Crockett: Trump will 'get his butt handed to him' if he debates Harris

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) on Monday said that former President Trump will have his “butt handed to him” in the Sept. 10 debate against Vice President Harris — if he shows up. 

Speaking on MSNBC, Crockett said she does not expect the former president to participate in the presidential debate hosted by ABC News.

“But if he does show up, he is about to get his butt handed to him, so I'm here for it either way,” Crockett said. “He can go and cower in a corner, or he can show up and be lit on fire either way, I'm good.”

Questions have swirled recently about whether next month’s debate will take place, with candidates seemingly in disagreement around muting microphones. 

Harris’s campaign has been pushing for live mics throughout the broadcast, moving away from the rules previously agreed upon when President Biden was at the top of the ticket. 

On Monday, Trump said it didn’t matter to him whether the microphones were muted.

"You know, the deal was we keep the same rules. Now, all of a sudden they want to make a change in the rules because she can't answer questions. ... Why doesn't she do something like I'm doing right now? She can't talk. We can't have another dummy as a president," Trump told reporters in Falls Church, Virginia.

But Trump this week expressed his displeasure with the ABC News, saying he wants a "fair debate" and that the network "really should be shut out."

"I'd much rather do it on NBC. I'd much rather do it on CBS. Frankly, I think CBS is very unfair, but the best of the group, and certainly I do it on Fox, I'd even do it on CNN. I thought CNN treated us very fairly the last time," Trump said.

Crockett has been seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party, particularly after she and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.) clashed during an Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing earlier this year. The face off led to Crockett’s infamous alliteration of a “bleach blond bad built butch body.”

Crockett became a messenger for the Biden-Harris campaign, with the phrase even being used in promotional materials. Since the ticket change, she has continued to be an outspoken and ardent supporter of Harris and had a speaking slot at last week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago. 

Crockett has said Republicans want Trump to “shut up” and  “go play golf.”

“Every time he opens his mouth, you know, the truth comes out, and the truth is not a pretty thing,” she said. “The truth is tied to the agenda of Project 2025. The truth is tied to his history as it relates to discriminating against people of color when it came to housing, or when it came down to how he wanted the Central Park Five hung.”

“The truth only hurts him,” Crockett continued. “So yeah, they want him to shut up and allow them to kind of continue on, so that they can continue to deceive people into believing that these two candidates both have something wonderful to offer this country when we know that there's only one candidate that is qualified and only one candidate that is interested in moving our country forward instead of moving us back to the Jim Crow era of the 1950s and 60s.”