Justin Jones: The Assault On Multiracial Democracy in the South

Summary

The Bulwark Podcast — Episode Summary

Episode Title: Justin Jones: The Assault On Multiracial Democracy in the South
Date: May 20, 2026
Host: Tim Miller (with Sarah Jones)
Guest: Justin Jones, Tennessee State House Representative

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Overview

This episode takes a deep dive into the unraveling of multiracial democracy in the American South, focusing on Tennessee as a key battleground. Tim Miller and Sarah Jones are joined by activist and Tennessee State Representative Justin Jones, a leader of the “Tennessee Three,” to discuss the fallout from recent Supreme Court decisions, systematic racial gerrymandering in Tennessee, and broader democratic backsliding across Southern states. The conversation explores both the dangers posed by these anti-democratic moves and the strategies of resistance and coalition-building being forged to confront them.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Political Landscape and GOP Shifts (01:43–16:50)

• Massie’s Primary Loss as a Bellwether

  • Tim Miller and Sarah Jones analyze Thomas Massie’s loss in Kentucky’s GOP primary.
  • Key Insight: Massie received about 45% of the vote, a notable figure showing that a significant portion of Republican voters are willing to challenge Trump’s dominance when substantive issues are at stake.
  • Relevant Quote:

    “To think that 45% of Republican primary voters in a somewhat suburban, exurban... district in Kentucky bucked Trump is a sign his grip is loosening.” (Tim Miller, 02:58)

  • They contrast Massie’s performance with Liz Cheney’s landslide loss following her anti-Trump stance, showing shifting party dynamics.
  • Miller sees parallels with past unpopularity of George W. Bush and speculates about Trump’s future grip on the party.

• Senate Realignment and the Limits of Dissent

  • Casualties and defectors like Bill Cassidy signal late-breaking resistance to Trump’s agenda, especially when re-election is not a concern.
  • Relevant Quote:

    “It’s a little embarrassing that as soon as Republicans...are retiring or because they’ve been defeated...they start sounding like the Bulwark.” (Tim Miller, 12:45)

• Texas Senate and Economic Fallout

  • Cornyn’s political demise at Trump’s hands and the emerging showdown with Ken Paxton.
  • Discussion on economic pessimism in the context of the ongoing war and its impacts.

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2. Interview: Justin Jones — Democracy Under Assault in Tennessee (16:52–55:33)

A. The Mechanics and Impact of Tennessee’s Gerrymander (17:12–22:09)

• Post-Supreme Court Fallout

  • After Louisiana v. Calais, Tennessee fast-tracked the elimination of majority-Black districts.
  • Visual Illustration:

    “When I walked into the Capitol that day, it was 2026. When I walked out, it was pre-1965.” (Justin Jones, 17:35)

  • Memphis, a majority-Black city, is now drawn into a district stretching 300 miles to dilute its voting power. Similar tactics threaten states like Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Alabama.

• Consequences for Democracy

  • Large cities have effectively lost meaningful representation. All nine of Tennessee’s congressional districts are now majority white, despite a diverse population.

  • Relevant Quote:

    “If this was happening anywhere else in the world, we would call it authoritarianism, we would call it an attack on democracy, and yet it’s happening here...” (Justin Jones, 22:09)

B. Intraparty Targeting and Racial Disparities (20:38–21:34)

• All House Democrats, except for white men, were stripped of committee assignments after the expulsion of the Tennessee Three—a move reflective of Jim Crow-era tactics.
• Relevant Quote:

  “It was an attempt to turn back the clock of history. They represent the George Wallace and Bull Connors in the 21st century.” (Justin Jones, 21:10)

C. Mobilization and Strategies for Resistance (23:15–26:50)

• Mass Mobilization and Movement-Building

  • Recent rallies in Montgomery, including modern-day marches across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, evoke civil rights-era protests.
  • Call on Blue states to reciprocate with their own redistricting to maintain political parity.
  • Notable Quote:

    “This is like a Civil War we’re in the midst of right now with these Southern governors.” (Justin Jones, 25:06)

• Role of Federal and State Action

  • Urges for federal action to ban partisan gerrymanders and grassroots investment in state-level infrastructure to support fair elections.

D. Paths Forward: Legal, Political, and Coalition-Building (28:28–33:27)

• Backlash Through Mobilization and Persuasion

  • There’s hope in coalition-building, including disaffected rural communities and traditional GOP voters who now feel disenfranchised.
  • Legal options are limited—courts, packed with Trump appointees, have blocked injunctions.
  • Relevant Quote:

    “The Supreme Court...does not seem like [it’s] going to get us out of this mess. We have a captured court right now.” (Justin Jones, 32:18)

• Democratic Party Response & National Attention

  • Jones notes increased involvement from national Democratic figures and urges more direct support from the DNC and allied states.

E. Impact on Marginalized Communities (36:21–37:39; 41:54–43:36)

• Collateral Damage
  • Joint ICE and state police operations target immigrants, even children. Tennessee served as a testing ground for anti-immigrant legislation pioneered by Stephen Miller.
  • Jones underlines that the GOP’s policies hurt not just communities of color, but also poor white and rural Tennesseans.
  • Relevant Quote:

    “In doing this, they’re targeting black and brown communities. But...all of us will get hurt in the end.” (Justin Jones, 43:30)

F. The Trump Slush Fund, January 6th, and Racial Double Standards (37:39–48:29)

• Discussion of a $1.776 billion fund for insurrectionists, which Jones calls “reparations for white insurrectionists.”

• Criticizes the DOJ and anticipates further unrest or violence if such behaviors are legitimized and rewarded.

• Relevant Quotes:

  “[Trump] is rewarding [insurrectionists] financially for behavior that should have been criminally punished and was, and then he pardoned them.” (Justin Jones, 38:28)

  “If you study the Confederacy...this is what happened. And then we got Jim Crow.” (Justin Jones, 39:48)

• Two-tier system of justice:

  “If you’re white and an insurrectionist, you get grace and sympathy. If you’re black or a person of color, you get...no grace, no sympathy.” (Justin Jones, 46:15)

G. Meeting the Opposition Head-On (49:31–51:40)

• Jones describes his strategy for confronting conservative media directly (notably a viral exchange on Fox News with Sean Hannity).
• Relevant Quote:

  “We have to meet them where they are and speak to them in a language they understand...I went on Fox because I thought it was important to speak directly to the people being screwed over.” (Justin Jones, 49:59)

H. Finding Hope and the Role of Community (51:40–54:53)

• People-Powered Optimism

  • Draws strength from intergenerational activism and coalition work—especially in-person connection, resisting the demoralizing effects of social media.

  • References Frederick Douglass to inspire turning adversity into energy for the movement.

  • Relevant Quote:

    “We have a saying that a dying mule kicks the hardest. And this mule of white supremacist terrorists dying, which is why this is a death rattle. ... This is the dying breath of the Confederacy.” (Justin Jones, 52:25)

  • Urges listeners to “show up in person”—to organize, build relationships, and find hope offline.

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Memorable Moments & Notable Quotes

• On Gerrymandering’s Absurdity:

  “If you drive from one Krispy Kreme in Nashville to another...you pass through five congressional districts, driving just 30 minutes.” (Justin Jones, 19:10)

• On Historical Parallels:

  “We're seeing the biggest attack on black political representation in the South since the end of Reconstruction.” (Justin Jones, 17:35)

• On Two-Tier Justice:

  “If you’re white and an insurrectionist, you get grace and sympathy. And then if you’re black or a person of color...no grace, no sympathy.” (Justin Jones, 46:15)

• On Mobilization:

  “There’s nothing that will give you more hope than being in a room with people in person and being out in the streets in person with people.” (Justin Jones, 54:38)

• On Building Coalitions:

  “Now it’s an opportunity...to organize, not an opportunity to be we were right, you were wrong, but to say we’re learning together.” (Justin Jones, 44:21)

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Notable Segments (Timestamps)

• GOP Shifts & Massie analysis: 01:43–16:50
• Introduction to Justin Jones: 16:52–17:12
• Tennessee Gerrymander Mechanics: 17:35–22:09
• Committee Stripping & Racial Disparities: 20:38–21:34
• Mobilization & National Response: 23:15–26:50
• Legal Hurdles & Court Capture: 32:07–33:27
• Effects on Marginalized Communities: 36:21–37:39; 41:54–43:36
• Trump ‘Slush Fund’ and Insurrection aftershocks: 37:39–48:29
• Going on Hannity & Conservative Media: 49:31–51:40
• Sources of Hope: 51:40–54:53

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Tone

• Urgent, unfiltered, and direct: The tone throughout is frank, at times despairing but ultimately defiant and mobilizing.
• Historically grounded: Frequent appeals to the lessons of Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the civil rights era.
• Community-oriented: Emphasis on solidarity, showing up in person, and building cross-racial coalitions.

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FINAL WORD

Justin Jones frames the struggle against gerrymandering and democratic erosion in Tennessee as not just a regional battle but a national one, with profound consequences for American democracy as a whole. He calls listeners to action—politically, legally, and above all through human-to-human connection.

“This is the dying breath of the Confederacy...We defeated them before and we can do it again.” (Justin Jones, 52:25)

Transcript

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[Tim Miller]

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. We are going to get to my guy Justin Jones here in a minute

[Sarah Jones]

and talk a lot about what's going on in Tennessee and across the Deep south really when it comes to the gutting of the Voting Rights Act.

[Tim Miller]

And we'll react to JD Vance's comments

[Sarah Jones]

about the slush fund reparations that the administration is offering to MAGA insurrectionists and why he thinks that's important because nobody has any empathy for them and people

[Tim Miller]

have too much empathy for those black criminals.

[Sarah Jones]

Anyway, we'll get into all that with Justin Jones. Great guy.

[Tim Miller]

But first we pre taped that yesterday because I'm flying to San Diego for

[Sarah Jones]

our event tonight today and so I wanted to run down some thoughts on all of the political news we've had over the last 24 hours, which is a bunch.

[Tim Miller]

First and most noteworthy I think is

[Sarah Jones]

the Thomas Massie loss in the Kentucky 4 primary.

[Tim Miller]

I have a little bit of a

[Sarah Jones]

different take on this than what I've seen out there.

[Tim Miller]

Massie ends up getting about 45% of

[Sarah Jones]

the vote the time of this taping. There's about 4% more to trickle in,

[Tim Miller]

but he's going to be at about

[Sarah Jones]

45% of the vote.

[Tim Miller]

That's not nothing. And it's not that close to winning. But to think that 45% of Republican primary voters in a somewhat suburban, ex urban, but somewhat rural district in Kentucky bucked Trump is a change. Like, it is a sign that, like, his grip is loosening somewhat on the party faithful. We haven't had anything else like this. When Liz Cheney ran for reelection to

[Sarah Jones]

her House seat after she had voted

[Tim Miller]

to impeach Trump, she got 28.9% of the vote.

[Sarah Jones]

She was annihilated.

[Tim Miller]

Like, this is meaningfully different than that. And it's meaningfully different because Massie went after Trump on a couple of issues that are core to the base and that Trump has betrayed either his promises or Republican Party thinking and rhetoric on those very issues. So, for example, with the Iran war vote, Massie I think now has gained a lot of credibility with people who were genuine in their belief that America should not be involved in stupid foreign wars in the Middle East. And he buck Trump on that. Obviously, the Epstein files and covering up for the elites that have access and wealth and were not being held accountable for their crimes. Massie was aggressive on that. And obviously Massie is strong on debt and spending.

[Sarah Jones]

Another issue that I think is going to continue to plague Trump as interest rates increase.

[Tim Miller]

So, like, that is like a basket

[Sarah Jones]

of issues that Massie has distinguished himself from Trump on.

[Tim Miller]

That is different than kind of like never. Trumper 1.0.

[Sarah Jones]

Right.

[Tim Miller]

Like my people, like, we oppose Trump on some issues, sure. But it was mostly about his character, about whether he was qualified to lead the country, you know, his corruption, you know, like whether, you know, we would trust this person to be in charge of a fucking Dairy Queen. Forget the country. Like, we opposed Trump because of Trump. The man like Massie opposed Trump because of Trump's failure on three issues where he perceives, and I think I agree with him, that he's closer to the Republican base than Trump is. And the result of that was getting 45% of the vote, not too far from 50%. I think that, to me, shows that there's a lane there. And I think that that lane could get bigger if Trump gets worse and worse. And I've said this a lot of

[Sarah Jones]

times on tnl, talking with Sarah and

[Tim Miller]

jvl, I think for people who really locked into politics in 2016, and this is an important kind of recent history lesson. George W. Bush, part of the reason why the Bush line that Sarah talks about matters. George W. Bush got so unpopular that he wasn't invited to another Republican convention ever again. He wasn't invited in.08 for McCain, 12 for Romney. Obviously any of the Trump conventions, the

[Sarah Jones]

party base decided they wanted to move on from him.

[Tim Miller]

That feels possible with Trump, right?

[Sarah Jones]

Would I bet on it?

[Tim Miller]

Is that the most likely outcome? No, of course the most likely outcome

[Sarah Jones]

is that Trump is a kingmaker and that the cult sticks with him and that he anoints whoever he wants to be the next nominee, be that a family member or Marco or JD or

[Tim Miller]

someone else that emerges. And that's the most likely outcome, but it's not a guaranteed outcome. And this kind of reminds me a little bit of the Platner discourse that

[Sarah Jones]

we had a couple weeks ago where JBL floated like, I don't know, he overstated the case. I think he said like a 33% chance Platner is the nominee, but his

[Tim Miller]

range is like 5 to 33%. And everybody's like, crazy, crazy.

[Sarah Jones]

This is crazy.

[Tim Miller]

It's like, well, yeah, I mean, obviously it's crazy in a certain extent, but like in recent times in politics, like the successful two term presidents, Obama and Trump both ran against the party establishment because the prior party establishment wasn't popular. And like right now the Democratic Party establishment isn't popular. And I think Trump's popularity is on the wane. Like, is it going to fall enough

[Sarah Jones]

that someone who challenged him as directly

[Tim Miller]

as Massie could be the nominee? I like that's a crazy thing to say, right? But like, does the Massey result show, like, what a successful challenge to Trump could look like two years from now? If the war is an even greater catastrophe, if the economy is even worse, if the corruption and the COVID up of Epstein looks even worse once we learn new information, if the Democrats take control of the House and Robert Garcia and his crew are successful in uncovering more information that's possible and that is in the potential range of outcomes right now. And so when they were chanting Massie 2028 at his concession speech, that's a little bit intriguing to me. I'm not saying Massie is going to

[Sarah Jones]

be the 2028 nominee.

[Tim Miller]

That'd be a ridiculous thing to say. But he now has demonstrated that you can gain a base of support within the party. You can overcome the most amount of money ever spent against someone in a House primary, offer a clear issue set, offer a clear rationale for your candidacy and get 45%. And if that's a four way primary, he wins. So I don't know. I think that obviously the Trump team is going to crow the political prognosticators and pundits are going to talk about how you can't betray Trump in the party. Look at Cassidy, look at Massey, look at the Indiana State House. And that's true. I like it's it happened, but there's something happening under the surface that I don't want to dismiss. And so it sucks that Thomas Massie lost. It sucks that there's going to be

[Sarah Jones]

another mega AI chatbot in Congress.

[Tim Miller]

It sucks that Trump can crow.

[Sarah Jones]

It sucks that, you know, next year there'll be one less vote for, you know, potential bipartisanship on issues of, you know, war, Epstein, et cetera. But Massie gets to stay in there to the end of the year, and

[Tim Miller]

I think he's going to continue to cause Trump trouble, and I think that his critiques of the administration are going

[Sarah Jones]

to continue to be borne out.

[Tim Miller]

So I guess all I'm saying is let's see how it plays out. Let's maybe have a little bit of

[Sarah Jones]

humility in the predictions and the possible

[Tim Miller]

outcomes and in analysis about how things might develop in our politics, because things have changed really quick. As in, like the old days, man,

[Sarah Jones]

these political tectonic plates are moving a

[Tim Miller]

lot quicker than they used to. So that's that. Speaking of Massie continuing to create trouble

[Sarah Jones]

for Trump over the next few months as he is a lame duck member

[Tim Miller]

of the House, we're seeing that already in the Senate. Bill Cassidy on Tuesday said he was opposed to the ballroom funding and he

[Sarah Jones]

supported the resolution that would end the Iran war without the Trump administration coming to Congress and getting a vote. So a war powers resolution vote.

[Tim Miller]

So on the one hand, it's a little revealing.

[Sarah Jones]

I mean, it's a little lame. It's kind of like the old line from football coach Dennis Green.

[Tim Miller]

They are what we thought they were. Cassidy is what they said he was

[Sarah Jones]

not a maga, a phony. It was faking it to try to win reelection.

[Tim Miller]

And that is contemptible, honestly, and a little embarrassing. That said, we are what we are, and guess it's better to have him up there being the turd in Trump's punch bowl for a couple months than the alternative. And opposing the ballroom was good, but the war powers vote is pretty significant. So what happens here is you had Cassidy, Rand Paul, Susan Collins and Murkowski voting yes on the resolution.

[Sarah Jones]

So Collins also flipping, and she's, I think, very vulnerable on this issue. And I don't know that this vote is going to save her since she's

[Tim Miller]

been lukewarm supportive of Trump. Throughout this disaster.

[Sarah Jones]

And obviously Graham Platner is fiery hot

[Tim Miller]

opposed to this action in Iran. So you had Cassidy, Paul Collins and

[Sarah Jones]

Murkowski voting yes with the Democrats. You had Fetterman voting no with the Republicans. It was a procedural vote, but there's me a final vote on this. You assume that the vote stays the same. That's 50 to 47. So that's a majority in favor of the war powers resolution.

[Tim Miller]

So that would have to go to the House. That was a tie vote in the House thanks to Maine Congressman Jared golden, who was, for some reason, I think it's pretty important we find out what that reason is actually, because there's a lot of speculation and rumor out there, but for some reason gave the tie breaking vote to block this resolution in the House. But things are changing really fast down there.

[Sarah Jones]

And so potentially this could go to

[Tim Miller]

the House and, and put some type of limit on Trump's war powers. All that remains to be seen. But it is definitely significant and notable

[Sarah Jones]

that Bill Cassidy's true colors are showing.

[Tim Miller]

It's funny, isn't it? It's kind of frustrating, honestly, that as soon as Republicans no longer need Trump's support because they're retiring or because they've been defeated or their career is over, all of a sudden they start sounding like the bulwark, which makes me think that there's a lot of Republicans who are privately with the bulwark and I fucking hate those guys more than I hate the MAGA guys. It's like, where are you? Come on out. Come on the show. I've invited Bill Cassidy on the show. Come on the show. Seems like we agreed this whole time on the ballroom and the Iran war, but you don't want to say it

[Sarah Jones]

anyway.

[Tim Miller]

Frustrating. The other big political news, of course, is the Texas Senate seat. I did a big rant about this over on the Bulg takes feed because I couldn't save it for the pod.

[Sarah Jones]

I was too.

[Tim Miller]

Was I fired up? What's the right word? I was just, I was kind of giddy. I was too giddy about Big bad John Cornyn getting totally cucked by Donald Trump. Go sit in the cuck chair John. For those of you sickos like me

[Sarah Jones]

who remember, God, what would it have been?

[Tim Miller]

2014 Senate race, probably that he was in.

[Sarah Jones]

Cornyn had this ad.

[Tim Miller]

Big John, Big Bad John talked about

[Sarah Jones]

how Big Bad John wore a big

[Tim Miller]

bad cowboy hat and sat on a big horse and rode around big Texas because he was a man. And big, Big bad John groveled. The Trump tried to name a highway after Trump pretended like he read Trump's book was Trump's little kind of Trump's little butt boy on the airplane. Yes sir, Mr. Trump, sir. You're so great, sir. All for nothing.

[Sarah Jones]

Trump didn't care a wit. He knew that he had to. He didn't need the MAGA base any more upset at him than they already were. And so he's gonna stick with the MAGA guy. So now John Cornyn, Big Bad John goes into retirement.

[Tim Miller]

Tiny Bad John, Little Bad John little man.

[Sarah Jones]

So that tickled me.

[Tim Miller]

That tax rate is going to be interesting. I think it helps tell Rico. Maybe not as much as the conventional wisdom would indicate, but it helps him

[Sarah Jones]

a little bit that it's going to

[Tim Miller]

be Paxton, not Cornyn for sure. And boy, is that going to be

[Sarah Jones]

a fun race to watch now. So the politics gods gifted us on that one. All right, y' all know that I

[Tim Miller]

have been on the leading edge of doomerism when it comes to the economic fallout from the war lately.

[Sarah Jones]

Been listening to my business podcast. You know things are bad when I'm listening to odd lots.

[Tim Miller]

I'm on the gas price charts, I'm looking at WTI oil charts, checking my futures, looking at my investment accounts.

[Sarah Jones]

Things are really bad if I know the price of helium. And I'm telling you I don't know the price of a carton of eggs, but I do know the price of helium.

[Tim Miller]

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[Sarah Jones]

We will have more on tomorrow's show,

[Tim Miller]

of course, but now I'd like to welcome back to the show an activist and Democrat representing parts of Nashville and the Tennessee State House of Representatives, one of the Tennessee Three, a trio of Democrats who first drew national attention in 2023 when they were expelled by Republicans for their advocacy of stricter gun laws after a mass shooting in Nashville.

[Sarah Jones]

And now he's been at the forefront of pushing against Tennessee's racist gerrymandering scheme. It's Justin Jones. Good to see you again, man. How you doing?

[Justin Jones]

Good to see you, brother.

[Sarah Jones]

We're pushing forward, man.

[Tim Miller]

I want to focus a lot on what's happening in Tennessee and then a

[Sarah Jones]

couple other national things. But why don't you just paint a picture for folks about what's been happening since the gutting of the Voting Rights act, and then we can talk about some of the elements of it.

[Justin Jones]

You know, since the Louisiana v. Calais decision, Tennessee was the first state to dismantle black political power in our state, diluting and eliminating the last remaining majority black district. What I told folks is that when I walked into the Capitol that day, it was 2026, and when I walked out, it was pre1965. We've seen the biggest attack on black political representation in the south since the end of Reconstruction. And it all came because when that decision came out, Donald Trump called the governor of Tennessee personally. And we were back in a special session a few days later. And within 24 hours between the committee and and the House floor, this map had become law. And that's what we saw. We've seen some, with surgical precision, the carving out of majority of black districts, not just in Tennessee, but Louisiana. We see your maps are now under threat, as well as Mississippi, South Carolina and Alabama.

[Tim Miller]

The Tennessee case is so stark, and

[Sarah Jones]

I don't know, we're probably heading that way eventually in Louisiana, but I just think it's particularly egregious as an example, the way in which they divided up Memphis. And I played the audio the other day of the Republican representative pretending he didn't know what the black makeup of Memphis was, even though they divided the city up into thirds. And now you have a situation with the new maps where Memphis and Nashville basically don't have representatives. Obviously, the racial context in Memphis is stark, but just from a democracy standpoint, I don't know, how can you even call Tennessee a democracy if people in the two largest cities don't have representation.

[Justin Jones]

Just to give a visual for viewers. Memphis, which is a 51% black population, is now connected to a county 300 miles away, all the way to Williamson County, 300 miles away, as a way to dilute that black vote in a majority black city. My district, where I represent here in Nashville, my community represents the most diverse district. And so what we saw here is at the federal level was if you drive from one Krispy Kreme in Nashville to another Krispy Kreme on the outskirts of Nashville in Brentwood, you pass through five congressional districts, driving just 30 minutes, 30 minute drive, five congressional districts. That's how absurd these maps are. And it was done intentionally. And for the speaker of the House to say he did not know the racial breakup of Memphis or he's not familiar with those demographics. I just want to show you some, just to show you where these ideas are coming from. The speaker of the House posted this yesterday, and it's him with Stephen Miller in the White House giving him a proclamation for the partnership between Stephen Miller and Tennessee's state government. And so we see where this racialized politics is coming from. It's coming from directly from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Donald Trump again called the governor as soon as the Louisiana Clay decision came out. Stephen Miller is now celebrating with the speaker of the House all of these racist attacks on the black and brown community. And black and brown Tennesseeans make up 25% of the population. Now. Every single one of Tennessee's nine congressional districts is majority white. That does not sound like multiracial democracy to me.

[Tim Miller]

And I mean, they're expanded down to

[Sarah Jones]

the state House level. This was the big fight in 2023 when you guys got expelled, but they're doing it again.

[Tim Miller]

Last week, all members of the House Democratic Caucus were removed from their committees and subcommittees. That's right.

[Justin Jones]

To make it more egregious, I think there's an addendum and added that we found out, I think that Tennessee hall was the first to report on this. All Democrats except the white men in our caucus were removed from their committees. So what came out was that the white men, four of them, Representative Clemens, Representative Mitchell, Representative Freeman, Representative Hemmer, were not removed from their committees. And so they were kept on the state website. And then they just were allowed to resign on their own because the speaker did not remove them. So it does show that they see race even in that regard. And I think it shows that we are dealing with the Jim Crow legislature. And what we saw was intentional. It was an attempt to turn back the clock of history. And they represent the George Wallace and the Bull Connors in the 21st century. And I think that Tennessee's the tip of the spear. But as we've been saying, when you were here in Nashville, we said same thing. Tennessee is the front line. But we have to fight it here because if we don't, it's going to spread across this nation.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, we're seeing it. I mean, look, this is where it

[Sarah Jones]

sounds alarmist, and I alluded to it, but when you put those things together, when you put together no representation for these big cities, no representation for people of color in the federal legislature, the banishment of you guys from committees, the expulsion in 2023, this is a state ought like, it's not a democracy. And that I think, probably, if you accept that, it changes what a response to it should be.

[Tim Miller]

Right?

[Justin Jones]

Yeah. I mean, if this was happening anywhere else in the world, we would call it authoritarianism, we would call it an attack on democracy, and yet it's happening here in a very subtle, sophisticated way. They're using the language of gerrymandering, and they want to make it partisan. Tim. And one thing that we've been very intentional about is that this was a racial gerrymander. This was not partisan tit for tat. It was about explicitly in response to the dismantling the Voting Rights act, the crown jewel of the civil rights movement, and the fact that it's happening in the South. You see the language being used in Mississippi. The governor talked about the last black congressman there about ending his reign of terror. These are the types of things you heard at the end of Reconstruction when they ran out all the black representatives at the federal level. And so I think we'd be very keen on what is happening here. We're seeing an assault on multiracial democracy across the South. You're hearing people talk about the Southern Strategy again, like Congressman Andy Ogles from Tennessee. It is very. It's not alarmist. And I think that history will judge us not by what we do, but by what we don't do in this moment. We have to respond with proportionate response. And we have to call on our allies across this country to stand with us in the south in this time, because the south, again, is the front line in our fight for democracy in this nation.

[Tim Miller]

So what does proportional response look like?

[Sarah Jones]

What are you thinking about doing down there?

[Justin Jones]

I mean, multiple things. I just got back from Montgomery. We saw one of the largest mass mobilizations since the 60s. Folks from all across the south. And all across the country, gathering federal leaders, moral leaders, clergy, mothers, activists, gathering in Montgomery, where Dr. King stood in 1965 fighting for the Voting Rights Act. To, number one, lift up that this is a struggle rooted in the civil rights movement. We're seeing an assault on the civil rights movement. That's why you saw people crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge again. And so telling people, number one, we have to invest in the south and not just quote, unquote, battleground states like North Carolina and Georgia, but coming down to Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, the states that have for so long been forgotten. South Carolina. And number two, we need some of these other states to respond. California and Virginia, I think, were the only ones that responded by doing their own new maps in response to Texas, in response to what's happening across these other states. But there's other states that can follow. In New York, in Colorado, in New Jersey, in Illinois, there are states that need to respond, because what Donald Trump is doing, he's making it almost impossible for us to retake the House from his MAGA extremists who are taking hold of our government right now. And so we have to respond proportionately and recognize that this is not an ordinary moment. And so we have to do things out of the ordinary as we fight back against these MAGA terrorists who've taken our country hostage. I think that's the only thing we can call them.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I mean, so you're down there in Selma.

[Sarah Jones]

I said you're going to Jackson, where this kind of fight is ongoing.

[Tim Miller]

I think we probably have a lot of listeners who are frustrated, especially if

[Sarah Jones]

they're living in other states. What can I do? How can I engage? What does mass mobilization look like?

[Tim Miller]

I have a campaign question for you

[Sarah Jones]

in a second, but I want to table that. What is it look like from just from a protest, from a public action standpoint?

[Justin Jones]

Yeah, I mean, I think one, if you're in these states, you can call on the governors of these states to say, we are not in the south right now, but we can stand in solidarity with the South. In response to Tennessee's gerrymander, Illinois should respond again proportionately, or New York should respond and say, okay, we are in the fight against this new Confederacy and it's going to take a united front of the United States to take on this Confederacy again. This is like a civil war we're in the midst of right now with these Southern governors. Number two, looking at folks in these states to help build infrastructure, I think a lot of people are paying attention to the federal level right now. But all these changes are being done at the state level. And these state seats can be flipped with infrastructure, with investment, and that's how we can stop these gerrymanders from happening. Ultimately, we need to have a federal ban on partisan gerrymander. I think that's the only logical response. But as it stands now, we have to ask these states who, who have control, who have Democratic control to respond in kind to what the south is doing right now with these red states. But also if you're a regular person, I think, really finding ways to find organizations on the ground, whether it's in Mississippi or Alabama. We had so many organizations when we were in Montgomery who are doing the hard work of trying to respond by having a mass voter registration in response to this mass voter suppression that we're seeing. And so supporting those organizations, supporting independent media who are telling the actual truth. Your podcast, I see your hat of my dear brother there, Tennessee hollering. I mean, these are the ones who are the folks who are on the ground with us amplifying these stories that are often getting erased in mainstream conversations. And so we need to continue to amplify that what's happening right now is not normal and that we have to sound the alarm in this moment of crisis for, you know, where we could potentially lose democracy in the south and then we'll lose it in this nation.

[Tim Miller]

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[Sarah Jones]

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[Tim Miller]

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[Sarah Jones]

I got a good text from them

[Tim Miller]

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[Sarah Jones]

And I think that some of that was like you're saying voter registration, getting people, engaged, people to wake up that hadn't been as engaged in 2024. I think we're seeing some of that.

[Tim Miller]

I think it's possible to do persuasion on this, too.

[Sarah Jones]

It's just so overt that I think that a lot of people, obviously, in

[Tim Miller]

particular black voters, I think even a lot of white voters and voters from other races, look at this.

[Sarah Jones]

This is not the country that I want to be.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[Sarah Jones]

I don't want to be in a country where we're eliminating all of the black representation in the south, like we're going back to Jim Crow.

[Tim Miller]

Do you think that there is a

[Sarah Jones]

persuasion and mobilization possibility that can create some backlash from a campaign standpoint in Tennessee? I do think it's a big uphill battle. Those were all carved out quite intentionally. But I don't know. What do you think?

[Tim Miller]

Is there a Democratic hope here at the ballot box or have they rigged

[Sarah Jones]

the system so much that that's not likely?

[Justin Jones]

I think so. I mean, there were members, I want to say, who had conscience and who did not vote for this. It was very few of them. I think it was just six of my Republican colleagues. But I think that we're hearing from Republican voters that this does not represent conservative value, that this does not represent, you know, those who believe, you know, the process should work where you can just choose your voters. You know, voters should choose who their elected officials are. It shouldn't be the other way around. And particularly when it's so blatant where you're drawing literally like it looks like a scorpion or like a, you know, a sea monster, where it's like starting here, a little tip in Memphis and coming out into this big leviathan 300 miles away. I mean, it's, it's going to end up with rural counties being disenfranchised as well. Because if you have a congressman who lives four hours away, they're not going to come and pay attention to your constituent relations when you need to get a passport or when you need help with unemployment. Because we're seeing that right now. We have one of the most extreme members representing Nashville, Andy Ogles. And he doesn't serve urban or rural counties. He serves himself. And what we're seeing is that he's serving his pocketbooks by stealing money. But that's a whole nother conversation. And so I think we have to build coalitions. I've seen it serving on the Agriculture Committee, these unusual coalitions that can transform our state and transform the South. And so I think there is hope. I don't lose hope in our voters, but I do think that there are some men in some rooms strategizing how to make this so that no matter what happens, they maintain control. Because Donald Trump is so desperate to hold onto the Congress because he knows that he can't win fairly. And so I think that's why as soon as the decision came out, they had these maps ready. These maps they had been working on all year, waiting for the Supreme Court to rule. And then we were back. Within less than three days, we were back in session.

[Tim Miller]

You mentioned Ogles a couple times. Corrupt.

[Sarah Jones]

Scott Desjolet jumps out to me also as somebody who's particularly corrupt, and they're both disgusting in their rhetoric and extreme and have horrific personal judgment. All of these guys are pretty bad across every possible metric. What is the thought about getting Democratic candidates into those races? Like finding somebody that can win, that can get a big tent coalition? How are you thinking about that?

[Justin Jones]

Well, you know, the deadline has passed. That's how quick this happened. So, like all the. All those races, the deadline has passed. I know there's candidates running, but again, this all happened in such an unusual way. It gave them, like, just five days to finalize who the new candidates are. When we're getting calls, we don't even know what district they live in. You know, they're like, well, I was in this district and my neighbors in this district, but I'm in this district. You know, like, that's how absurd this is. So people don't know what district that they're in. They don't know who's even running anymore. You've had candidates who've been campaigning for the whole year, and now they're in a completely new district. You know, Andy Ogles was represented, was running it for a district in Nashville, and now he's running for a District that is part of Memphis, and so that's what we're looking at right now.

[Tim Miller]

What about the courts? When you were first expelled in 23, you sued Speaker Sexton over that, was

[Sarah Jones]

dismissed by a judge. Like, what's your sense for what the legal potential opportunities are?

[Justin Jones]

Yeah, I mean, there's still, I know there was four lawsuits filed after this, but unfortunately it was the Supreme Court that created this mess and does not seem like the Supreme Court's going to get us out of this mess. We have a captured court right now, and the 6th Circuit, which we are in at the federal level, has a lot of Trump appointees, and so we don't expect a lot of relief. I believe that they blocked the injunction to try and stop these maps from taking effect. The court has already blocked that injunction from taking effect. And so that's the difference between now and the 1960s. In the 60s, during the Civil rights movement, you had a Supreme Court that was friendly to civil rights about protecting minority voice. And now we have a Supreme Court that's the opposite, that is full of stooges of the President and who don't rule based off of equal protection under law, but who rule under whatever the Trump administration says. That's what they do. And so that's what we're facing, unfortunately, with the legal system here. But we do have, there's litigation ongoing. I sued the speaker and unfortunately the court ruled that he has sovereign immunity. This Trump appointed judge ruled in my case of two years that he has sovereign immunity. And so it just emboldens them even further to do these reprehensible things that are attacks against our democracy.

[Tim Miller]

What do you feel about your fellow Dems? And you were with AOC in Selma. Are folks giving you the fight and support that you need down there?

[Sarah Jones]

I guess. What's your thought on the party broadly?

[Justin Jones]

I think everyone who showed up in Selma, you had aoc, you had Raphael Warnock, you had members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including those who are going to be impacted because we may lose up to one third of the Black Caucus at the Congressional level, which is something we haven't seen since the end of Reconstruction. And so you had Melanie Stansbury. You have folks who showed up. And I think that matters for so long, you wouldn't see these national folks coming to the Deep South. They would come to just two states, North Carolina and Georgia, the quote unquote, battleground states. And I don't think you saw them in Louisiana either, where you live and where the speaker of the House lives. But I Think you're seeing people understand the importance of the South. As AOC said, it's time for the north to pull up on the south and to stand up. Because what happens in Tennessee is connected to what happens in New York and what happens in Alabama is connected to what happens in Massachusetts. We are interconnected in this fight right now. And so I think that was encouraging to see. We do need to see more support from the federal DNC to showing up not just in swing states, but in states that, as I like to say, that will swing back and that we're fighting with everything we have with very little resources and infrastructure. I think we're seeing that shift now. I was in California. I met with the governor. They were talking about what's happening here. I know he's been vocal in lifting up what's going on. You know, we've been talking to folks across this country and people are asking how they can help. They want to show up for like a freedom summer where they come to the south and help do voter registration canvas launches. That's the type of thing we have to be thinking about right now. And so I think that gives me hope and it gives me, you know, some, some clarity to recognize that people are seeing what's at stake and they're recognizing the fierce urgency of now and they're seeing with moral clarity that if they come for one of us, they're coming for all of us.

[Tim Miller]

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[Justin Jones]

But hey, it's not a race. Grab the recipes on TikTok and start cooking.

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[Tim Miller]

I want to ask you about a

[Sarah Jones]

couple other issues that are going on down there, and people don't even really talk about it anymore because there's so much other craziness going on. But there was the Memphis Safe Task Force and the invasion of Memphis from the federal government. It feels like all that's out of the news, but what's actually happening on the ground? What's the latest with that?

[Justin Jones]

Yeah, I mean, you still have the National Guard occupying the city of Memphis you have ICE agents who are running rampant across our state, terrorizing folks who are just trying to get to work. And the difference between folks and you're again, in this house. So you know this. But for those who are not, like if you're in Minnesota or California, New York, the difference is that the state government there is trying to at least protect their people. They're not doing this in coordination. A lot of these operations are joint operations between the state government in Tennessee and the federal government. And so when ICE was doing their raids of my district, it was the Tennessee Highway Patrol who was a part of those who. It was a joint operation where they're using THP to make traffic stops about your taillight was out or your tent was too dark. And then ICE would arrest people who had committed no crime, but under those pretextual. And so that's what we're seeing here. And that's also why Stephen Miller has been championing his partnership with Tennessee. Tennessee was the first state to pass 10 bills that came directly from Stephen Miller going after undocumented immigrants. That's why the speaker was up there celebrating that partnership, because we're the first state that he said he wanted to test these bills out, like English only driver's license, about going after undocumented kids in schools, not adults, children in schools, and getting their data where then you can target their parents. All these abhorrent things that I think history is going to look very shamefully upon are happening in Tennessee right now on the National.

[Tim Miller]

I want to talk to you about this slush fund that Donald Trump has created for himself.

[Sarah Jones]

I guess he felt like he had

[Tim Miller]

emotional distress because his tax returns got leaked.

[Sarah Jones]

So he's suing his own DOJ. And his own DOJ said, hey, $1.8 billion that Donald Trump and his friends can hand out to whoever they want. We won't know what they're doing with it.

[Tim Miller]

I was kind of kicking this around

[Sarah Jones]

yesterday with my colleague Sam, about how this is just basically like reparations, but for white insurrectionists.

[Tim Miller]

That's really what it is.

[Sarah Jones]

They just want the government to hand out reparations to their friends.

[Tim Miller]

And maybe it's also corruption, too. But I just. What do you think? And is this kind of thing that

[Sarah Jones]

you think could resonate?

[Tim Miller]

What is your reaction to that?

[Justin Jones]

Yeah, I mean, that's the best way to put it, Tim. I think it should alarm us that we are basically rewarding those folks who violently attacked our nation and attacked our democratic process. We had many of them from Tennessee, the zip Tie guy. These are folks who came here who were planning to commit violence against both Democrat and Republican officials. And yet we're rewarding that. On the 250th anniversary of America, I think the amount was 1776, 1.776 billion. And it is so blatant that this is what, this is kind of like a call and response. It seems like this is what he wants to continue to instigate. And we're seeing these vigilante forces, that's what ISIS has become, this rogue police force that is at the whim of the President, not even enacting in accordance with the Constitution or within its guidelines or parameters. These insurrectionists, it seems like he's doing a call and response. Are they going to be at our polling places next come November? Are they going to be targeting brown people and black people when we try and go vote? This is what we have to worry about, particularly when the President is rewarding them financially for behavior that should have been criminally punished and was, and then he pardoned them. And so, I mean, again, it beckons back to, if you study the Confederacy and the end of reconstruction, this is what happened. And then we got Jim Crow and we got the terrorism that Jim Crow enacted across the South. And honestly, across this nation, I bet

[Sarah Jones]

you haven't thought about this, but I'm gonna throw this idea out to you. Maybe you should think about it as an opportunity.

[Tim Miller]

I don't know, you've been targeted by the government unfairly. Maybe the Democrats can get back in power and think about the types of

[Sarah Jones]

people you could, you could compensate with a slush fund.

[Tim Miller]

I don't know, the next Democratic president

[Sarah Jones]

could just go in there and go

[Tim Miller]

to the DOJ and say, I think we should settle for 3.2 billion. Think about all the different groups you

[Sarah Jones]

could hand out that money to.

[Justin Jones]

Yeah, I mean, you know, see, I don't think that our side is things like this. Like, you know, this is a man who thinks about how to enrich his pockets and his cronies and his friends. And, you know, we're thinking, how do we make this a nation at peace with itself? You know, how to, you know, post Trump, we're going to have to go through a truth and reconciliation process like South Africa after apartheid. I think we're going have to do something to heal this nation. Cuz there's a wound that's been opened and I hope we get to that point. Post Trump, because it seems like he doesn't want to leave. He has a lot of projects going on that are going to require more than four years of his time in office. And so to me, I think it's very terrifying what we may see in the years to come. We'll see what happens in November. It's clear it's not going to be a fair election. We're starting to see that now. But what extent will he go to maintain hold of power? There's nothing more dangerous than a wounded animal, and he's wounded and his ego wounded and retaliating. And so I think we have to really have our guard up, up and be prepared to respond with rapid response. But, you know, I hope that whoever is the next Democratic president will not make the same mistake and that we cannot allow this behavior to go on unchallenged without accountability. We have to hold these folks accountable. He should have never been able to run for president to begin with. Post insurrection. I think Merrick Garland has a lot of answers that the public is looking for and what he should be doing. I think Mayor Garland, he should be offering free legal support to folks who are being targeted right now, him and his firm, because he did not do his job as Attorney general. And so maybe he, he should be finding pro bono lawyers or people being targeted by the Trump administration. But I think there's going to be a lot of reckoning to happen. And I hope that Pam Bondi, Stephen Miller, all these folks in this administration will be held accountable with some type of tribunal that will hold them accountable for violating human rights and civil rights and civil liberties in this nation.

[Sarah Jones]

That's a great idea from Eric Garland. We'll pass that on.

[Tim Miller]

I don't know. I think you should apply. I mean, you've been targeted by the government. I think you qualify. Isn't that all it was? The period of 20 to 2020 to 2024 is 2023 or you were talking. I think, yeah, you are the wrong color.

[Sarah Jones]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Variations for whites.

[Sarah Jones]

Get Gloria in there, glory in there and apply.

[Justin Jones]

But it seems like, you know, when you attack the government and you're white, you get rewarded. But, you know, some of my colleagues now are up in arms about me burning the Confederate flag and calling me an insurrectionist. So if you, if you, you know, I think it's telling as well that they're more concerned with the burning of a Confederate flag than they are about the burning down of our democracy. I think that shows us what they really care about and that these are neo confederates and we cannot, you know, that is not alarmist. That's not a far jump it's the reality. If you study history and you study this time of deconstruction that we're in, they're just following the same playbook as the competitors when they retook control of the south after reconstruction. And it's the same if we don't act. It's gonna be the same end of enacting this white power structure. But I want to be clear too, in doing this, they're targeting black and brown communities. But who's gonna be hurt are not just black and brown people, our poor white rural friends and fellow Tennesseans and fellow Southerners who their only grocery store is Dollar General. They're defunding their public schools. They're making it so that you can't get your prescriptions if you want to afford your groceries. I mean, these are the same folks. At the same time, he's pushing out the slush fund. He's saying we can't help people who are struggling from the tariffs. The farmers that he's enacted who are struggling from rising input and output costs. I serve on ag committee. Farmers have been screwed over the most by this administration. And so I just want to be clear that he's going after black and morale people, but all of us will get hurt in the end.

[Tim Miller]

What do you hear from the farmers down there? Have you heard from any Trump supporting farmers who are pissed?

[Justin Jones]

Yeah, well, I was just at the Supreme Court within a very unusual coalition of Maha moms and farmers because they feel betrayed by Trump where he's selling out to the pesticide corporations. There's a bill in Congress and also a lawsuit at the Supreme Court about giving immunity to pesticide corporations who are making our farmers and our communities sick. And the Trump administration siding with these foreign pesticide corporations like Bayer and Monsanto at the expense of Maha and all these people who had all this trust and belief in him. So I'm seeing people who feel buyer's remorse. I'm talking to them as well as the farmers who are. We lost 400 farms in Tennessee last year, 400 family farms, because of the rising costs and the climate crisis, but also because of the tariff wars where our soybean farmers had so many contracts with USAID and also had contracts and trade agreements with, with China and all these other countries that are now been eliminated. And so Trump is an anti farmer president. He's somebody who's destroying agriculture, particularly small family farms. And you're hearing that type of remorse. And I think it's important for us to not go to these communities and say, well, we told you so. But to say, welcome to this coalition. We want to build together, because now it's an opportunity and an opening to organize, not an opportunity to be. We were right, you were wrong. But to say we're learning together and this administration is harmful to all of us. And we have to be clear that this is an administration that serves white supremacists and corporate sellouts, but does not serve the people, whether you live in an urban or rural community.

[Sarah Jones]

Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, if this isn't the moment for reaching out to them and winning allies, I don't know what is. With all the way the administration's been hiring them, I wanted to just play

[Tim Miller]

for you one thing that the vice president was saying about the slush fund

[Sarah Jones]

on Tuesday afternoon and get your reaction to that.

[Vice President Kamala Harris]

One of the interesting things about the American media is there is a fascination. If you go to any American law school, there are these, you know, prisoner rights clinic. There are people who objectively committed heinous crimes. But the American media and the American legal academy has decided that even though they committed bad crimes, their sentence was disproportionate, they were mistreated in some way. You know who never, ever gets an ounce of sympathy when it comes to that disproportionate sentencing is people who voted for Donald Trump and participated in the January 6th protest.

[Tim Miller]

No sympathy for the January 6rioters.

[Sarah Jones]

Too much sympathy for, you know, other people who have gone to prison and, you know, done what they could to

[Tim Miller]

pay back their debt to society, etc.

[Sarah Jones]

He didn't mention the racist, but I think we have a. I think we have a mental image of who he's talking about.

[Justin Jones]

Yeah, I mean, I wonder what would have happened if J.D. vance would have stayed in that chamber on January 6th and wasn't escorted out. You see pictures of Republicans, lawmakers cowering because they knew that these people were a threat to their safety. I mean, why did they hang a gallows outside the Capitol? It wasn't as welcome mat. It was clear to be used for violence. And So I think J.D. vance, again, represents somebody who he doesn't even recognize anymore. Because if you study the J.D. vance before he was vice president and the J.D. vance now, it's completely two different people. And so I think he's having a soul crisis right now. There's a hole down the middle of his soul. He doesn't even know who he is is. But it's clear that there is sympathy. We have two systems of justice in this country, if you're white and an insurrectionist, you get grace and sympathy. And then if you're black or a person of color, you get what we're seeing here in Tennessee tomorrow, an execution. A man who even clergy and Kim Kardashian are calling for the governor to stop his execution. He's gonna be executed here tomorrow in Tennessee. No grace, no sympathy, even though he has mental issues and things like that. And so it's just so clear who this administration serves. I mean, J.D. vance is somebody who's auditioning to be, I guess, the inheritor of this MAGA movement, which we know is never going to happen, no matter how many boots he licks. That's not going to happen, JD and so just might as well have a little bit of integrity and ask the former vice president what that looks like. But I think it's very clear what trajectory we were on. And I just want to say this on the record, that we should be cognizant, because what they're doing this kind of dog whistle for, this call and response, is going to create issues of violence that will arise around election time as we go forward. Because they're giving people a license to commit this behavior and to be excuse for it. And I think we should be terrified of what that will mean going forward. Because if people feel like they can commit something like January 6th and be rewarded, what does that mean for other people who will be inspired to commit similar acts of violence against our communities and against our democracy?

[Sarah Jones]

That's such an important point because it's a threat forward, not just back. I mean, it's outrageous and enraging that they would pay off these people and that my tax dollars, the hard earned tax dollars, people who go out there and work for a living, work harder than me in a podcast or paying like a percentage of their paycheck to these people at Storm the Capitol. That's outrageous. But like, your point you're making about the message that it sends going forward is pretty alarming.

[Tim Miller]

I noticed.

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[Sarah Jones]

Recently, you did something that I'm wishing more and more Dems are doing, particularly in this moment. I think in the same way that it's kind of a good time to reach out to rural communities, I think

[Tim Miller]

it's a good time to reach out to Trump supporters in general because he has betrayed them in a lot of

[Sarah Jones]

ways and they might not be getting that information.

[Tim Miller]

You had a little back and forth with Sean Hannity that was going around social media. It was pretty funny. Talk about that. Like, why are you doing that? Why are you going on Hannity? Like, what's the goal?

[Sarah Jones]

What's the opportunity?

[Justin Jones]

Yeah, I mean, I think we have to meet them where they are and speak to them in a language they understand. Sean Hannity loves to bring on Democrats who we can beat down on and perpetuate these lies. If you're on his show, one thing I noticed is he turns his mic up 10 cranks higher than yours, so you have to even speak up so loud to even be heard, because he just spends the time talking over you because he knows that he doesn't have the truth, so he has to yell. And so I went on Fox because I thought it was important to speak directly to the people being screwed over. I talked to people about how this man is being paid $45 million a year to create fear, to make them fearful of their immigrant neighbors. Instead of recognizing the threat from his friends in the White House, he went through a list of all the crimes that immigrants create. It was like assault, sexual assault against children. I was like, I said, sean, are you going through Trump's crimes? Whose crimes are you going through? Because we want to make clear that this is not a law and order administration. These are the biggest criminals in our nation who are now been empowered to be in the White House. And so Sean Hannity, again, is just a talking mouthpiece who gets paid so much to do so much harm to this nation. And we had to go on spaces like that to lift up an alternative voice and to push back and to do so unapologetically and without compromise, because we're not going to change his mind. But maybe somebody on that show will hear again that someone like me is not their enemy. But people like him who want to make us enemies of each other are really the danger to our democracy because they want us to create a country where you're fearful of your neighbor and that you are suspicious of your neighbor. That if you watch Fox News, you get your fight or flight light activated consistently. Because it's like, be aware of this person, this person, this person. And it's like, it's. That's. They. They prey on fear because that's all they have.

[Tim Miller]

I want to close with this. I gotta say, it was kind of dispiriting. It's been a little.

[Sarah Jones]

I mean, I'm a downer podcast usually,

[Tim Miller]

but I heard you in Nashville. You can get a room going, you can get people excited, but it's just

[Sarah Jones]

a tough moment for that, right? Like, if you feel like the democratic voice is being silenced and nobody has representation, if you feel like the courts are not going to be a useful vehicle for addressing ways in which we are treated unjustly, where are you finding hope? Where are you finding the energy for it? I mean, you could just kind of. You can move out to, you know, I don't know, you could get. You could find yourself a little spot

[Tim Miller]

on a farm or something and kind

[Sarah Jones]

of hang out and vibe out, check

[Tim Miller]

out from society, live your life. You know, smoke the hookah, whatever brings you joy.

[Sarah Jones]

Go on, hike.

[Justin Jones]

I mean, I think what gives us hope right now in this moment is people power. I think seeing people turning out people. When I was just in Montgomery, I saw grandmothers who had been there 60 years ago, but I also saw a new generation of voices. I saw people who are black, white, Latino, Native American, Asian. I've been saying that even here at our Capitol, when they pass these maps. And I think what they're going to do is create the atmosphere in which we see even more energy in our movement to get these folks out of power. When the Dred Scott decision came out in the Supreme Court, dehumanizing black folks and saying that there's no rights that black people have that white people have to follow, Frederick Douglass said, let this decision not dispirit us or dishearten us, but let it embolden and inflame our movement, I think this is the same opportunity in the South. We have a saying that a dying mule kicks the hardest. And this mule of white supremacist terrorists dying, which is why this is a death rattle. This is the dying breath of the Confederacy maga. It's just a new manifestation of the Confederacy and we defeated them before and we can do it again. But it's going to require long term organizing, long term infrastructure building and recognizing that's to be like a microwave instantaneous shift. But we're seeing it. I mean, if Trump was confident in his power, he would not have to cheat to rig maps. He knows that he can't win fairly. And so I think the hope is again, that this is a very fragile administration and regime and that if we continue pushing, the way to cut down a tree is you got to keep sawing in the same place. We got to keep sawing in the same place. I think we can take this tree down and we can take down this new Confederacy. And so that's where my hope is. And I just think we have to have practices of care. So, you know, like music, being with community and a lot of this online is important. I love, you know, I love podcasts, I love being here with you virtually. But there's nothing that will give you more hope than being in a room with people in person and being out in the streets in person with people. That's the most important thing, is to show up in person. Because this online stuff, if you go on X, if you go on any of these apps, TikTok, I mean, they're spending money to make you feel hopeless. You know, that's their strategy. And you see things that are dispiriting. You see people fighting each other. You see racist people. You know, like the man here in Nashville who's calling people the N word, who's now in court. I mean, that's all my timeline was. And I'm like, this is not. Not the America I believe in. But when I went out into the streets, that's where I found hope. And so I think we have to just show up together and build together in person. And I think that we will outlast these fascists and these confederates. And I look forward to seeing you and celebrating on the other side of this, brother, and back to some type of community in which we're not constantly in confusion and chaos, but we can build and really think about not just us, but I know you have children about the next generation. That's really why we're doing this. It's not about us in this time, but it's for those who are coming up after us.

[Sarah Jones]

Amen, man. I appreciate that.

[Tim Miller]

Get out of your house, people. You know, get off. Get off this thing for a little

[Sarah Jones]

bit, because it is.

[Tim Miller]

It is.

[Sarah Jones]

It is a downer.

[Tim Miller]

All right, man, well, if there are things we can do and elevate here, you just. You don't hesitate, all right, to let me know.

[Sarah Jones]

And if you find yourself down in Louisiana, you let me know.

[Tim Miller]

All right, man.

[Justin Jones]

Appreciate you, brother.

[Tim Miller]

All right, thanks so much to Justin Jones. Appreciate that, guy. We have our live show in San Diego tonight, so on tomorrow's show, you'll get a little bit of fresh potting and a bonus segment from San Diego. I don't know, whatever's the most fun part. We'll let you guys have on the podcast tomorrow, and then we'll have podcasts

[Sarah Jones]

regularly scheduled on Friday.

[Tim Miller]

So appreciate you all very much. See you tomorrow. Peace.

[Justin Jones]

Although I am black Problems got me pessimistic Brothers and sisters keep messing up

[Sarah Jones]

why does it have to be so damn tough? I don't know where I can go

[Tim Miller]

The Borg podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.