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Autocracy In Overdrive: Mahmoud Khalil, Genocide & Texas | The Joy Reid Show LIVE, Aug 11, 2025
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- [00:01]
Joy Reid
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- [00:45]
Mahmoud Khalil
Hey, hey, hey. Happy Monday everybody. Welcome to the Joy Reid Show. Yes, it is Monday, August 11, and that will hereafter be known as the day Donald Trump, our first felon president and by far our most corrupt, criminal, self enriching and diabolically 1930s cosplay president, put Washington, D.C. under a kind of martial law. Donald Trump, our wannabe naive Bukele, announced this morning that he is placing the D.C. police under the direct control of the federal government and will deploy the National Guard to the streets of the District, supposedly to fight crime, stripping the District and its black woman mayor, Muriel Bowser, as well as the elected City Council of their ability to make law enforcement decisions and putting DC's 43% black, 37% white, 12% Hispanic and 2% Asian population at risk of encounters not just with federalized regular police, but potentially with the US Military itself. Here he is making that announcement today.
- [01:55]
Joy Reid
President Trump is announcing plans to counter what he says is an uptick in.
- [02:00]
Mahmoud Khalil
Violent crime in the nation's capital.
- [02:02]
Cash Patel
Under the authorities vested in me as.
- [02:04]
Dan Steinbach
The President of the United States, I'm.
- [02:06]
Joy Reid
Officially invoking Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule act, you know.
- [02:11]
Cash Patel
What that is, and placing the D.C.
- [02:14]
Dan Steinbach
Metropolitan Police Department under direction federal control.
- [02:19]
Joy Reid
Speaking from the White House, the President also says he's deploying the National Guard.
- [02:23]
Mahmoud Khalil
To D.C. after activating hundreds of FBI agents across the city this weekend.
- [02:29]
Joy Reid
He described crime in the District as a threat to America.
- [02:31]
Mahmoud Khalil
So he described it as something he's doing about crime. That's the next thing that he is going to say. Now, I will remind you that Donald Trump did not make that kind of announcement on January 6, 2021, during the insurrection that he himself triggered when he refused to accept the results of the presidential election that he lost to Joe Biden. And the man who now demands respect for police also launched his second term by pardoning all 1600 insurrectionist thugs, including those who beat, bear sprayed and tried to literally kill police officers during the January 6th insurrection so that their master, Donald Trump, could stay in office despite losing to Biden. Now, Trump did try to trigger the home rule clause in 2020 during the nationwide Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. Of course he did. Go figure. Now, the ostensive trigger for this time, this attend, this authoritarian move, this time, was a carjacking in the District involving big balls. You'll remember him, the Doge staffer with the peculiar nickname Elon Musk. The Doge boss, who happens to be just as, you know, racially sensitive or insensitive, I should say, as Donald Trump, even when they are not technically friends, hyped up the carjacking on X Twitter, demanding that D.C. be quote, unquote, federalized. So, of course, his still employee, Donald Trump, seized on the opportunity to oblige. Now, you will not be surprised to learn that Trump is also looking to make racial profiling great again. Asking the Supreme Court to lift an injunction banning the use of racial profiling, arguing that ICE agents ought to be able to harass anyone who is brown or who is speaking Spanish because, quote, apparent ethnicity can be a factor supporting reasonable suspicion in appropriate circumstances. For instance, if agents know that the members of a criminal organization under investigation are disproportionately members of. Of one ethnic group. Now, I can report from D.C. residents I spoke with this afternoon that within minutes of Trump's announcement, residents could hear and see choppers and drones overhead. Large numbers of police and federal officers are already deployed on the streets, just creating visual harassment and intimidation. And apparently New York City and Chicago and possibly Baltimore, all cities with black mayors are next. Go figure. But a funny thing happened on the way to the man Representative Jasmine Crockett calls Tamu Hitler, swirling his metaphoric tiny mustache and shaking his cartoon micro penis at the nation's capital. His cartoonishly absurd FBI Director, Kash Patel, who for some reason cannot do what he said as a podcaster, the FBI director had the power to do, namely, turn over the Jeffrey Epstein files to the public. As Trump promised, he undercut the very alleged reason for Trump unleashing the military on Washington, D.C. and he did that just minutes after Captain Micropenis spoke. Here's Cash Patel.
- [05:36]
Joy Reid
Our children and the murder rates are plummeting. We are now able to report that the murder rate is on track to be the lowest in US History, in modern recorded US History, thanks to this team behind me and President Trump.
- [05:48]
Mahmoud Khalil
Trump's priorities, yeah, crime has been down for the last two years. It has nothing to do with anything that this regime has done that Cash Patel has done. Or that Donald Trump has done in seven months. But if crime is at a record low and isn't the actual reason for the deployment of troops to the nation's capital. I don't know, could it be? Could it just be the latest distraction from the Epstein files? Perhaps. Or from Trump's tanking poll numbers on everything from the economy that he's ruined with his dumb taco tariffs to the authoritarian police state he's building, complete with a masked Gestapo and an enduring friendship with probably the foremost butcher on the planet at present, Bibi Netanyahu, who makes his good friend Vladimir Putin look like a saint by comparison. Bibi, with the full support of Trump, is now not just starving the people of Gaza, but when he's not bombing them, bombing their mosques, bombing their churches, bombing their homes and bombing their hospitals into dusk, he's also killing off the witnesses. The Israeli Defense Forces have, to date up until this date today, killed 237 journalists, making Israel's war against Hamas the deadliest conflict for journalists in a generation, not to mention the single deadliest for children in modern history. And Israel reached that number. 237 killed journalists by assassinating five members of Al Jazeera's team of journalists in Gaza. Among the dwindling number of journalists who are operating independently of the Israeli government, which does not allow journalists to enter Gaza with without Israeli minders and censorship. From Tel Aviv, I'm gonna give you the names of the five journalists who were assassinated. They are Anas Al Sharif, Mohammed Oriqain, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Nufal, and Muammain Aliwa. We're just gonna put up their photos so that you can see them. You can see these men. They are not just journalists, but also sons and husbands and fathers. Anas Al Sharif, who along with his colleagues was accused of being a Hamas terrorist. Because of course, when everyone is a terrorist, you can kill anyone you want. But Israel says they're all just terrorists described as journalists. He wrote a final post predicting his own death, writing on X Twitter, if these words of mine reach you know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice. Now, among the voices that the Trump regime is trying to silence as well is anyone who dares to stand up to Bibi Netanyahu and to Israel's persecution, starvation and genocide against the Palestinians. I'm going to play you a piece of video that you might remember of former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil getting arrested last year. We're going to play that video, but.
- [08:58]
Joy Reid
You'Re Going to be under arrest.
- [09:00]
Cash Patel
So turn around, turn around, turn around.
- [09:02]
Mahmoud Khalil
Turn around, turn around.
- [09:03]
Dan Steinbach
Stop resisting.
- [09:04]
Joy Reid
Stop resisting.
- [09:05]
Dan Steinbach
Okay, okay.
- [09:06]
Joy Reid
He's not resisting.
- [09:06]
Mahmoud Khalil
He's giving me his phone.
- [09:07]
Dan Steinbach
Okay.
- [09:08]
Mahmoud Khalil
He's not, I, I, he's not resisting.
- [09:10]
Joy Reid
Put your arm.
- [09:11]
Cash Patel
There's no use with this.
- [09:13]
Mahmoud Khalil
Don't worry about it. We have you.
- [09:14]
Cash Patel
You're going to have to come with us.
- [09:15]
Mahmoud Khalil
Don't worry.
- [09:15]
Cash Patel
I'm coming with you.
- [09:16]
Dan Steinbach
Don't worry.
- [09:20]
Mahmoud Khalil
You guys really don't need to be doing all of that. Okay. Hi, Amy. Yeah, they, they just, like, handcuffed him and took him. I don't know what to do. Okay. And you can hear his wife, Noor, on that video?
- [09:45]
Joy Reid
I don't know.
- [09:48]
Mahmoud Khalil
You can hear his wife, nor in that video, you can hear her, that is her distressed cries as her husband is taken away and his wife, Norm. Mahmoud Khalil's wife, Noor issued a statement at the time, and here's what it said. It said, you're watching the most terrifying moment of my life. This felt like kidnapping was, can we get your name? Officers in plain clothes who refused to show us a warrant forced my husband into an unmarked car and took him away from me. They threatened to take me, too. Even though we were calm and fully cooperating for the next 38 hours after this video, neither I nor our lawyers knew where Mahmoud was being held. Now he's over a thousand miles from home, still being wrongfully detained by U.S. immigration. And Mahmoud Khalil, now released, joins me now. Mahmoud, thank you so much for being here.
- [10:41]
Cash Patel
Hello, Joy. Thank you.
- [10:44]
Mahmoud Khalil
Let's first talk about that arrest when you were taken away and that video that your wife posted and took. Were you told while you were being taken away what you were being detained for or whether you were being actually arrested?
- [11:03]
Cash Patel
The first thing, they said that my student visa has been revoked, but I was not on a student visa. So that made me laugh. I told them I'm on a green card. They got confused. You can see them visibly confused that I told them that I have a green card. I asked repeatedly to see an arrest warrant because they told me, you have to come with us. And the first thing you would do in a country that respects like the rule of law is to ask for an arrest warrant. But they refused to present, to present that. And eventually we learned that they did not have an arrest warrant. And then they just took me and then decided what kind of charges they wanted to bring after. But I only, you know, like, for 30 hours, I was just moved from one place to another. Shackled for most of this time, not being told where I'm going. I only knew that I'm in ICE detention two days after the fact that of my arrest.
- [12:20]
Mahmoud Khalil
And were you ever read your rights?
- [12:23]
Cash Patel
No, no. I mean, that's not something they do. They did not even introduce themselves. They did not even say who they are. And despite my repeated request, of course, like, who are you but what exactly you're here for? But they absolutely did not.
- [12:46]
Mahmoud Khalil
Did they show you a badge or did any of them show you a badge?
- [12:50]
Cash Patel
No. I mean, at the very beginning, if I'm not mistaken, when the first guy followed me inside the private residency, he showed me like a badge, sort of like just the one they usually have around their neck and said, I'm from the police. So did not even say I'm from the police.
- [13:11]
Mahmoud Khalil
Not from immigration, I'm from the police.
- [13:13]
Cash Patel
No, no, no, just the police. And then when I propped him into like, oh, which police? Because clearly you're not police, you're plainclothes. Then he said like DHS without any specification. And you know, for the next two days, when I was being moved from one detention to another, from one state to another, I was just like being handed to the other officers without any sort of like, now we're going to here or any sort of identification. And that what made me very worried, the fact that they were insisting on cutting me off any kind of communication, not telling me who they are. Always in these unmarked cars and in.
- [13:59]
Mahmoud Khalil
Plain clothes, you fear that you were being kidnapped.
- [14:04]
Cash Patel
Yeah, I had that for a lot of moments, to be honest, especially when, you know, it was around. I think I arrived in Louisiana around 11pm so it was already in the night. I was being driven in that unmarked car for like an hour in the woods, being also like transported from one car to another. And it absolutely felt like kidnapping. Like I was like, oh, what if, I don't know, like this is a militia or, you know, they are acting extrajudicially since they haven't shown me any, any sort of arrest warrant or charge list or any of that.
- [14:50]
Mahmoud Khalil
Well, I mean, and I ask you that because this country does have a history of members of the Ku Klux Klan grabbing people, pretending or not even pretending to be law enforcement, but in a law enforcement style, dragging them into vehicles and then, you know, to be blunt, killing them. That's happened to Goodman, Schwerner and Cheney. It's happened throughout this country's history. So how would you have known the difference between these men? And let's say A bunch of proud boys or oath keepers who are grabbing you, how would you have known the difference?
- [15:21]
Cash Patel
You wouldn't. Honestly, you wouldn't. And having lived in Syria, where you have this sort of, like, extrajudicial militia, like, come kidnap people, just because, you know, they said something that the state did not like, it felt frightening because I literally fled that sort of prosecution in Syria and came to this country where you understand that there's a power to the rule of law, there is due process. However, all of that was shattered in a matter of a day.
- [15:58]
Mahmoud Khalil
Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, when questioned about your detainment and also the detainment of others, including a young woman who was also a student, who was detained literally, for writing an op ed that the government didn't like you, apparently your crime, in their eyes, was being opposed to the United States blanket unlimited support for Israel, which is very quite clearly committing a genocide against Palestinians. So your opposition to American policy, the way Marco Rubio has responded to that, is to say that you, when you were a student at Columbia, were a guest in this country and that you, as a person that's on a visa, is a guest, and that opposing US Foreign policy means that you are being a rude or improper guest and that they can revoke your residency simply for opposing US Foreign policy. Have you ever heard of that before? That this country, much like Syria, can throw you out and detain you and put you in an unmarked vehicle and put you in jail for opposing their policies.
- [17:06]
Cash Patel
You know, the Constitution is very, very clear about this, that freedom of speech extends to everyone on this land, no matter what their status is. And, you know, I'm a husband of an American citizen, a father of also an American son. And the fact that this xenophobia, I would say that just like it's just meant to divide, that they start with the weak, the vulnerable, and the community, so they can then go after the next one. So, you know, they started with visa holders, green card holders, then they went on, and now they're targeting citizens. And just, you know, this morning, Trump's decision to bring National Guard to D.C. is another example of these authoritarian practices that this government is trying to implement. Just because they don't want any dissent, it's not about if what I did was wrong. In fact, Rubio himself, he conceded that my activities, my associations in this country were lawful, and he mentioned otherwise lawful, but let's deport him. So it just shows you the double standards here. And they want to come after anyone who is dissenting and just To I would say deflect from the real issues in my case that the US is unconditionally supporting Israel to commit genocide against the Palestinians. Over 62,000 Palestinians have been killed by mostly US bombs. And that's what they want to deflect.
- [19:04]
Mahmoud Khalil
You mentioned that you are the husband and father of U.S. citizens. Your wife Noor, I believe, was pregnant when you were taken. Is that, that's the case?
- [19:12]
Cash Patel
Yeah.
- [19:13]
Mahmoud Khalil
And the baby is now here and I hope healthy?
- [19:17]
Cash Patel
Yeah, he is good.
- [19:20]
Mahmoud Khalil
How long was it before you and Noor were able to actually speak and she was able to find out where you were and also when you did speak with her, where were you?
- [19:29]
Cash Patel
So it wasn't before, like over 30 hours. So I was detained Saturday evening and I was able to call her around Monday morning. And to be honest, that was the only thing that worried me during these like 30 something hours is what happened like to Noor. Because the last thing I heard was ICE officers threatening to arrest her. And she was visibly pregnant. You know, she was eight months pregnant at that time. And that was the last thing I heard when, when they, they put me in the car. And despite again, like, I asked them like, can I call my wife, can I call my lawyer? They refused to do that. So, so, so then I was, I was already in Louisiana like until I was able to, to call her. And I mean that was a huge relief that like she was doing fine and the community gathered around her and she had so much support.
- [20:35]
Mahmoud Khalil
Talk about your transfer. You were arrested in New York, right?
- [20:38]
Cash Patel
Yeah, so, yeah, I basically was arrested in New York. I was taken to an office here in Federal plaza for like 6 hours, then transferred to New Jersey. After that back to jfk, then to Texas, then from Texas to Louisiana.
- [21:03]
Mahmoud Khalil
Do you know what plane you were on? Were you on a military plane or were you on a plane?
- [21:06]
Cash Patel
No, no, no, I was on, I was on American Airlines. So I was on a commercial flight with two officers sort of escorting me all the time. And yeah, I mean that was the, I would say like in all this experience, the 104 days, these three days were the most difficult after the day of the birth of my child where I had to witness that over the phone in prison.
- [21:40]
Mahmoud Khalil
Talk about the prison where you were taken in Louisiana. Were you aware where you were going? Were you told, this is where we're taking you? And then how long were you in this Louisiana jail?
- [21:50]
Cash Patel
Yeah, so I only knew that I was, I was being transported to Louisiana when we were, when we were boarding the plane. To Louisiana. But I didn't know what kind of like prison, jail, detention. I didn't know anything of that until I arrived in Jeanne, Louisiana. It's literally in the middle of nowhere. The closest airport to it is over an hour. The closest town is also, like, about that time. And when I arrived there then I learned that, oh, this is a detention center for immigrants. And I was put in a room with over 70 men in one dorm. No privacy whatsoever. Just like bunk beds in one hole. No privacy. Always there is fluorescent lights. You can't sleep. It was very cold back then. It was in March. You get a very thin blanket. If you request another blanket, you don't get it. And just like there were so many brilliant people who were taken from the streets, taken from their court hearings, taken from their ICE check ins, taken from. From the street. There was a lot of confusion. There was a lot of defeat. And I still remember the person, my bunk mate, I would say, who was a father of two American citizens, had been in the United States since 2001 or 2002 and like, has property. Yet he was deported and the immigration judge refused his application because of lack of connection to the community, despite. And one of his daughters works for the federal government, works for a federal enforcement agency. For a law enforcement agency. So you see, like that. And that's what was defeating everyone, that they did not know why they were in these detentions. But the other thing is how they were painted as criminals that I only see on the news that, you know, like, everyone in here are criminals or are violent people. However, like all of them, they just wanted to get a better life for them and for their families. That what was about it.
- [24:36]
Mahmoud Khalil
Were you ever threatened with being sent overseas?
- [24:40]
Cash Patel
No, I wasn't. I mean, it was this threat. I mean, I lived this fear, especially after, you know, the administrative error where someone was sent to El Salvador. And you can see this on the face of everyone. They were worried that, you know, if when ICE comes to call their name, they would be taken overseas. My lawyers were very worried, very worried about that. They were literally tracking planes out of Louisiana, like to see if there's, you know, to go to El Salvador or Guantanamo or any of that or Djibouti.
- [25:18]
Mahmoud Khalil
Or somewhere in Africa. I mean, they're sending people all over the world.
- [25:20]
Cash Patel
Yeah. I mean, now there is literally no limits to what this administration is willing to do just to show its cruelty.
- [25:30]
Mahmoud Khalil
Were you aware and were you able to sort of take a look at the guards who were guarding you to be able to tell Whether you were in a prison, a jail or a private prison.
- [25:40]
Cash Patel
Yeah, no, I mean, the first day it was obvious that it's a private prison. So I can read it. There was sort of a board, so you can see geo. GEO Group that basically administers a lot of private prisons here in the United States and detention centers. So, yeah, that was like a day after, I mean, the day when I arrived, I learned that.
- [26:13]
Mahmoud Khalil
And so now we know that the GEO Group is who had you, meaning they were getting paid to keep you. And they kept you for, you said, 103 days. So three months, essentially.
- [26:24]
Cash Patel
Yeah, three months and a half.
- [26:26]
Mahmoud Khalil
And then when you were finally released, what were you told?
- [26:30]
Cash Patel
No, I was already with my lawyer. So listening in to the court and I mean, that felt a great. That finally, like after all this time that the judge finally ordered my release on bail. And, and I mean, a lot of, like, believe it or not, like a lot of these officers, like they were rooting for me. They knew what was done is unjust against. Against me. Like someone came and asked for my autograph from the guards. But this is with, with private prisons, Jordan. Like they, you know, like, if they get paid to do whatever, like if, if torturing us would mean making more profit, they would do it. It's just like, you know, whatever would bring more profit.
- [27:26]
Mahmoud Khalil
Were you ever harmed at any time? Were you ever physically abused?
- [27:30]
Cash Patel
No. No.
- [27:31]
Mahmoud Khalil
Okay.
- [27:32]
Cash Patel
I mean, the food was terrible, the cold, like, I was sick most of the time because of that. But I wouldn't say I was abused.
- [27:40]
Mahmoud Khalil
Sure. And I guess my exit question is, what is your status now? What are your lawyers saying is going to happen to you? And I mean, I realize that Bashar Al Assad is no longer in charge of Syria, but are you afraid to be forced back to go back to Syria?
- [27:59]
Cash Patel
Yeah. I mean, just last week the appellate court in New Jersey rejected the administration attempt to re detain me. And they rejected also or they reaffirmed the unconstitutionality of Rubio determination to deport me. Based on the Rubio determination, however, it's a very long way, like with the legal system. So we're hoping that will prevail eventually. This is on the federal court, like I would say track. However, the immigration court is fully controlled by the administration. I think it's very helpful for people to know that immigration system in this country is, I would say, like kangaroo court. It's fully controlled by the executive branch, fully controlled by the Attorney General. So an immigration judge is not an actual judge. It's just an administrative employee of the Department of Justice. That's why we also like we're fighting that one as well. And now in terms of going back or leaving the United States, this administration and the pro Israeli groups, they've assassinated my character and sort of like they made me a target. So I fear that now if I go back to Syria, Israel routinely strikes Syria. They routinely like operate in Middle Eastern countries, execute and assassinate people who they deem are threat to Israel. And they mostly focus on those who are exposing their crimes, people like in my status who are advocating for Palestinian rights. So that's the fear of going, of being deported to Syria or to Algeria where I also hold a citizenship. So that's the big risk.
- [30:16]
Mahmoud Khalil
Yeah. And unfortunately it's a legitimate fear given how close this president and Bibi Netanyahu are and how they're operating in tandem. Mahoud Khalil, thank you so much. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk with you. I had so many questions and I thank you for taking so much time.
- [30:35]
Cash Patel
Absolutely. I appreciate you.
- [30:37]
Mahmoud Khalil
Please keep us posted on your case and on how things are going and know that you have an open door to come back here anytime. And we appreciate your advocacy and I'm sure to the extent they can even get information from outside now that the people in Palestine appreciate your.
- [30:54]
Cash Patel
It's been my pleasure. Thank you so much. Joy. Have a good evening.
- [30:58]
Mahmoud Khalil
Bye. Cheers. Makmu Khaleel. So that's it. You all, you just found out what it is like to be kidnapped by really what amounts to a Trump Gestapo. And I don't know how else to describe it. You're talking about a young man who was a graduate student contributing to this country intellectually. He has an American wife, he has an American child who his wife was pregnant with at the time. He is a good upstanding citizen who just happens to be concerned about the people of Palestine. And apparently having those views is unacceptable to the regime. And therefore he was effectively kidnapped for 103 days, held in a private prison which made money detaining him and kept from his family for no reason and for no crime and was never charged with a crime. Okay. So last January, on the issue that Mahmoud Khalil was actually focused on, the International Criminal Court of Justice at the Hague issued a provisional ruling in a case that was brought by South Africa against Israel, alleging genocide in Gaza. Now the International Criminal Court found that Palestinians have a plausible right to protection from genocide in Gaza and that Israel must take all measures to prevent a genocide from occurring. Since then, United Nations Experts and human rights groups have concluded that Israel is indeed committing genocide in Gaza, including by forcibly starving Palestinians and destroying every place that they could shelter their hospitals, their mosques, their churches, their schools, bombing their antiquities, bombing more than 50, more than 60, sorry, thousand of them to death. That of course, according to the United nations, constitutes genocide. Now, the west has been largely silent, including many in the media, even as Israel has killed more than 230 journalists, including some holding US passports. But the starving of Palestinian children apparently has seemed to finally break the dam, forcing some in the media, even a handful of Democrats and Republicans to say, okay, this is too much. So if even extremely pro Israel Democrats, which is most Democrats and right wing MAGA Republicans now agree that Netanyahu has gone too far, including vowing to take over Gaza City, which sounds a lot like annexation, and the Knesset voting to annex the west bank outright, which violates numerous UN resolutions. What can be done? Joining me now is Dr. Dan Steinbach and internationally renowned expert on the multipolar world economy and the founder of the Global Difference Group Limited. Dr. Steinbach, thanks for being here.
- [33:55]
Dan Steinbach
Thank you. Pleasure to be here.
- [33:58]
Mahmoud Khalil
So the designation that at minimum, Israel is responsible for preventing a genocide in Gaza and the subsequent events, including the continued killing of journalists and the starving of the population in Gaza, is there any doubt at this point that this is indeed a genocide?
- [34:22]
Dan Steinbach
Well, I would say absolutely none. I think that I've also tried to think back because so much has happened since October 7, 2023. It was towards the end of that year already when I started using the term genocidal atrocities because I felt that we were dealing with something entirely new also in terms of genocide convention. Think about this. In the Bosnian genocide, the mass atrocities took place in just a few days in July 1995. In the Rwandan genocide, all hell broke loose, broke loose in the course of just three months in 1994, Gaza in its class of its own, starting in October 2023, these Israeli genocidal atrocities into Gaza, which entirely depended on the arms transfers by US led West, these have now been perpetrated for 22 months, day after day, night after night, and they have happened in real time while the whole world is watching. I asked myself, how is this kind of indifference possible? And that led to the book I wrote, the Obliteration Doctrine. Prior to that, I wrote another book last year, the Fall of Israel. In that case, I went through the Genocide Convention which has several conditions, and found that all of those, pretty much all of those conditions were fulfilled already last year. I think that there is a problem with the international media and how the story has been reported almost from the day one. And that's why even currently, issues like the killing of the Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al Sharif and many other issues, they come out somehow twisted. But yes, absolutely, we are dealing with genocide.
- [36:21]
Mahmoud Khalil
Why do you suppose it is so hard for the media and for the Western governments to just be honest about that?
- [36:33]
Dan Steinbach
Well, I think that one major reason for that is the fact that they are involved. Think about the Genocide Convention. It is the article 2 that is often mentioned in the context of the South African case against Israel in the International Criminal Court. But there's also Article 3, and Article 3 has to do with the definition of crimes that can be punished under the Convention, including conspiracy to commit genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, and most importantly, complicity in genocide. Now, Israel receives about $4 billion a year in terms of military aid from the United States alone. And the United States is the largest funder of the Israeli military. Since October 7, the amount of military aid that has come to Israel from the United states has been 18 to 23 billion dollars, depending on how you calculate that. There is a huge moral hazard here. There is many conflicts of interest here. Take the controversial new war plan of the Netherland Cabinet, for instance, which would involve fighting in Gaza central refugee camps. This is an extremely dangerous and lethal plan, which to my mind is not designed to dismantle Hamas or to release the Israeli hostages that still remain under Hamas rule. It is mainly to protect the Prime Minister Netanyahu from corruption, persecution. Now he is facing two kinds of pressures currently. International criticism for expanding the war one more time and domestic criticism from the messianic far right wing of his coalition for not going far enough. He discussed these plans, according to media reports, in a phone call on Sunday with President Trump. According to Mr. Netanyahu's office, again, there's this extraordinary complicity between the those countries that are funding these war efforts and their media that is thereby often reluctant, for a lot of reasons, I feel, to report these events as they truly happen. As a result, why wasn't the mass starvation reported a lot earlier? When I was writing my first book, the Fall of Israel, I found that the first starvation deaths did not happen in spring 2025. The book was out in October last year. They happened in March 2024. There was a second wave of mass famine in Gaza towards the end of the fall last year. And this is, one might say, a third wave, still worse, of course, but this has been seen before. The question is where were the images with the first starvation victims? Where were the images with the second wave starvation victims? And why is it not reported how fatal these mass famines have been? I will try to find a measure how to compare tragedies, if it's possible in any way. And I looked at the mass starvation attempts, exercises from the Imperial Britain to the present, from the late 19th century to the present. Imperial Britain in India used mass starvation at one point allowed it to happen. And in the process they calculated the amount of calories that might be enough for survival, coming to the conclusion that perhaps it's 1600 per day. In reality it should be 2100 per.
- [40:54]
Mahmoud Khalil
Day.
- [40:56]
Dan Steinbach
In concentration camps. Initially it was a lot lower, few hundreds alone. The lowest I could find was Warsaw Ghetto towards the end, about 200 or so in certain areas of Gaza. It has not been that different in the past few months. And currently. So it is hard to understand this indifference. I don't think it has to do necessarily with individual journalists. Many of them are very professional. I think it has to do with the agendas, the priorities imposed on the newsrooms. And I believe this has been very hard for many journalists to accept this kind of situation. Take the assassination or killing of the journalist Anas Al Sharif. That's not unique. We know that this has happened before. One of the endorsers of my book, the obliteration doctrine is Dr. Feroz Sidua, a wonderful trauma surgeon who's been in Gaza a couple of times, has been in other hotspots in the world. Never seen anything like this. He was asked were these killings deliberate or did they just happen in the middle of the so called war, quote, unquote. He found, together with about 65 colleagues, and they wrote a story about this in New York Times months ago that there were multiple cases of young children who had been shot and somehow they were killed by a bullet that hit their head or their heart. There are things that are very hard to understand in all of this, but there should be free media covering it.
- [42:41]
Mahmoud Khalil
But they're not. I mean, and we know that Shireen Abu Akla, who had a U.S. passport, was killed. The U.S. government, and this was when President Biden was in office, did nothing. We've seen dual Palestinian US citizens killed. Nothing happens. And now the killing of these journalists is very quickly being flipped to say that the journalists were actually Hamas. And apparently that is the sort of blanket explanation for everyone who was killed. Everyone is Hamas. The children, the women, the men, the hospitals, the doctors, the nurses, everyone, as a means of controlling information. It's been very effective. But what do you make of the fact that there's very little challenge to that question, to that notion.
- [43:28]
Dan Steinbach
It's disappointing, it's distressing, it's awful. We are in a situation where governments are not respecting their responsibility. In those situations, when they happen in history, people will come forward and try to raise that flag as if it were. We know that the United States accounts for two thirds for the arms transfers to Israel. Europe is involved as well, particularly Germany, Italy, UK and even smaller players. Even the country where I grew up initially, Finland, they are involved either by buying arms from Israel, they are a big buyer, or selling. This kind of activities taint the kind country. And they tend to tame the media somehow when you get involved, the media is more reluctant to cover these stories. And then there's also. There are the issues that I mentioned that have to do with the revolving doors, let's say, between the Pentagon, the defense contractors, think tanks that serve the administrations. Biden administration had that center of new American security. And these think tanks have lobbying arms that make money on this. The only ones that have truly benefited from all of this are the defense contractors who enjoy very fat margins. Right now. People haven't. It's a situation where 65,000 Palestinians have been killed, 155,000 have been injured, maimed. Let's keep in mind that 70%, up to 70% of the victims are women and children. What do they have to do with this? That's why I'm almost reluctant to use the term war in this context. It feels more like a mass butchery, if you will. It feels like a monstrous ball. How do you recall these events as a soldier to your children? That's increasingly hard. One problem that Mr. Netanyahu will have with this quote, unquote, new war plan is that already in late April, over 100,000 Israeli residue simply didn't show up. This is attributed to being tired, exhaustion, and it certainly plays a role. And not all of these are withdrawn. Rebists are ideological. They do not show up. But that doesn't necessarily have to do with the fact that they are against the war. They are tired, they are fed up, they have their families to turn for. They. They dislike the war. Israel is entirely divided by this. But there is something unconscionable about these moral hazards. You mentioned President Biden, ex President Biden. He certainly has had a special place in the fund floors of the Israeli lobby to US senators since the early 1990s when you take official US sources, open secrets and bipartisan think tanks, research organizations, you will find that when you couple the data from 1990 and his presidential campaign since 1988, his total amount of funds amounts to about $11.2 billion. He is followed by ex Democrat Robert Menendez, who is committed for corruption, and ex Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And if you look at the present administration, its willingness to simply ignore ethnic cleansing and actually to promote it in Gaza in the name of some phantasmagoric idea of Gaza and Riviera, where some of the same family members would have an opportunity to invest. And it's the willingness of this administration to directly participate in regional escalation. It's an extremely worrisome situation.
- [47:36]
Mahmoud Khalil
It is. It is. And moral hazard is a good way to describe it. Moral catastrophe is another term that I've used. Dr. Steinbach, I am going to read all of your books. I'm going to go and get your entire library. I appreciate you so much, sir. Thank you so much for being here.
- [47:51]
Dan Steinbach
Thank you. My pleasure.
- [47:53]
Mahmoud Khalil
Thank you. All right, we're going to make another hard turn, everyone, because there's still more. There is still more going on. I want to turn you now turn our attention to Texas, where dozens of Democratic lawmakers remain out of state, denying Republicans in the state House and Senate a quorum with which to racially gerrymander five black and Latino held seats out of existence and give them to Republicans on the orders of Donald Trump. Greg Abbott and other statewide Republicans are threatening to have the Democratic members arrested, though they have not said for what crime. And they've routinely sent law enforcement to the homes of these legislatures and onto their blocks to intimidate their families, while also fining them $500 a day for staying away. Well, I want you to listen to how State Representative Jalonda Jones, whose district is in the Houston area, responded to that threat.
- [48:46]
Joy Reid
I'm a lawyer. A part of my practice is criminal defense work. There is no felony in the Texas penal code for what he says. So, respectfully, he's making up some shit, okay? He's trying to get sound bites, and he has no legal mechanism. And if he did, subpoenas from Texas don't work in New York. So he gonna come get us. How? Subpoenas in Texas don't work in Chicago. He's gonna come get us.
- [49:12]
Mahmoud Khalil
How?
- [49:14]
Joy Reid
So let me be clear. He's putting up smoke and mirrors. I'm State Representative Jalanda Jones and I'm running for Congress.
- [49:21]
Cash Patel
Boom.
- [49:22]
Mahmoud Khalil
State Representative Jelanda Jones joins me Now, State Rep, thanks so much for being here. There we. There she is. Hey. Set. State Representative Jones, how are you doing?
- [49:33]
Joy Reid
I'm great.
- [49:34]
Mahmoud Khalil
You got my hair twin. Listen, we are bringing together Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated, knowing that we can share hairstyles and also a passion for democracy. Just so y' all know, the D9 never fails. And we always are fly in our blonde. Thank you so much for being here. Let's talk about this. This threat. You are an attorney. I think it's very useful. And so John Cornyn, State Senator John Cornyn has said he would like to send the feds to go and get you and the other state legislature and abduct you, I guess, to take you all from Illinois or Massachusetts or New York, wherever you are. And so has Greg Abbott. Under what law? What crime are they claiming you all have committed?
- [50:18]
Joy Reid
So, first of all, there is no law. The Texas penal code governs laws in Texas, and there is no law in the Texas penal code that says what we are doing is illegal. So they are making up, as I said on tv, some. Right. First of all, they have issued civil warrants, which, let's pretend like there could be a warrant for something they say we did, which there's not. But for purposes of your show, subpoenas in Texas only go between 150 and 200 miles. So the subpoenas aren't valid past that. So they can do whatever subpoenas they want in Texas. They have no force in effect in North Carolina. Well, wherever North Carolina, Chicago, New York, California, they don't. So they're bluffing. It's political theater. And it is really irritating because they are making some people think that we are criminals and we are not. And Trump supporters are crazy. I mean, we've had a bomb threat, like, remnants of, like, in Birmingham, where we really were hiding. They got us out of the way of, like, snipers, in case they were snipers. I shouldn't have to do that. Why? Because I'm standing up from democracy. Because I'm trying to stop them from shoving a racist gerrymandered map that would effectively take two black congressional seats from Texas, which we only have four. And they do so by finding the concentrations of black people and brown people, literally cracking them, cracking the populations, and then packing them in other areas where there's more white people. Like, it could be you live in Houston and you could being a district with people out of the country, and there's more people in the country than in Houston. And the people in the country get to tell you what to do through their congressperson. So it's some bs and, and we're not standing for it. And they're also filing lawsuits. Like, for example, the proper place to file. One of the lawsuits they filed was not in the Supreme Court. So I'm trying to figure out how Abbott, who's a lawyer, who's our former attorney general in Texas, how Paxton, who's the current attorney, just like in Texas, and how Dustin Burroughs, our speaker, all of whom are lawyers, how y' all don't know where to file a lawsuit. I mean, that's lawsuit. That's Law School 101. They filing lawsuits in California and in Illinois when they don't even some. In some of the lawsuits, they have people filing lawsuits, and they're not even licensed to practice in California or Illinois. So that's actually a crime. So the criminals are these politicians who lying on us. Now that I'm done venting.
- [52:51]
Mahmoud Khalil
No, I appreciate that, and you can vent here anytime. But the. On the other side of those lawsuits would be Democrats who currently are characterizing what's happening as essentially a political takeover, an attempt by Donald Trump to take power away from and disempower Democrats. That seems to me to be right. It seems to me also to be defeating the purpose of trying to win in a Supreme Court that has said you are perfectly allowed to do political gerrymandering, but not racial gerrymandering. Can you talk about why the Democrats are calling this a political gerrymander, not a racist gerrymander, which it is?
- [53:30]
Joy Reid
Well, you know, with this history of racism, the worst thing you can do to a racist is call him a racist. And when you're not black and you haven't lived through racism and you haven't lived through Jim Crow, you always want to think it's really not racist. It's racist. Okay? The only way to give Donald Trump those five seats is to go find black people and brown people. So you literally targeting black people and brown people, and you're trying to dilute their power by separating us and, like, away from the herd, for lack of a better word. So it's racist, and they want us to feel bad about racist. And one of the things white people do all the time to us to try to make us feel bad about the racism that they put onto us is they say, oh, you're pulling a race card. Well, I've said this before, and I'm going to say it again. I'm a pull a race car from the top of the deck, the middle of the deck, the bottom of the deck. And if we French cut, I'm going to pull it from all them stacks and I'm going to call you a racist, as long as you racist. Now, if you want me to stop calling you a racist, then stop doing racist shit. It's just that simple. And that's what it is. It's racist. So I encourage our allies, if they don't want to hurt our case in the Supreme Court, to call it what it is. Call a spade a spade. Call a racist a racist, it's racism. And if you look at the maps, Joy, you'll see that they haven't cracked and packed the white areas. Right? They haven't done that. If you look and see where all the gerrymandered, racistly gerrymandered lines are issued, black and brown neighborhoods. Is racist. Is racist.
- [55:01]
Mahmoud Khalil
Let's go, let's go through it. Because one of the things that I love about Representative Jalanda Jones is she actually came with receipts. She came with maps, y'. All. So I have screenshot a bunch of these maps. Going to go through them because I want you all to understand this. The reason that we're saying this is a racist gerrymander, not a political gerrymander. You're going to be able to see it from the maps.
- [55:18]
Joy Reid
I'm going to.
- [55:18]
Mahmoud Khalil
The first map we're going to. We're going to ask Jason to pull up is called Current Districts. This is the current districts map that we're going to put up on the screen and what it's going to show you, and you all love Jasmine Crockett. You're going to see Jasmine Crockett's district is District 30. It's going to be hard for you to. To see, but don't worry, I'm going to put all of these maps in my sub stack and I'm going to send this sub stack out to everybody. So if you're not signed up@joyannreid.com to Joy's house, you should sign up now. It is free to sign up because I'm gonna send this out for free to every single person who is subscribed to my substacks. You can see the maps up close, but for now, just look at it on the screen. Jasmine Crockett's District 30 is in sort of the middle, lower part of your screen. You can see it there on your screen. Okay, that's the first map we wanna show you just so you can sort of see where her district is. The next Thing we're going to put up is called Harris county plan. Harris county is where Houston is. All right, you all, if you all understand where Houston, Texas is, that is Harris County. It is, I believe, Representative, you can correct me if I'm wrong. It is the largest, most populous county in Texas. Yeah, absolutely.
- [56:28]
Joy Reid
And it's the. And it's actually. Houston is actually the fourth largest city in the United States of America.
- [56:32]
Mahmoud Khalil
In the United States. And I will note for you all, this is important for you to understand. We're going to talk. Talk a lot about Harris County, a lot about Houston, a lot about Dallas, because while Texas is. Is the most pop. Is the second most populous state in the country, more than 30 million people, it's got the most black people in the country. It's not Mississippi, it is Texas, but it's so big. But black folks are concentrated mainly in the Dallas and Houston area. Okay. So that is where the black people are. They're not all over the state. For the most part, they're in these places. So if you look at Harris county, we're. We're showing that map, I believe now. And can you walk us through what this means? There are red numbers and there are black numbers on the map that you all are seeing. You'll see like a red 22 and a black 22 red and a black. Tell us what those are.
- [57:21]
Joy Reid
So, Joy, this actually is Harris county by black voting districts. And that's.
- [57:29]
Mahmoud Khalil
Explain that first.
- [57:31]
Joy Reid
I just want them to put it back up so I can look at it. He took it down.
- [57:35]
Mahmoud Khalil
Okay, we're going to put back up Harris County. Yeah, we're going to put back up. Okay. No, that's not the one.
- [57:40]
Joy Reid
Not that one. The one before the previous one.
- [57:42]
Mahmoud Khalil
Yep. All right. Yeah, go ahead. You can put up the Harris county map. And we're going to show. And what this is going to show y', all, this first one is going to be Harris. There it is. Harris county by black population. Okay, explain.
- [57:54]
Joy Reid
So let me just tell you what you're looking at. If you look at the bottom, if you look at the table at the bottom, where you see the darkest orange, that is 70 to 100% black people. Where you see the lighter orange is 60 to 69.9% black people. Where you see, the green is 50 to 59.9% black people. So you can see where the concentrations are in certain areas. And so it's not a coincidence if you see where the number 18 is, that's congressional district 18, because it's a bunch of black people up there that can actually elect a black person. If you look where you see the 9 at, that's where congressional district 9 is. There's a number of black people. So you can elect a black congressperson. The reason why 18 and 9 are important. CD18 is where Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, Mickey Leland Craig Washington, Sheila Jackson, Lee Sylvester Turner represented Congressional District 18. Congressional District 9 is represented by Congressman Al Green, who is the guy who had the cane, the cane shaker, who during the. Who during the state of the disillusion was shaken, impeached Trump, and they escorted him out. What's important about this is there are two black congresspeople in the Houston area, and that's where they are right now, but they've changed it. So this is the current scenario.
- [59:18]
Mahmoud Khalil
This isn't today. So now let's go to that next map, Jason, that you were showing us before. Now, this is the Harris county plan. And this is what, okay, now what you guys are looking at, you're going to now see, you're going to see, like, for instance, if you guys look on your lower right hand or lower left corner of your screen, you see a 22 and a 22. One is red and one is black. The black is the new map. The red is the old map. You can see that in District 22, they didn't really change a lot. They kind of moved it a little bit. The Black 22 and the Red 22 are pretty close together. But now if you all can focus it, you may have to squint a little bit to see it. You just heard the representative talk about District 9, which is representative Al Green's district. Look at where those nines are and look at the lines drawn around them. Representative, please explain what we're seeing with nine and eight.
- [60:03]
Joy Reid
So explain. Okay, so the 20, the black color is the new map, right? The proposed map. The reason why we ran from Texas to get reinforcements and to educate people, because we did not flee because we ain't scared of them. If you look at the black, that's what's new. The way that you figure out what the current CD18 is, look at the red numbers. So, for example, if you look at CD9, where it's red, follow, like, remember when you were in school, follow the red outline. And that's where cd, the current cd9 is. If you look where the black 9 is, then you'll see follow the blue. So follow the blue and see where it goes. In that CD9, they literally have created a whole new, like, people are in a different place than they've ever voted before. So they've left, for the most part, white districts intact, and they've cracked and packed black and brown districts. One, I think, to discombobulate people and have people not know who to vote for or have people vote for people they've never voted for before.
- [61:16]
Mahmoud Khalil
Can I just let you all to also look. And again, if this is hard for you to see, don't worry. I'm going to send this all to you as well. From the substack. Look at the 18s, y'. All. Okay, now the 18 district. You heard the representative talk about Sylvester Turner. He used to be the mayor of Houston. He then sat in the historic Barbara Jordan seat, the seat Sheila Jackson Lee vacated when she passed away. Sylvester Turner passed away in March. Sylvester Turner had District 18. That is a vacant seat now because the governor has refused to fill that seat, leaving it open so that he could have enough of. Of a. Of a margin to pass that big ugly bill. Right? But look where the two 18s are, y'. All. If you draw a line around the BL. The red 18, look how high up it is on that map. It's right up there next to the 29. You see that? Now look at where the black 18 is. You got to go through, like, eight different red lines to get to the new 18. It's in a completely different place, but look what's next to it. It's right sandwiched next to that nine. There's a red nine inside of the same box as the 18. That looks confusing to you. What that means is that they are essentially stealing away parts of nine, district nine, and combining it with district 18. So they are taking people who used to be in District 18, shoving them into a new district with District 9. What's the significance of doing that?
- [62:41]
Joy Reid
The significance of doing that is they've literally. They really want to only have one black congressional district. Right. So they literally took Congressman Green's house and they gerrymandered and put his house in Congressional District 18, which means that he's going to be running against whoever the other black person is for congressional district 18. And then since in the census, every district has to have the same amount of people, if you put new people in, you've got to take old people out. And then where do you put those. Those people that were there? It's totally confusing. CD18, I think I sent you a map, Joy, telling you how much of 9 is left. How much of 18 is left. I don't know if you're going to put that up. I know we're probably going to come back and talk about that. But you can see the numbers of what's left after they do that. They literally.
- [63:36]
Mahmoud Khalil
Let's see if we can see new versus old Jason. I want to see if this is the map that representatives talking about new versus old. Let's see if we can grab that one. No worries. Take your time. Take your time. And also a lot of maps.
- [63:49]
Joy Reid
And also, yeah, I did. I gave them to you. I'm a, I'm a. I'm a map eater. But also gave you the numbers. Joy. We're told where they came from.
- [63:57]
Mahmoud Khalil
That is the next thing we're going to do, right? We're going to try to look at this one more map. Okay, so this is a little harder to see. This is a bigger zoom out, right? Is this new versus old Jason?
- [64:07]
Joy Reid
No, this is actually. This is actually. No, that's not.
- [64:11]
Mahmoud Khalil
Okay, so let's go back. Let's go back. I want to now pull up Jason, if you could. It's called Chart District 9. So instead of a map, I want to put up a chart. This is chart, District nine. Yep. Okay, so now this is a chart showing District 9 and District 18. I want you all to know that District 29 is involved in this. And the, the representative is going to explain how District 29 is involved. Please explain this chart.
- [64:40]
Joy Reid
So, so there are targeted congressional districts and these are three. What's interesting for me is my state rep. District, House, district 147 has a small part of 29 and 9. And most of my district is in congressional district 18. So all three of these affect my constituents. But if you look at what they have in CD9, if you look, if you go down and look at like the Anglo population, the top number is the number of Anglos. The bottom number is the voting age population. So for example, in congressional district 9, there's 12.4 Anglos there, but 13.9% are voting age. The same with 18, 16.7 Anglos, 19.4% voting age and 29, 8.3% Anglo and 10% voting age. And you go to the black and Hispanic, which Joy was surprised that they actually called us what we were, black or Hispanic or Asian or Anglo. They actually identify us by our race is racist. If you look at the Black population in CD9, it's 38.8, 38.3% of the district are Black, but 38.6% are voting age. And that's what those numbers show. But this is the current CD18.
- [66:03]
Mahmoud Khalil
Okay, that's current CD18.
- [66:05]
Joy Reid
That's the current, that's the, those, that's the current nine, the current CD18, the current 29. But I sent you numbers that had the congressional districts on the left side and then it showed how they're making.
- [66:17]
Mahmoud Khalil
They'Re going to move proposing.
- [66:18]
Joy Reid
Yes.
- [66:18]
Mahmoud Khalil
Let's see if that is chart population 9, 18, 29. Jason, chart population 9, 18, 29. I think that that's what that slide is.
- [66:29]
Joy Reid
Nope, that's not it.
- [66:30]
Mahmoud Khalil
Nope, that's not it. Let's do Chart District 9. Try that one there. I, I sent a whole lot of stuff. So we're going to try to find, we're going to rotate through them until we find them. There it is.
- [66:41]
Joy Reid
So this is one.
- [66:42]
Mahmoud Khalil
This is not. Okay. Yeah.
- [66:43]
Joy Reid
So now let's look at this. So this is the proposed District 9.
- [66:47]
Mahmoud Khalil
Yes.
- [66:48]
Joy Reid
And, and the, and the numbers, the first numbers you see the 2, 9, 18, 29, 36. These are congressional districts. So with the new CD9, only 2.9% of what's left of the new CD9 is actually coming from CD9. Right. They've eviscerated that district from.
- [67:09]
Mahmoud Khalil
Meaning that the new district will only contain 2.9% of the population of the old district.
- [67:15]
Joy Reid
Yes. And then they're taking 20.8% from CD2, which is a white district, a Republican district. So they're now making CD9 have 20.8% of it from a district that has never been there. White people, they aren't taking any from CD18, they're putting CD9 into 18. So they're not taking any CD18, what the remaining CD9. Right. And then they're literally taking 48.6% of the proposed CD9 is going to come from CD29, which is a Latino district that currently is represented by Sylvia Garcia. And then they're taking 27.7% of the population from congressional district 36, which is Republican. So they've literally taken a black congressional district where the people there voted for black representation in Congressman Al Green and they have created a Republican Hispanic district.
- [68:12]
Mahmoud Khalil
And so for all of you to understand, the first row that you see that the first column, you see the 2, 9, 18 and 29 and 36, that is the number of the district, the percentages show you the percent of that district that's going to make up this new Fangled District 9. The next column over is the number of humans, the number of bodies, because they still wanted to add up to that top number 7, 66, 987, because all the districts are about the same size. Okay, now let's do the same thing with district 18. This is called chart district 18. Jason, chart district 18. We're going to see the same thing that they're going to do now in District 18. It's even more egregious, if you can believe it. Go ahead, Representative, explain this chart.
- [68:56]
Joy Reid
So with, with the proposed CDAT, they're taking 1% from CD7, which ain't black. They're taking 70.7% of congressional district 9, which is Congressman Green's district, and they're putting it in CD18. CD18 is literally going to only have 25.6% of its. Oh, my flag fell. 25.6% of CD18 is going to remain. 0.7% is going to come from CD22 white, and 1.9% is going to come from CD29 Hispanic. So that's what the new, the proposed CD18 looks like.
- [69:36]
Mahmoud Khalil
So if you all now. So hopefully you guys understand this. What they're essentially doing is they are swapping out the populations of District 9 and 18. They're taking District 18's population, and in that original district, they're only keeping a quarter of the people who have voted for maybe decades in District 18 who voted in that historic district. Only a quarter of those people will still vote in that district. 70% of this new district will be made up of what was District 9. So what they're essentially doing is forcing two black members of Congress to battle it out in a new.
- [70:15]
Joy Reid
It's gonna be a bloodbath.
- [70:16]
Mahmoud Khalil
It's a bloodbath. Can you also talk about the economic changes here? Because they're also removing from some of these districts some of the economic drivers that actually made the district prosper.
- [70:28]
Joy Reid
I mean, here's the thing. These people who want to put us back in the Jim Crow, at a minimum, they do the same stuff in Dallas. They took Love Field, which is an airport, which is an economic driver. People have jobs there. Commerce comes in. That's how we're able to buy and sell stuff, because that's where your. Your imports come in. They took Love Field, which is an airport, and they took it out of CD 30, which Congresswoman Crockett has represented, and before her, Eddie Bernice Johnson. They did the exact same thing in CD18. Intercontinental Airport was. Has always been in congressional district 18. They literally have taken that economic driver out of CD18 and put it somewhere else. So not only do they want us to Have a bloodbath against each other and reduce. And reduce us from four representatives to two representatives. But they also want to take away a big employer in our districts that drive the economy, that help our districts be sustainable.
- [71:32]
Mahmoud Khalil
Tell me what people can do to help you all. Because they're trying to now imply that if people try to, you know, do some donations to try to help pay these fines that they're going to charge people with federal bribery. Real true, true story. What can people do?
- [71:47]
Joy Reid
Here we go again. I'm a 30 year trial lawyer. That is not a bribe. I mean, you can contribute to political action committees, you can. Politicians contribute to nonprofits and you can give it to the candidates of your choice. They do it. So why is what they do any different than us? No, they're threatening us like they've always done to black people. I can think back to the days of slavery where they literally lynched us. They would put a black man and they would draw and quarter him and scare everybody and they would kill him in front of everybody so that we'd all fall in line. Same type of tactics, just different century. We not falling for that. Y' all can give to. There's two things you can give to. You can give to the Texas Legislative Black Caucus which helps us be able to pay. Did I don't remember, did I tell you how much money we make?
- [72:35]
Mahmoud Khalil
Please tell us.
- [72:37]
Joy Reid
We make 600 whole dollars a month of that.
- [72:40]
Mahmoud Khalil
600.
- [72:41]
Joy Reid
600 period. 00.
- [72:44]
Mahmoud Khalil
Okay.
- [72:45]
Joy Reid
And which means we make a whopping $7200 a year. And let me tell you where that $600 goes. Part of it goes to pay for our health insurance. And then whatever we have left, we can put it all into our pension or we can ask them to put it to our bank account. I put it towards my, towards my pension. And I also am a dues paying member of the Texas State Employees Union because I believe this country is as strong as unions that get paid by their membership. So that's how much. So I basically get no money from that. And even if, even if I didn't have to pay for my health insurance out of that, who can live off of $600 a month? Right? So everybody think we like living big. Y' all wrong. We sacrifice to serve. I'm going to say that again. We sacrifice to serve. And so you can give to Texas Legislative Black Caucus. I happen to be running for congressional district 18 because my constituents have asked me to do so. And I have a donation link if you'd like to give that to me because I keep hearing that Jasmine and I should be working together. Because if you watched the redistricting hearings, you will see that both Jasmine and I, both of whom are University of Houston Law School graduates, made sure that during my questioning of her and her answering to me that we laid the legal foundation that it's a racist redistricting map gerrymandered to crack and pack only black and brown communities. And I believe the maps that you showed show that those are the only people that they cracking and packing. So they literally going laser focused trying to find black and brown folks to split up so that we would be less powerful. So I will give you my donation link. Joy, you can put it up and I will also use the Texas Legislative Black Caucus so you can put it up because it is a sacrifice. My mother is older. I'll actually be 60 in November. I know I don't look that old. I just became a black.
- [74:40]
Mahmoud Khalil
Good black don't crack. We know that.
- [74:42]
Joy Reid
Well, now some black does crack. I got some clients.
- [74:44]
Mahmoud Khalil
But I say good black now. Good black.
- [74:46]
Joy Reid
Okay, okay. So you, so you. Right. But I had to leave my mom in the care of our village, right? Of our African village, of my, of my son and of my sister so that someone could care for her. So we are away from our families. I'm a self employed lawyer. If I don't work, I don't eat. By the grace of God. My son and I practice law together and he's holding it down for me. But some people have jobs where they work for other people and they're not going to keep their jobs. I don't just see employers continue to pay you when you're not there. But at the end of the day, you know, I don't want to be here. I'd love to be home. I'd love to be campaigning like I would ordinarily do. But if they're able to steal these seats, I don't know that we can recover from it because black people are only 12.33% of the state of Texas. And I also fear that we won't have any more elections because I, I believe that Donald Trump is trying to rig the game to where he can run for third and fourth and fifth or however long he lives. And again, they're just things we can't get back. So now is our Edmund Pettus moment. Now is our Montgomery bus boycott moment. And like any day, I'm not getting assassinated or I'm not getting hoses on me or I'm not getting lynched I mean, it's a good day, right? I have breath in me to be able to fight. And that's exactly what we're doing.
- [76:01]
Mahmoud Khalil
And lastly, I will note that they're also telling you all for your measly $600 a month, you can only collect it in person. Now, they will not allow it to be deposited in your account.
- [76:12]
Joy Reid
Oh, for sure. And what they're also doing is they've cut our budgets by 30%. So I literally have a district office right now where my employ, my, my state employees are working in the district to help people. People have problems. They have relatives in prison. We help them with that. People need to get their wic. We help them with that. People are having problems with state agencies, with health and human services, where maybe you have elder abuse, we're helping them with that. Or maybe you have child abuse, we're helping them with that. Or maybe you were supposed to get a grant that you didn't get. We're helping them with that. Or maybe you were supposed to get money from HUD to help you with your affordable housing or your apartment or your Section 8. We're helping them with that. So now you're not going to pay my staff. So you literally don't want me to represent my constituents because you want to hoodwink and bamboozle people and tell people that I've abdicated my job. No, I have not. My office is running right now, and by the grace of God, my staff is still working because we understand that very rarely do you get the opportunity to stand in the gap and be a part of history. And that is what we are doing. We are winning. You know why we're winning? We. One, they can't conduct any business to shove these racist maps down our throats. Two, I'm on your show. A little state rep from Texas is on the Joy Reed show explaining to people why people in North Carolina or wherever need to pay attention because they did this same stuff in North Carolina last year and nobody knew about it. That's why they stole three seats. They did racist gerrymandering last last year. And it is not a coincidence that Trump got a three Republican majority and that's why he's been able to take us off the health care, to have these high tariffs. I mean, so we got. We have to stop him right now. And if not us, then who? If not now, then when? And that's what we're going to do. And I will stay here for as long as I have to. I will sacrifice because we've got to stop him. And black people have always. In the history of. Of the movement, we've always been the ones who stood in the gap and fought for people. And other people got rights because of us. And we are just trying to preserve the rights that we have. We're not even trying to get nothing new. And help me understand, white people in Texas are about 40% of the Texas population. Why do they have over 65% of the congressional representation? And if they get these five seats, they'll have close to 80%. Help me understand how 40% of people control 80% of congressional representation. That's some BS and it's wrong.
- [78:44]
Mahmoud Khalil
Amen.
- [78:44]
Joy Reid
Amen.
- [78:45]
Mahmoud Khalil
I want to just put up one more map, Jason. I'm going to identify one more map, if you could. It is called Map of statewide Plan. This is the zoom out, y'. All. This is the one I need to show you all because it'll show you how this is literally only being done. Nope. It's called Map of Statewide Plan. It's. Nope. It's called Map Dash of dash Statewide Dash plan. Png. Yeah, it's got some dashes. It's got a map of statewide Plan. Hopefully that one will come up. But because the reality is, what I want to show you all is just how this is only being done to.
- [79:18]
Joy Reid
Black and brown people.
- [79:21]
Mahmoud Khalil
And it's map. Oh, okay. Well, we can't find it. Okay, well, I'll put it up. I will put that one in. In subsect. Nope. It's called map of Statewide Plan. And let me see if I can get the exact name of it. Let me go back. Let me go. Let me go back. Map of Statewide Plan. Let's go back. Let me find it. We gonna keep going through it until we find it. But the bottom line, Representative map of state. Yeah.
- [79:52]
Joy Reid
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [79:53]
Mahmoud Khalil
There it is. Okay, there it is. And what I want you all to notice on this is the parts of this map that have red squiggly lines on it, and you can verify if I'm accurate about this, representative, are where these black and brown districts are. The whole rest of it with no lines is where white Texans live.
- [80:13]
Joy Reid
Yep, that's it.
- [80:16]
Mahmoud Khalil
So everyone needs to understand that when you hear people on MSNBC or CNN or CBS or ABC or anywhere else calling this a political gerrymander, y', all, I want you all to please get this substack and send this map to people and show them that there is no. There is a direct correlation between the places where there are black people and Brown people, which is only a small part of Texas. And where they're doing this gerrymander. They're not touching that whole left side of your screen. Where white Texans live, The rural or.
- [80:48]
Joy Reid
North or north or south is just what Hispanic is, just where the blacks and Hispanics are concentrated.
- [80:55]
Mahmoud Khalil
That's where they're.
- [80:56]
Joy Reid
Those places are where the blacks. Because I also sent you that, that map, Joy, that just showed you where the black people were, the big ones. Right? I don't know if you, you put that. That's the only place that they're gerrymandering. They're not gerrymandering anywhere else.
- [81:11]
Mahmoud Khalil
They are. And I'm going to put all of that in the, in the substack, y', all, because you really need to see. I mean, Texas is a big state with a big population, but the places where black people live, it's a very small part of the state. That is the stuff you all need to understand. And Democrats, we're gonna give you some free messaging help. We gonna give this to you free of charge. We're not even gonna charge you $600 a month for this free advice statewide. Democrats, you have got to stop talking about this as if it is politics. If you say it's a political gerrymander, when this gets to John Robertson, the Supreme Court, you're giving him the gift of being able to let Texas do it. Because John Roberts believes that political gerrymandering is constitutional. He doesn't see anything wrong with political gerrymandering. He will only rule on racial gerrymandering, which is what they're doing. We're not even asking you to lie. We're just asking you to be accurate. And for once in your lives, stop being afraid to talk about race. Democrats, I'm sorry to break it to you, but you depend on black people who for your votes, and then you.
- [82:13]
Joy Reid
Won'T cut for us. And then you won't cut for us. Like, you literally won't validate what the hell they doing to us. So that's what. So what Joyce said. I approve of that message.
- [82:25]
Mahmoud Khalil
Okay. I've gotten Representative Jelanda Jones, who is one of the baddest sisters out there. She is fighting the good fight. Please support her. Please support these Democrats. Representative Jones, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. And thank you for the maps.
- [82:35]
Joy Reid
Oh, you're very welcome.
- [82:36]
Mahmoud Khalil
Thank you. I always love a guest who brings data and maps. If you bring data and maps, you can come here anytime. Thank you to Jason for going through. I sent him like 400 maps. So he had to go through and find one of the 400 maps. But that is it. You all. I'm going to make sure that I get this to you. Please subscribe to the substack@joyandread.com if you have not subscribed here at the Joy Reid show, please hit that subscribe button right now so you never miss a moment so that you never miss a live and never miss any of these great guests. Please also hit like because we want to know what you like and what you guys want to hear more of. That is the show for tonight, and if you guys do want to hit that little bell thing, you'll get notified whenever we do anything live. Representative Jones and I are planning to do a substack live so we can dig even deeper into these maps. If you are a map fan, you're going to want to be here for that and you can keep track of all of those things on joyandread.com and also by subscribing here at the Joy Reach show. Thank you all for tuning in and going a little over time with us. This is big stuff, y'. All. We had to get into it. Thank you all for tuning in and we will see you on Wednesday on the next Joy Read show.
- [83:38]
Joy Reid
Okay. Yeah.