A Texas congresswoman used her podcast to downplay the weapon that killed a 17-year-old track star, and suggested she might have done the same thing his convicted killer did. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Democrat and attorney who lost her recent Senate bid, devoted a segment of Tuesday's "Clock It with Crockett" to the Karmelo Anthony murder case, minimizing the knife that pierced Austin Metcalf's heart and framing the fatal stabbing as a reasonable act of self-defense.
The remarks landed the same day a Collin County jury found Anthony, now 19, guilty of first-degree murder after roughly three hours of deliberation. Anthony was sentenced to 35 years in prison for stabbing Metcalf at a track meet at Memorial High School in Frisco, Texas, last April.
Crockett did not respond to a request for comment from the New York Post, which reported her podcast comments. But the clips that circulated on X drew sharp backlash, and raised a straightforward question: Why is an elected official and licensed attorney publicly second-guessing a jury verdict by misrepresenting the facts of the case?
On her podcast, Crockett held her thumb and forefinger about an inch apart while discussing the weapon Anthony used. She appeared surprised by what she described as its size.
"Wait a minute, it was this? Was it a switch? I don't know what he had."
A guest on the episode described the knife as "a multi-tool," and Crockett agreed, comparing it to a Swiss Army knife:
"Yeah, like with the little scissors and everything and whatever. So it was small."
The actual weapon, as established at trial, was a semi-serrated, 5-inch pocket knife with one-handed opening and a sharp point. It penetrated Metcalf's sternum and entered his heart. The wound measured two inches across and was described as "gaping." Metcalf bled to death.
Crockett went further, telling her audience the knife did not look like a weapon at all:
"Well, I would argue the size of it alone, you wouldn't even think it's a deadly weapon."
Austin Metcalf is dead. The Collin County jury thought otherwise.
Crockett then shifted to the physical confrontation, inflating Metcalf's size and casting the stabbing as a proportional response. She told listeners she would have reacted the same way Anthony did.
"If a 300-pound man is beating me, like on top of me and beating me down, I'm not limited to fists."
Metcalf was 6 feet tall and 200 pounds, not 300. Anthony was listed at 5 feet 11 and 162 pounds, a difference of roughly 40 pounds. Crockett's claim inflated Metcalf's weight by fifty percent.
Witness testimony told a different story than the one Crockett presented. Eddie Parra, an 18-year-old who witnessed the confrontation, testified that Anthony became aggressive when asked to leave the track team's tent. Parra said Anthony told those confronting him, "touch me" and "you're going to have to move me." Metcalf then shoved Anthony. Witnesses said Anthony pulled out the knife and stabbed Metcalf in the chest.
Collin County District Attorney Bill Wirskye called the stabbing a "sneak attack." The jury agreed with the prosecution's characterization and convicted Anthony of first-degree murder, not manslaughter, not self-defense.
Crockett is no stranger to controversy over her public statements. But this episode stands out for how casually she distorted a case that tore through her home state for more than a year.
The stabbing at Memorial High School last April became a flashpoint. Anthony, a high school football standout, fatally stabbed Metcalf during a dispute over Anthony's presence in the track team's tent at a meet. The case drew national attention, fundraising campaigns, and intense debate.
A crowdfunding page on GoSendGo raised $625,000 for Anthony before the platform yanked it after his conviction. The fundraising effort itself reflected how polarized the case had become, supporters framed Anthony as a victim of racial targeting, while prosecutors presented the evidence of a young man who pulled a concealed knife and plunged it into another teenager's chest after a shove.
The jury that convicted Anthony was composed of white, Asian, and Hispanic members. They needed about three hours to reach a unanimous verdict of first-degree murder. The 35-year sentence followed.
None of those facts stopped Crockett from treating the conviction as debatable on her podcast. Her comments landed not as legal analysis but as advocacy, advocacy for a convicted murderer, delivered by a sitting member of Congress who also happens to be a lawyer.
Crockett's defense of Anthony fits a pattern. She previously appeared on Jonathan Van Ness' "Getting Better" podcast and offered a broader philosophical claim about crime and identity:
"Just because someone has committed a crime, it doesn't make them a criminal."
That sentence is worth reading twice. A licensed attorney and elected representative told a national audience that committing a crime does not make someone a criminal. The statement is not a legal argument. It is not a policy position. It is a word game designed to blur the line between lawbreakers and law-abiding citizens, and it is exactly the kind of thinking that has eroded public trust in the justice system.
The broader pattern among some Democratic officials, treating convicted offenders as misunderstood victims while minimizing the harm done to actual victims, is not new. It surfaces in case after case where political sympathies override basic accountability.
Crockett's comments drew immediate pushback on X. One user wrote: "Why does it matter what he used to kill him? A rope isn't a deadly weapon until it's used to strangle someone." Another responded: "Pretty sure Metcalf is dead, so it sounds like a deadly weapon to me."
A third commenter noted that Crockett appeared to have misrepresented the basic facts: "So she has twisted this story into something that did not happen."
The gap between Crockett's podcast narrative and the trial record is not a matter of interpretation. It is a matter of facts she either did not know or chose to ignore.
Crockett described the knife as tiny. It was five inches long with a semi-serrated blade. She described Metcalf as a 300-pound aggressor. He weighed 200. She implied Anthony was defending himself from a beating. Witnesses testified that Anthony was the one who escalated, daring others to touch him before Metcalf shoved him, after which Anthony pulled a concealed knife and stabbed Metcalf once in the chest.
The DA called it a sneak attack. The jury called it first-degree murder.
Crockett, a lame-duck representative after her failed Senate bid, faces no electoral consequences for these remarks. But the Metcalf family, and every family in Texas that sends their children to a high school track meet expecting them to come home alive, deserves better than a congresswoman who goes on a podcast and suggests she would have done the same thing their son's killer did.
It is worth noting that serious incidents involving people in Crockett's orbit have surfaced before, and her responses have consistently prioritized political narrative over factual precision.
Meanwhile, the broader question of accountability for Democratic officials who use their platforms to undermine jury verdicts and excuse violent crime remains unanswered.
Austin Metcalf was 17 years old. He was a track star who tried to remove someone from his team's tent. He shoved the intruder. For that, he took a five-inch blade through the sternum and into his heart. He bled out at a high school track meet.
A jury of his peers heard the evidence, deliberated, and convicted his killer of first-degree murder. A judge sentenced that killer to 35 years.
And a sitting member of Congress went on her podcast, held her fingers an inch apart, and told her audience the weapon was too small to be deadly, then said she would have done the same thing.
When elected officials use their platforms to second-guess juries and excuse fatal violence, they are not defending justice. They are telling every victim's family that the verdict means nothing if the politics cut the wrong way.
