the President is the biggest threat to democracy. He’s trying to use ICE and the military police so that they can be at polling sites and intimidate people. He’s tried to overturn birthright citizenship. He tried to have the Postal Service disrupt voting by mail. He dismantled the Election Assistance Commission. He’s making federal agents investigate elections instead of terrorism and human trafficking.
Not to mention, he’s the one that started this fight with the mid-decade redistricting so that he could still more power. And he literally tried to steal the 2020 election. Some people forgot because, well, he ain’t being prosecuted right now. But that’s a very real thing.
He’s not just a threat to democracy. He’s also the biggest threat to Americans’ financial security. The only reason Americans would need the $5,000 bribe, because that’s what it is, is because of his failed policies. The average American family is paying an additional $3,500 per year for basic necessities.
Under Republicans, more than 4 million Americans have lost their SNAP benefits in just the first year of the big, ugly bill. Eight million Americans lost their Affordable Care Act health care. Farmer bankruptcies are up almost 50%, and nearly every Republican supported the largest cut to Medicaid in American history.
So check your voter registration and check it often, and make a plan to vote. Don’t let them scare you away from the polls over the next 49 days. Also, don’t fall for the lies and distractions.