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A Moral Outrage: Mass Deportation & Starving Gaza | The Joy Reid Show, Jul 25, 2025 Episode
01:25:02
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- [00:01]
Joy Reid
This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Between two factor authentication, strong passwords and a VPN, you try to be in control of how your info is protected. But many other places also have it and they might not be as careful. That's why Lifelock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year. Verify. Visit lifelock.com podcast for 40% off. Terms apply. Okay. Hello, hello, hello everybody. Good evening and Happy Friday TGIF and welcome to the Joy Re Show. We have got a big show for you tonight and I promise you, I promise you, we are going to get to talk about south park and how poor little Donald is just crashing out because they made fun of him. Because of course they made fun of him. Liz Winstead, the woman who co created the Daily show, and former Watergate prosecutor Jill Winebanks will join us. And journalist and human rights advocate Rula Jabril will be here to talk about the horrors happening in Gaza where people are literally starving to death while the world just sits by and watches. Which brings me to my opening argument. Now, I'm going to say something that may be controversial, but I wholly believe it to be true. Unfortunately, and it is this. At this point in time, in the year of our Lord 2025, I would argue that the United States and Israel are two of the most flagrant human rights violators on earth. Neither country can call itself a legitimate protection protector of human rights. And both countries are currently engaged in what sure looks like active and aggressive ethnic cleansing. In the case of Israel, through planned deliberate starvation and bombing of Gaza and violent settler activities in the occupied west bank. And in the U.S. masked agents, presumably ICE, but not confirmably law enforcement at all, are showing up everywhere. At schools, graduations, Disneyland, parks, hospitals, places of worship, Home Depots, anywhere they think that they can find non white migrants to detain, arrest and slate for deportation. And while people who voted for this policy insist that they only want people who are not doing it the right way when it comes to immigration to be kicked out of the country, how do they explain ICE showing up at literal immigration hearings and dragging people away in handcuffs as recently as happened in New York City in footage that we are playing courtesy of Culture 20. Let's take a look at that back. The judge just gave cases. He decided just gave it to me.
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Jill Winebanks
The game is next for.
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Joy Reid
God.
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Jill Winebanks
That could have been me.
- [03:55]
Joy Reid
That could have been me. I was here at one time. Heartbreaking right. Those people were doing it the right way. They were literally in immigration court trying to do it the right way. And still that's what happened to them. People being literally dragged down the hallway, slated for deportation. And you heard that last guy, there was a lawyer, there was someone in the hall that was saying he's literally making an asylum claim and has a court date, he has an actual court date. And yet he might end up in Ron DeSantis's concentration camp for all we know. So explain that to me, please. Explain it to me like I'm five, because it sure looks like literal persecution of brown immigrants, overwhelmingly likely Christians, by masked agents of the state who are turning them into undocumented people. To be clear, these are people going for their hearing, so they're turning them into undocumented people so that they can kidnap them and expel them from the United States. And always keep in mind, whenever you see footage like that, always keep in your head the year 2042 when the US will officially lose its white majority. When you see pictures like that, remember that date. Because there is a point here when you hear things like this regime plotting to put 180,000 migrants in leg monitors, like criminals being in the country without documents or staying over your visa, that is a civil offense. You're not supposed to end up with a leg monitor. They're going to do that, I guess, so they can spy on them while they still continue to work in the fields for the mega farms. Or when you hear that they're making children go to immigration court without their parents by themselves. Or when they're arresting the cook at your favorite restaurant or the dishwasher or the owner. Meanwhile, more than 200 men who were shipped by the US to the notorious Sea Cot prison in El Salvador and to have now been returned to Venezuela were essentially tortured at that prison because of us. They say that they faced physical and psychological abuse. Let me read from this story from the BBC. And this is about migrants who were tortured at Sea Cot. I'm going to quote from that article now. Venezuela has announced an investigation into claims that migrants sent to the prison in El Salvador from the US suffered human rights abuses. More than 250 Venezuelans were repatriated to near Caracas on Friday. They had been detained in El Salvador since March following their deportation from the United States. Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab said there had been systemic torture inside the prison which included sexual abuse, daily beatings and rotten prison food. El Salvador is yet to respond to the claims. During a press Conference, Saab presented testimonies and images appearing to show detainees with injuries, including bruising and missing teeth. These claims have not been independently verified by the BBC. Venezuela will investigate El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, Justice Minister Gustavo Viatoro and Head of Prisons Osiris Luna Mesa. The Attorney General urged the International Criminal Court, the UN Human Rights Council and relevant bodies in the Americas to do the same. Venezuela is currently facing an investigation by the ICC in the Hague for allegations similar to those the country is leveling at El Salvador, including torturing prisoners and denying them access to legal representation. The Venezuelans were deported in March under the 1798 Alien Enemies act, which gives a US president power to detain and deport natives or citizens of enemy nations or without usual processes. They were accused of being in a gang, something many of the men's relatives and lawyers denied. They were held terrorism confinement center known as cecot, which was originally built to hold accused gang members, end of quote. And so the country accused of human rights violations in the icc, Venezuela, is accusing another country, El Salvador, of human rights violations and they're saying that country's leaders should be dragged in. I think the edit that I would give to Venezuela is they might want to drag Donald Trump, Tom Homan, Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem and maybe Ron Desantis in front of the Hague as well. Because in this country's version of ccot, there's been more torture. A July report from Human Rights Watch has found filthy, overcrowded, vile conditions at immigrant concentration camps in Florida. Besides the flood prone concentration camp, the Florida fascist governor and his friends, proudly nicknamed Alligator Alcatraz, which by the way has begun shipping people out of the country already. The report includes the following horror stories and I'm going to quote from this Human Rights Watch report. Quote, one man described being denied medical care at Crome Detention center, which is in South Florida for a strangulated hernia until he collapsed in pain. The doctor at the hospital told me that if I had not come in then my intestines would have likely ruptured. He said I had to throw myself on the floor just to get help. He said he saw officers hog tie and beat detainees who refused to board a transfer bus out of chrome. After a peaceful protest, they jumped on them, tied them up and dragged them out. Another detainee said she was punished for seeking mental health support. If you ask for help, they isolate you in solitary confinement. If you cry, they might take you to solitary confinement for two weeks so people stay silent. She said she witnessed the death of Marie ange Blaze, a 44 year old Haitian woman, after the staff delayed calling for medical help. Quote, we started yelling for help, but the guards ignored us, she said. By the time the rescue team came, she was not moving. In one particularly degrading incident, detainees at FDC were forced to eat while shackled with their hands behind their backs. We had to bend over and eat off the chairs with our mouths like dogs, said Harpenter Chaan, a British entrepreneur who had been detained by ICE at a regular immigration appointment. Chowhan, who suffers from diabetes and heart disease, said he was denied insulin at various points during his detention at Chrome, FDC and btc, including at BTC for nearly a week, after which he collapsed and was taken to the hospital. Can you tell the difference between what you heard happening at Seecott and what you heard happening in Florida? Where are the human rights organizations? Where's the International Court of Justice? Who can hold us to account when the regime in charge of us and their deputies, governors and minions are all human rights violators? And I mean, you know what, maybe you don't care about all that. Maybe you're still mad about Latinos for Trump. So you feel like, you know, these brown people are getting what they voted for. But you notice I did mention one of those people who was British and the other one was Haitian because, you know, it's not just brown people. Right. 5% of undocumented immigrants are black, which means that black immigrants stand to make up one in five deportations. Joining me now, Nana Gyamfi. She is the executive director of the Black alliance for Just Immigration, nicknamed Baji. It's the largest black led racial justice and immigrant rights organization in the US Alongside her is Angela Fernandez, executive director of Safe Passage Product Project. Welcome ladies. Thank you very much. I am going to start with you, Angela, because these, your organization, Safe Passage Project, is dedicated to the idea that people should be able to safely immigrate, safely migrate. What do you make of these stories that make it sound like the US Is both delivering people to torture in El Salvador and lots of other countries where we're sending people potentially, but also potentially subjecting people to human rights abuses.
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Angela Fernandez
In the U.S. no, absolutely. I mean, it is a policy where if you are economically poor, you are going to be punished and then our government, or rather companies are going to profit from this punishment. You know, the term that comes to mind is necropolitics, which is, you know, of course, the philosopher from Cameroon who coined it, which, you know, which, which says, let's look at society and political power and how that determines who is worthy of protection and who is deserving of dying. And so this is what we're looking at with the immigration system. But the immigration system is just simply an extension of a system that has done something very similar in our criminal justice system. It has also done something very similar in our foreign policy. I mean, when I hear reports from Human Rights Watch that has described the absolutely inhumane conditions in Alligator Alcatraz, it reminds me of Abu Ghraib. It is all connected. And and so to be able to see this and to witness this is, quite frankly, shameful.
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Joy Reid
Yeah. And I will note that Ron Desantis, back when he was in the military, apparently one of the things that he did was to work in some of our detainment facilities that we used for Iraqis, including the one in Cuba. And so he has some experience with the mistreatment of detainees. And apparently he's relishing and loving doing it on his own soil. Nana, let's talk about this, because I mentioned that Haitian immigrant who's caught up in the system in Chrome, and Chrome isn't even quote, unquote, Alligator Alcatraz, which I would say is a concentration camp, that's a facility that's been there for a really long time, primarily used to house Haitians, including Haitian children. And Florida has a couple of those that are notorious and apparently even worse than the tent camp that they've built for you. As you listen to these stories, how do you unpack the fact that a lot of black folks are dismissing these stories because they think it's just brown people?
- [14:13]
Nana Gyamfi
Well, first of all, thank you so very much, Joy, for having me on. Clearly, it's not just brown people. That is clearly the case. And we know as we're looking at the ending allegedly of Haitian TPS in February, at the beginning of February, that you're going to see a lot more black folks. There's already black folks. We're going to see a lot more who, because their temporary protective status is ended, are going to be caught up. When we look at detention prisons, particularly in the south, we should really note that most detention prisons are also prisons in the criminal sanction system. Places like Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, they're notorious for having the worst of the worst. And it's not an accident that you have these same prisons that are being used to hold Haitians, to hold Cameroonians, to hold other black immigrants and to hold African Americans. And so as we're talking and so when we look at what's happening abroad and taking people to prisons in El Salvador. Look, we got prisons with those same type of horrific conditions right here in the United States. And we look, see Alabama, where they're talking about passing legislation to send people who are convicted in criminal court, right, not immigration court, to these type of detention, concentration camps within the state, within the country and outside of the country. Black folks should have, you know, this should give you cause for pause about whether this is your fight and whether, you know, they're not like us.
- [15:44]
Joy Reid
And, you know, Angela, I do want to come back to this because, you know, let's just say it was just brown folks. I think, you know, for African Americans, we need to understand that the train is never late. They will start with other people. They always get to us anyway. But what is being done to Latinos in this country? Because Latinos are the focus, because Latinos have the numbers. There are actually, at this point, more Latinos in the United States than black folks. And so these people can count. They can see the numbers, and they understand that it is actually Latinos in their mind, that pose a demographic threat to them. Which in my mind is why they no longer care that Cuban Americans are conservatives who vote Republican or Venezuelan Americans are conservatives who vote Republican. They know they've got numbers, and they know they can. If they get rid of tps for, you know, protected status for all the Cubans and all the Venezuelans, that gives them more than a million, well over a million people to get rid of. How inside of the, you know, the immigration protection world, is that conversation? Is that conversation happening? That people are waking up to the fact that when they said they want to get rid of people, they actually meant some of the people who support them the most.
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Angela Fernandez
You know, it's interesting. I think that there is definitely buyer's remorse happening in some of the sectors of the Latino community that supported the Trump administration. I think that this concept of. And it's historical, whenever an immigrant group comes to the United States, they want to close the door behind them. And what I think they did not realize that they're actually closing the door in front of them. And that is what's happening right now. I mean, you have people that are being deported that supported the Trump administration because they thought, wrongly, they did not realize that they were being used in order for him to win this presidency. And so those conversations are happening, and I think there are many people that are regretting their vote.
- [17:40]
Joy Reid
And I would say none of it. That that would go for a lot of black immigrants. You know, I grew an immigrant Family. And I can tell you black immigrants can be just as conservative because there is this thing when you are an immigrant that you want to be as American as possible. You want to be as a rah rah, flag waving American. And so a lot of African immigrants, Caribbean immigrants, Haitian Americans. I used to sneak into the, you know, Blacks for Trump events for George, for George W. Bush back in 2004. Most of the people in that room are Haitian American. And so there is this thing that people think they can latch on to the conservative Family Values Party and then they'll be seen as more American. And instead they find out, oh, no, you're just the blacks that Trump is going to accuse of eating pets. So I'm wondering if that conversation is happening in black immigrant communities that they also, in many ways fell for the Okie Doke.
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Nana Gyamfi
Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I think the numbers are not the same as when we're talking about Latino communities, but certainly the numbers there and, you know, we're talking now, the conversations are about how did that happen. Right. Because we also see when we look at black Americans who fell for the Okie doke, there's similar things that are happening, right? There's like identities that people want to hold on to to the winning team. We're number one, as you said, the red, white and blue and all of that. And so we bought into that. And people come here for the American dream. That's what they're told is happening here. Right. And so part of what we do as Baji is to try to get fol. Understand that actually when you come into the United States, it's like you walk into somebody's house, you can't just go into their fridge and start cutting up and eating food and not trying to figure out what's going on in here, who's fighting who, who's getting oppressed, who's not getting food. You got to come in and understand what it is to be black in the United States, connect that to what it is to be black in the rest of the the world that you come from and understand that you don't come here and jump into some white land of milk and honey and you come here, you become a black person, and that means some things. And you got to get information.
- [19:42]
Joy Reid
But can I just go through and the other piece of it? And you and I have talked about this before. A lot of African Americans actually don't realize how many of the people that they think of as African American are also. They're one generation or they're Themselves, you know, they're Caribbean American or African. Can you talk about a few of these cases? Because you talk about this so eloquently that, you know, there are a lot of people, there are a lot of hip hop artists. A lot of people don't realize, you know, Busta Rhymes, Jamaican, you know what I mean? His parents are, you know, you had a lot of hip hop.
- [20:08]
Nana Gyamfi
I was just about to say Busta Rhymes. Absolutely. Busta Rhymes, Biggie. When Nipsey Hussle passed away, people were like, what are all these Eritrean people doing here in these clothes, right? Like, people were confused about that. When Cicely Tyson passed away, there were people that were shocked. They did not realize that she was some St. Kitts and Nevis, right? Some of our favorites, like Audre Lorde, Shirley Chisholm, second generation, they call us now, folks who were born here. 20% of black folks, one out of every five. Think about the five black people. You know, at least one out of every five are either an immigrant or they were born. Born in this country to children of immigrants. And that is important because I think sometimes we. We act as if these are people that are outside of us because they don't say it. You know, Joy, I whine around snatching people's immigrant status and making the big reveals because a lot of don't know. And I think it's important. You know, I think it's important.
- [21:06]
Joy Reid
And I want to go through a couple of stories to just really stay with you just one moment. Talk to me about Alex Maganda.
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Nana Gyamfi
So Alex Maganda is a person, Mexican, Afro, Latino, who was. Went to Morehouse, was actually recruited to come down to Morehouse. He has now been caught up in this ICE raid. I think it's very shocking to people, particularly because they know him, right? So it's interesting because this is not a person that people don't know that was in the shadows. He was not in the shadows. He was out here with the rest of us, right? Living his. His. Living his life. And now he finds himself in ICE detention, looking at a situation in which, though he came here as a child, though this is the place that he knows he's been here for over 25 years. That, you know, he came at the age of five or something, that now finds himself in a place in which he's being told, you don't belong here. You aren't other. You are something else and must be punished for that. Sent outside of this country, regardless of your family ties, regardless of your community ties, it's an example of what is happening to people across this country, which is not what this administration said it was going to do. What it said it was going to do, it shouldn't have been doing. But this is certainly not what this administration said it was going to do. And I think that's why it's so shocking to the friends and family.
- [22:29]
Joy Reid
And we have, we have a headline here of Jermaine Thomas. And this one, to me is probably the most wild story out of all of them. Jermaine Thomas is somebody who is now stuck in Jamaica, but he is American, like John McCain was American. Can you explain?
- [22:48]
Nana Gyamfi
Yeah. Jermaine Thomas was born in Germany to a father, you know, parents obviously, but a father who was U.S. citizen, naturalized U.S. citizen, who was in the military. That's why they were in Germany, born in a military hospital on a military base, Normally, like John McCain would just be considered to be a regular US citizen, finds out that, no, according to this administration, what's happening now, he's not a US Citizen. And so he is deported to Jamaica because that is where his father was born, even though his father naturalized to become a US Citizen. Jamaica says he doesn't belong to Jamaica. Germany says he doesn't belong to Germany. The United States is saying that in spite of the fact that he was born on a US base at a US hospital to a US veteran at the time in service, military person, that he's not usan. So you know what? He is stateless. Imagine. So again, the way they're redefining citizenship, particularly in this birthright way that people thought was only going to impact undocumented children of undocumented mamas. No, that's not how it's turning out. And when we see this assault on birthright citizenship, again, everyone should be concerned about, but particularly African Americans, because without birthright citizenship, there will be 40 something million stateless black people in this country who are subject to be deported wherever this regime can get to bend to its will.
- [24:13]
Joy Reid
Yeah. And I want you all to think about this for just a moment because there's a case heading back to the Supreme Court. They didn't decide the merits of whether or not the President of the United States could on his own, negate the 14th amendment. Do understand that if you are African American, let's say you have no Caribbean background, you're people go all the way back to enslavement in the 17th century. The only reason you're a citizen is the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments. You were not a citizen when the Constitution was written. If Someone is an originalist that don't include you. The only reason you're a citizen, if you are an African American that has, again, no Caribbean, no African immediate background, you're just. And you go back, you're one of those Ados people. Your citizenship is totally dependent on the 14th amendment. Amendment, because that amendment said that no person shall be denied citizenship based on their former servitude. Right. And just that being born here makes you a citizen. It was designed, even though Clarence Thomas wants to pretend it wasn't, because he's very ashamed of who he is. It was designed specifically for black people. So if it is overruled, in which Donald Trump can then determine who's a Citizen and the 14th amendment is no longer operative, which you should expect John Roberts and his friends will do if they are told by Donald Trump to do it, and he does want them to do it, because they'll do anything he says, they'll do anything Leonard Leo says, then he could literally determine the citizenship by fiat of every African American, too. Anybody he wants, he could say, you're not a citizen anymore. I reduce your citizenship. I end it. You got to go to El Salvador. I want to bring in Angela. I'm sorry, were you going to say something, Nana, before I go to Angela?
- [25:45]
Nana Gyamfi
Yeah, I was going to say just briefly, because I think people think that they're going to have the papers, the inside of the Bible, the who and the what. How many people, black people, African Americans, can't get real ID because the government decides what the paperwork is going to be. So how are you going to prove you went back to 1863? You are not. You're not.
- [26:02]
Joy Reid
And also, and I want to come to you on this, Angela, because this is the issue for our brown brothers and sisters, because I personally, we should care. And I honestly don't care how your. Your family, because if you are getting thrown out of the country right now, you didn't vote for nothing because you can't vote. Undocumented people can't vote. They can't register to vote. And trust me, they're not going to register to vote, because then they would be putting their hand up and saying, hey, I'm here pretending to be a registered voter when I'm not. So they're not going to do that. So none of those people who are getting dragged out voted or registered to vote. So they didn't vote for Trump. They weren't singing the I will vote for Donald Trump song. They're getting dragged the hell out of here. But the Other piece that I want to talk to you about, Angela, is that now it is on site. What ICE is doing is, number one, getting IRS records, trying to find other ways of getting at people's information, your tax records, et cetera. But they're also, Tom Holman said one of the criteria for picking people up is visual identification, meaning if you are Latino at all, or even if you're like Indian American, you look Latino. That now appears to be probable cause. Is that what we're facing here? Basically massive racial profiling of every Latino?
- [27:05]
Angela Fernandez
I mean, it's what's been happening and it's absolutely abhorrent. And until, and unfortunately, the only tools we really have at the moment is the court system for as flawed as it is now granted. For example, today there was a headline that birthright citizenship has been blocked again for a third time and there's a class action suit. So there, there are mechanisms and tools yet for those that are profiled, arrested, deported to seek out or rather rendered to see cot. It's, you know, it's a, it's, it's too late. And so, you know, it's an actual, it's a really abhorrent situation that we're in right now.
- [27:43]
Joy Reid
And can we talk? Because if you were deported to seek, I understand this is more than 200 people. 60 Minutes went through the numbers when they finally figured out who had been sent there. There was a makeup artist who literally fled from Venezuela in the first place because he was a fear of persecution because of his sexual orientation. He's now back in Venezuela. There were people there who had not lived in Venezuela since they were children. And 70% of the people who were sent there had no criminal record at all. And even if they had a criminal record, even if they did have a criminal record, they didn't get a court date. So talk to me about the dangers these people may face now that they're back in Venezuela, where Venezuela said they're going to file human rights charges, but they're a human rights violator too.
- [28:29]
Angela Fernandez
Absolutely. Listen, there's a political component to this as well, Right. So the Venezuelan government is definitely propping them on camera in a positive light, but we don't know what's going to happen after that. And when someone comes to this country seeking asylum and they have to prove credible fear, the vast majority of them are valid. I mean, absolutely vast majority of them are valid. So I am very concerned about what's going to happen to these Venezuelans who have been sent back to Venezuela who had valid claims of asylum. I mean, the thought of them thinking about where they're going to go next to seek safety. I mean, the United States is no longer the country to seek safety.
- [29:11]
Joy Reid
Now.
- [29:12]
Angela Fernandez
The United States is now beginning to be a country where people are going to flee and seek asylum in, let's say, Europe from the United States, if you're a member of the LGBTQ community, for example. So it's just the things are flipping in such a crazy way in the specifics of the Venezuelan. The Venezuelans that have been sent back to Venezuela, I would imagine they're going to look for other countries to be able to seek protection.
- [29:41]
Joy Reid
Absolutely. And the same goes, Nana, for people who are sent back to Haiti. You're sending people back in the middle of what's essentially a civil war. They're sending people back to countries to Cuba. They fled from Cuba the first place. I doubt they want to be back there. I'm going to give you the last word on this because it definitely feels like it's time for us to, you know, suit up on this, because this is now DEFCON 1. This is not something that's going to happen. This is happening.
- [30:09]
Nana Gyamfi
Absolutely. It's happening right now. It is the expansion of the police state in a way that people cannot imagine. We're going back to lists, we're going back to invading privacy. We're going to. At suspending due process. We're going to disappearing people with masked men. I mean, this is the kind of thing that people wouldn't imagine would ever happen in this country, and we cannot allow it to be normalized. So we're gonna have to step up right now and do what needs to be done. We have a very short window. I don't think we have six months to get it together. And so, you know, folks need to be reaching out to organizations, reaching out to individuals making themselves available. It's go time right now because it is coming for you. It is not something that is just going to be for your neighbor. But even if it was just for your neighbor, it would be enough. We cannot lose our humanity. This is a time for us to step forward with the humanity, the love of the people, human rights, and human dignity that this country claims that it has. And to show that, we've got to show proof of concept with respect to what the people can do, whether the government's willing to do it or not.
- [31:18]
Joy Reid
Let me let you both tell folks how they can get more information on what you do. Nana, I'll start with you.
- [31:24]
Nana Gyamfi
So more information, please. Reach out to Our website, you can look there, bagi.org b a j I.o r g. You can also go to Insta Baji on Instagram and check us out there. And you can follow me turneynana everywhere.
- [31:39]
Joy Reid
Angela, but before I let you give your stats as well, the concern I think a lot of people have too, is the little kids that are being deported on their own. Any way that we're figuring out what's happening to them, there are. They're already losing people. What happens to these kids, I mean.
- [31:55]
Angela Fernandez
When they get deported back to. And you know, if it is back to their country? Because we know of cases where people are deported to the wrong country, they do unfortunately get lost. We already have cases before this administration where a child loses their asylum claim, get deported and get killed. So, you know, these are the stakes that we are, we are dealing with right now. So it's, it is the worst outcome for, for, for a child if they were to get deported to their country of origin.
- [32:27]
Nana Gyamfi
Because for a child or for a.
- [32:29]
Angela Fernandez
Teenager to leave their country, they, they are truly in danger in their country because the bravery that is required to get up and leave is just tremendous. And so they are truly fleeing danger indeed.
- [32:48]
Joy Reid
And how do people get more information about your organization, Angela?
- [32:51]
Angela Fernandez
So our website is safepassageproject.org and they can go to our Instagram safepassage project and please go to our website and our Instagram and you'll learn more about the work that we do protecting and defending and providing legal representation and social work support to thousands of young kids in New York.
- [33:12]
Joy Reid
Thank you both. Thank you, ladies, very, very much. Nana Gyamphy and Angela Fernandez, thank you. And I think the point they made that is so key, the last one that Angela made I think is important. Don't sleep on how much fortitude and bravery and courage it takes to leave your home where you don't want to leave and to save your life and to save your children, to save your family, to have a chance to survive, to go thousands of miles away. By the way, a lot of folks like to, like to say that that is what makes this country great, that people did that coming from Europe. But they don't seem to recognize the bravery. When the people are brown and black, weirdly enough, or Asian, they don't seem to see it the same way. Thank you both. I want to now move on to our next human rights abuser, and that, of course, is Israel, where the already adjudicated war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, their prime minister, and his right wing government are literally starving the nearly 2 million residents of Gaza, technically a separate but occupied nation called Palestine, as France belatedly joined 147 of the 193 UN member states, representing 75% of the international community, plus the Vatican Holy See, when Emmanuel Macron today announced that he will in fact recognize Palestine as a state. In doing that, France joins 10 countries, Mexico, Armenia, Slovenia, which is where Melania Trump is from, Ireland, Norway, Spain, the Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Barbados in being the most recent countries to officially recognize Palestine as a state since Israel began its war in Gaza in October 2023. But recognition does not stop people from starving, which thousands of Palestinians are doing right now as we speak. And the world watches helplessly. I want you to take a couple of minutes and this is a tough one to watch, but please watch this clip from ITV about the starvation that's happening in Gaza.
- [35:21]
Jill Winebanks
From the sky and imagine the desperation of people rushing forward to try to get to them. But it comes within the context of frankly a breakdown of aid distribution, although that's disputed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation Task tasked with delivering aid and fresh claims all the while about Israelis who are outside of these aid compounds and the way they essentially deal with crowd control with live firing and claims that some thousand people, according to the UN have died. Palestinians died at aid distribution sites near them or trying to get food. That figure is disputed by Israel.
- [36:01]
Joy Reid
At least, reporting there from Tel Aviv. Now all of this comes as the United nations says children in Gaza are dying. Hunger in Gaza City, one in every five is malnourished. Our international correspondent John Sparks has this report which includes distressing footage of children. If you think the site of starvation is difficult to take, then consider the sound of a starving child, a one year old who cries and whimpers for food. Her name is Sama and there's Khalid and there's Osama and there's a nine month old called Siwa in a hospital called NASA where they have virtually nothing to eat. Huda has lost half her body weight since March when Israel shut the crossings into Gaza and imposed a blockade. And the 12 year old knows she doesn't look well. This is what happened to me.
- [37:14]
Jill Winebanks
Can you help me travel abroad for treatment?
- [37:18]
Rula Jabril
I want to be like you.
- [37:20]
Joy Reid
I'm a child. Heartbreaking. Joining me now is award winning journalist, international best selling author and foreign policy analyst Rula Jabril. Rula, my friend, that was tough to watch and I'm sorry that and the chat is screaming in agony watching it. Thank you so much for Being here, let's talk about what is happening in Gaza, because at this point, the Israeli government is starving the journalists, the aid workers, and the parents and children.
- [37:52]
Jill Winebanks
Yes, it's a forced starvation. It's deliberate. It's engineered to kill as many people as possible. It's now entering a stage where it's irreversible, meaning it is now stage five. Meaning the organs of our colleagues, the journalists, the mothers, the babies, are shutting down because the body consumes itself. The immune system is completely collapsing, meaning you cannot fight infections, you cannot fight diseases, you cannot fight anything. People are collapsing in the streets. I heard today, a couple of friends of mine who live in Gaza, and one of them was telling me that she saw a father calling for people on the other side of the Egyptian port and saying, I'm willing to sell a kidney, please feed my child. People are drinking their own urine. And one of my friends is telling me if her child dies, which he's going to die because there is no baby formula. She said the only thing she's asking of us is what she can do not to lose her mind. How can she stay sane? And she's talking clearly about committing suicide because she said that watching babies disappear, literally seeing the skin and bone, and then even when they go to collect food, they get shot at by the army and then they get blamed. And the lies and the fabrication of the lies. I mean, European leaders, American leaders, waited for this famine to reach this level of irreversibility, for them to start talking about it and condemning it. But all this is performance because they can tomorrow, tomorrow cut all military aid to Israel and cut all trade with Israel, and they would immediately let food enter. It will require truly threatening to cut aid for Israel within hours to basically allow. Allow food. How do we know this? Because in the 80s, in 82, Ronald Reagan did it. He threatened the prime Minister of Israel, who was bombing to oblivion Beirut, and told him that they will cut military aid and they will cease any diplomatic relationship if they don't stop bombing Beirut within 20 minutes. Joy, they did it. So we know what needs to be done. The fact they are not doing it, it tells you something. They actually want it to continue. And all of this you are seeing is performance is basically, you know, trying to throw some meat at the people who are outraged at what we're watching in Gaza. This is the Holocaust of our time.
- [40:43]
Joy Reid
Yeah, I mean, Macron saying that he would recognize a Palestinian state. I mean, that's great. You know, most countries in the world do, but it to me doesn't seem. How does that feed a child who's starving to death? That is my problem with it.
- [40:57]
Jill Winebanks
Not only that Macron could cut any trade with, with occupied territories, with the settlements that are illegal under international law. He could comply with the ICJ orders. Meaning we have. 16 months ago, the International Court of Justice issued orders that are binding to every country around the world to start effectively pressuring Israel to stop the mass starvations. You know, the thing that is clear to us Palestinians, but also journalists who are free and independent, and I would say minorities around the world, that after Netanyahu was indicted for war crimes, especially for use of starvation as a weapon of extermination, as a weapon of war, immediately they actually doubled down on that policies. Immediately they doubled down on the starvation policies. And they start bragging about it on, in Israeli media, ministers, journalists, MPs and many of those. And they start bragging about the fact that they're killing every night and every day hundreds of Palestinians, that the world is not stopping them. They're actually voicing, verbalizing the fact that it's not their fault anymore, it's the fault of the world. That is not stopping them. They even threw on Gaza leaflets and in the leaflet, they said to the Palestinians in Gaza, even if you disappear tomorrow, the world wouldn't care about you. The west, the United States and Europe is sending us weapons and financial aid and are sending you coffins and are sending you. They're not even sending bread. I appreciate what president, the symbolism of what President Macron did, but it's not enough. It's not enough at this stage, at this point, we need to act to protect human lives. We are reaching that Schinder's List moment. Joy. This is the moment. Any life we can save from now on is a saved life. Anybody that is continue to condemn and talk and whatever, this is useless at this point. We've been begging the world, and especially Palestinian journalists, they've been filming their own destruction day in and day out, begging the world to watch, but also to comply to uphold international law. I don't know what will happen in America in four years, but I know one thing. Any Democratic leader that supported the genocide, endorsed the genocide, will never be elected. This is the moment of the Whig party in America. This is the moment. The abolitionist moment in America resembled this moment. Anyone that supported slavery was forever discarded and destroyed by the people, by the will of the people who would never wanted him or her in office. This is the exact same moment. Anybody that supported Israel, the starvation, the mass slaughter the crimes against humanity, the genocide, the live stream genocide will never be the leader of a Democratic Party. I don't know of the Republican Party, but I know for sure the Democratic Party will never have any person in office with that record.
- [44:03]
Joy Reid
Very quickly, before I let you go, I do want to play one more video because the thing is, I think people who want to try to look away and justify it will say, well, Hamas, Hamas is in Gaza. They are the actual elected leaders of Gaza. They were elected because George W. Bush ordered Palestinians to have to have a whole elections. It's a whole nother topic. But I want to show you some video from the west bank, which is not where Hamas is exactly. Let's see if we have that video of what settlers have been doing. And this is for decades, but we're now getting a lot more video of it online. Here's what settlers are doing in the West Bank.
- [45:03]
Jill Winebanks
It. Yeah.
- [45:44]
Joy Reid
Rula, that is video from Al Jazeera. When you see video like that, you realize that the point of Mr. Ben Gvir and Bibi Netanyahu and his gang of folks, it isn't about Hamas. It's about expelling Palestinians writ large and taking all of the land. No.
- [46:07]
Jill Winebanks
Absolutely, Joy. Hamas is not the problem at this point. Hamas is the excuse to starve Palestinians to death in Gaza. Hamas is the excuse to ethnically claims Palestinians from the West Bank. Hamas has always been the excuse. And that's why Netanyahu himself was financing Hamas and trying not only to support and prop Hamas and boast Hamas, he and his ministers, they continued until three weeks before October 7, when Netanyahu sent his head of secret service, the head of the Mossad, to Qatar to lobby the Qataris to finance and bankroll again and again Hamas. Hamas was always used as an excuse. What's happening in the west bank is again the massacres every night. We have a minister who is a convicted minister of terrorism, Ben gvir, who armed these settlers who are doing the dirty job for the government, paving the way for the expulsion of Palestinians. Every day they're killing people. Every day they're wiping out villages. Today they just approved to cut down the water for 30 Palestinian villages so one settlement can have a pool for their own children, which means basically letting animals and basically the farm die and Palestinian without go thirsty without water in the heat in the middle of the summer. So some settlers from I don't know what country can swim in a bigger pool. This is the reality of apartheid. In occupied territories, under my house in Jerusalem, in East Jerusalem, there's no Hamas. There's not even the Palestinian Authority. We have marches every year of these fascists settlers who chant every, every year under my house in the Palestinian neighborhoods. And what they chant, Death to Arabs. Kill them all. Expel them all. I mean, look at the polls in Israel, 85% actually support a lot of the ethnic cleansing and 65% support actually the use of starvation. These are not normal number in any normal society. Israelis are radicalized at this point and we need to watch it with clear eyes. And the west need to start dealing with this monster they created because it's coming back to destroy everything in the West. Western values, Western democracy are on. You know, if you destroy the legal system that you forged after World War II to prevent this kind of atrocity and then turn around and say, never mind. Guess what? It's an open season on all of us.
- [48:46]
Joy Reid
Yeah. Rula Jabril, my friend, thank you. Thank you. And we always appreciate your excellent journalism, your passion, which is personal. And that is the kind of journalism I think that is important in this moment. We need to have people who can speak personally and with forthright passion about things that are just plain wrong. I appreciate you, my friend. Thank you.
- [49:05]
Jill Winebanks
Thank you. Thank you, Joy.
- [49:07]
Joy Reid
Thank you. All right, now we are going to do what you call a hard turn. A hard turn. This has been a. It's been a tough show. A very, very tough show, you guys, because there are bad things happening in the world. But I want to let you guys know that there are also like some bright lights in the world. You guys do know that Paramount ended the Daily, ended the, the the Late show, which was currently hosted by Stephen Colbert. The Late show is a long 30 year old franchise. They decided to not just fire Stephen Colbert because he makes Donald Trump sad, but also to end the franchise, period. Just get rid of it. They said it's cost, it's cost, it's cost. But weirdly enough, as soon as they did that, the merger that they've been wanting to do for a whole long time, that had to be approved by the Trump FCC. D.C. suddenly, magically, surprise, surprise, got put through. Huh? Now they can do their Skydance thing. They can do it because they appease the big baby in the White House in Mar? A Lago who can't take a joke and can't stand when people make fun of him. And he's like, if you make fun of me, I won't let you have your merger. And so they're like, okay, we'll get rid of Colbert. Can we do it now. And he's like, yeah, fine. So south park, which also falls under that same umbrella. As soon as the ink was not even dry on that deal, they trolled Donald Trump in epic fashion due to copyright issues. I cannot play that for you, but I will tell you, for the win, south park. The folks at south park troll Donald Trump down to drawing his character with a teeny, tiny peony. He had a micro penis, which, I don't know if you asked Stormy Daniels was probably accurate to life. And when they were asked at Comic Con, they were at a conference and they were like, are you sorry that you did it? Because Donald Trump got really mad and was like, they're not even relevant anymore. More, they were like, oh, sorry, they're not. Sorry. Let me bring in my, my auspicious guest, my wonderful guests who are going to be our wonderful panel for tonight, because we are going to try to lighten it up and talk about Donald Trump. And also, if we want to make fun of his micropenis, I think we can also do that as well. Joining me now is Joe Wine Banks, MSNBC legal analyst and author of the Watergate Girls. And she was an adorable, very young prosecutor during Watergate. Hard to believe she was even an adult during Watergate, but that is true. And with her is Liz Winstead, the equally fly creator of the Daily show comedienne, or co creator of the Daily show, comedian, human rights advocate, and podcaster extraordinaire. Actually, Liz is the only person I acknowledge as the creator of the Daily Show. Thank you both for being here. Liz, I do want to start with you. You wrote an amazing piece for Rolling Stone that said that the what happened to Stephen Colbert should scare us all. Please explain.
- [51:43]
Liz Winstead
You know, it's one of those things where it's, it's. Everybody was shocked that it happened to Stephen Colbert. And for those of us who've been doing political comedy for a really long time, it has been such a drip, drip, drip of not having platforms, not being able to do these shows. I mean, after I left the Daily show, think of there's only been three or four shows that have actually remained on. And when you look at Kamau Bell and Larry Wilmore and Sam B. And Michelle Wolf, all those shows, right? And so it's like what is even happening now is sort of the result of years and years and years of us being experiencing this kind of stuff and the voices that are now being silenced in ways that I think it's surprising to a lot of very powerful men who are white and have Been in these positions for years.
- [52:49]
Joy Reid
Let me bring joy banks in because the other piece of this to me seems like pretty blatant corruption. You know, the 16 million dollar payoff to Donald Trump, I guess it doesn't go in his pockets. Does it go to his foundation? Does it go to his presidential library? I don't know. It's bribe, which is what Stephen Colbert said in his epic piece that he did when he made the announcement. And then all of a sudden, surprise, surprise, the merger goes through. Is there any other way to look at what was done other than it was a straight up quid pro quo?
- [53:20]
Rula Jabril
It is definitely now looking more and more like you could prove a quid pro quo because now the thing has happened in order to prove actual bribery, you have to show that something happened in exchange for the payment. Well, now we've seen it, it got approved. And the two things that they got were the end of the 60 Minute episode with a $16 million payment and then you saw Stephen Colbert, one of my faves, getting fired. And there is no excuse for that. And that's what freedom of the press means, is to be able to say the things that Stephen Colbert says. And then you have the $1.5 billion contract that south park got, which I'm sorry, but Paramount must have known what that first episode was about and who didn't see that? They got so much attention for watching that show. I love it.
- [54:17]
Joy Reid
And the thing about it is that, right, Donald Trump complaining about it is just going to make more people like me as soon as this show is over, go and watch the whole episode because I've only seen clips of it and I am loving every clip. I'm reposting every single one that comes through my TikTok feed. Trust me. And if they come through my IG, I'm going to do the same because it is hilarious. It was, it was perfect satire. But it's not just them, Jill. Columbia University, 200 plus million dollar bribe to Trump because he's mad that I don't know what it is. Kids not getting. What is wrong with him. He hates Columbia University. Oh, that's right. They allowed pro Palestinian protesters to not be arrested and thrown to the ground and beaten to death. So they have to go. They've tried to get Harvard to pay. Harvard saying we're not going to pay, but they're bribing abc, cbs, everyone is paying. Does it surprise you that so few people are taking the Harvard line and standing up to this man?
- [55:09]
Rula Jabril
You know, I'm ashamed. I'm a Columbia Law grad. I'm proud because I was a former partner at Jenner and Block, who is standing up to them. And what's happening now is people are caving rather than fight it. Paul Weiss said, well, we're really a business. We have to do this. And no, they don't, because they. It's a risible case against Columbia. It's a risible case against Paul Weiss and certainly abc. It was ridiculous. They should be fighting it because otherwise we're giving into a dictator and we're allowing him to be worse than he was in his first term. It's only six months and five days since he's been president. Think about all the things that he has done that are horrible. Think about the firings, mass firings, and getting around the Senate's obligation. They have a constitutional responsibility to advise and consent. Well, what's happening with the U.S. attorneys in the Northern District of New York and in New Jersey, they're finding ways around getting confirmation and getting around the role of the federal courts in appointing when the interim isn't approved.
- [56:18]
Joy Reid
And that's Alina Haba, by the way, for those of you who don't know what that is. Alina Haba, one of his failing lawyers. He had a bunch of, like, sort of mediocre lawyers that were all failing, you know, miserably and trying to protect him from his legal cases. Alina Haba was one of them. She's mostly sort of a spokesmodel lawyer. They had her as the interim U.S. attorney in New Jersey. And the, you know, the folks who make the permanent decision says, no, she can't stay. And now Donald Trump is. Is throwing, you know, his hands in there and screaming.
- [56:43]
Rula Jabril
And there was good reason for her not to stay. She did terrible things. She arrested the mayor of New Jersey and had to get rid of the case because it was ridiculous. She is going ahead with a case against a member of Congress who was exercising her absolute right to make an inspection of the detention center and who was charged with. I mean, if you're being surrounded by people and you. Your arms like that, that's not assaulting a federal officer. So it's a ridiculous case. It shouldn't have happened. That's why she didn't get approved. And of course, as you point out, she represented him in the case with Eugene Carroll and lost it. Why would you hire a lawyer who lost for you as your U.S. attorney? That's ridiculous.
- [57:26]
Joy Reid
Yeah. And he's also hired the other lawyers. Todd Blanche has got himself a sweet deal in the doj. And of course, the ogre to forget his name. The other one, the one who's running around, right, running around, firing everyone. He's gonna let all his failed lawyers, like, get. Get jobs. Let's see if Liz's sound is back to normal. Liz. The other thing is Donald Trump is probably at his weakest right now because he is completely crashing out about Jeffrey Epstein. Like, completely crashing out, because it seems that every day new data comes forward about just how fooled up he was with this pedophile, and he's losing his mind. And also he's losing his mind about a cartoon. That's how weak and ridiculous this man is. And so caving to him at this point, rather than belittling him, seems like the opposite of what to do.
- [58:16]
Liz Winstead
Well, you know, Joy, you and I have known each other since 2007, and there's less photographs of our friendship than there are of his lack of friendship that he has with Jeffrey Epstein. And it is like, that seems odd. Everywhere that guy turns, you open the fridge, there's Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump in there sharing a milk. You know, it's like, insane. And, you know, it's. I am getting to the point where I don't have a single friend who has not experienced some kind of sexual.
- [58:46]
Joy Reid
Violence in their life.
- [58:47]
Liz Winstead
I just don't. I don't know a woman who doesn't. And to. To watch this pivot of sending Trump's personal attorney, who now is on our tax dollar dole to her jail cell. She is a groomer. She is somebody who lured young children and women to Donald Trump to, I mean, to Jeffrey Epstein to be sexually assaulted and to make a pivot, to make her the victim and to somehow be so invested in Donald Trump that you take all of these steps in your own morality, all of these people, to say this is the way we're going to do it at all costs, to take Donald Trump somehow out of the narrative if it sticks. And we're looking at the numbers of Donald Trump for Republicans, and it's in the high 80s still. I don't know where to go from here, actually, because it is so depraved. It is so depraved to say that literally Jeffrey Epstein's pimp girlfriend is a victim.
- [60:05]
Joy Reid
Now, can I talk? Just stay with you just for a moment, Liz, because I wrote a piece for, for my substack and you can find it@joyan reid.com, everybody. You should please read it. And I talked about. I'm wearing my Gen X shirt. You guys can't see it because the mark is not showing. But I'm wearing my Gen X shirt today because it feels like the kind of halcyon era of gen X, the 80s and 90s. It is being exposed for some of the lies that were inherent in it. You know, we just had four main, you know, big sort of 80s stars pass away. Well, Chuck Mangione wasn't really an 80s star. He was like, 1979 is the big hit he had. Came out in 79. Then he had all these other hits, but Feel so Good came out in 79. But you know, obviously Malcolm Jamal Warner, who was Theo Huxtable on the Cosby Show. Hulk Hogan, who before we knew that he loved to use the hard R version of the N word. A lot of us young folks grew up watching him on wwe, which used to be called WWF until there was a lawsuit. World Wildlife foundation also passed away. And the in the Osman Ozzy Osborne, who when I was young adult Christians used to say was working for Satan, along with lots of other groups like the Beatles, because supposedly if you played their music backwards, you get satanic messages. Oh, this was like my favorite meme from the 80s. People were like, play the song. So we would all try to play them backwards so we could hear what these messages were. But we never heard the call from the devil. I don't really know why, but, you.
- [61:24]
Liz Winstead
Know, that's how hip hop got started. You know, that's how we started scratching.
- [61:28]
Joy Reid
Oh my God, you're right. Scratching records because there's like a back way.
- [61:32]
Liz Winstead
It's all devil music. Music, all of it.
- [61:34]
Joy Reid
It's all the devil. It's the devil. And. And so you have all these 80s folks die, but the other piece of it is sort of a loss of innocence, right? Finding out Hulk Hogan was racist, not. Not a fun thing to find out. But, you know, finding out, you know, now that so many of the celebrities who were iconic in that era who were driving the hip hop world, whether it was, you know, you know, or who are driving culture. Bill Cosby accused Harvey Weinstein was making. Making some of the most iconic movies, accused Woody Allen. Everybody's getting accused, you know, and I'm not saying anyone is guilty. Let just be clear. I'm saying everyone denies it, but they're being accused. And even Donald Trump. Most of these accusations against him, including E. Jean Carroll, are in the 80s or in the 90s, 80s, 90s. How do we process the fact that it feels like the backlash is so thorough that it's not Even clear we can count on Hollywood to still be on media to. At this point, Liz, it feels like everyone is backtracking. I doubt Paramount is going to be a bastion of protection for women and people of color. It's just gonna. They're gonna promise not to do any DEI and only hire white men. So it doesn't seem like. It seems like it's gonna all go in the wrong direction.
- [62:41]
Liz Winstead
And it just already feels like, you know, when you look at comics who've been accused of terrible things, Louis CK selling up Madison Square Garden, and you know, the thing is, Joy, when. But when we have these moments and these touch tone moments, you know, and people. I feel like people ask the wrong questions all the time. It's like, why didn't you come forward? Why couldn't people come forward?
- [63:00]
Nana Gyamfi
Right.
- [63:01]
Liz Winstead
And the question is that we should ask constantly who wasn't making it safe to come forward.
- [63:08]
Nana Gyamfi
Right.
- [63:08]
Liz Winstead
And that's the question we need to ask all the time. Because if you look at the statistics of sexual assault, sexual violence, technically there is one perp on every jury.
- [63:22]
Joy Reid
Yeah.
- [63:23]
Liz Winstead
Think about that.
- [63:23]
Joy Reid
Wow.
- [63:24]
Nana Gyamfi
Right.
- [63:25]
Liz Winstead
And so unless we acknowledge that it's never been safe to have this conversation, we are going to be in a loop and that loop is going to sort of start spiraling in the wrong direction like you said. I totally understand, agree. But we need to honor these people. Why are we not the. The people, the victims of Jeffrey Epson who said, I want to tell my story, looking for justice? They need to be everywhere, all the time on television telling those stories. I don't want to hear from Jelaine Maxwell. She has nothing to offer me. She's been convicted for 20 years. Keep her in her creepy cage where she belongs. Songs with creeps, you know, I agree, I agree.
- [64:11]
Joy Reid
I. And also, if there are victims, you know, we are welcoming them on this show. You know, this is a safe space. If you want to come on and tell your story, please do. Because that's the thing is that I think we're trying to reverse me too. By making women be silent at a time when women have also lost their reproductive rights. So now if you're assaulted and you are impregnated in, in half of the states, in every red state, basically, you have no rights. You can't do anything. Women who are victims of their own family members and are pregnant, you have no rights. That's one of your other pieces of major advocacy. Can I keep you? You both for one. I'm going to ask you if I can keep you overtime for like five more minutes. Is that okay? Can I keep you both with me? Perfect. Perfect. And, Jill, I want to come back to you on this because, I mean, you've worked in what they used to call a man's world, you know, Pentagon world, Nixon world. It's always been a hairy place for a woman to be, but it feels like the goal of maga, one of the goals of an ethnic cleansing and getting rid of all the brown people if they can and maintain a super white majority. The other goal seems to be to dismantle anything that looks like women's equality, anything that looks like women being in the spaces they think only men should be, and anything that looks like women speaking up for themselves. Do you look around and see enough of a pushback against that?
- [65:24]
Rula Jabril
I do not. And I started in law at a time when only 4%, 4% of all lawyers were women. And it was a tough time. The only time I. And I, as Liz said, I don't know anyone who hasn't had a physical assault. I was physically assaulted by a very, very senior officer when I was a corporate officer. And the HR department heard about it because someone who witnessed it told them, and they called and asked me if I wanted to report it and file a complaint. And I said no. And I said no because I knew the consequences. I loved my job. I made sure I was never, ever in a room alone with that man again. And I have regretted not reporting it and not regretted it because I went on to a great career there and I loved the company. There was a bad apple there, and he was really senior. I did a movie, a documentary with Ron Howard where I played the role of a EEOC lawyer. And I got a lot of calls from women after that, thinking that I could represent them. But I was at Gentleman Block and nobody could afford our fees. But I did give them some sort of free advice, which mostly was, it's not worth risking your job. Try and go somewhere else, but you can't. If you file a complaint, you are forever targeted and it'll be very hard to get another job. And we're still in the same place. I speak at a lot of law schools and business schools, and I hear the stories from young women who are entering fields and still feeling it's not as bad as when I started where Help wanted ads were listed in classified newspapers. Help wanted male, Help wanted female. And it's not as bad anymore. And now women are, you know, half of law school class is a female. So it's gotten a lot better. But we need to stand up and we need to protect. And for Donald Trump to be saying I wish her well about Maxwell and never having said anything about the real victims of her horrors is really, it's pathetic. And I wish that the media would be focusing on the stories of the victim, victims, and two of them are dead, one by an overdose and one by suicide, because of the horrors that they live through. And Maxwell is convicted of, obviously the felonies of abuse, but she also was charged with perjury. Why is anyone talking to her? Why is our tax money being paid to Donald Trump's former lawyer who's now a top official? The statute of limitations ran more than a year ago. There are no crimes that can be brought now. Why is DOJ spending any time looking at that case?
- [68:18]
Joy Reid
Now?
- [68:18]
Rula Jabril
That's a good question for everybody who cares about how our money is being spent at the Department of Justice.
- [68:24]
Joy Reid
Oh, I can speculate, Jill, because they're probably looking to pardon her so that she won't talk. Because the reality is she's the last person alive that might have the incriminating information about everyone else that was involved in what really was one of the probably largest pedophile rings in world history that spanned multiple countries, at least according to some of the victims. And there were probably a lot of people maybe on both sides of the aisle who stand to be very embarrassed by what she might know. And so I think the reason that they're talking to her, Jill, is they want to figure out if she will play ball and be quiet with them.
- [69:07]
Rula Jabril
But if they pardon her, she has no right of self incrimination to invoke. So that would not. They might commute her sentence, but pardoning her would eliminate any claim of privilege that she would have. So I don't know that that's a smart thing to do. But are they sculpting her testimony? Are they suggesting to her. Well, I don't know anything about that. Her lawyer came on air and said that she doesn't know of any scheme. She's been treated unfairly throughout this whole thing. That's not someone who is going to give information to the House or the Senate. And public disclosure is not what we need. Now, that's not why you release grand jury testimony, which no court is going to do, because you can release it to another agency during Watergate. We release grand jury testimony to the House Judiciary Committee for use in the impeachment. That's a judicial proceeding. But there's no judicial proceedings now, so there can't be, except Maybe in New York, where there is an exception for public interest. And the Supreme Court has never ruled on whether that's, that's legitimate or not. It's certainly not within the rule that is in the statutes.
- [70:23]
Joy Reid
It's very intriguing. And we're going to stay on this story not just because it's salacious and weird and makes Donald Trump unhappy, although I do like anything that makes Donald Trump unhappy. But I think there is a bigger story here. And Liz, I'm going to give you the last word on this, because the challenge, and I think that Jill gets right to it, is there are all of these victims out there. You know, I've her numbers that are in the hundreds of potential victims of this person. And the way that he died in that federal prison with the son of the man who gave him his first job, from which he went on to become one of the biggest investment managers in the country and a very rich man, basically off of two clients. Two clients who padded his lavish lifestyle for decades, decades, mill. They were like 80% of his income and had all of these people circling around him, people who were captains of industry, of academia, of politics. Donald Trump, everybody. And nobody caught him. And then when they did catch him, Liz, they gave him like the lightest sentence. They gave him, oh, prostitution, two counts of prostitution, and he served a, a pretend sentence. And then all of a sudden he dies in the prison that the son of the guy who originally hired, hired him at the adult in school was in charge of. I mean, there is a lot that's weird here and there is a lot to cover up, Liz. So I'll give you the last word on this because I do think that the most important thing, of course, is the victims. But do you think, just as somebody that is in the communication business, that this is still a story that we need to plow further on? Because, look, if Glenn Maxwell don't make it to her hearing, we don't know something's really up.
- [72:00]
Liz Winstead
I mean, I think 100% only because of what we just talked about earlier, which is we as a society.
- [72:11]
Joy Reid
There.
- [72:11]
Liz Winstead
Are three women begging to hear from the people who were harmed by these people, begging, begging to have them be believed. Why do we even have to have grand jury testimony and all this other junk released when we have people who want to tell their stories because they were not allowed for justice. They were not allowed it because of whatever happened to Jeffrey Epstein in that prison.
- [72:37]
Joy Reid
Let me, let me, let me break. I'm gonna, I don't mean to cut you off, but I just heard, I'm just hearing in my ear from one of our great producers. Maxwell has been given limited immunity. Jill, I do want you to explain what limited immunity is. That is breaking news. That counts as breaking news. And so the second piece of the breaking news, Jill, that I'm going to send back to you and you know, you know, for pardons, because you definitely dealt with Nixon world.
- [73:00]
Rula Jabril
Yes.
- [73:00]
Joy Reid
Donald Trump has not ruled out pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell. This is breaking news. Donald Trump has not ruled out pardoning Jelaine Maxwell, who was essentially the alleged pimp who was looking for usually impoverished young girls, sometimes in trailer parks in Palm beach county to serve up for abuse to Jeffrey Epstein and then trafficking them both to his island in the Caribbean and allegedly all the way to the UK for abuse and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Limited immunity for Ghislaine Maxwell and Trump not ruling out a pardon. Your thoughts, Jill?
- [73:34]
Rula Jabril
I'm saddened and disgusted, but not surprised. Limited immunity is use immunity, which means that anything she says cannot be used against her. And that's not an unfair thing, as long as it's not transactional immunity, that anything that she says cannot be used against her, but that she still can be prosecuted for anything that she engaged in as long as the evidence doesn't come from what she says. As I said, a pardon eliminates her ability to claim a privilege to refuse to testify. So I'm not sure about that. But I am sure, particularly hearing what you have just told us, that in his meeting, Todd, Blanche made it clear to her that if she knows nothing, she is going to do better than if she is willing to come forward with what we know to be the facts. And from everything I've heard from the victims, she was more than the pimp. She was also a participant in the family, physical sexual acts. That is somebody who does not deserve to. I mean, 20 years doesn't even seem enough. She'll be maybe 80 when she gets out. That's too young for a person who has done these things. And I have no doubt from having heard the victims that we've heard, and luckily I'm still hearing them on television now and on radio. They are coming forward. And I love that you offered them an place to come and tell their story, because I'd rather hear from her. And that's who Congress should be hearing from, not Maxwell. Ghislaine Maxwell is a terrible person and nothing she says can be believed, particularly now that we know a pardon is in the offing. She has Every motive to say whatever Donald Trump wants her to say.
- [75:28]
Joy Reid
Liz Winston, I now will officially give you the last word now that we have this breaking news. And just if you have missed that, if you just are logging on to the interwebs, limited use immunity offered to Elaine Maxwell. She is supposed to testify before the House Oversight Committee. She now has immunity, limited immunity to do that, as Jill explained, meaning she could still go to jail if she lies. I assume nothing can be used against her. Theoretically, but Donald Trump not ruling out a pardon. Now, Donald Trump claims, Liz, that he doesn't really know anything about what Jeffrey Epstein was doing. He knows nothing about it, but he sure seems to be friendly toward Ghislaine Maxwell. He wished her well and now he's thinking about maybe a partner. Your thoughts?
- [76:07]
Liz Winstead
Yeah. I mean, when you devote your pre presidential life to teenage girl beauty pageants and inviting Jeffrey Epstein to your home for the Calendar Girl contest, where it's just you and Jeffrey Epstein judging which girls are going to be in some kind of calendar. And when you say in the press that he's a great guy and he loves beautiful women and he loves them young, that's a fact. That is a quote from New York Magazine. Feel free to look it up.
- [76:40]
Nana Gyamfi
It is.
- [76:43]
Liz Winstead
Anybody who says they support Trump and says they are pro life or says they are Christian, please tell them to take several seats, slam the door in their face, and let's rally around these women and all women because we need each other more than ever. And like, I'm ready for the revolution. I don't know about y', all, but I feel like I could take hands and hands with you in the streets to say we are with you. Please know you have support and a soft place to land.
- [77:16]
Joy Reid
Amen. I'm here for the revolution, too. My sisters. Let's do this. Let's do this. We're gonna fight, Mr. Micropenis all the way to the end, to the gates of hell, where we will maybe meet up with, you know, Hulk Hogan, Liz Winstead, Jill Wine Banks. My friends, thank you very much. Happy Friday. Wishing you guys a fabulous weekend. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here.
- [77:37]
Liz Winstead
Great to see you.
- [77:38]
Rula Jabril
Thank you.
- [77:39]
Joy Reid
Thank you very much. And, and you guys get, get this how. This is why this is important. And I want to go back for a moment to something that I talked about earlier, the Ozzy Osbourne thing. And I'm going to leave you with this on tonight. Back when I was in junior high school, back in the 80s, early 80s, and I'm, I'm I'm an OG auntie. Christian adults used to tell us that if you played certain music backwards, as I said earlier, you would hear orders from the devil. They said it about the Beatles, they said it about Ozzy Osbourne's group Black Sabbath. They said it about a whole lot of mostly rock and roll groups. And they said their music was satanic. My cousins were really only allowed to listen to church music. A lot of Christian kids were only allowed to listen to church music, not secular music, because people thought it was demonic. The specific messaging about backwards lyrics was connected to, at the time, a rampant conspiracy theory that children were being trafficked for abuse and that there was massive sexual abuse of children and that the massive sexual abusers of children were liberals, liberal Hollywood people, liberal politicians, liberals, period. It was connected to this long standing belief among a certain set of evangelical Christians because not all evangelical Christians believe the same things. Bishop Barber is a key evangelical Christian Christian. But there is this set of right wing, mainly white evangelical Christians who during. And there's some black evangelical Christians who were in it too that decided that there was this massive child pornography and you know, et cetera, conspiracy. That is the early version of QAnon. And it's existed really since the 80s. And what we're now seeing is that that belief system that there is just a conspiracy of powerful, they thought, liberal men all over the world to abuse children. That QAnon, which morphed into that. And by the way, QAnon added to that same belief system that came from the 1980s. What QAnon added to it is that they believe that not only were these children being trafficked in order to abuse them, but also to drink their blood for satanic rituals. I promise you, that's what they believe. And I wrote a piece also, also@joannread.com at my substack that said, you know what? There are aspects of what these people believed that actually might be true. Maybe they weren't all crazy. Yeah, they were crazy about the backwards lyrics, doing things at certain points. I have a video in the piece that a lot of groups used to troll the Christians by really putting. There's a way you can do something called backmasking. You can put messages in the back and they would put stuff in there like, boy, do you have a lot of time on your hands. Why are you listening to this record backwards? And they would put like funny stuff in there to make fun of them because there was no satanic messages in their music. Black Sabbath was like art. They were being. They were artists they were not really Satan. Okay? You know, but the QAnon and, and that belief system, the core of that argument is that powerful men were abusing children sexually. And then we fast forward to that same era, the 80s and the 90s, we find out belatedly that a lot of powerful men really were abusing women, some of them abusing young women. We found out that the children's entertainment world, young people who are child stars, were getting abused. We find out that, you know, the guy who was, the subway sandwich guy, was in a. Was an alleged abuser. We find out that Bill Cosby gets accused by something like 50 women before anybody believes, you know, them. He gets prosecuted and his case gets reversed. And I'm sure that he still maintains his innocence, but there it is. He's America's Dad. In the 80s. You find out that all these powerful men, weirdly enough, have this abusive streak. We found out about the diddler. We find out about all these men, and now we have Jeffrey Epstein, who might have been the most prolific child abuser in American history. No consequences for that. Suddenly, powerful men are conspiring to make sure that he gets a light sentence, including Ken Starr, the guy who went after Bill Clinton for having an affair with Monica Lewinsky. That guy represented Jeffrey Epstein to make sure that Jeffrey Epstein got a light sentence when he was only prosecuted for the same thing Diddy was. Prostitution, pushing women to prostitution. He gets prosecuted for that. He gets a light sentence. He, like, sleeps in jail, but he gets to go to his office during the day in Florida. Easy deal. He gets in, he gets out in 19 in 2008. And then he finally gets really, really got because maybe he just goes too far and he's doing too much. And then he dies in prison, weirdly enough. And we are never going to get an adjudication of that. We're never going to find out who all of his powerful clients were. We're never going to find out who all of his powerful friends were, really. We're just going to cover all that up. Kind of makes you think maybe the QAnonas weren't so crazy. Thank you all for watching the Joy Reid Show. We're going to stay on this and all of these other stories. Please watch the south park episode. It seems like it is a good one. And we will be back on Monday with more of the Joy Read Show. Thanks for staying with us a little bit over time. I want to remind you guys. And we almost hit the music, but don't hit the music yet, Jason, because we want to make sure that everybody subscribe. Subscribe, subscribe. Make sure that you like this episode so that we know that this is the kind of content that you want more of. Hit that little bell thing so that you can get a notification to know when we go live. We will sometimes go live, not in our normal time because there's breaking news and important things that are happening. You want to get those notifications, and we want to make sure that you're not a lurker. Seven out of 10 people who watch YouTube shows only watch, and they don't subscribe. So we want you to not be a lurker. We want you to be a member of the family. Thank you to everybody who's joined Team tjrs. We love you guys. Your private chat, I promise you, is coming soon. We're going to make the announcement next week as to the date for that private chat. So get your questions ready. Start cooking up the things that you want to ask and the things that you want to talk about in our little private chat. So thank you all for watching the Joy Reach show. Head on over to Joann Reid.com if you want to read my substacks about this issue. My Gen X shirt is ready to go. All right, I'm gonna go watch South Park. Love you guys. Thanks for watching the Joy Reid show. I will see you on Monday. Have a great weekend. Goodbye. Okay.
- [83:42]
Nana Gyamfi
Yeah.