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- [00:05]
Barney Frank
Okay.
- [00:14]
Joy Reid
Well, hello, everybody. Happy Wednesday. Happy midweek. Welcome to the Joy Reed show. You know, just trying to turn my phone off just to make sure that you don't have any obstructions. Hello, everyone. Welcome. Hope you guys are having a wonderful midweek pick up to everybody that's in the chats. I see y' all there. All the early birdies that jump in super early. We always appreciate y'. All. I see Karen Stooks. I see Cecilia Brooks. I see Brittany Stewart, 7835. I always wonder what the numbers mean after people's names. Big up to everybody that's also on the stack. Hello, our sub stack friends. Hello to all our friends on Facebook as well on Twitch. Let me pop over and take a look at the Twitchies. We like to get a good look at them. They're so adorable. Hello, Twitchies. We appreciate y' all being here as well. Wherever you're watching, if you're listening on an audio podcast, we love you too. We just don't see you. You're, you know, we. We don't know if you're as cute as the people that are watching that we can see. Also, our LinkedIn friends, wherever you're listening, just thank you all for being subscribers. Please make sure if you're lurking right now, just don't do that. That's terrible. It's bad manners. Please hit like and subscribe as we're going. We love it if you not just hit the little thumbs up, which is the like on YouTube or the little like button wherever you are, but that you also comment and engage. You know, one of the fun things about our TJRS readers community is y' all are Chatty Cathy's. You guys like to talk to each other and we love it when you guys chat. And we like when you guys talk back to us if you have questions.
- [01:36]
Jason
Yes, Jason, let's put another thing. And guys, please note, put the notifications on. So whenever we go live and stuff like that, you guys will get a notification about it. So please also click that triangle for notifications and good evening.
- [01:49]
Joy Reid
That is a great idea, Jason. And I like that you have your light brighter so that people can actually see your face so you don't look like you're a witness or doing one of those interviews where it's like an anonymous interview.
- [01:58]
Jason
Now, see, when I'm in the studio, it's better to have it dark so I can.
- [02:01]
Joy Reid
You wanted to have mood. You want a mood is what you're trying to create for yourself. Yeah, I like your camel hat as well. I believe that is a TJRS hat. I think it's a no Kings, some no Kings apparel. No Kings is coming up. Like literally. Can you believe it? It's going to be the fourth annual no Kings that's coming up this June, the fourth no Kings. And so we're going to be gearing up for some stuff coming into that. We have a lot of stuff to announce later in show. I'll do it later, but not this moment.
- [02:28]
Jason
Just remember, guys, hit that notification.
- [02:30]
Joy Reid
Hit the notification. All right.
- [02:31]
Jason
Enjoy the show.
- [02:32]
Joy Reid
Thank you very much. Let's get into our headlines right away. Barney Frank. I don't know if you guys are remember Barney Frank, if you're old enough to remember Barney Frank. He was the first openly gay member of Congress, which is super controversial when he first ran for office. But he became just a staple of the cable news world. Grouchy, crabby, very funny. He clashed with the Obama administration over the launch of Obamacare. He didn't like the way it rolled out. But he was a stalwart Democrat, reliable Democratic voice. So he passed away yesterday at the age of 86. I want to play you guys a two minute retrospective. And before I start, he did spend his last months knowing he was dying, giving a series of interviews from hospice care in his home in Maine, including a one of his last chapters with CNN's Jake Tapper. So here's a quick two minute retrospective
- [03:29]
Barney Frank (Interview Clips)
of him that I realized when I came out. Chris, in 87 and we did some good polling. John Martillo, a great pollster. Tom Kelly and I became convinced at the point, interesting point, when people were asked if they thought I'd get hurt because I was voluntarily acknowledging being gay, 44% said I was going to get hurt. That's pretty close to 50. But then when they were asked, well, are you personally less likely to vote for them? It was 22%. And that 22% were people who wouldn't have voted for me ever under any circumstances. So what I realized was a lot of Americans were not homophobic but thought they were supposed to be. And as more of us came out and our reality confronted the prejudice, we made great gains. And even I did say, yeah, my marriage to Jim was a big deal in the national fest. But by the time I came out, by 2012, actually being gay had become more respectable than being a congressman. My marriage to Jim, poor, better than it does.
- [04:31]
Joy Reid
That's a classic Barneyism.
- [04:33]
Barney Frank (Interview Clips)
But I will, when you ask me that question, I am going to revert to my ethnic Heritage and asked you your question, with a question. On what planet do you spend most of your time? You want to answer the question? Yes. As you stand there with a picture of the president, the face to look like Hitler, and compare the effort to increase health care to the Nazis, my answer to you is, as I said before, it is a tribute to the First Amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated. Ma', am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it.
- [05:23]
Joy Reid
What do you want people to remember about Congressman Barney Frank?
- [05:29]
Barney Frank
Oh, that I was smart enough, I learned enough about the reaction not to answer that question.
- [05:39]
Joy Reid
Well, let me just ask you this. You're at a period of your life,
- [05:45]
Barney Frank (Interview Clips)
you're at the end of your life, you're in hospice care.
- [05:47]
Joy Reid
First of all, let me just say on behalf of myself, who's enjoyed covering you for decades and admired your passion
- [05:54]
Barney Frank (Interview Clips)
and your brain and your quick wit,
- [05:56]
Joy Reid
that I'll miss you.
- [05:57]
Barney Frank
Thank you.
- [05:58]
Joy Reid
But beyond that, what do you want young people watching to know?
- [06:04]
Barney Frank
Well, okay, that's a good question. And I'm going to do it specifically with gay rights. There's a lot of angst among other gay and lesbian people. Oh, we're going to lose our rights. They're going to take things away. And my answer is no. In fact, the history of gay rights shows the positive capacity of our system. In 1980, there were no federal rules protecting you if you were gay, against mistreatment. And there were, in fact, a couple of rules penalizing us. Couldn't get a security clearance or immigrate. We didn't win these things by some bipartisan coalition. I wish we could have found one, but the Republicans weren't there. Or by demonstrations and demanding it through street marches. We won this by one people coming out so that more and more people understood who we were and how we were. In fact, not so different, and certainly not different in a negative way. And secondly, we used politics. Essentially, gay and lesbian people succeeded in marrying, making our cause part of the Democratic cause, part of the commitment to human rights. You can't change public opinion on a basic issue. But as it is, changing the right political approach can take advantage of it. So I want younger people, old people, to understand that a political majority can get things done more than people think.
- [07:47]
Barney Frank (Interview Clips)
Congressman Barney Frank, thank you for taking
- [07:48]
Joy Reid
the time, and we wish you all of the best. Now, according to People magazine in one of his last interviews back in April, the New England Democrat told Politico. And this is a quote, one of my regrets is that I won't see the continued implosion of Donald Trump. According to People magazine. In another interview with Boston area radio station WBUR, which was published May 14, Frank said this. He said, as to Trump, I have developed my theory about him. It's not just that he's bad on all these values, but he is an idiot savant, Frank said. He has just one talent, an ability to exploit anger that got him into power. But having gotten into power, he's got nothing left. And that is why now he's just floundering more of his quote, I can't think of an issue on which he's popular. The Iran war, the fight with the Pope, the economy, even immigration. Where he left was where the left was dead wrong. In its excessive openness, he's managed to make himself even more unpopular. His anger, his narcissism, all of the negative parts of his personality have asserted themselves. And he really doesn't have much of a positive vision of things to offset that. People did reach out, People magazine, who gave us that quote, they did reach out to the White House for comment on that criticism of Trump before his death. But Trump did not immediately acknowledge Frank's death at all after it was announced on Wednesday. He died from congestive heart failure. And but his heart was pretty, was pretty full at the end. He had some shade for Trump right to the very end. And I love that he was shady labeijo right to the very end. So rest in peace, Barney Frank. He was one of a kind. If he didn't exist, he would have had to create him. On a very much happier note, today is Cher day. It is Cher's 80th birthday. Here is a then and now pic in which you can see that she really resists aging. She's gorgeous, remains gorgeous. She's 80 years old. Fun fact about Cher, he was born the same year as Donald Trump, 1946. In fact, she is literally one month older than he is. Check out this side by side. Kind of hard to believe that those two people are the same age because she kind of almost looks like she's young enough for to be someone he would date if he would. If she would ever even consider dating that crazy geezer. And by the way, just some more fun facts. She does have a last name. Her father was named John Sarkeesian. He was an Armenian American truck driver who had drink and drugs problems. His parents, her father's parents were survivors of the Armenian genocide and her mother, Georgia Holt, was a model and actress, which is not surprising, of Irish, English, German and Cherokee descent. And that little Cherokee Jean obviously did her very, very well. You can presume that is where she gets her fabulous gorgeous hair and her beautiful looks. Shar's parents divorced when she was just 10 months old and before leaving the family, her father placed her in an orphanage for several months while her mom was only allowed to visit once a week and only able to see share through a windows. They have like a really crazy story. Somebody do that, do that special Lifetime definitely need to make that documentary. Share is fabulous. We love Cher. Happy birthday, Cher. And we're probably going to hear more of these kinds of painful stories of heartache and loss and tragedy in this country because if we're being honest with ourselves, we have reached the American nadir, folks. And it is, you know, it's that thing where only a complete change in the entire government, state, local and national can save this country from disaster. So on that note, the primary results from last night are in. Here's a look at the current primary calendar. As you can see, there were a bunch of primaries last night. Alabama, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Idaho and Oregon all had primaries last night. Let's give you the high and low lights. In Georgia, Keisha Lance Bottoms, who's been on this very show, mopped the competition to become the Democratic nominee for governor. It literally was not even close. If you look at the results, she just literally just blew out the competition. She had no real competition. She got over 379,000 votes, 59% of the vote. The next closest person only got 15% of the vote. So she won big. Meanwhile, the Republicans are going to have to go to a runoff. And you see the number one and number two, neither of those people is Brad Raffensperger, who is the sitting secretary of state who got shut out by a billionaire who jumped into the race and the Trump endorsed lieutenant governor who now have to go to a runoff. Here's some of KLB's victory address. Roots in this state run really deep. I am at least a fifth generation
- [12:29]
Dr. Freda Fisher
Georgian, able to trace my family's history
- [12:32]
Joy Reid
to a plantation in Crawfordville, the birthplace and home of Alexander H. Stephens, who served as the 50th governor of Georgia and Vice President of the Confederate States of America, around the time when my grandmother's grandparents, shepherd and Betsy Peak, were likely enslaved on a plantation in Crawfordville, Georgia. And here I stand before you, That's the Democratic nominee to be the 84th governor of this state. I just need her theme song to be started from the bottom. Now we're here. I'm sorry. I just think it could be cool. But that's just me. That's just my. Now, here's the thing. People like, oh, I don't know. Can she win the governorship? Yes. There are two statewide elected officials that are already elected in the state of Georgia. They're both the senators are Democrats. Of course she can win. And the Republican Senate primary also has to go to a runoff. So note that the Democrats were aligned behind KLB on the Republican side. They now have runoffs in both the Georgia gubernatorial primary and the Senate primary. While John Ozoff, literally nobody ran against him. He walked right into being renominated as a Democratic Senate candidate. I would still say he's the favorite. Georgia is a state that has a very, very strong Democratic electorate. Now, meanwhile, let's go to Kentucky, where Thomas Massie, who was one of Trump and the Israel lobby and the Epstein lobby's biggest targets, really their biggest target last night, he lost in Kentucky's 4th congressional district. And here's how he took that loss.
- [14:19]
Mehdi Hasan
I would have come out sooner, but I had to call my opponent and concede and it took a while to find Ed Gowrin in Tel Aviv. I did get the call through, though. I have called and conceded the race. We've been honorable the whole time and
- [14:43]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
we're going to stay that way.
- [14:45]
Joy Reid
Oop, shade on the way out the door. Very interesting. Right. So the guy who beat Massey was Trump endorsed, of course, as all the people who won were. And he'll now be considered the favorite in November in that very red sea, you know, unless, I don't know, Massie does something crazy and decides to run third party or something. And here's what's so crazy about that race. I have to tell you what's. Because obviously the reason Massey was hated by Trump is he was insisting on releasing the Epstein files, which Trump very much does not want. He so know. Think about the people who wanted those Epstein files released. It's Marjorie Taylor Green who's leaving Congress and heading to Puerto Rico with all the loot that she's made investing on things that apparently she knew about during Congress. I guess I don't know how she made all that 25 million, allegedly. Lauren Boebert, who Trump now says he wants to see Primaried in Colorado, and Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna, who we had on the show last night, those are the main people Trump can't touch, Ronna. So he's decided to Reach out and touch Thomas Massie. Thomas Massie has also gone against the Israel lobby and said the US should not be funding Israel's genocides. And so he's very much against the Epstein class, the Israel lobby, and that's why he's out targeted him. He's done. But what's crazy about that race is for all the hype and attention to Massie has been on every right wing podcast from Tucker to the mean dried up Barbie, whatever her name is, Miss, Miss Blackface. He been on all the podcasts. Kelly, Megan, Kelly. He been on all the podcasts. He just reminds me of a Barbie left outside. I'm sorry, excuse me. And it didn't help him. Can we look at this? Jason? Look at this, y'. All. I showed you what happened in Georgia, and of course that was a gubernatorial statewide race. But this, this race, he lost by 10,800 votes. 57,000 for the winner, 47,000 for him. Do y' all understand that just over 100,000, about 105,000 people total turned out to vote in a congressional district whose population is north of 776,000 people. JCB pop up a nine. It is, it is wild to me. That's how many people live in that district. It's 776,000 people. Let's say. Let's say, and I think the adult population of that is about two thirds of that. Kentucky totally has a population of 4.5 million people. 3.58 million of them are adults, 18 and over, 77.6% of the state's total population. It's a state with not a lot of birth rate. So most of the people are adults. So Most of that 776 are adults. And the local media was touting extremely high turnout versus the 2024 election back when the turnout was 16% in that district, 16% in this race. It was an earth shattering 20%, 20% turnout. You mean to tell me that Thomas Massie, with all of them people that were loving what he was doing with the Epstein files, couldn't find another 11,000 votes? He should have been like, Trump, I need to find 11,000 more votes. He only needed 11,000 more votes. Those votes were there, baby. He just didn't get them. And if you think, well, you know what, maybe that district is poor, maybe people are struggling, they didn't have time to vote. CD4 congressional district 4 in Kentucky. I looked it up. It happens to be the single most affluent district in the state of Kentucky. It's basically part of the Cincinnati, Ohio suburbs. It's 86% white. It has a median income of $83,000, which is nearly $20,000 higher than, than the rest of the state. It's pretty poor state Kentucky, but that's the wealthiest district in a poor state. The state. The district only has a 28% college educated population and it has a 15. Oh, no, I'm sorry. The state of Kentucky has a 28% college educated population, which is why it's so red. And it has a 15.6% poverty rate. But congressional district four has an 11% poverty rate. So it's less poor than the rest of the state. But at those small voting numbers, you would think, you know, a decent investment or a third party candidate running might make that seat, you know, a little less red or just at least viable. Or maybe who, you know, maybe Donald Trump doesn't get the seat, get who he wants in a, I don't know, maybe Massey could win it in a three person race. Who knows? Now, on the Senate side, former state Attorney General Daniel Cameron, he did the most trying to placate the Kentucky right, you know, dismissing all the charges against the cops who killed Breonna Taylor while she was in bed at midnight and only charging one officer whose bullet landed in the walls of the one white resident in the apartment complex. Remember that? Well, that got him exactly no favor from MAGA voters. He got mopped in the Republican Senate primary. Mopped. It did him absolutely no good. Oops. Being a black Republican is just so, it's so full of treachery. It's a one way love situation. They call it one way love. You just love and loving on the big house and the big House don't love you back. But so Kentucky Congressman Andy Barr, who was of course backed by the Dear Leader, he ran and he's now considered the favorite to replace Moscow Mitch. It'll be the first time Moscow Mitch was not on the ballot in Kentucky since the mid-1980s. He won in 85. Now, Trump, who has no respect for black people, gave his endorsement to Mr. Barr, to Congressman Barr. And he did that after negotiating to get the other person, the other white candidate, Nate Morse, to step aside and then take a US ambassadorship. And he did. And so that left Barr, and then Barr beats Cameron. Now on the Democratic side, it was a lot more uplifting. Another one of our TJRS candidates, our winning streak continues because our friend Charles Booker won his primary. Here's some of his acceptance.
- [20:22]
Charles Booker
Listen, I need you to help me spread the good news because when you got a testimony, you got to tell everybody, you know, Kentucky is one of the most winnable races in the country. We are going to flip this seat and when we flip this seat, we are going to flip the U. S. Senate. And when we flip the U.S. senate, we're going to lift up an agenda for working people. We are going to fight to do the work of securing Medicare for all. We're going to make sure that people have true living wages. We're going to do the work of grabbing racism at the root. Oh, they don't zoom in because we're not running away from the bigotry, we're not running away from the hate. We're not going to let the wedges drive us apart anymore because we have so much more in common than whatever would divide us. We're ready for this.
- [21:17]
Joy Reid
Some of our Kentucky massive saying they voted for Charles Booker. Thank you for doing that. For everybody who came out and voted. The reality is you have to dream big. When you do an election, people like, ah, you know he can't win. It's Kentucky. Can't he though? The current governor of Kentucky, you know he's a Democrat, right? Beshear and he's the second Democratic governor, both Beshears. And if the Democratic Senate campaign committee decides they want to spend some money in Kentucky, it would be wise to try because you need to dream big and he's not a person that's gonna shy away from the real issues and we really do need that now because we are in a crisis and the Senate is a big part of the solution. Meanwhile, in Alabama, our friend, another friend of the show, Doug Jones, was also victorious. He's gonna be the Democratic nominee for governor facing probably the single dumbest member of the United States Senate, Tommy Tuberville, who is quitting Washington where he publicly embarrasses himself daily in Florida, where he actually lives, to run for governor of Alabama to replace the 115 year old KIV. And I will note, Jason, if you wouldn't mind popping a four back up that the next primary on the calendar is May 26 in Texas, where Trump has endorsed the sitting Attorney general, Ken Paxton, who was formerly impeached by his own party for corruption, dumped by his wife for cheating, investigated by the Department of Justice for alleged bribery, abuse of office and misusing his position to help a political donor. And of course, the weak Merrick Garland. DOJ declined to prosecute Paxton in the final weeks of the Biden administration, effectively ending the federal probe. It's also Paxton's History of getting indicted on state level felony securities fraud charges in 2015 and trying to erase the 2020 election by filing a lawsuit there. The state charges, of course, didn't end in jail time. Prosecutors reached a pretrial diversion agreement in March of 2024. Drop the charges against him after he completed 100 hours of community service, took legal ethics courses and paid restitution. Great. Charges were officially dismissed last year. Now that guy is going to now face Colbert approved youth pastor James Talarico in November, right? So, dscc, hello. You guys can win any of these states. You're running against idiots. So good luck, Texas, and let the election season begin. And it actually matters, right, who wins these offices again. Because right now this country is literally being led by a gangster government of thieves and scammers and somebody needs to stop them. I kind of liken this country in this moment to the Titanic, right? The Titanic, which is going down. And the Trump crime family are chilling among the rich people on the upper decks. And before they head for the lifeboats, they are running from cabin to cabin, grabbing all the jewelry and cash from each of the staterooms and stuffing the loot into their pockets and then going to the below decks and rifling through the meager belongings of the people in steer bridge and stuffing whatever they can find in their pockets, too. Meanwhile, the whole ship is going under and everybody on the lower decks is doomed along with the crew. Here is your president telling you that he does not give a good poop about your financial situation.
- [24:16]
Donald Trump (Clips)
This is peanuts. And I appreciate everybody putting up with it for a little while.
- [24:21]
Mehdi Hasan
It won't be much longer, but you're gonna have.
- [24:24]
Donald Trump (Clips)
And frankly, there is so much oil out there. One of the things that is happening is these big ships are coming up to Texas, Louisiana and Alaska and they're loading up now.
- [24:36]
Joy Reid
Now. I don't want to hear anymore, man. Shut up. It's peanuts. What people are going through is not peanuts. People are definitely struggling. And while he, while you're struggling, he's not just building a bunker now at your expense. No longer the rich people, he said, we're going to pay for it. But what sure does look like a fortress for him and his friends to hide in when it all falls apart, the complexity.
- [24:55]
Donald Trump (Clips)
These are all different rooms down here. They're building a hospital. They're building. It's a military hospital. They're building all sorts of research facilities, also meeting rooms and rooms that go hand in hand for the military using the ballroom. And the ballroom is really a shield and Protecting all of the things that are built here. This goes, as you see, it's already up to the ground. This goes down very deep. You get a better view right over here. This is down because we've already done these floors, but these are already down two floors. That is down about six stories deep. That's big stuff. Normally when you build a ballroom, you build it.
- [25:40]
Joy Reid
Why is there hospital and research facilities down there? What are you going to be researching? You remember that some of the Epstein victims said that they woke up in hospital rooms not knowing how they'd gotten there. Epstein was interested in very strange, weird research stuff. Peter thiel allegedly spends $40,000 a month. Dollars a month getting 18 and teenager blood to inject into himself. What are we doing? That's a ballroom. That's not a ballroom. Did I mention he also joked with our troops about still being in office in 2032, which is quite ambitious for a man who can barely stand erect on his swollen cankles. He also has let Congress. No, he's not going to ask them about building his arc to Trump. He's just going to do it because sometime in the past, some president approved having building something in the National Mall. So he says he's not even going to ask them. He's just going to build a more ugly crap in our Capitol. And you are not just paying for the mega bunker with a ballroom on top and research facilities and a hospital down there for some reason. Why would he need a hospital that Trump originally promised his rich friends were going to pay for? You're also paying Trump and his friends directly out of your pockets. The wealthy are literally jamming their hands into your pockets and. And grabbing whatever is in there before they head for the lifeboats. You just filed your taxes last month, right? And guess what? Trump, who basically does whatever he wants with no actually government to stop him, is going to do with that money. Guess what he's going to do with that money that you sent to Washington. Can you say slush fund? Donald Trump, okay, recall, sued the IRS, which he controls, for $10 billion over a contractor revealing that he doesn't pay taxes. And now the doj, which he controls via his former personal criminal attorney, is settling that case basically of Trump versus Trump for $1.7 billion with a B, which will be placed into a slush fund, which Trump controls through his former criminal lawyer, Todd Blanch, who is now your acting Attorney general. You keeping up with me? Blanche now gets to create a board which will dole out cash to whomever they want. Basically, reparations for the January 6th insurrectionists. Now, if they were to divide this up evenly between each of the insurrectionists, they'd each get north of a million dollars. Do you have a million dollars? Plus. Plus, it gets worse. The deal gives Trump and his family permanent immunity from the irs. Ever investigating them, Ever. It's giving Edi Amin or Mobutu no Blanche attempted to write off how egregious and crazy this is during Senate hearings this week. Maryland Senator Chris Van Holland. Your witness.
- [28:07]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
General, this is an outrageous, unprecedented slush fund that you set up. Simple question. Will eligible individuals who assaulted Capitol Hill police officers be eligible for this fund?
- [28:21]
Todd Blanche
Well, as it makes plain.
- [28:22]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
Anything. Just let me know if they're eligible for the fund.
- [28:26]
Todd Blanche
As, as, as was made plain yesterday, anybody in this country is eligible to apply if they believe they're a victim.
- [28:33]
Joy Reid
Weapons.
- [28:34]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
Mr. Let me ask you this. Are there going to be rules that say that if you've assaulted a Capitol Hill police officer or committed a violent crime, you will not be eligible? Why not make that a rule?
- [28:46]
Todd Blanche
I expected that. Well, because I'm not one of the commissioners setting up the rules.
- [28:49]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
I expect four of the five members. Aren't you, Mr. Attorney General?
- [28:53]
Todd Blanche
Pardon me?
- [28:53]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
You're appointing four of the five members I am appointing. Set up the rules. I would hope you would make a rule that anyone convicted of assaulting a police officer of violent crime is simply not eligible. They should not apply. Well, let me, let me ask you this, because you compared it to the Keep Seagull case, but I think you know full well that in that case, the settlement agreement was approved by a federal judge, including the payments to people who were not originally parties to the lawsuit. No federal judge has approved this fund, have they, Mr. Attorney General?
- [29:24]
Todd Blanche
No. No federal judge did approve.
- [29:26]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
So that's a big difference between this case and the case that you compared it to.
- [29:29]
Todd Blanche
No, it's not.
- [29:31]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
Did a judge sign off on this case?
- [29:33]
Todd Blanche
No.
- [29:34]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
A judge did sign off on the other one.
- [29:36]
Todd Blanche
Yes, but your question was whether it's a big difference. It's not.
- [29:38]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
Of course it is, because that allows for an independent person to look at it rather than the hand.
- [29:44]
Todd Blanche
There was no independent person. There was no independence. There was a single commissioner that a judge signed off on it. A judge had no money.
- [29:51]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
There was a judge who looked at it and signed off on it. So to compare that case to this one is incredibly deceptive.
- [29:59]
Joy Reid
Can we just, Jason, show people just a reminder of who it is that's now eligible for these reparations? Multiple Capital injuries. Multiple capital injuries. Oh, and just to be clear, who gets the reparations or not? The police that were brutalized. It's the insurrectionist. Okay, so, Todd, what about, uh, let's say people who committed crimes against children as part of the Epstein gang? Do they get reparations? Todd, they represent.
- [30:55]
Todd Blanche
They asked for a meeting.
- [30:56]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
Can I. Can I. Can I ask you to commit that the Justice Department will not recommend a pardon for anyone named in the Epstein files?
- [31:08]
Todd Blanche
Can you repeat that question? I'm sorry, I didn't hear what you said.
- [31:11]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
Can you commit that the Justice Department, you, the Acting Attorney General, will not recommend a pardon for people named in the Epstein files?
- [31:20]
Todd Blanche
When you say people named. I have no. There's tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of, quote, people named.
- [31:26]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
How about Jelaine Maxwell? Can you commit that? You.
- [31:29]
Todd Blanche
Yes, I can commit to that.
- [31:30]
Mehdi Hasan
Of course.
- [31:31]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
Let me go back to this slush fund, because there's also an individual who, after being pardoned by the President, went on to molest two children, and that person actually tried to buy the silence of these children by saying that he would pay them some of the funds that he was hoping to get from your slush fund. Can you commit to making the rules so that that person is not eligible for a payout under this fund?
- [32:05]
Todd Blanche
Well, you're obviously lying in your question, because there's no way that this person committed to that. The slush fund, as you call it, which is not. Didn't exist, I'm sure, but I can
- [32:14]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
commit, Mr. Attorney General. Don't ever do that again. I am reporting what he said. He said on the expectation that he hoped to get some of the funds from a payout. He's.
- [32:26]
Todd Blanche
He's been the slush fund senator. And that didn't exist when he said
- [32:30]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
that this is the fund that the President and all of you have been telegraphing all along that you're going to use to help the president's friends.
- [32:39]
Todd Blanche
Can you point to Mr. Turkey? What telegraph?
- [32:42]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
Did I have a last question for you. Do you know that it is a criminal offense to lie to Congress?
- [32:51]
Todd Blanche
I am very well aware of that.
- [32:53]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
I'm glad to hear that. Thank you.
- [32:55]
Joy Reid
I'm glad to hear it, too. Kudos to Chris Van Hollen for keeping the wood to the behind of Todd Blanche, who, by the way, I did get to witness him in court the day that I was in court for the hush money trial. Not impressive then, not impressive now. Let's go to Senator Chris Coons of the great state of Delaware. Your witness. Has anything like this ever happened before in US History? Ever happened that a sitting president sued his own government for $10 billion and then directed the settlement of the case and. And the establishment of a payout fund?
- [33:29]
Todd Blanche
Not that I'm aware, but there's a lot of things that President Trump's the first of. No president had been indicted 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 times either.
- [33:36]
Barney Frank (Interview Clips)
Correct?
- [33:37]
Joy Reid
No president's been indicted. And will you commit that none of this money will go to President Trump's campaign donors?
- [33:43]
Todd Blanche
I am not committing to anything beyond the settlement agreement itself. When you say campaign donors, that they are not excluded from seeking compensation.
- [33:51]
Joy Reid
Last question during police Week. And if you don't think that the main recipient is going to be the charity called Trump.org, you're not paying attention. Or that he's not going to get a cut from anybody that is able to receive money from this. And on Cher's literal birthday week, this corrupt lawyer who failed to keep Trump from becoming a felon in the New York hush money case in which Trump had paid to silence a porn star thinking the news of their one night stand would hurt him with evangelical cultists. As if they care. This guy had the nerve to try to compare this theft from the American taxpayer, from the going broke American people who have to pay this. This is coming out of your pocket. This reparations for violent felons bullshit slush fun. He tried to compare that right on behalf of people who do not believe in reparations for the formerly enslaved and for their descendants, just for white violent insurrectionists. He dared to compare this monstrosity to a case called Keep Siegel vs. Vilsack, which is a 1999 case that addressed decades of systemic discrimination by the U.S. government of Agriculture against indigenous farmers and ranchers who were denied equal access to credit and loan services. That landmark $760 million settlement, that's million with an M, not 1.7 billion with a B. Compensated indigenous people and victims of discrimination, but also mandated structural reforms to ensure fair treatment going forward. It created what's called the Native American Farmer and Rancher Council. It improved USDA loan programs and established a Native American Agriculture Fund, the largest philanthropic fund dedicated to native agriculture. I will note that a similar settlement to black farmers was overturned because Stephen Miller sued saying it was anti white to let the small number of black farmers get some sort of settlement. These people don't believe in reparations for black farmers, don't believe in reparations for indigenous farmers, but they surely believe in reparations For Donald Trump's friends. I wonder if people who are prosecuted ultimately for killing people like Renee Good And Michael and Mr. Preddy, are they going to be able to come to this fund and say, I was weaponized. The government was weaponized against me. Oh, really? There's already been a taker. Let me note. There's a gentleman that used to be a Trump official. His name is political operative. And longtime Trump consigliere Michael Caputo has filed the first known claim for the Justice Department's new anti weaponization fund. This guy moved to Russia back in the day, was trying to help improve Vladimir Putin's image. And he claims he was weaponized because he got caught up in Russiagate. He's now already applied for money. I'll tell you what I would do. You want to talk about weaponization? Everybody that is a descendant of the Tulsa massacre victims. Oh, that's weaponization of the government against you. They blew up your entire community in Black Wall street using federal planes. Y' all should apply for the money. And the next time a Democratic president is sitting in office, I don't want to hear nothing about reparations not being possible. Because Donald Trump just created weapon. Just created a weaponization fund to hand out. To hand out reparations. So now that we know that reparations is not just possible, but that it is something that MAGA is in favor of. Oh, everybody that is a descendant of enslaved people looks sharp because their next time there's a Democratic president, they don't have to go through Congress. They just need to go ahead and confiscate billions of dollars from the American taxpayer and start handing that shit out. Because they're doing it. Apparently, reparations can be done that way. Let's let Jack Reed, Senator Jack Reid ask one final question about this slush fund. And that I think is a key question because this is predicated on the idea that something unusual happened to Trump. Senator Reid, is what happened to Trump unusual? Is he the only taxpayer that that contractor revealed their taxes?
- [37:48]
Senator Jack Reed
How many taxpayers returns were leaked by the IRS contractor in the 2020 breach?
- [37:54]
Todd Blanche
How many taxpayers. Excuse me.
- [37:56]
Senator Jack Reed
How many taxpayers returns were leaked by the IRS contractor in the 2020 breach?
- [38:01]
Todd Blanche
I don't know the exact amount, but a lot.
- [38:04]
Senator Jack Reed
405,427. One of them was Donald Trump.
- [38:10]
Barney Frank (Interview Clips)
Correct.
- [38:12]
Senator Jack Reed
One of them was Donald Trump. Correct.
- [38:14]
Todd Blanche
Donald Trump and his family or others.
- [38:15]
Mehdi Hasan
Correct.
- [38:16]
Dr. Freda Fisher
Right.
- [38:17]
Senator Jack Reed
And Donald Trump was president at the time.
- [38:20]
Jason
Correct.
- [38:21]
Senator Jack Reed
So it was his IRS department that allowed this breach of privacy.
- [38:26]
Barney Frank
Correct.
- [38:26]
Todd Blanche
Was a criminal who Worked in the irs. Yes.
- [38:31]
Senator Jack Reed
Well, he was hired under Trump's admit. This is one of the Trump.
- [38:35]
Todd Blanche
There was a criminal breach that led to this.
- [38:37]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
Yes.
- [38:37]
Senator Jack Reed
Very good. How many of these 400,000 people have received monetary reimbursement for the breach?
- [38:45]
Todd Blanche
I don't think any have. Including the President?
- [38:47]
Senator Jack Reed
No, they haven't. But you've authorized the president. Do you agree the President should have reimbursement? Correct.
- [38:56]
Todd Blanche
We settled the case. No, there's no reimbursement to President Trump.
- [39:00]
Senator Jack Reed
Well, he found the interesting. So President Trump, you're going to assure us President Trump and his family will get no proceeds from this, Correct?
- [39:09]
Todd Blanche
He will not.
- [39:10]
Senator Jack Reed
He will not get. His family will not get.
- [39:12]
Mehdi Hasan
Correct.
- [39:14]
Senator Jack Reed
And who will direct the distribution of these. Who gets the money from the.
- [39:19]
Todd Blanche
From the victims Fund? Well, there'll be a commission of five individuals that will be set up and they will take in requests and claims and decide whether to do anything for mission.
- [39:29]
Senator Jack Reed
Who will name the commissioners? I will.
- [39:32]
Todd Blanche
Or the Attorney General. Whoever the Attorney General is.
- [39:34]
Senator Jack Reed
The Attorney General. Okay.
- [39:36]
Todd Blanche
Sorry. Just to correct. And one of them will be done in council with leadership of this body.
- [39:41]
Senator Jack Reed
Consultation.
- [39:43]
Joy Reid
Come on now. You expect us to believe that y', all, you're not going to simply write a check now that. Because remember, the Treasury Secretary already said he would write whatever check he was told to to Donald Trump. So I just hope. Look, Marilyn Mosby, go ahead and apply for. For that money. Andrew Gillum, you got. You got went after by the federal government. You should request some of that money. Hunter Biden, show up, go ahead and apply for some of that money. They're giving out reparations, y'. All. They're giving out reparations. Apparently MAGA is pro reparations. No oversight, no Congress involved. John Thune, the Senate weak ass, useless Senate Majority Leader, has claimed that he's going to get involved and that he's dubious. You're dubious. What are you going to do about it? Nothing. So if you want an incentive to take a chance in the state of Kentucky and go ahead and elect a United States senator that you didn't think was possible, that you didn't think could win, well, here's the incentive because what was Thomas Massie saying? In addition to release the Epstein files, he was talking about the corruption of the Israel lobby and of special interests, moneyed interests that control the government. The reason he's out, I don't like a lot about that man. Kyle Rittenhouse supported him. He's a gun nut. There's a lot about Thomas Massey I don't like. But when he was saying that this government is bought and paid for by special interest groups, he was not wrong. And the reason that they got rid of him is because he was saying that. And so now that they're giving out reparations, unless they're going to go ahead and admit that it is purely for white people, as now they believe voting is. As now they believe choosing your preferred representative is, they now claim voting rights are only for them. Well, let's test that. Everybody apply for it. And then let's let that go to John Roberts and let him explain. Oh, only white people can get the reparations. Let him explain it. Because I'm thinking if you've ever gotten got by the Justice Department, you could say you've been weaponized and you should apply for the money. Everybody apply for it. This is insane. They are handing out Americans hard earned tax money when Americans can barely afford to eat.
- [41:44]
Jason
I don't mean to cut you off, but didn't Doge take all of our Social Security? Shouldn't we all just file for a claim?
- [41:52]
Joy Reid
They weaponized.
- [41:53]
Jason
They weaponize the Social Security Department against us. They got our. I do.
- [41:57]
Joy Reid
Also weaponized, Jason.
- [41:58]
Jason
I do.
- [41:59]
Joy Reid
I feel weaponized.
- [42:00]
Jason
Cuz I don't know which little schmuck is looking at my stuff.
- [42:02]
Joy Reid
I don't know who's looking. I don't know if one of their little, sorry, little, little, little corn pones are looking at my. Looking at my taxes. I think I feel weaponized. I think we should all go ahead and, and apply for it. And, and what is beautiful about everybody applying is that if, if you are not white and they don't give it to you, sue them and sue them saying it's racial discrimination. Let's let John Roberts test his theory that you can't. You can only do things that are political and not racial. Because if it only goes to people who are white and who are maga, that's a lawsuit the rest of us should get involved in. We should all sue Don Lemon. Let me text Don when I get off this show. Don Lemon a thousand percent Georgia Ford apply for that money because the department. Michael Cohen, who's been long talking about him being self being weaponized, all of them should apply. Don lemon should 1000% put his name on an application and say the government was weaponized against him. Because if that's what we're doing, if that's what we're doing, don't say we can't play. If this is the game we're playing. If this is the game we're playing. Georgia Ford, apply for the money and double dare them to say no. Why explain how you're not. It wasn't what Hunter Biden. Get in there, buddy. Get in there, buddy. Apply for it. Absolutely. Leticia James. Get in there, sis. They weaponize the government against you. Come on, sis. Jack Smith. Get in there, buddy. Jump in, everybody. If. If you have been at all targeted by the Justice Department and they've got $1.7 billion, by the way, it's your money, too. They're going to give it to people who raped children and then attacked the Capitol. Child rapists are going to apply for the money. One of them bragged that he was and tried to bribe his victim by saying, don't worry, victim, when I get my money from Trump. Because Todd Blanch and Trump were telegraphing four months that they were going to get reparations for the January 6ers. I promise you, whoever those unnamed officers who murdered Pretty and Good will apply for the money killer. Cops are going to apply for the money Killer Ice People are going to apply for the money. So I think everyone. What do you say there, Jason? Come on back on. President Obama, apply for the money. Apply for the money. They've been saying that you committed treason and that you should be in prison. You should apply for some money. Michelle Obama, apply for some money. If we're doing reparations, we're doing it. We are going to play every single game you play. If you put a game on the table, you put the game pieces on the table. Don't think we're not going to play. We can see the table. Y' all not going to eat and we don't eat. You're not giving out our money in reparations just to your friends, Donald Trump. If you're giving out money, we all want some of it.
- [44:56]
Jason
Come on, Fonny. Willis, get your.
- [44:58]
Joy Reid
Come on, Fonny. Go ahead and apply for some of that money. And here's the fun thing. This is the best part of all, I promise you. When there's another Democratic president, they better not even play about reparations for enslaved the descendants of enslaved people. Just write the check. Go ahead and start. You all all have our Social Security and banking information that Doge took. So start wiring people the money. The reparations thing now happens. It's now on and popping. Y' all believe in reparations. So do we. We've been saying reparations should happen. Every single indigenous family, every indigenous person that had Your land stolen. You know where your land was. You know where your tribe lived. Start applying for the money. The government was weaponized against you. Every black person that has helped to build this country for free from the very beginning, from 1619, if you didn't
- [45:44]
Jason
get loans, didn't get college education, didn't get job. There you go.
- [45:49]
Joy Reid
The government was weaponized against you every single time.
- [45:51]
Jason
All the sisters who got fired from their jobs in the federal government against. There you go.
- [45:56]
Joy Reid
600,000 black women fired from the federal government. Weaponized. The government was weaponized against you. Sisters go ahead and file for the money. Overwhelm them with applications. Everybody ask for the money. You deserve it. You deserve it certainly more than the J6ers. And you already know that them killer ICE agents are all going to apply. They're trying to. These people are so sick and sadistic and twisted that they are trying to flip the notion of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to say that they only apply to white conservatives. They don't even apply to all white people. Because if you're a white liberal or a white gay person or white and trans, they don't apply to you either. They only apply to white, right wing, fake Christian, idolatrous Trump worshipers. And they're going to then give them your money while you're broke, while your groceries are unaffordable, while your gas is unaffordable. And Trump says it's peanuts. What you're paying for gas. It doesn't matter what you're paying for gas.
- [46:51]
Jason
How about the people who got picked up off the street by ICE who are American citizens, they should get some
- [46:58]
Joy Reid
money or even if they're not American citizens. Yeah, he didn't say American citizens are the only ones who can apply. He said anyone who feels the government was weaponized against them.
- [47:04]
Jason
How about patients in Ohio who talk about either cats? Yes, how about that?
- [47:09]
Joy Reid
Yes, if you.
- [47:10]
Jason
What about the day can daycare centers in Minnesota?
- [47:13]
Joy Reid
Come on, daycare. Come on, come on, daycares.
- [47:15]
Jason
There's a lot of this, man. Let's go for it.
- [47:18]
Joy Reid
Let's do this. Everybody. Because they're going to give your money out. So you may as well try to get some of it back. If this and the other piece I'm going to say here is I want every single January 6th serving Capitol Police officer and every single Metro Police officer. Come on. Mike Bono. Come on. Harry Dunn. Come on, all of you 1-6- heroic officers you should sue the shit out of the Justice Department. Todd Blanche personally, and Donald Trump personally. How Dare they create a reparations fund for the people who try to kill you? How dare they create a reparations fund for the people who try to kill you. Mr. Hodges. Officer Hodges. How dare they? How dare they? If you are a Capitol police officer or a Metro police officer who was harmed, that person screaming in the video that I saw, that's Hodges. Sue. Tell them I want to apply for the money. You should also sue them for even creating a reparations fund for them. How dare these people, they are looting the government. It's like idiomin leaving Uganda with all of the loot. They're taking all the money, guys. They're taking every penny. And they're looting the Titanic as it's going under. It's unbelievable. Yep. What do we got? We're going to find out how to apply. We do not know yet because they have not created the mechanisms. Todd Blanche gave this, did this testimony.
- [48:48]
Jason
I apologize for interjecting. How about this?
- [48:50]
Joy Reid
No, go for it.
- [48:51]
Jason
Let's all start. The readers, the tjrs, the Lemon Nation, everybody gets together. Let's come up with some kind of account, you know, some kind of, you know, Instagram account, website, and everybody, you know, basically we will state what the facts are, what, you know, what the requirements are, and then everybody applies for it. And then we'll have a list of everybody who applied for it and we'll submit it once we find out what the.
- [49:14]
Joy Reid
I think so. And I think we're going to create. We will create a website that's going to be a part of the Joy Reid show collection of websites, and we're going to create one and we're going to chronicle. How do you apply for this money? Where is the application and what is the status of this? Because here's the reality. This is your money, guys. This is your money. And they are literally stealing it on the way out the door. And Donald Trump will take this money and give it to donaldtrump.org, give it to his fail sons who are getting contracts from the federal government. These people, he is gaming the stock market to enrich himself further. They're just robbing the country blind like IDI Amin or Mobutu. On their way out the door, they see the country's going down, the empire is crumbling. The Iran war is the beginning of the end of the American empire. Donald Trump ended the empire and he's looting the treasury on his way out the door. They're stealing everything that's not nailed down on the way out the door. And if you don't grab some of that reparations money, the there won't be anything left. It would not shock me if he has already gone to Fort Knox and taken all the gold home to Mar a Lago. He is building a bunker with a hospital and research facilities under the ballroom. What the hell is going on in this country? And so if you're in Kentucky and you put that Trumper in the United States Senate, then you definitely deserve what you get because Charles Booker will not let them do it. If you are in Alabama and you let idiot Tommy Tuberville become your governor instead of Doug Jones, you deserve what you get. If you don't come up out of your House and vote 20% turnout in Kentucky is embarrassing. If you can get turnout to a decent level, Charles Booker can win. If you can get turnout to a decent level in Texas, Talarico can win because he's running against a nut job. If you can get turnout decent in Mississippi, Colomb can win. If you can get turnout to be decent in the state of Louisiana, you can recall that asshole governor who tried to take your voting rights. Start punishing these thieves. Start punishing these thieves. They are crooks. They are gangsters, they are robbers. They are stealing everything that's not nailed down. And they're not going to stop until someone stops them. And the only people who can stop them them are United States Congresspeople and United States Senators who are willing to stop them. The only people who can stop them are governors who are not on the take. Congress people who are not playing the market with them. People like not, not Fettermans. You need Unfettermans. Fettermans playing the game, getting rich with them. People who are playing ball and getting rich alongside them and helping them steal and driving the getaway car. They all have to go. Guys, we need a complete cleanout of the United States Congress and of the United States, the House and the Senate and a cleanout of these right wing crazy governors. Even if you're a Republican, you like Republicans. Not in this cycle you don't. You have to stop these people. I don't like Thomas Massie. I don't. But I damn sure wanted him to get reelected because at least he isn't stealing.
- [52:25]
Jason
What's that favorite movie quote? It's really famous. It says, I'm sick and tired of it and I'm not going to take it. No damn more Mad as Hell Network.
- [52:35]
Joy Reid
It's called Network.
- [52:35]
Jason
I am mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore. We literally need to just come up with some concrete solutions to this, because, again, I just need to know what the requirements are. I don't want to commit any crime to get the money, but at the end of the day, it's like, no, I just need to know what the requirements are.
- [52:51]
Joy Reid
Drew Gillen didn't commit any crime. The government just went after him to shut him down and make sure he wouldn't run for governor again. Marilyn Mosby, she got her own money out of her 401k, and they attacked her because she dared to prosecute police officers who killed Freddie Gray. She didn't do anything. Tish James did absolutely nothing for the. The Justice Department to go after her. Alen Bragg, you know, Attorney General Bragg or. Or Attorney Bragg. These people had to spend real money. They had to spend money for legal fees because they had to defend themselves against the Department of Justice and Department of Injustice under Pamela Joe, who was weaponized against them. This was weaponized government. If, If. If Hunter Biden's last name was Smith, if he was Hunter Smith, he would have never been prosecuted for that tax crime. Never. There's no circumstance under which he would have been prosecuted. He was. The government was weaponized against him, too. Don Lemon literally was being a journalist covering an event, and same with Georgia Ford. All they did was cover an event, and they're now having to spend legal fees. They should totally get reparations. If this is how we're doing it now, then we want it, too. The people on the deep. You cannot say reparations are literally confined to only supporters of Trump, because if that's what you're doing, we are now in extra constitutional territory. Now we are just the Mafia. Now. We are just a Mafia country where one man gets to decide who's in office, who's not, who gets to decide who gets to have money, who gets to have rep. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Donald. No, no, no, no, no. We are not. We are not 1980s. It ain't going down like that.
- [54:28]
Jason
They are trying to play on faces.
- [54:31]
Joy Reid
We see you, we see what you're doing. And if you're giving out reparations, we want it. Hand it out. Who are you going to give it to? Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. You know who they're going to give it to? They're going to share it out among their friends. ICE killers, you know, insurrectionists, child rapists, people in the Epstein files. That's who Trump wants to give it to, because he needs to keep their loyalty he's going to hand it out to the people he needs to remain loyal. Hell, he might give Tom Blanche a check. This is literally a theft. This is a. Remember when Donald Trump won and I said on the Artist Formerly Known as MSNBC that this was the greatest bank heist in the history of the world. That's what I meant. He came back into office to stay out of prison and to steal. And he is doing it at a rate that is so breathtaking, even the CNBC crowd is shocked by the level of theft, the level of taking, the level of stealing, the level of graft and the level of corruption. Even some Republicans are shocked by the level of open, naked, aggressive corruption. This government is not a government, it is a heist. It is a bank heist. It is a mafia style crime family. They were talking about the Biden crime family. Joe Biden's son did art and sat on a board of a company. These people, Donald Trump's sons have defense contracts. His youngest son sitting on the board of TikTok. Is he even out of college? His son in law is out grifting around the world with his hand out, supposedly negotiating with foreign countries and cutting deals on the side. Foreign governments are dropping money into Trump's crypto. What are we doing here, guys? This isn't a country anymore. This is just a scam. Oh, Lord Jesus, they don't got me all upset, Jason. Let me drink a sip of tea. Lord Jesus.
- [56:27]
Jason
Some righteous anger though.
- [56:29]
Joy Reid
But I'm telling you right now, as soon as we get our website up, baby, yeah, we gonna have everybody apply. Hey, readers, y' all want some money, right? If y' all want some money, y' all get ready. Because once we get our website up, we're getting everyone to apply. We're all going to go in together and get our reparations, the entire readers,
- [56:47]
Jason
family, everybody, what's definitely, let's get that up.
- [56:49]
Joy Reid
Everybody's getting reparations.
- [56:51]
Jason
We'll put up a QR code and. Well, I don't want to tell Sean to start working right now, but.
- [56:55]
Joy Reid
No, but we're going to get it together. And once it's together, guys, once we have our website and we have all of the information, we're going to give you guys all the info that you need because we're not going to let insurrectionists, child rapists, pedophiles and criminals take our hard earned tax money. It people work too damn hard and are paying too much for gas and are going too broke, barely being able to afford groceries. People are struggling Too hard with rent people struggling too hard to hand your money to Todd Blanche to give out to Trump's friends.
- [57:28]
Jason
That's exactly what they did. As my man Tupac sitting over my shoulder, the quote says, we don't live to fight, we fight to live. You know what I mean? So let's just do what we need to do. But we got some bills we need to pay.
- [57:40]
Joy Reid
Yeah, let's pay. Let's face bill. Speaking of things, speaking of being out here in these streets trying to make sure we can afford our lives, to make sure this show is on, we rely on some incredible sponsors. And so we get our money honestly. We do it honestly. We literally have people who support the show and we appreciate them every day. And one of those amazing sponsors is our friends at Helix. And actually, this one is important because everybody knows a good night's sleep sets you up for a great day. And as a person with longstanding sleep issues, hello Insomnia. I truly appreciate Helix. Like, more than you know. Jason and I were not fans of our old mattress, so we were excited to receive our brand new Helix king size mattress with a breathable mattress and also beautiful support. And also we were able to go online and pick exactly the mattress that we need. And boy, do we see why. A study has found that 82% of those who have slept on a Helix saw an increase in their deep sleep cycle. And Helix is not just an incredible mattress, the most award winning mattress honestly in the entire country. They will also deliver your mattress right to your door with free shipping in the US and they will give you a 120 night sleep trial and a limited lifetime warranty. You can also take advantage of their Happy with Helix guarantee. Rest easy with seamless returns and exchanges. The Happy with Helix guarantee offers a risk free customer first experience designed to ensure that you are completely satisfied with your new mattress. Helix again, the most awarded mattress brand in the entire country, tested and reviewed by experts at Forbes and Wired. If you want to get one and you want to sleep better, because sleeping, you really need it in these stressful times. I'm so stressed if sleeping on my side, my arm goes numb. Can't live with that, need good sleep, need a great mattress, do that. If you want to get a new Helix Mattress, go to helixsleep.com joy for 27% off site wide. That is helix sleep.com joy for 27% off Site wide. And this offer is exclusive to the Joy Reid show audience. So make sure that you enter our show name after checkout so that they Know that we sent you helixleep.com joy. All right, so we're going to move on, Jason, because we are. We are going to go. We are going to go right on to the D block. And so we are already an hour, too. I cannot believe an entire hour went by Jason that fast. I think I was so upset. So upset.
- [59:52]
Jason
You should be.
- [59:53]
Joy Reid
That I kind of blew through a lot of the stuff that I wanted to do. But I apologize. Thank you for your, your, your, your, your patience with my rage. Because that was crazy. These people. But I have more. It's. I wish it was. I wish it was over. But I want to let you all know that this is our two of the Joy Reid show. If you have not done so already, please hit like and subscribe because we really appreciate it. The algorithm loves it and we love you guys. So we want you guys to be family. We don't want you to be visitors, want you to move in. So move in by going, hitting, like,
- [60:25]
Jason
hit that notification bell.
- [60:26]
Joy Reid
And the notification. Notification thing is cool because then you'll know we're going to go live. And a lot of people are like, oh, my God, I'm so excited I caught you live. You will always catch us live if you hit the notification button. That's the reason that you do that. The notification button is super, super helpful. I also want to thank one of our other incredible sponsors, and they are our friends at Irestore. So. So let me just tell you real quick about this Illumina face mask. It is great. It is a relaxing way to recover from this daily makeup life and do something great for my skin, which can be challenging when you're in this business, but even if you're just in the regular world with all of the, you know, elements hitting you all day and all the things you have to deal with and the stress and all of that, but you can literally use this Illumina face mask while chilling, post news, watching a movie, just relaxing. And with Memorial Day coming, we are all looking for new ways to renew and restore. With Irestore's Memorial Day savings event running through May 26, that's one more week. It is the perfect time to upgrade your hair and skincare routine. Irestore has been leading the way in red light therapy for over two decades, helping shape the category with clinically backed devices trusted by more than 500,000 customers worldwide, making this event a celebration of the community that continues to grow with them. Now, to mark the occasion, Iris Store is highlighting some of their most advanced devices which are designed to support your both both your hair and your skin health. So the IRAR Elite is their most advanced laser hair growth system. If you're having trouble with hair loss, it uses 300 lasers and 200 LEDs to help regrow thicker, healthier hair in as little as three months. It's effortless. You just wear it while working, reading or unwinding at night. And the Illumina Face mask, lightweight cordless packed with two times more LEDs than other top masks, it targets those fine lines of breakout, the dullness. With triple wavelength light therapy for just 10 minutes a few times a week, you get brighter, smoother, healthier looking skin. And here's the best part. During this Memorial Day sales event, you can bundle the IR Elite and the Illumina Face mask together, making it the perfect time to upgrade your routine. Whether you're refreshing your regimen or finally giving your hair and skin the attention they deserve, this bundle delivers amazing, powerful results with an even better value for a limited time. So IR Store is kicking off their Memorial Day savings event with some huge discounts on their red light therapy devices. Right now you can save on customer favorites like the IR Store Elite helmet and the Illumina face mask. Just head over to irestore.com and use the code joy to take advantage of the sale. So that's joy restore.com so please support our show and tell them that we sent you. Give your hair and skin the upgrade you deserve and feel confident and refreshed. Okay, so just to go back.
- [62:53]
Jason
I'm sorry. Yeah. What block we going to go back to B? Or we could go.
- [62:57]
Joy Reid
We going right to D. I don't skipped all the way through B and
- [63:00]
Jason
C. We're going right to D. We're
- [63:01]
Joy Reid
going right to D. We're going right to D. That's where we're going. We're going right to D. So just by way of information, let me just give you guys some historical. You know I love to do a little history. Let me just give you a little historical information. The history of dictators looting their countries is long and egregious. So IDI Amin, who I mentioned earlier, he allegedly fled Uganda with an estimated 100 to $300 million. After looting state resources and using the country's coffers basically as his personal family bank account post Mubarak was accused of looting 40 to 70 billion dollars from Egypt through though the allegations were never actually fully proven, Ferdinand Marcos and his notoriously shoe happy wife remember Imelda Marcos. They're believed to have thiefed roughly $10 billion from the Philippines. Jair Bolsonaro faces corruption and financial misconduct allegations in Brazil with where he's accused of amassing some $1.2 million in ill gotten wealth as that country's Trump like leader. So he's like on the lower end. Mobutu Sese Seiko allegedly stole between 5 and 9.7 billion dollars US from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The four afore named Zamir Zahir sorry before he was ousted in 1997 and fled to first Togo and then to Morocco and in Iran. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his self styled royal family were estimated to control 20 to 35 billion dollars in assets when they fled during the 1979 revolution that led to the rule of the ayatollahs. Independent experts and US treasury estimates have placed the value of his family's wealth now controlled by his exiled son who wants to return to the throne in Iraq at roughly 50 to $100 million US now by those lights, Donald Trump is kind of like a middle level dictator in training, right? It's estimated that as president he and his family have amassed a Fortune north of $6.5 billion, mainly through highly corrupt crypto deals, including foreign investments from the UAE and more. His truth social media company which financially benefits him but his investors not so much. Branding deals and products he's literally continuing to hawk while president. And if you expand it out, you know, to the, to the sons, the fail sons, defense contractors for Uday and Kousse, who also partnered in his crypto deals and also the real estate deals and other licensing deals that are also brokered by his son Jared, who supposedly also manages his money while also acting as a US envoy. They're all in it together. And now to add to that, Trump is also trading on stocks that he himself is rhetorically boosting, mentioning companies on his social media platform after buying shares in those companies and thus pumping up the value. Something the kids used to call insider trading. Hello, Martin Stewart. Here's Trump's minion, J.D. vance. I could just call him anything, he had so many names. JD Vance berating a reporter for daring to ask about it.
- [66:04]
J.D. Vance
Thank you, Mr. Vice President. The President's financial disclosures were released recently and they showed a lot of stock trades in companies that he has talked up at events, official events at the White House on his true social account, sometimes even putting the stock ticker symbols in his posts and encouraging people to buy their stock. Americans, according to recent polling, are increasingly describing the President as corrupt and trading
- [66:42]
Barney Frank (Interview Clips)
stocks this is a hell of a question.
- [66:44]
J.D. Vance
Thank you, sir. Trading, trading individual stocks is something that you said that public officials should not be able to do when you ran for Senate all those years ago. And, and yet the President, who arguably has access to more non public information than your average senator, is not only buying and selling individual stocks either through his, through his trust.
- [67:08]
Joy Reid
Okay, what's the question?
- [67:10]
J.D. Vance
Is, the question, sir, is how can you and your administration argue to Americans that you're cleaning up corruption, you're preventing fraud, you're fighting the sorts of things that harm people and people's financial situations when the President seems to be talking up stocks that he owns, selling them and enriching himself.
- [67:32]
Barney Frank (Interview Clips)
Okay, so here, let me, let me, let me answer your question here. That was a doozy. Before I answer your question, I want to just observe. There are different ways to ask a question.
- [67:41]
Jason
Okay?
- [67:42]
Barney Frank (Interview Clips)
You can just ask a question, try to get your answer, or you could do like a speech where you say, you know, Mr. Vice President, every, you know, you're a terrible human being and so is the President, so is the entire cabinet. And then I'm like, what's your question? And then your question is, how dare you. Come on, man, have a little bit of objectivity in the way that you ask these questions. Because there were a lot of things in that speech masquerading as a question that didn't actually get asked.
- [68:08]
Joy Reid
Okay, your reminder that JD Vance is a military veteran, but what, what he did in the military is he was a military journalist. He wasn't an actual fighting military man. He was a journalist, military man. So apparently he thinks he's an expert in journalism. So he wanted to give a little journalism course to the person asking him a very irrelevant question because he didn't really. I think what he was doing was called filling. He was trying to think of his answer while he was filling and berating the questioner. So, okay, J.D. what's the actual answer to that man's question?
- [68:37]
Barney Frank (Interview Clips)
Number one, the president doesn't sit at the Oval Office on his computer on his like, Robinhood account, buying and selling stocks. That's absurd. He has independent wealth advisors who manage his money. He is a wealthy person. He has had success in business. He's not making these stock trades himself. And your question imputes that. It's sort of, it doesn't say it exactly. But a reasonable person listening to that question would assume the President is sitting around and doing that. He's not. Second of all, you're right. I am a big fan of banning Members of Congress from trading stocks. So is the President of the United States. All of us believe that nobody should be taking proprietary information gained from public service and buying and selling stocks. We want to ban. We want to ban that. We want to ban that process. And I think the way to lead by example is banning that process, banning that approach and making it illegal, which is exactly what the President has proposed doing.
- [69:33]
Joy Reid
Okay, first of all, thank you, Nubian Queen, for gifting 10 the joy reach of memberships. That is very kind of you. Thank you very much, Nubian Queen. We appreciate you, 6391. First of all, J.D. vance, you're an asshole. You've always been an asshole. Every time you speak, it makes me cringe in my spirit. Because you don't even know how to say a normal sentence. That doesn't make you sound like a complete and utter ass. You're a horse's ass. Okay, let's start with that. Number two, why was everyone in that room laughing? What were y' all chuckling about? Journalists. Can we do something where we don't chuckle when the regime members say something? It's. It's. They're. They're not. They're not doing a comedy routine for you, okay? They're not performing for you. Stop chuckling nervously. Like you feel like you have to laugh like Saddam Hussein is speaking. And you're afraid if you don't laugh at his jokes, you're gonna be taken out to the stockade. And if Donald Trump calls you piggy or something, say something back. Come on, journalists. Stop chuckling when they talk. I hate that. It's annoying. But the reality of it is, no. James, David, John, Donald, whatever the hell your name is. Nobody thinks that Donald Trump is sitting on his personal phone trading stocks. We know he has a broker. We're not idiots. We know that he goes out and he buys a company stock. He touts that stock. Once that stock goes up, he calls his broker and tells him to buy it. Or he just profits from it. He tells them to buy it. And I'm sorry, the other way around. He buys a stock, then he talks it up, and his broker does the transaction. We don't think Donald Trump, with his tiny little fingers is typing into his own account. Of course not. He's too busy tweeting or having that little young thing coming in his room and tweeting for him and showing him stuff on a printout and then tweeting it for him in all caps. We know he has other things to do, like building his ballroom in his ark to Trump and handing out our money in reparation. So, no, we know that he has a broker. We're not idiots. Hmm. Let's now hear from one of Trump's paymasters, one of the people who's probably gonna be getting reparations from Trump because he said something I think that was kind of quite revealing because so, so we. This is a casino, and the house always wins. Donald Trump is. Is the house. And so he says, hey, this is a great company. After he's bought it, the stock goes up, he benefits. Or he says, this company sucks. He probably sells that stock and sorts it. People were betting mysteriously on whether or not Donald Trump was going to attack Iran. And people were making hundreds of millions of dollars betting. We suddenly have a literal casino operating in Washington run by Trump and the Trump crime family. And the people who are benefiting the most are people like Jeff Bezos. Right. Who also probably is trading through his broker and not himself. Here's Jeff Bezos talking about taxes. Justice Department has this new fund that was
- [72:09]
Jason
Trump or you said Bezos.
- [72:13]
Joy Reid
Oh, oh, you know, let's do this one. Play this. D3. You can play this one. D3. What? TRUMP asking about the taxpayers. My bad. Justice Department has this new fund that was announced today, $1.7 billion. Why should taxpayers pay for the January.
- [72:32]
Donald Trump (Clips)
Well, it's been very well received. I have to tell you. I know very little about it. I wasn't involved in, in the whole creation of it and, and the negotiation. But this is reimbursing people that were horribly treated. Horribly treated. It's anti. Weaponization. They've been weaponized. They've been, in some cases, imprisoned wrongly. They paid legal fees that they didn't have. They've gone bankrupt. Their lives have been destroyed and they turn out to be right. I mean, it was a terrible period of time in the.
- [73:02]
Joy Reid
Let's just shut him up because. Yeah. Enrique Tario was. Was it. Is Ricky Tari getting a check? I'm probably. So we're going to also apply to. Now. Let's hear. Yeah. And I mean, he's literally. Yeah. Okay. You're going to pay your January 6th insurrections. We got it. Let's hear Jeff Bezos. And Elizabeth Warren has made this point repeatedly. I think she's made any reference to you. And others are able to pay a lower tax rate even though you're paying an enormous.
- [73:25]
Barney Frank (Interview Clips)
Some in taxes.
- [73:26]
Joy Reid
A lower tax rate than some. Maybe I am.
- [73:29]
Jeff Bezos
These people sometimes say that, that, you know, I don't pay taxes. So True. I pay billions of dollars in taxes, and it's a perfect. Again, if people want me to pay more billions. Right, then let's have that debate. But don't pretend you know that this. That that's going to solve the problem. You could. You could double the taxes I pay, and it's not going to help that teacher in Queens, I promise you. This is. So you can't connect those two things, not logically. You know, there. There are more examples. Why is rent expensive? Why is rent so expensive? I recently saw somebody blamed it on Airbnb. Okay, Airbnb is not the cost of expensive rent. In fact, it's been almost finished here. One sec. It's already been outlawed, right, In New York City, and rents are still very high. So we know Airbnb isn't causing high rents. What's really causing high rent is government intervention. Talk about, you know, making the tax system more progressive. How about we start by having the nurse in Queens not pay taxes? Why somebody at all? Why is some. Why is a nurse in Queens who makes $75,000 a year paying more than $1,000 a month in tax taxes? That's $1,000 a month. That could help with rent or groceries or anything. And so. And by the way, do you know what that all adds up to? The bottom half of income earners in this country pay only 3% of the taxes. It's only 3%. We can find 3%. So we don't have. It's a small amount of money for the government. You know that. And really, the more I thought about it, to me, it's kind of absurd that we're doing this. You know, we shouldn't be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington. They should be sending her.
- [75:22]
Joy Reid
First of all, you fool, no one is saying that Airbnb is why rents are so high. We're saying that people like you, Jeff Bezos, billionaires, buying up real estate and owning the entire market, blocks and blocks and blocks in New York City and then jacking up all the rents simultaneously is why rents are so high. Because rich people are buying up all the real estate and then jacking up the rent. That's why it's so high. Including the rich people who took previously, before it was banned, and bought up a lot of real estate and flipped it for Airbnb. A lot of people bought Airbnbs who were not really super rich people because they just needed a secondary income. They can't even get that now in New York City. But people like you, Jeff, bezos or why? And on this 3% of people, they only pay a small percent. They don't. They, they, they, they hardly pay any taxes. No, no. Poor people pay much more taxes than you because they pay sales taxes every time they shop. They pay gas taxes every time they have to fill up their, their, their gas tank. They're paying all of these incredible taxes. You don't pay a lot of taxes. There's a cap on how much you're paying for Social Security that is like $119,000. You can make a billion dollars, and you're only taxed on the first 119,000. So you're the reason that the Social Security trust fund is running, is running short of money. And people like you who refuse to pay your fair share of federal income taxes, you really could carry that. Teacher and queen. Maybe you should pay for a government that's benefiting you. You're the one that gets defense contracts. You're the one that's getting, you know, contracts to send ships into near space. You're benefiting from the government. The average teacher's not benefiting from the war in Iran. The average teacher is not benefiting from Donald Trump's crypto scams. You are so. You're right. I agree with you. You should pay all the taxes. Let's go ahead and double your taxes and see how that goes. Let's bring in my friend Mehdi Hasan because we want to go ahead and talk about this and some other things. The proprietor of the incredibly, hugely successful Zatteo, Mehdi, your thoughts on Jeff Bezos? Thoughts that his taxes are not too low? It's that the taxes of a teacher should be zero.
- [77:27]
Mehdi Hasan
Yeah. I mean, there's so much to say about Jeff Bezos, Joy. I don't know where to begin. He is a Trump toady. He is someone who. Did you notice in the CNBC interview today, he also kind of name checked Obama. I still get advice from Barack Obama. And then he goes, donald Trump is really mellow and calm in the second term. Donald Trump last week posted 50 times in three hours in the middle of the night, including saying that Obama is a demonic force and a traitor. Right? How did his pal Barack feel about that when he called him for advice? The whole thing is absurd. But look, when he says, Donald Trump has good ideas, this is exactly what he's referring to, Joy. He's referring to keeping his taxes down. When billionaires say that politicians have good ideas, that means that billionaires are being taken care of. And in this presidency, billionaires are 100% being taken care of by Donald Trump by the quote, unquote, big beautiful bill which reduced taxes for the top 1%, top 0.1%. And we know what they've done with corporation tax as well. Amazon, even before Trump. I mean, this is a longstanding, systemic problem in this country. Amazon, before Trump was paying very little tax. There were some years where a lot of the billionaires and big corporations were paying zero taxes. I think of Elon Musk as well. And of course, Donald Trump, who famously said in 2016 on the debate stage with Hillary Clinton, I only stupid people pay taxes. And now he's just avoided apparently $100 million fine by making sure that he and his family never, ever get audited again. So this is all part and parcel of the same thing, Joy. This is not about teachers. It's not about teachers salaries. It's not about public schools. They want us to look over there and say, this is about inefficient government. Every super rich person I've ever met who says they don't want to pay taxes, they never say it's because I'm a greedy bastard. Of course they don't. They say, because it's a waste of. We should deal with bureaucracy. You know, I meet so many people like, oh, all these foreign wars. As if they give a shit about foreign wars. They just want any excuse to say, if I pay my fair share, that's going to be wasted by the bloated, evil big government state. And I think, look, we're in a very different climate. No one takes Jeff Bezos seriously when he says this stuff. There was a time when tech billionaires had huge respect. People love them, thought Silicon Valley was the future, thought they were cool. Not anymore. The American public is in a very angry place when it comes to income inequality, when it comes to the starving of government. You have a democratic socialist in New York, Zoran Mandani, who, God bless him, this week said something so amazing. I'm sorry, I'm going to sound like a sycophant now. Not because I'm standing for Zoran Manani, but because I feel so strongly about this. For years, it has bothered me that the Democrats embraced Ronald Reagan's ludicrous phrase that the worst words you hear from is, I'm here from the government. I'm here to help. Zoran Muhammad took that apart this week. He said, no, those are not the worst words in the English language. It's, I'm poor, I can't afford to put food on the table. I'm starving. Those are the kind of words that we should be thinking about. I remember Bill Clinton famously said big government is not the solution. Actually, big government can be the solution many of the times. And America's government is far too small. And that is the problem we have. And it's far too small because of people like Jeff Bezos.
- [80:23]
Joy Reid
Yeah. And the thing about it is the average person I think agrees that they don't wanna pay taxes to a government that's gonna waste it. But what a regular person thinks of as waste is a war in Iran for no absolute reason that we can decide genocide in Gaza, that we're paying for 2,000 pound bombs to drop on children in Iran and apparently now also in Lebanon as well as on the Gaza Strip. The average person does not understand why we have to pay in our taxes to build a ballroom that Trump said is billionaire friends were going to build. Like I think the average person agrees that their taxes are being wasted. They're just paying more of them.
- [80:58]
Barney Frank
Yeah.
- [80:58]
Mehdi Hasan
No, and that's key. Right? No one's saying we're pro waste. No one's saying the left wants to waste money. Quite the opposite. I'm all for a Doge that roots out waste and corruption. The problem is Doge and Elon Musk and Donald Trump and the Republican Party think that USAID is waste. They think that soup kitchens in Sudan are waste. They think that supporting women and girls in Afghanistan is a waste. They think fighting HIV in Africa is a waste. I don't. I think what's a waste is. Yes, building a ballroom. I think what's a waste is giving no bid contracts to your friends at triple the price of what they're worth to build whatever it is reflecting pools and statues and all other bullshit that he's doing in dc. I think that's a waste. I think the Iran war is a waste. I think money to Israel is a waste. I think the Pentagon budget. Yeah, let's root out waste. Isn't it funny that Musk never touched the Pentagon when he was doing Doge Musk, a great defense contractor of the United States of America, never touched the institute that gives out so much money to contractors, so much money to big corporations. A Pentagon that has failed its audit, what, seven, eight, nine times doesn't get through a basic audit. I'm all for rooting out ways. So start in the Department of Defense.
- [82:03]
Joy Reid
Yeah. You know, and Thomas Massie because has been kind of on two sides. I think he also thinks USA is a waste. Wait till Ebola comes here. You're going to really appreciate Thomas Massey
- [82:12]
Mehdi Hasan
has some very good views and lots
- [82:13]
Joy Reid
of views, a lot of crazy views. But his loss, what do you think it means? And what do you think it signals, if anything?
- [82:19]
Mehdi Hasan
So, I mean, look, it's very simple. I don't need to tell you what his loss means. Just listen to the people who beat him. They're very clear about why it was so important they beat him. You look at Politico, did a very big piece a few days ago ahead of the election where they interviewed people in APAC and people in the Republican Jewish Coalition and people spending money to try and unseat him. The most expensive House primary in American history. And they said very clearly that this is a critical race, their words, not mine, and that we must build a wall and keep these people out, these voices who are critical of Israel, out of the party, out of power. Right? That was what this was about. Let's not pretend it was about anything else. I know lots of people are now saying this was all about Trump. Obviously, Trump played a big role, but the idea that Massey would have just lost without tens of millions of dollars being put in by Miriam Adelson and Paul Singer and all the other billionaires putting money into this race is absurd. There's a reason why it was the most expensive primary in American history. Because one side, the pro Israel side, wanted to make clear what happens if you step out of line, especially on the right. And they made their point and they've sent a message like every good mob boss does. And look, the three most expensive House primaries in American history have all happened in the last couple of years. And they were Thomas Massey number one, Jamal Bowman number two, and Cori Bush number three. I wonder what they have in common. What does the libertarian white guy in Kentucky have in common with the New York black man and the black woman in Missouri? Oh, could it be Israel? But if you say that, oh, that's anti Semitism. What's interesting now is people can see with their eyes when they're being gaslit. They can see what's happening in front of them. They know what's going on. The MAGA folks and the AIPAC folks are making clear what's going on. What's the guy you and I have dealt with in the past? He's definitely attacked me. Probably attacked you from the New York Post. Odious dude columnist goes off every pro Palestinian voice. Son of a very famous neocol. Potteret. John Potteret.
- [84:06]
Joy Reid
John Potter, yes.
- [84:08]
Mehdi Hasan
Horrific racist bigot, anti Arab bigot. You know, Israel Obsessive. The man who said Trump can say shylock as many times as he likes as long as he bombs Iran. That's how they weaponize anti Semitism. His word's not mine. I just saw a clip of him today where he says, this is good what we did to Massey. We need to use Jewish money. His words, not mine.
- [84:27]
Young Survivor of San Diego Mosque Shooting
We.
- [84:27]
Mehdi Hasan
Which we have lots of his words, not mine, to defeat people who step out, who go against us. It's like, all right, number one, you're saying this out in the open. I'm not if I say anti Semitism, but Polaroids are saying it. And number two, people know this now. There's no point denying it. It's clear.
- [84:42]
Joy Reid
Yeah. And I mean, I can tell you that in the state of Maryland, there's a race to replace Steny Hoyer, that this is playing out on the other side because the pro Israel, they've taken the APAC off their name and are propping up a young man named Adrian Bofo who's gotten all the right endorsements, but who is running as a, quote, unquote, friend of the state of Israel, meaning that he would be a vote to continue to send the bombs. And so this is something. And that's why we're focusing on that race in the show. But to talk about this, because the other side of that is that they are very sensitive about the idea of what is anti Israel or is anti Semitic, in their view, not so sensitive about things that are Islamophobic. And we just have this horrific. Or that. Yeah. Or that are really anti Semitic. Indeed. What happened in San Diego, this horrific case in which the Islamic center of San Diego was targeted Monday morning. Three people died. One heroic security guard who literally put his body between these gunmen and a lot of children inside. Let me let you hear this. This is D5. This is a young kid. Because we need to really understand this is something that a child survived. So let's play this video of a young survivor of that shooting.
- [85:55]
Young Survivor of San Diego Mosque Shooting
I heard, like, a bunch of bad stuff, like gunshots. Now, I went inside the closet with my whole class. We heard, like, 12 or, like 16 gunshots. And then the Swatz team said, FPA, open up. Then they opened the door. They told us to put our hands up and form a big line. We were, like, walking inside the Masala, all of us. We saw the sheikh's apartment inside the mosque. And, like, it was broken down. The gold stuff was broken, floor on the floor. And then we went. We went down. We went from the Hut Station, and then we saw a bunch of bad stuff, people laying down and, yeah, bad stuff. I felt a bit scared. My legs were shaking in my hands and my, my head was like hurting me a lot. I felt like a rock.
- [86:51]
Joy Reid
He said, I felt like a rock. Poor little sweetie. I mean, this is. How do you give a. Give an assessment of how the US Media has responded to this?
- [87:02]
Mehdi Hasan
Before I get to the media, I'm just reading some of your commenters there saying no one should have to experience this. No child should have to do this. Let's just be clear. Put aside San Diego mosque, put aside the Islamophobia, put aside the far right gunman, put aside Internet radicalization. Just park all that for a moment and just look at another mass shooting, right? Put aside all the politics, put aside all the reasoning and just look at what actually happened. It was a mass shooting in one sense. It was shocking and outrageous. It wasn't shocking at all. It is part of American life and it shouldn't be, but it is. We have decided because of the power of the nra, another lobby that we don't talk enough about because of the Republican Party's intransigence and culture wars. We have decided, because of the Supreme Court, we have decided that children should be traumatized in this country. Not just gunned down, but children who aren't gunned down. This little boy survived. None of those 140 kids, thank God, thanks to the heroics of that security guard and the other two victims who distracted the shooter. None of those children in the school were killed. But they saw horrific stuff they should never have to see. They heard horrific stuff they should never have. They're going to have to live with that for the rest of their lives. And there are thousands of children like that across this country. And it's the only country in the world, the only country in the democratic world where children have to go through this on a regular, daily, weekly, monthly basis. So that's just number one. Number two, in terms of kind of the media, it is, in many ways it is being treated just like any other shooting. We're not treating it like the, quote, unquote, terrorist attack that it is. I say quote, unquote because I'm not a fan of the word. Terrorist is a very politically loaded term, but the way it's used by others, it should be used in this case, right? If terrorism is everything else they tell us it is, then it's clearly what this is. These are two radicalized young men, teenagers. What a country we live in where teenagers are carrying out acts of political violence to teenagers. Look at their manifestos, quote unquote, horrible word for their online rantings. They're politicized. They went there to carry out an act which they believe was to accelerate. They've demonic, dark dystopian vision of the future. It's a manifesto that's anti Muslim but also anti Jewish, also anti gay, also anti woman. These people are, you know, all of the above. And the media is treating it like, you know, oh well that's, that's bad, it's bad. We'll cover it and then, but it's not, it's not five alarm fire, it's not rolling. I mean, don't even get me started on Fox where Sean Hannity gave it like I think a sentence then moved on. But look, the reality is that Muslims are treated like second class citizens and second class victims in this country and across the west. In London last week, Joy, there was a massive far right rally led by a thug called Tommy Robinson. Huge Islamophobia where they mocked women in burqas. They said, no more Islam in this. We need to remove Islam from power. It's not in power. And imagine, imagine if that rally had said the same thing about the Jewish community or even the black community. It would be the end of the world. Anti black racism and anti Semitism are huge problems in this country. I'm not trying to downplay anti Semitism and anti black racism, but what I would say is both of those things are taken seriously by the media and political establishments in this country. What isn't taken seriously is anti Muslim bigotry which is treated as well, as we saw after San Diego. Well, they deserved it, that mosque. Oh, it's an extremist mosque. It isn't. But even if it was, you can't justify violence. And you had Republican politicians, you had the New York Post, you had other papers saying oh well, maybe they deserved it. That was the message basically. It was victim blaming.
- [90:12]
Joy Reid
Yeah. I mean the reality too is that this situation kind of brought to fore like one of the kind of facts about the Muslim community is just how multiracial it is. Right. I mean just, if you could just put up D5, I mean this, and you can turn this down a little bit down. This clip is circulating online because the, you know, the hero main security guard who drew the fire to himself, he's a father of eight, there he is. And he had just given a random kind of interview to just some folks where he was talking about his favorite foods and you know this is a black Muslim, and a third of African Americans happen to be Muslim. And I think people forget about that as well. So when you're talking about the Muslim community, it is a multiracial community. His name is Amin Abdullah. His family is now in mourning. And then, Jason, if you could put up the picture of the other two. This is D7. You could see these three very different culturally, very different ethnically, but all three heroic in this moment. And, you know, those are three people that Pete Hegseth would throw out of the military. Right. And would refuse to laud as heroes at all, even though they did literally,
- [91:15]
Mehdi Hasan
they couldn't get to be generals in the Texas military. I interviewed a woman today, Syrian American, whose child was in that class. And she and her husband are actually very good friends with one of the victims there, the elderly gentleman who was in his 70s. Unfortunately, I feel forget his name off top of my head. But he passed away. And they were talking about what a great man he was. And these two gentlemen either side of Amin Abdullah were heroes in their own ways. According to police, they distracted the shooter long enough that the kids were able to get out. And, you know, this is a country where these people will be forgotten tomorrow. This incident will be forgotten tomorrow. And then we will only talk about Muslims as threats, as people who don't assimilate as terrorists. And it's just, you know, it's. It's astonishing, the double standards. Joy, we take anti Semitism, rightly so seriously. The Republicans have held, I believe, something like 10, 12 hearings in Congress in recent years just on anti Semitism. Do you know how many they've held on Islamophobia? None. Zero. They did hold one on anti Muslim hate, which they rolled into an anti Semitism hearing. And even at that one, the one Muslim witness, my friend Maya Berry from the Arab Discrimination Anti Arab Discrimination Committee, Senator John Kennedy Luz, attacked her and called her a Hezbollah and Hamas supporter. So at the one hearing where they tried to talk about anti Muslim, they attacked the only Muslim witness. So this is what really bothers me. Well, I was on the Piers Morgan show earlier, and he was trying to give me statistics about who are the greater victims of hate crimes, as if it's some kind of Olympics of victimhood. And my point is not who's killed more? Are there more anti Semitic attacks? Are there more Islamophobia? That's not the point. The point is, do we take certain types of hatred seriously and do we ignore other types of hatred? And that is the problem in the US and the UK and across the west today.
- [92:48]
Joy Reid
Yeah, I mean, and the names of the other two gentlemen are Mansoor Kaziha and Nadir Awad. So we just want to say.
- [92:53]
Mehdi Hasan
So it was Mansoor Kaziha, who's. Whose friend was on my show today. We taped an interview with her and she said what a wonderful gentleman he was. He, he ran the tuck shop, the snack shop at the masjid. He was a handyman, you know, gentle old folk killed in cold blood by two young men radicalized online. You know, you asked about Bezos earlier. You know, Big Tech has a huge, has a big question to answer about what role they've played all of our social media platforms in radicalizing people, in allowing people to be radicalized. You know, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, all these people, they know what they're doing when they allow people to propagate hate unchecked online, when they amplify that hate. I mean, there was a genocide. There was a genocide against the Rohingya, right, in Burma, which Facebook belatedly held their hands up to and said, we may have played a role in that, in a genocide. So if that doesn't make people sit up and think, you know what, we need to really rethink how we are allowing people to use our sites, I don't know what will.
- [93:50]
Joy Reid
Well, I mean, and the other piece of it, of course, is guns and the availability of guns. This, you know, Cain Clark. And first of all, how weird this is a white supremacist with pro Nazi ideology, Jason D8, but apparently also a guy who wore cornrows for whatever reason. I don't even understand what's happening here with that person. But that is kind of what's happening. Right? You have.
- [94:12]
Mehdi Hasan
The other one was Caleb Velasquez, right. Was that the name Latino who talks about it in his manifesto about how it doesn't matter that he has Mexican roots, he can still be a white nationalist.
- [94:21]
Joy Reid
That's correct. And so Nick Prentice, this odd kind of juxtaposition of sort of pining for like black culture and black cultural norms, but also hating black and brown people, or if you're a Latino self, hate, like wanting very badly to be part of white supremacism, as does Nick Fuentes, who's a whole Mexican. Right. He's Mexican. And it's this odd thing that's happening. And to your point, social media is really amplifying it. And then this kid, Kane Clark was able to get not one, but multiple guns from his mom, who luckily did call the authorities, say her son was suicidal, but she has guns all up in the house.
- [94:56]
Mehdi Hasan
Guns, social media, parents who don't know what their kids are up to. There are a lot of factors going on here. The hate from the Republican Party. I mean, we live in a. When I read that line in the manifesto from one of the. One of those two teenagers who says, I don't hate Muslims, I hate Islam. I hate a religion that's invading my country, I'm thinking, wow, I've heard that line before. Where have I heard that line before? I've heard that line from elected members of Congress. I've heard that line from new atheists. I've heard that line from liberals and centrists who say, you know what? You know, I'm not. I'm not against Muslims. I'm just against Islam. As if that is a kind of safe distinction. Well, that's what the shooters said in San Diego. And I think the more you demonize people, the more you dehumanize people, the more you use this rhetoric of invasion. Some of us tried to call out. Remember, there was a time, Joy, you and I are old enough to remember the Trump first term, saying invader was controversial, saying replacement was controversial. Today it's mainstreamed. It's normal on the right.
- [95:51]
Joy Reid
Yeah. And in fact, one of the people who propagated the idea of white replacement, Tucker Carlson, a lot of people on the left are texting me his clips as if he's some sort of hero because he got one thing right. It is not for the genocide in Gaza.
- [96:04]
Mehdi Hasan
This is a big problem. He's apologized for having enabled Trump. He's apologized for, you know, coming late to the Palestine issue. You know, great, I'm all for apologies. I would like to hear an apology for creating an atmosphere of hate and demonization towards migrants and people of color.
- [96:20]
Joy Reid
Yeah, indeed. And the last thing on this point is that to your point, all of this scaremongering about Sharia law and Islam taking over, the statistics say that Muslim citizens in this country are much more likely to be the victims of violence by white supremacists, who are the foremost propagators of violence on the streets of the United States, than they are to commit it. The majority of these mass shooters are generally white supremacists.
- [96:48]
Mehdi Hasan
The mass shooters in this country tend to be young white men radicalized online. Domestic terrorists in these countries tend to be white men radicalized by, as you say, white supremacy, Christian nationalism, fascism, maga. And that is a reality. And then they don't want us to know that reality so they. There's been this concerted campaign on the right. Joe, you've seen that in the wake of these alleged assassination attempts on Donald Trump, in the wake of the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk, they have jumped relentlessly, cynically, meticulously. They're very good at the right in message discipline and going. See, it's the left that's behind political violence. It's the left that's pushing violence. Ignoring years. Decades of data showing that the threat of political violence comes overwhelmingly from the right. And in fact, now they've institutionalized it. Joy, just a couple of weeks ago, Sebastian Gorka, the head of counterterrorism for the White House National Security Council, bizarre individual put out a document on the national terror. National. The White House anti terror strategy identified three threats, three terrorist threats that the US Government would be focusing on. The big three threats, narco terrorists, Islamic terrorists, and violent left wing terrorists.
- [97:57]
Jeff Bezos
Of course.
- [97:58]
Mehdi Hasan
Who's missing, who's missing from that list? Maybe the group that have committed the most killings in America over the last 20, 30, 40 years, according to every single database out there. And by the way, Sebastian Gorka has tweeted not a word about this terrorist attack in the United States. He is the guy in charge of counterterrorism. Not a word. The vast majority of Republican members of the House and Senate. I saw Bethany Allen, formerly of Axios, she went through everyone's tweet. She did a great spreadsheet showing that only I think less than half a dozen Republicans have said even one word of condemnation. The rest have just ignored it.
- [98:29]
Joy Reid
Yeah, of course. Well, I mean, of course the neo Nazis, they're not terrorists. They're going to get reparations.
- [98:36]
Mehdi Hasan
They're on our side.
- [98:37]
Joy Reid
Yes, they're on our side. Last thing, the thing that's radicalizing, I think more Americans than anything else and just you could put up D9 is this. And this chart kind of stopped me in my tracks. I understood that Donald Trump, he was a failure at real estate and never became a billionaire based on that. But look at the trajectory of his wealth. This is the thing that's really radicalizing people, I would say.
- [98:57]
Mehdi Hasan
I think you're being unfair. Hunter Biden made much more money than that when he was. No, I mean this whole thing is absurd. We're talking about the billions. Billion with a B. To put that in a context, Hunter Biden made from his Burisma dealings and various other dealings. Some people say 10 million, some people say 12 million. The max I've ever heard is 20 million. Right. The Trump sons are already in the hundreds of millions. Trump himself is in the billions. You saw Don Jr. S net worth. There was a story the other day about how high it is. Trump and his family have made a shit ton of money just since January 2025 last year. Just to remind your viewers, Trump during the 2024 election campaign set up a family crypto business in the middle of the of his presidential campaign called World Liberty Financial. Then not only did he set up a crypto business, not only did he do a meme coin which screwed over thousands of Trump voters who bought it and then it dropped in value, but Trump walked away with a lot of money. Melania walked away with a lot of money from her meme coin. Not just that, but on the eve of the inauguration on January 19, 2025, the National Security Advisor of the Emirati government, a member of the Abu Dhabi Royal family, put in half a billion dollars in into the World Liberty Financial fund, of which $187 million went directly into Trump bank accounts, Trump family bank accounts. Then weeks later, completely coincidentally and unrelatedly, the Trump administration lifted a national security restriction on the sale of AI chips to the uae, which they were worried would then go on to China, which maybe have. So that was probably the most major act of corruption in 2025. There were many others. He took a plane from the Qataris in direct violation of the emoluments called of the Constitution. He hosted the Saudis at his golf club, Saudi sponsored golf tournament. He's just taking money from foreign governments completely in violation of what the founders wanted in the Constitution. In the emoluments clause of the Constitution. They literally wrote it for this. And then this year he says, you know what, 2025 corruption is so minuscule. Let's do some real corruption. And then this week in 2026, he did the most corrupt thing I've ever seen a President of the United States in my lifetime or in American history, as far as I'm aware of do. He basically as president United States did a sued himself as the government over this tax form of his that was leaked by the way. It was not leaked under Biden, it was leaked under his administration. In the first term he sues himself. And then when the judge says this is ridiculous, you can't be on, you can't be the plaintiff and the defendant. There has to be some adverse relationship if you're going to come into my courtroom. She gave a deadline of May 20th to sort this out, to try and unpack this. And immediately he settled with Himself. The federal government settled with Donald Trump. The federal government being Donald Trump. And instead of doing the 10 billion that he asked for, which was insane, he did something almost even worse. He set up a $1.7 billion slush fund, which he now controls. He appoints to people to it, and he gives the money out, as you say, to January 6th insurrectionists, et cetera, et cetera. So he's making money. You put that chart up, he's now a proper billionaire. He was a fake billionaire for most of his life. The presidency made him a real billionaire. He's now actually super rich from all these dealings. And then on top of that, he wants to make his friends and his allies and his acolytes and his thugs, he wants to make them rich, too. So you've got the pillow guy. Apparently, he's going to put in a claim for millions of dollars. Michael Caputo, one of his spin doctors, is already putting in a claim. I'm guessing, you know, camp Auschwitz T shirt, January 6, guy is going to put in a claim. Proud boys, all of the Oath Keepers, they're all. They're all Tina Peters, who just got pardoned by that ridiculous Dino. Governor in Colorado, Jared Pollard. They're all going to make money out of this. Yeah, it's kind of sickening.
- [102:32]
Joy Reid
It kind of. Mehdi Hassan, we appreciate if you guys are not subscribed to Zateo News. What are you doing? You need to subscribe today and support this brilliant young man who is taking over independent media in a big way.
- [102:46]
Mehdi Hasan
Joy, I appreciate everything you said. The young part was the best part.
- [102:49]
Joy Reid
I'm just gonna say we're both young. We're both. Listen, we're young and fresh as far.
- [102:52]
Mehdi Hasan
Until we say, let's just lie together.
- [102:54]
Joy Reid
We're gonna lie together. Thank you.
- [102:56]
Mehdi Hasan
Thanks, Joy.
- [102:57]
Joy Reid
Thank you, my friend. Take care. Bye. All right, guys. Yeah. We're in trouble, y'. All. I told you. We're in trouble. Really quickly. The Joy Reach show is brought to you also by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Very important. Let's connect the dots. America started as a rebellion against a king who claimed divine authority. And instead of replacing that with religion, the founders created a secular constitution. No religious tests, no state religion, and a government accountable to the people. That is the baseline. But what we are seeing now is a coordinated effort to shift that from policy decisions to public messaging, including events like America praise on May 17, where government and religion start to mix in a very visible way. And that has real consequences for your rights, for people's rights. The Freedom from Religion foundation is working to protect the First Amendment because it protects you. As we approach America's 250th anniversary, this is about what kind of country we we are shaping. Go to FFRF US Joy or text JOY J O Y to 511511. To learn more, go to FFRF US JOY or text JOY to 511511. Now because freedom of religion requires freedom from government Imposed belief X, joy to 511511 today. Text fees may apply. Okay, if you guys, by the way, are fearful with everything else that's going on of a potential outbreak of Ebola or the hint of virus, never fear, Penis man is here. That's right, Admiral Brian. Christine, whose specialty is penile implants, is in charge of our pandemic response. To increase your confidence, here is a short clip from his former podcast, the Erection Connection.
- [104:29]
J.D. Vance
I received a call from a patient the other day to tell me about this new proven treatment that he was
- [104:36]
Joy Reid
undergoing for his erection. Erectile dysfunction. Yeah, that's gonna be great. He's also a known vaccine skeptic. He podcasted his theory that the COVID vaccine actually killed more people than it helped. And he appears to have been recommended to us by none other than the dumbest senator of all, Tommy Tuberville. What could possibly go wrong? Joining me now is our friend, Dr. Freda Fisher, correct quadruple board certified position nephrologist and host of Dr. Freda Live. It's been too long. Even though it's been a very short time, Dr. Freda. God help us. The penis man is in charge.
- [105:15]
Dr. Freda Fisher
The penis man is in charge with the erection connection. And I really did not foresee coming right back here in just a week with an entire another outbreak or epidemic. Epidemic even. Hello, Joy.
- [105:27]
Joy Reid
Yes, right. So which is more concerning to you in this moment? Ebola. We did get rid of usaid. We, which people may not realize is one of the reasons that it's going to probably spread more, because we were spending a lot of money trying to track Ebola and make sure it didn't come, you know, spread around the world. But now we're not doing that anymore. Which is more concerning to you, Hentavirus or Ebola?
- [105:50]
Dr. Freda Fisher
I'll tell you, I'm not hugely concerned about either one when it comes to will either one become a pandemic, will we be back in another lockdown situation? But if I have to choose between the two right now, I would say Ebola, as far as the hantavirus is concerned, since that doctor here in the United States has now tested negative. We actually have zero cases in the United States that we know of from the MV Hondius ship. We have zero human to human contact. We did have someone, sadly, who passed away from hantavirus this past week, but that was completely unrelated. That's with a completely different strain, something that is only from rodents to humans. So I feel like with the hantavirus strain we have it more under control. Plus I was happy to see that the CDC actually changed some guidelines. Initially they were making it optional for the 18 passengers to quarantine, but now it looks like they put some mandates in order, at least for a couple of the passengers. There was one who wanted to go to Florida where she could quarantine there, but she was told to stay in place in Nebraska. And she was told that the governmental officials would come and mandate it if she tried to leave. And so I'm actually happy that some public health, greater good decisions are being made. So I feel better about the hantavirus. Ebola virus, not so much.
- [107:10]
Joy Reid
Yeah. And it's also very, very, very, very communicable. I remember last time you were on, you talked about the fact that hantavirus is actually not as easy to catch. You have to have prolonged, like, physical contact. But Ebola seems like it sort of spreads like wildfire.
- [107:24]
Dr. Freda Fisher
It is spreading like wildfire. And by the time we were told about the Ebola outbreak on Friday, May 15, it looks like it had already been there for a few weeks. And when we look at the test positivity rate, meaning the percentage of tests that end up testing positive for Ebola, at last check, it was over 60%, which means that there are likely many more cases than we are catching. And we know the number keeps going up, up, up. Now there are at least 139 people who have passed away from Ebola this outbreak, at least 600 cases. And already we know that it's not completely, not completely contained in the Democratic Republic of Congo, it's in Uganda, and it's in places that are even farther away from the epicenter. And we have six Americans who, who've been exposed and an additional American who's outright tested positive for Ebola. They're still, they're not here, but they tested positive in the drc, in your
- [108:25]
Joy Reid
world, in the medical world, is there a sense that the withdrawal of USAID has had a real impact that makes you more nervous than you would be otherwise?
- [108:33]
Dr. Freda Fisher
Absolutely, absolutely. In the past with the usaid, that was actually the largest foreign aid agency in the world. And of course, we were involved with the World Health Organization. And so we had boots on the ground early on. We were able to help with vaccines, we were able to help with aid. And in a situation like this where you have an epidemic, it's larger than just dealing with the infection. When you're dealing with underserved communities, you have to make sure they have food, that they have water, that they have the ability to wash their hands. And with usaid, we had the proper resources. Now with the current administration, since last year, at least 83% of the programs of USAID have been cut. And so we don't have boots on the ground. We don't have the ability that we had before to, you know, quickly make vaccines and to be a part of the decision making. And so I fear that it's going to be a domino effect. And we're going to realize that what we did before, it wasn't just goodwill as going over there and helping people in Africa and helping them in containing the virus over there, that kept it from being over here. Because we can do all of the US Bans and trade and travel bans we want, but Ebola has no respect of borders, no respect of bans. And so I actually, I don't have a great fear, but I definitely don't feel as comfortable as I did in years gone by when we actually had USAID and involvement in the World Health Organization.
- [110:00]
Joy Reid
I just want to let folks know in the chat if you guys have a question for Dr. I'm happy to put your question on, Dr. Freda, if you guys have questions. I've gone back to masking up on trains and planes because I am super paranoid about the power coughing people and the power sneezers. I mean, these people sneeze with so much authority that I'm like, yeah, I'm just going to go ahead and Is that, is that, is that too paranoid or is that a good idea?
- [110:21]
Dr. Freda Fisher
Oh, that's right on time. And that's what I do. When it comes to masking, I will say that can help you for certain airborne infections like Covid, which is still here. I still have patients who gotten Covid recently. Flu, measles, the common cold. Let's not forget about the common cold. When it comes to Ebola, however, that's not one of these illnesses that so much, you know, spread in the air. It's not a respiratory virus. It's spread by bodily fluids. You can find Ebola in the blood, in amniotic fluid, in semen, in vaginal Fluid in breast milk, in feces, it's in the blood. And it is so infectious that by some studies, just one viral particle, one virion, can get someone sick. And when you think about the US Surgeon, the physician who was infected with Ebola while over in the drc, according to the records, he actually was wearing personal protective equipment and he performed surgery on someone who now, in hindsight, we believe had Ebola. And even wearing the ppe, and I don't know how exact or how perfect he, he wasn't wearing it. He still got Ebola.
- [111:29]
Joy Reid
Wow. We have a questioner. We can put it back up. Jason, again, who is asking, is this strain different from the other strains here? It is. This is by Benita Pajarita. Quick question. Is this Ebola strand different from the one in Dallas, Texas just a few years ago?
- [111:46]
Dr. Freda Fisher
Absolutely. That's an excellent question. So normally with these Ebola outbreaks and there have been a total of 2017, this makes the 17th one in the Democratic Republic of Congo, most of them have been from the Zaire strain. In fact, of the 16 previous outbreaks in Ebola, only one was with this one, the Bundebugio strain. And we had one in Uganda with the Bundesbugio strain. With the Zaire strain, the one that normally causes these outbreaks, we now have an FDA approved vaccine. We have two FDA approved treatments. But for the Bundibugio strain, we have nothing.
- [112:20]
Joy Reid
There's nothing. And isn't there a challenge even if we had one? So many Americans are now so anti vax and now we have an anti vax head of the Department of Health and Human Services. There's no way there would be a public mandate to take a vaccine even if there was one. Most Americans won't take it.
- [112:38]
Dr. Freda Fisher
Yes, I highly doubt that there would be a mandate. And we see that even with the childhood vaccines that have been proven, proven, tried and true, for years we've had a decrease in measles vaccines uptake, decrease in hepatitis B vaccine uptake. So I have no doubt that we would have a decrease in the uptake of a brand new vaccine. But even if everything went perfectly and we could get a vaccine, according to the World Health Organization, it would be at least nine months before we could even think about getting a Bundibugio vaccine. And even still, what would happen if already we've had deaths to keep climbing and climbing and climbing and we don't have the same aid, at least from the United States, that we had in outbreaks in the past? Where will we be?
- [113:21]
Joy Reid
And the Other question is, somebody asked, how do we protect ourselves in a world in which, let's say there was, let's say right now, years that you're not that concerned, but thank God, let's just say that Ebola did become an outbreak here. The people in charge believe that you can do natural immunity, basically let as many people get it as possible, and that our bodies would over time just develop immunity. Would that work with Ebola?
- [113:46]
Dr. Freda Fisher
It works if you survive. So if we look at the other Ebola strains, and there are four different Ebola strains that can affect humans, if you look at these strains, some of them have a 90% mortality. So I don't know if you're a gambling woman, Joy, but I wouldn't take.
- [114:02]
Joy Reid
No, no, ma', am, no.
- [114:05]
Dr. Freda Fisher
And then when it comes to bugeo, a 50% mortality, which is still flipping a coin. And so it would be a very bad idea to go out there and take that chance and to go hug and rub up against someone who had Ebola. So definitely the natural immunity is out of the door. The best that we can do is if you are in a place where you know that there that Ebola exists, you want to make sure that you don't do any handshaking, that you don't sit next to people, that you don't contact bodily fluids. Most people who are at risk for Ebola are people who are family members, health care providers, people in close contact. And even if you touch the clothing or the bedding or a dead body of someone with Ebola, you could still get it. And so the key is just to stay away. And when. And I believe it was Bonita who asked about the Dallas strain that we had back in 2014 for that strain, that was a Zaire strain, and for the man who came from Liberia and who was positive for Ebola, Two of the nurses who took care of him actually got Ebola as well. They survived. He passed away. But it just goes to show, it's the close contact, like the healthcare providers, like this US Surgeon who currently has Ebola and who's being taken care of in Germany.
- [115:18]
Joy Reid
Lord, Lord, help Dr. Freda Fisher. We appreciate it. Scaring is caring is what we say on the show. But I'm scared now. So thank you very much for caring. We appreciate you. Please come back often. And yes, just wave your hand if there's anything happens. And if you hear about it upticking, we just want to know. And just, just, just don't even invite. We'll you're. You can self invite. Just Pop on. Just pop on. Just log in. You've got the login. Just come back on if something bad happens. Thank you, Dr. Freda Fisher. We appreciate you. Everybody, please, please follow Dr. Freda. She is at Dr. Freda Live right here on the YouTube. We will put a link at the bottom of the show. We're also going to put a link to Zo. Most of you guys probably already subscribed to ZO News, but we'll put a link to that as well to make sure that everyone stays up on all of our cakes of my absolute favorites that we're on today. All right, guys, one piece of housekeeping. The great Brian Last will be our special guest on Substack Premium. So those of you who are premium subscribers on Substack, if you've been missing these conversations, they're so good, they're so interesting. We're going to talk about all the things. He is such an expert on all things. We're going to talk about these crypto scams, these scams that Donald Trump is deploying to try to enrich himself and his friends and his family, the Iran war, all the things. Brian Last is a really, really smart dude and he is going to be our guest for one of these really premium important conversations that we have. These are our insiders. It's called Joy's House Insiders. And we have these conversations to try to empower a small but righteous crew of people to get out there and be the influencers in your community. Once you have this incredible knowledge and information, you can go out there and be the smartest person around the water cooler. And so if you're not a premium subscriber, you still have time to join before noon tomorrow. It's every Thursday at noon. And then we do release clips so that people can get a little teaser of what it's like. But you don't get the full conversation unless you're a subscriber. So please feel free to do that. We appreciate the support that people have shown to our Substack part of our business. And we're really trying to make sure that we're doing all different kinds of media, both written media and on video based media. We've got some more great things coming on Substack, so please check that out tomorrow at noon. Don't be late. We know the lemon heads will be on time. They're always on time. And now let's get to our moment of joy because we really need it today. Because I was just 38 hot earlier today. Like I'm Scared. Now we. Now we talking about Ebola. If we have another lockdown, I don't know what we gonna do yet. I don't know. Make sure that you're locked down with somebody that you want to be locked down with. But Lord Jesus, our moment of joy tonight is by Korean auntie.
- [117:51]
Jason
Would you be happy to be locked down with me?
- [117:53]
Joy Reid
Absolutely. At least I would be locked down with you. Jason. It'll be fine.
- [117:56]
Jason
I just want to make sure.
- [117:57]
Joy Reid
And, and you know what? We need to make a garden because we need food. We need to start thinking about gardening.
- [118:04]
Jason
Well, we should do that anyway. I mean, the price of everything is up so high.
- [118:09]
Joy Reid
My mom always had a garden. We had tomatoes, beans, corn. We make a whole meal out of the stuff in our garden. When I was growing up, and I used to hate it, my mom used to make us go out and garden, and I hated it. But now I appreciate it so much. We had peppers, like, we had like a whole salad outside.
- [118:23]
Jason
The only thing we can't do is have chicken and goats. They loud.
- [118:28]
Joy Reid
And I, I, I don't eat chicken.
- [118:30]
Jason
Well, there you go. So then we just have veg, I guess.
- [118:32]
Joy Reid
Yeah, I'm just, I'm, I'm a semi vegetarian. I'm, I'm a vegetarian, but I have a, I have a bacon codel in my, my contract.
- [118:39]
Jason
We'll make it work. I'll make it work.
- [118:41]
Joy Reid
I'm a veggie bakerian.
- [118:43]
Jason
All right, moment of draw.
- [118:44]
Barney Frank
Okay.
- [118:45]
Joy Reid
Something about bacon. It's not really food. It just tastes good. I, I don't know why I make an exception for that. And I will eat fish, too, but I don't, I don't eat, I don't eat foul, and I don't eat foul. Don't eat that. And other than, other than bacon, I don't eat pork either. I'm just like, literally, I don't think bacon. I don't think of bacon as ever having been alive. I just think it's like a thing that just exists on its own. It's its own thing that exists in its own way. Exactly. Thank you, Monet. It's just, it's its own world, the world of bacon. It's, it's my one exception to, to my non meat eating. Our, Our moment of joy is by the Nancy Lee. And we call this one Korean Auntie.
- [119:21]
Dr. Freda Fisher
Tell my coworker I'm from Korea. And then she say, are you from
- [119:27]
Joy Reid
North Korea or South Korea? South Korea. Of course. Nobody from North Korea. If they are, it's a top secret.
- [119:36]
Dr. Freda Fisher
My granddaddy fought in the Korean War. Okay, thank you to your grandfather.
- [119:42]
Joy Reid
He know better than you. If I am from North Korea, that means I escape. I'm refugee.
- [119:48]
Dr. Freda Fisher
That means my whole family die if I tell you or I am spy
- [119:53]
Joy Reid
for North Korean government and now you have to die. He told you. Look, first of all, her spot on Southern American accent and the switch up is so hysterically funny. That is the Nancy Lee. N A N C Y Jaylee. Nancy J. Le. The Nancy J. Lee will definitely put her her moniker in the chat because she was quite hilarious. The switch up to a perfect Southern accent was fabulous. And then she said, yeah, she said it's either I'm a refugee or. Or I'm a spine. I'm a spine and you gotta die. I love it. Don't be asking people silly questions like that. Just because somebody's an immigrant don't mean you got to inquire. All the thank you all for watching the Joy Show. Hopefully we'll see you guys. By the way, our live event, this reason we're not talking about it anymore and putting the QR code up because it's sold out. We completely sold out our live event in New York City. Godfrey and myself are going to be cutting up on June 11th. That is a Thursday. That is the week of our one year anniversary. We would still love to climb closer to 500,000 subscribers on the YouTubes by then. So please feel free to send our link to 10 friends, try to get them to go ahead and sign up because we're trying to get more people to be a part of our wonderful team TJRS and readers family. If you are a substacker please send that link out because we're we're at 212,000 subscribers on substack. We're always trying to grow. We love to grow and as well as our Facebook and our LinkedIn and all of our friends. Thank you all for subscribing and wherever you subscribe, including our audio podcast friends, we will see you guys on Friday with more Scaring is caring on the Joy Reid show and also more anger because Trump is stealing.
- [121:36]
Dr. Freda Fisher
Bye.
- [121:38]
Joy Reid
Getting back to the basics grassroots level,
- [121:41]
Donald Trump (Clips)
let me dig a little deeper with the shovel.
- [121:43]
Joy Reid
Plenty can't tell the force from the trees and I'm hard to detect Like a blank black hole in the dark
- [121:48]
Donald Trump (Clips)
Injustice anywhere it's a threat to justice
- [121:50]
Joy Reid
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 grab the party. So I'm a real talk about it for show.