GA State Rep. Jasmine Clark on Trump Policies Harming Georgia

0:00Ben Meiselas:Donald Trump just got a rude awakening from many red states, including purplish states turning red states. But like Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, Michigan. If the election were to be held today, Donald Trump would be losing all of these states. I mean, just take a look at the latest YouGov economist tracking. He's negative 10 in Michigan, negative 9 in Nevada, negative 8 in Wisconsin, negative 8 in Pennsylvania, negative six in Arizona, negative five in North Carolina, negative five in Georgia. The Atlantic Journal-Constitution shows how New Poland finds that most Georgia voters oppose Donald Trump's disastrous budget plan.

0:44Ben Meiselas:His approval ratings in Georgia are below 43 % right now. And again, you know, Georgia unfortunately went for Donald Trump in 2024. Now, when I just think back to February, when we were seeing in red districts like MAGA Republican, Rich McCormick's district, when people started showing up in February to let these MAGA Republican Congress members in the red districts know how the people felt about them. And I'm just thinking, here we are in August. Now they're not even doing town halls, these MAGA Republicans. But when they did do them in February, here's what it looked like, just to remind you.

1:23Ben Meiselas:Let's play it. We're not in a cult, not as a party. Elon was going to be the main topic tonight, and he's going to continue to be the main topic tonight because we are all freaking pissed off about this. You're going to hear it and feel it. Tyranny is rising in the White House and a man has declared himself our king. So I would like to know, rather the people would like to know, what you congressmen and your fellow congressmen are going to do to rein in the megalomaniac in the White House.

2:01When you talk about tyranny, when you talk about presidential power, I remember having the same discussion with Republicans when Biden was elected.

2:14The funny thing is, you're sitting here and a lot of you would probably say those January 6s who are yelling just as loud as you, who are upset just like you. We're supposed to have great balance and power. We are. You can disagree with me all you want, but I'm just telling you the way it is. And I get that you don't agree with me and you think I'm not telling the truth. Unless they're lying to me. And you can say they are. So who? Okay. What is the expected outcome of Canadian tariffs? Most of the tariffs were immediately lifted because they conceded.

2:56It is a voter suppression law that you signed on as a sponsor of. And I want to know why you're scared for me to vote.

3:05Ben Meiselas:I'm definitely not scared of you vote. Well, that was in February. Doesn't that feel like that was generations ago? That was five months ago. And we've seen since then all of those voters there who showed up were right to feel the fears that they saw at the time and what they saw coming. We've seen what Trump and Musk did dismantling the government. We see the disastrous impacts now of the trade war against the world. We see the disastrous budget bill that's going to be taking off potentially millions of people off their health care in Georgia. I want to bring in a state representative of Georgia who's running for Congress in Georgia's 13th congressional district.

3:47Ben Meiselas:I want to bring in Dr. Jasmine Clark, Ph.D. microbiologist, a sitting state legislator, an educator. You're someone who has devoted your life to science, someone who's devoted your life to a fact based approach. And you've seen the cuts in Georgia and throughout the country. And you're running against someone also who's got a lot of health problems who wasn't even there for like missed a whole month of voting as well. So just let's start off with Georgia. Since that clip I showed you of Congressmember McCormick and since those days in February, where are we now? And then let's talk about your race.

4:30Yeah, absolutely. So I think the people of Georgia are definitely still still feeling like the policies of Donald Trump and the policies of MAGA are harming our communities. So you talk about small business owners. They are still feeling this consequence, these consequences of the tariffs. It goes up. It goes down. People don't know what's going on. But what they do know is that it's hurting their pockets. It's hurting their businesses. When you talk about immigration, like the immigration policies of Trump and MAGA have been an absolute failure. And what we're seeing are American citizens or green card holders getting caught up in the fray.

5:20And Republicans will say, oh, well, it's fine. Everything is getting figured out on the back end. But none of them would be OK with being detained, arrested, shipped off to random places because of a oops, my bad, you know, oh, well, like get over it. Like that is not the way that people want our government to run. Also here in Atlanta, we have the CDC and the cuts to the CDC and the indiscriminate firing that was done by Doge and Elon Musk. We are still feeling the effects of that today. I've stood on a corner with several of the CDC workers in protest to say, bring those jobs back. but also let's have people in place in leadership that actually value research and understand just why public health is so important to our country and to our state and to our communities.

6:22And so those are just some of the things that I'm hearing all around Georgia. I will what I saw the graphic about Donald Trump's numbers here in Georgia. Absolutely. I am not surprised. I feel like Republican policies are always a little unpopular. However, people are now really starting to feel it. And let's be honest, everyone was talking about the price of eggs at the beginning of the year. The price of eggs in Georgia have not gone down. They have actually gone up. And so none of these policies are actually serving the people. And now people are kind of, you know, coming to grips with that.

7:01Ben Meiselas:They don't like that Donald Trump wants to build a 200 million dollar ballroom. They're not they're not into that plan or getting a Qatari jet for himself that will become a personal gift to him because the Republicans have blocked any amendments to prevent that. You mean they don't like that Donald Trump's out there golfing and opening up golf courses in Scotland and Aberdeen and telling everybody that it's the greatest golf course in the world? I don't know. I mean, isn't that what the people in Georgia, they don't want to see Donald Trump sell meme coins and colognes and perfumes or talk about how hot Sidney Sweeney is on a daily basis?

7:40Ben Meiselas:You mean to tell me that people, that those aren't the kitchen table issues? You know, call me crazy, but I do think that people in Georgia, people across this nation don't really care to continue to enrich Donald Trump and his friends pockets or to boost Donald Trump's ego, which is pretty much what most of these policies have been about. It's been about Donald Trump, because if there's one thing that Donald Trump is good at, it is centering Donald Trump and making sure that that is the the focus of the day. And except for when it comes to Epstein, because then when it comes to the Epstein files, he wants you to talk about everything else but that.

8:29So, you know, I find it very curious and very interesting how this man loves to be in the spotlight until it turned into that. And then he was like, oh, look over here. Look over there. Look at my golf course. Look at my, you know, cemented over Rose Garden, all of these things. But, yes, please don't look at me and please don't look at the Epstein files.

8:51Ben Meiselas:Let's talk about your race before we go. Obviously, Democratic primary. you know there are some people who say you know with all of the conflict there's a debate out there right about challenging sitting people letting room for new leadership you know having a different type of advocacy of people who now want to fight on the front lines and and and make way for a new group of fighters and I and that's I think kind of the lane that you're that that you're pushing for. It's like, okay, we appreciate the work, but it's time for some new leadership. Talk to us about your campaign, why this is an important primary, and where we go from here.

9:32Yeah, absolutely. So I'm running for Georgia's Congressional District 13, and it has a sitting incumbent that has been there for over 20 years. And during the time that he's been there, I'm not going to say that I've agreed with him 100%, but I've agreed with him on most things. That said, with recent health challenges, as well as people in the district, in the community, just saying, where is he? I decided to step up. You know, Georgia does not have any purple districts. There are no competitive seats for Congress in the state of Georgia. Due to gerrymandering. We have Republican seats and we have Democratic seats.

10:18That's it. And so the only opportunity for people like myself to actually go to Congress and fight is usually to run against an incumbent. So the district is made up of six counties, Gwinnett, Newton, Rockdale, DeKalb, Henry, and Clayton. The majority of the district, out of all those six counties, the majority of the largest county that is represented in the district is Gwinnett County, where I live and where I have served and where I have represented the people since 2018. And, you know, this race, this campaign, it's not about singling out one person. And it is not about, you know, trying to, you know, disrupt.

11:05It's more about answering the call. I got the call from the community. They said, we would love to see you there. Ironically, the clip you showed with Rich McCormick, I had a town hall that same exact day. Mine did not go the way that Rich's went, by the way. Mine was much more peaceful. But that town hall was actually supposed to be a federal, state and local town hall. But unfortunately, the congressman was not able to come and his staffer showed up very, very late, like was only there for the last 15 minutes of the town hall. And so that was a moment where I said my community wants to hear from their congressman.

11:48You can see people want to hear from their congressperson. I am I know they want to hear from me, too. They want to hear about what's going on at the state level. But back in February, people were like, what is going on in Congress? And they were reaching out and he didn't show up. And so I want to be a congressperson that shows up. I want to bring my science voice to the to Congress the way I brought it to the Georgia State Legislature. as the only PhD scientist currently in the Georgia State Legislature. I have been able to use my science voice to really fight for the people, fight for public health, fight for research, fight for education, and just generally fight like a scientist.

12:32I mean, I really get in the weeds and I ask some tough questions. I want to do that same thing up in Congress. So that's the reason why I'm running for Congressional District 13.

12:40Ben Meiselas:Where can people find out more about the campaign? Absolutely. They can go to my website, which is jasmine4ga.com. I'm also on a social media. Look up Jasmine Clark for Georgia. You should be able to find me. And yeah, please come out. I'm on TikTok. I'm on Instagram. I'm on Facebook. I'm on threads. I'm on Blue Sky, all the things. I am on all of the different platforms. But of course, you can always start on my website, jasmine4ga.com. Dr. Jasmine Clark, thanks for joining us. Yes. Thank you. The truth is more important than ever. Check out our new truth over lies collection at store.midastouch.com.

13:21Ben Meiselas:All 100 % USA union made.