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- [00:01]
Joy Reid
Shopping is hard. I can never find anything in my size. I don't even know my size.
- [00:07]
Sherrilyn Ifill
I buy my clothes the same place I buy my groceries.
- [00:10]
Joy Reid
There's a better way. Make it easy with Stitch Fix. Just share your size, style, budget and done. Your personal stylist sends pieces picked just for you. That was easy. Stitch Fix Online personal styling for everyone. Free shipping and returns. No subscription required. Get started today@stitch fix.com.
- [00:36]
Don Lemon
Okay.
- [00:44]
Joy Reid
Well, hello everyone and welcome to the Joy Reid show. Tgif. Happy Friday. Big up to everybody who is watching us on YouTube. Shout outs to everybody that's in the chat over on that side. Also, shout out to all the folks who are in the substack chat. And we like to recognize all chats. All chats are equal. All chats matter. Maybe that's not the best way to put it, but, you know, all chats matter. We love all of our chatters. We appreciate everybody that has voted for us already for the NAACP Image Award. We appreciate that you still have time to vote. So we're going to remind you again at the end of the show, if you have not hit like and subscribe, now would be a great time to do that. Hitting like and subscribe is a great way to support our independent media venture. The algorithm loves it and we love it too. So please hit like and subscribe if you have not done that already. So just many, many thanks to everybody who's who's here tonight. Now, our theme for tonight. Our theme for tonight is A tale of two Dawns. A tale of two dawns, Two dogs. One, a popular former cable news anchor and now independent journalist. The other, a rather large, physically voluminous elderly wannabe Hitler babbling on and on about bringing about world peace, Antichrist style. You do know the Antichrist said he was gonna bring world peace, right? While his secret police force wages a terrorism campaign across blue states, probably totally coincidentally, that Trump and Republicans tend to lose in elections and that have mineral resources that Trump and his AI friends would like to have. Kind of like the reason Trump wants Greenland, which he thinks is also Iceland, and why Russia wants Ukraine. Let's kick it all off with this clip of our friend Don Lemon, who I joined last night on his great show to discuss the decision of the Trump regime to not charge him with a crime. They decided to back off the idea of prosecuting Don Lemon for doing journalism while he was covering a protest at an ice facility or an ice friendly church. I mean, you might as well call it an ice facility, an ice friendly church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. So here is the post, and it's a clip of Don that he posted on his IG channel after the show.
- [03:12]
Don Lemon
I'm proud and I stand tall. This is not a victory lap for me because it's not over. They're gonna try again and they're gonna try again.
- [03:18]
Joy Reid
And guess what? Here I am. Keep trying.
- [03:22]
Don Lemon
That's not gonna stop me from being a journalist. You're not gonna diminish my voice. Go ahead, make me into the new Jimmy Kimmel if you want, because I'm not going anywhere. And I'm going to believe the same things whether you want to.
- [03:35]
Joy Reid
Whatever.
- [03:35]
Daniel Levy
None of this is about justice.
- [03:39]
Don Lemon
This is about power and it's about people who are incompetent.
- [03:44]
Joy Reid
That is exactly right. So Don Lemon firing back at Pamela Jo and company who threatened to prosecute him for covering a live breaking news event. We're going to have much more on this story in hour two of the show tonight when we'll be joined by the great Sherilyn Ifill, formerly the leader of LDF and, and now an emeritus LDF personage and also a legal scholar running an amazing legal program at Howard University. Hu, you know, but let's get to the other dot, the one who's prancing about the world collecting tribute in the form of golf course deals and cryptocurrency and literal golden crowns and orbs and luxury planes and such, and who humiliated himself and us at the World Economic Forum in in over in Europe this week where he delivered a literally insane bonkers speech insulting Somalia and some altering the intelligence of people from Somalia, insulting Europe, insulting NATO, insulting Canada and basically everybody except Vladimir Putin for some reason, while probably totally coincidentally helping to push forward one of Putin and the Kremlin's greatest dreams, which is destroying not just NATO, the Western alliance built to stop the spread of Stalinism in Europe, but also the United nations itself, the organization built largely by the United States, literally. Founded in San Francisco after World War II and headquartered in New York City, the goal of the United nations was to prevent there being another world war, World War III, by bringing the now 193 nations of the world together under one umbrella to presumably solve international conflicts without war. Now, it hasn't exactly succeeded. Understatement of the year. There've been lots of other wars. But the supposedly rules based order that the UN represents is precisely the kind of thing a future Hitler would oppose and that current baby Hitlers like Vladimir Putin oppose because it stands, even just rhetorically, in the way of Wannabe strong men just going around gobbling up whatever territory they want, like in the old colonial days, and then starting wars to keep whatever they steal. Well, that system, it doesn't work for people like Putin or for people like Trump, who, along with his bonkers Davos speech, all also used his time in Davos to launch his Board of Peace to very little fanfare and even less participation. Here's how that launch went.
- [06:48]
Don Lemon
Thank you very much.
- [06:52]
Daniel Levy
Well, this is a very exciting day long in the making, and many countries have just received their notice, and everybody.
- [07:02]
Don Lemon
Wants to be a part of it. This board has the chance to be one of the most consequential bodies ever created, and it's my enormous honor to serve as its chairman. I was very honored when they asked me to do it.
- [07:14]
Joy Reid
We're going to be very successful in Gaza.
- [07:16]
Don Lemon
It's going to be a great thing to watch. And we can do other things.
- [07:21]
Daniel Levy
We can do numerous other things.
- [07:23]
Don Lemon
Once this board is completely formed, we.
- [07:25]
Daniel Levy
Can do pretty much whatever we want.
- [07:26]
Joy Reid
To do, and we'll do it in.
- [07:27]
Don Lemon
Conjunction with the United Nations. You know, I've always said the United nations has got tremendous potential, has not.
- [07:35]
Daniel Levy
Used it, and you have some great people at the United nations, but so far it hasn't. You know, on the eight wars that I ended, I never spoke to the United nations about any of them.
- [07:47]
Don Lemon
And you would think that I should have.
- [07:49]
Daniel Levy
You would think they could have done.
- [07:50]
Don Lemon
Those eight wars, but they couldn't have.
- [07:52]
Daniel Levy
And they tried, I guess, and some.
- [07:54]
Joy Reid
Of them, but they didn't try hard enough.
- [07:56]
Don Lemon
But there's tremendous potential with the United nations. And I think the combination of the Board of Peace with the kind of people we have here, coupled with the.
- [08:06]
Daniel Levy
United nations, can be something very, very.
- [08:08]
Joy Reid
Unique for the world.
- [08:10]
Daniel Levy
Together we are.
- [08:11]
Don Lemon
Are in a position to have an incredible chance. I don't even call it a chance. I think it's going to happen to end decades of suffering, stop generations of hatred and bloodshed, and forge a beautiful.
- [08:23]
Daniel Levy
Everlasting, and glorious peace for that region and for the whole region of the world. Because I'm calling the world a region.
- [08:32]
Joy Reid
The world is a region.
- [08:34]
Don Lemon
We're gonna have peace in the world.
- [08:35]
Daniel Levy
And, boy, would that be a great legacy for all of us.
- [08:38]
Don Lemon
Everybody in this room is a star.
- [08:41]
Daniel Levy
Or you wouldn't be here.
- [08:43]
Don Lemon
Thank you very much, everybody.
- [08:44]
Daniel Levy
It's a great honor to be with you. Thank you. Thank you.
- [08:51]
Joy Reid
So note the light applause. Everybody here is a star. I mean, you wouldn't be here if you weren't A star. So Trump was supposed to announce 50 members. If you didn't recognize any of those people that were sort of passing you on the screen, other than Javier Milei, you might have recognized him. The guy, the dancing dictator of Argentina. The rest of them, you probably didn't know who they were, right? Maybe you saw Viktor Orban, maybe you recognized him. He was supposed to announce 50 members, but he got more like 19. And very light applause. Very light. Apparently his staffers tried to initiate a standing ovation afterwards, but people just got up and started leaving. So that light applause was. People were literally like, yeah, okay, man. And they started walking out and they didn't do the standing of applause. But apparently Trump's, you know, the people who traveled with him, including his press secretary, were like, vigorously applauding, trying to get a standing ovation going. It didn't work. Let me tell y' all, who's in this board of peace. Again, nobody is really in it that he wanted. None of the Western European nations took the bait. He even, like, disinvited Canada. Who's prime minister? Before I get to disembodied Canada, let me tell you who's in it. Bahrain, Morocco, Argentina, of course, Javier, Malay, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bulgaria, Egypt, Hungary, Indonesia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Mongolia, Pakistan, Paraguay, Qatar, of course Saudi Arabia, of course, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan. He's also invited the butcher of Gaza, Bibi Netanyahu, to join. And he's invited Vladimir Putin, who is going to get back to him. So he couldn't get any major powers to join. No China. None of the big major powers in the world joined it. Definitely no Canada. He's already. He's obviously disinvited Canada, who already said they had no interest. He couldn't get anybody, like, major powerful countries to join because most of them are like, this is ridiculous. It also cost a billion dollars to become a permanent member. I wonder where that money's going to go. They claim it's going to be put in very auspicious banks and things like that. So the disinvited leader of Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney at Davos, really emerged as perhaps the new leader of the free world. Seriously, he gave a very strong speech about the fact that this, what's happening in the world with Trump in office isn't a temporary rupture because of one election. It's a permanent, permanent shift. Here's Mark Carney.
- [11:18]
Don Lemon
1978. The Czech dissident Vaclav Hadl, later president, wrote an essay called the Power of the Powerless. And in it he asked a simple question, how did the communist system sustain itself? And his answer began with a greengrocer. Every morning, the shopkeeper places a sign in his window. Workers of the world unite. He doesn't believe it, no one does. But he places a sign anyway, to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persists not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false. Havel called this living within a lie. The system's power comes not from its truth, but from everyone's willingness to perform as if it were true. And its fragility comes from the same source. When even one person stops performing, when the green grocer removes his sign, the illusion begins to crack. Friends, it is time for companies and countries to take their signs down. Four decades. For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we call the rules based international order. We joined its institutions, we praised its principles, we benefited from its predictability. And because of that, we could pursue values based foreign policies under its protection. We knew the story of the international rules based order was partially false, that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigor, depending on the identity of the accused or the victim. This fiction was useful, and American hegemony in particular helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for resolving disputes. So we placed the sign in the window, we participated in the rituals, and we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality. This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration. But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure is coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration. When integration becomes the source of your subordination, the multilateral institutions on which the middle powers have relied, the wto, the un, the cop, the architecture, the very architecture of collective problem solving, are under threat. As a result, many countries are drawing the same conclusions. That they must develop greater strategic autonomy in energy, food, critical minerals in finance and supply chains. And this impulse is understandable. A country that can't feed itself, fuel itself or defend itself has few options when the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself. But let's be clear eyed about where this leads. A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile, and less sustainable. And there's another truth. If great powers abandon even the pretense of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests, the gains from transactionalism will become harder to replicate. Hegemons cannot continually monetize their relationships. Allies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty. They'll buy insurance, increase options in order to rebuild sovereignty.
- [14:40]
Joy Reid
Now, of course, the irony there is that this is the West, Canada and Europe finding out what it feels like to be treated like the global south countries that they enriched themselves exploiting in the first place. For centuries, the west has exploited the global south countries in the Middle east, in Africa, in Central America and South America for their resources and then launched wars to hold onto those territories. But now that system of exploitation is turning on itself. Trump is now attempting to exploit Western nations the same way that the United States and Europe have exploited African countries, exploited South America and Central American countries to plunder them for their resources. The plunder is now coming from inside the house. And it turns out it's no fun to be at the bottom of the exploitation pyramid. So the rupture you're seeing in the Western alliance is Europe saying, no thanks to becoming South America or Central America or the Middle east or Africa, and countries in those regions saying, well, no thank you as well. We're done with that game too. So the whole rules based system is now flipping onto its back like a hit bug with its little legs just wriggling in the air. It's ironic that it's Trump that's bringing that about. I will note that one of the other ways that he's bringing it about is that Donald Trump pulled out of six dozen organizations that the United States has been a part of. That includes the World Health Organization, which is a frightening development, right, because the United States has been a leading country providing the science that helps to fuel global health. They pulled out of the international he's pulled us out of the International Solar alliance, the Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation, the UN International Law Commission, the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary General for Children in Armed Conflict, the UN Peace Building Commission, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, conserving nature, helping children be protected from war, developing renewable energy, building peace. Those are issues that Donald Trump, in his executive order pulling us out of those organizations have deemed antithetical to United States interests. So he's pulling us out of six dozen of those organizations. Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, who was in Davos representing the Republic of California because it is big enough to be its own country economically, he has announced that California by itself as its own republic, will be the first individual US State to join the World Health Organization in direct defiance of Trump, who just pulled the US out of the World Health Organization. So interesting developments that states are sort of taking some sovereignty here as Donald Trump breaks the post World War II order that was started in 1945 in the United States, in California, that now has its headquarters, United nations in New York. Donald Trump, which is just maybe completely coincidentally the goal of the Kremlin, to break the post World War II order, which was specifically designed to rein in Stalin and to stop there from being another Hitler. So as this all breaks apart, while Trump may not have caused it, and while he may or may not be doing it for Vladimir Putin, he certainly is hastening along this new world order. So let's get back to this so called Board of Peace, which again costs a billion dollars to become a permanent member of which Trump is the permanent leader of, who can only be relieved of the job when he literally dies or becomes incapacitated. So basically he has shifted from wanting to be president of the United States for life to wanting to be the president of the whole world for life, or at least the leader of a clack of rogue nations or like Hungary and Argentina, plus small countries like Paraguay. So this peace board that he and his basically mafia, he's created his own. Michael Wolf called it a global mar A lago, expensive to join, probably worthless and useless and throwing your money away. But people join in order to have the prestige or whatever they consider the prestige of being near Trump. Right. So this peace board is in the process right now of handing Gaza, which should belong to the nation of Palestine, which is recognized by more than half of the 193 countries on Earth, handing Gaza, which is supposed to be part of a separate country called Palestine, over to Jared Kushner and to Trump's other real estate development and golf buddies to carve up as seaside real estate. Here's Jared at Davos explaining that committee.
- [19:42]
Don Lemon
Is the first time the technocratic, apolitical committee. I really want to thank the Arab partners for helping us select the right people to do this. And we just need to believe in them and support them. I put this up here. It's probably a little too small for me to read, but this is really important. If you saw the mission statement. So Hamas's mission Statement was, we need to destroy the state of Israel. That has not worked well for the people, as we've seen. Their mission statement is we are committed to establishing security, restoring the essential services that form the bedrock of human dignity, such, such electricity, water, health care and education, as well as cultivating a society rooted in peace, democracy and justice, operating with the highest standards of integrity, transparency. So these are the basic things. Their goal is to have peace and to help their people, which is an obvious mission statement for a government, but actually fairly novel for Gaza. So we did a master plan. We brought in. I thank you, Kirkby, who's one of the most successful real estate developers and brilliant people I know. He's volunteered to do this. Not for profit really, because of his heart. He wants to do this. And we've developed ways to redevelop Gaza. Gaza, as President Trump's been saying, has amazing potential. And, and this is for the people of Gaza. We've developed into zones. In the beginning, we were toying with the idea of saying, let's build a free zone, and then we have a Hamas zone. And then we said, you know what, let's just plan for catastrophic success. We Hamas, signed a deal demilitarized. That is what we are going to enforce. People ask us what our plan B is. We do not have a plan B. We have a plan. We signed an agreement. We are all committed to making that agreement work. There's a master plan. We'll be doing it in phasing. In the Middle east, they build cities like this in, you know, 2, 3 million people. They build this in three years. And so stuff like this is very doable if we make it happen. ROTHA will start with, this will show a lot of workforce housing. We think this could be done in two, three years. We've already started removing the rubble and doing some of the demolition. And then new Gaza, it could be a hope, it could be a destination, have a lot of industry and really be a place that, that the people there can thrive, have great employment. Once this starts going, we think there should be 100% full employment and opportunity for everybody there. And we have a lot of data on what can be. But we think that this really gives the Gazan people an opportunity to live their aspirations. But it all starts with security and it all starts with governance.
- [21:50]
Joy Reid
In a moment, we'll be joined by our friend Daniel Levy to get into the specifics of this coming nightmare. But first, allow me to note that tonight's episode of the Joy Reid show is brought to you by Helix. Now as you can clearly see, if you're anywhere on the east coast, it is cold cold. So how are you handling the chill? If you're like me, a good comfy night's snuggle helps a lot. And what better way to make sleeping more comfy than a great mattress? Now, if you're plagued by night sweats, back pain, arm pain or all of the above, you might need to upgrade. Start by taking the Helix Sleep Quiz which matches you to the perfect mattress based on your personal preferences and sleep needs and makes buying a new mattress a breeze. Helix is the most awarded matrix brand tested and reviewed by experts like for Forbes and Wired and they offer free shipping and seamless delivery, delivering your new mattress right to your door. Along with a Happy with Helix guarantee, you rest easy with seamless returns and exchanges. The Happy with Helix guarantee offers a risk free customer first experience designed to ensure that you are completely satisfied with your new mattress. And that is not all. Helix also offers 120 night sleep trial and a limited lifetime warranty. So if you're ready to sleep better and and snuglier in this chilly winter season, go to helixsleep.com joy for 20% off site wide I.e. helixsleep.com Joy for 20% off site wide be sure to enter our show name after checkout so that they know that we sent you. So helixsleep.com joy thank you all very much. Before I bring in our guest, I want to play there is a really great journalist, his name is Sharif Kudus and he has written a terrific piece at Dropsite News in which he explains what what you just heard from Jared Kushner a bit ago in actual real world normal terms. This is a six if you could play it.
- [23:33]
Don Lemon
Jason if we look at the charter of the Board of Peace, there's no mention of Palestine, there's no mention of Palestinians, there's no mention of Gaza, there's no mention of the right of return, there's no mention of the right to self determination. What it does say is that, you know, Trump is chairman for life and it gives him these king like powers where he can only be replaced if he resigns or if he is deemed incapacitated under but it needs to be a unanimous vote that you know, is kind of unattainable. He can appoint new member states, he can veto any decision. And so you have this Board of Peace. You have what's called the founding executive board underneath that that has people like Jared Kushner, Marco Rubio and others on it. And then you have something under that called the Gaza Executive Board, which is made up of Palestinian technocrats that are supposed to implement these policies. So this is almost a farcical manifestation of colonialism in the 21st century. It's kind of like a parody of a colonial body. You know, if you had proposed this a few years ago, you would have been laughed out of the room, except that now it's actually real. And at the event yesterday, you played a clip of it, Trump's son in law, Jared Kushner, delivered this presentation of what he called the master plan for Gaza's redevelopment and reconstruction. And yeah, you saw these kind of, you know, these renderings of high coastal towers and mixed zones and so forth. It looked like an AI fantasy. And let me just say one of the slides in the presentation included Arabic script incorrectly written in reverse. So from left to right, Arabic script is written from right to left and with the letters disconnected. So, I mean, you know, it's hard to take these people seriously. I mean, they're buffoonish, but the problem is that they control the largest military and economy in the world.
- [25:34]
Joy Reid
And joining me now is Daniel Levy, political commentator and president of the US Middle East Project. He was a former Israeli negotiator with the Palestinians at Taba under Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and at Oslo B under Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Thank you so much. It's always good to see you. Daniel, what are your thoughts, if you would, on this colonial board of peace?
- [25:59]
Daniel Levy
Good to be with you. Joy really is. It does feel like a kind of Dutch East India company for the 21st century. It is remarkable that anyone is taking this seriously, if indeed they are, as something that can constructively offer something to the Palestinian people of Gaza. I want to offer one caveat, which is we do have to remember that the previous administration, the Biden administration, failed even to achieve a ceasefire. I wouldn't argue that what we have today is really a ceasefire, but what we have had is a significant downscaling in the killing. Now, that is obviously not what a full ceasefire should look like. Palestinians are being killed every day, almost 500 since the so called ceasefire. But it's not the thousands that we were seeing the triple digits on a daily basis. We still don't really have the humanitarian aid, especially the things that are most desperately needed, shelter, medicine coming in at the levels that were agreed. And Israel is of course, still in direct occupation of 58% of Gaza. Nevertheless, the President is telling us that after 3,000 years, we have peace in the Middle east and Jared Kushner, as you suggested, they did manage to get the slides in English, written in the correct order. Sharif from Dropsite just pointed out they didn't manage that in Arabic. But, you know, Jared was offering us something that looks straight out of someone who doesn't have much experience of using chat, offering a panoply of lies as to what is happening now in Gaza and what will happen in the future in Gaza. And let's not forget, people have profited from this genocide. We've heard of war profiteering. This is genocide profiteering. And the same people who set up that so called Gaza Humanitarian foundation, which tried to take over in a way that guaranteed and was designed to fail as a way of providing aid to Palestinians, but succeed as a way of killing more Palestinians, the same people who put that into place are the same people being entrusted with that next phase. How do you think that's going to go, Joy?
- [28:20]
Joy Reid
Yeah, I mean, I think it'll go exactly as we assume. When I was listening to Jared and I listened to his full speech, it sounded like they're setting up something that's somewhere between the Mandate of Palestine that the Brits set up and the way that the British governed India with these sort of locals who are almost sort of the overseers of their own people, these Palestinian technocrats. Any idea who these people are and what is their loyalty to the people as opposed to their loyalty to the developers? Because it seems like, at least from Sharif Khadus reporting, they are systematically continuing the flattening of the places they bombed, clear cutting them and already preparing to build these real estate developments.
- [29:04]
Daniel Levy
So there are a few things going on here, Joy. First of all, as you just suggested to us, these very schemes offer another layer of permission, almost to Israel, not that it asks anyone anyway, to carry on the destruction. So Israel right now continues to shoot Palestinians, bulldoze buildings, take over additional land. Now it can say that it is doing so in order to implement the remit of the Board for Peace plans for redevelopment. And you have private contractors in there who are part of doing that. So that's one of the things that's going on, is that you still have Israeli control, you still have daily destruction. And it seems that those same people will oversee any of these developments. That's one thing. The second thing is this. It's called the ncag, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza. That is where the Palestinians are sitting. There's a chap who was a Palestinian Authority, a technocrat, they've called this a technocrat committee called Ali Shah, he is heading it. No one chose those Palestinians well, actually a handful of outsiders helped pull them together. I don't want to impute entirely bad intentions to all of those people. I think some of them are looking at this and are being told by the external regional interlocutors, listen, one of the excuses the Israelis are putting forward for not withdrawing, for not moving forward is there's no one to hand this onto. You haven't been chosen by the Palestinian people. Your body is not even called a Palestinian body in its name. It's called Gaza. And part of this imperialism 2.0 strategy is to silo, to bifurcate further, to separate different parts of Palestine. Not call it Palestine, call it Gaza, talk about Gaza, not Palestinians. Nonetheless, Palestinian factions to a significant degree, even though again, they're not elected, have said, look, let's agree on this committee. So that that removes one layer of excuse. I don't think it's the right strategy by the regional mediating parties or by the Palestinian factions because that's not going to be enough for Israel. Israel's not going to say, oh, this is the committee we've been waiting for, now we'll withdraw. That's all we wanted. They will continue to place a bar, for instance, of disarmament in a place intentionally pitched so that it cannot be reached. Hamas have put to put forward pragmatic proposals of what could be done. They've agreed to this committee, governance was never the issue. They've agreed to certain options that in the history of liberation struggles, against apartheid, against illegal occupations, what they've offered are actually very reasonable proposals. So what I'm saying is that this Palestinian body may be designed to strip away an Israeli excuse, but that's not going to be enough. And I think the whole approach that we've seen from there are eight Arab and Muslim majority states who President Trump in New York, in the margins of the UN General assembly in September 1st put this 20 point plan to. Those eight states were all there represented. They made up almost half of those present at the Board of Peace. And I think what they were saying is we're going to stick with this approach where by being in the room with Trump, we can try and steer him away from Israel's most cruel, most destructive, most maximalist schemes. That's what they're trying to do. I don't think it works. I think you have to stand up to Israel, stand up to Trump. But that's the context of this Palestinian body and of those countries being part of that Board of Peace.
- [33:06]
Joy Reid
What do you make of the fact that basically all of our allies, all of the Western nations, have refused to join what really does look like a Trump mafia? Like he's created himself as the mafia don. And he said you have to pay a billion dollars to get in. It's like as it's been described by Michael Wolf, a global mar a lago. And then you get to be in the room while he permanently chairs this board. What do you make of the fact that all of Europe said, absolutely not, as did Canada, and then Trump disinvited him after he said, no.
- [33:38]
Daniel Levy
You'Re, you're suggesting that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is not the beating heart of, of Europe there, Joy. So look, what you have is you've got a grouping, some of whom are carved in the image of Trump himself. So that is Hungarian Prime Minister Orban, Argentinian President Milei, Paraguayan President Pena. One person unfortunately couldn't make it because he would have been arrested and sent to the International Criminal Court had he have stepped foot in Switzerland. That's our own favorite, Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. So you've got a man with an ICC International Criminal Court arrest warrant, warrant against his name. That's part of the makeup. Another part of the makeup I just described to you. It's those eight Arab Muslim majority states. They actually, in signing up, said this is in order to implement Gaza, even though, as we pointed out, the word Gaza is not mentioned in the Charter of the Board of Peace. And I think the others who are there, and it's a very small grouping right now, Joy. Okay. It's barely 10% of the member states of the United Nations. So this was not, to my mind, a show of strength in Davos this week in this Board of Peace. I think most of the others are looking at this. No one is saying, you know what, this is fabulous. This is my way to contribute to peace and a better world. I think they're looking at this and saying, how do I manage my equities with Donald Trump? And that's what most of those who went along were trying to do. The vast majority aren't there. And if we take a step back, because if you look at the Charter of the Board of Peace, it's farcical, as you say. Trump can disband, can kick anyone out, can add anyone. He's the only one who decides on the agenda, etc. But if you step back and look at what is going on here, I think this should be understood as part of an attempt to reassert American primacy via a strategy of bullying through the person of Donald Trump. I think the premise is flawed. American primacy will not be reasserted. I think the strategy that you simply throw your weight around, you bully your allies, you think that you can corral everyone through threats into doing what you want. You're only losing friends this way. You're actually displaying weakness. You lost your tariff war against China. You're not winning at the moment against Europe on Greenland. You've tried to assert primacy in the Western hemisphere, but actually you've cut a deal with the Maduro regime just without Maduro. So the strategy is flawed. And of course, the most flawed part of this in all of it is the very flawed human being who's leading it. This person who is a combination of vanity, insecurity and petulance. So Mark Carney gives a speech and Donald Trump sends out a truth social posting. I didn't like what you said. You're not invited to my party anymore. Mark Carney's speech at Davos I think will be remembered in history far more than the ceremony of the Board of Peace.
- [36:53]
Joy Reid
I agree. I've argued earlier in the show that he may be the person. While we may not have a leader of the free world anymore, we may be past that historically. But if there is one at the moment, somebody who's speaking truth to power with the greatest clarity, I would argue it's Canada's Prime Minister Carney. My ex question to you is that it seems to me, if you look at the polling, Israel has fallen for the second year in a row to the bottom of global rankings. People despise the Bibi Netanyahu regime. And by definition, it's also harming Israeli citizens at athletes who try to apply their craft abroad. They've dropped really in just esteem around the world and so has the United States. Just as somebody who's looked at the world from the point of view that you have as somebody who's acted in the international realm, is the American era over and is the era of Israeli sort of primacy over?
- [37:52]
Daniel Levy
I think those are very good questions. And I think one of the things you have is a commonality that in attempting to reverse that trend, both the US Under Trump and Israel are doubling down on throwing their military weight around as what they can fall back on now that I think that looks different to the US And Israel. I think in America, the primary failure, if one puts Trump aside just for a moment, because I think the Biden administration attempted this as well, the primary failure is the Inability and the unwillingness to acknowledge and act on a reality of multipolarity, a reality that the era of American primacy, if it ever existed, was short lived. It is certainly not here today. And you are better off as America if you acknowledge that fact and work within that reality. Israel is, is kind of going in the opposite direction and saying this is our moment to assert regional domination. So yes, we've talked about Gaza and, and you know, Israel is on trial at the International Court of Justice for the crime of genocide. And provisional measures were issued, which Israel ignored. But, but it's not just Gaza, of course. We see that Israel is conducting its most destructive actions. The displacement of Palestinians in the west bank is on a scale we haven't seen for decades. Israel is occupying part of Syria, part of Lebanon. So this is an extremely ambitious agenda. I would suggest it's massive overreach and that not only is that deeply unpopular in the world, but even the regimes in the region who were willing to put up with an awful lot are beginning to say, whoa, wait a minute, this is a threat to us, to our leadership. This is destabilizing, it's radicalizing. We have to get to grips with this. They haven't yet come up with a strategy for working together to contain and deter Israel, which would have to include, one imagines, a military component. But I would suggest that both the US and Israel are digging themselves deeper into a hole, especially when you bear in mind a couple of other things. One is shifting geopolitics. You know, we touched on it earlier. It's very telling that, and I agree with you in the assessment of Mark Carney, it's very telling when the Prime Minister of Canada not only gives the most memorable explanation of what the world today looks like, and his major point there is the idea that we had a rules based international order was a fiction. Now we actually have to build as many of the elements of that multilateral institutional architecture of rules that we all try and adhere to because everyone is better served by that. And he spoke in particular about mid level powers, but of course it also applies to small states even more so the majority of the world is very ill served, the vast majority by what Trump is trying to do. And the geopolitics are shifting because where did Carney arrive in Davos from? From China. And so much of the rest of the world is looking at this today and saying, you know what? I need China inside this. China is setting itself up to be a more predictable, rational, multilateral actor. Even things like clean energy look what the Chinese are doing there. America is so far behind that when it finally wakes up and realizes that is the future, it will not be able to catch up. And the rest of the world is hedging. The rest of the world is saying, how do I insulate myself, insulate my country from the fallout of what is now an accelerating American decline? And so I think that's America going to fail. And if we go back to Israel, Israel is not going to be able, I would argue, to carry forward it's extremely ambitious, zero sum destructive agenda in the region indefinitely. And something else is going on which is Israel is ever more dependent on the US which I would say is weakening itself globally. And Israel is more of an area of disagreement, more of a contentious, controversial issue inside American politics on both sides of the aisle. Something totally new, the fight that's going on inside MAGA than it ever was. And that's Joy, before we even touch on what's going on domestically inside Israel, which is a huge mess, and before we touch on what's going on domestically inside your own country, because we've looked at everything from the external perspective. But look at America today. I don't need to tell you this. Look at Minnesota, look at what's happening with the Federal Reserve. Is this a country that is projecting internal strength as a way to show its external strength? I would say categorically not, no.
- [43:26]
Joy Reid
It's ironic that Donald Trump is said to by people, those who dispared him, to be a Russian agent bringing down the United States on behalf of Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin. But in the end, it won't be Putin who benefits from the decline of the American empire. And Israel being the little minnow stuck on the whale of America, probably pull their empire down too. It will be China. We may be entering the Chinese century. Daniel Levy, it's always a pleasure, my friend. Thank you so much. Please come back.
- [43:54]
Daniel Levy
Pleasure is mine, Joy, you take care. Stay warm.
- [43:57]
Joy Reid
Cheers. I will try. I will try. I will try. All right, y'. All. Well, that's it. I mean, the American empire is over. And I think in a sense it's not a bad thing. I'm not thrilled that Donald Trump is the one to bring it down, but he has brought it down. And it's not that it's nothing he did, it's just his precaution. Proclivities are so Putin like and he's so ill informed and stupid that without thinking about it too deeply, he and his political party and the weakness of the other political party I think the American empire might be done and China will be the big beneficiary. We're gonna keep watching this space. Okay? So to the points that Daniel made of our domestic hell, ICE is now also occupying the state of Maine where a local sheriff has reported that the Trump secret police detained one of his recruits on their way to work. So we're standing by to start seeing the same violent images out of that blue state that we've seen in the other ICE occupied cities. We've also seen the same thing happen to non white off duty police in Minnesota. And speaking of Minnesota, here is the latest video from independent journalists and voices out of occupied Minnesota. This is. Sorry, this is C1.
- [45:16]
Sherrilyn Ifill
I feel like in Minneapolis, I'm a sitting duck. I don't feel safe at home.
- [45:22]
Joy Reid
I don't feel safe at work.
- [45:24]
Sherrilyn Ifill
Kids aren't safe at school.
- [45:30]
Joy Reid
I was born in Minneapolis and I'm.
- [45:33]
Sherrilyn Ifill
Scared out of my mind because I have skin. That is not.
- [45:36]
Joy Reid
Wait.
- [45:37]
Don Lemon
And that is not fair.
- [45:39]
Sherrilyn Ifill
I am a nurse. There's a public health emergency because nurses aren't showing up to work, because we're freaked out. Because when we advocate for our black and brown patients, what happens when ICE.
- [45:52]
Joy Reid
Comes into our hospitals?
- [45:53]
Sherrilyn Ifill
We are making plans on what we.
- [45:55]
Don Lemon
Are going to do because we are.
- [45:57]
Joy Reid
In ethical dilemmas on what is the right thing to do. Again, you've heard the firsthand stories about how ICE is acting illegally and unconstitutionally. They are acting unlawfully and in turn are jeopardizing patient care and the health of our patients. This is not making our city safer. It is about harming entire communities, making certain that certain communities feel afraid to go out to get groceries, to go to school, to go to work, and now are afraid to get medical care. They kidnapped me. They took me. They arrested and detained me for two days and I was put in county jail. ICE came, they came out of their cars. They asked me to see my id. And while they were asking me to.
- [46:39]
Don Lemon
See the id, that man, he called me.
- [46:42]
Nana Gyamfi
He called me the N word. They pushed me hard.
- [46:45]
Joy Reid
They used a lot of violence.
- [46:46]
Nana Gyamfi
My body still hurts.
- [46:47]
Joy Reid
I got a concussion. It's really hard for me to speak because of that concussion. And I was screaming, I was crying.
- [46:53]
Nana Gyamfi
I was so scared.
- [46:55]
Joy Reid
I've, like, never been arrested in my life. I've never. I don't have, like a criminal record. I have a clean record. I was literal. Cuffs were put on my legs, cuffs on my hands. I was actually detained with a Native American woman and God bless her heart.
- [47:13]
Nana Gyamfi
She went through a Lot too.
- [47:15]
Joy Reid
She was also detained by ice, and she was also a US citizen like me. And she had gashes on her face. They shattered her windows. She had blood on her jeans, her corduroy jeans.
- [47:27]
Nana Gyamfi
And she was crying because she was.
- [47:29]
Joy Reid
So scared that because she was with her dog. She was so scared that her dog got hurt. She was so scared for her life. We were both crying together. We were holding each other tight. And I'll never forget, like, the fear that we both felt in our hearts that day. Joining me now is our friend Nana Gyamfi, executive director of the Black alliance for Just Immigration Baji, which is the largest black led racial justice and immigration rights organization in the U.S. nana, I'm sure that that clip at the end hit you the same way it hit me. I mean, the terror and fear that's being inflicted on people in Minnesota at this point, black, brown and white and Asian. They pulled an Asian man out of his home without clothes on. It's terrifying. Your thoughts?
- [48:12]
Nana Gyamfi
It's absolutely terrifying. First of all, thank you for having me on and, you know, for always keeping our focus on all the, all the things we gotta keep our focus on. And clearly what's happening in Minneapolis and in Minnesota, we've seen it happening across the country. It's intensified in Minneapolis. And you know, there's some reasons that we'll definitely talk about why, in terms of why Minneapolis is being hit this type of way. But this is what we're hearing from black folks, black immigrants who we work closely with, black African Americans as well as other people of color that are in Minneapolis and Minnesota. It's clearly continuing that pattern of racial profiling. And this really being based on race. And that is it. It's not criminality, it's not documentation, as you heard from folks, it's not nationality, how they're deciding who to grab, who to look at, who to snatch. We call them the body snatchers is based upon race. And when we see it that way, a lot of this gets a lot clearer in terms of why this is happening.
- [49:16]
Joy Reid
I just want to note thanks to our wonderful producers who just pulled this up. A judge in Minnesota has said that the Department of Justice failed to make its case to detain two of the church protesters who were charged with violations of something called the Face Act. We'll ask definitely Sheryl and Ifill more about that when she comes on. But one of those two activists, one of the people who was detained is an activist named Nikima Levy Armstrong. If I could just. Jason, if we could just play, please say C3 so that you all can hear a little bit of her. So that's what someone wrote to me. And again, it's one of many emails that I have received from these MAGA supporters from people who have a. A problem with the fact that we came into the church to confront an injustice and take. Do not have a problem with the fact that you have an ICE director, not just an ICE agent, as some people have said, but the director of the ICE field office in the state of Minnesota, also serving as a pastor at city church in St. Paul. Someone helped me understand how it's possible to hold both roles with integrity, with honor, because the gospel that I believe in the foundation says that we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Now contrast that gospel message to what we have been seeing by ICE and the terrorism that they have engaged in on the streets of St. Paul, Minneapolis and surrounding suburbs and including outstate Minnesota, where they kicked in the man's door and came in with big guns and took him out. And then NPR reported that when he got to the detention facility, they took trophy photos with him like he was a slave or an animal that they caught out in the wild. And he wasn't the only one that they did that to. So somebody tell me, how is it acceptable for David Easterwood to be a pastor when he is condoning this kind of conduct? And not just condoning it. We can leave it there. I just want to. I wanted you guys to see and hear her. And then I want you guys to look at a photo that the White House posted of Nakima Levy Armstrong. You saw what she looked like. This is the photo. This is C4. Jason, whenever you get a chance, if you could pull that up. The photo at the White House, digitally altered, apparently in order to try to make Ms. Armstrong look other than she was. And while Jason is pulling that up, I'm going to note there's the difference in the two photos. They altered the photo and posted this altered version, per the Guardian. US District Judge Laura M. Provenzino wrote in her order for two of the protesters, Nikima Valdez Levy Armstrong and Chantill Louisa Allen, that the Justice Department lawyers failed to demonstrate that a detention hearing is warranted or that detention is otherwise appropriate. There's no factual legal support for the judge to support their contention that this was a crime of violence. There's a third pro pester named William Scott Kelly, who was separately ordered released by another federal magistrate judge. Your thoughts on what does feel like Nana? A shift in the visuals of what ICE is doing from brown to white to now very distinctively black.
- [52:55]
Nana Gyamfi
So I say that it's always been really black and that what has happened is obviously when you're talking about the populations that people think of with immigration, which is mainly brown folks, that that was what people are seeing now. But remember, Joy, why did they go into Minnesota? Remember, they said they went into Minnesota because of Somali fraud. Those Somalis are black people. Right. The focus was on them. The focus was on Omar. And the first things that we saw were that were the body snatchers confronting Somalis who were saying, I'm citizen, I'm a citizen, et cetera. Then it shifted to brown folks, then it shifted to white observers and protesters and now going squarely to black people. But not just any black people people. When we're talking about our sister Nakima, we're talking about a black person who also was involved with Black Lives Matter because Minneapolis is this black boogeyman in the mind of this regime because of two things, the black folks and the support of allies with Black Lives matter. George Floyd 2020 and that movement, that was one of the largest movements in the world. And the second being the notion that Minneapolis is a place with all these black immigrants, particularly Somali, and this fixation that this president has in particular on Representative Omar. So it is this dual blackness, the blackness associated with African Americans and the fight against police terror, the blackness associated with Somalis and other black migrants in Minneapolis, the fight against ice, that is really the fixation in their mind in the same way that they're fixated that Antifa is in Portland, Oregon. Right. So it's that same thing. But it is blackness at the end that drove them there and blackness that really is the driving force behind this expansion of the way that they are engaging in enforcement that is really unprecedented in terms of these invasions that have happened all over the country.
- [54:56]
Joy Reid
I would add one more thing, and it's interesting because we were talking with Daniel Levy in the previous segment about sort of the way that Europe is now being treated like the global south has always been treated by Europe. Right? And Trump is now treating them that way. But you're also seeing that resources were always the driving force behind colonization of black nations. In particular, the nations in Africa have so many resources under their soil. In Minnesota, it turns out they have resources as well. While all of this chaos Nana. Is taking place, House Republicans voted to lift a 20 year ban on mining near a pristine Boundary Waters canoe area, which is in the northern part of Minnesota. So while they are attacking black and brown Immigrants and white observers, they're also preparing to strip mine a pristine part of that state. And so what you're realizing is that one of the reasons they hate Minnesota is, yes, Black Lives Matter. Yes, the fact that they've got liberal leadership that gives extensive social services and lets children have affordable preschool. And they hate that. But they also hate that liberal leadership won't let them strip mine like they do in places like Mississippi and Louisiana, places like Florida, places like West Virginia. When you get Republican governance, you get to despoil the atmosphere and foul the air like they're doing in Tennessee with these AI centers. You can't do it in Minnesota. You think that's part of it?
- [56:23]
Nana Gyamfi
Absolutely. And when you draw the line that you're drawing right now and connecting the dots, I have never heard of so much grabbing of Native Americans as I've heard in Minnesota. That doesn't mean it wasn't happening in other places. But where that has been happening is where those Native Americans also have control over those areas that have that, those minerals that have the things that they want to mine, that have the oil that they want to get. So, absolutely, this is the way this regime operates. It bullies it, terrifies it, terrorizes it, tries to get people silent so that it can grab and take whatever it can.
- [57:03]
Joy Reid
Right. And I will note this is the AP reporting that Congressional Republicans move closer Wednesday to lifting a 20 year ban on mining near Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, pushing a resolution to end the moratorium through the House despite environmentalist warnings that it could devastate a premier destination for campers, kayakers and canoeists. And also, as you said, they want indigenous land. They want the liberal government of Minnesota to act like the conservative governments in places like West Virginia and Louisiana and let them strip mine wherever they want and put AI. So everyone always understand it's always deeper than just their naked hatred of black people and brown people, which they do. They are racist. There's always a money component to it. Talk to me about what kind of organizing is taking place that your organization and others are doing to do two things. One is to try to organize for these black immigrants, these Somali immigrants who are very targeted, but also to prevent them getting what they want, which is black people in the street, so they can have that image. That's what Lev Parnas has reported, that they want to see black people in the streets so they can start arresting them and turn this into a black white issue.
- [58:21]
Nana Gyamfi
So the kind of work that we're doing there, folks, already, first of all are on the ground that are engaging. They're meeting all the time, having conversations as black immigrants, African Americans and allies, figuring out, okay, what is it that we can do to support our communities? So there's a lot of mutual aid going on because cause people are afraid to leave. One of our comrades is saying they live like right on a really busy intersection, hardly any traffic. Usually there's all kinds of people. But people are literally terrified to go to work, take their kids to school, to do grocery shopping. So there's a lot of mutual aid happening. There's a lot of community defense work happening. People getting Know youw Rights training, people getting observer training, people getting, you know, whatever they can to see how are they able to support communities. Hotlines being developed, rapid response work happening. A lot of work happening around community building and also community protection. You also see folks such as Baji and other entities, you know, in Minneapolis, in Minnesota, that are saying, what are some of the things that are making these invasions possible? And one thing we know, Joy, is that when they're bringing in 2,000 extra folks, 2,000 extra body snatchers from Louisiana, as we know they did, where are those body snatchers staying? They gotta stay somewhere. And where they're staying is hotels. And so we are saying that we should not have hotels tucking body snatchers in at night. You heard about that restaurant in Minneapolis where the body snatchers went into the restaurant, happily ate their Mexican food, left, and four hours later came back and started arresting people. And we know that that's happening also with people that are hotel workers. You heard the nurse talking about being terrified at hospitals. And so as we look at these hot. And particularly in our case, looking at the Hilton, which really said with its full chest, that it is against their values to refuse reservations for body snatchers. Which means it's actually within their values. They're telling us to go ahead and have the body snatchers in their hotel. Not surprising, as the CEO of Hilton has been very open about being supportive of this regime's policies in terms of economic policies, donating and supporting the regime, that everything the regime has been doing. And so we are saying that part of what needs to happen here is some of that same consumer pressure and boycotts that we've talked about with Target and Home Depot, that Hilton has said, pick me, I want to be the hotel chain that is supporting the body snatchers. And we'll have people such as our organization, Baji and our partners letting folks know, don't go to Hilton. You know, give Hilton hell. Is what we're saying and make sure that we are not supporting hotels, restaurants, any of those hospitality pillars that are making sure that the body snatchers are quite welcome and comfortable as they're terrorizing our community.
- [61:21]
Joy Reid
Absolutely. Say it. Hyatt. Hyatt. A much better company, you know, much more positive. Just say no to Hilton if that's how they want to act. If you're with the bad guys and you're with the fascists, people shouldn't be with you. I will note that today was the day that there was supposed to be a huge economic slowdown in Minnesota. People closing their businesses, refusing to shop, refusing to spend money. More of that is probably coming because really the only language that these fascists understand is finance. It's really the only thing they understand. I'll give you a final word here on how people can support the work you're doing. And I will note that. Yeah, Jason, just put that up. J.D. vance has told Minneapolis, comply with the slave catchers. He said comply and everything would be fine. What do you make of that message?
- [62:06]
Nana Gyamfi
Well, that's the message that they want us all to take. And what I'm so happy about is that people are saying, no, we're not going to comply. To hell with you. We're not going to comply. We're going to fight you. People ask me every day what's going on now. How do you feel? I said that. The rest of us, I am filled with the spirit of resistance. That's what we need to have is the spirit of resistance. And we're launching our part of the resistance. That's our partners nationally and even internationally. Because, you know, there's Hilton's there too. Have said that they're going to do with us next week. Folks should follow us on social media and Instagram. It's Nstabaji. Easiest way to get plugged in. We're going to have a webinar. We're going to have a pledge. We're speaking with so many other folks, including we ain't buying it, and others who are really interested in saying yes, we want to be a part of this again, no to Hilton. We going to give Hilton some hell. We're going to make sure that it is clear that you cannot support the body snatchers and be supported by the people.
- [63:04]
Joy Reid
Amen. Find a small independent hotel. There are a lot of like, niche, really cute hotels, but make sure you vet them and make sure that they are not a Trump donor as well. But find those small ones or find the, the, the, the hotel chains. That are actually doing the right thing. We appreciate you, Nana Gyamphy. You're great. We're going to make sure that we put insta baji in the show description and put the link so that people can support what you're doing. Thank you very much, my sister. I appreciate you.
- [63:28]
Nana Gyamfi
Thank you so very much. Thank you so much. Have a great rest of your day. Keep the fight up. You're doing it.
- [63:33]
Joy Reid
That's it. Thank you very much. All right, before we continue, let me inform you that this episode of the Joy Reid show is also brought to you by our good friends. Oh wait. Oh wait. Oh wait. Oh wait, wait. I have. I have to go down. Oh, yeah. Yes. It's brought to our friends at Quints. What am I saying? If you're starting the year with a wardrobe refresh, Quince has you covered with luxury essentials that feel effortless and look polished. They are perfect for layering, mixing and building a wardrobe that lasts. Their versatile styles make it easy to reach for them day after day. Quince has all the staples that you need. Fully covered with soft Mongolian cashmere sweaters that feel like a designer without the markup to 100% silk tops and skirts for easy dressing up to perfectly cut denim for everyday wear. Their wardrobe essentials are crafted to last season after season after season. Quince's Italian wool coats are true standouts. They are beautifully tailored, soft to the touch and built to carry you through years of wear, not just a single season. The quality shows in every detail. The stitching, the fit, the fabrics. Every piece is thoughtfully designed to be your new wardrobe essential. And like everything from quints, each piece is made with premium materials in ethical trusted factories then price far below what luxury brands charge. Now I break out my soft maroon quince cashmere sweater. This is actually it. This is my fabulous little quince. And I break it out anytime that I want to go someplace that's super dressy to like upscale cas. And I also have a cute cream colored one that I can wear at speaking events or even here on the air. Like this one that I'm wearing here. Now I trust me, it's super soft, super cush. So here's a thought for the winter fashion season, refresh your wardrobe with quince. Do not wait. Go to quince.com joyread for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available. Also in our favorite country, Canada. That's Q U I-N-C-E.com joyreid to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com joyread thank y' all very much. And yeah, this is super soft. I love it. All right, I want to take a minute to read to you what the First Amendment says. We're going to put it up on the screen. The First Amendment passed in 1791 on December 15, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights. It says, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or of the right of the people to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Seems pretty clear and straightforward, right? You have the right to speak freely. You have the right to practice your own religion. The government cannot impose a religion on you. And the press has the right to do its job, to inform you of what's happening. And you have the right to protest, to peaceably assemble and petition your government. It seems pretty straightforward. Okay, so can anybody explain this?
- [66:20]
Don Lemon
Department of Homeland Security has even co opted the Bible in videos and ads to bless its cruelty with a twisted and extreme interpretation of faith that targets the most vulnerable among us, in particular those who are not white and those who are not Christian. Let me be clear from my faith and the core of my being, isis. This ruthless and unhinged campaign is an affront to the divine commandments to love.
- [66:59]
Joy Reid
Our neighbor and to welcome the stranger.
- [67:03]
Don Lemon
We cry out to the leadership and.
- [67:05]
Joy Reid
The foot soldiers of the Department of.
- [67:08]
Don Lemon
Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
- [67:12]
Joy Reid
Repent of the violence in your hearts, repentance of the harm of your hands.
- [67:19]
Don Lemon
And turn back towards decency, democracy and love.
- [67:29]
Joy Reid
Community today demand that our political end these reckless immigration raids.
- [67:36]
Don Lemon
And we oppose any bill that would add to ISIS already massive budget. Make no mistake, faith leaders and religious communities are committed and mobilized all across the country. We the people are showing up to counter ISIS brutality with the moral power of non violent peaceful protest. May God grant us the courage to hold on to what is good. Look deep within our hearts. Choose love, not ice. ICE out for good.
- [68:19]
Joy Reid
Now that was a Baptist minister noting that ICE is using a Bible verse and a video that says darkness is no longer your ally. And there's a Bible verse that they're using in one of their latest social media posts to justify the body snatching. So this is your federal government using your tax dollars to pimp a particular religion which effectively is being treated as the state religion to justify violating the fourth amendment, which supposedly protects our right to be secure in our persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures unless there is a probable cause supported by a judicial warrant. And the Fifth Amendment, which supposedly guarantees due process, meaning no person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury. And also the 14th amendment, which supposedly establishes citizenship. They're basically tearing up the Constitution from freedom of speech and assembly to just actual physical freedom in order to turn this country into a papers please apartheid state. And by the way, that pastor exercising his moral judgment on them and exercising his freedom of religion, that's actually what's protected, not the government doing Bible verses to do ICE raids. And adds to that First Amendment. Returning to our first Don mentioned on this show, while the regime is no longer trying to indict him, at least for now, for exercising his First Amendment protected freedom of the press, I think it's important to rerack exactly what the journalism that Don Lemon was doing in that church looked like. Roland.
- [69:56]
Don Lemon
An operation that is secret, that they invited folks out.
- [70:01]
Joy Reid
This is Operation Pull up, more of a clandestine operation. We show up somewhere, they don't expect us to come there, and then we disrupt business as usual.
- [70:13]
Don Lemon
So right now, it's kind of mayhem. We're not part of the activists, but we're here just reporting on them. Did they explain to you why they're here? They did not.
- [70:23]
Daniel Levy
They said that there is someone here, Easterwood, who is.
- [70:27]
Don Lemon
Is a member of ice, and he's a pastor of the church. Our church had gathered for worship, which we do every Sunday. We asked them to leave, and. And they.
- [70:38]
Joy Reid
Obviously have not left.
- [70:40]
Don Lemon
So this is what the First Amendment is about, about the freedom to protest. There's a varying array of views in this church on politics, of immigration. Recognize the complexity of the issue. This shows you just how divided America is.
- [70:58]
Joy Reid
When you look at the protesters here.
- [71:00]
Don Lemon
And then you look at the people there praying. And you know what is interesting thing?
- [71:05]
Daniel Levy
If these two groups could just get.
- [71:06]
Don Lemon
Together, they might figure out what to do.
- [71:09]
Sherrilyn Ifill
I don't necessarily agree with everything that's going on in the Twin Cities right now, but I don't think it's good.
- [71:14]
Joy Reid
To fight fire with fire.
- [71:15]
Sherrilyn Ifill
I think it's good to speak up, I think it's good to protest, but.
- [71:18]
Joy Reid
I think it's better to do it in a peaceful way.
- [71:21]
Don Lemon
Yeah, that was interesting to watch this guy here, look, hugging his kid. And, you know, I imagine it's uncomfortable and traumatic for the people here.
- [71:31]
Daniel Levy
They think you lost and this didn't.
- [71:33]
Don Lemon
Accomplish anything, and you went into their house, the house of the Lord.
- [71:38]
Joy Reid
The reality is the house of the Lord is a place where love lives. It's not a place where you can have a pastor masquerading as the director for the field office of ICE in St. Paul. So he goes into the church not knowing what was going to happen there. He was not part of the organizing of it. Check. He interviews the pastor. Check. He interviews people from both sides of the situation. Check, check, check. He's doing journalism. How do they even try to think that was a crime? And despite none of that being a crime, the regimes and Justice Department even sought to criminalize not just Don's completely First Amendment protected conduct, but also the entire protest. According to the Associated Press, the Justice Department has opened a civil rights investigation after the group of protesters led by Nikima Levy Armstrong, who you saw there, interrupted those services by chanting ICE out and justice for Renee Goode, referring to Renee Goode, the 37 year old mother of three. He was shot in the face by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. A civil rights investigation is that we're doing now. This is the regime police now officially taking children. They're taking a five year old apparently to use them as bait. This is where we're at. They're taking five year old kids and telling them go knock on your family's door to get your mom to come out or get your dad to come out so we can take them. This is what they're doing. And then they're saying the civil rights violation are the protesters. This as the AP has also uncovered a memo indicating that the regime is now claiming sweeping powers to forcibly enter people's homes without a judge's warrant, marking a sharp reversal of long standing guidance meant to respect constitutional limits on government searches. Per the ap, the memo authorizes ICE officers to use force to enter a residence based solely on a more narrow administrative warrant to arrest someone with a final order of removal, a move that advocates say collides with Fourth Amendment protections and upends years of advice given to immigrant communities. The shift comes as the Trump regime. I'm saying regime here. They say administration dramatically expands immigration arrest nationwide, deploying thousands of officers under a mass deportation campaign that is already reshaping enforcement tactics in cities such as Minneapolis. This does not strike me as constitutional or even close to legal, but I'm not a lawyer. But our next guest is joining me now is Sherrilyn Ifill, eminent civil rights lawyer and the Vernon E. Jordan Jr. Esq. Endowed Chair in Civil Rights at Howard University. She is a Law professor and former president and director counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, also known as ldf. We told you she was going to be back. And happy Friday, friend. Thank you, Sherilyn, for coming back.
- [74:20]
Sherrilyn Ifill
I'm thrilled to be back and without technical difficulties.
- [74:24]
Joy Reid
Listen, we love the Internets when they work, but sometimes they be turning on us. Let's talk about this a. Well, first of all, let's go back to Don Lemon.
- [74:34]
Sherrilyn Ifill
Yeah.
- [74:35]
Joy Reid
You watched him doing his journalistic job. Doing his job. Can you get into the minds of the Justice Department to see anything in his conduct that could be actionable or illegal?
- [74:49]
Sherrilyn Ifill
Yeah, I don't see anything. And I will decline your invitation to get in the mind of Pam Bondi and others at the Justice Department. Apparently, the magistrate judge to whom the charges against Don Lemon felt the same way, the same way that you and I feel that there's nothing there. And throughout the charges against Don Lemon, you know, he is a journalist. He was acting as a journalist, as your clip showed so perfectly. You know, when someone says, we're not part of the activists, we're just here as journalists, when they interview one side or another, they repeat what the other side said to the person that they're interviewing. This is open and shut. It is absolutely ridiculous. Don Lemon has one of the best lawyers in the business, Abby Lowell, and those charges were thrown out by the magistrate judge. Now, three people were also arrested, and I'm sure you want to come to that. And we should talk about the charges against.
- [75:50]
Joy Reid
Yes, please do. Now, we know that there is some question of whether those charges will hold up. There is this reporting that a federal judge has rejected a Department of justice motion to detain two of them. One. The third was already released. But Judge Laura Provisano wrote in her order for Nakima Valdez, Levy Armstrong, who you saw in those videos, and Chantill, Louisa Allen, that the Justice Department failed to demonstrate that a detention hearing is warranted or that detention is otherwise appropriate, and that the Trump administration offered no factual or legal support to. To support their contention that this was a crime of violence. The third protester is named William Scott Kelly. He was separately ordered released by a federal magistrate judge. What do you make of that?
- [76:34]
Sherrilyn Ifill
Well, it doesn't surprise me, because the charge that they are attempting to make stick is, you said civil rights violations. Let's go even a step deeper. The statute is 10 USC Section 241. And that statute, Joy, is the Ku Klux Klan Act. And the Ku Klux Klan act protects against conspiracies to interfere with constitutional or federal rights and privileges. I wanted to let that silence sit for a moment. So we're talking about the suggestion that these individuals conspired to interfere with the constitutional right to freedom of religion. Presumably, if you've looked at the whole tape, you see that there was no interference with the ability of people to exercise their religion. We've all seen civil disobedience inside churches. I've been at Brown's Chapel AME Church in Selma, Alabama, on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday and saw people stand up and turn their backs when Michael Bloomberg was asked to speak. Many of us have seen. We saw protests in churches. In Charleston, we have seen protests inside churches. To suggest that those protests constitute a conspiracy to interfere with constitutional rights is a stretch. They've also talked about the FACE act, which is the act that protects, again, against interference with churches and with people's ability to worship in church. I don't think that that one actually holds up either, given the elements that is necessary for a violation of face. But remember, this administration is not so much interested in winning cases. They are interested in creating examples. They wanted that photo op of Nikima Levy Armstrong with the handcuffs, which they then doctored into a picture of her weeping. I'm sure that the. The real get was they wanted Don Lemon in handcuffs. They want these photo ops. And Pam Bundy came all the way to Minneapolis herself because she thought that that's what she would get. And news accounts say that she is outraged by the magistrate judge, the federal magistrate's decision to throw out the charges against Lemon and how he dealt with the other charges.
- [79:04]
Joy Reid
I just have to go back for a moment to the Klan act because there are the two pieces of it that did leave my jaw swinging. One being that if anything looks like the Klan, it looks like the Knight Riders in the masks grabbing children and throwing them to the ground and then throwing them into vans. Like that literally looks like a gang of KKK Red Riders grabbing a person that they want to lynch back in the 1920s and 30s. That looks like the Klan. And Donald Trump himself is facing lawsuits under the KKK act because of the insurrection in which members of Congress, like former Congresswoman Barbara Lee, faced death at the hands of his marauding, screaming hang, Mike Pence, AKA Lynch. Mike Pence supporters.
- [79:52]
Sherrilyn Ifill
Well, you know, absolutely true. I filed one of those cases in my former position. Jack Smith also filed charges under the KKK act in his indictment that was obviously later dismissed after the privilege decision and right immediately prior to the election or after the. The. The outcome of the election. It's really quite shocking. I wrote a piece about this months ago called Masked Terror on my substack, in which I talked about the way in which the masked ICE agents should call to mind the reasons why the Ku Klux Klan act was enacted in 1870 and 1871, precisely because of these masked individuals who were brutalizing formerly enslaved people, emancipated black people, after the Civil War and after the passage of the 13th and 14th Amendments. So to use this is the height of cynicism. It's outrageous. But this is, you know, this is the world that they are trying to usher in, a world in which they take the gains. And the legislation that emerged from the civil rights movement, they turn it upside down and they shake, right? The Department of Justice now has made clear that the department's focus is on discrimination against white people. The chair of the EEOC posted on social media, asking any white person that feels that they have suffered employment discrimination should reach out to the eeoc A special message to white people. This is what they've done. They have decided to take the very statutes and the very principles that were ushered in by Brown vs Board of Education, by the civil rights movement, and to turn them on their heads and use them in the service of maintaining white supremacy. It is appalling. You can imagine how it feels to civil rights lawyers and activists, but it also is a slap in the face to this country because the civil rights movement and Brown actually ushered democracy into this country. We were not a democracy before Brown. You can't have a democracy in a country that in which half of the country is governed by legal apartheid. So America owes a great debt to the civil rights lawyers and activists who ushered in that period. And to see that work and to see the sacrifice some unto death of those who ushered in democracy in this country that benefits us all is part of just the grotesque nature of the Trump regime, as you say.
- [82:39]
Joy Reid
I mean, it strikes me that there's a reason that police officers are unmasked, right? I mean, the slave catchers back in the day, which morphed into the police, these police departments, they sometimes were masked raiders. But the idea was to create this sort of professional police force who you could identify, you could ask for their badge number, you could ask to see a supervisor. What? The people who rode through communities wearing masks, masks were the Klan. And so it is. I mean, this isn't even a question. It's just a comment that the people who are in ice right now are mimicking the behaviors of the Klan. The violence of the Klan. We've had now multiple people, including US Citizens, including military veterans who've been detained, nurses who've been called the N word, who've been told, do you not see what we did to that effing bee, that lesbian baby? Who've been told, this is, you know, that you need to learn your lesson from Nicole Renee. Nicole, Good. Getting shot in the face and killed, basically threatening to kill people. You've had them kicking indoors, busting into people's homes, taking a native, taking Native Americans, indigenous people, and questioning their right to be. I mean, it couldn't be more like the Klan.
- [83:52]
Sherrilyn Ifill
The chief of the Minneapolis Police Department announced several days ago that ICE is pulling over off duty police officers who are black.
- [84:03]
Joy Reid
Right.
- [84:04]
Sherrilyn Ifill
So this is, I mean, it is designed to, to, to make you feel like you, you, you're disoriented, but it also is designed to give something to their followers. And I really want to emphasize that the story, the narrative of the Civil Rights movement was such a powerful one that gripped this country. And it has enduring power, power that really has endured for decades. That's why people would fall all over themselves to, you know, quote Martin Luther King. Of course, only one quote from only one speech. But still, to, to talk about Martin Luther King, to say, of course, I mean, who didn't love the Civil Rights movement until a few years ago, right? That narrative is so powerful that part of what Trump and Vance and their confederates are about is destroying that narrative and replacing it with a narrative in which they are the victims, in which they are the noble Americans. Because the story of the Civil Rights movement is a. Is a story of the nobility of ordinary, marginalized people who sacrificed all and who did it out of their desire to be true Americans and to protect their families and to protect their communities. They want that story. It's not just that they want to take down the historical markers in, in Independence Plaza in Philadelphia. It's not that they want to stop young people from learning about black history. It's not that they want to stop people from talking about slavery. They want more than that. They want our nobility. They want our story because they understand that narratives have power. And this is exactly what we saw after Reconstruction with the Lost Cause Movement, where Southerners and Northerners who worked with them retold the story of the Civil War and retold the story of who the Confederacy, who the members of the Confederacy were. They were now noble. Robert E. Lee was the noblest of them all. And Southern plantations were places of gentility and Family and enslaved people were happy and well cared for. And when Reconstruction happened and those 17 congressmen were elected and sat in the United States Congress, that was a period of debauchery and a period of corruption. This is the story that was created after Reconstruction. And the intensity of the story really was put together in the 20th century. So we're talking about decades, just like we're decades after the civil rights movement. Decades after the Civil War. In the early part of the 20th century is when the Lost Cause was really pushed to the limit. When you see Confederate monuments around the country, most of those were erected between 1911 and 1918 35. They weren't erected immediately after the Civil War or during Reconstruction or immediately after Reconstruction. They redid all the textbooks in our country so that most of the people listening to your show, their great grandparents or grandparents, were reading texts that carried forward the same story. And they were assisted by universities whose scholars told this story as well. Columbia University and Johns Hopkins University. And so what we're seeing, I talk to my students about pattern recognition. What we're seeing is this attempt to do precisely what white supremacists did decades after Reconstruction, which is to steal the story. To steal the story of what the Civil War was about. That's why so many people walk around saying the Civil War wasn't about slavery. That's why so many people say, didn't Reconstruction fail? No, Reconstruction was destroyed. But the reason people don't have the story accurately is because there was a deliberate effort to retell the story. And that's what we're seeing now, and we have to fight against it.
- [88:08]
Joy Reid
Amen to that. I have two more quick questions on this, and then I want to turn to the Jack Smith testimony. This is a question that was actually asked by somebody on the team, and I think it's a good question that people may not know the answer to. Are churches considered private property if anybody can enter them? You can walk into a church anytime you want and worship there. And is there. And if they are, if the church says you have to leave and they. And you're charged with trespass, can that be a federal crime?
- [88:36]
Sherrilyn Ifill
I don't think trespass is always a local crime. There is no federal law on trespass. There is. There is state law on trespass. To be sure. The federal laws that they're talking about are federal. Federal laws that were designed to. The focus is on the rights, not necessarily on the space, although the FACE act does particularly identify churches. This was an effort to allow. To ensure that anti abortion Folks would not face confrontation by, by people who are in favor of abortion. And so the, the trespass piece is really about kind of the local crime. The federal crime is because of the interference with a federal right or constitutional right, which is the right to worship, the right to, to freedom of religion. And because churches are where that happens, it's interesting that have to have a statute that particularly says churches, but doesn't say temples or mosques or other places of worship. Gurdwaras are. But that's the concept behind it. It's less about trespass and more about interference with the ability of people to exercise the right to practice their religion.
- [89:54]
Joy Reid
Yeah, and I will note that the NYPD didn't feel that way about mosques at all when they were invading mosques in New York after 911 and interfering with their worship services. But I'm going to leave it there and ask you one more question along the same line. You've kind of set it up for me perfectly. This Department of Homeland Security ad campaign where they're saying, darkness will no longer shield you if you are an undocumented immigrant. They didn't use that language. They used the worst language in their ad. They use this quote from the Bible from the, from the, from Proverbs 28. 1. The wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are bold as a lion. Using a Bible verse, any Bible verse. It doesn't matter which Bible verse. When the federal government does that, isn't that a First Amendment problem?
- [90:44]
Sherrilyn Ifill
We have blown through the separation of church and state to the point that it's not even challenged anymore. We see it on the websites of various agencies, we hear it in the talk of various public officials. It's unconscionable. Besides, you know, the fact that the cherry picking of Bible verses is the signature of this group of folks. But we should be deeply concerned. Listen, in America, you can attach almost anything to white supremacist ideology or religion and it'll fly. And part of what Trump ushered in was this ramping up of that concept. He was really in charge of the white supremacy, and evangelical activists were in charge of the religion piece to the point that the two have become conflated. So that in their minds, Trump is a religious figure, which is part of the reason why so many people who are his followers, when confronted with facts, will simply say, I, I trust him. Right. Like as though he's Jesus, you know, and so I think that, you know, I'm so glad you pointed this out because we just. There's so many, so many outrages and so many illegalities happening at the same time that we simply can't stop and deal with all of them. But this is very important because it's part of the creep that has allowed this administration to use religion as a weapon, to use religion to override resistance to their plans and to essentially conflate an entire political party with a religion. We could say a lot about why there wasn't pushback against this much earlier, including from churches who know that this has been misinformation and a distortion of the Christian faith. But we're here now, and we should still be calling it out.
- [92:56]
Joy Reid
Well, the reason, one reason not to have apostates attempt to twist religion and use it in government. This is why we believe in the Freedom From Religion Foundation. We need to separate it, because these folks don't even know what they're reading. I will note that Proverbs. Proverbs 28. 1 Is there the wicked fleet, though no one pursues? Basically. They're basically saying, if you run from ice, somehow you are the wicked. Right, but the righteous, or as bold as a lion. And then verse two is, when a country is rebellious, it has many rulers, but a ruler with discernment and knowledge maintains order. Ah, but then there's verse three. Verse three of Proverbs 28 says, A ruler who oppresses the poor is like a driving rain that leaves no crops. Those who in the next line is those who forsake instruction praise the wicked, but those who receive who heed it, resist them. Evildoers do not understand what is right, but those who seek the Lord understand it fully. And one last line I'm going to read to you, since they like to quote the Bible, better the poor whose walk is blameless, than the rich whose ways are perverse. Don't quote the Bible if you've never read the Bible. Let's go on.
- [94:00]
Sherrilyn Ifill
And also don't quote the Bible if you're a public official in your public capacity.
- [94:05]
Joy Reid
Amen. And you can get a secular amen on that. So I spent much of Yesterday on my YouTube machine watching Jack. Jack Smith testimony, which I thought was very interesting. Really well done. Let me just play you all. There's about two minutes. You all sit tight. This is his opening, some of his opening statement. Here's D6.
- [94:26]
Don Lemon
During my tenure as special counsel, we followed Justice Department policies. We observed legal requirements and took actions based on the facts and the law. I made my decisions without regard to President Trump's political association, activities, beliefs or candidacy in the 2024 election. President Trump was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the law, the very laws he took an oath to uphold. Grand juries in two separate districts reached this conclusion based on his actions as alleged in the indictments they returned. Rather than accept his Defeat in the 2020 election, President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power. After leaving office In January of 21, President Trump illegally kept classified documents at his Mar A Lago social club and repeatedly tried to obstruct job justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents. Highly sensitive national security information was held in a ballroom and a bathroom. As I testified before the committee today, I want to be clear. I stand by my decisions as special counsel, including the decision to bring charges against President Trump. Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity. If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Democrat or a Republican. No one, no one should be above the law in this country, and the law requires. Required that he be held to account. So that is what I did. To have done otherwise on the facts of these cases would have been to shirk my duties as a prosecutor and as a public servant, of which I had no intention of doing.
- [96:40]
Joy Reid
Now, I very intentionally pulled the Fox clip of that to show you all tonight. I did that very intentionally because I found it very interesting that Fox viewers were allowed to see that, and I was a bit surprised that they were allowed to see that. I don't know if they took it in, but they were allowed to see it. I just wanted to show you all that. I thought that was an interesting development. What did you make of his testimony and attempts by Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee to try to take him down based on whether they believed Cassidy Hutchinson herself witnessed Donald Trump lunging in the beast, etc.
- [97:14]
Sherrilyn Ifill
Yeah. I admired very much the composure of Jack Smith and the clear anticipation of how the Republicans would perform. Now, if I'm frank, I think there are two problems, though. One is that the Republicans are performing. They are performing for the cameras. They are performing for those who are watching. And their performances do two things. They entertain because people like to watch, you know, confusion and back and forth and yelling and. And disparaging and so forth. But they also muddy the waters. And that's what they were attempting to do. It. It was silly because in some ways, because of Jack Smith and the demeanor that he presented, you know, it's kind of like Trump tweeting after the, after the hearing, you know, deranged Jack Smith, you know, he, Jack Smith is about as sober as it gets, maybe too sober.
- [98:19]
Joy Reid
He's boring.
- [98:20]
Sherrilyn Ifill
Yeah, is the point I was trying to make. And I think I, I, I don't fault him for it because he knows that Trump is going to attempt to prosecute him. And so he had to be incredibly careful about everything that he said and to ensure that his statements were consistent with other testimony that he's given under oath, to make sure that everything he says is backed up by the materials that he knows, the members, the Republican members of the Judiciary Committee have, and have poured over. And so I would never want someone to imperil themselves legally. But that being said, the flavor of these charges was left on the cutting room floor. And there's one, it's one thing to be sober, it's another thing to be, to, to, to not be compelling, to not tell a story in a way that is compelling. Now, that's who he is. And he had to make that choice that then would require the Democrats to do something different. And I think some of them were incredibly effective. Jamie Raskin is always terrific, and he knows this stuff back and forth, and so he was able to get to the heart of the matter. Representative Jayapal was fantastic, you know, just doing almost a cross examination where the answers were yes, no, yes, no. But it was really about President Trump's actions on that day, which was incredibly powerful. But certainly the Republicans used their time to try to create a picture of Jack Smith being an outof control prosecutor. And so even though I would have preferred a livelier witness and a witness who could more draw in viewers to the story, in some ways, the presentation of Jack Smith, his demeanor, his face, his voice, how he presented, made the Republican attempts seem ridiculous because there was nothing about him that seems like someone who would draw outside the edges of the circle. Right.
- [100:29]
Joy Reid
Yeah.
- [100:30]
Sherrilyn Ifill
You know, everything about him looked by the book. But, you know, I, I do believe that we have to be willing to, to bring more passion to, to those moments when we have the opportunity for the national eye to be on us. Because this was outrageous. And prosecutors show emotion all the time. I just think, given the stakes of this, he felt it was wise not to do so.
- [100:55]
Joy Reid
Yeah. It reminded me of when Robert Mueller testified about the Mueller report. Right. And people were super disappointed because Robert Mueller is also quite boring and didn't present with this sort of passionate demeanor. And I think the age of the TV detective, people watching, you know, CSI you know, and watching they accept. Expect a certain level of performance. And because Trump has no skills, but he's all performance. Yeah. This is what the expectation we've been.
- [101:18]
Sherrilyn Ifill
Groomed to expect that.
- [101:19]
Joy Reid
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Do you think that, that the, the facts that Jack Smith laid out, will any of them ever redound to Donald Trump being held accountable? Because, you know, he's been given full immunity by the Supreme Court. I mean, I'm assuming he could rob a bank right now and John Roberts would say, I mean, there's no think he can do. He's Donald Trump.
- [101:39]
Sherrilyn Ifill
I think, yeah.
- [101:40]
Joy Reid
He basically said he could kill people. I mean, he, he basically said he could take Seal Team 6 and like, have them kill people simply because he, they were his political opponent. So we're, we're way past that. Will anybody ever be held accountable for the theft of those classified documents and for that attempt to overthrow the government, in your view?
- [102:02]
Sherrilyn Ifill
I still don't understand and I would say was really happy to hear Jack Smith say this earlier this week. I, I can understand why in given the Supreme Court's decision in the immunity case, it's shameful, outrageous decision which essentially re. Empowered Trump to be even more egregious in office and to want to stay in office.
- [102:24]
Joy Reid
Yeah.
- [102:25]
Sherrilyn Ifill
Than ever before by essentially bribery.
- [102:27]
Joy Reid
They legalized bribery. What would you say?
- [102:29]
Sherrilyn Ifill
Essentially saying the president is above the law.
- [102:32]
Joy Reid
Yes.
- [102:33]
Sherrilyn Ifill
President cannot be held accountable. Now, I don't want to overstate it. What the court said was they can't be criminally prosecuted for official acts, but we would need to actually have a trial on the individual acts. And unfortunately the case was dismissed. Right. And so we would need to have a trial on whether or not these actions were official acts. It would have to be after he was. Had left the presidency. But, I mean, that's a possibility. I, I doubt it. What, what Jack Smith said earlier this week was he didn't understand why the charges. He, he was not happy. And this was really an interesting nugget that I haven't seen people pick up on. He said that he did not agree or, and, and did not think that the charges against the other members of the conspiracy. Mr. Not Nauta, Walt Nauta and, and others should have been dropped because even if Trump had privilege, they don't have privilege. Right. So all of that is to say I think it's incredibly doubtful. I do think that given what the Supreme Court has done and the kind of cloak of impunity they have thrown over the presidency, that when we have a new president, it will be essential for that president to convene a commission that can issue a, an official report that tells the story. We have the House report, the House Judiciary Committee, excuse me, the House committee that was assembled to the bipartisan committee because Liz Cheney was on it, that investigated January 6th and found many of the same things. But you're right to ask the question about prosecution. You know, our, our, our, our great, um, sage Sarah Kenzior says, you know, this, this is essentially a criminal enterprise, this regime. And you don't defeat a criminal enterprise by voting it out.
- [104:30]
Joy Reid
Right.
- [104:31]
Sherrilyn Ifill
You know, you prosecute and you, you hold people accountable for violations of the law. So I think there's a whole bunch of issues that will be on the table and have to be teed up for prosecution, but prompt prosecution, even if it's not of Trump himself, certainly of those who enabled this atrocity against our country.
- [104:54]
Joy Reid
Well, you said the word when, which I think is doing a lot of work, unfortunately, because in theory, right? I mean, Donald Trump, you say it is an international mafia at this point. They're protecting whatever pedophiles are listed in the Jeffrey Epstein files. They have essentially sunk those files in irrigation of the lot. I mean, the law literally says you must, must in abrogation. I say the law, the law says you must release the file. They've released like 1% of them and they're protecting potentially an international cabal of very wealthy pedophiles. So that's happening. Number two, he set up this quote, unquote board of peace that he's the permanent heir of Right Temple un where you pay a billion dollars, which I just assume is just is going in his pocket. He's like, it'll be in reputable bank accounts. He'll draw from those bank accounts. If you don't think he's going to spend that, that money, I don't know what to tell you. Right. If Cutter is in there, they're just going to give him money. Right. He's created an international mafia organization with other dictator types in it, including Bibi Netanyahu is a war criminal to make money and international mar A lago, as Michael Wolf has called it. And in when the next election comes along, he's already got jack booted thugs in our streets. And you know what they're going to do? They're going to start converging on polling places. They're going to try to create a sort of martial law in blue states where he would lose. Why wouldn't he just stay in office? He could simply declare martial law, end the election, and the Supreme Court would affirm that it's an official act.
- [106:22]
Sherrilyn Ifill
You're asking me to make sense of the Supreme Court's privilege decision, and I can't make sense of it, except that, as Justice Katanji Brown Jackson said, you know, the court has come up with a kind of interpretive school, and that school is that the Trump administration wins, you know, yada, yada, yada, and then the Trump administration wins. I don't know what they could be thinking. It is. It is as destructive, as horrifying, as insupportable and outrageous a decision as Dred Scott and Plessy versus Ferguson and Shelby county versus Holder. It is not what the framers of the original Constitution could have wanted. As a matter of fact, they didn't even think the president was that important. There's a reason why Article 1 of the Constitution is about the legislature and legislative power, because that's who they thought would be running the country. And that brings me to the second point, which is not enough attention is being paid to Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, and John Thune, the leader of the Senate. There's a lot of talk about Trump, and we focus on Trump ad nauseam, but there are two other leaders who have turned over our legislature, the people's legislature, to the President. Mike Johnson literally handed him the Speaker's gavel to Trump, the Speaker's gavel. So we now are down another branch of government because Congress cannot function because they only do what Donald Trump wants. And I don't think we're paying enough attention to that. Mike Johnson goes home every night, has dinner with his family, you know, sleeps, wake us up the next day and tells us what he hasn't read and therefore can't talk about. So I. I do think we need to be aware that Trump is a unique danger. He has been weaponized by the Supreme Court's decision to throw this cloak of impunity over him. But much of what he has done and is doing is happening because Congress is allowing it. He has usurped their power over tariffs. He's usurped their funding power. He's asserted power over Congress's decision making, over its appropriations, over its role in treaties. This Board of Peace. I'm not even sure it's constitutional for the president to kind of create a charter of an international organization and include other people who have to pay a billion dollars tribute to be a part of it. I think there were two members who didn't come to Switzerland because, you know, both of them are wanted, have, have warrants out for them. International Criminal Court. I mean, that's the Board of Peace.
- [109:21]
Joy Reid
Right?
- [109:22]
Sherrilyn Ifill
This is not something. This is like a treaty. And treaties require ratification by. By the Senate.
- [109:28]
Joy Reid
Yeah.
- [109:28]
Sherrilyn Ifill
I haven't seen one interview with John Thune even asking him whether he thinks this Board of Peace is implicates senatorial constitutional authority to ratify any treaties. So we've kind of lost sight. Like, we, this is where Trump has been really effective. We're talking about Trump all the time. We're actually not talking about the full collapse of the government. We're talking about the Supreme Court. That's true. So that's two branches of government down. But there is one other branch of government, and the collapse of that branch of government is as responsible for the moment that we find ourselves in as the collapse of the other two.
- [110:05]
Joy Reid
Exit question on that very point. Thank you. Yes, we did get an applause for that. Thank you, Jason. That was an appropriate applause to that point. Let's just say we are able to pull off free and fair elections in November, which again, is an. If not, it's not guaranteed. Let's say we do it. How much excess would you like to see Democrats go to? Like, how hard do you want to see them push the pedal to the floor when it comes to pushing things back in the other direction? Because Democrats tend to be quite timid in their.
- [110:38]
Sherrilyn Ifill
They just cannot be. So first they have to claw back all of this illegal activity. They have to rebuild a federal government. It doesn't have to be rebuilt the same way, but it does have to be rebuilt in a way that it can do the job that we need the federal government to do. We do have to restore aid to countries that we have yanked aid from. We do have to set, you know, reset the commitment to civil rights in the Department of Justice and a real Department of Justice that is focused on justice and not on pleasing one man. All of that has to happen. But much of this question gets answered by do we also have the Senate?
- [111:15]
Joy Reid
Right.
- [111:16]
Sherrilyn Ifill
Because if Democrats have the Senate and the House, then there's much more that certainly I would be expecting. The first and. And most important would be Supreme Court reform. And so that would require the Senate. And, you know, that should be at the top of the list if the Democrats, even by one vote, have the House and the Senate. And I'm sure many Democrats will think of this as excess. It is not excess. It is our job when a branch of our government is broken, to repair it and to fix it and to reset it. And so I think that is the constitutional obligation of the Democrats if they have both houses, but even if they just have the House, almost everything Trump has done this year domestically, Congress has the power to stop it. Congress has the power to not fund it. Congress has the power to claw back its appropriations power. Congress doesn't have to allow the President to gut an agency that they created, like the Department of Education. Agencies created, excuse me, created by Congress can only be dismantled by Congress. And yet there's a building called, you know, the Education Department, but it has been gutted by Congress and his Secretary of Education by a. Excuse me, Trump and his Secretary of Education. Congress doesn't have to allow that. Congress doesn't have to allow all of the special education money to go to the states in block grants rather than to sit in the federal government. So they. There is so much work for the House to do if they are able to get control of the House. The purpose of it is not to just say we have control, but the purpose of it is to undo some of this and then to do investigations into the other criminal activities that we know have been happening, or at least unconstitutional activities. And that means the, the. That the Democrats would have subpoena power. And that means being able to pull people in for testimony. Now, we know that some Republicans will be belligerent and not show up, but lots of other people will show up. And that means also that the Democrats would have to be willing to pull the trigger on people ignoring subpoenas, which is, you know, holding them in contempt, and if necessary, having the sergeant at arms go and find them and bring them into the chamber. Those things again would probably be considered excesses. But it's about exercising the power that you have. It's not enough if you or I ignore a subpoena, someone is coming to our House to get us. That's the way subpoenas work.
- [113:53]
Joy Reid
Yeah.
- [113:54]
Sherrilyn Ifill
So I want to see the Democrats be prepared to not take no and belligerence for an answer.
- [114:00]
Joy Reid
Cheryl and Eiffel, can we get one more round of applause for our friend Cheryl and Eiffel. Thank you, Professor. We appreciate you so much. Let everybody know where they can find your substack.
- [114:10]
Sherrilyn Ifill
Oh, yeah, you can find it. It's at Cheryl and Eiffel. And please do follow. And, you know, everything I post, I love. I love when people contribute, but everything I post is free for everyone because we are in terrible times and, and we really need to be in conversation with each other. So I hope people will check it out. Look up masked terror which sadly was, was prescient for this moment. And thank you so much, Joy, for what you're doing and for having me on.
- [114:37]
Joy Reid
Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much, my friend. I appreciate you. Have a happy weekend.
- [114:41]
Sherrilyn Ifill
Have a great, great weekend. Stay safe.
- [114:43]
Joy Reid
Stay safe in that snow. Thank you very much. That was great. And folks in the chat are loving, they're loving it. They're loving all the education that Sherilyn was, was breaking out. Let me go ahead and give a couple of people saying that. Thanks, Ms. Sherilyn. That was a lesson, what J. Davis says. We've got applause coming from. What is that? Amy Lyons, thank you very much. Lots of hand claps in the YouTube chat. Lots of love coming from Fat News Daily says we love you in all caps. Thank you, Prom. Such a star, says Elizabeth in the substack chat. Laura Tompkins saying thank you so much. We've got Millie Jones Cows also with lots of thanks. Thank you very much. Those who were throwing money in the tail, I think we had a $49 throw in. Thank you very much. We really appreciate that. And what Sherilyn was saying that was so important is the reason that you want to have a full federal government is that right now the executive branch is out of control. Right. If an ICE agent kills a family member of yours or kidnaps someone, who are you going to call? The FBI? The FBI is Cash Patel. You know, in those cases where you've had these allegations of ICE sexually assaulting, sexually assaulting somebody that they're trying to detain, first of all, who would you tell assaulted you? They have a mask on. You can't identify them. You ask for their name, they won't give it to you. You don't know who they are unless somehow there's video of them that shows up on social media. You can't even identify your assailant. They don't have any identifying information on. So they are a literal secret police person. You don't know who they are. You don't even know if they are the police. And then if you did report it, who are you going to report it to? The FBI works for Trump. You go to a judge, a judge rules in your favor. They just appeal it to a judge they like better. Who rules for Trump or maybe that appeals court judge rules in your favor. They just go to the Supreme Court, which works for Trump. Six out of the nine members of the Supreme Court will give him anything he wants. Practically. There's almost nothing they won't let him. Do half the appeals courts in the country work for Trump? So how do you even come close to having a country where your rights are respected when all the institutions of government, including the Congress, the House, and the Senate, work for Trump? This is a problem. But not everyone who's on the other side, to Sherrilyn's point, that is pretending to be Trump's wingman, really actually even believe it. I want to play you guys a clip that almost was our moment of joy. It came very close to being our moment of Joy. This is E1. This is Eric Swalwell on the Judiciary Committee clapping back at his fellow, at his Republican colleagues. Take a look.
- [117:25]
Don Lemon
Mr. Smith, I want you to have the utmost confidence in what you did. You did everything right. Harry Dunn, Danny Hodges, Sergeant Cano, Mike Fanon. They did everything right. These guys, my Republican colleagues are a joke. They're wrong. History will harshly judge them. So I want you to lean in today. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You did everything right, sir. And I am so. These guys are so lucky they're not under oath, because they would have to tell you what they really think of Trump. They call him crooked. They call him cruel. They call him a scumbag. I've heard you all say it. You're lucky you're not under Trump. But when the lights go on and the cameras are on, you're tiny. You're small. You shrink. Everyone remembers Matt Gaetz coming over here after a committee hearing. He would laugh at how stupid he thought Trump was. This is all a show. And, Mr. Smith, you're just the latest act that they've brought in. But they can't erase what happened on January 6th because we saw it with our own eyes.
- [118:34]
Joy Reid
Amen. Eric Swalwell telling the truth about his Republican colleagues. It's all a show. Most of the chaos that's happening in the country is a show to distract from the Epstein files, to distract from Donald Trump stealing, to distract from him also stealing the mineral resources of states like Minnesota. And all of this cruelty is for naught. They don't think it's making the country better. It's just to appease Donald Trump, make him feel good for the country's 250th birthday. There are all kinds of reasons they're doing these things. They're just hardcore racists. Some of them are just quasi fascists. For all whatever reasons they are. None of them have to do with making the country better. None of them have to do with patriotism. They all have to do with some sort of gross self interest. So kudos to Eric Swalwell for making it clear. Let's go to our actual moment of joy. It is actually fun. This is one of my favorite follows. Her name is Tai Mae Lay. She's on Instagram and I will note that while congress may not be doing their job and they really aren't, here is somebody who is doing the job that is supposed to actually be being done by RFK Jr. Take a look.
- [119:38]
Sherrilyn Ifill
Put your lid up.
- [119:40]
Joy Reid
Take a deep breath. I'm open you all the way checking you serve it. Yeah no need to be nervous yet. Oh hey if you being 21 and up then the time to be in getting off your butt and in for an examination that right you need to be and get the pelvic exam and be in heaven help declare I'm you beaver doctor calling you until you but.
- [120:07]
Sherrilyn Ifill
Me but you but you paps me.
- [120:11]
Joy Reid
Cervical cancer being the fourth most common cancer for the female so being to.
- [120:15]
Sherrilyn Ifill
Get a pap smell it's a big deal.
- [120:17]
Joy Reid
Get your pap smell spread your thought.
- [120:22]
Sherrilyn Ifill
That I'm being look inside you that.
- [120:26]
Joy Reid
Method would be brought to you guy by motivation. Okay I have no idea. She is definitely not a real medical professional but she is both hilarious and more informative and helpful to your health than RFK Jr. So she gets to be our moment of joy today. So do get that cervical cancer screening and remember immigrants make America better. Better. All right. Be sure to vote for us before we go for the NAACP Image Awards podcast category. You still have some time to vote but be careful this weekend out there if you're out in the world because those record snow the snow could be record levels. So be careful out there. We'll see you Monday. Thanks for watching the Joy Reed show and have a great weekend. Bye.
- [121:04]
Daniel Levy
Getting back to the basics grassroot level. Let me dig a little deeper with the shovel Plenty can't tell the boys.
- [121:10]
Don Lemon
From the trees and I'm hard to.
- [121:12]
Daniel Levy
Detect Like a black hole in a.
- [121:14]
Don Lemon
Dog Injustice anywhere it's a threat to.
- [121:16]
Daniel Levy
Justice everywhere Let me make this clear.
- [121:18]
Joy Reid
I got a bone to pick and.
- [121:19]
Daniel Levy
I'll never fear the threat of poverty they don't want to talk about it they rap the party so I'm a.
- [121:25]
Don Lemon
Real talk about it for show.