Bad Bunny & Humanity Win, ICE & MAGA Lose | The Joy Reid Show LIVE

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Bad Bunny & Humanity Win, ICE & MAGA Lose"

The Joy Reid Show LIVE (February 10, 2026)

Host: Joy-Ann Reid
Guests: Chris Witherspoon, Terray, Luis Osorio Jimenez, Tony Box, Ari Berman, Clay Cane

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Episode Overview

In this vibrant, multifaceted episode, Joy Reid and her guests celebrate the cultural triumphs witnessed at Super Bowl 60—most notably Bad Bunny’s history-making halftime show—and explore broader themes of representation, joy, and resistance in a MAGA-dominated America. The conversation then pivots sharply to the troubling realities of ICE’s actions, the erosion of civil rights, and ongoing threats to democracy, grounding the discussion in urgent political critique and advice for resistance ahead of the 2026 midterms. The episode brims with pride, humor, personal stories, and hard truths, capturing both the exhilaration of cultural victory and the gravity of contemporary political challenges.

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1. Super Bowl 60: Bad Bunny’s Halftime Show as a Cultural Watershed

Celebration of Latino Excellence (06:46–22:33)

• Bad Bunny Makes History:
  • Bad Bunny (Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio) headlined the most-watched Super Bowl halftime show ever, surpassing even Kendrick Lamar’s previous record. (06:46–08:47)
  • Joy remarks:

    "He celebrated not just Puerto Rico, but also the Americas writ large... Bad Bunny bowl with more than 135.4 million viewers. That is huge." (06:46–08:47)

• Joyful Representation:
  • The performance included flags, dancing, traditional Puerto Rican motifs, and surprise celebrity cameos—Cardi B, Jessica Alba, Pedro Pascal, Carol G, and more.
  • The show was “not about punishing Bad Bunny for singing in Spanish—he literally does not care that MAGA is mad about that... It was about preventing the white Christian nationalist Trump youth from experiencing multicultural, multilingual joy.” (15:06–18:27)
• Cultural Critique and Threats to Segregation:
  • Joy draws comparisons between MAGA’s alternative halftime (Kid Rock on Turning Point USA) and historical segregation:

    “This Turning Point USA alternative halftime show was not just about supposedly punishing Bad Bunny for singing in Spanish... It was even more about preventing the white Christian nationalist Trump youth... from breaking out of the loop.” (15:58–18:27)

  • Memorable moment: Even Trump and Mar-a-Lago guests chose to watch Bad Bunny’s show over the “All American” MAGA production. (13:31–15:41)

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2. Panel Reflections: What Bad Bunny’s Moment Means

Cultural Unity, Pride, and Politics (20:31–38:04)

• Luis Osorio Jimenez (Puerto Rican Perspective):

  > “What an incredible time to be Latino and to be Puerto Rican in the United States of America... That day was about all cultures... about everybody coming together.” (20:31–22:33)
  

• Chris Witherspoon (Entertainment Analysis):

  > "Tens across the board... He unified different nuances and layers to the story that he was trying to tell. The receipts are there. He is the most streamed artist of 2020 through 2022, 23 and 25.” (23:18–24:24)
  

• Terray (Cultural Critic):

  > "The phrase that kept coming back to me was world building... We are, like, experiencing, like, hanging out like a montage, like, living in Puerto Rican culture." (24:44–26:27)
  

  • Highlights the deeper political messages and subtle criticism of colonialism woven into the Spanish-language set.
• Human Connection:
  • Panel tears up over the 'Liam' moment—a child symbolizing both Bad Bunny’s younger self and the immigrant experience.

    “How you gonna hate us if you don’t know us? Love is always better than hate.” – Luis Osorio Jimenez (27:12–27:56)

• Lady Gaga’s Contribution:
  • Only English-language performer; used her spotlight to elevate the show’s multicultural flair, earning respect from panelists for standing in solidarity. (28:59–30:13)

  • “She came out as this white mainstream artist... and put points on the board for him.” – Chris Witherspoon (29:41–30:13)

• Viral Joy:
  • Joy admits rewinding the performance three times, “dancing my little behind off,” seeing it as the “future of America” that MAGA so fears. (12:54–13:17), (36:13–38:04)

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3. ICE Overreach, Civil Rights, and State Violence

Hard Realities on Immigration Enforcement (43:39–62:29)

• ICE Raids and Terrifying Overreach:
  • Joy introduces chilling recent ICE raids in San Antonio, Texas—masked, warrantless home intrusions, brutal detainment—underscoring the everyday violence now normalized in MAGA America. (43:39–54:37)

• Expert Testimony:

  > “If they have a soul and a conscience, then they’re bothered by it. But if they have a soul and conscience, why did they do it in the very first place?” – Tony Box, former Army/FBI/SWAT/federal prosecutor (44:54–45:21)
  

  • Box underscores lack of accountability:

    “Nothing scares federal law enforcement officers more than being prosecuted. It scares the bejesus out of them...” (47:06–47:49)

  • Explains unlawful searches, suppression of evidence, and the risks agents take in gun-friendly states like Texas.

• ICE as Political Tool:

  > “ICE does need to be out of Minneapolis. It’s an occupation… All they’re doing is terrorizing the community.” – Tony Box (48:43–49:20)
  

• Disillusioned Agents:
  • Many joined ICE for economic reasons, not ideology; promised bonuses and student debt relief often do not materialize. (54:37–55:21)
  • Joy and Box discuss the lack of meaningful training (“47 days in honor of the 47th president... that’s simply not enough.” – Box, 56:41)
• Calls for Abolishing or Radically Reforming ICE:
  • “I think it should be reformed tremendously... not being dropped in the middle of a city to terrorize the community.” (59:01–60:16)

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4. Democracy on Edge: Election Interference and Nationalization Fears

ICE, Surveillance, and Voting Rights (82:25–98:43)

• Trump and MAGA’s Plan for Voter Suppression:
  • Joy details plans to station ICE at polling places, seize ballots, and weaponize law enforcement to intimidate voters and manipulate election outcomes (82:25–86:23).

  • “My biggest fear is just Trump using the full weight of the federal government... to try to interfere in the midterms in his party’s favor. And a lot of what we’re seeing now are test runs...” – Ari Berman, author of Minority Rule (85:06–86:23)

• Lessons from 2020, Warnings for the Future:
  • Ari Berman warns that Trump now surrounds himself only with enablers—no one will say no to him if he pushes unconstitutional actions in 2026.
  • The seizure of ballots in Fulton County, the involvement of DNI Tulsi Gabbard in domestic operations, and fabricated threats about foreign election interference all signal a brewing “test run” for election subversion (87:19–92:42).
• What Can Be Done?
  • Berman: “They’re operating from a position of weakness... People need to make them feel it.” (97:41–98:43)
  • Urges listening audience to volunteer, be poll workers, pressure elected officials, organize locally.

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5. Recent Microaggressions and Systemic Racism at the Top

Institutional Discrimination: Governors Excluded from White House Dinner (66:10–74:57)

• Joy reveals that both Maryland Governor Wes Moore (the country’s only Black governor) and Colorado Governor Jared Polis (the country’s only gay governor) were explicitly excluded from a White House governor's dinner by Trump.
  • “He doesn’t want your black behind there... he’s a straight up gut bucket, knuckle dragging racist.” – Joy Reid (69:04)
  • Discussion of the obligation of other governors to boycott the event in solidarity.

  • “If you disinvite the vice chair, you disinvited all of us.” (71:23)

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6. Celebration of Black and Brown Literary Success

Bookstore Triumph & Independent Media Power (99:55–113:50)

• Clay Cane’s New Novel “Burn Down Masters House” Hits NYT List:
  • Joy celebrates Clay’s best-seller status, emphasizing zero mainstream media coverage.

  • “You cannot gatekeep... you all decide what’s important to you. We can’t let them say what’s important.” – Clay Cane (101:36–103:28)

• Power of Community:
  • Listener testimonial:

    “That’s the first time I’ve ever listened or really read a book my whole life. I can’t read beyond a third grade education. But that book really inspired me.” (109:57–112:17)

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7. Community Interaction, Upcoming Shows, and Calls to Action

Interactive Engagement and Programming Teasers (118:03–end)

• Reminders for upcoming shows: Ms. Maddie J’s love advice special, interview with Salam Mariadi of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, and more.
• Appeals for audience participation: send questions, engage with content, and support independent book sales.

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Notable & Memorable Quotes

• “How you gonna hate us if you don’t know us? Love is always better than hate.”
  – Luis Osorio Jimenez (27:12)
• “Segregation... is about keeping white children away from Black children... The fear was if their white children were exposed... they might stop believing the lies and see Black people as fellow human beings...”
  – Joy Reid (15:41–16:46)
• “If they have a soul and a conscience, then they’re bothered by it. But if they have a soul and conscience, why did they do it in the very first place?”
  – Tony Box (44:54–45:21)
• “The administration is operating from a position of weakness, not a position of strength. They’re doing these things because they’re afraid their grip on power is slipping away.”
  – Ari Berman (97:41)
• “We can defeat the worst, the worst of the worst, as long as we hang together.”
  – Joy Reid (113:50)

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Key Timestamps

• 06:46–12:54 | Bad Bunny Super Bowl halftime performance details and record-breaking stats
• 20:31–38:04 | Panel deep-dive on Latino/POC cultural visibility, historic resonance
• 43:39–62:29 | ICE home raid analysis, civil rights context, Tony Box insight
• 82:25–98:43 | Election interference, ICE at polls, threats to democracy (Ari Berman interview)
• 66:10–74:57 | Exclusion of Black and LGBTQ governors, White House event controversy
• 99:55–113:50 | Clay Cane interview, independent media’s community power

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The Joy-Ann Reid Show: Tone & Vibe

This episode blends exuberant cultural celebration—highlighting inclusion, representation, and joy—with hard-hitting, unapologetic political analysis. The guests' camaraderie, Joy’s humor and insight, and the show’s open engagement with community questions create an atmosphere that is simultaneously fun, deeply informative, and fiercely committed to justice and accountability.

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For listeners seeking an episode that captures both the highs of cultural victory and the grit of democratic resistance, this is essential listening.

Transcript

[Joy Reid]

Wait, too.

[Chris Witherspoon]

Okay.

[Joy Reid]

When you hear the music, you know what time it is. Welcome to the Joy Reid show. Hope you guys had a fabulous Bad Bunny weekend. Big up to everybody in the chats. We see you here on YouTube. Also, of course, on the Stack. Hello to our substackers. Big up to everybody on Facebook. We love that you guys are on Facebook, taking a look at us as well. And also our Twitchies on Twitch. We love the fact that we have a little Twitch family. You guys are small but mighty. A small but mighty mob of DJR as Twitchies.

[Jason Reed]

I just want to jump in.

[Joy Reid]

Sorry, Joy.

[Jason Reed]

And jump and say happy Monday, everybody. Enjoy the show. I'll be back later.

[Joy Reid]

All right, Jason Reed says, happy, Happy Monday. Happy Monday from the entire Team tjrs family. See, I'm wearing my. I'm wearing my merch. This is usually an indication that I didn't have time to really come out with an outfit on today. So I just went makeup jacket, earrings, ready. Also got my brows done. Big up to two if you cam two beauty. Got that rhizomes. I'm done. I'm good. Ready to go. We have a lot to talk about tonight, but I do want to remind you guys to get your Questions in for Ms. Maddie J. Do not forget, our pre Valentine's Day show is coming up. What's today? The ninth. You have a deadline of Wednesday to get your questions in so that she can answer your questions. Because we're actually doing this on February 13th. That is next week Wednesday. So you want to get your questions in asap. If you got love questions, if you've got advice you need.

[Jason Reed]

I'm sorry, please make a correction. The questions have to be in by the end of today.

[Joy Reid]

Oh, you want to read about today?

[Jason Reed]

Well, it says so in the flyer by 2, 9, so.

[Joy Reid]

Oh, was it by today? Oh, well, I stand corrected. Get them in today. Get them in by the end of the close of business tonight. So. Yes, I gave you fake news. You want to get those questions in today, tonight? We'll give you guys till the end of. Close the business. Well, close the business for us. It's like 9 o', clock, but just get them in tonight. Get them in tonight. We will.

[Jason Reed]

We will honor 1159 Eastern Standard Time.

[Joy Reid]

We'll honor it all the way till midnight because we have to compile them. The reason we need you guys to get them in is, is that we want to get the questions in so we can pick the best ones. The most fun ones. We can make sure that we identify the Right question or the asker. And so that we can get them in, I will also throw in just to throw a loop into it. If you want to ask a question on video, please feel free. Like, if you want to ask, like, put a little camera in front of yourself and ask your question using video, feel free to send that, too. Just don't make it long. Make it so that it's snackable, so that it's short enough that we could play it on the show. So if you want to be, you know, if you want to be read famous, go ahead and do that too. Because we want to make sure that we get your love questions answered. And there's nobody better to give you love advice than Ms. Maddie J. She's a heiferologist. You got a heifer issue? Heifer problems. Bring them to Miss Maddie J. So I will know.

[Jason Reed]

I'm sorry. Please dump it in again, please. Gotta make sure we get all this stuff in. Could everybody take out their phones, please, and go ahead and scan that QR code I am shamelessly plugging so we can get ourselves an award from the NAACP Image Awards. So go ahead and scan that code. I'll leave it up for another 30 seconds.

[Joy Reid]

Thank you. We were just talking about it today that my. My. My m. My artist Formerly known as MSNBC Fireversary is coming up on. On February 24th. And it is sort of funny that I got fired, like, two weeks after winning the NAACP Image Award for the readout at Miz. Now she's Miss Now. Now we honor her name. And. And so I got fired, like, right after that. So my last communications with them were like, oh, my God, how are we going to promo this? And the next thing was, you're fired. Get out. So. So, yeah, so our fire anniversary is coming up. So I do. I think it would be really beautifully ironic if we won the NAACP Image Award for this show. I think we're up for two categories. But our main category, of course, is the news category. It's a packed category. Lots of my friends are in it. It's stacked. It's like, all my friends are in. And actually the brunch for it was this past weekend and we missed it. We weren't there for the brunch, but big up to the naacp. They had a beautiful brunch in LA celebrating all of us who were nominated. Was not able to be there because I was actually in Memphis, Tennessee. We were in Memphis. Not only to hang out with Sean, whose birthday it is, we're going to embarrass Sean, right now, who is our beloved member of our team. A very critical member of our team. Sean's birthday. So we were down there celebrating that, but also I was receiving the Benjamin Hooks Award for Medgar and Merlee. The other thing I got an NAACP Image Award for. And you can play a little bit of that, Jason, if you want to. This is. We were just down there, and it's the Benjamin Hooks Award at the University of Memphis. So I want to thank everybody for that. That award was actually very, very meaningful. Benjamin Hooks was actually the person who succeeded Medgar Evers, boss as executive director, national executive director. Roy Wilkins was the executive director when Medgar Evers was alive. And then the person who became the next executive director after Roy Wilkins was Benjamin Hooks. So got that award for Medgar Merle signed a lot of books. Big up to everybody who showed up for that. We did a cute book signing. It was really, really fun. And, you know, thank you for having me. University of Memphis, I will note they apparently I was their Black History Month celebration because they no longer have a multicultural center, nor do they have a black history major anymore. They don't have a department anymore. It's suboptimal. They did that because they were bowing to the anti DEI administration in Washington and in Nashville, Tennessee, in their. In their state government. Not cool. So I was glad to at least provide a Black History celebration, given that Tennessee is bending the knee. So it was good to be there. Yeah. So that was interesting. But anyway, it was good to be there last night. Let's get on to the news of the day. Of course, we all know what weekend it was. Oh, I didn't even mention, Jason, that you know who speaks a lot at University of Memphis? Kyle Rittenhouse.

[Jason Reed]

And why were you there?

[Joy Reid]

Well, because the black people needed a Black History Month. It's like they have to deal with a lot of Kyle Rittenhouse. And so they're like, why not have a Black History Month still? Because they're trying to take it from them. So we're like, we're going to keep them having Black History Month. Like, it's important.

[Jason Reed]

So let me ask you this question. Would you have went prior knowing that Paul Rittenhouse goes there all the time.

[Joy Reid]

For the black people? Yes. To celebrate Black History Month. Absolutely.

[Jason Reed]

We got to go to the fires then.

[Joy Reid]

Right. And we can't disappear. I mean, thing is, these universities and these states, these Southern states, it's tempting to say we'll just stay out of them, stay away from them. I do stay away from Florida, because I don't want to give them tourism money. This wasn't tourism. This was Black History Month. Needs to be acknowledged. They were acknowledging Medgar Ever's legacy. And absolutely we are not going to disappear from even those spaces. So we're going to be there.

[Jason Reed]

All right, I'm out.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah. And I actually like black history. What do you call it? Black Lives Matter Marchers. And I wouldn't harm them. So let's get to, let's get to the headlines. Last night's Bad Bunny bowl, aka Benito bowl for the star of the Super Bowl 60 halftime show, Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio. I love that that's his name. Bad Bunny's real name is Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio. He celebrated not just Puerto Rico, but also the Americas writ large. Made them very, very proud with an iconic performance that, by the way, now ranks as the most watched song super bowl halftime show in history, likely even surpassing the huge numbers for the previous record holder. Sorry, Maga. It's also a man of color. California hip hop star, fellow serial Grammy winner, Kendrick Lamar. The. The black hip hop superstar, Kendrick lamar, who has 27 Grammys, by the way. Bad Bunny, just 31 years old, has six plus 16 nominations. So these guys are packed with awards. And he celebrated the Americas. He named like most of the countries in the Americas, basically named all of Latin America. Brought them all in. Flags, dancing. It was really, really beautiful. By the way, Kendrick's performance last year clocked in as the most watched super bowl halftime show in history with 133.5 million viewers. Which Apple Music, which presented the performance again this year alongside Jay Z's Roc Nation, say was eclipsed this year by Bad Bunny bowl with more than 135.4 million million viewers. That is huge. Now Bad Bunny is of course an international superstar with a global fan base far beyond Puerto Rico. And the super bowl is actually an international sporting event, even though it only involves United States teams. But it's broadcast in something like 130 countries all around the world and in more than 30 languages. Though apparently, you know, poor Maga is unaware. In fact, this is something that the NFL brags about, its international popularity. They brag about this every year. They go. If you go on their website, they brag about it all the time. So the opening of the show of the entire night was of course Green Day, who performed a medley of their hits, including American Idiot, which got censored by the fine folks at NBC. Apparently lots of people were very upset. They felt that it was Censored and that some curse words directed toward the United States and the ice establishment were cut out. Other people upset that they weren't more radical in their performance. But we don't really know because we only saw what we saw. And it's just not clear how much was censored. But David Korn and some others were on Blue Sky. I was on Blue sky for a little while live posting about it. And people were definitely saying that they were censored. So we will. We await the news media or the journalism to tell us exactly what they said that got cut out. But it was a lively start. It was very Gen X. It was very Gen X moment. They were playing American Idiot. You can see them there. Fabulous hair on the lead singer. So that happened. Maga also not happy that Coco Jones, she performed the black national anthem, which has become a tradition. Look at that dress. That dress is absolutely gorgeous. Note that we have to just tell you what you're seeing because you. You have to license this stuff in order to play it. But. And play the music. But yeah, Coco Jones sang the Black National Anthem. Beautifully done. She's a fabulous vocalist. Incredible singer. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Lots of people in the chat saying they were singing along with her. I will also note America the Beautiful was sung quite beautifully by Brandi Carlisle. And the gentleman who sang the national anthem had a beautiful voice. And this for a very lyric, sort of light voice, beautiful voice is a guy named Chris Puth, who I was not aware of. Thank you for winsome telling me who that was, because I didn't know. That was cool. There was even a real wedding. A real wedding actually happened, which was actually pretty cool. So Bad Bunny apparently gets a lot of wedding invitations. He got a wedding invitation from this particular couple, and apparently he just invited them to come and get married on live TV as part of his segment, which was amazing. And so what people were saying was that a real wedding. Did people. Yes, yes. They really got married. Reading from the AP News article about the entire festivities, and here is what they wrote at AP News. The sun hung low when Bad Bunny emerged in Puerto Rico sugarcane fields during his halftime show. I will note the sugarcane fields were people. There were people in costumes at the sugarcane fields, which is pretty cool. Surrounded by jibaros in pavas, rural farmers in traditional straw ha viejitos playing dominoes, an affectionate term for older men. And a piragua stand, which is shaved ice. Undeniable symbols of Puerto Rico indigenous. If you pull a five, it's really cool. From a small Caribbean island with a complicated colonial history to the world. Oh, no. The next one, please. The artist, born Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, brought Puerto Rican culture to the Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California for his 2026 Super bowl halftime show. In what was always going to be a landmark moment for Latinos. He started with his huge, huge reggaeton and then some hits, Titi Me Pregunto, moving into Yo Perro Sola as he reemerged on top of the casita, which is a little house, which you guys just saw from his Puerto Rican residency. Cardi B, Jessica Alba, Pedro Pascal, Carol G. Young miko, Ronald Acunya Jr Alex Earle and Dave Grootman were among guests at his party de Marquesina, which is a house party. That is the quote from ap. Now this is an actual shot of me. Here's where I embarrass myself for your entertainment during the performance, which I rewound and watched, I promise you, three times. I'm not ashamed to say I was getting it in. You just have to imagine in your mind the music and that I am on beat because I was, I was getting in. This is like me doing my. My best Gen X auntie. I was getting it in, y'.

[Jason Reed]

All.

[Joy Reid]

I don't care. I'm not even embarrassed and ashamed to say that I was dancing my little, my little behind off. You just have to kind of hear the music in your head. It was fun. I. I was trying to learn, like, all the songs in the airport while Winston and I were traveling back from Memphis. I didn't learn that. I'm not good at remembering them anymore because, you know, I got a, like, brain that's like, middle aged. But I was trying to learn as much as I could. But I had a great time. It was fun. Needless to.

[Jason Reed]

You guys are wondering where I was during this whole entire fiasco.

[Joy Reid]

Not dancing with us.

[Jason Reed]

I was down here working for tomorrow's episode.

[Joy Reid]

Somebody had to work. Yeah, somebody had to work. But we. What?

[Jason Reed]

Look, no, I did have the TV on down here watching, though, but I wasn't too.

[Joy Reid]

But you weren't up there dancing. Look, now I'm showing y' all my styling look. Boom bop, beat up be. Yeah, so I was getting it in, y'. All. I had a good old time. So not to worry, though. Not to worry. The segregation now. Segregation forever. Maga crowd had their own halftime fun, too, with an alternative halftime show featuring Kid Rock lip syncing off sync in jorts. I think I looked better than him. He's literally in Jorts and he was lip syncing and he was off sync with the music. Of course, he couldn't even lip sync properly to his own music, which was super, super weird. The All American halftime show apparently drew as many as 5 to 6 million concurrent viewers on Turning Point USA's YouTube Chann for the Athletic in USA today, which if you're a math person, is a lot less than 135 million. The performance was also broadcast on Christian network TBN, though they have not released any numbers there as yet. The event was originally supposed to be streamed on TPUSA's X Twitter page, but in a feat of only MAGA incompetence, the DP gang ppusa, we like to call them ppusa. BPUSA forgot to license the music so they couldn't stream it legally. Sorry, I'm just only laughing inside. One group of fans who apparently also missed out on the PP PP USA fun were the super bowl party folks who were watching at Mar A Lago. Yeah, let's see what they were watching during the whole thing. Because they had their choice. They could have watched BB USA and Kid Rock singing offbeat or they could have watched, oh wait, they watched Bad Bunny even. They were like, yeah, this, this is whack. I'm not watching this. Even the people at Mar a Lago had a choice and made a choice to watch Bad Bunny. And while it is great fun to laugh at these people because, let's face it, they are stupid, it is also important to remember the purpose of segregation. I mean, these people are giving the same energy as those in history who felt like they could not send their kids to school if black kids were there or use a water fountain if black people were using it, they needed to have their own. But what you need to understand about segregation is that it is in part about making sure that the out group, in this case in the 1960s and before, black people don't know what they're missing, right? You want them to not know that there are textbooks that are brand new and unwritten in and to believe that the reality that they've been fed is the only reality so that they never envy what white people have and aspire to get the same for themselves. This of course is incredibly stupid because it presumes that black people at that time had no idea what white people had. So many black people literally working in white people's homes generation after generation and also having access to, I don't know, television and to other black people and also just not being stupid. But segregation is also about the in group, right? It's about keeping white children away from black children. And let's be clear, segregation was almost always about young white people and white children. It was about the fear that the adults had that if their white children were exposed to black children in everyday settings like school or the lunch counter or on the football field or the baseball field, they might stop believing the lies they were being told about black people by their parents and by the politicians and by the people on tv. They might come to see black people as fellow human beings who are perfectly normal and perfectly moral and who deserved equality. And that would make it really hard to maintain the systems of power that kept the autocratic plutocratic system in place. Because if white children discovered that they could play sports with black children, eat lunch with black children, drink out of the same water fountains as black children, and nothing bad would happen, it would be really hard to maintain the rules that kept a small number of white families empowered and rich. Similarly, this Turning Point USA alternative halftime show was not just about supposedly punishing Bad Bunny for singing in Spanish, which is also stupid because he literally doesn't care. He literally does not care that MAGA is mad about that. It was even more about preventing the white Christian nationalist Trump youth. The Trump and youth who are being groomed by Turning Point usa, they're being groomed by them to be white Christian nationalists. So you can't allow them to experience the multicultural multilingual joy that of Bad Bunny's performance. It might break them out of the loop because like if they were allowed to experience that, right, the multicultural multilingual joy of Bad Bunny, they would see what they are missing. They would see the culture they're not getting a part of and they might want to be a part of that. They might want to be a part of the multicultural majority rather than remain locked into the white Christian nationalist, rigid conservative seasoning free matrix that are currently ruling plutocrats, autocrats and Christo techno fascists need them to remain fixated on in order to maintain control over the country and over the Republican Party that they have taken over. In fact, I truly, truly believe that maga's biggest fear, whether with Black Lives Matter or with Bad Bunny bowl, is young white men and women bouncing and dancing joyfully to Bad Bunny and Lady Gaga instead of dancing offbeat to child attracted lyrics belching Kid Rock. Their nightmare is white Christian kids wanting to be part of the much more fun, much more interesting multicultural experience of America, future America and maybe, maybe joining the anti fascist resistance instead of ice and maybe Just maybe beginning to vote the same way that they dance. Joining me now is a really fantastic panel. I am really excited about it. Entertainment journalist, producer and entrepreneur Chris Witherspoon, our pal who currently serves as an entertainment contributor to NBC News, appearing regularly across today's show, NBC News now, and additional network platforms of pop viewers. And also writer, music journalist, cultural critic, fellow artist, formerly known as as msnbc, refugee, podcaster and TV personality Terray, among many things, is the host of Rap Latte as well as the host of why Did They Break Up? Which debuts next week. And also the highly popular TikTok. Content creator and attorney and proud Puerto Rican Luis Osorio Jimenez, otherwise known as the Kitenga Buendia guy, who I'm literally obsessed with. And thank God he's not blocking me because I literally am obsessed with him. And so he's agreed to come on and I'm so excited. Thank you all for being here. But I'm going to start with you, Luis. And first of all. And how are you? How did you enjoy that money bowl?

[Luis Osorio Jimenez]

What an incredible time to be Latino and to be Puerto Rican in the United States of America. Amazing, right? And I gotta say, I'm loving the adoption of our culture by you and your dancing Joy. I gotta give it out to you. You're invited to the Fieta de Navidad in Puerto Rico anytime you want.

[Joy Reid]

Give me some taquito and let me cook.

[Luis Osorio Jimenez]

There you go. That was the agree. We wanted to bring culture to other people that have not experienced it and you embraced it. And that is the result of what we wanted to be doing out there. So great, great to see.

[Joy Reid]

Absolutely. And you know, and it's such. It comes at a time, Luis, when there's been a lot of questions about whether, you know, the Puerto Rican, like mass en masse. Right. We're drifting toward Trump and away from this kind of multicultural experience. You talk a lot on your TikTok channel, which is really brilliant. People should follow it about the sort of aspiration to whiteness, when actually the coolest thing about Puerto Rico is the multicultural Taino African. What we saw, what we saw from Bad Money. Do you feel like that spell is breaking?

[Luis Osorio Jimenez]

Absolutely. I think we as Americans are understanding finally, after a long awaited time, that America is all of us. That is a group of people mixed and intertwined together that come from different places, different ethnicities, cultures, to learn about each other and to understand that our differences is what makes us whole. And we could not be more excited to finally see it coming to fruition of People experiencing differences. Different food, different music, different types of things. Because that is what makes us truly Americans. And I could have enjoyed it more. So beautiful to see all those flags in this play and all those people enjoying it. Because it's not about Puerto Ricans. That day. That day was about all cultures. About Ecuador, about Chile, about Peru, about Mexico, about everybody coming together to become friends and to enjoy what makes us different. That's what it's all about.

[Joy Reid]

Amen. He even threw in Jamaica. He got Jamaica in there as well. Chris Witherspoon. This was from an entertainment point of view. It was blockbuster, right? The numbers were huge. There was the little Liam lookalike, and Liam, of course, the sweet little boy who had the, you know, who had the hat and the backpack, who was taken with his dad. There was this moment where Bad Bunny, like hands him a Grammy. And I will note for everybody, he was not Liam. He was actually a lookalike. He was an actor. But that moment, I think people were in tears when they saw that. What do you make of just the presentation, the people who are grass, all of the structure of the way it was put together. And also, by the way, Lady Gaga being the only English speaking person in the whole show.

[Chris Witherspoon]

Tens across the board. Okay, first off, tens across the board. I think that Bad Bunny, and I'm gonna give him his full name, Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio. That is, you know, we gotta call him his full name now. He came in with the expectations and like so many people, the naysayers, the doubters expecting him to not deliver. And I feel like he over delivered after even last Sunday in the Grammys where he like took to the stage and was just so, so strong in all that he had to say. That performance was so spectacular. And I always say that, you know, in this country, our petroleum, our automobiles, might not be our greatest export. To me, it is our arts, it is our culture. That is our biggest PR campaign. Moments like the halftime show and to me, what he did, how he unified the different nuances and layers to the story that he was trying to tell. If you go back and watch it, there are so many different Easter eggs in. Those performances were absolutely incre. He deserved to be on that stage. The receipts are there. He is the most streamed artist of 2020 through 2022, 23 and 25. Like, what more could you ask for?

[Joy Reid]

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, Terry, as a, as a culture critic, I'm sure for you this was like a smorgasbord of, of, of things to think about and Write about and talk about. I mean, everything was there. You know, he referenced even the fact that the power will go out in Puerto Rico by having the tall towers where people were climbing the top. Like, he missed nothing.

[Terray]

No, I was watching it. And the phrase that kept coming back to me was world building. He's world building. He's creating this Puerto Rican world where we see the men playing dominoes and the. The food being sold and the women doing nails. And then we get to the casita and the bodega and the marketa, and I'm like, I feel like I am in this Puerto Rican diasporic experience because we start in the fields and then we move to what is probably the Bronx for a lot of people. And like, so we move through a wedding and all these different moments. I'm like, we are, like, experiencing, like, hanging out like a montage, like, living in Puerto Rican culture. And part of what we're seeing here is that the super bowl used to be do a concert in front of the cameras and with Kendrick and also with the Weeknd and Rihanna, but definitely with the Benny, with Benito. He's creating a broadcast set on the state on this field. So he's moving through this field. All the vegetation was giving me life, was making me feel like I'm in a Puerto Rican situation. Like an experience. Like it was more than just a concert. He sort of brought you into his world. And it's amazing how, yes, there's all the togetherness, unity, love, but there's a lot of criticism of America and colonialism and imperialism that you might miss if you don't speak Spanish. Ricky Martin is basically saying, what a bad bunny song. What happened to Hawaii could happen to us goes right over Most Americans heads, 100%.

[Joy Reid]

I mean, the Ricky. We're going to come back to that later. But the Ricky Martin. I think everybody was screaming. Oh, Louise, I promise you, I was screaming. So, Lo, Ricky Martin showed up. Somebody who lived in Miami for. In South Florida for a long time. It was like the perfect person to show. But, Jason, if you could show a 12 the moment. I think a lot of us cried because a lot of us thought it was the real Liam. And of course, Liam is the little boy who was, you know, kidnapped with his dad by ice. He is now home. He is home in Minneapolis. There he is with his dad. This little boy looks so much like him. But the boy on the left is not Liam. The boy on the right with his dad is Liam. What did you make of that commentary by having Liam, a Liam Type character there. Oh, Louise.

[Luis Osorio Jimenez]

Oh, is it me? I'm sorry.

[Joy Reid]

Sorry.

[Luis Osorio Jimenez]

No, I think it was great. I think that the main message that Bad Bunny is trying to put out there is, how are you gonna hate us if you don't know us? You know, love is always better than hate. And we have people like Lian Corano and other Latinos who have been discouraged, discriminated heavily by the Trump administration and by ice. And we are telling people, if you don't get to know us as human beings, as family members, as brothers and sisters and friends, how are you going to criticize us? And how are you going to hate us when you never experience being beside us hand in hand, together, experiencing the love and joy that we have to bring to this great nation? So I think that. I think that was a big, big message that he wanted to put out there, and he did. So masterful.

[Clay Cane]

Joy.

[Terray]

I saw. I saw the Louise thing that you see. But I think that's meant to be younger Benny.

[Joy Reid]

Right.

[Terray]

He's giving the Grammy to the vision of his younger self and thus inspiring and opening a door for the rest of the young Benitos to dream that it could be them next 100.

[Joy Reid]

I think people were reading whatever they wanted into it. I just know we were all fine. I'm just. I'm just like, for me as a mom, literally crying. No matter who that little boy was, he was so sweet and so cute. He's an actor. Hopefully gets lots and lots of work out of this. And Chris, now, Chris, can we just take a moment, talk about Gaga? Oh, yes, we need to. Can we just gag for a moment over Gaga? First of all, her performance was. Was beautiful. She was the only person who sang in English, which I love, because we're like, we do not want Benito to sing in English. We're like, just sing in Spanish. We don't want. You don't feel any pressure to do that. And I'm glad he didn't. Can you talk about the Gaga piece of it? Because she also put out a really great statement afterwards how proud she was to be a part of it. And she took her song and switched it up to give it sort of a Latin vibe.

[Chris Witherspoon]

Yeah. The first thing that I thought of when I saw that moment, Joy, which really, to your point, I was going Gaga as well. But I thought about this meme that I've been seeing of Benito when he was. It was like 10 years ago, he's bagging groceries in a grocery store, and how 10 years later, he's at the halftime show in the biggest stage in the world. And I kept thinking about where Lady Gaga was 10 years ago and how big she was in pop culture and how big she was in Puerto Rico, because I was there. Like, you heard her in the clubs. I was in the gay bars and the straight ones, and Lady Gaga was being played everywhere. And I thought about what that must have meant for Benito to have been bagging groceries 10 years ago. And now you got Lady Gaga answering your calls, coming and showing up for you and showing out, and it's your moment. He was solo most of the show, which I think was also very intentional. He wanted to have that microphone and be out there in the spotlight as his own. But I thought it was just so groundbreaking that an artist of Lady Gaga's caliber, who was popping 10 years ago, before he was a thing, came out and supported him in this time when there was all this backlash against the show being all in Spanish and being too Latino. She came out as this white mainstream artist who has broken all sorts of records and put points on the board for him.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah, it didn't.

[Terray]

It didn't really sink into me how important it was to a lot of people that this be all in Spanish or 90% in Spanish, until I saw the Spanish language broadcasters take the show back from Bad Bunny and they were almost in tears. Grown men who were like, this is so moving to see the super bowl be in Spanish for 13 minutes. And just we think about representation mattering and saying to people like, you are part of the American experience. I mean, as a New Yorker, it never occurred to me that Puerto Ricans weren't part of the American experience. They are fully part of this world up here in New York, but, like, in the middle of the country, in the maga part of the country, they are like, puerto Rico's not America, which is like, completely bizarre and a failure of the public schooling system, but, like, you know, to give them a moment where their culture is shining and their language is primary while the split screen is going with ice. That was so beautiful and so powerful.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah, indeed. I will note that people received these sort of, like, clocks that essentially had a very deeply anti ice message on them. Lots of people who showed up to the super bowl received them, you know, in hand and went home with them as a souvenir. So there was definitely a political message, at least on the ground, if not in overtly in the performances. I leave it to you, Louise, I'm going to let you have Adam, because, of course, Donald Trump could not let anybody be happy and he decided to scream about. I'm not even going to read it. You can just see that it's long and it's probably poorly spelled. And he's. And he put show in quotes because he's. He's Trump. He's. And he's a racist. Your thoughts?

[Clay Cane]

Yeah.

[Luis Osorio Jimenez]

Well, I mean, I think at the end of the day, as always, he was a little deceitful because he ended up having no choice. And he did watch the Benito bowl because I was watching the videos coming straight out of the people and who he was hanging it. And I saw him enjoying and watching the Benito ball. So I don't know why he complained so much when he ended up betraying all of his followers and watching the correct show, the show. I can't blame him. Why would I blame Donald Trump for watching the best show on earth and avoiding the PP show from Kid Rock, which, you know, a lot of them complained that it wasn't a real American show, depending because it was in Spanish. But I don't know what K Rock was talking. Like, I couldn't figure out his language. I just heard him screaming over a microphone. So I think at the end of the day, the President of the United States made the right choice by truly watching the Benito show and skipping the turning point. Good job.

[Joy Reid]

You're right. And by the way, even if he had been speaking and rapping or whatever that is he does in the clearest English, he was not in sync. He was out of sync. So if you were watching it and trying to listen at the same time, you wouldn't be able to understand it anyway.

[Luis Osorio Jimenez]

Yes, he hasn't been in sync since 1991. So I don't know why he keeps insisting on it, but let him try. That's good.

[Terray]

You know, Joy, one thing that was interesting for me is I am not historically a Bad Bunny fan. I've been aware of him, but have not gravitated toward the music. Didn't know what any. Didn't know anything that he was saying. But even still, it was obvious to me that this man is a superstar. Right? Because the charisma still exudes. He looks great. He moves like an alpha. He moves like a superstar. He doesn't outright dance the way you see, like in R B, but the way he flows and moves through the crowd and walks is dancer like. So he's. I'm constantly like, I completely understand. And the sound of the voice, I don't know what he's saying, but it is completely obvious to me why this man is a superstar.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah. And that is, Chris, why it works, right? Because you actually, even if you can't sing along because, you know, you don't know enough Spanish or you don't understand, it doesn't matter. Like, it actually was such an infectious performance. Just as somebody who is a. As I am a big fan of the sort of concert world, the big concerts, the, you know, the Beyonce's, the Rihannas, the ones who do the big interstitials, they make these really, you know, Madonna did a fantastic concert last year, or was it the year before? The ones who really know how to do it, talk about it in that sense. And also Kendrick Lamar last year, who, by the way, also staged an absolutely phenomenal, historic performance. But talk about it sort of in terms of all of these sort of, you know, metrics of a Super bowl show.

[Chris Witherspoon]

Yeah. I mean, I think what Torre said is so spot on. Like, people might not have known what Bad Bunny was saying, what Benito was saying, but it was undeniable that he had this star power he was radiating. He hit all his marks. I don't even know how long he rehearsed for, but for me, it felt like one of the best rehearsed halftime shows I've ever seen. And I think there was a moment this. This house that he created where folks were dancing in front. All I kept thinking about was Carol G and Cardi B and Pedro Pascal. And a lot of folks might not realize who Carol G is or who. They might not know Cardi B's lyrics, but there were like three or four artists and actors in that house that were dancing. They even have a moment to have the microphone. That literally are dominating Americ American streaming charts like it is. We've gotten to a place where Latino music, Latino culture is defying all the odds and breaking numbers over and over and over again. Like, how long does it take for folks to get the memo that this is American culture? These are our charts that Carol G is dominating. These are charts that. That Cardi is dominating. Pedro Pascal is killing it in HBO and American movies. Like, I think that those moments to me were so powerful and really speak to the artistry being beyond language at this point. And I think the great artists like the Beyonce's and the Michael Jacksons and the others, I'm assuming when those were showing across season, folks might not have known what they were saying. They could feel it. And I felt that with Benito last night.

[Joy Reid]

I know people didn't know what Mama saying Mama Sama Makusa was either. And they still sing it. They didn't have no idea what that was. Louise, I'm going to give you the last word here because, you know, one of the things that, you know, when I were sitting there watching it, when I was caught my breath from dancing and by the way, I watched it three times in a row and then had to catch up on the game because I just kept watching it over and over again and enjoying it. But one of the things that I thought when I watched it and just saw the range of complexions and colors and the lady braiding hair and this, this, you know, the food, the everything they were showing, the drinks, everything I thought to myself, ah, see, this is the future of America. This is what America is going to look like and this is what MAGA is so afraid of. This is the future that they're afraid their kids are going to embrace. And that is what I thought and I want to give you the final thoughts on. When you looked at that beautiful spectacle of beautiful, wonderful, incredibly talented people, what was, what was yours yours?

[Luis Osorio Jimenez]

Absolutely. It was pretty much the same. What a chance to get a tiny glimpse, a moment in time where you can see for a little bit, for a couple of minutes at the least, what it is to be Puerto Rican. Our culture, a little piragua in the corner, a little domino table sitting there, a little splash of coquito in your mouth. That's what we want. We only already have it in Puerto Rico, but we want to bring it to the United States. That beautiful experience of what it is like to be part of the beautiful island of Puerto Rico and its people. And I am telling you, if you want to experience that, please give you opportunity to do so. Because it is a beautiful lifestyle full of people, of loving, caring individuals that want to give out to the community and bring our food, our culture, dancing and everything that makes us Puerto Rican to you so you can experience it as well. So if you haven't visited the island, go do so. And if you want to get a little bit of Puerto Rican culture, feel free to visit the 100 by 35. I'm telling you, you're going to like it.

[Joy Reid]

I promise you. My next vacation is going to be in San Juan. Like I'm ready to go. Like tomorrow, I'm really ready to go. I'm. I'm so excited to finally set foot on that island. It seems just like the most fun and the most beautiful place, beautiful people, and I want it to be a state. Let's just also have a whole nother show about that. We gonna need statewide from Puerto Rico so you guys can have full representation. Thank you, Luis. Where can people find you, Luis?

[Luis Osorio Jimenez]

Tutorio787 on YouTube and TikTok. I have my podcast, Mofongo wars podcast out now. You're gonna enjoy it.

[Tony Box]

Go check it out.

[Joy Reid]

Fabulous. We're gonna put that in the description of the show so that people can get up on it. Ture. Where can people find you? I mean, people know buy me on YouTube at Torrey Tube and Chris Witherspoon. Other than it. Well, I mean, we all. Y' all are in my text chain and Luis is going to get sucked into it, too. Sorry, Louise. Where can people find you, Chris?

[Chris Witherspoon]

Listen, y' all can find me at Witherspoon C on all social media. Also, head over to popviewers.com for all the latest entertainment stories.

[Joy Reid]

I love it. Thank you guys very much for and also not laughing at my dancing skills. I appreciate especially Louise. He did not criticize. I feel seen. Thank you all very much. All right, bye. Good thing I'm doing. I see ya. All right, you guys, that was a lot of fun. And if you guys enjoyed it too, throw in the comments in the comment threads about what you all thought about what we saw. I thought it was brilliant. I thought it was fantastic. Let's go on to our next thing. But first, before we get to our next block, we got to pay some bills here, and we could not be doing what we're doing bringing you this independent media content without our sponsors. So we are super grateful to our sponsors, and tonight's episode of the Joy Read show is brought to you by our friends at the Freedom From Religion Foundation. So let's just talk for a moment about who pays the price when church and state merge. It's women, it's LGBTQ people, it's religious minorities. It's anybody who does not fit a narrow, white, Christian nationalist vision of America. The First Amendment exists to stop that. The Freedom From Religion foundation is fighting in courts and in communities to keep public institutions secular so that nobody is forced to live under someone else's theology. This is literally a civil rights issue. So if you want to support the important work that they're doing, here's how to do it. Just visit FFRF US New Year or make it even easier. You can simply text my first name, Joy J O Y to 511-511 to learn more and join. So go to FFRF US NewYear or text JOY to 511-511 and help protect a country that belongs to all of us. Last time FFRF US newyear do that today. Message and data rates may apply. All right. I want to show you an ad from the Women's March. And this ran about two months ago. It depicts the inner conflict that ICE agents of color, in theory, feel when they get home. It describes the fact that. That for a lot of ICE agents, the people that they're policing look like them, look like their wives, look like their kids, look like their own families. And so a lot of us do wonder what they think when they get home and have to confront their wife and kids. Take a look. Be caught, you will be removed and you will never return. Daddy, how's your day? A mask can't hide you from your neighbors, your children, and God. They all know you can walk away before the shame follows you home. Daddy, how was your day? It's a powerful ad. And the fact is, ICE really is regularly violating people's rights. And not just in blue states. We're accustomed to seeing them while. And out in Los Angeles, in Chicago, and of course, in Minneapolis, and even in the nation's capital. But I want to show you all what happened last week in the very red, red state of Texas in the city of San Antonio. Get out the house. No water. You need to touch your money. Touch your. Why are you. Where is your warrant? Where is that warrant? Where? The. Window.

[Ari Berman]

Get the. It's not Anthony.

[Joy Reid]

There. This other guy that's trying to help Anthony's right here. But me and Anthony are not getting in this.

[Chris Witherspoon]

Cuz.

[Joy Reid]

I don't know. I don't. I don't want to.

[Tony Box]

Hold on.

[Joy Reid]

I didn't know you were still there. I didn't know you were still there. Joining me now is Tony Box. He is a former army officer, FBI special agent, SWAT team leader, and a federal prosecutor who is now in private practice in Dallas, Texas. Tony, welcome to the show.

[Tony Box]

Thank you, Joyce. So happy to be here.

[Joy Reid]

Let's talk about that. I want to start with the ad, this idea that ICE agents of color and Border Patrol officers who are black and brown go home and feel some kind of way about brutalizing their own people. Do you think that that's true, or do you think that they think nothing of it? For the most part, I think that.

[Tony Box]

If they have a soul and if they have a conscience, then they're bothered by it. But if they have a soul and a conscience, why did they do it in the very first place? I've. As you said, I was a SWAT team member for years. The same tactical vest, the same equipment. I've Worn it all, but in each time I wore it before I went out, I would think about serving and protecting, doing good, not violating people's civil rights.

[Joy Reid]

Did you ever, as a SWAT team leader? We're accustomed to swat. At least what we see in the movies that SWAT does. You know, kicking indoors, going in and getting bad guys, et cetera. Did you ever kick in a door or enter someone's home without a warrant?

[Tony Box]

Never. Never. I cannot think of anything worse than that. It's antithetical to everything that we're taught. And I would never enter home without a warrant.

[Joy Reid]

And you're a former federal prosecutor. If somebody kicked in the door of that family that you saw in San Antonio, Texas, kicked in their door, went in, attempted to grab a young man. There was. Luckily, the people in the house refused to give up the young man, and eventually the federal agents left. But not before smashing their door, meaning ruining their property, and not before brutalizing a gentleman in the house who was just trying to intervene. As a prosecutor, would anything that they discovered in that home be even usable in a court case? And could any of them be prosecuted for doing what?

[Tony Box]

Absolutely not. It cannot be usable. It would be suppressed because they violated their constitutional rights, Fourth Amendment right against search and seizure. So they were in a house without a warrant, and so that would be suppressed. And second of all, I wouldn't even entertain taking it to a judge. I would bounce the agent out of my office once I saw that tape recording and quite frankly, tell him not to return. So, you know, it would not be usable.

[Joy Reid]

Now, when you were. When you were on swat, for instance, if you'd done that, if you had been the guy, the big guy there that turned around as he was heading out the door, turned back and tackled and appeared to brutalize someone in that home, what would happen to you if you had done that?

[Tony Box]

I'm sure there would have been an investigation. I would have been immediately suspended of an investigation, and more likely than not, I would have lost my job. And that's the problem here, that they. A lot of the federal agents believe that they. They're not accountable to their actions. That is the number one problem. If they knew that they would be prosecuted or fired, most likely prosecuted, they would behave better. I've seen this personally. Nothing scares the federal law enforcement officers more than the threat of being. Being prosecuted. It scares the bejesus out of them. Think about it now. Now they prosecuted. They could be in jail with the people who they locked up. That makes every federal law enforcement agent really afraid.

[Joy Reid]

I'm curious to see what you thought of over the weekend. Obviously, there was a lot of anger on the right over Bad Bunny and his performance in Spanish, which is, to me, kind of hilarious, given the large number of Americans who speak Spanish as the principal language and the fact that we don't have a national language. I don't know if the right knows that we actually don't have an official language in the country. So your official language is whatever language you speak in America. It's just kind of the way America works. But more than 25,000 people who attended the super bowl out in California, they went home with this piece of merch. It's a rally towel that features a bunny punting a frozen football with the message ICE out on it. It was given out by activists who are anti ICE activists for people who went out to watch the game. And it was about 50 people in this organization called Contra ICE. What do you make of that kind of protest and of the protests that we've seen in places like Minneapolis where people follow ICE and film them with their phones?

[Tony Box]

I think they have a constitutional right. I think the outrage is like manufactured outrage. Right. They want to be mad about something. But the fact that they say ICE out, what is wrong with that? I've said for quite a long time that ICE does need to be out of Minnesota. Minneapolis, it's an occupation. They. The premise for them being there is dubious to start with. And all they're doing are terrorizing the community and hurting relations with the community probably for decades to come. And this is after Minneapolis worked really hard to improve relations with law enforcement. Quite frankly, they're. They're hurting law enforcement relationships with communities all across the country.

[Joy Reid]

Say more about that. Because if, you know, if you are a member of mpd, Minneapolis pd, you already had a challenge because of George Floyd and people viewing Derek Chauvin as representative of you. And those other three officers that killed George Floyd, they've now gone to jail. That they there was proper adjudication of that case. And what does it now do if the people now in Minnesota are looking to you, member of mpd, to protect them from the federal masked police, does it help? What does that do for you to you if you're mpd, it hurts them.

[Tony Box]

Yeah. So the chief of police in Minneapolis has been eloquent. He's been very sincere in the fact that they have hurt their efforts. They have worked really, really hard to improve their relationship with the community over the last several years. And now all of that goodwill is gone. He said that There was one murder in Minneapolis last year and a shooting by law enforcement officer. There was two just within the last month. And no one trusts law enforcement there. And quite frankly, one of the things he talked about is how his officers are being targeted. His black and brown officers are being targeted and pulled over and harassed by ice and they are in a precarious situation. I feel sorry for him. I do think that they need to continue to be vocal and to speak out against abusers in Minneapolis.

[Joy Reid]

Let me go back, because, you know, in the case of Minneapolis, the second person who was killed, Alex Brady, was a law, a legal gun owner. He did not draw his weapon. He was brutalized twice by a federal agents. Once they jumped out of a car, threw him to the ground. The second time, obviously they killed him, but he never tried to use his weapon, but he had it. And you saw people on the right trying to criticize him, including the president, for having a firearm, which is weird because I thought they were pro second amendment. But I want to return to Texas, which is where you practice law. Those agents who broke into that home. Texas is a very, very gunny state. Lots of people have firearms, they have guns in their homes. As a prosecutor, what are the rights that the people inside those homes have? If suddenly the glass of the windows of your home shatter and a bunch of unknown masked agents bust into the house, aren't those agents putting themselves at risk that the people inside consider that a second Amendment situation and try to defend themselves against what they think are mass intruders?

[Tony Box]

They are. They're taking a tremendous risk.

[Joy Reid]

Risk.

[Tony Box]

And this is a very. This is a state that loves the guns, loves the second Amendment. And yeah, those agents are really putting it out there by busting in houses and risking it. And then if they were. If there was a tragedy where somebody is killed, then there's the very difficult question of did they know whether it was law enforcement officers or not? No one wants that situation. And you know, the abuses are legion. And, and the list goes on and on of the violations that they've done. And that's another one to put themselves and others at risk. It strikes me as the Breonna Taylor situation in Louisville where the officers bust in a house and they were shooting and then there was years of litigation. Why do that?

[Joy Reid]

Well, I mean, the thing is, in the Breonna Taylor situation, although that also is a very strong second amendment state, there was an attempt to prosecute Breonna Taylor's boyfriend who did draw his weapon because our men burst into their home and he didn't know who they were. They tried to prosecute him. They eventually did drop the prosecution, but there was an attempt to put him in prison for that. In the case of Texas, yourself as a prosecutor and as a former federal agent, do the people inside those homes have a second amendment right to use their firearms? If an unknown person breaks in their home, would they be prosecuted?

[Tony Box]

If an unknown person, if they didn't know it was law enforcement, they do have a right to use it. And. And yeah, they would they be prosecuted? It depends on the prosecutor to jurisdiction, but it would be a very tough case to make.

[Joy Reid]

And in the case of this particular Justice Department under Pam Bondi, it seems to me that they would prosecute those people no matter even if it was the middle of the night and they had no idea who was breaking in. Because now we don't have a Justice Department that operates without fear or favor. They have a lot of favor, and they really want there to be a lot of fear. And I deliberately chose a clip from Texas to ask you that question because Texas is one of those states where you're taking a risk even delivering food to a house in Texas, because everybody in there is armed. Think about in Florida, the door dashers who are afraid to ring the doorbell or pull into a driveway because there have been literal shootings in some of these red states and the person's just delivering food. People can be very jumpy. And so I wonder, like, what would be the. What would be the challenge for a prosecutor of what to do, a local prosecutor set aside the federal ones.

[Tony Box]

People have the right to defend their homes. And yes, they might be prosecuted on the Pam Bondings, but that just means an indictment. That doesn't mean they're going to be successfully prosecuted to the end. People here understand that they have a right to protect their homes. And you have to more than indict. You have to have to prove to 12 jurors that this individual did not have their right to prove it to protect their home. And that's tough to do in Texas.

[Joy Reid]

Let's talk about some of these agents individually. ICE agents have been complaining to any reporter who will, you know, listen to them that these bonuses that they were promised that maybe they're not happening. There was a promise that they would get like $50,000 in bonuses, that student loans would be forgiven, but it's turning out to be a lot like no tax on tips, which turns out to be not really no tax on tips. It's really no tax on some of your tips. And in the Case of these bonuses, there are a lot of stipulations. You have to stay for a certain number of years. If you don't stay for the number of years, you have to give back the money. And it seems that the bonus promise doesn't seem to be really true. Have you heard from anyone who has signed up for ICE that that is happening?

[Tony Box]

I have. And the situation is exactly as you described it. There are stipulations, and they must meet those stipulations, and then they get the bonuses. But these people have not met the stipulations, and. And they're angry about it. What they should be angry about is being sent into these situations without being properly trained and risking their lives and risking the lives of others without having any real training. On de escalation. These are Border Patrol and ICE agents in the middle of an urban area doing work that they were not trained to do. So that's where they should be really complaining about, and they should be voicing their concerns about getting the heck out. Because everything that we've seen is, you know, probably untrue in terms of we're scaling back, you know, we're taking a lighter touch. From what I understand, that's not the taking place. They're still brutalizing and beating people as if they don't have a right to. First Amendment right to protest.

[Joy Reid]

That. 47 days in honor of the President of the United States.

[Tony Box]

I'm sorry, I had a question one more time.

[Joy Reid]

No, I'm saying, are you. Are you saying that 47 days of training, which is the number of days of training they get in Honor of the 47th President, United States. Are you saying that's not enough training?

[Tony Box]

That's simply not enough? No. I was an FBI agent, and we went through months and months of training. And then when I was a SWAT team member, we went through far more than that training. And you can never train enough for these types of situations. And so, no, it's not enough.

[Joy Reid]

I want to play an interview that we did with a gentleman named Raul Rodriguez. He was a Border Patrol officer. He himself is Latino. He ended up being thrown out of Border Patrol when he discovered that he himself is undocumented. He came as a child. As a child to the US and didn't know that he really actually was not a fully registered citizen. Here is a little bit of that interview. Oh, okay. Well, we'll pull it up in just a second. Just let me know when you have it. But one of the things that he talked about is why he actually took the job. And here it is. When I first started, I didn't think of it as going against the Latino race or Latino people. I saw it as a job.

[Tony Box]

I saw it as.

[Joy Reid]

As a way to sustain my family, to provide for my family. I didn't think. In your view, do a lot of people that you know of that are joining ice, that are taking these jobs, is that why they're taking them? That it's not so much ideological as it is economic?

[Tony Box]

Oh, more, yeah. Overwhelming majority of people are. Is economical. I was just in the border not even two weeks ago, and that. And the border has a tremendous amount of ICE and border control agents. It is the main employer on the border, the Texas, Mexico border. And so that's the driver of their economy. And that's what the families look for, an opportunity to work for these agencies. But what they don't want is to see their loved ones abusing people's civil rights and constitutional rights.

[Joy Reid]

Do you think that ICE should be unmasked?

[Tony Box]

I do. I absolutely do. I think they should be identified. Life each and every time. And I'll tell you why. If there's an opportunity, they should know that there could be recourse, there could be repercussions, there could be prosecutions to the extent that you are violating civil rights. I've actually prosecuted the civil rights. It's a case where an officer kicking a stew out of somebody who was restrained and it was on. It was on camera. He didn't know it was on camera. And so if they knew that they could be identified, that would tamp down some of their behavior.

[Joy Reid]

Do you think ICE should exist as an agency?

[Tony Box]

I think that it should be reformed tremendously. I think that it can be reformed. So I do think that they have a purpose, Border control, immigration, but not being dropped in the middle of a city to terrorize the community.

[Joy Reid]

Do you think that the United States was somehow less safe before 2001 because there was no ice before 2001, less.

[Tony Box]

Safe now before 2001? No, I do not.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah. So if we went back. I guess I'm asking this because there is a question among a lot of Democrats that are trying to ask themselves whether abolish ICE is too much to say, but when my mother became a naturalized citizen in the United States, there was no ice. This was in 1976, and all there was was the Immigration and Naturalization Service. There was a Border Patrol, but there was no ice. It just didn't exist. It was created after 9, 11. Can you think of one thing that has gotten better from a security standpoint since 2001. That means ice is critical to still.

[Tony Box]

Have to the extent that they have arrested violent criminals and kept violent criminals out of the country, I think we can all agree that that is a good thing.

[Joy Reid]

So you think that that is the sole purpose of what I should do and that the rest of this urban occupation should be removed from their responsibility?

[Tony Box]

Yeah, I do think the urban occupation should be removed, yes. I do think they should concentrate on immigration and border actions.

[Joy Reid]

My answer question to you would be assess if you could just from your point of view as a prosecutor, as a former federal agent yourself, Department of Homeland Security and their leadership, Kristi Noem, Tom Homan and then above them, Stephen Miller, to whom they all report, what do you make of their level of leadership?

[Tony Box]

So it's, it's not leadership at all. It's ideologically driven hatred for certain types of people. So brown and black and brown communities. And so it's not true leadership is not the leadership that I learned in the Army. It's not the leadership that I learned in FBI, nor doj. And so I frequently tell people, they say that Tom Holman is there and now he's the new sheriff in town. First he, he was the person that gave us the cruel, horrible policy of separating children from their families. Second of all, he's not the savior. He's not going to change anything. He's ideologically driven as the rest of them. And so it's just window dressing.

[Joy Reid]

And I guess my, my exit question to you as a black man, as a somebody who's been in the United States service, who served his country in the military and been and prosecutor etc, would you, could you ever see yourself working for this agency, working for ice? Is there any circumstance under which you could see yourself working for them?

[Tony Box]

Not as they're currently structured, not as they currently operate. And you know, when I talk to, I talk still talk to my buddies, I talk to my buddies in FBI, I talk to my buddies in doj. It's such a difficult job to do at this point in time. I can't see my, I could not see myself doing what they're doing. And, and, and to circle back to the very first clip you should you show facing my family, facing my wife, facing my children. I remember when I was going on SWAT missions at four in the morning and I put my tactical vest on and my weapons and so on and so forth. I thought about what was going to take place in day and I, and when I came home at night I wasn't, wasn't ashamed of what I just did. So no, I cannot go out. My mother, my mother who's still living and I couldn't look her in the face for brutalizing people for no reason.

[Joy Reid]

Tony Box. Thank you very much. Please come back. I really appreciate your expertise and your time.

[Tony Box]

I really enjoyed it. Thank you.

[Joy Reid]

Thank you very much. Tony Box, everyone. We appreciate that. Very open and honest conversation. Let's play a little bit more of our bills on tonight because this episode is also being brought to you by MSI United States. Now, you have heard me mention our sponsor MSI Reproductive Choices before, right? They are one of the the biggest providers of contraception and safe abortion across the continents of Africa and Asia. They serve women who have little to no options for care. Their YouTube channel has stories from actual women supported by people like you. Women whose day to day existence is compromised by climate change and who want family planning tools so that they can have a choice over if and when they want to start a family. Students who are talking about wanting contraception so they can finish their education without worrying about getting pregnant. Some of the stories are pretty dramatic. MSI Reproductive Choices is still going strong despite all the cuts in foreign aid because they planned ahead and started reaching out to regular people like all of you, my generous listeners, this is a legitimate opportunity to do some actual good. For $39 you can give a year of contraception to six women. That is real impact for the dollar. You can just go to their website at msiunitedstates.org that's M for Modern, S for Safe, I for Informed MSI United States.org or simply text my surname Reed R e I D to 511511 so text read to 511511 or go to MSIUnitedStates.org that's Reed to 511511 if you want to do it super quick. And please do help them out if you can. Thank you all for listening and text fees may apply if you do use that text option. All right, let me get into a couple more headlines here. Welcome to hour two of the Joy Reacho. If you've not hit, liked and subscribe yet, what are you waiting for? Here is your opportunity to make sure that you find your face in a place. Anytime you hit like and subscribe, the algorithm loves it. All of the channels in which we operate, whether it is Facebook or whether it is YouTube or whether it is substack or whether it is Twitch, hitting like and subscribe helps boost the algorithm and make sure that we can continue to bring you this media because we want to try to make sure that we are here in place, particularly this year. Because y' all know what's happening in November, right? And even before November, we got a lot, a lot, a lot to pay attention to. Let's talk just a moment about the current regime. J.D. vance, your vice president. Don't put him on me. He's your vice president. He got booed lustily in Italy as he and Usha decided to go and watch the Winter Olympic Games. At this opening ceremony watch party, some.

[Clay Cane]

Countries got huge cheers, but in one.

[Joy Reid]

Case, there wasn't cheering.

[Ari Berman]

In fact, there was quite the opposite.

[Joy Reid]

Tell me why you moved J.D.

[Clay Cane]

Vance just now.

[Joy Reid]

J.D. vance doesn't represent the majority of us, and we don't want him here representing us on any level. He doesn't represent the people who are performing as Olympians. We support our athletes. We love our athletes. We're gonna support Team usa, but we don't support what our administration is doing right now to immigrants. It's really upsetting. Not all Americans think that way. It's upsetting that Italy didn't want us. Like, didn't want ICE agents here. We didn't want us here. They were protesting us, and that was upsetting for us. It made us a little afraid to attend as Americans, that we might be associated with ICE agents and people who think that way. We welcome everyone in America and I as friends of ours, and JD Vance does not recommend that for us. We're so happy to be in this country right now, and it's kind of an escape, honestly. We love ice hockey. We don't love ice. No person is illegal, and everyone should have the right to a free life.

[Tony Box]

That's why I support ice.

[Joy Reid]

Only if you play hockey on it, you play hockey on it. And that was the just at the watch party where all the Americans were at. He also got booed in the stadium when they did the opening ceremonies. Like, it's just been boo everywhere that JD And Usha have gone, really all over the world since last year. I don't think there's anywhere they. They've gone where they've been welcomed and good. They shouldn't be welcomed anywhere. They shouldn't be given any rest, comfort, or welcome anywhere they go. They should be treated as the villains that they are. And I mean her, too, but she's going along with even though her family are immigrants. Another piece of news here. The governor of Maryland, Wes Moore, has been excluded from a dinner. So the National Governor's Association. They host an annual meeting and dinner at the White House. It's like a tradition they do every year. This year, Donald Trump. Herr Trump has very ostentatiously excluded the lone black governor. There's only one West Moore of Maryland excluded him from the invites to this dinner. Not that Westmore wants to necessarily have dinner with Donald Trump, but it is notable that he did that, given that Wes Moore is leader, is literally on the leadership team of the National Governors Association. They voted for him to be, like, vice chair, so he's like, number two ranked in the entire organization, and yet he's not invited. They very. You know, and again, this is on top of Donald Trump representing the first black president of the United States and his former first lady, his first lady, Michelle Obama, as apes. In a video he retweeted. And let's just say. Okay, you think that was just a coincidence. Okay, all right. Let's say that was a coincidence. This comes on top of him doing that. So you put all these things together, and it seems like black leadership is in his crosshairs. Like, it can't all be coincidental. So let's play what Wes Moore had to say on CNN about all that perspective. Why are you being excluded from this dinner? Well, I have long learned that I'm not trying to get inside over the president's psyche. It's not a good use of my time.

[Tony Box]

It's not lost to me that I'm.

[Joy Reid]

The only black governor in this country.

[Tony Box]

And I find that to be particularly.

[Joy Reid]

Painful considering the fact that the president is trying to exclude me from. From an organization that. That not only or my peers have.

[Tony Box]

Asked me to help, to lead, but.

[Joy Reid]

Then also a place where I know I belong in. And so I have long learned, and I've talked to the people and the children of my state is that I am never in a room because of someone's benevolence nor kindness. I'm not in a room because of a social experiment. I'm in the room because I belong there. And the room was incomplete until I got there. You're saying that he's excluding you because of the color of your skin? Well, I don't. I don't know. I can't speak to the president's intent. It's not lost to me. But I can't speak to the president's intent. Now. I can. Exactly.

[Jason Reed]

I can.

[Joy Reid]

We're not as nice as Westmore. Westmore's a very nice.

[Jason Reed]

Well, he's a diplomat.

[Joy Reid]

Very nice man.

[Jason Reed]

That man is racist. As hell. And he doesn't want your black behind there. And that's just a real, real.

[Joy Reid]

If he is retweeting completely out of context clips that are depicting the former first black president of the United States and his wife as apes, then you want me to think it's just mere coincidence that the only black governor, the only one, is the one guy he says can't come to this event when the event isn't even his. It's the National Governors association and that man is the vice chairman. And you want, I mean one could be coincidental, right? Both on top of his history, this is a man who would not rent apartments to black people when he and his when he was running his father's real estate company. This is a man who attempted to get the Central Park Five, the then Central Park Five, the Exonerated Five, executed when they were 14 and 15 years old, claiming that they had gang graped a woman and wouldn't take it back even when DNA proved that they never did it. Would never apologize. Who his former attorney, tenure 10 year attorney Michael Cohen says would drive through black neighborhoods and say, look at how they live. Blacks should not run countries, nor should they run the United States. Said that to him and they were really close at the time. Remembers him being a racist. Somebody who wanted to have black versus white contest a contest on the Apprentice but had to be talked down from that by the producers because they were like, that's racist. Who allegedly used the N word on tape where no one from the Apprentice will release the tapes, but allegedly, according to some of the former black contestants, he did. There's so much evidence that Donald Trump is a racist. I'm not sure what else we need at this point. And the fact that the mainstream media is still very sort of genteel about just saying that this man is a straight up gut bucket, knuckle dragging racist. I'm not sure what else he has to do because he's like of all, there are a lot of white governors who have been very critical of him. There are a lot of white governors who have been just as tough and who are also doing redistricting pushes. Please note that Wes Moore is one of many governors who are on the Democratic side who are attempting to do a redistricting. In this case, it would remove I guess the one remaining Republican seat in Maryland. But that's in response to what Trump made Texas do. He's not the only one doing that, but he's the one that they hit. Trump excluded.

[Jason Reed]

He doesn't have the Complexion for the connection.

[Joy Reid]

Correct. And I will note that for some good sources, that event is now not going to be pegged as a National Governor's association event. You know, there's a Democratic Governor's association and there's an RGA Republican Governors Association. Then there's a combined one that's the NGA there from for person, good sources, they're now going to designate that as not an NGA event. But here's my question. Question, why is anybody going? And I mean Republican or Democrat, if you have a governor, And I think this is worth doing some research on your parts. Good. TJRS teammates look up who your governor is and see if they're going. I sure hope no Democratic governors are going to go because to me, if you disinvite the vice chair, you disinvited all of us. So even if I was a Republican governor, I wouldn't go. Why are any of them going? This strikes me, Jason, as what happens when Donald Trump calls a woman piggy in the press corps and all the other reporters just stand there looking shocked and then they go ahead and ask their next question and don't say, why did you call that woman piggy? Mr. President, that was uncalled for. You need to answer her question and stop name calling. Now, this is why they don't let me in the press corps. Because the next question would be, why did you call her piggy? I had a question, but now I don't. Now I want to know why you're being an asshole, Mr. President. Why don't you answer her question? And they don't do that. Even the men in place don't stand up for these women. They don't stand up for each other. And this is the same thing with these governors. So this is what I would do if I was y'. All. If you have a governor that is attending that, you need to ask them why no governor, especially no Democratic governor. I sure hope the governors of California and Illinois aren't gonna go.

[Jason Reed]

Somebody just put in a chat. Did they disinvite Newsom?

[Joy Reid]

I have not heard a disinvite to.

[Jason Reed]

Newsom and as a matter of fact, I don't know. Did they disembark?

[Joy Reid]

We're going to look that up. Well, let's find out. Well, let's find out. Because my thing is, the one who was ostentatiously disinvited was the black guy. That is what we know. That is the reason that everyone is intervening. We have also invited the governor on our program and we're working on Trying to get that to happen. But the reality is no governor should go. None. Nobody should go. The National Governors association should actually cancel the event. That's what. That's what real solidarity. Because we are in a states rights crisis. The government of the United States is violating the rights of the states.

[Jason Reed]

Is there a chairman of that committee or the Governor's association, or is he just, like, vice president?

[Joy Reid]

He's vice chair.

[Jason Reed]

He's vice chair. So who's the chair?

[Joy Reid]

Let me look it up, but this is my charge to each of you now. While we do that, I'm going to start looking that up right now. There are, I guess, other. Let's see other. Other. Other. Let's see who else was disinvited.

[Jason Reed]

You want to have the team look that up, or we just continue.

[Joy Reid]

We're gonna have team look that up so the team could look that up. We want to find out who else was disinvited. Apparently, there may be more than just Westmore, but we want to check on that. We want to definitely check on that. It appears that Jared Polis, who is the only LGBTQ governor, the only gay governor.

[Jason Reed]

Right.

[Joy Reid]

So it appears that this year, Donald Trump is adjusting the guest list for the long bipartisan. Traditional Democratic governors have been excluded from the business meeting. And two of those governors, Westmore of Maryland and Jared Polis was not. Were not invited. They are. They. One is black and one is gay. Mm.

[Jason Reed]

We ain't gonna handle DEI up in here.

[Joy Reid]

Yes. And I will note the col. This is. I'm reading now from this AP story. The Colorado and Maryland governors have both publicly tangled with and criticized Trump. But other Democrats who have openly quarreled with the administration, like Governor Gavin Newsom of California and Governor J.B. pritzker of Illinois, were extended invitations. This seems to be one of those DEI things where. Because these two are diverse, that's why they couldn't go. Not because they fight with Trump, because why is Gavin going? Why is he invited Donald? He and Trump despise each other. If I lived in Illinois or California, I'm not telling y' all what to do, but if it was me, I would have some words for my governors to ask them, why are you going to that? Let's talk about a few of these few more super bowl ads that ran over the course of the weekend. There were some good ones. The first one I want to play for you guys is the. The ad that was run by survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. They ran a very powerful, powerful super bowl ad. Jason Tee that up. If you. After years of being kept apart. We're standing together. Standing, standing together because this girl deserves the truth. Because she deserves the truth. Because we all deserve the truth. That was a powerful ad, by the way, just to answer our previous question. The current chairman, Jason, of the National Governor's association is Governor Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma. I bet he's going to believe. He's going. Oh, I'll bet he's going. And if you look on the national, the NGA website, it really stands out that there's only one black person, the one who's not invited, who is the vice chair. Let's play another ad. This was one of the funniest ads. We had a couple that were funny. There was one called Manscaper, which we actually, we didn't have time, so we didn't include it, but Manscape red was hilarious. But this one was also funny. This is the ad for something I know well, and that is Instacart. Instacart let you choose your bananas. Instacart, lazy juicy on bananas. From green to extra R. Closely up.

[Luis Osorio Jimenez]

To control your banana.

[Joy Reid]

Lets you choose your bananas. I don't know. Something about. That was very funny. Ben Stiller, everybody. That was really funny. So that was one I thought was really good. You guys let us know which ones you liked. The singing. Yeah, the singing toilets ad I definitely didn't include because it was, it was ew, like the singing toilets one. I, I, I really. Yeah, no, the manscaper Joy, as somebody said, was unhinged. Onion Noir says the manscaping joint was unhinged. It was unhinged, y'.

[Clay Cane]

All.

[Joy Reid]

It was so, it was so crazy I didn't include it. Let's play another one. This is one that I thought was actually really poignant and very touching. This is the ad from Dove, which I think was also pretty good. Now, one of the things I love about this ad is it probably enraged MAGA because literally, per the what I said at the top of the show, that is what they fear. They fear. You know, sports has been one of the greatest levelers, social levelers in the country. There's a reason that all sports used to be segregated because they, they did not want and really feared among the segregation side, white and black athletes playing on the same teams because it's equalizing. Because when you're on the field, it's all just about ability. It's not about color, race or nationality. It's just whether you can, you know, kick the ball, probably dribble the Ball, they say in football, soccer, or whether you can dribble the ball in basketball or hit a baseball, it like levels everything out and just makes it about merit.

[Jason Reed]

That's just like Jesse Owens proven to hit.

[Joy Reid]

Correct?

[Jason Reed]

You know, you are not superior because of your white skin.

[Joy Reid]

This is what terrified them. This is the reason that the great black prize fighters, boxers, were so feared. You know, if Joe Louis beats a white man up, that's just because he was just a better fighter. And beat that man up, and what are you gonna do, lynch them? And these men would literally be fighting. They never wanted to fight these black boxers because the biggest fear was that they would be beaten. You know, and if you think about the Olympics, when Germany hosted the Olympics, Jesse Owens disproved all of the Nazi bullshit about white supremacy just by beating them on the field. If they're not. If you. If this man was physically superior to their. Their athletes, it says something actually terrifying to white supremacists, right? Because they are always going on about merit. The only place that merit doesn't exist in professional sports is in the ownership area, where only super rich people can get involved. And on the coaching side, because all these coaches are related to other coaches, these people, their whole families that get to be coaches, and they pass it along like they're handing down money in the will. And so all these Harbaughs, everywhere I turn is another Harbaugh. Now, are they all great coaches? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe it's just purely coincidental that every other person is a Harbaugh. Or. Or it's not based on merit. And this is the thing that white supremacists fear, right? That maybe their ideas about merit are really just privilege. And the thing that they fear the most is that you open up gymnastics and let the black girls play, and all of a sudden they dominate in it. Or you open up, you know, track and field, everybody gets to run, and then it's just a matter of who can run. You open up tennis, and all of a sudden, the Williams sisters. And then all of a sudden it's not just them, then it's all these other little black girls. I don't know what people thought about Serena Williams ad Not a lot of people did not like it. I didn't pull it because a lot of people didn't like the fact that she's supporting a GLMP as a way of losing weight. But you know, athletes and also the military, there's a reason that there was a deep desire to never desegregate the military, I mean, they had to during the Civil War because they were losing. And once the black men came in there who were really motivated to kill white slave owners, they won because of them. And then in World War I and World War II, they didn't want to arm those black men either, but they needed. They needed more people. You know, at the time, you had to volunteer for the military. You weren't being and scripted, and these men were volunteering. They're like, shoot, I want to go to Europe. Yeah, I'll go over there and kill some Nazis and then come home, be like, oh, you're Nazis too. But they knew, okay, they knew that if you, if you allow that, all of a sudden you start to get people with a different mindset. We're going to play some more little ads later, but for now, let us move on. Jason, should we do more super bowl ads or should we move on? I guess we can move on.

[Jason Reed]

Let's move on.

[Joy Reid]

Let's move on now. Remember when Donald Trump, Trump and his fellow Epstein friend, socialite Steve Bannon, said they want to nationalize elections? Jason, let me know when you have C1. It was something that they said at the time. And they vote illegally. And the, you know, amazing that the Republicans aren't tougher on it. The Republicans should say, we want to take over. We should take over the voting. The voting in at least many 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. We have. Damn right. We're going to have ICE surround the polls come November. We're not going to sit here and allow you to steal the country again. And you can, you can whine and cry and throw your toys out of the pram all you want, but we will never again allow an election to be stolen. If we lose the midterms and we lose 2028, some in this room are going to prison. Myself included. It. They're not going to stop. They are getting more and more and more radical, and we have to counter that. And what do we have to counter it with? We have to counter it with more action. We have to counter it with more action or we're going to prison. Why? Take a look at this heat map. This is a heat map that shows where ICE is operating, per Steve Bannon's entreaty to use them on the ground for the elections. This is compared to the 2024 election map. You see that? You see where they're operating? Look at where the blue squares are, where Kamala won. And look at where ICE is operating. It's Interesting, right? It's, you know, interesting. And this is from being liberal who pointed on their social media that red state Texas has about 2.1 million estimated undocumented immigrants, while Florida has about 1.6 million. While blue, blue Minnesota has just 130,000 total. Meaning this is not about fraud or even about immigration policy. It's about the next election. Joining me now is Ari Berman, whose new book, Minority Rule, details the latest threats to our democracy. It is so good to see you. Happy New Year, Ari.

[Ari Berman]

Hey, Joy. Great to see you again. Thank you. I guess we can still say Happy New Year, right? Even though it's been a month. It hasn't been very happy.

[Joy Reid]

It hasn't been very happy. Maybe we just say New Year. It's a new year. Welcome to the news. Thank you so much. So my biggest threat, my biggest fear about the upcoming elections and the state of our democracy is that, is that this regime is training to use military force at the ballot box to intimidate voters and maybe even arrest them in line. What is your biggest fear?

[Ari Berman]

My biggest fear is just Trump using the full weight of the federal government, from the FBI to DOJ to ICE to the military to try to interfere in the midterms in his party's favor. And a lot of what we're seeing now, I believe, are test runs. The deployment of the National Guard, the deployment of ice, the rhetoric about nationalizing the elections to see how far he could push the system. We know that he pushed it extremely far in 2020. He wanted to go further. He was in some ways talked off the ledge of doing certain things, even though he did ultimately incite an insurrection. But there are things he wanted to do, like calling the National Guard to seize voting machines, that he didn't do. And I believe those are exactly what he would like to do in a second term. And he surrounded himself by enablers who will not tell him no. And so he's going to push this as far as it'll take to try to remain in power. And I think it's just scary because what we learned in 2020, Joy, and you know this well, when he starts saying these things, you have to believe him. Right? Because he will try to carry this out. Now, I'm not sure his administration will be successful. I'm not sure he'll be able to pull it off. But we know what is coming because they're telegraphing it right now.

[Joy Reid]

Right? I mean, and to your point, seizing the voting machines is something that some of the more radical people around Donald Trump suggested And now he's done it in Fulton County, Georgia. And, you know, this piece in Mother Jones is obviously raising the alarm that, you know, this could be a test run. We don't know what it is. Miles Taylor, who was anonymous in the first Trump regime, said that this is something they wanted to do back then. They wanted the ability to seize voting machines. And this is a piece that you wrote in Mother Jones about how scary this is. You co wrote it. Talk about the fact that now that they've done it, what does that mean? Because Miles Taylor has explained that the reason they wrote an executive order about seizing voting machines initially that he's now using is because it was about countering foreign interference. So that if there was a belief that foreigners had interfered in the election, you could then take control of voting machines. But it was not supposed to be just to go back and do a fake voting count.

[Ari Berman]

Yeah, exactly. I mean, the Caesar of the 700 boxes of ballots and voting records in Fulton county was as much about the next elections as it was about 2020. Now, I'm sure there's obviously a big element of soothing Trump's ego, right? And I'm sure they're currently gonna concoct some crazy plot that now they finally have the evidence that Venezuela, or whomever, hacked the election. But the reason why they wanna do this is so they can say the elections are so crooked, they're so corrupt, we have no choice but to declare a national emergency, to invoke the Insurrection act, to bring in the military, to seize the voting machines, to stop ballot counting. I mean, this might sound alarmist, but you already have Trump advisors and the president himself saying this. You already had one of his top advisors, Cleta Mitchell, who worked to overturn the election in Georgia, saying that he should declare a national emergency to take over. You already have Steve Bannon saying we're going to have ICE at the polls. You already have Donald Trump saying we want to take over, take over voting in 15 places and specifically naming places like Detroit, in Atlanta and Philadelphia. He did this in 2020. We know this. So he's laying it out very clearly what they want to do. And they have to have some kind of evidence to point to to be able to do this. Now, it's going to be all total bs, right? But the fact is, they're going to say, we have the ballots, therefore we know X, Y and Z happen. And therefore we can now do this kind of extreme federal intervention that otherwise we wouldn't be able to do.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah. And you know what? I Fear is that if you look at this so called daring raid to get Maduro, which is weird, right? Because they really didn't change the government. They just left everyone in place except Maduro and his wife, whose hip they broke. Now they have custody of him. They get him to do anything they could get him to concoct a false confession saying that in fact, you know, the very much dead predecessor, his very much dead predecessor really did ring the election, that they have some sort of magic machine in Venezuela that allows them to rig elections. Or they could just ask him for advice, because this is what Maduro did. When Maduro lost the election to his opponent, he simply wouldn't leave and declared a national emergency and declared himself the winner of the election. It seems to me that maybe what Donald Trump is doing with Maduro is not having him interrogated. Maybe he's getting advice on how he managed to steal the election he lost.

[Ari Berman]

Yeah, I don't know what the end goal is here, but it was really disturbing to see Tulsi Gabbard at the rate in Fulton county when she is prohibited by law as the Director of National Intelligence from participating in domestic law enforcement operations. The only portfolio she has with regards to elections is combating foreign interference in elections. Leave aside the fact that Trump is completely gutted. All protections against foreign or domestic election interference. But then we learned a few days after that raid that Gabbard sent people to Puerto Rico to look for evidence of Venezuelan intervention in their voting machines. And so they seem to be concocting this elaborate conspiracy that Venezuela was somehow involved in rigging the 2020 election. And it wouldn't surprise me at all if they offered Maduro some kind of plea deal in which he confessed, falsely confessed to interfering in the election in exchange for some kind of deal. That's exactly how Trump operates. That's the exact kind of thing that this administration would do. They've perverted justice in so many different ways. And the fact that Gabbard is now preparing a report for Trump about this, it just raises so many red flags about what the purpose of this raid was. The affidavit is going to be unsealed tomorrow. I think we're likely to learn that that election deniers in Georgia, their lies about the election form the basis for an FBI raid. That's just crazy joy. That false conspiracies about an election fueled an FBI raid of 700 ballots. An election that took place. 700 boxes of ballots. An election that took place over five years ago, that they got a judge to sign off on it, that they took the ballots, that the Director of the National Intelligence was there, that, that she put the President on the phone with the FBI agents. I mean, this is crazy. This is the kind of thing the Kremlin would do as opposed to the kind of thing you'd imagine seeing in the United States of America.

[Joy Reid]

Well, that's the reason that I think we have to pay attention to, because it is a kind of thing that the Kremlin would do and Donald Trump would do anything the Kremlin would do. And to me, the big tell here to your point is Tulsi Gabbard and her presence there. Because it seems to me that the sort of Occam's Razor answer is they have custody of Maduro and his wife. Wife. Which means that they could simply say to him, Mr. Maduro, you can either spend 100 years in an American prison and we'll make sure we send you to the worst one and then send your wife to the second worst one. You'll never see each other again, nor will you ever see your country again. Or you can sign this piece of paper that says Hugo Chavez, somehow from the grave, really did steal the election from Donald Trump. And that when he said I just need you to find me 11,000 xxx votes, when he said that, which is a crime on tape to the then Secretary of State in Georgia, he was trying to uncover your crimes. You sign this paper and then we will maybe let you go to a third party. Maybe you can go to Qatar and spend the rest of your life there. I mean, that is the kind of thing Maduro would do and it's the kind of thing a gangster like Trump would do.

[Ari Berman]

And can I just say one more thing about that Fulton county raid that really disturbed me, Joy. I kept waiting for Republicans in Georgia to say something about this because remember, it was Republicans in Georgia that stood up to Donald Trump when he tried to steal the election there. It was the Republican Secretary of State of Georgia who refused his demand to find 11,780 votes. It was his top aide who held all those press conferences that refuted Trump's lies. It was Brian Kemp, the governor, who ultimately resisted Trump's demands not to certify the election. None of them said anything in the aftermath of the raid. And that was really disturbing to me. Cuz it really raised the question, will Republicans be willing to stand up to Trump again? We've seen so many people that have tried to stand up to him get pushed aside, have their careers ended or completely co opted and we already know that in his second term, he's completely surrounded by enablers. So the Attorney General, the Director of National Intelligence, the head of the Pentagon, the head of the military, they are not going to stand up to Trump like they might have stood up for him in 2020. And that's really why it's going to be on people, popular movements, Democrats, where they have power to try to stop this attempt to interfere in the midterms. Because we can't just assume that even the Republicans that stood up to Trump in 2020, that was a very small number, even the Republicans that stood up to Trump are going to do it again.

[Joy Reid]

Well, the difference between now and then, of course, is Pam Bondi, who could simply get another indictment, like she did with Letitia James, like she did with Don Lemon. What she's doing is demonstrating that she's willing to indict anybody that makes Trump mad. And so now, if you're the Secretary of State or the governor of Georgia, you have to think to yourself, am I financially capable of withstanding a bogus indictment that accuses me of committing crimes? Because Donald Trump said on. I think we have to remember what he said on that tape, that if you don't find me these votes, you could be committing a crime. And now he has the perfect enabler. Pam Bondi is completely amoral. She has not a shred of morality. If Donald Trump said, tomorrow, I need you to indict Brian Kemp, she'd do it. She'd just come up with something. Then she'd say, oh, I have a grand jury. She'd do what she did with Don Lemon. I mean, we're in a situation now where we're much more like Russia, Ari. Because if Pam Bondi just says, cook me up an indictment against the governor and the Secretary of State of Georgia, it will happen, and then they'll have to fight. Yes, bogus. But they're going to have to spend a lot of money to defend themselves against the case. Maybe she charges them with treason. We don't know what she would do.

[Ari Berman]

You also saw this didn't get a lot of attention, but the head of the Board of Elections in Fulton county basically said he was told he was going to be criminally charged. And he also mentioned that the Secretary of State of Georgia might be criminally charged and his top aide might be criminally charged. So this is not over. The seizure of ballots was the first part of their attempt to try to. To subvert the midterms. But they could criminally charge people. They could go Much further in terms of what they might do here. The only thing that gives me hope here is we talked earlier about ICE and the ICE deployments and how they're specifically designed to terrorize blue states and cities. And what's fascinating is, and a lot of this was because of the awful things that ICE did, but public sentiment of ICE has changed drama dramatically. People understand what the administration is doing. It's not about immigration, it's about intimidation.

[Terray]

Right.

[Ari Berman]

And it's well beyond any kind of immigration capacity or operation. And I think what has to happen with voting is the same kind of thing, which is that people who support this kind of thing, people who support this kind of political interference in a free and fair election, they have to face backlash for doing it. Right. This can't just be like a inside the Beltway among politicians, good government, process issue. Right. There has to be the same kind of outcry about the attempt to steal the election as there is about the other things that Trump is doing. I think that, that, that, to me, may be ultimately what brings some Republicans to speak out. If they feel. Feel like there's a political cost to going along with what Trump is doing, they might actually speak out. But just employing them to do the right thing, that hasn't worked for eight years now, and it's certainly not going to work in terms of the midterms. And so I would really like to see the political pressure ratchet up here and the people that are talking about suppressing the vote so openly be held to more account.

[Joy Reid]

Indeed. I'm gonna give you one, one final question to you, Ari, because. Because that is the thing, and you've given us one answer as to what we can do. I think that people, when they hear all of these things, it sounds so terrifying that you think, well, what can I do, you know, as an individual? How can I stop this? I can't stop, you know, a Kremlin style gangster, capitalist autocracy. How do I stop it? What do I do? What would be, you know, one piece of advice, something that people can do themselves?

[Ari Berman]

Well, I would just remind people that the administration's operating from a position of weakness, not a position of strength. They're doing these things because they're afraid that their grip on power is slipping away. And so people need to make them feel it. And that means voting, not just in the big elections, but the small elections as well. Getting involved in the election process. I saw a study that 50% of election workers have stopped because it got too much for them. So people need to do the same kind of things they did in 2020. They need to volunteer to be poll workers. They need to volunteer to be election officials. They need to get involved with the political. They need to go to election meetings. They need to call their secretaries of state. They need to ask their elected officials, what are you doing to make sure there's a free and fair election? What are you doing to trump proof the system? All of that has to happen before people cast ballots, because if you try to do it once people are voting, it's already too late. So the plan to trump proof the election, the plan to unrig the midterms, it has to happen right now. It can't happen in October or no November.

[Joy Reid]

Indeed. Amen. Amen. Amen. The book is Minority Rule. It will be available in the jewelry shop. We, we, we love books around here and we, we sell a lot of books. I will, I will be bragging on saying, so y' all, please pick this one up. Ari who, if you remember, he wrote Give Us the Ballot, one of the best books about voting and access to voting. I think that I've ever absolutely written, read. Wish I'd written it that I've ever read. So Ari is the man. Thank you, Ari Berman. We appreciate you. Come back often, please.

[Ari Berman]

So great to see you. Thank you so much, Troy.

[Joy Reid]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, there you are. That is it. You've got your marching orders. And look, scaring is caring, okay? We try to tell you the things that could happen because they could happen, and you should be aware of them. Don't be afraid. Just be informed. And as I just mentioned, we at the Joy Read show, we're very proud of our new status as booksellers and book promoters. And I'm very pleased to announce that one of our favorite guests has landed on the New York Times bestseller list. Thanks to you guys. And I'm looking at all of the chat. So thanks to you guys who have been so supportive, our friend Clay Kane, his book Burndown Masters House landed at number five on the New York Times bestseller list. There it is. Burned Down Master's house. And he joins me now.

[Clay Cane]

Clay, oh, my goodness. Joy, thank you so much. Listen, two years ago, I was a New York Times bestseller. On your old show. Two years ago for the Griff, we're on the list. At the same time, two years later, here I am on the fiction list, the only black man on the list during Carter G. Woodson's Black History Month.

[Joy Reid]

Amen.

[Clay Cane]

I want to say thank you to your audience And I want to be really clear about something. I got zero legacy media support. And you predicted it. You said, this is going to be an issue for you to get support for this book because of the content, because you're talking about what they're trying to ban. You're talking about what they're afraid of. You're talking about truth. Zero mainstream media support. I mean, I don't even. Not even a blip. Not even. Not even an article. I mean, in print or in television.

[Joy Reid]

What?

[Tony Box]

Nothing.

[Joy Reid]

Hold on. So let me. Let me back up just for y'. All. I just gotta let you. And you know, I like to let y' all in on the tea. And the way things work, the way the book world works, is that when you have a book come out, particularly if you're already in New York Times best sellers. So remember, there's like 10 books on 12 books on the list or on the New York Times. So getting your book on that list is a huge, huge deal. So if you've already done it like Clay has, people then say on your next book, hey, can we run an excerpt in the Atlantic? Can we run an excerpt in the Washington Post? In the New York Times, people want to run a clip of your book, and then everyone wants to interview you. The New York Times Book Review wants to do stuff. If you are a New York Times bestseller and you don't get any of that and you don't get booked on. On the Today show and on CBS Morning News, that's unusual. That is not the way it normally works. So you're telling me that as esteemed as you are as a writer and as successful as you've been for your publisher, nobody. But the Joy Reed show was like, let's give you. Let's put you on.

[Clay Cane]

Nope. It was Joy Ann Reid. It was Don Lemon. It was independent media, was Sirius xm, which is radio, of course. And when I came on your show, it was astounding. The sales spiked within hours. So here's what I love in this moment, what it shows us. One, how mainstream media is becoming more relevant. But two, how you cannot gatekeep for me to be number five. I'm above John Grisham, which is crazy, to be number five on hardcover fiction. It is astounding, and it shows the power of independent media. Y' all decide what people want. They can't decide for us. You all say what's important to you. And I am no Bad Bunny, obviously. But even seeing Bad Bunny yesterday, last night on the super bowl halftime show, he is One of the biggest selling artists in the world. He did the majority of the show in Spanish. I love that. And people loved it. So we can't let them say what's important. We're in an era of, of banning history, of, of. Of banning books and all of this. And that's why I hope we really support outlets like yours. Look at that. I mean, and mind you, I'm gonna say this respectfully. So many people said you can't go from non fiction to fiction. Oh, you're gonna do a story about slavery, censoring black people, censoring rebellions. It's not going to be like Amistad, starring Anthony Hopkins and Matthew McConaughey. You know what I'm saying? Like, you're going to censor black. Exactly. So it's really, it's powerful. I just, again, I gotta say thank you to your audience. I mean, independent media is where it's at right now, and we gotta support, we gotta subscribe, we gotta. Like, this matters and it's gonna matter for the next author.

[Joy Reid]

Yes. Amen. Amen. And I will tell you, by the way, and this is to big up the chats and all the chats. We sold out of your book, Clay, within a couple of hours. Like, we. It sold out, like, almost immediately. And then we are now in our reorder. So for those in the chats who are like, I haven't got my book yet, it's because we had to literally reorder because we sold out. You all bought all the ones we had. We had no more. And now we're in our second reorder. So if you guys are waiting for your book, for your copy of Burndown Master's House, it will be shipping this week because our new allotment came in today because, you know, we have to order and stock them. Just as you know how we work as a bookseller, we order a certain number pre ordering, hoping people will appreciate the book. Your book and Tiffany Cross's pre order, her book's not even available yet. And we can't. We had to literally, like, whoa. We can't even sell. We can't even sell any more pre orders because there's. We got nothing. Like, our allotment is like way over and yours was the same way. So when people want to support an author to your point, they don't necessarily need to go through the mainstream media to get their permission or to have the usual gatekeepers tell them, this book is good, they know you, they trust your voice, and therefore they know what you're going to deliver is quality. That is the way we have to move.

[Clay Cane]

And you know, you told me many years ago, I'll never, never Forget on my SiriusXM show, you said, you have to interrupt the lie. You have to interrupt the lie. You can't just let the lie be out there. And that's what I'm doing with this book, Burn Down Master's House. I'm interrupting the lie. And too many times right now on legacy media, mainstream media, they don't interrupt the lie. Later on tonight, in a few hours, you're going to see here at this table, Americans are talking and they're going to debate things that should not be debated. They're going to be debating racist memes from the President of the United States and try to hear the other side that that should not be up for debate. You should interrupt that lie and say, no, there's no side to this. And that's where I think so many people are just exhausted. I was in Georgia this past weekend. I've been all over the country. I'll be in Texas in a few days with your friend Keith Boykin. He'll be doing an event for me. I mean, I'll be doing all these spots. And what I'm hearing from folks is the exhaustion of the media, exhaustion of constantly having the other side. I mean, you didn't hear Frederick Douglass saying, we have to hear the other side of confederates.

[Joy Reid]

Right. You know what I'm saying? Both sides in Confederacy, there's one side, there's one.

[Clay Cane]

You didn't hear Dr. King saying, we have to hear the other side of Barry Goldwater and George Wallace.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah, but you know what you did hear? This is the reason that Ida B. Wells became the icon cheated. Because you did hear the other side on lynching. There was this both sidesism about hanging black men, women and children, where the mainstream media, the same legacy media that we are now seeing fall apart and go into the pasture, they were simply presenting these lynchings as a both side situation. I mean, maybe this guy really did rape these women. There's no evidence of that. There was no trial, There was nothing. This person was just snatched and hung. And they would just report it very matter of factly with this both sides objective taste. And it was Ida B. Wells who said, there's no objective way to report a lynching. This is a crime and you need to report it as a crime. There was a good guy and a bad guy that changed, that forced the mainstream media, the Chicago paper, the papers in Chicago, in New York and D.C. the Washington Post, New York Times. She forced them. The Chicago Tribune. They had to start changing the way that they reported it. That is what impacted TV media when they started doing civil rights coverage. Then all of a sudden mainstream media said, you know what? Maybe there's a good guy and a bad guy to this whole segregation thing. That is the reason I do a lecture about this. That's the reason that the right believes that the media is biased, because civil rights coverage actually presented the black people as the victim and the white segregationist as the villain. They took that to mean the mainstream media hates conservatives and it was off to the races. Roger Ailes solved it with Fox News. So they think being to the right is fair and objectively saying picking up immigrants off the street just because they're brown is wrong. They think that's bias. That's not biased. It's just a fact.

[Clay Cane]

And isn't it funny? I mean, you've been in these newsrooms. The idea of objective. When exactly was the media objective?

[Joy Reid]

Like.

[Clay Cane]

Like, tell me when it was. Remember? Who was the guy? I forgot his name. I think it was Walter Winchell who destroyed Josephine's baker's career. I mean, destroyed. Was it Walter Winchell? But one of them destroyed one of these. These journalists destroyed her career, especially against black people.

[Joy Reid]

People.

[Clay Cane]

When has it really been fair and objective and all these things? That is another one of those lies.

[Joy Reid]

And much of the Les Smooth Means destroyed Janet Jackson wasn't even her fault. Les movies the boss of CBS News before the bad guys. Before the bad guys bought it. This is when it was supposedly normal. The boss at CBS News destroyed Janet Jackson over a nipple eruption. That wasn't even our fault.

[Clay Cane]

And what happened to Justin Timberlake?

[Joy Reid]

Justin Timberlake completely out of the store, like, he wasn't even there. And he's the one who ripped her bodice. And he, you know, he's the one who said Les Moonves. And this again is before they were owned by the bad guys who now own TikTok. Said what? TRUMP is not good for America, but he's great for CBS News. He's great for cbs. That's before they were supposedly gone wrong.

[Clay Cane]

Exactly. And it's funny, when I was researching these book, I was finding these news articles. I have one News article from 1857 about a black woman you'll read. When you read the book, y' all will see. But the way they described her as a insurrectionist, as being unpatriotic, as being a terrorist. Every article that I found on enslaved People fighting back the way they were described. It just rhymed to today. I said, my goodness, the history is just rhyming. These are. This is. It was called the New York. It was a New York World back then. The New York Times was back then. They were all back then. The way they describe pushing back and fighting, it's just fascinating. And I gotta say, Joy, I had a really powerful moment on my show where a guy called into my show, Tom from West Virginia, and he said, I have nothing more than a third grade education, and this is the first book I ever bought. And I got it on Audible, and this book had an impression on me. I've never bought a book like this before.

[Joy Reid]

Before. I think we have that sound, Clay. Yeah. If you could play that D2, we would love to hear it. I ordered your book for my mother. I got the audio book, and I. And that's the first time I've ever listened or really read a book my whole life. I can't read, but, like, third grade education. But I was taught to work, not to educate. But that book really inspired me a whole lot. Yeah, that was powerful, man. That was real powerful. I mean.

[Tony Box]

Yes.

[Joy Reid]

Somebody like me.

[Clay Cane]

Oh, man, that's so. Wow. That really touches me that you were able to absorb the book. It could still touch you, man. Like, that's another reason why I wrote it. I want you. Reese, you were saying this as far as it being accessible. Right. I'm proud of it, that it's beautifully written, but I wanted it to be accessible and all that good stuff, man. Tom, this is probably the best comment I've heard all day. It really, really moves me. I'm really happy just to hear that. Thank you, brother. Thank you.

[Joy Reid]

Like I said, education was kind of hard because I had a hard, hard childhood. But I do know how to work and I do know how to survive. But then, like I said when I got the book and then I started. I started listening to it, when I asked about the book, I said, you're getting a book? I said, what are you talking about? Yeah, that's what people was talking to me. You ordering the book? What's wrong with you? You got a terr temperature or something? I said, well, this guy, this two on the radio, he's down to earth. He's coming.

[Tony Box]

Yeah.

[Joy Reid]

So I'm gonna get it.

[Clay Cane]

Thank you. And just quickly, before you go, there is a talk around literacy in the book. Remember those scenes were.

[Joy Reid]

I know.

[Clay Cane]

Being taught.

[Chris Witherspoon]

Yep.

[Clay Cane]

And even for another character as well, there was a talk around literacy in the Book. So a part of a small, small part of your story tomorrow is in Burndown Master's house. So I thank you for that. Tom, what up?

[Joy Reid]

That is amazing. And Reese, big ups to Recy Colbert. We got to get her on the show. Jason Reese is everything. She is fantastic. So big ups to her as well. But that had to be so moving to have somebody so personally be moved by your work, even though he couldn't read it on his own.

[Clay Cane]

Listen, the New York Times is amazing. That's a blessing. But to get that, that's the reason why I wrote the book. You know, I want. I'm proud of it, like I said. But I did want it to be accessible. I did. I don't want folks to be intimidated by it. Like, oh, I'm not going to be able. It's going to be too much. No, I want people. I want this book to imprint itself on people. Make you remember where you come from, make you remember who you are, make you remember who you can be. That's my intention behind it. Every. Everything is beautiful. To have accolades and all that stuff, but to hear that, that moved my heart. That's what we all want as writers, right? And to see that this. This man gave a chance. He's called him before, he's in his 50s, lives in West Virginia, really, really nice guy. And to see that he took a chance on these stories and it moved him. And that's. It's one of those moments that, you know, you get so much negativity and this space and everything to get that is really, really beautiful. And I think about how we're having this conversation right now, Joy, about borders and citizenship and who's legal and who's illegal and all that's in the book. There's a little bit of so many Americans. I'm going to say that in Burndown Masters house. So that really touched me, Joy. And again, I can't thank you enough. You know, I sent Joy a text saying, yo, I had this book coming out. She said, come on. You said, come on, let's go, let's go, let's go. And your incredible team, it's just, this is how we do it. Moments like this, it really restores my faith.

[Joy Reid]

Amen. Well, look, in these dark times, what we have is us and each other and community, and that's all we need. It turns out the mainstream media may not want to hear it, but it is all we need. And we can defeat the worst, the worst of the worst, as long as we hang together. Clay Kane of The book is burned Down Master's House, a New York Times bestseller on the fiction list. We're going to keep it on the list, y'. All. We're going to keep on. Tell a friend, tell a friend, Tell a friend. Clip this and send it to your aunties, your uncles, your brother, your sister. Whether they love literature, whether they get into love literature, they're newly loving it. Get the audiobook when the paperback comes out. Get that, too. We want to make sure we support the this good brother because he's doing great work. Clay Kane, I'm so proud of you, my friend. Thank you so much.

[Clay Cane]

Thank you so much.

[Joy Reid]

Thank you, Clay Kane, everybody. We're going to make sure we link the book again. Those of you who haven't gotten it, again, the book was sold out. We have restocked. So we have more copies of Burndown Master's House. You can get your copy today and you're going to get. It's going to take about a week to get there because remember, we got to deal with the male and the right wing still controls the males. So we have to work on that. But thank you all very much for supporting the book.

[Jason Reed]

We appreciate question. Do you want to push a little bit longer, maybe another 15 minutes so we can go ahead and talk about what's happening tomorrow?

[Joy Reid]

Yes. We're going to be real quick. We won't. We will maybe not do 15. We're going to stay just a little bit longer as we got it. We got to push to let you guys know some of the things that we have coming up. We have another book that we are adding to the store. It is a book you probably know because it's been on the New York Times bestseller list like 18 times. It's called Black AF History. It is from the great Michael Harriot. We have a surprise thing that's coming up that's going to include Michael Harriot. That is coming up soon. I'm not gonna tell you what it is, but I'm gonna advise you to get your copy of the book. If you don't already have your copy of Black AF History. It's Black History Month. You're gonna want this book. It is a fantastic book. We're actually gonna put together a little black history list. A lot of people ask me, what books should I start with if I'm new to black history? A lot of our spicy white friends will ask me that. They'll be like, well, what books should I read that can just get me be conversant. What's a good starting place. I really do recommend Black AF History as that good start because it's not giving you the sanitized version. It's giving you the real version and stories you probably have never, never heard. Black if History, fantastic book. It's been on the bestseller list 8,051 times. But we have something really special coming up that's going to include Michael Harriet himself. So that's the tease. I'm going to tell you that for now, let's quickly do our moment of joy. Jason, before we get to our other big, big promos. Our moment of joy has to do with where we started. And it is this moment after the super bowl last night when Benito, when Bad Bunny encounters his idol. Who is Ricky Martin? If you aren't from Miami or you haven't lived in Miami, I don't think you or you're not Puerto Rican, you do not understand how huge Ricky Martin is. Ricky Martin was the first mega watt super superstar from Puerto Rico. Like, he def. I mean, you know, of course JLo is another a big. But she's from New York. Like coming out of Puerto Rico, out of the island. Ricky Martin was just huge. And he's a legend and an icon. And apparently he is an inspiration to Bad Bunny. So the way he like hugged him like a, like a little kid hugs an adult that they love, it was just so beautiful. So that was just absolutely gorgeous. That is our, our moment of joy. It made me so happy when I saw that clip. I was like, that has to be our moment of joy. But now I don't. Jason, I don't even think we're going to be over time. We want to remind you all one more time, but we have two things.

[Jason Reed]

We've got Maddie we got to talk about and the promo.

[Joy Reid]

Yes, we have two things. Promo. Yes. So let's, let's play the Maddie today. Let's show Maddie J's promo again. You guys have to remember to please get in your Love questions for Ms. Maddie J. Let's remind y' all about Ms. Maddie J. Here it is.

[Chris Witherspoon]

I studied health anomics.

[Joy Reid]

She studies economics. And she's gonna whether you got a heifer problem or non heifer problem. You are a heifer. Maybe you are the heifer and you want to ask some some advice on how to unheze yourself. You want to de heiferize or you maybe want to deal with a heifer or maybe you just know a heifer and you want to try to help her out out or him out. Maybe there's A male heifer. I say whatever. Maybe a heifer's trying to beat down your door. Whatever it is. Get your questions in. If you want to put them on video, you can do that as well. You can put them in text. You can put them however you want to do them. Send in your questions and include your name on social media, whoever you are. Or if you want to use your real name, what. However you want to do it. You want to send that to ask maddiejoyreadshow.com.

[Jason Reed]

The clock is running. We gonna shut this down by 12 midnight tonight. So we're. We can get all these questions in order. So please get them in now or before midnight.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah, before. Use it while you can. And we're getting some really great questions. They're so much fun. If you want to do on video, please do. We're going to play the questions back and the. The. On. What is it? Wednesday? Next Wednesday, Ms. Maddie J. Is going, oh, no, this Wednesday.

[Jason Reed]

What am I saying?

[Joy Reid]

This Wednesday. What am I saying? Not next Wednesday. This Wednesday. The day after tomorrow, Miss Maddie J in the 7 o' clock hour will be here live answering your love questions. So, yeah, those questions got to get in, like, asap because we have to load them all in. Jason has to have them ready to fire off. You got to get them in. So whatever you're gonna send, send it now because we want to make sure people are building bigger up Menudo. But menudo was not Puerto Rican. I think Minuta was Mexican American, to my knowledge. But yes, no, a menudo. They weren't. They were mixed. Because Ricky Martin was in menudo. Did you know that, Jason? The Ricky Martin was in there?

[Jason Reed]

But I love how you just like, you know, you're just dancing on.

[Joy Reid]

I know I'm jumping around because I'm reading the chat. You know what's happening? I'm getting distracted. I'm multitasking. I'm reading the chat. In the chat, they keep on distracting me. But yes, he was also on All My Children. The folks. The folks in the YouTube chat are very active and saying lots of words, and I'm looking at them. Somebody Diego 501 on substack said, I'm a heifer. Diego said I'm a Diego 501 said I'm a heifer. Hey, well, if you're a heifer, you might need to get some advice, too, and some assistance. So, Maddie, ask matty [e-mail] that's where you can get your heifer questions in. Or just your Love questions. I'm sure she's got great love advice. So that is the other thing. The next thing I want to let you know that tomorrow on the show that you normally, you know, we normally don't have shows on Tuesday, but when we have special interviews, we drop them on Tuesdays. So tomorrow we have a really, really great special program. And the reason that we did it and we actually did this interview last, late last year, we sat down with Salaam Mariadi. He is the president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. It's called mpac. And MPAC is an organization that advocates for Muslims in public affairs. You know, literally what it says, both in Hollywood, in Washington, D.C. and Salam Mariadi is this really, really fascinating figure. He's Iraqi American and he has advised presidents on down. And this is an incredible organization who Jason and I were introduced to when we went to Sundance last year. And so we had this really great sit down with him. We talked about a wide range of things. This is one of those really great long interviews. And Jason's going to play a quick promo for that. Now here it is, some great, you know, Muslim journalists. There's Ayman Moyheadin, obviously, as Ali Velchi. And I've just named, I think the only two. There are not. There are more. But Rula Jibril is fantastic, you know, when she can get bookmarks.

[Salam Mariadi]

A lot of social media now, like Mehdi Hassan.

[Joy Reid]

Mehdi Hassan obviously is brilliant, but he had to really found his own thing in order to do Dean Obadallah, who's doing in amazing radio. But you know, we can name them on two hands, right? The numbers who have, who actually get booked and get on national networks. That is a problem when there's so much conversation about Muslims, but there are not enough people that are actually able to speak on behalf of the community and not even speak on behalf of the community, just represent the community. How do we change that?

[Salam Mariadi]

Well, I mean, I think a lot of responsibility is on our shoulders as Muslim organizations to create mechanisms where young Muslims find opportunities to enter the field and are supported by our community because nobody's going to do it for us. Yes, you have top talent like Mahdi Hassan or Amen, but that's the exception that proves the rule that, okay, unless you have that kind of talent, you're not going to make it. No, we just want people like you said, just when there's a conversation, can you just invite a Muslim who may not be running an organization or any dignitary, but just somebody who understands the sentiment of the Muslim people to be part of the conversation. And that can only be done through institutional work. And that's why institutions are important for this work. And part of the challenge in the American Muslim community right now is that a lot of money is being sent overseas for relief. So they see babies that are suffering from famine, people who have limbs cut off or homes destroyed. So immediately your impulses send money overseas, or they. They build a school or they build another mosque. But when it comes to building programs to get young Muslims to enter the field of media, it's still low on the totem pole.

[Joy Reid]

Salam Mariadi, one of the nicest gentlemen, and he came to the basement and did a really great interview. I think you'll really enjoy it. He's really smart. He's a very interesting man. And so that interview will air tomorrow night. So off show, normal hours. So tomorrow night, 6pm right here on the Joy Reid show channel. So please check that out. It's a really important interview, particularly in these times when Muslims are one of the group that is under the greatest pressure in terms of the ban on people traveling from dozens of countries. And also some things that are happening in real time due to all of this anti DEI behavior. So there's that.

[Jason Reed]

I'm gonna do my shameless plug again.

[Joy Reid]

Do your shameless plug.

[Jason Reed]

There you guys go. You see the QR code on the bottom right side of your screen? Grab that phone if you haven't done it yet. Ahead and vote.

[Joy Reid]

Vote for me. I'll set you free. Jason is very determined to win this.

[Jason Reed]

We don't have to, but, you know, it'll be nice.

[Joy Reid]

It would be a lot of fun. I do want to say that Menudo actually was Puerto Rican. I didn't know this. You know, I grew up in Denver, and Menudo was super popular. I had a friend Nora, whose little sister we took to a Menudo concert one year. And just the number of screaming little girls that were, you know, because I had a car. So we drove her and we just were waiting for her. I mean, it was insane. It was like the Beatles in the 60s. But I thought they were Mexican American. They're actually all Puerto Rican. Menudo was actually formed in Puerto Rico. I'm just really quickly doing a quick read of it. And Ricky Martin initially was rejected for Menudo, but then actually got in the second round of it. So he was on Menudo and then he was an actor. He went to the Tisch School of Arts at nyu. So he's been an actor. He's done all sorts of stuff. Yeah. And he is. He has sold 70 million records. 70 million records, including living la vida Loca. And so he's a top selling artist of all time. Did some acting, did all sorts of stuff. He was on a soap, I can't remember which one. But yeah, people were obsessed. If you were a young, if you were a Gen Xer in the 80s, you definitely had a friend with a younger sister that loved Menudo or you were the person that loved Menudo. So that's the way it is. That'll be tomorrow night. So that's it, guys. That's what we've got. Make sure you send in your ask Maddie J question and stay tuned on Wednesday because we will be announcing what the Michael Harriet special is. I promise you it's going to be a lot of fun and super dope. Thank you all for tuning in. Please hit like and subscribe. Don't forget, do that hit like and subscribe. We appreciate you all tuning into the Joy Reid show and we will see you on Wednesday. Get your mask, Maddie J. Questions in and vote for us for the NW Image Awards. Like and subscribe. Love you guys. Have a good night. Goodbye. Getting back to the basics grassroots level Let me dig a little deeper with the shovel Plenty can't tell the force from the trees that I'm hard to detect Like a black hole in a dog Injustice anywhere it's a threat to justice everywhere Let me make this clear I got a bone to pick and I'll never fear the threat of poverty they don't want to talk about it they rap the party so I'm a real talk about it for sure.