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The Joy Reid Show
Free Speech Wednesday w/ Joy, Don & Jim | The Joy Reid Show LIVE! Sep 24, 2025
02:05:16
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Joy Reid
Recently we asked some people about sharing.
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Wajahat Ali
Their New York Times accounts.
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Joy Reid
My name is Dana. I am a subscriber to the New York Times, but my husband isn't and it would be really nice to be able to share a recipe or an article or compete with him in wordle or connections. Thank you, Dana.
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We heard you introducing the New York Times Family subscription. One subscription, up to four separate logins for anyone in your life. Find out more@nytimes.com family foreign.
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Good evening. Happy Wednesday. Happy hump day. Welcome to the Joy Read Show. Big ups to everyone in the chat. I see y' all here in the YouTube chat. Oh, wait, hold on. Let me, let me, let me try to mute it because it's trying to talk to us. We need to mute that. I see you guys in the chat. Big up to everybody that's there already. I see all of you. I see you boomerang. I see you Wanda M. Everybody in the chat. Big up, big up, big up. Also to everybody that is in the substack chat and also watching live on substack also our Spotify listeners hail up to everybody that's tuning in. Want to let you guys know this is the pre show. As you know, we've been doing this, we're expanding, experimenting with this new vibe of doing a pre show at six and then doing the show in Chief at seven o'. Clock. Please let us know in comments if you love it, if you love the two hour format because we're actually feeling it. Gives us more time to play, gives us more time to talk to you, gives us more time to get into the things. But coming up in that second hour, you know what we're going to do? We are going to bring back the dynamic trio. Myself, Don Lemon, Jim Acosta, Joy, Don and Jim coming up in the 7 o' clock hour. So please stay, stay there. We're going to be here. Same bat time, same bat challenge. You don't even have to change. You don't have to do anything. We're just going to. You just sit there and then we're going to come to you, the three of us, in the seven o' clock hour. In this hour. In this hour, Angelo Carasoni of Media Matters for America will be here. We're going to break down all of these attacks on our First Amendment rights. And yes, he's back. Wajahat Ali, Joy and Waj, the Trigger MAGA duo. They get so mad when we're together. They get so mad. Normally I go on Waj's substack which is called the left hook. And we just chat and they get upset. They like put it as their A block on Fox. They get really angry about it. So we figured if they're going to get mad, we may as well give them some the Joy Reid show content to also play on Fox and their A blocks. We're always happy to help you guys do your content for whatever reason you guys are having trouble doing that yourself. How do I mute this? I got to figure out how I can mute this over here. On, on, on. I can't figure that out. All right, so thank you all for being here. Let's get into it. I want to do some housekeeping before we get into some headlines. I do have some headlines to share with you, but before I get into that, I got to talk to you about the ways in which this Charlie Kirk murder is like bringing out the ugliest in the already ugly American. Right, Right. They're already, you know, known for being mean. They're known for getting easily triggered. But the crazies are really crazying after the Charlie Kirk murder, which again, was white on white crime. It had nothing to do with black people. It had nothing to do with Muslims. It had nothing to do with women. This was a white man killing another white man. It was tragic, but it had nothing to do with us. But surprise, surprise, the right is using this attack to focus not on the white men who, per the FBI, are the vast majority of purveyors of political violence, per the FBI data that they deleted, or against the gun lobby that promotes arming the religious radical right wing gun nutters that are shooting people. They're not mad at them, weirdly enough, they're circling right back to do what they always do. Surprise, surprise, they're attacking black people, attacking black people, going full racist again. Surprise, surprise. And too many of these right wing women are feeling like really free in this moment to attack black women who again, have nothing to do with the thing that they're mad about. So let's start with Laura Loomer, who I've never talked about before because honestly, when I first heard about her, I had to Google who she was. She's like a right wing, like, really crazy right wing podcaster who for some reason, like travels with Donald Trump and tells him what to do, tells him who to hire, tells him who to fire for whatever reason. This cuckoo right wing podcaster, like, controls Donald Trump in some ways. Right. So, and this is a woman who by the way, tried to get elected to Congress at one point, failed, did not get elected. But for some reason, she's decided that she has time to attack a woman who successfully did get elected to Congress after getting elected to the state House in Texas, who went to law school, graduated, is a barred attorney, who. And who was actually a brilliant member of the Democratic Party caucus. You know who I mean? I mean Jasmine Crockett, my sorority sister. So she decided that she had time to attack her, this unhinged right wing podcaster, Laura Loomer. She decided that she was going to attack Jasmine Crockett because Jasmine Crockett committed the crime of joining the wise 58 Democrat minority who refused to vote for a resolution honoring Charlie Kirk, who, by the way, had this ministry that the Republicans are deeming it, it's like religious ministry that was largely focused on demeaning black people, demeaning women, demeaning gay marriage, demeaning trans people. Like that was his ministry. They love him for it on the right, but that was his ministry. And so, because black people, other than two, including the House minority leader, didn't vote for this weird national honor of this podcasting person from a right wing organization because they didn't vote for it. And because she went on cnn, Jasmine Crockett, and said the following. She said, it honestly hurts my heart that most of the no votes on this resolution came from lawmakers of color because Kirk's rhetoric often targeted those very communities. Well, that incensed Laura Loomer, who responded by reposting Jasmine Crockett's interview on her X Twitter account and writing the following. I am not going to screenshot it because I refuse, but I'm going to tell you what she said. She said, it hurts my heart that we have ghetto black bitches who hate America serving in Congress, unquote. Let me show you Laura Loomer. Jason, can you throw up? That's Laura Loomer. I promise you, she's only 31 years old. I promise you that lady is 31. Clearly, being a dried up old racist lunatic ages you. Evil ages you. Just so you know, it makes you look old. That lady is 31 years old, y'. All. Make it make sense. Make it make sense. Sometimes God has a sense of humor. But I want to refer you also to something that Laura Loomer tweeted from that same ex Twitter account on 13th July in this year in which she was doing something really interesting, namely savaging Charlie Kirk for not being MAGA enough and for apparently betraying the movement for daring to join the cause to release the Epstein files, which I presume enraged her. Let me read what she said. I don't ever want to hear Charlie Kirk claim he's pro Trump ever again. After this weekend, I'd say he has revealed himself as a political opportunist. And I've had a front row seat to witness the mental gymnastics these last 10 years. Lately, Charlie has decided to behave like a charlatan, claiming to be pro Trump one day while he stabs Trump in the back the next. TPUSA was only able to thrive thanks to the generosity of President Trump. The person who posted that, Paul Nunn, said that Laura Loomer put a target on Charlie Kirk's back so she can savage the person that they are calling their mlk literally a month before he is murdered by another white guy. But Jasmine Crockett can't point out that the majority of people who refused to vote to honor Charlie Kirk were people of color. That enrages Laura Loomer, who's made herself the enforcer of anyone critical of Charlie Kirk. And critical means quoting him. Critical in this day and age means quoting Charlie Kirk. That's called being critical of him. They're like, we'll do it in context. What's the context of saying that if you get on a plane and you see a black pilot, you question whether they are qualified because of dei, as if Delta Airlines and American Airlines are just walking down the street pointing at black people and saying, hey, come and get in the cockpit. He actually did a story where he did, like, a fake black scent making fun of the late Sheila Jackson Lee and pretending that random black people were literally just getting on board airlines and flying them. That is their mlk. And. And because Jasmine Crockett didn't want to honor him, Laura Loomer wants to call her a bitch. Excuse me, ma', am, ma'. Am. God is putting on your face and your visage who you are, letting us visually see you as who you are. Be better, be best, as Melania Trump would say. And then I want to move on to another apparent female enforcer of maga. Idolatry, I would call it. They're the enforcers, right? These are the people who. Who are going to tell us how to behave when it comes to Charlie Kirk. They're gonna enforce it, and they're gonna explain to us how we should, particularly black women. They're gonna tell us how we should behave. The other one is Megyn Kelly, who I also never talk about. I've made it a policy because Megyn Kelly has essentially built herself up after getting attacked by Donald Trump for blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her. Ever humiliated by Donald Trump. Pushed out of Fox for various reasons. She was one of the women at Fox who apparently people were claiming were being like, preyed on by some of the men at Fox. Right. So. And a lot of journalists came to her aid, came to her defense after she was attacked by Donald Trump. But now that she's out of her job, that she got at NBC, where, by the way, NBCUniversal pushed out Tamron Hall. He was a terrific host of the Today show in order to bring Megyn Kelly in, right? She comes in and she hosts this show where they gave her all the resources, tens of millions of dollars, all, all the resources you could ask for. They give her and set up for her an exclusive interview with Vladimir Putin that literally laid an egg. Do you remember any news from that interview? I don't. No one does. Right. And then she interviewed what's the crazy podcaster guy from Infowars and like, took a selfie with him. Alex Jones interviewed Alex Jones and like, took a selfie with him. Like, that was her bestie, like, really embarrassing. And then she went on and offended the entire cast of Will and Grace because she had this, like, daytime show where she was supposed to be fun. Like, at one point they tried to have her dance around and try to act like a fun daytime talk show host. Like, Tamron hall is Emmy, multi Emmy award winning daytime talk show host Tamron Hall. But she tried to do the same thing at NBC and it didn't work because you actually have to have a kind, fun personality in order to do that. Right. She couldn't do that. She offended the entire Will and Grace cast and other celebrities to the point where I can tell you some inside scoop. What we heard inside NBC Universal is that they started having trouble booking celebrities because people were so offended. And as a matter of fact, one of the cast members from Will and Grace said they didn't even know that it was going to be an interview with Megyn Kelly. They were just told, show up to the Today show. And they showed up and got offended by her and were like, ooh, we're not coming back. And a lot of celebrities like, we don't want to come back. So that's Megyn Kelly. Megyn Kelly, who likes to go after other people. And going after black women is kind of her stock and trade. She's gone after Tiffany Cross. She's gone after Michelle Obama. She's gone after Sunny Hostin. Basically any public black woman who refuses to bend the knee to the far right, which she's now bending the knee to. She used to be considered a journalist. Now she literally is just an attack dog for the far right and for Donald Trump. And now she's decided she is the enforcer of of how we must behave when it comes to talking about Charlie Kirk. Well, then she did something she shouldn't ought to have done because I don't really talk about that lady. She's not important enough to me for me to talk about her. But then she decided she wanted to attack my friend and fellow machete, who's also Sunny and I are also in the Machetes. She decided to attack one of the nicest people in this business, Jamel Hill. Jamel Hill only punches up. Jemele Hale is somebody who at ESPN got pushed out for telling the truth about Donald Trump being racist. She told the truth, but she only punches up. Jamal Hill is somebody who I only got to know in the Machetes. I didn't know her before the Machetes. I got to know her through us creating this online group that then became a real friend group. And I can tell you that I have always respected her. She's a mogul. She's created all these incredible businesses. Never would she ever attack another woman the way you're about to hear Megyn Kelly attack her. Let's play it, Jason. This is a zero. I do want to play Jamel Hill. Speaking of so called journalists who have it all wrong, here's this jerk. Stop. 15. Of course, as you all know, in the wake of Charlie's murder, there was an incredible amount of angry discourse from the right. Blaming the Democrats, blaming liberals, saying you're the reason this happened. Only to find out, surprise. 22 year old white dude, love guns, raised by two parents, lived in a good home. Dad is a minister, also a sheriff. Didn't check any of them boxes y' all thought he would check, did he? Okay, first of all, a coat of mascara would be your friend. I'm just gonna tell this to you woman to woman on television. You need a little work. And you should have them back off the camera a little bit because you are not attractive enough to have that extreme close up. Push away your laptop, Jamel, and add a filter or two. Honestly, like, we actually don't use any on this show because I do put on makeup so I look presentable. But you need work because you can't both be ugly on the outside and the inside. You need to choose one. Okay? Choose one. That is disgusting. That was absolutely disgusting. Fuck her. It's weird how she lost the points about him being a furry loving, trans dating. I don't even know what this guy's fetishes were. But leftist ideology infected guy who wrote on his bullets, anti fascist catch and notices bulges, oxo, et cetera, didn't make her little monologue. Yeah, fuck her. Fuck you, Maggie Kelly with my full chest. Fuck you, woman. Let me say something. You said that people need to choose whether to be outside, ugly on the outside or ugly on the inside. You're ugly on both sides. And let me explain to you what I mean by that. Let me tell you guys a little story. I've been in this business a really, really long time. I'm an og. I've been around a long time. And you get to know when you're in this business the way that people are, not just with other talent. Right. I've talked to you about Tamron hall, who has been a huge advocate for black women when she was at NBC Universal. An advocate for me, One of the reasons my hair wasn't all falling out, because she and my dear friend Jackie Reed, who again, I didn't even know before I got to New York and worked at NBC and was an icon at bet, but befriended me and has become one of my closest friends. Those two sisters literally advocated for me to make sure that I had black women to do my hair and makeup to make sure my hair wasn't falling out, I wasn't. My skin wasn't breaking out because I was a tomboy that didn't wear makeup. These women, you know, stand. Stand for other women, stand up for other women. I've worked with a lot of women in this business, the greats, you know. Rachel Maddow, who is a literal genius, stands up for other women. Nicole Wallace, she and I worked on opposite sides of the 2004 election. When I tell you that lady will stand up for other women, she's in the trenches with you. Andrea Mitchell. Andrea Mitchell. Andrea Mitchell. When I tell y', all, people get mad at her on social media. Thank you, Jason. Reminding me. When I tell you if you want to find a woman who will stand up. When I first got back to NBC, I was just at the griot. People didn't know who I was. You know who, when I got to D.C. and reached out to me and said, I, I'm here for you. Anything you need, I got you. Andrea Freakin Mitchell. Andrea Freakin Mitchell. Alex Wagner was already a star before she got to NBC. People knew her from being an incredible writer in the music industry. Came over. That's a bad sister. She will stand up for you every time. Every single freaking time. Stephanie Rule. That's my. That's my girl. Stephanie Cray Cray. I love it. She's crazy in a great way. I love her. She's so much fun. She is with you in the trenches. In the freaking trenches. Every single time. Alex Witt. First person I ever went on TV with. Amazing, kind, generous, giving. I could just go on and on and on. There are so many of these incredible women in this business who are so kind and good. Jancing Chris Jansing. I was. I was in Company, and Janssen and Company. She didn't know me, but she brought me in, was kind to me, was good. I could go on. And you always know. You always hear, who are the women who stand for other women in this business. I met a woman who worked with Megan at Fox. And this was in the wake of a lot of women coming out of Fox because of all of this shenanigans that were going on with the predatory men over there. And this woman told me, as a colleague, Megyn Kelly never stood up for another woman at Fox. This was her opinion. This is her opinion that she gave me. I'm just giving you guys the tea. She said she didn't stand up for those other women at Fox. If there was one woman who never stood up for other women, it was Megyn Kelly. I'm gonna tell you another story. I used to teach a class called Syracuse in the City. I used to teach at Syracuse University, but they would come to Manhattan for their class. It was Syracuse in the city. Right. And the students had to also intern at the same time that they were taking the classes. And some of my interns used to have the job of trying to fill the audience for Megyn Kelly's dayside show that she had at NBCUniversal. They used to have to go into the lunchroom to try to find people to get in the audiences because they had trouble getting people to just willingly sit in the audience. So sometimes staff, staff and interns had to sit in her audiences because people didn't want to go to the Megyn Kelly show. There was not a fun show to be at. She also, initially, from what we understood internally, didn't want MSNBC people on her show. She didn't want them as guests. That's what we heard. I'm just telling you what we heard internally, that we were not welcome. If you're an MSNBC person. But she Wound up having to put MSNBC people on because she's so pissed off the celebrities because she was just so rude and mean that they were like, I don't want to go on your show. So they had to end up putting MSNBC people on. Poor Jacob Sobroff, I think, was sitting there when she did the episode where she tried to justify blackface and, like, with her full chest, said, you should be able to do blackface. That's Megyn Kelly. When she got pushed out and left out and let go from msnbc, she got a lot of money. They had to pay her out. They have to pay you out when they don't finish your contract. This is during the Andy Lack era. She got a lot of money, walked away with a lot of money, did not walk away with a lot of regard. Crew people. Go and ask some crew people at MSNBC what they thought of Megyn Kelly, whether she was kind or not kind. And I'm going to tell you, I'm going to say this, and not because she's a conservative, because I shared some crew members with Tucker Carlson that used to work for Tucker, and a lot of them say they don't like his ideology, but they can't say he wasn't nice to the crew. It just, to me, a big deal. If you're like, nice to the crew, that says a lot about you. And so I had people say, look, you know, we didn't like his ideology. Sometimes he could be a little insufferable, but he was always nice to us. Sean Hannity, I've heard for years, I don't agree with Sean Hannity on literally anything. Sean Hannity and I are on opposite sides. But I'm promising you, since I've been in radio before I was at msnbc, people would tell me that knew him in the radio world. You would really like Sean Hannity if you met him. He's actually a nice guy. He's probably not going to like me saying that because his reputation depends on, like, him and I hating each other, I guess. But I don't know. I. I've always heard good things about Sean Hannity. So it's not even a matter of being in a conservative. There are people on the right that I've heard good things about when it comes to how they treat other people, crew people, you know, how you treat the little guy, how you treat the crew guy. It says a lot about you. I've never heard a single nice thing about Megyn Kelly and the way she's treated other people. Not from colleagues that I know that have worked with her, not from people who I know live near her and have talked about how she's just the angriest person, the angriest rich lady in America. And her audience loves it. Her audience loved it when she went after Jamel. But let me tell you something, Megan. In this business, your reputation precedes you. Not just from the numbers that you get for your podcast. And if you build your podcast based on just trashing other women for their looks, by the way, you're not even accurate with that. Jamal Hill is beautiful. And because she can go on without makeup, shows you how beautiful she is. I defy anybody to tell me how old Jamel Hill is, because that black ain't cracking. She. She's beautiful. You can't tell if she's 30, 40, but I can definitely tell you in your 50s, Megan, because you look and are aging according to your kindness. And, yeah, you had to put a filter and makeup on in order to do it, because that's who you are. You're not a nice person. You're not a kind person. Stop attacking black women. Leave our names out your mouth. Go talk about maga. Talk about the civil war in your own community of right wingers, and leave us the hell alone. Don't ever come after Jemele Hill like that again. F you. You are not cool. Not kind. And nobody I've ever met has ever said one goddamn good thing about you, Megyn Kelly. That's all I'm gonna say right there. Let me bring in my guest, because I'm just gonna go on and on. Don't attack my friends. Let me bring in. And you didn't come here for that. So I actually had a whole nother thing I wanted to bring you in for. Let's join. Let's be joined. I'm a little hot under the collar. I'm joined by Angela Carrazzoni, who is from Media Matters for America. And I actually brought you here to talk about something else. Thank you so much for being here.
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Thanks for having me. No, that was great.
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So I want to talk about the sort of news of the day that we're really thinking about, which is what happened with Jimmy Kimmel. Interestingly enough, I was unable to watch the Jimmy Kimmel episode last night because I happen. I just found out last night that I am in one of those Sinclair broadcast networks, and Sinclair Broadcasting made it very clear that they were not going to allow Jimmy Kimmel to be seen seen in any of the areas where they own stations. Same Thing with nexstar. Nexstar and Sinclair both banned the show even though ABC brought it back. Your thoughts on that? As somebody who is a monitor of the way the media operates, I mean.
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Look, there is a lot to unpack here. And I would note that it's what's still happening with Kimmel, right? It's not over yet. I mean, we are sort of round one, maybe round two, depending on how you look at it. But as you noted, it's not over because. Because Kimball's not on the air in 20% of the stations that carry his show. And one of the networks that isn't carrying him is Sinclair. And there's a lot of here, one of them is business reasons. They are trying to buy or merge with another company or at least they want to get favor with the administration because that's going to require FCC approval. And so this seems like a ploy to do that. There's another layer here though that we should not lose sight of is that Sinclair owns a very significant portion of all the local stations in the country. And they are and have always been an unabashed right wing conservative network. I mean, all the way back to the 2004 election with the swift boat ads attacking John Kerry. I mean, there were swift boat ads that Fox News refused to run that Sinclair ran. I mean, they are really far out there. And during Trump's first term, just as a reminder, during the news broadcast, they had put together these must run segments from one of these sort of Trump toadies, Boris Epstein, that they required to be run during all the broadcasts. So the entity we're dealing with right now is Sinclair. And then the other one is nexstar, which obviously owns a bunch of other local media. They're not going to carry the show. The reality though is that that's gonna be hard for them to do for a while. So this is just a little bit performative, but that's where we're at.
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You posted a piece on Media Matter. It wasn't written by you, but it's on Media Matters for America. This is a seven, Jason. It's saying. I'm sorry, before we get to that, before we get to that, I want to play a seven, which is Brendan Carr, who had a lot to do with what happened with Jimmy Kimmel. So Jason, let me know when you've got a seven ready to go. Cause I definitely want to let everybody hear him. He is the fcc and I want to remind you all, he wrote the chapter in Project 2025 about the way that they Wanted to warp the FCC to make it more useful to the conservative movement. He used to champion free speech. His tweets on pro free speech are still all over X Twitter. You can still find him. He hasn't deleted any of them. He still claims he's a champion of free speech, but also says that these journal, these media outlets are going to come to heel and that he's not, not going to stop. You got it? Okay, here's Brendan Carr. But frankly, when you see stuff like this, I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel or, you know, there's going to be additional work for the fcc. Again, there's actions that we can take on licensed broadcasters. And frankly, I think that it's, it's, it's really sort of past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves.
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Push back on Comcast and Disney and.
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Say, listen, we are going to preempt. We are not going to run Kimmel anymore until you straighten this out. Because we, we licensed broadcaster, are running the possibility of fines or license revocation from the FCC if we continue to run content that ends up being a pattern of news distortion. So give me your response to that. Because what he's essentially saying is if these broadcasters, like ABC don't punish Jimmy Kimmel and make him stop criticizing Trump, which he continued doing last night, he did his monologue anyway and did it his own way, did not apologize to Donald Trump. If you don't bring him to heel, we're gonna take action against your stations. Your thoughts? Yeah.
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Look, this is a little bit in the weeds, but it's important because they are in the weeds. They are using every tool at their disposal to claim, clamp down on dissent, to stifle free speech and to consolidate authoritarian power. But why that's such an insidious claim that he made there is that, you know, affiliates actually have an obligation, a contractual obligation to carry, to carry these shows. They pay ABC or, you know, one of these big networks to carry it. And they have to. There are a few exceptions to say, yeah, well, we don't have to carry it in these instances. One of them is this exception for public interest. And that's what he was getting to in that clip. It's something he's been saying over and over. And it's not just a buzzword. It's the one real out that they have. So Sinclair and nexstar can say, hey, look, we're not going to carry this show because we don't think it serves the public interest. One of the things that defines the public interest is the fcc. So what he is basically doing is saying to them, listen, I am going to give you cover to go ahead and, you know, and not carry this show. A little wink, wink. And if you don't, when your licenses come up for renewal in 2028, which all the licenses do, I may make it really difficult for you all. So, you know, he's sort of putting out the assignment in both ways. The easy way and the hard way means a lot of things in this context. One of them is do it. Do what I say. I'll give you cover, and if you don't, I'll punish you.
- [26:46]
Let me play a six. Jason this is where Donald Trump has been over the last couple days. I don't know if he's still, still there, but this is Donald Trump attempting to get up the escalator at the United Nations. You can see him, he's going along. And then all of a sudden the escalator's like, not today, Zayn. The escalator said, yeah, going up is not in your future and it's not in your present either. And the fact that he was in New York and, you know, spoke with our youngest son last night, who also was not able to get Jimmy Kimmel show on the New York stations, which are either Sinclair or Neckstar, I found it curious, and I don't know if you do as well, Angelo, that D.C. and New York did not have Kimmel on the places Donald Trump was likely to be. It feels like Neckstar and Sinclair weren't doing anything in the public interest. They were doing stuff in Donald Trump's interest. He didn't want to have to see Jimmy Kimmel, and they made sure he didn't. And he was screaming on his social media when, when he went on anyway, how dare he not be fired?
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They wanted to make sure that they did their part in punishing Jimmy Kimmel. And it's worth noting that Trump has been calling for Jimmy Kimmel's termination or firing since July. This is not a new thing. This is something that he's been pushing for now for several months. And one of the instruments he bragged about that $16 million that ABC paid him in a settlement a while ago. But I think what everybody forgets is that while he was suing abc, the fcc, under Brendan Carr, launched an investigation into ABC using its investigatory powers to sort of put some sideways pressure on them to settle as quickly as they Could. It's sort of a similar pattern playing out here. And that's what Sinclair and nexstar are doing. There's a really big deal. There's this company called Tegna that has a lot of stations they are trying to buy, needs FCC approval. And there's a hope, I think that one, if they at least do this, that's the bare minimum, is to not carry the show. But there's this also hope that if they keep on upping each other that they'll curry favor and that one of them will end up getting blessed by the administration to be the one to actually buy these additional stations. And I think that's what you're seeing is at least in this moment, they wanted to make sure that, you know, Trump knew damn well that they were doing their part to toe the line for him.
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You all have a headline and this is a 8. This is media Matters says that Donald Trump is the greatest threat to free speech that we have in the country today. And to me this ties into that because what Tegna, the acquisition of these Tegna stations, correct me if I'm wrong, would give Sinclair coverage of 39% of the United States. So it would go over what the cap is for how much of the US you could cover. This is a right wing company that is basically like Fox News but for your traffic and weather together. If these stations are able to bust the cap and then have coverage of 40, 50% of the country, they could essentially right, lock down not just cable news people who are choosing their own adventure. They want right wing tv so they go to Fox or you know, one of those other stations or oan. Now what they're saying is you passively are just turning on your weather and traffic and you're also getting right wing media. And that's what would happen if they can consolidate and we're having like four or five companies having all of it.
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That's right. And it's worth noting that, you know, if this deal goes through, whichever ends, whichever company ends up getting a TED or Sinclair, either way is really, I mean, the next hour of Sinclair otherwise really bad. It's not just that they'll own a lot of stations in some of the key markets, they will own two or three of the local news stations, meaning.
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The ABC and the CBS and abc.
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That's exactly right.
- [30:24]
Just own one. So you guys keep in mind, understand out there in your YouTube and substack and Spotify land, this means that one company would own your CBS, ABC and NBC affiliate in the same market. And tell when we do this job. Angelo, one of the things we do is we search for clips. And I have found more and more often when we search for clips, particularly if the clips are from local news, the exact same scripts are being used by anchors and in different cities in different states, but they're all reading the same words. They're essentially using one script and sharing it across the country. That is what these companies would be able to do, but not just across the same network, but all the abc, CBS and NBC would all be saying the same words.
- [31:12]
That's right. And you know, this seems like ancient history now, but during the 2016 election, there was about a two month period where Trump was boycotting cable news and national news to sort of prove a point. And one of the things that he did, along with Jared Kushner, who helped orchestrate this, is that they actually only went to Sinclair stations and did interviews, and then Sinclair took those interviews and broadcast them across their network and then all the subsequent sort of wraparound content. So they were building a narrative, basically doing national programming but distributing it that way. It's a very effective and insidious way to distribute your message and they understand the power of it. And it's worth keeping in mind that the fight that we're talking about here is about broadcast, about local. But the majority of what Brendan Carr talked about in Project 2025 was taking the same types of tools that we're discussing here in the context of broadcast and applying it to online. It's about getting the tech platforms under heel as well. So, I mean, right now this is being broadcast and distributed online. They have an entire plan in place for how they can get the tech platforms to engage in what they consider fairness, but is actually a mechanism to stifle the very types of content that we're engaging in right now. And to me, that's the real blinking red light. It's not that they're going after these really big players that everybody knows about, but they also have an orchestrated plan to refine these tools to squelch the types of dissent for the new and emerging platforms that are reaching as many or more people, but online.
- [32:40]
And by the way, this as Larry Ellison, whose son David Ellison, is in charge of Skydance, the company that swallowed Paramount and cbs, which is why I canceled Paramount plus and looking for more ways to get out of business with him. But this guy is one of the people who's being talked about as potentially the purchaser of TikTok. Another person that Donald Trump has boasted might be in the hunt to get TikTok is Ruben Murdoch. So. So we're talking about the same people who are putting out disinformation on Fox now, being able to pump that same disinformation and also suppress pro Palestinian, pro democracy voices on things like TikTok. So now you'd have meta in the hands of one oligarch, you'd have TikTok in the hands of another oligarch. You've already got X Twitter in the hands of another oligarch. And they're all right wing. They're all right wing. Right. You know, nationalists. And so there wouldn't be. We'd be North Korea at that point. Yeah.
- [33:34]
And I don't think it's an accident, you know, that while the FCC continues to flex its power in this broadcast context, that just today, YouTube came out and announced that they were gonna reinstate all of the banned accounts that had repeatedly violated their rules over the years, especially around election misinformation, civic engagement, civic participation, extremism that they were gonna allow for them to all be reinstated, that they were gonna soften. And I don't think it's a mistake. I think that they see the writing on the wall and they're trying to avoid being the next one in the barrel. Because if you're not an ally that owns the properties, you are now a really big target for them to get you under heel. In the same way that we're seeing them try to do with Disney.
- [34:12]
Yeah, absolutely. And warping all of these networks to make them all please Trump, that basically every single network, whether it's online, whether it's traditional media, must at all times, please Trump. There's even apparently an investigation, correct me if I'm wrong, of Saturday Night Live, because Donald Trump claimed that Saturday Night Live allowing Kamala Harris to come on and do a skit was helping the Democrats. And suddenly that also should be illegal because he can't even stand for people to either laugh at him, which is why he's mad at Kimmel, which is why he's mad at Stephen Colbert, because he just doesn't like being mocked. And so he wants to essentially be treated like Vladimir Putin is. You can't mock Vladimir Putin on Russian tv. He wants to be like the mullahs in Iran who you can't mock. Watch them come for Saturday Night Live next. Do you fear that Saturday Night Live is next in the barrel?
- [34:58]
I fear that even the threats of these investigations have a really intense, chilling effect, because, you know, we're talking about people being punished for speech that they've already said, right? With Kimmel, it's so obvious. It's so clear.
- [35:09]
Right?
- [35:09]
They announced it. But what about all the things that people adjust ahead of time in order to avoid, to say, you know what? It's just not worth it this time. I just won't do it. I mean, I feel it. Media Matters is under investigation from the FTC for speech. We don't even do commerce.
- [35:23]
Right.
- [35:24]
Because they're using every tool at their disposal to pressure entities or punish entities for speech that they do not like. And not a moment goes by, do I not think about the investigation we're currently experiencing and saying, gosh, is it really worth it? Is it really worth getting into that? Because that could inflame or intensify the investigation or open. Open up a new path. That's the calculus that goes on. And that's only one small example. And so every time he goes out there and calls for these investigations or says it, it's like a shot across the bow. And it's saying, you better be careful, because if you step even the slightest bit out of line, we're gonna get you. And, heck, even if you don't, we're still gonna get you. You'll be further down the list.
- [36:00]
Absolutely. They're also talking about going after the View. There are a lot of rumors that they want to replace the View with a show starring Charlie Kirk's widow and Megyn Kelly. So it would be like the Mean Girl Religious Hour, I guess, or whatever they'd call that. Last thing I want to have you bring up. Because also, this is on Media Matters, which I highly recommend everybody bookmark media matters for america.org it's really, really great content. It's really important to watch these people. Tom Homan, who apparently took a bag of cash when he was in between government jobs, allegedly the FBI caught him on tape taking a bag of cash in a Kava bag in which he was telling these undercover agents, FBI agents who were pretending to be people who were looking for ICE contracts, that he could hook him up for a cool 50k if you just slide him the cheese. Fox, apparently they're not interested in this story. Your thoughts? And tell me more about that.
- [36:52]
Yeah, they're not covering it. They're not talking about it. And they were. One of the first interviews he did after that news broke was with Laura Ingram, who asked him, hey, did you do this thing that you said you did? And her. His response was, well, I didn't do anything criminal. So he didn't Even deny they had him. And then what they did after is they just pretended like it didn't happen. Just memory, hold it, the reporting's gone. And instead to victimize them. And this is eerily similar to things that they've done in the past. Whenever they have even their own breaking news, they tend to ignore it if it actually is legitimately newsworthy, but cuts against the narrative that they're trying to tell. And right now, ICE is the big hero and Tom Homan is the face of that heroism. And they're not going to do anything that undermines him. If anything, they're going to continue to build him up as a Paul Bunyan esque figure in America.
- [37:36]
Yeah. I mean, even though it appears that the FBI thought that maybe it wasn't the migrants crossing the border who were the criminals, they were looking into whether he was the criminal. Yeah, I guess we don't get to talk about that anymore. Last thing. Do you, what do you expect of the media having observed the way that they're behaving right now? You have a couple of these headlines that I was going to get to earlier, but I'm going to get to them really quickly with you now. Former FBI Director James Comey expected to be indicted soon, per a story that's right now posted on cnbc. For what we don't know. They're trying to claim that he might have lied to Congress. But this is because Donald Trump hates Jim Comey. And so now you have him being threatened with investigation. You've already had the FBI go into Donald Trump's former national security adviser office and home and you know, turn that over. Looking for supposedly classified documents. John. In John Bolton's house because Donald Trump wants someone else to be raided the way he was rated for literally actually taking national security documents. Do you at this point trust the mainstream media to cover these kinds of stories accurately?
- [38:43]
No. At least not to cover them in a way that rises to the level of what they should be. And that is a real tension point. I mean, part of it is that they just feel like it's not worth it to some degree or they're just tapped out of outrage or maybe they don't want to draw all the connections. In this case, they don't have to speculate. He wrote it out there. He literally tweeted. He posted it. Pam Bonney, go after my political enemy, James Comey. It's not like you have to infer anything here. And I remember the coverage when Bill Clinton met with Loretta Lynch. He wasn't even in office at the time, and they taught me. And it was the biggest scandal. I was looking back at some of the things that were said. It was described as shocking and unconscionable, stunning. That language isn't being used right now. I mean, some of it is corrupt or whatever. But to me, that is the real tension point. When it came to one of their own, they recognized the threat with Kimmel and they helped tell that story. And I hope they're able to contextualize it here, but I'm skeptical that they will.
- [39:40]
Yeah, I've not heard. I'm going to text Karen Attia later and see if she's been invited on any major, major networks to discuss being fired by the Washington Post via email for speech and for not even offensive speech, for accurate speech about, you know, white conservatism being the bigger threat in terms of ideological, you know, violence. I have not seen Matt Dowd interviewed on any major media outlets about his face firing from msnbc. We're still. He's traveling, so we're trying to get him on this show where he's very much welcome here. You know, it's been Don Lemon and me that have interviewed and Roland Martin that have interviewed Karen. There seems to be a fear, as you said, to even touch any of these stories. I know you have. You have short times. I want to thank you, Angelo Carrasoni. Thank you for being here. Stay at it and keep a door open for us because we love having you on. Thank you so much. I want to note for you guys that, you know, these are the reasons that we need to support independent media. To be blunt, you know, I didn't do my like and subscribe pitch in the top of the hour, but I'm going to do it now because the reality is you are just not going to see these voices and these faces on mainstream media anymore. Because, as Angelo said, people are just deciding it's not worth it. It's not worth fighting with the FCC where if you have a broadcast. If you have a broadcast outlet, you know, you can be punished for it. Let's. Let's bring in. Hold on. Before I bring in my friend here. I've got a. I've got a good buddy that I want to bring him here. I need to. I need to pay these bills real quick. Can we pay these bills, Jason? Should we pay the bills? Which one? We do. Let's pay the bills. Let. Let's talk about. Let's talk about the Freedom from Religion foundation before I get to talking about the Freedom from Religion Foundation. I want to tell you guys a couple of headlines. This is a 10. Oklahoma, the state of Oklahoma. The same state of Oklahoma that is requiring a. A Bible to be placed in every school that just happens to meet all of the specifications of the Trump Bible. They're requiring that to be in every school. The same guy, the same director of education in the state of Oklahoma, Ryan Walters, the one who had the nudie nudies on his, on his screen when he was doing a zoom. That guy is now saying that every single high school is going to have a Turning Point USA chapter following the killing of Charlie Kirk. He's going to, I guess, require that in the state of Oklahoma, which ranks 50th out of 50 in education. Let me read you another story. This is an international story. This is A11. The Taliban. The Taliban has banned books written by women from being used in universities in Afghanistan. They have said the books by women cannot be used in universities inside of Afghanistan. What do these two stories have in common? These are the intersections of religion and religiosity. In one case, Christian nationalism, and in the other case, Islamic nationalism into society and having it overtake society. Note that in the United States, books by black people, by women, by gay people, also banned by Pete Hegseth in military academies. They're also attempting to ban those books in schools. They don't want young people to be able to read books by gay people, by women, by black folks. Very tall amnesque. And this is the reason that I am very glad, because we have to keep religion out of our public spaces. So I'm really proud that the Joy Reid show is brought to you by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. And it feels like there's a lot of bad news when it comes to the layering of religion onto our civic lives. But there actually is good news, too, for people who believe in the First Amendment. The Freedom From Religion foundation just helped stop two big major pushes to inject religion into our public schools. In the state of Texas, a federal judge blocked a law that would have required the Ten Commandments to hang in every public classroom. In Arkansas, after another FFRF lawsuit, a judge ordered Conway schools to immediately remove their Ten Commandments posters. These rulings remind us that public schools are for all children, regardless of their faith or lack thereof. That wall between church and state, it is only holding strong because people are fighting for it, because advocates like FFRF are fighting to make sure that our public institutions remain free and fair. If you want to join that fight, please support our sponsor and go to ffrf.ffrf slap.com.org school and text my first name sorry about that. Ff.ffrf.org school and text my first Name joy to 511511 to stand up for real freedom. So just it the easy way. Text JOY to 511-511 and stand up for freedom throughout not just our schools, but all of our society. Because once religion starts making the rules in schools, they're going to make it everywhere else. Text FFRF US School or text JOY to 511-511 message and data rate supply. Okay, let's get back to the show. I want to play for you guys a statement in 2021, March of 2021. And it was sworn testimony by then FBI Director Chris Wray who testified about where violence in the US was primarily coming from. This is a 13, Jason, let me know when you have it ready. This is Chris Wray who was the Republican lifetime Republican director of the FBI in March of 2021. Here he is.
- [44:59]
Which some violent radio crosses over into.
- [45:01]
Threats of violence or lead statue of violence.
- [45:04]
Could you describe how the FBI looks.
- [45:06]
At this relationship between rhetoric and action and what you are seeing around the country? So I appreciate the question and this is an issue that I've been talking about for some time. You know, in our view there is a right way and a wrong way under the First Amendment to express your views no matter how passionate or even angry you are. And violence and threats of violence is not the right way. And we don't care what you're upset about or who you're upset with. When from the FBI's perspective, when it turns to violence and threats of violence, that's when we have to draw the line. That's when we get engaged. And there is an alarming phenomenon that we've seen over the last several years of that kind of passion and heated rhetoric turning into actual violence and threats of violence. We've seen it against public officials of all sorts. We've seen it against law enforcement. And he went on to say that when he was asked what are the main sources of that violence, he said the vast majority of the sources of that violence are race based right wing ideologies. That was the sworn testimony of Chris Wray. Let me bring in my friend Wajahat Ali of the Left Hook on Substack, who he and I get together and troll the right quite a few bases, but easily. It's easy to troll them. They just get mad about like normal facts. And I want to let you respond because there's been A big fight to try to force people on our side of the ideological aisle to bend the knee not just to Charlie Kirk and to his ideology, but to not talk about the fact that it is the right that is the source of the majority of violence, per the FBI before they deleted it from their online servers. Your thoughts, Joy?
- [46:57]
Wajahat Ali
Always a pleasure to be on and I'm in a mood today, so I hope you'll excuse me as I rant away today. But it'll be fun. First and foremost, abolish ice F white supremacy and racists who terrorize black and brown skulls. I'm not here for the privileged snowflake feelings of MAGA that is in a perpetual festivus tour since the end of the Civil War, which they lost and are now trying to rewrite history, gaslighting us. And literally, as of today, the reason why MAGA is really upset at me as I'm talking to you right now is I pointed out that two weeks ago, before there was any suspect, any motive, it was Tyler Robinson, a white man, not a leftist, not transgender, not black. A white man from a Christian conservative family who seems was apolitical, who killed Charlie Kirk because he was allegedly radicalized by Charlie Kirk's homophobia. As of today, two weeks later, even now, we have a suspect and a motive. Allegedly. They're still blaming the left. They're still blaming the left, Joy. Before there was any suspect, they blamed the left. As a result of Donald Trump and the right wing media blaming the left, there have been death threats against me, against you, Karen Attia, for quoting Charlie Kirk, a black woman got fired. Matthew Dowd, a white, a centrist white, got fired. Jimmy Kimmel, a beloved white, almost got canceled. A historically black college got threatened. And black people are like, why are we catching strays Black? This is a white on white violence, right? And they're so desperate to confront white supremacy. They're so desperate to not confront, excuse me. They're so desperate to distract from white supremacy, to look at themselves in the mirror that they break the glass and use the shards against black people, brown people, immigrants and transgender folks. And the facts are, the guy who killed, allegedly Charlie Kirk is a white man. The guy who tried to kill Donald Trump is a white man, a white man who loved guns, from a Trump Republican voting family. The guy just yesterday who was convicted in Florida, who tried to, you know, kill himself after he was convicted. You know what he was, Joy? Want to guess?
- [48:51]
Don Lemon
A white.
- [48:52]
Wajahat Ali
A white man who voted for Trump in 2016. The number one domestic terror threat of the past 10 years. The goat, the MJ of domestic terror in the past decade, according to the doj. According to Chris Wray. I'm so glad you played that, because who appointed Chris Wray as the head of the FBI?
- [49:08]
Joy Reid
That would be Donald Trump.
- [49:09]
Wajahat Ali
Donald Trump. It has been without fail, in terms of incidents, in terms of violence, in terms of casualties. It has been right wing terrorism intersecting with white supremacist violence. Now they refuse to admit it. And I want to give another. I've been on this. I've been keeping this receipt since 2009.
- [49:27]
Joy Reid
Joy.
- [49:27]
Wajahat Ali
Yeah, 2009. Wired came out with an article in 2012 that said DHS crushed this analyst for warning about far right tether ter. Back in 2009, Daryl Johnson was an analyst at the Department of Homeland Security focusing on far right extremist groups. But when a report. He's a white man, folks. When a report he wrote about their danger sparked criticism from conservative pundits, DHS shunted Johnson aside and gutted his office. Now at least six people have died in a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. You remember that a white terrorist went into the Gurdwara and killed Sikhs. Innocent Sikh members probably thought they were Muslim. Johnson is once again calling on the government to recognize that domestic terrorism isn't just about jihad. Because ever since 9 11, it was all about Muslim extremism. But when it's about white supremacy. And that, folks, was from 2009. So in the past 10 years, they're number one. They're the goat. And notice in real time right now. Sorry for Morant. I'll stop speaking after this. They are gaslighting you right now. In real time blaming they and them at Charlie Kirk's propaganda rally, they and them. I'm like, yo, it ain't me and Joy. It's Tyler Robinson, a white dude from a Christian conservative family. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
- [50:42]
Joy Reid
No, absolutely. Your TED Talk was excellent. And they're sort of also acting like because someone is maybe LGBTQ that that means they're automatically on the left staring in. Peter Thiel, who is a whole gay man and is as far right as it gets to the point where he apparently doesn't believe in democracy or women being able to vote. Right. You can be right wing and still be in that community. There's a whole thing called the Log Cabin Republicans. They're all Republicans. That's the name of their organization. They're Trumpers, they're maga, and they are also lgbt. That doesn't mean anything. And they're trying to say that if you're in a relationship with a certain kind of person or the person who's trans, that means you must be on the left. Where are they getting that from? Do they. Don't they know how many LGBTQ people. Unfortunately, I mean, Caitlyn Jenner is a whole MAGA trans person.
- [51:27]
Wajahat Ali
Let's spill some tea. Let's have some fun. They're saying, allegedly, that his mom, Tyler Robinson's mom, said that he was apolitical. But she says, well, in the last year, he became pro gay, and to her, that was pro liberal. However, all of his friends have said, this man's apolitical. And like you said, you can be gay, you can be bisexual, you can be transgender, and be hella maga. I give you Peter Thiel, I give you Grindr, yet again, shutting down because of the overuse when? Over the weekend in Phoenix, Arizona. Joy, can you tell people what was happening over the weekend? Just like the last time Grindr shut down was at the Republican National Convention in Wisconsin. They have the heat map, folks. And some other tea. Some other tea, because I'm not in on this, but I just found out today that Benny Johnson, plagiarist from buzzfeed, Benny Johnson, has taken money without realizing it from Russia through tenant media. Benny Johnson, that podcast in which the FCC chair, Brendan Carr went and literally threatened and extorted abc. That Benny Johnson, who's all of a sudden become really religious and has showed off his kids on Twitter and has said that it was, you know, Charlie Kirk's memorial, was the best thing that happened for Christianity since Jesus Christ. I don't know if you've heard this, Tea. No, but MAGA is saying that Benny Johnson gets really busy at these TP conferences, and men are consoling his wife as he's up there banging dudes because apparently he's bi and gay. And then also buzzfeed. Buzzfeed writer, former buzzfeed writer. I think he's still there. Saeed. What's his name? Saeed Jones. Saeed Jones said that when he was at buzzfeed, he made out with Benny Johnson one night after a party. And so Benny Johnson, just like so many other MAGA folks, allegedly is a closeted lgbtq. Embrace yourself, Benny. Embrace yourself. This is true.
- [53:18]
Joy Reid
I am going to make this statement that we do. We have not verified allegedly information. It's alleged information. You all take that for what it is. These are things that Waj is hearing. So, yeah, don't say that. We are confirming this information. Alleged.
- [53:31]
Wajahat Ali
I said Alleged too.
- [53:32]
Joy Reid
Allegedly, he said allegedly. And I want to make sure. But this I can confirm because I want to read to you what Chris Wray actually said in his testimony. And he talked about the January 6th incident. Remember this was two months after January 6th. I want to come back to that for just one moment. He said, unfortunately January 6th was not an isolated event. The problem of domestic terrorism has been metastasizing across the country for a long time now. It's not going anywhere soon. He then goes into and asks who are the people that are most preponderant or are doing the most of this right wing violence? And he testified under oath that it is the majority of it is race based white nationalist violence. He says we have not to date seen any evidence of anarchist violent extremists or people subscribing to Antifa in connection with the sixth. That doesn't mean we're not looking. We'll continue to look, but at the moment we have not seen that. But he said that what they have find is that violent extremists with ties to right wing militias and white supremacy were involved in the violence and are facing federal charges and, and that they pose the biggest threat to the United States. The end. The end. The end. That's from Christopher Wray. But to come back to what you're saying, because I did cover the Republican convention in Tampa, remember that one in what, 2012 or whatever. And we heard the same thing, like people were saying that there was a lot more activity on the sort of grinder type apps and that they were boring when it was the Democrats there because that most Democrats who are gay are just out and so they're not really like trolling that way. Right. So there's a. That's a whole other sort of.
- [55:05]
Wajahat Ali
No, but you know why it's tied, Joy? The reason why it's tied and tied to what you're saying. It's all projection, it's all hypocrisy, it's all shamelessness. These are the free speech warriors who are against cancel culture but now want to cancel you for literally quoting Charlie Kirk. These are the people who are all about free speech, maximalists, facts, don't care about your feelings. Stop being a snowflake. But once you criticize Charlie Kirk, you have to be destroyed and you have to be civil. These are the people who are for pro security but are perfectly fine pardoning 1600 violent insurrectionists. These are the people who are pro family values and are literally trying to erase transgender people. One of the most marginalized Groups on earth, but secret. This is the problem, folks. Go ahead and be gay, do whatever you want. Be lgbtq, I don't care. The hypocrisy, the fact that you're a hypocrite and the fact that you're using the Bible as a sword and, and then using this as a shield to protect yourself and your activity, but then going around and saying, family values, family values. And I'm so glad you talked about that. Oklahoma school superintendent who might resign because he was caught looking at porn during a parents meeting. And I'm like, bro, if you got skeletons in your closet, maybe you know, just shut the f up. Shut the f up. Or maybe attack on like another angle. Maybe just don't go all in and say, I love my wife, my heterosexual wife. As a heterosexual man, I like the vagina. And anyone who doesn't like the vagina, there are perverts. And let's go after transgender people and let's go after gay people, but secretly I'm probably gay and having gay sex as well. The hypocrisy, the corruption, the cruelty, the projection, it comes from the top down. Donald Trump and how can we take this MAGA movement seriously that talks about being against terrorism and pro security, but they haven't said a word. Haven't said a word, Joy, about white supremacist terrorism, right wing terrorism. I want to give you another fact. The same day that Charlie Kirk was murdered in neighboring Denver, there was a shooting in a high school. And do you know who the shooter was? Desmond Hawley, a 16 year old white boy radicalized online through white supremacist sites and anti Semitism who brought in a school, expressed neo Nazi sentiment. He has been scrubbed from the news. Vance Bolter, the guy who had a hit list of 70 Democrats who tried to kill, who did kill. Melissa Horman. Scrubbed from the news. Donald Trump's first assassin, a white guy from a Trump family. Scrubbed from the news. Joy, I can't quite see, I cannot quite put my finger on what's the one trait that links all these people? Can you tell me?
- [57:31]
Joy Reid
I mean, I'm going to guess. I'm going to noodle on it. I'm going to noodle on it. But I will go even further back. I mean, you go back to Oklahoma City bombing. You go to the massacre inside mother Emanuel, you, in which the young man was literally saying that he wanted to have a race war and so he killed nine people, including the pastor of that church. That shooting in Buffalo at that grocery store where people were Literally just buying food. You know, you can go on. It's literally. And look, we used to have Waj. We used to have FBI, you know, retired FBI, people like the Frank Fig Louis of the world on when, unfortunately, we had to cover these mass shootings. And what they would say is that profilers, they generally look at mass shootings, and in the preponderance of cases, it's a white male between 22 and 49. That's what they. That's their sort of baseline of what they're looking for. I think, actually, we do need to have a conversation in this country. Absolutely. About the acculturation of young white men. Why they're so angry, why they're, you know, running to these manosphere podcasts, why they're so frustrated, why they're taking up arms. And in many cases, against each other, many. In many cases against their former schools. I actually think it's a serious conversation. And when they want to talk about, quote, unquote, black on black crime, they want us to have these conversations. They want Muslims to have all these deep conversations. There's a fly in here. It's trying to get me. They. They want.
- [58:50]
Wajahat Ali
It's a white supremacist fly.
- [58:51]
Joy Reid
Deep conversations, Right. Exactly. It's the same fly that was trying to go after. That was trying to go after Mike Pence is like, I got you. I'm coming for you. You know what I mean? Like, if. If one Muslim does something, they think all of Muslims need to sit down and have these deep conversations about you. Everything about Islam, they never want to have that conversation themselves, even though it seems to me to be desperately important. And the last thing I'll say before I. Before I let you in is that we know from FBI studies that the anger has increased as we get closer to the time when white Americans become no longer a majority in the country.
- [59:26]
Wajahat Ali
That's right.
- [59:27]
Joy Reid
And that we've seen an escalation in the anger and the rage and the violence. Don't you think that it's time for America to have that conversation?
- [59:37]
Wajahat Ali
To quote the late, great Bernie Mac, I'm not here for any foolishness. And I don't care if MAGA is mad at me, let them be mad at me. I want to remind you all that when 19 foreign hijackers brought down the two towers, this country lost its damn mind and declared war on Iraq and Afghanistan and also bombed Somalia, and it literally terrorized generations. And there was mass surveillance against innocent Muslim American communities. I want you all to remember that. And we unleashed the Patriot act and ICE and the rest of us who marched against that war. We were on the right side of history. We said, listen, you're using your rage in an unbridled way that will increase and strengthen the military industrial complex that one day might be used against you. When it's black folks, what do they say? Where are the black fathers? What is it about this hip hop? Look at this black culture. Why can't these black families come together? So let me return the favor. But not like a psychopath. I don't want white men to be surveilled for being white. I don't want, you know, white people to be, you know, hounded on the street. I don't want white skulls to be cracked like black and brown skulls have been cracked for the past 25 years. Learn from the mistakes, learn from what you did against black and brown and Muslim communities and do better. But we have to have this conversation. The number one mass shootings are a daily reality, almost a weekly reality in America. Who commits Mass shooters? 97%, Joy. Men. The majority of mass shooters, white men.
- [61:05]
Joy Reid
Number one.
- [61:05]
Wajahat Ali
Domestic terror threat. The goat for the past 10 years in terms of incidents and violence, White people. The examples at the top of my head and your head that we've given so far, white folks. Right. And many of them Trumpers. So the question I have is we see young white men getting radicalized specifically online with access to guns.
- [61:25]
Joy Reid
Yeah.
- [61:25]
Wajahat Ali
What is happening in these families? Can we ask this question, Joy? Because they've been asking about our peoples since forever.
- [61:36]
Joy Reid
I think we have to because, you know, they, you know, white Americans are still a majority. They still are a voting majority. They're still the policy making majority. And there's no self reflection to say what's happening with our sons. You know, there are a few people that are trying to, trying to, you know, I think Scott Galloway is one of them that tries to sort of dig into what's happening with young white men and why they are so enraged. But there are not very many people who are willing to have that conversation because that's considered offensive. But it's considered totally fair game to do it with Muslims, to do it with brown people.
- [62:06]
Wajahat Ali
Absolutely.
- [62:07]
Joy Reid
Donald Trump was at the un I think one of the reasons that Sinclair and Nextar refused to play Jimmy Kimmel is they were afraid he was still in New York or he was back in D.C. they want to make sure he didn't have to see Jimmy Kimmel make fun of him because he's so soft and he's such a Little snowflake, but I want to play you. This is a 15. This is Trump talking about the people that he has demonized and said is the real cause of violence and instability in the country. Not just in the U.S. but he also did a whole weird white nationalist international thing and also talked about Europe. Jason, let me know when You've got a 15. This is Donald Trump speaking to the UN General Assembly.
- [62:44]
Donald Trump
Here it is reasserted that America belongs to the American people. And I encourage all countries to take their own stand in defense of their citizens as well. You have to do that because I see it. I'm not mentioning names, I see it. And I could call every single one of them out. You're destroying your countries. They're being destroyed. Europe is in serious trouble. They've been invaded by a force of illegal aliens like nobody's ever seen before. Illegal aliens are pouring into Europe. Nobody is ever. And nobody's doing anything to change it, to get them out. It's not sustainable. And because they choose to be politically correct, they're doing just absolutely nothing about it.
- [63:38]
Joy Reid
Your thoughts? And he said, your countries are getting destroyed if you don't get rid of the immigrants.
- [63:43]
Wajahat Ali
Look at this pathetic, decaying sack of orange flesh barely hanging on with his weak cankles. This disturbed, aging, whining, perpetually frustrated, weak snowflake. This man whom God has given so much power and so much influence. And instead of using his time and to make the country great again, he instead whines, attacks immigrants, the marginalized and griffs. I want to remind everyone because New York and the NBC has actually a good little paragraph at that, at that stage, that world stage. This is the Met. This is why white supremacy, Joy have always said, is ultimately so self destructive. White supremacy is ultimately. Oh, was that. Is Don interrupting my flow? Why are you doing that to me, Don?
- [64:28]
Joy Reid
Don is in the building.
- [64:30]
Donald Trump
Why did I do that?
- [64:30]
Wajahat Ali
Why you got to do that to me? Why you got to do me dirty, Don? But as I was saying, white supremacy is ultimately self destructive. And look how pathetic is the NBC said at the UN that was our representative. He pretended that he ended seven wars. False. While pointing to approval ratings that exist on his mind. He renewed his lobbying for the Nobel Peace Prize. He falsely claimed that everyone wants to get him one. He took pointless shots at our allies. He told unnamed officials that their countries are going to hell. He bragged about campaign swag sales. And he attacked clean energy, insisted climate change is a hoax concocted by nefarious people with evil intentions and what we found out, Joy, and this pains me as an American. Other countries were laughing at him and laughing at us. I want to tell you all something about Pakistan. My parents are from Pakistan. It's a country with many challenges. My cousin came here from Pakistan, studied, went back. He was about to come to America. You know what he said? He goes, hey, man, I was about to buy a ticket to America, but things look really bad. I'm just going to stick back in Karachi. When people in Pakistan are looking at us and they're, like, taking pity.
- [65:32]
Joy Reid
Yeah, Joy, we feel sorry for you. It's a problem. Oh, my God. Wajahat Ali. I think we've triggered him again. My friend, thank you so much for coming on here. We trigger in either your spot or mine. You all please subscribe to the left hook on substack. You're the best Watch. Thank you.
- [65:46]
Wajahat Ali
Thank you so much, everyone. And subscribe to Joy. And subscribe to a substack and. And click that notification, that bell button, and get Joy to. How many folks do you got? Get Joy to 400,000. She's at 300. 8,000.
- [65:58]
Joy Reid
Hook us up. Come on, Come on.
- [65:59]
Wajahat Ali
Thank you, Joy. Thanks for letting me rant.
- [66:02]
Joy Reid
Appreciate you. No rant anytime. Look, I want to basically do a little flip here before I bring in Don Lemon. I want to re up and let you all know that this is the Joy Reed show. This is hour two. We are waiting on one of our guests who had a little bit of a fender bender. So we're waiting on Jim Acosta, but let me bring in Don Lemon and announce. While I bring him in. I'm not sure which one. Don, I'm gonna.
- [66:23]
Don Lemon
No, I don't have multiple cameras.
- [66:25]
Joy Reid
Don has multiple cameras. Don is a news professional with camera. Is this one good? Dar is this one?
- [66:31]
Don Lemon
I logged in on two phones because I was trying to get them right for you, Joy. I ran. I just checked in to my hotel, and I'm like, I gotta get on Joy right away. Can you see me? Are we good.
- [66:44]
Joy Reid
There? You. I can see you. I mean, I see.
- [66:48]
Jason (Producer/Tech)
Okay, this is the main one.
- [66:49]
Joy Reid
I think we got him. I think we got him. While Don is getting himself set up, I want to let you guys know that please hit like and subscribe. We. We want to make sure they hit like, subscribe and share because we want to make sure that we grow this independent media like Don is. Let us congratulate Don Lemon, who is one of my idols in the business, my friend, my compatriot in this. In this independent Media world, who today hit a really cool milestone. 900,000 subscribers. Let's say it again. 900,000 subscribers. We are in the church of Don Lemon. 900,000 people watching. Am I here? 900,000 people watching this live. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Congrats, Don.
- [67:36]
Don Lemon
925.
- [67:38]
Joy Reid
I can see you. Yes. I got you. 100 subscribers. 924,000. 600, hundred thousand subscribers. Thank you, Joy.
- [67:50]
Don Lemon
Congratulations. I replied to you. Congratulations to you. Your interview with the vice president, our forever vice president, madam Kamala Harris. I just. It was just great. It was a great conversation. I am. I'm really proud of you. And we're all in this together, you know, and so I'm glad to be on your show. I'm sorry that I'm a little bit late. I had trouble, but, you know, I. I'm moving around. I'm in D.C. i'm at the Capitol. You know, I'm doing my thing where I'm talking to lawmakers. When you congratulated me the other day on Nancy Mace and holding her accountable. So that's what I'm out here doing in these here independent streets.
- [68:28]
Joy Reid
Yes, I love it. And this is my favorite, Don. I love all the versions of Don Lemon, but Don in the streets is like my favorite, because you're in there doing the thing, talking to people, but also talking to. To lawmakers, holding them accountable. That is the thing. That is the thing we need. Don, I want to really quickly talk just for a quick. We're waiting for Jim Acosta. He's. He's. He's a little bit held behind, but we're going to wait on Jim. But I want to ask you, you've now seen not just my interview. Kamala Harris has done the View she was on with Rachel Maddow. She's doing a lot of these conversations. What do you make of the story that she told in this book and the story that you're hearing?
- [69:08]
Don Lemon
I like what she's doing. I like that she's out telling her story. I like that she's not allowing historians or haters or people who make money off of biographies, whether they are approved or not. I like that she's setting the record straight. If you have been in the public eye and you have had, depending on whatever your career trajectory or for whatever reason, you realize, you understand that the person who writes the first draft really writes the story and the history. And so I like that she's getting out front. I don't like the criticism that she's getting, you know, People are free. Free to. You can criticize, you can do whatever it is that you want, but I don't think that it's fair. She's a big girl. She can take care. She's a, you know, a grown woman. She can handle it. But they don't criticize Donald Trump. Even those on the left are not criticizing Donald Trump for talking and telling the truth about people who he feels is flighted him. So why can't Kamala Harris do the same? That's what I don't understand.
- [70:19]
Joy Reid
Yeah. And we are joined now. Look, our trio is together. The family is together. Jim Acosta. The great Jim Acosta. We used to call ourselves the Canceled Club. Right. We were the former denizens of mainstream media who've come together and we're pals, you know, doing the thing in independent media. Jim Acosta. Love it. Welcome. I want to let you in. First of all, I want to make sure you're okay. You're all good.
- [70:40]
Jim Acosta
I'm good. I got rear ended on the way to this dinner I'm going to. And I was like, okay. Nothing's going to stop me from getting on with Joy and Don. This is not gonna. This is not gonna thwart me. And I, I looked at the back of my car.
- [70:54]
Don Lemon
I was like, this is what I'm doing when I'm looking down.
- [70:56]
Jim Acosta
We're in this together, people, including the car.
- [70:59]
Joy Reid
Together.
- [71:00]
Don Lemon
Look at us, y'. All, look at us.
- [71:04]
Joy Reid
We are on.
- [71:06]
Jim Acosta
It looks good.
- [71:07]
Joy Reid
Professional. It looks good.
- [71:08]
Wajahat Ali
I love it.
- [71:09]
Joy Reid
Yeah, absolutely. No, this is our breaking news trio. We know that you guys love us together. So anytime that we can get together, this is the biggest way we can do it. Can we talk about that 23 hours a day and sleep for one?
- [71:22]
Don Lemon
You know? I love it when people come off legacy or linear television. They go, this is gonna be so easy. I'm used to doing lives all day and hours and hours of live news. And then you're like, you have no idea. You have no idea. I wake up, I. I sit in front of a computer. 8:00am no idea. And I don't leave that computer and camera until probably 8pm at night. You know, there's something. I have meetings and all of that. No, but I do. And then. Okay, I don't do that. Traveling, you know, and I'm doing live shots. I'm going out, I'm talking to people. You just constantly. You have to feed the beast. But here's the thing. I love it because it's me. And I also feel closer to the Bone closer to the ground. I got to tell you this story. Someone that we all know, I spoke to them today, and we were just talking about, you know, what happens next, where is this going with this whole independent thing? And he said, you know, Don, I was on cable earlier in the week, and he said, it does just felt so weird. They were so out of it. They had no clue what was going on. They didn't know what people were saying in the street. The questions did not make any sense. And he said it was just weird. It felt clunky, old and outmoded. And I said, yeah, I hardly watch anymore. I watched. I'm sorry, Joy, but I watched linear television in real time last night for the first time in a long, long time. And someone said, well, come on, Don, you watch sports? And, like, yeah, I watch sports, but I also stream that, too. And is it in real time? Yes, I guess it's very similar, but this is the first time, like, I sat down to watch a show on, you know, a broadcast network as it was airing, as everybody else was seeing, because usually I'm just, you know, on YouTube or streaming stuff.
- [73:14]
Joy Reid
Yeah, no, I tried to do that last night, but I couldn't watch Kimmel because, I mean, a Sinclair.
- [73:19]
Jim Acosta
Me too.
- [73:19]
Joy Reid
We weren't allowed to watch Kimmel. Yeah, no, they wouldn't let us. They wouldn't let it be aired. And I want to get you in here, Jim, because they didn't want it aired in D.C. or New York because Donald Trump is in New York for the UN and then he's coming back to D.C. and they literally locked it out so that it couldn't be seen because his little feelings would have gotten hurt. Talk a little bit about this, because to Don's point earlier, Kamala Harris gets attacked for telling her truth in a book where she's telling her own story of what happened to her. And Democratic operatives are savaging her and some media, politico and others being like, tis, tis, tisk, tisk. Why would you do that? But Donald Trump is literally personally going after individual comedians who've hurt his feelings. And Saturday Night Live, and people are acting like that is totally normal.
- [74:01]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, no, I mean, there's such a double standard now. I mean, there's no. It's not a level playing field. Donald Trump has smashed the playing field. And, you know, I was talking about this with Don and Mike Fanon a little earlier. I mean, we're now 10 years into Donald Trump being at his political rally saying, I'd like to see that protester Carried out in a stretcher. If I could punch that protester in the face, I'd do it. And stuff like that. I think Kamala Harris deserves to have this space in this moment. She ran a hell of a campaign. 107 days. Was every day perfect? No. Was the day on the View where she said, I can't think of anything I would do differently than Joe Biden. Was that her best day? No, it was not. But she ran a hell of a campaign. And she is right that it was awfully damn close. Like, Trump makes it out to be like, this was the biggest. Like, this was a Ronald Reagan, 1984, you know, blowout. No, that's another one of his lies. And so, I mean, I sort of think that Kamala should just go for it at this point. And my favorite parts of the book that I'm hearing about so far are the ones where she's like, yeah, Gavin Newsom said he went hiking and then didn't call me back.
- [75:09]
Joy Reid
I know.
- [75:09]
Jim Acosta
Just. Just tell it like it is. Just tell us what happened. That's what we want.
- [75:15]
Joy Reid
And by the way, my goal is to get Gavin Newsom to sit down on this show. And my first question will be, did you ever call her back? In fact, you still ain't call that lady back.
- [75:24]
Don Lemon
Exactly.
- [75:25]
Joy Reid
You should probably call her back.
- [75:27]
Jim Acosta
Call her back.
- [75:28]
Joy Reid
Call her back, Gavin. We want to know. We need to know the tea. Why didn't you call her back? But I mean, and this is the thing, and I'll bring you into dawn as well, because the reality is, is that there is a different playing field or a different expectations for women politicians.
- [75:43]
Don Lemon
For black women, black men, Latinos, and for women Democrats. You know, but. Go on, Joy.
- [75:50]
Jim Acosta
That's right.
- [75:51]
Joy Reid
Yes, yes, yes. Well, I mean, and the piece of it is, to me that the thing that's being left out is that the analysis is always of her as a candidate and not to your point, of the special circumstance of her being a black woman. And I think that even is true in Biden world. And I know people don't like it when you. And even she felt a little uncomfortable, really, having to lean into the things she said about Joe Biden. I think when I was talking to her and when the View was talking to her, she didn't seem to want to go there. She's very loyal to Joe Biden, but if we're being honest, Biden world thought they could just take a Biden campaign and hand it to her, and then she would be able to run just like him. And they expected her to do that.
- [76:28]
Jim Acosta
That's right.
- [76:29]
Joy Reid
Yeah.
- [76:29]
Jim Acosta
I mean, they ran the campaign office out of Wilmington, Delaware. I mean, they were still in Delaware. They had no time to put this campaign together. And, I mean, I was talking to a Biden advisor just the other day. This was just very recent. And this person said, why should we have gotten out of the race? We were only one point down to Donald Trump, when, you know, earlier on in the year, it looked like, you know, we could still hang with Donald Trump in this campaign. Now, I will. I would say to the Biden people, you did. He did promise to be a bridge to the next generation of Democrats. So that. That is on him. And he can say all kinds of stuff, but that's on him. I think the vice president, Don, is absolutely right. When people are like, well, you know, you ever hear this when people say, well, I didn't like the choices. We didn't have much to choose from in this election. Bullshit. Yes, you did. She was. She was the vice president. She was a senator. She was the attorney general. She was a very accomplished person, and she would have been a good president, and we would not be in this fucking mess that we're in right now. I mean, I haven't been on your show yet, Joy. I hope it's okay for me to use that kind of salty language.
- [77:36]
Joy Reid
Look, we're not on. Look, the FCC can't touch us. We're not on broadcast television. There you go.
- [77:41]
Jim Acosta
Thank you. We can say whatever we want, but it's true.
- [77:43]
Joy Reid
And by the way, I hate to say it, I'm sorry to cut you, but I've already used the F bomb earlier. I had to deal with Megyn Kelly. I did. I don't ever talk about that lady, but I had to because she came after Jamel Hill. And I'm like, that's a bridge too far, baby. She don't come after Tim.
- [77:57]
Jim Acosta
Megan fucking Kelly.
- [77:59]
Joy Reid
Megan fucking Kelly, man. She the angriest rich lady I've ever met in my life. How are you gonna be that rich and be that angry if you're that rich? If I was. If I had that much money, if they paid me that much money to walk away from NBC because I was like, hey, blackface is cool. I would be so happy. I would literally be on a permanent vacation. I would have a smile on my face all the time. I'd be nice to everybody. I be buying gifts for everybody. This lady is angry and enraged every day. She wake up every morning. Who. Who am I gonna be mad at? Today. Which black woman am I gonna scream on my show?
- [78:26]
Jim Acosta
And she kisses Trump's ass after what he said about her.
- [78:28]
Don Lemon
She had blood coming out of her wherever. I was like, oh, yes, right. And then I was like, should I respond? And I'm like, no, let his words speak for themselves in this moment. You don't have to say anything, Don. And then my producer was like, did.
- [78:43]
Joy Reid
You hear what he said?
- [78:44]
Don Lemon
I was like, yeah, I. Yeah. And then what did he said something about her, too? There was something else that was the blood coming out of her wherever. But then there was another one. Yeah. And then he.
- [78:58]
Joy Reid
He said, coming out of her way.
- [78:59]
Don Lemon
Who's doing the raping, Don? Somebody's doing the raping.
- [79:02]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [79:03]
Don Lemon
Yeah. On. Yeah.
- [79:07]
Jim Acosta
Oh, my God.
- [79:10]
Joy Reid
Yeah.
- [79:10]
Jim Acosta
Maybe we should go back and revisit that audio. I don't know. There might be some stuff in there that we forgot about.
- [79:17]
Joy Reid
It's. I mean, it's insane to me. That's. The other piece of it is that people are transitioning from being a journalist in mainstream media to literally being a troll. Like, I mean, her job now is to be a troll and to troll particularly black women. And I'm not sure why she. Well, I do know why. It's the easiest way to grow in maga. It's the easiest way to make the transition from journalist to maga. From the somebody who was capable of criticizing Donald Trump to a full fledged member of the team is criticizing black women. It's the train that's never late. Going after Latinas, going after black women. Going. She goes after. And she's doing it for clicks.
- [79:52]
Jim Acosta
It's her way of being. It's her way of going.
- [79:55]
Don Lemon
I, I want to, I want to read through you guys, because it is, it's exactly what you said when people, because of people like Megyn Kelly and the right wing trolls. I get people who know me and they'll text me or call me and say, if I just saw the Twitter feed about you, I would think that you are this evil, racist person. I know you. And I wonder who is this person that they're talking about. This came, this was this morning at 1:31am from my friend Aaron, who I haven't seen in a long time. He said, hey, man, like always, I hope you're doing well. I'm sure you are. I see you all over X these days. My wife and I went to a concert tonight and we were talking afterwards. Little snowflake, little mushroom emoji. Anyway, I see a bunch of hate on X. It may Be the views that matter. It may be the views that matter, but the overall sentiment sucks. Feels like you're a better person than what the Internet thinks. Exactly why I stay off of social media. Just wanted to reach out to tell you we think you're a good man. From the limited contact through the years because I haven't spoken. We were friends when I lived in Atlanta. Regardless of the political ideology, my wife is certain that she would be you and your husband's bf.
- [81:18]
Joy Reid
Ha ha ha.
- [81:20]
Don Lemon
Enough. Enough yaya talk. Take care, man. I love you. And that was it. Like, people. And then sometimes when the MAGA folks meet me, they're like, well, wait a minute. Where does that mean? Evil guy.
- [81:34]
Joy Reid
Yeah.
- [81:34]
Don Lemon
And then they end up buying me drinks. And then my husband's like, okay, y' all can go.
- [81:39]
Jim Acosta
That's it.
- [81:44]
Joy Reid
Please leave. Well, you know what I was saying earlier in the pre hour, and I've heard this about both of you. I met Jim. Jim, I think you and I met in an event, like, for five minutes one time, right? We didn't know each other at all. I knew of Don, obviously was a big fan of Don's word, but we all didn't know each other from, like, college or high school. Like, we didn't know each other that long. But you hear about people before you meet them in this business. You hear about who's cool, who's nice to crew, who's nice to other people, who are kind, who are cool. Like, you hear these things. And I promise you, I've heard so many great things about each of you before I ever met you. So that when I met you, I already knew to expect. Expect a wonderful person. Because I heard about y' all, like, other people in the business. I promise you, I've never heard one person say, you don't make. It's really nice. And there are other right wingers that I've heard good things about. I promise you. I have people who used to crew for Tucker Carlson. You know, I cannot stand Tucker Carlson. I call him Tuck. Ems. But I've heard that there are times when he can actually be okay. I've heard.
- [82:44]
Don Lemon
I hear Tucker was good to his staff. I've never heard that about. I've heard the exact opposite about the person you're talking about.
- [82:51]
Joy Reid
That's what my.
- [82:52]
Don Lemon
All the different places at the serious, at the Fox, at the NBC. I've heard all of that about NBC.
- [83:03]
Joy Reid
I've heard mean. I've heard mean.
- [83:05]
Don Lemon
That was the whole thing, that movie that came out, that whole narrative. I Was like, who's that lady? Because that's not what the streets were saying. Sorry, Joy, Listen.
- [83:15]
Joy Reid
Yeah, so anyway, that's all I'm gonna say about that. I'm just angry because she's just so mean to other people and I'm sure she'll come after me.
- [83:22]
Jim Acosta
Well, and some people say the same thing about. And some people say the same thing about Donald Trump. They'll say, oh, well, you know, behind the scenes he can be such a nice guy and all this. But the thing I say to that is, is, is who the person who is out there on the stage and the stuff that he is saying, that's who that person is too. So you can give me all this, oh, he's charming and he's disarming and all this stuff, what he says out in public, the enemy from within. All just the other day. I hate my opponent. Same thing with, I agree, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
- [83:52]
Don Lemon
Just, you know, he'd always like, hey, let's go have a steak. When he'd see me at some industry and I'd say, okay, great. And then. But the nasty shit that he puts out into the atmosphere, into the universe is just, you know, I think it's just vile.
- [84:12]
Joy Reid
It's incredible. I mean, Laura Ingraham, I have ridden an elevator with her. She was always very nice. I could not, she could not have been nicer to me in the elevator. When we're in the same building, we work in the same building. Fox and MSNBC were in the same building. But it's as you said, the ability to pivot and on air say the craziest stuff to be about people. And again, it's punching, not even down necessarily, but like going after somebody's life looks and saying they're ugly anyway. It's not fair. But I do want to talk to you guys about that piece about Donald Trump, because Donald Trump at the United nations was a sight to see. I did watch his entire speech and I don't know if it is a case of Jekyll and Hyde, because in the Kamala Harris book, the two instances in which she talks about interacting with Donald Trump, he was weirdly nice to her. He was very concierge, like toward her, which she found very Jekyll and Heidi and very strange. Right? Like, but in public, he would call her all sorts of names. So he did that Jekyll and Hyde thing. I watched his speech. I don't know if you guys watched it and had the same sense that I did. And I'll Start with you, Jim. It felt to me like his soul wasn't in it, his heart wasn't in it. When he was reading the sort of Stephen Millery parts of the speech where he's talking about Europe is destroying itself by letting non white immigrants in. You're gonna destroy your countries. When he got animated is the part where he started talking about the fact that he had pitched the UN to redesign their buildings and that they could have had terrazzo floors. When he was sort of ad libbing about the things he cares about, that's when his heart seemed to be in his. In it. What do you make of him as somebody who covered the White House and covered him? Is he mouthing Stephen Miller's beliefs when it comes to this immigration stuff, or is he just low key racist and he's into it or some combination of both?
- [85:50]
Jim Acosta
I mean, I think, I think it's a combination of both. But I think right now, in this moment, he is basically the puppet and Stephen Miller is the puppeteer. Stephen Miller is the de facto White House Chief of Staff right now. He is pulling the strings. He is putting the words in Donald Trump's mouth. And I think that it's pretty obvious. And when I talk to people here in Washington about what's going on inside this White House, what they will say is that they have never seen somebody as powerful as Stephen Miller without the title. And I think that should worry every American. When you listen to what Stephen Miller was saying at that event, that Charlie Kirk memorial event the other day, how was that a Christian, you know, memorial service, when Stephen Miller was up there saying the kind of stuff that he was saying, that we have an army now, you are nothing. We're coming after you. That was some. That was some really dark, disturbing stuff. And when you hear Donald Trump read this stuff at the un, it's basically out of the same friggin, you know, chat GPT, Stephen Miller, you know, speech making robot. And you know, to me that what's worrisome about where we are right now is that Trump is in his second term. Who knows, maybe he'll try to go for a third. Who knows? He feels like he can go for broke. He's diminished physically, he seems diminished mentally. And I think that that is a moment where, you know, the really bad faith people who are behind the scenes can put words in his mouth and some pretty malevolent actions in what he does. And so it concerns me greatly.
- [87:26]
Joy Reid
Yeah. And Don, it concerns me too, because I can never tell how much of it is him. I know when it's him because he gets excited about I need to get a Nobel Prize and whining about how he never got any credit for ending multiple wars that he didn't end. You can see when it's his thing. But, but this other stuff is super dark. I mean, there are people who are comparing what Stephen Miller said at that memorial to stuff like very 1930s kind of language. You are nothing, you build nothing, you have nothing. It's very familiar. And, you know, even if he's not intentionally doing it, it is sort of quoting 1930s German kind of rhetoric. And Donald Trump is going along with it either because he feels he has to or because he's getting enriched on the side. It's hard to, well, look, I would think it's still got the troops in our streets.
- [88:13]
Don Lemon
Point. You'd have to, you know, you'd have to. The onus is on Donald Trump to own it. This because as we all know, Jim. I know, I know that you know, that Stephen Miller has been a Donald Trump, you know, die hard sycophant defender since 2016, when he would come on CNN and, and we would have to, like, I'd have to say, yeah, Stephen, please, let someone else talk. Calm down. And with the same sort of rhetoric that he's giving now. So he's been doing it for almost 10 years, if not 10 years, if not 2015, when Donald Trump came down that escalator. So, you know, I think at some point this is who Donald Trump is, because if you're a grown man, you're in your 70s, you're damn nigh 80 years old. Most people that age don't let other people speak for them. They kind of have an idea about life that's usually pretty solid and pretty concrete. So this must be at some level what Donald Trump believes. And if he doesn't believe is okay with him to side and allow those people to influence him. Because he wants it politically, he wants the power, and it is okay. It doesn't matter how he harms people, how it harms the country, how it is ruinous for democracy and for America and for our Constitution and for, you know, the government, for all of it. And so at some point you have to say, even if he's being influenced by Stephen Miller, Donald Trump is a grown ass man and he has to take responsibility. He is the president and the buck stops with him.
- [89:57]
Joy Reid
Amen to that. Jim Acosta, Don Lemon. Jim, tell everybody where they can follow you, all the places that they can follow find you.
- [90:03]
Jim Acosta
Oh, yeah. I mean, please, first of all, thank you for having me here. It's great being with both of you and sorry I had to do. I. I had a little accident on the way here. I got rear ended on the way here and almost didn't make this. This hit, but I'm just glad you're okay. I know. I'm gonna. I think I might need some Tylenol or something, but.
- [90:24]
Joy Reid
Oh, no, don't take Tylenol accordingly.
- [90:26]
Jim Acosta
I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. No, I'm on substack. And just find me there on Substack. Jim Acosta Show, Substack, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. And really great being on with both of you. Really, really appreciate it.
- [90:40]
Joy Reid
Always love having you on, my friend. And now Don Lemon, Mr. 900,000.
- [90:50]
Don Lemon
And more and 2 million and 5 million and 10 million. All of us, they can find me on at the Don lemon show on YouTube. You can find me on. I'm live every day at 10am and 5pm on YouTube, on Instagram, on TikTok, on substack. I write for substack. I'm all over social. I'm doing My man on the streets. And I'm here in D.C. also for the CBC. The Congressional Black Caucus. Child, you would think I'm Denzel. I'm like, can I get a selfie? I'm like, oh, y. Slow down. But it's resonating with people because they're sick of the bullshit coming from corporate media. And you can also find me anytime I am invited on the Joy Reid show. I will come. I will drop everything for you, my friend, because I love you so much.
- [91:38]
Joy Reid
Oh, I love you. Back to Lemon. You are a wonderful joy.
- [91:42]
Don Lemon
Thank you, Joy.
- [91:43]
Joy Reid
Did you see the vice president, I.
- [91:45]
Don Lemon
Don'T know when you sleep quote tweeted us. Did you see that? No, no. The vice president.
- [91:52]
Joy Reid
Wait, did she, quote, tweet us? Wait, what? Quote, what quote? Oh, I have listened to me. That might be my moment of joy. He retweeted with the bald headed, chubby version of himself because you said he.
- [92:06]
Don Lemon
Was an Appalachian DTI response recruit for Harvard.
- [92:11]
Joy Reid
He was. He was. He was. Harvard was like, ooh, white guy from Appalachia. Let's take him. Not from Choke or Vincent. It was hilarious. High school.
- [92:22]
Wajahat Ali
It was hilarious.
- [92:24]
Don Lemon
This is me. I'm gonna. This is me and Joy. Let me see if I can get it.
- [92:31]
Joy Reid
Oh, my God, y'. All. Look at that. This is your moment of joy. Guys. There it is. There he is. He Tweeted his own meme. The ballheaded, chubby version of himself. I'm putting that on my social. I'm actually. That's a badge of honor. I don't even. I can't stand J.D. vance. Let's just be clear. It's never. There's nothing he could do. He could literally rescue my cat out of a burning building and I would still hate J.D. vance. What he said about Kamala Harris, you never get forgiven. She was real cool about it when I asked her about it. She was mad cool. She's a better person than me, better Christian than me, because I will never forgive J.D. vance for that, ever. And you were DEI and you were affirmative action. Live with it, J.D. live with it. And that's what he really looks like too. The bald headed, fat version.
- [93:16]
Don Lemon
That's the only thing, you know, we used to say back in the day. I'm not gonna say him bald headed, bow legged stepchild. Do you remember that?
- [93:25]
Joy Reid
You're not gonna say it.
- [93:29]
Don Lemon
I love bald headed. And I love.
- [93:30]
Joy Reid
We love the stepchildren. The stepchildren. We love them, but we love the bald headed, bow legged people.
- [93:35]
Don Lemon
All right.
- [93:35]
Joy Reid
Love you too. We love a bow legged Jesse. That's what he is. Holler.
- [93:39]
Don Lemon
Hit me up.
- [93:39]
Joy Reid
I'll see you at D. Teddy Reed.
- [93:41]
Don Lemon
Joy, do you call your.
- [93:42]
Joy Reid
You got. Call your.
- [93:43]
Don Lemon
What do you call the readers? The readers?
- [93:46]
Joy Reid
Yes, readers. Oh, they are the readers. The readers. Yes. Say bye. And the team tjrs, folks. The team. They're in the chat loving you. They're loving it. They're loving Don Lemon and the Lemon hands. What up, lemon heads? We are family, readers and team tjrs. Thank you. Don't yo. Look, my friend. My friends, my friends. Better than your friends. Look, I got some good friends in this media biz. Thank you all so much. Thank you so much for Don Lemon, of course. And Jim Acosta. We're glad that Jim is okay. We are so glad that Jim is okay. All right, guys, what'd you say?
- [94:24]
Jason (Producer/Tech)
I said, he texted me and I missed the message.
- [94:26]
Joy Reid
No, I text. I was literally. That's why I was looking down at my laptop. Guys. I was looking down because Jim texted to our group chat. Don and I. I put them in a group chat, and he was like, oh, I've been rear end. I was like, wait, what? He was like, I'm lightly rear ended. I'm like, that's a problem. So we were a little bit worried about Jim, but Jim is a. Okay. And we are so, so, so, so Glad. Hold on one second. I'm sending a text right now. All right, so let's move on. I want to go back and I want to play you guys, actually, some of this sound. I want to play you some of this sound from the UN Jason, we're going to go through some of this sound because we were talking about the fact that I feel like Donald Trump heart was not in it when he was saying the things that Stephen Miller wants him to say. So I'm going to go through just a few. Let's start with him saying he ended all the wars. This is a 14. This is Donald Trump talking about giving himself credit for ending all apparently.
- [95:24]
Donald Trump
And sadly in all cases, the United nations did not even try to help in any of them. I ended seven wars, dealt with the leaders of each and every one of these countries, and never even received a phone call from the United nations offering to help in finalizing the deal. All I got from the United nations was an escalator that on the way up stopped right in the middle. If the first lady wasn't in great shape, she would have fallen, but she's in great shape. We're both in good shape. We both stood and then a teleprompter that didn't work. This is. These are the two things I got from the United Nations. A bad escalator and a bad teleprompter. Thank you very much. And by the way, it's working now. Just went on. Thank you. I think I should just do it the other way. It's easier. Yeah, thank you very much. I didn't think of it at the time because I was too busy working to save millions of lives. That is the saving and stopping of these wars. But later I realized that the United nations wasn't there for us. They weren't there. I thought of it. It really after the fact, not during. Not during these negotiations, which were not easy. That being the case, what is the purpose of the United Nations? The UN has such tremendous potential. I've always said has such tremendous, tremendous potential, but it's not even coming.
- [97:01]
Joy Reid
Yeah, let's stop. So he says the UN has plenty of potential, but it doesn't actually do anything. Let's. Can we go to B4, Jason? Because Daniel Dale of CNN actually debunked a lot of the BS that he just said, particularly the stuff about saying that he ended seven wars. And he's really upset because he really feels like he's supposed to be getting a Nobel Peace Prize for supposedly ending seven wars. He's been Running around the world, having all of these urgent meetings, trying to say that he's ending wars and sort of pretending that he is like ending wars so that he can get a Nobel Peace Prize. He's very desperate to match Barack Obama, who actually did get a Nobel Peace Prize, and he's very pissed off. So here he is. Here's Daniel Dale debunking this is before for y' all taking a while to load up. Oh, it's loading up all right. Before. And this is Daniel Dale, who is the fact checker from cnn. There are still some good people working in mainstream media, and he's one of them. And he did a whole fact check.
- [97:56]
Daniel Dale
There are a lot of issues there. So, first of all, some of the conflicts he's counting as wars he resolved were not actually wars at all. For example, Egypt and Ethiopia have argued over an Ethiopian dam project on the Blue Nile, but they were not in a raging war in which thousands of people were being killed. Similarly, Trump has claimed that he prevented conflict between Serbia and Kosovo from resuming, but they were not in a raging war either. In addition, the conflict involving the Democratic Republic of Congo and neighboring Rwanda has not actually been resolved. We have good reporting from just a day ago talking about how hostilities have continued despite the peace deal that was signed under President Trump. And then in addition to that, India denies that President Trump was responsible for mediating its ceasefire, its truce with neighboring Pakistan. So a whole lot of issues with just that one claim. And Pamela, there were a whole bunch of other claims that were just out and out false. I don't even have time to run through all of them. But on inflation, President Trump said that grocery prices are down during this presidency. They're up, and the pace of the increases is accelerating as the tariffs take take effect. He has claimed that inflation has been defeated in general. No, inflation is also accelerating. It was 2.9% last month, up from 2.7%. He said that European electricity bills are high, which is true, but that ours are coming way down. No, in the US they are increasing sharply, up 6.2% in August compared to a year prior. And there were a whole bunch of other topics. He claimed that he has secured some 17 trillion in investment in the U.S. well, just yesterday, his own White House press secretary said it was about 9 trillion in investment. So I don't know where the additional 8 trillion in a day has come from. And Even that initial 9 trillion, the press secretary claimed, is highly dubious, counting a whole bunch of things that aren't actually spending, but rather are Vague commitments from various countries. You and Kylie addressed the environmental claims. I just want to address one more. He claimed that China builds a lot of wind turbines and manufacturing captures them for others, but refuses to use it itself, barely uses wind power. In fact, China is the world leader in the use of wind power. It is building additional wind power in China far faster than the pace at which the US Is building in the United States itself. So the idea that China is just foisting this terrible source of energy on other countries while refusing to use it.
- [100:16]
Joy Reid
Is a reversal of reality that was fairly thorough. Donald Trump basically said nothing true while he was standing on stage at the UN but he did have a lot to say about the bad renovations and about immigration. So let's go through. Let's pick one of the two. Let's start with. Let's go to a 15. Jason, if you could. This is a 15. This is Donald Trump basically warning Europe that if they don't stop letting immigrants into their countries, Europe is going to be destroyed. I believe that is a.
- [100:49]
Donald Trump
We have reasserted that America belongs to the American people. And I encourage all countries to take their own stand in defense of their citizens as well. You have to do that because I see it. I'm not mentioning names. I see it. And I could call every single one of them out. You're destroying your countries. They're being destroyed. Europe is in serious trouble. They've been invaded by a force of illegal aliens like nobody's ever seen before. Illegal aliens are pouring into Europe. Nobody is ever. And nobody's doing anything to change it, to get them out.
- [101:31]
Joy Reid
It's Stephen Millerism. You can stop there. It's Stephen Miller speaking through Donald Trump. And you can see just how sort of haggard he sounds reading what he knows he has to do. He knows he's supposed to do it. He also goes into a lengthy diatribe about how Europe is destroying itself by getting off of oil and coal and by caring about climate change. He says climate change is a hoax, that it's a huge hoax, that they're ending all the manufacturing, that they need to go back to manufacturing, basically old industrialism, that they're getting beaten by China that's making a fortune because they're still doing oil and gas. He does a whole series sales pitch for oil and gas, which was also super weird because it seemed like he was essentially doing what his bosses in big oil have told him to do. Remember during the campaign, he said, if you guys give me a billion dollars, I can let you do anything you want. He'll basically let big oil run wild, that he goes on the UN Stage and lectures the rest of the world for trying to get off oil and gas and coal and says, we can only call it beautiful clean coal. And he goes on a whole rant about that. But I want to play this one. This is a 16, because now watch the difference between Trump's demeanor in what you just saw him doing when he's droning on about how you're destroying your country. So basically a white nationalist speech about immigration and how Europe needs to be for the white Europeans and you need to stop letting the brown people in. You're destroying your countries. Basically doing a sort of Stephen Miller esque kind of speech, a sort of Nigel Farage type speech. Now, here's a 16 where he gets to talk about something about himself as a developer. Here's a 16.
- [103:09]
Donald Trump
Many years ago, a very successful real estate developer in New York, known as Donald J. Trump, I bid on the renovation and rebuilding of this very United nations complex. I remember it so well. I said at the time that I would do it for $500 million, rebuilding everything. It would be beautiful. I used to talk about, I'm going to give you marble floors, they're going to give you Terrazza, I'm going to give you the best of everything. You're going to have mahogany walls, they're going to give you plastic. But they decided to go in another direction, which was much more expensive at the time and which actually produced a far inferior product. And I realized that they did not know what they were doing when it came to construction and that their building concepts were so wrong and the product that they were proposing to build was so bad and so costly, Lord have mercy, it was going to cost them a fortune. And I said, and wait till you see the overruns. Well, I turned out to be right. They had massive cost overruns and spent between two and four billion dollars on the building.
- [104:19]
Joy Reid
So he went on, he didn't even get to Raza. You didn't get to Raza. You didn't get to Raza. But that's when he sort of seemed a little more animated, when he was talking about himself and being a developer. He's still whining about a decade or more old pitch that he gave to renovate that building. And he was extra mad because the escalator didn't work. When he and Melania got on it again, God said, going up is not in your future or your present, Donald. You're not going up, not in his escalator. You're not. And so he was mad about that as well. Now, I want to contrast that and Donald Trump's appearance before the United nations, which, you know, for me was very embarrassing just as an American, to watch him up there, he does seem diminished, mentally, physically diminished. And it was long. People have described it as more Mar Gaddafi without the charm. He spoke for about an hour. He read some of it off the prompter, but the rest he would do that kind of extemporaneous going off into the weeds, the weave that he likes to call it. But he seemed like a sort of angry, whining, complaining old man. And whereas the last time that he addressed the United nations, people literally laughed at him, this time the room was just silent. They just listened to what he had to say and they were just absolutely silent. And you could just sort of feel the tension as they understood that they're dealing with somebody who has far more dictatorial powers. Now that he is in his element, he's enriching himself like Putin does in Russia. He is being treated by his party the way Kim Jong Un is in North Korea. And he actually arrived at a time when the UN General assembly voted in a huge affirmation to recognize Palestine as a state. It's now about 147 countries that now recognize Palestine now, including France and the UK and Australia and Canada. Donald Trump got up there and said that was a bad idea in his speech. He said that was rewarding Hamas, even though Palestine has been promised a state by the United nations since Resolution 242. We're talking about decades and decades and decades. They were supposed to have a state and they themselves declared themselves to be a State in 1988. And the majority of global south countries recognize them, but it is mainly Europe. If you put up the map of countries that don't recognize Palestine, it's almost entirely Europe and the West. Those numbers are now filling in, thanks, of course, to the UK and Australia and others, but not the United States. Even Russia recognizes Palestine, but not the United States. So he did that as well. And so then a woman named Natasha Pierre Kirk Musar came on stage and she is the female president of Slovenia, which happens to be the country that Melania Trump comes from. So her accent will sound very familiar to you. Her speech, in contrast to Trump's speech, was a tour de force, a moral tour de force. I listened to her entire speech. It was about half the length of Trump's, and it was brilliant. It really actually made you see what can be done with the United nations speech, if you're willing. She talked about the same things he did. Climate change, you know, the whole oil and gas, you know, sort of slavery to oil and gas around the world, the wars, all of those things. But I want you to listen to her. This is. Let's do the longer one. This is a 17 for Jason. This is. Her name is Natasha Pir Musar. Hopefully I'm not mispronouncing her name. She's the president. Slovenia.
- [107:46]
Natasha Pierre Musar
The leaders of this planet can offer nothing but terror, conflict, pollution, fear, inequalities and war to 8 billion people. Then we must confront the truth. We are complicit in crimes against our civilization and our planet. And not just us heads of states, but leaders of international institutions, civilization, and every individual with the power to make a difference share this responsibility. None of us can claim ignorance of what is at stake. If we believe in human dignity for all, we must deliver more. A world that fulfills lives, not threatens them. We must say yes to inclusive multilateralism and a resounding no to more multipolarism. Let us show that this General assembly can and will make a difference as it has often done before. Let us demonstrate that we reject arrogance, hatred and willful blindness to a lack of equality and justice, to wars of aggression, crimes against humanity and genocide because they tear us apart for generations.
- [109:05]
Joy Reid
That was brilliant. And now I want to play the ending of her speech because the ending was very searing. It was succinct, it was brilliant. Here is President.
- [109:17]
Natasha Pierre Musar
We did not stop the Holocaust. We did not stop the genocide in Rwanda. We did not stop the genocide in Srebrenica. We must stop the genocide in Ghana, Gaza. There are no excuses anymore. None.
- [109:35]
Joy Reid
And unlike Donald Trump, she got that robust applause because real leaders sound like that. Donald Trump got up and whined and complained for an hour. He did a sort of old man grousing, give me a Nobel Peace Prize. Whining about President Biden, about Barack Obama. He just did his usual shtick. But that shtick does not work in the world anymore. The United States is less respected around the world. We're less beloved around the world. That blue passport doesn't have the. The same kind of vibe that it differently did. When you travel with that blue passport, that used to be a thing of pride. Right now it is a thing of embarrassment for a lot of Americans who are traveling abroad. People actually warn you to be careful if you've got that blue passport, because Americans are hated. Donald Trump's regime of tariffs has upended the global economy upended our economy. They know around the world that our economy is weak, our dollar is weak. The they know that our democracy is weak. They know that Donald Trump is essentially being puppeteered by people like Stephen Miller, by people like Bibi Netanyahu for whatever reason. He just does whatever they say. And a lot of people are over it. Even people on the right are over the Bibi Netanyahu part. Even some of the right are saying, enough with doing whatever this little country that's supposed to be our client state says, and why are you being bossed around by Bibi? We don't understand why, but does seem like he is. And I think that a lot of people, even conservatives, are getting sick of that and getting sick of a president who clearly is terrified of the Epstein files, running around telling the rest of the world how to conduct free speech when his own government is shutting down. Comedians because they make fun of Donald Trump is attempting to bully stations to cancel shows and fire people. And by the way, if you fire a comedian that hosts a late night show, there are dozens and dozens and dozens of people who have jobs that would also be lost. All of the crew would be unemployed. Donald Trump doesn't care about that. As Jimmy Kimmel said in his monologue, Donald Trump does not care if he makes hundreds of people that work on the Jimmy Kimmel show unemployed, just so long as he doesn't have to hear Jimmy Kimmel make fun of him anymore. Donald Trump does not care if the entire staff of the Colbert show and if they end that franchise forever so that no one will ever get to have that cool job working for the Late show, which has been around for decades and decades, even before Stephen Colbert hosted it. He doesn't care if all those people lose their jobs. Stephen Colbert will be fine. Stephen Colbert will probably start, like, one of the most hugest podcasts in the world, as a matter of fact, by the way, Jimmy Kimmel, they're about to go to New York to Brooklyn Academy of Music and do a huge series of shows. Jimmy Kimmel had 11 million people and counting watching on YouTube last night, including myself having to watch on YouTube. 11 million and counting. I don't even know how many it is at this point. One of his biggest shows ever. He just made Jimmy Kimmel more popular. Probably more people watch that show than had watched it in the previous, you know, six months because of Donald Trump. But he thinks that if he can get rid of Jimmy Kimmel, he won't have to hear Jimmy Kimmel make fun of him. He thinks if he can force Saturday Night Live. I think Saturday Night Live is about to hire a black MAGA comedian. A guy who's admitted to being MAGA and voting for Trump is now going to join the cast of snl. Let's see if SNL is still SNL when they come back on or if they're the com. The. The FCC investigations into Comcast, which Brendan Carr is threatening to do as well, because Donald Trump said that Maya, you know that, that Maya and Kamala Harris both being Kamala Harris in a skit on Saturday Night Live was somehow election interference because Kamal Har's got to be funny on snl, huh? You talk about Maya Randolph, Maya Rudolph. Yeah. Donald Trump was mad that Maya Rudolph and Kamala Harris did a skit that wasn't even about Trump. But he's mad because he didn't get to do a skit because, you know, SNL makes fun of him. So he wants that to go away. He wants Jimmy Fallon, who really isn't that political. He still wants him to go away too. He wants all of Late Night to go away and be replaced by faux comedians like the one on Fox who will do mean jokes about trans people and leave him alone. He wants them to do mean jokes about Joe Biden for the 470th time and leave him alone and, and say he's amazing. He. He's so thin skinned, he's such a child that he can't stand for people to make fun of him. I mean, I don't like J.D. vance, but at least J.D. vance has enough of a sense of humor to tweet that funny looking meme of himself. Ballheaded, ball headed like a chubby baby. That was just, you know. No, he did. I don't know who on his comms team thought that was a wise idea, but he, he literally retweeted Don Lemon and my post about affirmative action, which I did on Don shows. I was on Don's show yesterday and retweeted it with the bald headed baby picture of himself. I guess he thinks that was funny. I have no idea. But at least he's sort of laughing at himself.
- [114:12]
Jason (Producer/Tech)
But he's being clowned.
- [114:13]
Joy Reid
But he's being clowned for. Because it's, it's not really. I don't know if that's supposed to be a drop the mic response, but whatever I'm putting on my social media, he maybe agreed because he really was an affirmative action pick for Yale. That's true. He just was. Get over it. Join the club. Welcome. But, I mean, Donald Trump, who also got into an Ivy League school because his father paid his way in, he's never shown us his transcripts from high school. I told y' all my gpa. I told y' all my SAT score. I didn't tell you all my AP scores. I took five AP classes in college, in high school, in senior year, and you have to take a test at the end. And it's on a scale of one to five, I got four fives and one four. So I legitimately got into these schools. I'd like to see Donald Trump's high school transcripts. Can you show me? He's not gonna. But these people are so whiny and such babies that they want to hear comedy that affirms that they're right. They want to hear comedy that says that the other side of the bad guys and that they're the good guys. Let's do your moment of joy for a brief moment. The National Park Service. This is. Let's see, where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Let me figure out which one it is. DDD it's a 19. A 19 is your moment of joy for a brief moment. The national park service in D.C. had up a dual person statue, and it was a statue of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein in a secret handshake, dancing and skipping along like the besties that they were for over a decade. This is a pretty amazing freaking statue. That statue lived for about 24 hours. The National Park Service has now taken down this wonderful statue, which is entitled Best Friends Forever. It was a statue of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein holding hands, skipping along. It lasted for a full day, for 24 hours. We were able to see the secret handshake group. Who put it together? No one knows who put it up. It's an anonymous sculptor that put up this amazing statue. And we want to let you all enjoy it. Enjoy it. This is your moment of joy. Funny, they got all those National Guard out there. Nobody's seen them put that thing right. Because you know what? I promise you, the National Guard, okay, they were on. They're on 29 day deployments so that the Pentagon doesn't have to pay them because on the 30th day, they actually get extra money and benefits. So they're putting them on 29 day deployment so they can cheat them. They. They're walking around. I would. I was in D.C. driving the other day. They're walking around doing nothing. And they're in the posh, nice areas. There's nothing to Do. They're not fighting crime. They're in like Georgetown, like going to the coffee shop in their hot ass gear, bored as hell. And so they probably helped to put it up. They probably looked the other way and like, yeah, put that up. Because Donald Trump is doing all of this foolishness with the military in our streets because he doesn't want the Epstein files to be released or spoken about. And trying to cover up. The Epstein files has taken, has been taken so far now that he's now literally doing a sort of faux martial law in order to distract. First he says it's about immigration, then he says it's about crime. Meanwhile, and we're going to get into this in a future show, there are like hundreds and hundreds of men who are locked in so called Alligator Alley, are literally missing. No one knows where they are. There was an ICE facility that was shot up in the state of Texas, and I believe two of the people who were detainees there were hit, two were wounded, and the, the, the person who did the shooting died. I think one of the detainees has actually died. We have violence all over the country because Donald Trump is fomenting rage against immigrants, rage against black people for no reason whatsoever. You've got black colleges catching strays and having bomb threats blow, you know, bomb threats sent in. We are being completely destabilized as a country because we have a geriatric president who can't take a joke and is scared of the Epstein files. And because of that, we're all being forced to suffer. But your moment of joy brought to you by whoever put up the Best Friends Forever statue, It is brilliant. It brought me joy. But I figured I would give you an opportunity to enjoy it because you're not going to get to travel to D.C. and enjoy it. This is CBC Week. Everybody be safe. If you're doing events in D.C. for the congressional Black Caucus foundation, they've got all their events that are coming up this week. And now, before we go, Jason promised us that what we're going to do today, should we, should we do it? Do it today? Not today. Maybe not today. I don't have no visuals for it. No, we don't have a visual for it. Okay. Could have sing about. Yeah, so what I'm going to do, what we're going to do. Jason and I have decided a lot of you guys have asked about the song that we play at the top and the bottom of the show. We are going to play it at the bottom of the show today. That song is by the Food Chain, which is a. A. An amazing hip hop group. We're going to play it in a second, but eventually we are going to do a Food Chain Friday. Y' all let us know in comments if you're down to do a Food Chain Friday when we bring some members of the Food Chain on. This is like a hip hop group that was really, really popular that started a few years ago in the city of Denver, Colorado. My brother happens to be in the Food Chain. Oren lamenta big ups to Orangelo from your sister La Mangelo. And his is the first verse that you hear that is Oren's voice. And the whole song is dope. Actually, it's on an album called Lunch, which is one of my favorite of their albums. They used to open for Talib Kwele. They've opened for Eminem. Like, like, you know, they were like, super Denver famous, and I think they need to be nationally famous. So we licensed that song. YouTube, we're allowed to have the song. And we're going to do a Food Chain Friday and let you all meet the members of the Food Chain. And we have some amazing events coming up that we want to have the Food Chain involved in. Oren actually was a broadcaster, a sports talk broadcaster in Denver as well. So these are talented young brothers.
- [119:54]
Jason (Producer/Tech)
You're not going to dance.
- [119:55]
Joy Reid
So we're gonna play now a good chunk of the song. Jason said no dancing, so I will just. I'll just sway. Jason, can I sway? All right, let's do it, y'. All. Thanks for tuning in. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Jason, wait, wait, wait. Before you do it, everybody, please make sure you like and subscribe. Don Lemon has gotten to 900,000 subscribers. We are over 300,000 subscribers and counting. I think we're 307,000 and counting. Get us to half a million by my birthday, which is December 8th. That is my birthday. December 8th. We need to get to half a million subscribers by December 8th. So. So, y'. All. What did you say, Jason? That would be a good present. It would be a great present for me if you want to get me something for my birthday. December 8, 2025. Let's get us to half a million subscribers. We're on our way, marching to 1 million. We want to make sure that Readers Nation is here and accounted for. So please, like, please subscribe, please share. Hit that little. It's like a little bell looking button that will allow you to be notified when we go live. Jason's laughing at me. If you hit the little bell, then you will know when we go live because we're not always going at 7. We are now introducing this fun pre show at 6. Y' all let us know in comments if you love the the. The pre show and the two hour experience. And now, now Jason, hit that button. Oh no thank you.
- [121:18]
Jason (Producer/Tech)
Hey, it's the B. Today's like imma talk less, listen more tell me what they hitting for out the gate six and four yeah, I'm about to lick them shake them up, let them go side action Little Joe dimes at your decalogue that's the way I'm living it Nothing venture, nothing game life is like a roll of the dice you hold on white knuckle praying that that local change what are those commandments though? One for every finger on both hand gambling with that ten again Inner city limits ain't no pence in my city giving but that east side in me Tell me different what dependence with my living on borrow time get along bottom line get a job Bills don't pay themselves but I can't see 60 hour work weeks Miss me with that Hercules I'm trying to lift this music off the shelf Church I'm trying to lift this music off the shelf Hurt, don't it? You damn bit I'm getting back to my base bouncing on my ones, counting on my twos sitting on my threes Getting back to the basics Writing we and R's shouting on my eyes crossing all my T's Getting back to the basics Getting back on my basics yeah, I'm back on my basics basic basics Getting back on my basics Getting back to the basics Grassroot level let me dig a little deeper with the shovel plenty case tell the force from the trees that I'm hard to detect Like a black hole in the dark Injustice anywhere it's a threat to justice everywhere Let me make this clear I got a bone to pick and I'll never fear the threat of poverty they don't want to talk about it they rap the party so I'm a real talk about it for sure there's a purpose in this rhyme Let me take you back into a place in space and time let's rewind Whose skills have weight now it's all about weight she needs attention content they put in green on the plate feed it to the youth Destroy the futures how they think make it complicated so the eyes don't blink Watching dreams on a broken screen on the break of doing anything that make ends meet I'm getting back to my basics bouncing on my ones counting on my tools sitting on my threes getting back to the basics Writing we and R's dotting on my eyes crossing all my T's getting back to the basics basic basics Getting back on on my basics yeah I'm back on my basics basic basics getting back on my basic basics hey yo I'm back to the bases counting big faces AB sees more G's in my basement I'm pacing racing paper never waiting tell them get it straight get it straight like braces break it up, roll it up, light it up tasting all up with your getting white girl wasted giggle where she naked and she let it shake it dirty put a mask on her like Jason oh I'm amazing versus all cajun I ain't hard to find know my location t.o. standing no patient he's hot yo not stop hating study my moves but can't get a degree you better off killing yourself you ain't better than me ever part of my slippers but I'm feeling at home and I'm fresh and better than kitchen cooking.
- [124:36]
Joy Reid
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