Latasha Brown (5:35)

I'm not saying anything.

Joy Reid (5:36)

Okay. So. So Admiral Halsey, the rather fine commander that was overseeing the Pentagon's escalating attacks against boats in the Caribbean Sea that the Trump administration claims are smuggling drugs, said on Thursday that he was stepping down. Admiral Alvin Holsey is leaving his job as head of the US Southern Command, which oversees all operations in Central and Southern America as well as the Pentagon. He's rapidly built up some 10,000 forces in the region in what the, the Pentagon says is a major counter drug and counterterrorism mission. This is the key paragraph in the New York Times story that I really want y' all to pay attention to. It says it was unclear why Admiral Halsey is suddenly departing less than a year into what is typically a three year job and in the midst of the biggest operation in his 37 year career. But one current and one former US official, both of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters, said that Admiral Halsey had raised concerns about the mission and the attacks on the alleged drug boats. We actually have a video. So they've been, this is the second time that the Pentagon and the CIA have combined to bomb boats full of, we don't know who, in the Caribbean Sea not far from Venezuela, in what a lot of people believe is an attempt to provoke Venezuela to respond, to give the US an excuse to invade Venezuela and do regime change against Nicolas Maduro, who is the dictator there. It's feeling very regime changing, right? Even now when you think about it, the Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegians giving the Nobel Prize to the chief antagonist to Maduro, who is a right wing, Trumpy like right winger. But she, and she actually praised Trump and dedicated the award to him. They gave her the award, the Nobel Committee, because of her commitment to democracy and to overthrowing Maduro. Maduro did a fake election just like Trump, you know. Well, I don't say just like Trump. But he, Maduro did an election in which he first lost an election, but then he came back and claimed that he won the election. He then banned this woman, the one who won the Nobel Prize, from running against him, basically made it illegal for her to run. And then she backed someone else who most of the world believes actually won the election. But he refused to accept defeat and just did what Trump wanted to do. He just stayed on. So he is anti democracy Maduro, he's a monster. But he is considered a right wing, a sort of left wing socialist sort of monster. So the US Hates him. And it's just, you know, it's believed that maybe they want to do regime change. We have this A3 the video that they're releasing. They've declassified the video of them attacking these boats, which looks a lot like a war crime. It looks a hell of a lot like a war crime. Let me just read a little bit of what Democracy now is saying. There are growing questions over the legality of the US Strikes on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean. They are sitting ducks and we are simply engaged in cold blooded murder of individuals who are, who may or may not be drug smugglers, said David Cole, professor of the Georgetown University Law Center. Cole says that President Trump is committing homicide by killing people without trial. These individuals who have now been sent to the bottom of the sea by this president, if they were tried at most would face a sentence of some period of years, says Cole. There would be no death penalty authorized under the constitution to these individuals, even assuming they're guilty. But they're not saying or proving that they're guilty of anything. They're much like the Trump regime is kidnapping people off of the street, just saying that they're trend Aragua, that they're gang members and then disappearing them, taking them wherever they want to take them, whether they're US Citizens or not. They're now like acting Israeli when it comes to the Caribbean Sea. Just as the Israelis sort of take upon themselves the right to bomb whatever countries in their neighborhood that they want, kill whoever they want, blow up the sea, cell phones or however they want, they just act outside their own borders. We're now doing that too. And it really doesn't make any sense. And it appears that maybe, maybe the good admiral has decided that one day when the Nuremberg trials begin and the ICJ is looking to actually hold accountable the people committing crimes, maybe he doesn't want to really be around saying, I was just following orders. It's interesting. The governor of Illinois did a, an interview recently, this week where he said the same thing about ice. Could I play the video? Oh, go ahead. You can play the video. Yep, you got it. This is the video of the. It's a really. A video of a murder. And they're, and they're declassifying the video because they want people to see it. So they're going ahead and they are declassifying this video in order that people will actually see them. Like out and out. Killing people. Killing people. In other news here is. It's wild, right? They're just killing people in a boat. There's no evidence that these people have done anything wrong, but they're just murking them, just blowing up the boat and killing the people. This is actually quite terrifying if you think about the United States now committing international crimes in the Caribbean Sea in order to maybe provoke a war with Venezuela. I thought Trump was the no wars guy. He keeps saying he ended seven wars, now he wants to start a war with Venezuela. And I will note, what does Venezuela have that might make us want to.

Latasha Brown (11:05)

Go to war with them?

Joy Reid (11:06)

I wonder, what could it be? I'm going to ruminate on it. What do they have that would make us want to do the same thing we did to Iraq and also antagonize Iran? Might it be oil? Venezuela is one of the largest suppliers of oil, you know, Citgo gas, that's Venezuela. So maybe that's the reason. That might be one of the reason why our regime wants to maybe go to war with Venezuela. Because they got a lot of oil, a lot of oil. They're one of the largest oil suppliers in the world, and now suddenly we want to go to war with them. Seemingly enough. Pete Hegseth is concerned that people are not praising Donald Trump North Korea style enough. I believe we have this video of.

Dean Obadala (11:54)

Pete Hegseth whining on the historic trip of Middle east peace, which our generation of veterans never dreamed would be possible. So you would think that the Pentagon press corps of all press corps would be front and center across the board on wanting to give credit to the president for forging this kind of peace. And instead, what they want to talk about is a policy about them which simply says maybe the policy should look like the White House or other military installations where you have to wear a badge that identifies that you're press, or you can't just roam anywhere you want. It used to be, Mr. President, the press could go anywhere. Pretty much anywhere in the Pentagon.

Joy Reid (12:35)

Yeah. You know, that's called journalism. You're supposed to be able to go. The Pentagon belongs to the American people. They're supposed to be able to go wherever they want, right? But apparently according to pdx, no, they can't. Well, the vast majority of news organizations said hell no to these new rules that would essentially require major news organizations to clear their coverage with the Pentagon before they would be able to put it out. So they would have to essentially have sort of North Korea style control over their coverage. Every single media outlet but one said no. All but one said absolutely no. Here is a list of who's in and who's out. This is a seven. We're going to give you a list of which organization said they're in and which organizations said they're out. And you'll be kind of surprised because we're even talking about conservative news organizations like the Wall Street Journal, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch. And for income and family, of course, the Associated Press, Reuters, the Atlantic, cnn, npr, the Hill. All of these organizations said absolutely not. Defense, 1, Financial Times, the Hill, Politico, everybody said yet no. Even Fox, I believe, said they wouldn't do it. One America News is the only one that said, yeah, we'll do it, no problem, we'll do it. And if you've never heard of One America News, we actually have a clip of them. If you could have a North Korea style news outlet in America, it would be One American News. Like they are the closest thing to a North Korean media outlet as you're going to get. They basically just today on the real.

Dean Obadala (14:17)

Story, a grand jury indicts John Bolton for allegedly mishandling classified documents. Author and filmmaker Dinesh d' Souza is here with his insight. Plus, the first New York City mayoral debate took place last night and Zoran Mamdani, the self avowed socialist, got smoked. Eric Eggers from the Government Accountability Institute gives his reaction. And finally, will AI end up replacing teachers inside of the classroom? Our resident AI wizard Larry Ward has the scoop. Tune in at 6 Eastern, 3 Pacific, only on One America News.

Joy Reid (14:46)

Well, at least they have an AI wizard. Gotta have that interesting, right? They're gonna be. So now the only news outlet apparently that will be having coverage will be. Will be them. Let's look at a six because this is the way the rest of the Pentagon press corps reacted to this. And ASICS shows you the Pentagon press corps essentially were told if you don't want to give us complete control over your coverage and allow us to tell you how to cover us in the Pentagon, you can just turn on your badges and so the vast majority of news outlets said, okay, bye. It took their stuff and they bounced. They're like, okay, see you. And what Donald Trump wants is not just for the media to, you know, treat him like he's Kim Jong Un or like he's Vladimir Putin. He wants to be treated really almost like an emperor of the United States. I want to show you guys another clip. This is, this is the White House press corps inside the Oval at the close of a press conference or a press briefing by Trump just this past week. And listen to this.

Jason (16:05)

What is this, Mr. President?

Joy Reid (16:10)

For who? Yeah, no, I know where it is, but who's it for, guys? The arc to Trump. You see, this is CBS News reporter Donald Trump. At a time when we are not paying our air traffic controllers, some of whom are only getting part time checks and some are getting none. We're not paying TSA workers. They're working for free, trying to keep bombs from getting on our airplanes. When federal workers are being laid off and when the Republican Party is being very clear and telling you that we can't afford to, for the federal government to continue to subsidize your Obamacare plans so that you can afford health care, they're willing to try to cut your health care because they spent all the money on a tax cut to make it permanent, a permanent tax for the super rich. And they're saying, we're broke. We don't have any money. All we apparently can afford are ICE raids, mass detention, and Trump's ballroom and his plane that he was supposedly getting for free from Qatar and a giant, enormous Arc de Trump that they're going to slap into the National Mall on Jefferson near the Lincoln Memorial that apparently is going to be larger than the Lincoln Memorial. And he announced that to his billionaire donors at some little confab in the ballroom that he's upgrading, that he's never going to leave. That's what's happening with your money. This is also what's happening. This is the only other group. This is a 10 who, who get to have money. You don't get to have money. You don't get to have anything except the, the entertainment of ice doing this. Their, their version of cops.

Latasha Brown (17:53)

He's a citizen. He's a citizen.

Joy Reid (17:56)

Why you running?

Latasha Brown (17:58)

He's a citizen. Here's a citizen. That's my brother. Now get away from me.

Robbie Roadsteamer (18:05)

You don't know what's going on.

Latasha Brown (18:06)

So get the back, back up.

Jason (18:08)

Back the up.

Joy Reid (18:12)

It happened after federal agents were seen.

Robbie Roadsteamer (18:15)

Swarming the store, appearing to be in.

Joy Reid (18:16)

Search of someone when he called for backup.

Latasha Brown (18:19)

Other people come in, and that's when.

Joy Reid (18:20)

I start to leave.

Robbie Roadsteamer (18:25)

Whoa, whoa.

Jason (18:45)

You don't know what's going on.

Joy Reid (18:47)

Back up, back up. Now I want you all to note that this is a u. S. Citizen, African American, young man. Here he is. They could come from literally anybody, and that's not right in Chicago's east side neighborhood.

Dean Obadala (19:06)

I'm treward, abc7 eyewitness news.

Joy Reid (19:10)

So. So there you have it. This is now no longer confined just to people who ICE gets to tackle because they perceive them to be undocumented people. They've been just randomly grabbing brown people, People selling arepas on the side of the road, People standing in front of home depot waiting to go and get construction work. They've been raiding inside Walgreens, inside home depot, which is why home depot is getting. You know, people are. Are basically saying, don't shop at home depot right now. They're getting boycotted because they're not doing anything or saying anything about it. Home depot has become one of their favorite places for ICE goons to show up in, like, brown shirts. They do not announce themselves. They do not show ID they just start arresting people. Some of them are in fatigue. They look like military. It looks like an invasion. Or some of them are just in plain clothes. They could be proud boys. Who knows? They're just kidnapping people. And no one knows what to do because no one can tell if they're feds. And if you touch them, then they charge you with obstructing a law enforcement officer, and you can go to jail too. They also are arresting journalists who are filming this happening. They have hit priests with pepper balls. We've talked about that on the show. So they're out of control. And hegseth wants all of this to receive praise from the press and for the US Citizens to then pay to give a monument to Trump in D.C. let me show you who is fighting this in Portland. Let's go to a 12 in Portland. The way they've done, their resistance has been actually kind of genius. They've brought the puppet people to the table, apparently.

Jason (21:12)

Sam.

Joy Reid (21:47)

You'Re gonna pepper ball the frog. What does he do? He says, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. He's undeterred. So basically, Portland has decided to come at the fascism with giant people puppets. One of the people who decided to dress up in costume and confront the ICE gestapo is a comedian named Robbie rodsteamer. Let me show you what happened to him, and I want to just prepare you for the fact that what you're going to see happen to this comedian as he confronts the Trump Gestapo in Portland, he is wearing a costume of a giraffe. So essentially a giraffe confronts Ice and then this is what happens. Oh, wait, no, we are going for a 13. But I did love that.

Latasha Brown (22:43)

My bad.

Joy Reid (22:44)

That's okay. It's literally one of my favorite clips ever. But we're gonna go for a 13.

Jason (22:50)

It's about peace and love.

Robbie Roadsteamer (22:52)

It's about rock and roll in spite of life. If you hate brown people and you are a Nazi, come on, Ice, leave Portland. Yeah, why don't you come out with your super soaker, huh? Oh, here they come. They're not ready for prime time. Players demolition.

Jason (23:22)

Hello. What are you doing?

Joy Reid (23:24)

Talking. He's just talking. Boo.

Latasha Brown (23:39)

Wow.

Joy Reid (23:41)

Well, that went left. Joining me now is Robbie Roadsteamer. He is the Boston based musical comedian and activist renowned for his satirical protest anthems and high energy performances at political rallies. From Trump events to Planned Parenthood vigils. As the alter ego of performer Rob Pottillo.

Robbie Roadsteamer (24:00)

You have to God till O Pattillo.

Joy Reid (24:03)

Got it, got it, got it. You've been on America's Got Talent, the Gong Show. He blends rock and roll irreverence with sharp social commentary, amassing a devoted following on the TikTok and the YouTube. Robbie, I have for a very long time enjoyed your content. I first noticed you on TikTok and how in the hell did. What are you today? Are you. Are you an alligator?

Robbie Roadsteamer (24:26)

I'm Gary the Guantanamo Gator. I was the last person to storm Charlie Kirk and I did that at Turning Point back in July as Gary the Guantanamo Gator because Alligator Alcatraz was getting its ball washing by the press back then. And you know what? Unfortunately, Joy, the giraffe outfit is now evidence it's covered with pepper balls. I put out a video two days ago where what led to them taking me, detaining me, the not ready for primetime players advice was the fact that they brought out snipers on the roof and they did the pepper ball job to me. You can see that on my TikTok, my Instagram. And it's like John Rambo. I'm like in the middle of these and I'm singing the Doors touch me and I'm like, come on, come on, come on. What was the name of the plane? Fluid? Jeffrey Epstein. And it's ridiculous. They're getting pissed because everybody's coughing except me. I'm like, just enjoying it. I'm like, you glorified Mall cops, like, come out here and basically they brought the guards out afterwards because, you know, what actually happened was, you know, I did get hit by the balls. I'm not a mortal like that. You can see on the videos I'm covered near my groin area. And the amp, I have a 100 watt amp that I carry out there and stuff. You can see them covered. And so once, you know, I get off camera and I get to like, a little p. Portland has this beautiful tent area. It's very much like Haight Ashbury. They're feeding people every day. They're providing performance art to people every day. And there's a lot of really amazing organizers a part of it that aren't just a radical left trans androids that are shooting every, like, whatever they think is happening, it's not happening. These people put saline in my eyes and I went back out there like Nick Furley off the top of the steel cage, like, I'm coming back to the ring, baby. And I came back, and that's where I feel like I broke them mentally. They had to make an example because now I'm covered with pepper balls. I'm like singing Rod Stewart. I got a beautiful song on. I'm the Jeffrey Epstein giraffe. And they finally have to grab me, detain me, and drag me back to everybody booing. And I'll just say this, Joy, this is my Equals MC square theory. You have to remember that Donald Trump is in the WWE hall of Fame, class of 2003. He's playing Vince McMahon from the late 90s, the corrupt oligarch that is doing everything from building a statue. Only in Vince's case, he gave himself the heavyweight championship belt that these guys sweat, blood and tears for. He gave his daughter the women's championship. That, and it's no accident where Linda McMahon is right now if you want to play that game. So when you understand that the psychology is wrestling and it's. It's absurdism, it's absurdity. Like, we have such valor in these beautiful spokespeople for the blue, the dnc, the Democrats, the liberal, the woke. We get so powerful passionate about hoping we can turn somebody that's a clown that they're doing absurdity to us. Trump is the ultimate absurd bad guy here, wrestler. And when you realize that, then you do what they do in judo. You reverse the energies back onto them. You give them more absurdism. And until Fox News has nothing to cover but llamas getting maced out in front with golden doodles with a bunch of People selling balloons and playing mini golf, that it looks so absurd to the working class and the people out there that they're like. That actually looks like a rave. I think I'm going to join in on that.

Joy Reid (27:59)

And I love that. That is what I love the most about the way that Portland has decided to come at this mess. Right. Because there's so much terror around the country. But to your point, every single one of these encounters, the most terrifying ones especially, are all being filmed not just by the victims or by witnesses, but by Homeland Security. They actually have a camera guy with them, and they're filming it on purpose. And they're putting out these videos that remind me of what ISIS used to do. They used to put these sort of like, glamorized videos on it on. On Twitter. And so they're making content. And to your point, they're doing this because it's like a. It's like an episode of Cops. Like, they want you to see it. But now what Portland has made them do is, okay, you can see, we'll let you watch us brutalize. Let us get brutalized. That's what the civil rights movement did. So you. You can brutalize us, but we're going to be in a suit and tie and our Sunday best. So they're going to watch you beat up church kids. What the Portland people have done is adapted that theory and said, all right, go ahead and mace this frog. Go ahead and mace this alligator. You look stupid. And I think it's brilliant.

Robbie Roadsteamer (29:02)

You've absolutely nailed it. And as a big fan of peaceful assembly, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, and what we were doing, what we're doing is adding a performance art, absurdism edge to it, which forces anybody, coming from hate, coming from rage, coming from that opposite end, to suppress, to look so ridiculous in the suppression when they get aggressive about it, that it can't help but make art that once again influences the world. And that's the romantic side about this country, that when Kennedy got his head blown off, 50,000 people over in Vietnam losing their lives every night on the news and stuff. It's so depressing. And everything people wanted to escape, especially our youth, and they wanted to tune in, turn on, and drop out, just like Timothy Leary said. And where did they go? They went to California. They went to San Francisco. And it's no mistake about it, San Francisco was feeding 50,000 people a day. At Golden Gate park, they had the first Doctors Without Borders. And Monterey, which happened in 1967, was an extension of just attracting people to that movement. It wasn't just to have a concert randomly. It was put together by the people that were involved, from the Diggers, the. The people who were making everything happen at Golden Gate park every day. And that's why you have all of a sudden, Jimi Hendrix, the who, Otis Redding, Jefferson Airplane, the Mamas and the Papas. When you empower the counterculture of this country at the right time and you empower their art, whether it's a frog being pepper sprayed inside the fan hole. Nazis. Nazis. You know, and when you understand that that's why you wear the big maxi pad bandage in honor of pumpkin spice sa because, you know, I'll just say one thing, man. They did a lot of blading and wrestling and that's one of the things they're best at, man. You know, having a little tiny razor blade in their wristbands. Wrestling. They know the right color of blood. If they're faking it. They know the real color and where the cut. None of that's accidental. WWE hall of Famer 2003, Donald Trump.

Joy Reid (31:08)

You know what's so interesting? That he's really upset about this Time cover. But one of the things that I noticed about the Time cover is where's the ear injury? Like, not even a scratch. I mean, I guess you could say maybe time decided they wanted to edit it out.

Robbie Roadsteamer (31:25)

15. And when you start getting into one in a million, sort of, it's ugly. But it came at a time where Kamala had just come in and there was that big wave of hope and excitement and that. That's what we're trying to get at. Not just on the left, but the working class people. We have been battling and defense for a whole freaking so long, man, that we're looking for progression. We're looking for a reason to believe again, you know, that magic of Obama, that magic of Kennedy, that magic, oh my God, that the dreamers and the people that still have the passion in their heart to not just do what it takes to make just a living, but to move this country forward. And, you know, I. I think they will do anything on the other end to suppress that from truly happening. You know, unfortunately, what happened to the Kennedys, Martin Luther King, and all those people in these. What are the effing odds? And if it's only one person or a theory and stuff, then why is everybody suppressing it afterwards and hiding away and denying everything if they know what the truth is? You would be out there. No, this guy actually did it. We'll give you all the files and we'll show you every camera angle, but that's what they do on the dark side. But on the light side, man, we can bring our hearts, we can bring art. We can remind the boomers that when they go to one of these no Kings rallies, it's going to be the Grateful Dead parking lot. There's going to be people in animal outfits having a good time. Pride Trans dreamers woke Blue collar, white collar MAGA people could all get down with the fact that we have a 725 national minimum wage. Let's just detach ourselves from the messed up immigration program and let's just detach ourselves some trans and realize we still have these guys pillaging the coffers. It's a sleight of hand for the Christian nationalists. They get them to bust up brown people while on other end they put the richest guy in the world in charge of the economy. They're pillaging his damn crypto coin. He's putting out this stupid statue, he's throwing it in his, in their faces. And meanwhile it should nationalists get what they want. Hey, you know, at least you get a cookie because you're not the brown people. So watch them. It's going to be your entertainment every night while wrestling. Isn't doing it good enough for you to watch and be like, oh, look at these people. I gotta vote for Trump again. This is great.

Joy Reid (33:41)

Look at that.

Robbie Roadsteamer (33:42)

I'm trying to fight. Oh, he's a fighter. You go, that's the thing. It's like the end of Rome times where to entertain the peasants. They're doing the gladiatorial with the slaves and killing each other and stuff. And that's what's happening right now. And if we can't figure out a way once again, not just the common working people, not just the race. Stories of the dreamers MAGA woke If we can't find a way to come together while this takeover and pillaging of our pillars of this country is taking place, then you know what, it's, it's only going to get uglier because we know it is ugly right now. So we're doing everything we can in port. When I was in Broadview, Illinois last week, you know, I was in D.C. before that, Tampa. And you know, whatever happens, happens, man, to me, in terms of like, if these people are brave enough to come out on the other side and be their absurd clown selves, then I'm not afraid to get out there. And no matter what happens, happens, at least I know that. I know the people who were there at Pretty much end times. Whether it was this homeless woman, whether it was this trans person that just wants to throw on a mascot outfit and fight with whatever is left and stuff. I know who's on the front line on those days, you know, those final days and stuff. So it was, you know, it's all good to me, man.

Joy Reid (34:55)

I love it. I love the fact that you are so history grounded. Like, this is, like, this is music to my ears. Am I, am I correct in understanding that you are going to file a lawsuit against ICE about for what they did to you?

Robbie Roadsteamer (35:07)

Absolutely. There's too much evidence. Because once again, on the other end, if they're plotting and planning to do such dark, why aren't we on the light end? Plotting and planning to have several shooters there on my end so we can see the guys smiling when they're teeing off on me on the roofs, so we can see me covered. So I have to put it in evidence bags because it's military grade toxic stuff. I can't take it out. I tried to on the airport, like in the plane, grab my battery and several people started coughing. I'm like, oh, my head. And it's just ridiculous. So I've gotten in touch. Rolling Stone released a wonderful article about the whole escapade today. And a lot of lawyers are coming out, some amazing people, because we want to stick it to them. Because once again, when you're looking at it through the absurdism eye, that Trump knows exactly what the heck he's doing, man. He's trolling us. He wants you to see that damn statue. He wants $180 million for the parade. If he's gonna rub your face and over and over and we're still gonna try to do valor and, and hey, we're gonna change these people because we're on the right side of history. You know, I say I get as absurd and dirty back at them and stuff, and that's what I'm doing. I will sue them for millions. I'll tell them to wear nice suits in courts because we're about to reveal ISIS identities. And I'll go there every day with my dream team of OJ lawyers or whatnot. I'll get whatever is on the left side of history to come in on this, man. Happy to make speeches after every day and stuff. And I'll be happy to do everything it takes, man, because as much as they're doing detaining 13 year olds to just troll us, break our backs, they want us to tap out. They want us to see the Horrificness on TV every night and be like, there's no use anymore, man. I'm just gonna hide on Facebook and sign an online petition. I'm too afraid to go to the protest. I say this is the perfect time to make the new Coachella for liberals and dreamers.

Joy Reid (37:01)

Amen. Amen. I love this. Okay, my exit question to you, my friend. I mean, this is brilliant. I think it's really great what you're doing. You know, we are behind you. 100 people are loving you. In the chat. I did want to ask you, when those guys grabbed you and took you away, what did they say to you, if anything, do you felt. Do you feel like these. Those guys who arrest you were really into this mission or what?

Robbie Roadsteamer (37:24)

No, because if they were into the mission, they would have warned me and bullied me at first and showed off their effect on that. They saw what the snipers did to me. They saw that the snip. I was singing country. I didn't break a bar. I didn't cough or sneeze. And I'm sure they were just like, we have to get them from behind real quick and move them in. Honestly, it was like an 80s movie to me. I. I love the 80s joy. And it's a part of dream and whimsicalness. Indiana Jones, like all the John Cusack movies, Goonies. Anything's possible. And so I'm in character. Man, this is wrestling to me. This reminds me of when Vince McMahon gets stone cold arrested because I'm following pattern heart and soul. And when you get arrested in wrestling by cops that they pay to come in, man, that's like, forget it. They want you to do the main pay per view, so I already know I won. They got the handcuffs on me. There's 15 of them. They bring me into, like, a. A holding tank and a detention little tank and whatnot. Felt like Greta Thunberg when the flotilla got busted and stuff. And I'm in there, and it's like 15 guys making fun of me. Like, so you do this for a living? So you came all the way from Boston to Portland. I'm like, yeah, where did you come from? Are you native? And half of them weren't. Half of them were like, yeah, we're brought in from other states and whatnot. And so they're going through my information. Half of them knew already my creative career. They're like, weren't you an alligator last week? And stuff. And they're menacing. Some of them have mass and whatnot. And I just keep cracking them Up. I'm in too much of a good damn mood at this point because I found my tribe, I found my family. I'm like, so, what are you guys gonna do? You guys gonna, you know, use the line? Put the hose on me. Go second knuckle man. Who's the first one? Is that big guy over there? Does he do the dirtier stuff? And they start cracking up. I'm like, all I did out there, boys, was Trump was flying on the chair. Bring up Steve plane. Trump was flying on the Jeff Ripstein plane. Hey. And basically, you know, they're trying to do fear tactics, bad cop. Like, you know, you have two joints. Somebody gave me two joints right before, and, you know, I brought it. I'm like, well, technically, you can. It's. It's legal in Portland. And they're like, well, you cross federal property with it. No, you pulled me across federal property. I did not bring the joints across federal property. They're laughing. It goes from trespassing and illegal marijuana on federal property or something to this reads like a CVS receipt over here. This is the citation, and it's what you called earlier. Failure to comply with the orders of a law enforcement officer. So they want me to come back to Portland to fight a citation. I'm coming back to Portland, but I'm bringing a dream team of lawyers. I'm bringing a big festival, and I'm going to bring as much absurdism as they tried to bring to me and stuff. And when they realized after 20 minutes that this is, like, my plan, because they were asking me, man, it was like Heath Ledger in the Dark Knight movie. And I'm like, no, it's not going to be dark and V for Vendetta mash. You realize we're just going to have more festivals and bigger parties, and you guys are gonna look silly, especially this guy. Oh, Steven Seagal, hard to kill over here. And I'm handcuffed to the chair. They'll finally unhandcuff me. And I'm, like, turning to them, and I'm like, can I be escorted out back? And guys just drive me to the airport, man. That way everybody thinks you guys are holding me overnight and stuff. I'm out of here. I got what I needed, guys, because you guys are ridiculous. Some of them are laughing. They bring me back out, and they're like. And I get to keep my joint. And I go back and I smoke up the Portland frog and the shark, and we sit down like, man, this is just going to be like the Merry Pranksters, isn't it?

Joy Reid (41:01)

Oh, my God. Robbie Roadsteamer. This has been so much fun. I love what you're doing. Many applause. Jason, can we get some applause for Robbie roadsteamer? You are the best. Please keep us posted when you go back and you do your next appearance, your short appearance, you do the festival. I just need one favor, please, my friend. I gotta meet the frog. I gotta meet the frog. I love you, but we love the frog. We've got to meet the frog. Can you introduce me?

Robbie Roadsteamer (41:27)

I. I will introduce anybody to everybody. I'll be the really Wonka. I mean, the fact of it is, I feel like this is Seattle right now. That frog is our Kurt Cobain. Maybe I come in as Chris Cornell or Eddie Vet or whatever, but there's room at the table for so much right now. A billion musicians trying to live and die on band Camp, giving singles every day to everybody, desperately on dm. Why don't you bring your art to where it's needed? Just like Bob Dylan went down to the civil rights activists in the south and sang to everybody, you know, off the back of a van and stuff. If you really want to be Bob Dylan, it's not just about getting that harmonica stand over at Guitar center, all right? It's about actually taking chances in life and going where you fear to go. Don't keep saying to me on my DMs, oh, be careful. I worry about you. Worry about yourself, man, because those online petitions you're signing aren't really doing.

Joy Reid (42:15)

Amen, Robbie. Rogue steamer. Thank you very much, my friend. I appreciate you. We got your back. The chat is loving you. Much love, my friend. Thank you. Come back anytime.

Robbie Roadsteamer (42:24)

Love you guys. Be blessed, Joy.

Joy Reid (42:26)

Thank you so much. Yo, guys, this is like, look, this is a plan, right? And I love what he said. And the. The chat is loving Robbie saying, I love you. This is wild. And frogs, frogs, frogs galore in the chat. And here's what I love about it, because what he pointed out, which is, is the thing I think you all need to remember about Donald Trump. And I did write a Trump book, and he's absolutely right. Donald Trump comes from WWE and the things that he does. I was just listening to somebody telling me a story about the way that Donald Trump would, like, attack journalists and then turn around and go right back to that journalist and say, wasn't that amazing? Wasn't that great tv? Like, everything he does is theater. He does the. Everything is theater. You know, when he claims that the economy is booming, it's theater. It's bullshit. Everything he does is. Everything he does is theater. And you have to always remember when you're dealing with Donald Trump that he's doing what he's doing for a couple of reasons. Number one, he's needy. He's a needy little bitch. And he, he needs desperately to have the country love and adore and worship him. He really wants to be a beloved king. And he know, he knows he can't do that. You know, his actual talents are few, but he's a concierge at heart. He's in the hotel business. So people will tell you. Even Kamala Harris in her book talks about the fact that when Trump would confront her directly, he was always very solicitous. He was probably attracted to her. But he. But in. But then when he would sort of deal with her publicly, he's being incredibly disgusting toward her. But one on one, he's not going to do it. And I've had other journalists tell me this, but when you meet Donald Trump one on one, he's not going to treat you the way he'd treat you on social media. It's all theater. And what they're doing with ice and this brutal Gestapo style sort of raid orgy, this violent orgy around the country is that they're entertaining their MAGA base with bread and circuses, which are the violence toward mainly brown people. They want it to be brown people people because their base is thirsty. Go on Twitter one time and just scroll around there. They're like their saliva is dripping from their mouths over quote, unquote illegals, which is just their name for the N word. It's the N word for brown people. And they're just dying to see them suffer. They want to see them suffer. Suffer, suffer. They need it. And so there you go. Let's go on to our next thing. And he's giving them those bread and circuses because what he's really doing on the back end is he and his fellow billionaires are robbing this country blind. They're stealing all the money. They made their tax cut permanent even though it was supposed to be temporary. It was supposed to sunset at the end of this year. Now it will not sunset ever. So they have a permanent tax cut for the super rich and for big corporations, they already got that check. They have ended regulation. The all the regulatory bodies have been gutted. They fired all the people. So everyone. Have you noticed you're getting more scam texts in your phone? All the regulations that Biden tried to put in, they're gone. They're now it's unregulated capitalism. Completely unregulated. Tax cuts have been made permanent and now they're going to let the AI tech bros divvy up the rest. And the crypto guys, they're just all divvying up the money. They're stealing everything while you can't have health care because we don't have any money left. Federal workers, you can't have jobs, you can't get paid. You have to work for free. It's literally theft covered up with bread and circuses and violent entertainment. Meanwhile, this week was a very pivotal one for the future of another aspect of our lives. That's voting rights. I just want to read you guys a little bit of this New York Times story on the case called Louisiana vs Calais. I don't have an element here, but I'm just going to go ahead and read a little bit of it to you. And it says this. And it's the question of who are the people who are act who actually brought this case? Because this is like the big question, right? Like. Like, who are these people? Because they're not like famous people, but it's a question of who they are. So this is what the New York Times wrote. One made national news when she protested the COVID 19 vaccine at her local city council. Another is a member of the Trumpets, a group of women united in their ardent support for the president. A third is a retired grocery salesman who said he didn't remember signing up to be involved in the lawsuit. The three are among the 12 Louisiana voters at the center of a case set to be heard by the Supreme Court. It was heard last Wednesday that could gut what remains of the Voting Rights act of 1965, the landmark civil rights legislation. In July 2024, the group filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Louisiana's congressional district map, arguing that state lawmakers had discriminated against them as white voters by impermissibly taking race into account when they drafted the map under the 20 after the 2020 census. Since then, they've been referred to in court filings merely as the non African American voters. Plaintiffs in such weighty Supreme Court cases often become the public faces of major issues in American life, their names forever tied to the historic legal challenges. Fred Karamatsu became a civil rights icon for resisting an executive order that forced Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II. Mildred and Loving. Mildred and Richard Loving successfully challenged Virginia's ban on interracial marriage in a landmark case. You can remember Ms. Rowe of Roe v. Wade. Right. But not so in Louisiana case. Nope. In this landmark case on whether the Constitution permits race to be used as a factor in carving congressional districts, there's no public face. There's no one. None of the plaintiffs testified in a three day trial in federal court. According to transcripts, the legal briefs list their names, but say nothing about their lives or the reasons they chose to participate in the case, aside from assertions that each quote suffered unlawful, intentional discrimination based on race. Y' all let me know when our guest is ready. That's she's here. Okay, let's bring in Latasha Brown, our good friend. My girlfriend. My good girlfriend. Latasha Brown is good. She's the co founder of Black Voters Matter Fund and the Black Voters Matter Capacity Building Institute. Latasha Brown, do you. Thank you very much for being here, my friend. Do you have any idea who these plaintiffs are and why they are secret plaintiffs?

Latasha Brown (49:00)

You know, the interesting thing is one of the plaintiffs don't even know that they're there. According to the New York Times, they're not even sure why they're there. Right. You know, it's interesting that that is identified as the N. So we're very clear about who this is targeted at. You know, these are people. You know, it's, it's, it's the people who are the plaintiffs are one level of, yes, a challenge. But the truth of the matter is who is behind it. Right. And who has put them up to do this? I think that's what we have to be concerned about. Like, in this moment. We know what is happening in this moment. We're seeing, like, racism on steroids. And so now even to have the audacity to file a case in a state that black people make one third of the state's population, and you identify yourself that your own identity is filled with animus against the very people that you're seeking to disenfranchise. That in itself says a lot to me.

Joy Reid (49:55)

And so if this case goes the wrong way, I mean, there's a map that the New York Times put out that is like, frightening. It shows essentially a sea of red just taking over places that used to have Democratic, black, Democratic members of Congress, it's just gone. Jason's gonna put that up. That's the goal, right? To essentially say that black folks in the south will not have any representation. Republicans will represent everybody black and everybody white.

Latasha Brown (50:29)

You know, we are back. It makes me so sad. But we would be back, you know, at night, before 1965, we would be Back for the main. What's really interesting is this case is a prime example of, I think, what we're in this moment. That is why the Voting Rights act is needed for what we're seeing and witnessing in this moment. That there is an attempt, a political attempt. Even the timing of it, it was really interesting, is that the courts just last year. So here's the courts that say that there has been a harm done, that a state that has one third of the population are African Americans. In Alabama, where Black people make 25%, which is 1/4. If you look at the cases, the Milligan case, which was a case in Alabama that led to the second district, and you look at this case, they're almost exactly the same. They're very similar cases.

Joy Reid (51:24)

Racist.

Latasha Brown (51:25)

And the courts, the same court even told Alabama. Told Alabama that, listen, y' all gotta go back. When the conservative court say you racist, I mean you a whole other number. Right?

Joy Reid (51:39)

Right.

Latasha Brown (51:39)

The state of Alabama refused to even draw it. Refused to draw it. So they had to actually bring in a special master to actually help draw and oversee the drawing of the maps. So here it is. That this same court that acknowledged this is now a year later. What has changed? Perhaps the president, maybe now. So what else has changed? Why would it be? Why was a year ago? Because it wasn't like you're getting. You were conservative then. It wasn't like you were liberal then or progressive then. Why is it now? What has been the biggest change? And what we're seeing is we're seeing the consolidation of power. But I think part of what we got to talk about, too, and I think it's really important, Joy, you know, we really. I think in this moment, the legitimacy of the court is on the line. This isn't just about. We're gonna see if this court is.

Jason (52:29)

Gonna be a court.

Latasha Brown (52:30)

Cause the law clearly, you know, I saw your show yesterday with Janee Nelson on who was. Was brilliant at the Supreme Court. Like, clearly, the law in itself is on the side. There's a preponderance of evidence on the law that this is. That this shouldn't even be. I don't even know why the Supreme Court has taken it up, other than. I know why the Supreme Court is taking it up. Right. Because of racism. But what's interesting is this court, I think, will yield itself for us to see. Will itself yield itself in some ways, impotent in how we see it as being able to as an independent form an independent branch of government. That now it has been taken. That it has Become corrupted, that it's been captured and corrupted. That's what I think. Because if the law, if you are the highest court in the land and you're not upholding the law or protecting the citizens of this country, then what's your purpose? What is your function?

Joy Reid (53:29)

Well, I mean, the thing that's changed is that Donald Trump has ordered Republican governors to add more seats so that Republicans won't lose the midterms because tariffs are destroying people's lives. Farmers are on the brink of losing their farms, have been, you know, numerous farmer suicides. People are being laid off in the federal government. Trump has inflicted incredible economic pain. His stupid tariff theory turned out to be as dumb as people said it was going to be. And he's popular, right? And he's also taking all the money to build himself ballrooms and a brand new sort of, you know, obelisk. I guess he's going to have a big, big, you know, Arc de Triomphe version. I mean, all of that. People see it, and he is desperate to make sure that they maintain control of the House. And so he's ordered these governors to do it, and they're all doing it. And if the Supreme Court says you can't do it, it would force Republican governors to defy Trump. And so I worry that John Roberts is never going to put his preferred party in a position of having to defy Trump, because then what if Trump says, I don't care what the Supreme Court says, do it anyway, Then they have no power.

Latasha Brown (54:34)

You know, And I think that there's a larger question that John Roberts should be considering around his legacy, because this will absolutely stain his legacy. He will go down in history. You know, I think as. As a part of his legacy of. Is this what you want? Like, you want, in many ways, you will not be considered, in my opinion, like a serious jurist that you're going to. Even when I was listening to. If you're listening to the hearing, they were all over the place. Louisiana's case, it was all over the place. Can you decide which way you gonna come? Like, what are you saying? You know, what are you actually saying? And so I think that even the merits, when you even look at the argument, this isn't. They're not even making a compelling, legitimate argument, which is really interesting in this moment. I think that this is going to have a major stain on his legacy and the court's. The court's legacy, but also the court's legitimacy. Is this going to be a legitimate court, or will this court be corrupted? And captured, just as we're seeing with the Republicans all across the nation. I think that that's a real issue that we should be paying attention to and they, and we should lift that up. If they're not going to be legitimate, then what's the point?

Joy Reid (55:42)

Yeah, well, what do you, what should people do? Because the arguments are done, they're now going to go back and deliberate. I don't even know if public pressure works on these people because I, I just know of John Roberts that he's been wanting to get rid of the Voting Rights act since he was, was 25 years old and probably before that, since he was working the Reagan administration. He doesn't believe the Voting Rights act should exist. I mean that's pretty clear from his record. He did the, the Holder. Holder. Eric Holder doesn't like it be cult. Holder.

Latasha Brown (56:10)

Don'T. It's very clear.

Joy Reid (56:11)

He said that's called Shelby. Thank you. The Shelby case where he gutted the Voting Rights Act Section 2. He also was, was there for all the bad stuff. Getting rid of affirmative action, saying that ICE could racially profile people based on their accent and their skin color. Like he's done all the teeny things. So is it possible that he does want, that he wants to be remembered as a Taney style Supreme Court justice?

Latasha Brown (56:35)

You know, I don't know. I don't know what it is that he wants. What I do know is that a ruling at this juncture against that, that, that that disables and basically kills the Voting Rights act would be a part of his legacy. I know that. I know that in addition to that, and you're going to have to do a lot of jumping over hoops. I believe that they have not made a compelling argument to actually, for them to make a decision to say that, oh, this was. We were so compelled in this moment. But the third thing I think is really important around to your point. Will public pressure work? Let me say this. Black people have never protested just because we believe that we were trying to appeal to the best or the benevolence of white people. Like, you know, when I go back to Selma, I'm a native of Selma, Alabama. If I go back to Selma and I go back to the voting rights movement, that not only what were the political parties saying, even the political party that was supposed to be friendly at the time were telling black folks, were telling Dr. King, you just need to wait. Just wait. This ain't the time. This just ain't the time. Wait. There were no political parties, quite frankly, that were on their side. They didn't have a lot of resources on their side. They didn't have technically even the same precedent that was on their side. But black folks were not going to the courts because we expected. We knew that the courts have been. This is the same court that was pressing out.

Joy Reid (58:00)

This is the same.

Latasha Brown (58:01)

That ruled that white men, black men, had no rights, that white men had to actually acknowledged. I think that part of. We knew that justice is in us, and we knew that power is in us. And I think that oftentimes we have to see protest as a way for us to say no and to fight back, because when we fight back, we win. We have never gotten anything in this country because folks all of a sudden woke up and like, you know what? Like those black people. That's not how. That's not how things. How politics work at all. And so I think that there's a. A lot of pressure points. I think that there are pressure points that are. I think there are political pressure points, but also I think there are economic pressure points. When you look at the spending power of black people in this country, if you are not going to stand with us, if you're not going to stand with us, why would we spend and support you? I think we got to look at this very differently. We're going to distribute the pain. And folks, we have to redistribute the pain. That ultimately, if we're going to lose political power, then there has to be a recourse around that. And so I don't think that our movement is driven by, oh, we think we can win. I mean, really, like. Like, we have always worked with the odds against us. Always. We've always went. And we still go into those spaces anyway. And there are changes that have happened. And I don't think it's because, you know, we had to have the best argument. I think oftentimes we've went in there with the best litigators with the best. But I also think that we've gone with community. I think we've also gone in a space. I do think that we've gone with this intention of knowing that if we work together, if we push and we are relentless, right, that you have to be relentless, that ultimately we're able to move the ball forward. And so what it looks like, you know, in this particular moment, it's more important for folks to organize now not to say, oh, no, we're not going to organize. We're not going to get together, right? No, we gotta show outrage now.

Joy Reid (60:01)

That's Right.

Latasha Brown (60:01)

That's why black voters matter. We pulled in buses from seven different states and we will continue and we're doing the work and we're more organizing and building our base because it's important for us to actually have a presence. The south has something to say, particularly the black south. And we're not going to be silenced.

Joy Reid (60:17)

That's right.

Latasha Brown (60:17)

We want to make sure that the pain is distributed. And I think the part is to your point. I'm not. So I don't know whether the pressure of what John Roberts cares about. I don't think he cares about his legacy or not. I can tell you this. We will ensure that his legacy will go down in a way that we will tell the full truth. That he not only just about the. Not far beyond that. He doesn't like the Voting Rights Act. That's one thing. What we will go is we will literally. This will be a kangaroo court. It is a captured and corrupt court that ultimately, if there's a preponderance of evidence. Right. That the law is literally on our side. It's just, it's black and white. It's clear as that. Right. If this court rules against itself, because ultimately it would be ruling against itself in its own analysis less than a year ago.

Joy Reid (61:16)

Right.

Latasha Brown (61:17)

If it rules against itself, then it no longer renders itself as legitimate. And we've got to actually organize on that and we've got to push for reform, court reform. The Supreme Court, like all of that, if it is no longer an independent. Right. Because sometimes there are rulings that you get that you don't like the rulings. Because we don't get the ruling that we like that in itself. Right. But when you look at the evidence, when you look at the court, court shifting its position and you look at where the change in an environment that is one of the most racialized that we have seen in our lifetime, that in this moment to make that argument, in this moment to go against your own ruling, I think we're gonna take a hard look. I think it will render itself around the world where people say, wow, this court has also capitulated and fallen.

Joy Reid (62:06)

Yeah, indeed. I think one of the biggest mistakes that women writ large made in the country is there was no punishment for the end of Roe v. Wade. Roe v. WADE. They spent 30, 50, 60 years trying to get rid of Roe v. Wade. They kept threatening to do it. When they did it, there was almost no reaction. The state of Georgia got a six week abortion ban. No reaction. They reelected all those Republicans. State of Texas. I remember speaking with young, conservative, white, young Texas women who were terrified about losing their abortion rights. When the elections came, they reelected all those Republican men. They just keep rewarding these Republican men for hurting them. And I think women had an opportunity. Women are 51% of the population. There should have been a massive boycott against anything Republican. Anything owned by a Republican. Anything a Republican ever walked next to and smiled at should have gotten. Boycott. It should have been a massive, massive. There was no reaction, really. And that's under John Roberts. What we're seeing now, though, is at least some feeling that people should make people pay. John Roberts is a Republican, and he cares about Republicans doing well, and he cares about rich people doing well. People are now saying, okay, let's go with the Republican Home Depot. How about we boycott that? Y' all want to help these ICE people, Then we'll just take our money. We'll take our money from you, Target. You don't like black people or you don't like dei? Cute. We don't never want to ever shop in your store ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever again. We'll never walk back in there again. I don't care what you do. Right. Walmart. Whose side are you on? At this point? I'm literally Latasha. I'm about. My dollars have to go only to people who care about dei, immigrants, women's rights, LGBTQ rights. If you don't, I will not spend money with you. And that's it. I think that's. It's gotta be that, right?

Latasha Brown (63:39)

It has to be that. We have got to redistribute the pain, and we also gotta. I always talk about radical reimagining. We also have to reimagine something different because he is tearing this down at a speed that I. Listen, we knew it was bad. We knew Project 2025, but the speed in which he is tearing it down. But we are not power. Because ultimately, I think that there are far, far more people that think like you and I than the other side. Part of the reason. I mean, they're saying that part of the reason why they're cheating. Part of the reason why they've got to. They've got to try to make the Voting Rights act and render it just useless or dead. Part of the reason why they're doing all of the things that they're doing, the voter suppression that we've seen for the last. Particularly on steroids, the last five. Five years, what we're seeing happening in Texas, the redistricting, all of that really has Resulted because they know that they cannot win fair and square.

Joy Reid (64:36)

Correct.

Latasha Brown (64:36)

Because they don't have policies that appeal to the majority of people.

Joy Reid (64:40)

That's right.

Latasha Brown (64:41)

White. Whether they're black. Aapi, our Latino brothers and sisters, ultimately, they have to use lies. They have to use deception. They have to use all of those things. And like you said earlier, you know, a part of this absolutely is about political power, but this is about straight thievery. They are pillaging this country, and part of the fight and this chaos is to keep us so distracted.

Joy Reid (65:06)

That's right.

Latasha Brown (65:06)

That we're not really looking at what is happening. We're not.

Joy Reid (65:09)

That's right.

Latasha Brown (65:09)

This is really about taking away resources. Because this doesn't just have an impact when we're talking about. You have a map where you will literally. Where black folks are, the majority of the south, that you will literally wipe out the majority. You will wipe out black and brown representation. There's an economic issue with that. There is an economic reward to that, and it's ridiculous, because at the end of the day, what you're looking at, you're looking at the economic disparity, like, how much y' all want. Like, what do you want? Like, at the end of the day, what do you want? But I will tell you this. As challenging as things are, and they bad. They, like, really, really bad. Bad.

Joy Reid (65:51)

They're bad. Really bad.

Latasha Brown (65:55)

Like, really, really, really bad. Really, really, really bad. The only thing that can stop them is if we take serious. They cannot function. They cannot make money if we're not spending money with them.

Joy Reid (66:15)

That's correct.

Latasha Brown (66:16)

Right? They are not legitimate if they're not considered legitimate. If you really look at what happened in Italy. In Italy, they protested, and just one day, I'll go home. They was like, nope, we not going. We just go home. We're not going home until you do something. If there's a stoppage, we can shut this down.

Joy Reid (66:33)

Right?

Latasha Brown (66:34)

There's one thing. Yes. If you have these different systems that you control. Got that. You are concentrating power. But the power that we have is we have people power. And so in this moment, people need to understand. Everybody need to get on board about this fight. Because while this fight. I'm sorry, y'. All.

Joy Reid (66:53)

No, it's okay. This real talk. It's real. You get in the car. I know. And I kept you overtime, so it's my fault. I apologize. Whoever's calling, we're gonna let Latasha get that call in a minute.

Latasha Brown (67:02)

It's relentless. But after. At the end of the day, I think it's really important as a moment around people thinking about what they can do. There are a couple of things I think we able to do this next election. And there's elections going on in November now we need to turn out in record numbers. There is a professor at Harvard, a friend of mine, Erica Chenoway, who actually talks about with authoritarianism that when power is being consolidated, there's two things that stop. One, historically, like when you look throughout the world, there are two things. One is when there's an election and people feel like they didn't the election was stolen or they were not treated fairly. Secondly, it's been based on some event that's happened, like a, that's a tipping point event. Someone got killed, the market crashed. Something that really drove folks to say, okay, this is enough. I think that we've got to really look at elections. I'm the first to say it. I don't think that elections are going to solve everything. No. But we absolutely got to use elections and our vote as a vote of resistance. It is important in this moment that in this November we should come out in record numbers. Right? If nothing else, but to say, damn it, we don't like this and we gonna resist right next year. We need to be prepared for that. So part of, and I want folks to understand, they understand the consequences of what's going to happen with the election so much. So that is why they're attempting to do all these things, to undermine black and brown power. Because they know that at the poll, if one to one, when we're at the polls, you can't win, they can't. So we have to understand that. So if they understand that, I hope we understand that and we use that power and organize in this moment. Find you a political home and organization that you're part of. Instead of that money, don't give it to Home Depot, don't give it to Target. Take that money and give that money to a small business, a black owned business. How about you give that money to a frontline organization that is doing the work to fight for you? Because right now we are at war, right? Look at it. We are at war in this nation. The second thing I think is really important for us to do is we've got to push back on the narratives. I hope that people that are listening to you also become ambassadors where they're sharing the information that they're getting from you that they go and tell their friends, y' all need to subscribe to the Joy Reid show. Y' all need to get 10 people, like, I'm an organizer. I need whoever is watching this now, y' all need to get 10 people to subscribe to this show so that we know. We know we can't trust, like traditional news right now. We know that networks have been taken over. So it's really important that we're getting information, and we're pushing that information out. And the third thing, final thing, I'll say it's important for us to pivot. You can't. You can no longer sit in this space and say, well, they gonna do what they wanna do anyway. No, they're not. Which is why they're spending so much time and energy and resources to actually make you be afraid, to make you feel fearful, to make you be paralyzed. Get focused.

Joy Reid (69:59)

That's right.

Latasha Brown (70:00)

Get focused. Use your money in a way, as part of your power. Use every tool available to you. Use your vote as a form of power. Use your voice as a form of power. Use your time as a form of power. Use your. And when it. And I think if we're doing that at Mass, we can actually shift things.

Joy Reid (70:18)

Amen. Amen. That's a word. Jason, can we get a round of applause for Latasha Brown speaking the word? It's not even Sunday and you can still get an amen. Latasha Brown. Everybody needs to support Black Voters Matter. Tell us the website to make sure that everybody can get on it.

Latasha Brown (70:31)

Make sure you go to Black Voters Matter Fund f u n d.org Black Voters Matter Fund F u n Black voters matter f u n d.org make sure to join us. And we got it going on. We got boots on the ground. We got feet in the streets. We ready to organize. If you don't know what to do, we got something for you.

Joy Reid (70:52)

And look, as I told Apryl the other day, it's also fun. It's fun with me.

Latasha Brown (70:59)

And we fun. That's why I'm like, funny people. We fight, but we're fun, right? And we celebrate who we are. And we're standing in this space of who we are, because when we fight, we win. No matter what says when we fight, we win. So we gotta fight.

Joy Reid (71:14)

Amen. Amen.

Latasha Brown (71:15)

Amen.

Joy Reid (71:16)

Go get that call, because whoever called you is probably mad at me. So thank you very much. I love appreciate you.

Latasha Brown (71:20)

Thank you, Joy.

Joy Reid (71:21)

Thank you, sis. I appreciate you. Look, always remember, Latasha Brown is everything, y'. All. And by the way, she can sing too, so don't look. I'm trying to get her to put an album out. She really needs to do it.

Latasha Brown (71:29)

Just pardoned George Santos.

Joy Reid (71:31)

Well, there you go. Here we go. On this show on Wednesday, Tara Palmieri predicted that Donald Trump was going to pardon three people. Do you remember what she said? George Santos, Ghislaine Maxwell, and the Diddler. I had not had George Santos on my radar, but so far she's one for three. We have a clip. George Santos. We have a clip. Oh, let's go. Let's do it. But he's normalizing the situation. And Joy, if I could make a prediction, and this is not based in any reporting, but it's just a gut feeling based on the fact that Trump also mentioned Diddy in the same comments. I think that he will pardon Diddy Maxwell and George Santos in one fell swoop, and it will blur the moral lines, cause so much outrage that people are just, just overwhelmed by it. And it gives him a device to do something that is morally reprehensible. And, and there will just be so many. But it'll be confusing at the same time because, you know, some would argue George Santos, you know, he committed some campaign violations, which is fraud, but, you know, to pardon him in the same breath as a sex offender. And, and, and Diddy, who was also accused of sex, sex crimes, it's just, it's just, it just seems like it's, he's laying it out there, like he's just showing us what his strategy is. Correction. He commuted George's sentence. Commute. Oh, he didn't pardon him. He commuted it. Yes. Interesting. Well, he could do the same thing with the Diddler and he could do the same thing with Ghislaine Maxwell. Just saying she predicted a hat trick. Jason, the, the folks in the chat are asking if you could, could put up on screen black voters matter.org so people can find it. And it is Black voters matter fund.org we're also going to put it in the description of this, of this show as well.

Latasha Brown (73:34)

Nothing.

Joy Reid (73:35)

No, we'll put it in the description. We'll put in the description, folks, in the chat. We'll make sure that you get it. Welcome to hour two of the Joy Reid Show. We went a little bit over with Latasha Brown because we started, we sort of went along with Robbie Rod Streamer. He is really funny. And if you guys are not following him, you should totally follow him on the things as well. And I will say my last thing that I will say about what Latasha was talking about. The Supreme Court fears defying Trump because they know if they defy him, they don't have a military or an army with which to push back. But neither does Home Depot. Neither does, you know, Amazon.com they can't force you to shop with them. They can't make you do anything. They can't force you to spend money. They can't force you to do Christmas shopping. Maybe you just want to give your kids, you know, love this, this Christmas. Maybe you want to do something different. Maybe you don't want to blow the bank and blow your credit card out this Christmas. Maybe you just want to tell Donald Trump's America, we're going to take a pause. You don't want to pay us. You don't want to give us health care. Maybe we don't want to do Christmas shopping. How about that? That's what they understand. They understand economic force. That's the language they understand and that's the language John Roberts understands. He's a capital R Republican. He cares most about Republicans winning and Republican outcomes. So just putting that out there. I want to talk a little bit about this Republican group chat. We're calling it the Pro Hitler Youth. Apparently they love them some Hitler. Remember that political story? We talked about it on Wednesday. J.D. vance had an interesting response. His response to this was to first tweet out that he didn't see anything about that tweet thread in which people were saying things like gas them, calling people the N word with the hard R and calling black people monkey people and saying they want to put people in ovens. He doesn't say anything wrong with that. He said that's no worse. He said this is far, this is, it's far worse.

Latasha Brown (75:20)

You can put that back up.

Joy Reid (75:21)

This is the, he's saying it was far worse. What Jay Jones, who is the Democratic nominee for Attorney General of Virginia, he says that's far worse. And he posted the chat thread that was exposed from Jay Jones which he texted to a woman. He said that's much worse. Oh, that's interesting because I can tell you right now, it's not. It's not worse. It's not. This is his other response. And by the way, if you're in Virginia and you vote for the Republican instead of Jay Jones because you're outraged about his tweet thread and you're that short sighted that you put that guy and that cuckoo lady Winsome Sears in office because you're mad about Jay Jones's texts when the other side are literally kidnapping brown people off the street and doing everything they can to, to impersonate Nazis in the modern ERA I don't know what to tell you, Virginia. If you do that, that is d u n b dumb. But let me play you on J.D. vance's other defense and his Vince, is, you know, it's the kids, just the kids.

Dean Obadala (76:21)

By focusing on what kids are saying in a group chat. Grow up. I'm sorry, Focus on the real issues. Don't focus what on what kids say in group chats. But there's another angle to this that I, I just have to be honest about. I mean, I'm like an old guy at this point. I'm 41 years old. I have three kids. You know, we, I grew up in a different world, right? We're not. Most of what I. The stupid things that I did when I was a teenager and a young adult, they're not on the Internet. Like I'm going to tell my kids, especially my boys, don't put things on the Internet like, be careful with what you post. If you put something in a group chat, assume that some scumbag is going to leak it in an effort to try to cause you harm or cause your family harm. But the reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys. They tell edgy, offensive jokes. Like, that's what kids do. And I really don't want us to grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke, telling a very offensive, stupid joke is caused to ruin their lives. And at some point we're all going to have to say, enough of this bs. We're not going to allow the worst moment and a 21 year old's group chat to ruin a kid's life for the rest of time. That's just not okay. Like, we live in a digital world. This stuff is now etched in stone online. We're all going to have to say, you know what? No, no, we're not doing this. We're not canceling kids because they do something stupid in a group chat. And if I have to be the person who carries that message forward, I'm fine.

Joy Reid (77:46)

He said kids about 18 times in that. Do you notice that? The kids. Jason, do we have a picture of the kids?

Latasha Brown (77:51)

The kids.

Joy Reid (77:52)

Look at the little boys and girls. The kids. Some of them have beards and mustaches. The kids. The guy in the upper left hand corner of the I love Hitler guy, he's like 40. He just said, I'm an old guy. I'm 46. Let me read you the background of this young Republican organization that these kids, these kids are a part of. Young Republicans are the oldest political youth organization in the United States important to the growth of the Republican Party. The young. The yrs, as they call themselves now, reach out to registered Republicans, the kids aged 18 to 40 years of age 18 to 40, and provide them with better political knowledge and understanding of the issues of the day. The first Young Republican Club was established in 1856. This was literally the oldest Republican feeder organization in the country. It was established in 1856 in support of the newly formed Republican Party and the abolitionist movement. It was not until 1931 that the yrs were organized nationally. West Point graduate George H. Olmstead began to attract the attention of the leaders of the national Republican Party, and he was invited to meet with President Herbert Hoover in the White House. President Hoover, so impressed with his visit with Olmstead, asked the young man to head the Young Republican division of the Republican Party, which Olmstead did. In 1935, the Young Republican division officially became the Young Republican National Federation, and the YRNF elected Olmstead as the organization's first chairman. Young Republican National Federation mirrors the tactic that Republicans have used ever since. Older, more experienced and much wealthier Republicans find young Republicans who are mainly in college and groom them to be the new leaders of the party. But These aren't kids. 18 year olds can go to war. 18 year olds can vote. And they the people in this Young Republican National Federation, they go up to age 40. That's six years younger than J.D. vance. So if J.D. vance is saying that people who are six years younger than him are kids, what is he? They're not kids, J.D. they're adults. Oh, but wait, there's more. J.D. vance has a weird take on what the kids should be able to say when it comes to his friends. Let's say Charlie Kirk. Here's how he feels about the kids who want to the joke about Charlie Kirk or who just want to point out the shitty things he said about black people, women, gay people, and people who aren't Christians. And also women who don't have 18 children and submit to their husbands.

Dean Obadala (80:32)

Let's see what he says flows from all of us. So when you see someone celebrating Charlie's murder, call them out in hell. Call their employer. We don't believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility. And there is no civility in the celebration of political assassination.

Joy Reid (80:50)

Oh, interesting. So the kids who want to post a joke about Charlie Kirk should be had their employers called, they should be fired. This regime has taken people's visas away. They have literally said, you will be deportable if you say anything online that is askew about Charlie Kirk, they've said that they will literally deport you and cancel your visa. They want to cancel your passport if you say anything about Charlie Kirk. But if you want to big up Hitler. Well, there's nothing wrong with that, is there? Go ahead, big up Hitler. Why not? Basically what this guy is saying, JD Vance, is that there's nothing wrong with people who are, by the way, not the kids. Kids. These are 18 to 40 year olds. Some of them are elected officials. There's one in Vermont who fellow elected officials are asking him to resign his position. These are grown ass men and women who were joking about putting people into ovens, joking about the Holocaust, saying I love Hitler. That's the main guy who's running to be the president of the, of the Young Republican National Federation junta. The guy running to be the president. He's such a kid that he gave Elise Stefanik an award and stood on stage with her years ago. These are not children, J.D. these are adults. And you said that if adults say anything you don't like about Charlie Kirk, they should be canceled, they should be fired, they should be deported, they should be shamed. But you think that people who are bigging up Hitler, it's just kid talk. It's just what the kids do. So now we understand definitively, J.D. vance, that when you said Trump might be Hitler, you meant that as a compliment. Good to know. Let's talk about the person that J.D. vance. And let me know when our guest is here. Let's talk about the person that. Oh, he's here. Let's bring in, let's bring him in. Dean Obedala. He'll have something much funnier than I do to say about this mess.

Maribel Hernandez Rivera (82:46)

Dean.

Joy Reid (82:47)

I have the kids and my kids are, we call them kiddos adults now.

Maribel Hernandez Rivera (82:53)

Right.

Joy Reid (82:53)

Because the oldest one is 30. And I'm not sure if she was posting I love Hitler that I would chalk that up to her being a child. Your thoughts?

Jason (83:06)

What's the age limit for saying I love Hitler? Like, is it 38? 38's okay. No, 41. You can't do it anymore. Yeah, but like anything before, it's like a warning label on like some kind of game. You're playing the I love Hitler game. You can only be up below 40 years old of age to say, by the way, J.D. vance is 41. He's actually closer in age. He just turned 41 last August.

Joy Reid (83:26)

Is he 41? That's right. You're right.

Jason (83:29)

So he's not 46. He can say I love Hitler a lot. He's still a child.

Joy Reid (83:33)

So. So wait a minute, hold on one second, Dean. He's one year older than he would be to be in this group. So he's calling them boys and kids. And they're a year younger than him, some of them. Are you serious?

Jason (83:45)

Yep. And what I love. And you played the clip. J.D. vance called a person who leaked these horrible comments scumbags. He didn't call the people who made the comments like I love Hitler scumbags. That's kind of funny. I would think the people who wrote things like they like Hitler and calling black people the watermelon people and making anti Jewish, anti gay comments, those are the scumbags. Not the person who leaked it, but the J.D. vance. The person who, until J.D. vance. And again, you put that great clip, clip on Charlie Kirk show after Charlie Kirk was killed, saying, you know, we gotta call the. Their employer, get them fired. Well, how is, how is that any different than the scumbags that he called him leaking out the information? So look, there's no consistency. But I will say this, Joy, when you read the comments, there's one thing clear. They are maga. I mean, that is mag. That's a mega platform, folks. Let's not. 100%, that's MAGA. They're, they're going to move up big in this party. They are perfectly aligned with the ideology.

Latasha Brown (84:39)

Of this party, 100%.

Joy Reid (84:41)

I mean, the largest. This is a 15,000 member organization. The only Republican grooming organization larger than that is Turning Point. And it's interesting that the two of them were founded the same way. Wealthy older men finding young, mean, nasty little right wing young people in college, giving them a shit ton of money and then creating organizations that they then claim the young and founding did. Because Charlie Kirk didn't found Turning Point USA, a rich white older man who was 72 years old, founded it, put his name and face on it, and then sent him into college campuses to try to flip and red pill more young people. And the thing that's interesting about it, and it sort of aligns with what Latasha was saying in the previous block, the right knows that their ideas and policies are not popular if they just presented them as ideas. So they have to use compulsion, religious trickery and force. And at this point they've reached the force era, right? They're like, no, we're just gonna force you to live in white Christian nationalism because they know they can't sell it.

Jason (85:43)

No. And it was very interesting when you heard comments about Charlie Kirk saying that Muslims want to impose our religion on Muslim as law, when he was literally trying to impose the religion as law out of it. Like, there wasn't any. Like, no, it was like, well, this is what we're doing. So Muslims probably want to do the same thing. No, I'm Muslim. We have no desire to. Although if Zoron wins here in New York, no more BLTs just LTs, folks. That's it. That's a turkey bacon for everybody. And you don't live longer, it'll be better for you in the long run. It's not religious. I tell people, get over it. You're gonna die in turkey bacon, but.

Joy Reid (86:19)

Your rent will be low and you get a free bus ride. Get over it.

Jason (86:22)

Unreal. So, look, it's interesting to see this.

Latasha Brown (86:25)

Play out, but also, look, look, we're.

Jason (86:26)

On the eve of the no Kings route rally. This is the second big no Kings rally. There was the hands off rally millions. My question is, Joy, where are the pro Trump rallies? If Trump is the most popular president ever and he just told us that he's the most popular Republican president ever, he put in right this week. He said he was the most. The greatest president ever. Where are the pro Trump rallies? Why are they not out in the street? Hmm. Could it be that he's horribly unpopular, but corporate media makes him seem like he's the emperor, where he's on TV in every article. You can't avoid Trump's glare. He's always looking at us. I've been in the Middle East. This is the way they treat the kings and sheikhs who run the land all the time. Today Associated Press poll came out. He has a 37% approval rating. Why is that not covered in corporate media? Because they don't want to. They want to make him more powerful than he is. He is horribly, horribly unpopular. That's why there's no pro mega rallies out there. They might try to cause problems tomorrow, but they're not gonna get millions in the street for this guy.

Joy Reid (87:23)

No, and I want to talk about. Also, that's a, that's an excellent point. You're the first one to bring that up. That's a great point. There's not gonna be. And also, you know what? They can't go to rallies because they're all broke. They can't afford gas. They're all losing their homes. They're all losing their. They're all getting about to get evicted. All of his people are busted, broke. They don't have any money and he's taking the rest of it from them. All they have is the entertainments of watching brown people get tackled in the street. That's all they've got. Let's talk about this J. Jones situation in Virginia because I, my problem with the Democrats is that they don't fight like, with, like, they are so ready to throw this guy under the bus. They don't even know what to do with themselves. He sent a stupid text. It's a dumb text. But seriously, the other side has like, Hitler. You, they're pro Hitler. You, they're into the Hitler and they're like, oh, my God, Jay Jones. Let me play a little bit of him last night. This is C7 for Jason defending his entry in the race and attacking the other guy. Minares.

Maribel Hernandez Rivera (88:17)

Again.

Dean Obadala (88:17)

Virginians are just waiting for you to prosecute a case against Donald Trump. People are hurting right now. What do you say to those federal workers who are at home who got fired illegally earlier this year? What do you say to those people who are going to lose their health care based on a plan that you wrote a few years ago, by the way? What do you say to those families who are struggling right now because the tariffs that have also been declared illegal have destroyed their bank accounts? If you're going to prosecute a case, you should prosecute the prosecution president. But you're too afraid. You're too scared, and you're too weak to stand up to him. I have no problem. I cannot wait to see Donald Trump in court and protect Virginia, to put us first and get what we deserve.

Joy Reid (88:49)

So does this race turn on those texts or on what he just said?

Jason (88:54)

I think it's very interesting. I had on yesterday on my radio show, the lieutenant governor nominee, the state senator, Gisela Hashmi. So if she wins, she'll be the first Muslim statewide official. We are taking over Joy. So you're, you're going to be fine because we like you. So you, the rest of you people, it's convert or it's your choice. No. So I think she's going to win. And we talked about this and this puts, you know, I understand being in difficult situation where you read the words. It was clearly written as a joke. It was in the form of a joke in 2022. But it is jarring, especially in the climate we live in after Charlie Kirk's kill. So you look at that and you're like, oh, so that becomes very difficult for him. But for what, what he is talking about is exactly what the lieutenant governor Nominee talked about yesterday. Farmers in Virginia are suffering. Soybean is one of their biggest products. Last year, China bought $25 billion worth of soybean. This year, because of Trump, zero. I'm not rounding down. It's literally zero. They are suffering. They are going. And they lose workers because of ICE raids. You've got tariffs making goods higher in cost. You've got a trade war that Trump did, all Trump. They can't sell things and then insult to injury. Instead of helping the farmers, Trump gives $25 billion to Argentina. So you've got. And that was a point she made on the show, was a great point. So she's not out there talking about that. I asked her about it because I thought it was important. She said, look, the voters are gonna have to decide. That's up to them. He did apologize. He said it was wrong. If people believe him, then they'll probably vote for him. If they're really troubled and don't believe him, it's different. Those I Love Hitler people, they're not going on TV and apologizing. They're not saying it's wrong. J.D. vance is defending them. How hard is it to denounce I Love Hitler? Nothing like the baseline.

Robbie Roadsteamer (90:35)

It's like the minimum.

Jason (90:36)

That's where we are in America. Saying I love Hitler is not even denounced. You have to denounce it. No, J.D. vance is gonna spin it. Scumbags. They release it. These children who are 40 years old with a family of three, you know, that's what we're dealing with. At least. The ag candidate came out and said, look, I made a mistake. And it was a joke. It was 2022. It was wrong. And he called the family. The former speaker, I think it's Todd Gilbert's family, and said he apologized to them. You know, he did all the right things. Now it's up to voters. But that's not the issue that's really affecting people. There's been a lot of people laid off, as you know, Virginia, a lot of government employees, they're losing jobs by the day. There's not just a government shutdown. More layoffs are happening. You've got their big cuts for the ACA subsidies that are now going to go into effect. And they're worried about Medicaid being cut in a year from now. So those are the real issues that are gonna move people. This is the Republicans way of not talking about issues that affect people's lives.

Joy Reid (91:29)

And the reality is only one of those two ag candidates will sue on behalf of Virginia Federal workers. If they get fired, only one of the two of them will sue. If they try to take people's Obamacare subsidies away, only one of them is gonna do anything to try to stop Donald Trump. The other is just going to say, yes, yes, please, sir, may I have some more from Donald Trump? Let's play the other person that is running for governor, and this one breaks my heart because her name is. One of my favorite names in the world is Winsome. And this woman's name is Winsome. It's a beautiful name, but not such a beautiful candidate. Here she's the current lieutenant governor. And here she is in the clip that now has been made into an ad that the right is saying is the ad that's going to win her the election. Here it is, C8. Let's not talk about what's happening with. With Ukraine. Oh, no, that's not it. Oops, oops, oops. Wait, stop that one. Stop that one right quick. It's his C8.

Latasha Brown (92:19)

Would it take him pulling the trigger? Is that what would do it? And then you would say, he needs to get out of the race? Abigail, you have nothing to say? Abigail, what if he said it about your two children, your three children? Is that when you would say he should get out of the race? Abigail.

Joy Reid (92:40)

You'Re running to be governor, Ms. Earl Sears. I mean, we're talking about murder.

Latasha Brown (92:45)

We're talking about someone's life being taken from them. Have you nothing to say about that? Are you not going to address it? Really? You can't go any further. You're a governor. You're supposed to stand up for all the people. Are you saying political murder is all right? Have some political courage. What you have done is you are taking political calculations about your future as governor. Well, as governor, you have to make hard choices, and that means telling Jay Jones to leave the race.

Joy Reid (93:20)

And this, that was her sort of mic drop moment. And I don't know who tells these candidates that when somebody is addressing you to just stare off into space with that empty look that Abigail Spanberger had on her face. It. It's wild, but if I were Virginia, I'd be like, okay, vote for that milk toast lady, because the other lady is something else. Really quick, before I get your response, here's what she could have done. She could have pointed out, and this is C10 if you want. You know, let's go first to C10 since it's closer. Whichever's closer, Jason, either C10 or C9. You can give me either one, because this is okay, this is the way Winston Sears, who's now lecturing Abigail Spanberger about violence. This is how she ran for lieutenant governor the first time. Time she ran toting an AR15. And now let's play C10. This is some video that a Democratic is called Democratic victory. They went and they pulled up this ad. You want to talk about stuff that you say that really sound crazy and violent. Here is Winsome Sears and Jason, let me know when you got C10 and then you can go ahead and roll it out. Let's not talk about what's happening with Ukraine. When you are willing to. To kill a child up until the day that the baby could be born. Go get the mirror and ask yourself if you're okay with this kind of thing. I don't care whether you're libertarian, Democrat, Reform Party, Green. I don't care who you are. Murder is murder. And one day it's going to be your turn. Oh, it's going to be your turn. So she's essentially saying that if you are in favor of choice for women, then murder is coming your way.

Latasha Brown (94:59)

Sound violent to me it does.

Jason (95:02)

And I'm telling you, after she loses, she will be doing a great one person show. Because it sounds like a one person show, doesn't it? Like these are her lines. She's like. And scene. Thank you. That was excellent, wasn't it? Because that's what it felt like. She's just talking to the Abigail Spanberger and Abigail's looking away and she's like. And it's like West Wing. Some episode of West Wing I never saw that was going on there. Look, by the way, there was another clip at that debate that the Democrats are using. Winsome said that firing someone for being gay or opposing marriage equality is not discrimination.

Joy Reid (95:33)

Wait, wait, hold on, Dean. We have it. We have it.

Robbie Roadsteamer (95:37)

MAGA Republican Winsome Earl.

Joy Reid (95:39)

This is the ad they've done.

Robbie Roadsteamer (95:42)

And what she says about discrimination is extreme.

Dean Obadala (95:45)

The Republican candidate for governor hand wrote a note, note on a bill that passed the General assembly implying she's morally.

Robbie Roadsteamer (95:52)

Opposed to same sex marriage.

Joy Reid (95:54)

My opponent has previously said that she does not think that gay couples should be allowed to marry. She has said that she Discrimination. My opponent has also previously said that she thinks it's okay for someone to be fired from their job for being gay. That is discrimination. Yes, Lieutenant Governor, it is.

Dean Obadala (96:12)

And what you said about, about rights.

Joy Reid (96:14)

Couldn'T be more wrong.

Dean Obadala (96:16)

Winsome Earl Sears so far right, she's wrong for Virginia.

Joy Reid (96:20)

That's not discrimination.

Latasha Brown (96:23)

Like what?

Jason (96:24)

It's very Interesting, because even here's another wrinkle to this race. The Republican lieutenant governor nominee, John Reed, a former conservative talk show host, is openly gay. And he defended her for calling for discrimination against his own community. That shows you I'm not kidding. He defended, Said, I didn't like it, but, you know, what can you do? And he will not support a proposed amendment to make sure marriage equality is protected on the state level. So. And again, you become a Republican and you actually would sacrifice your own community's civil liberties and civil rights to move up in that party. So there's so much that goes on with them. I don't understand. We would never. I would never compromise my basic principles and go like, hey, you know what? Ban Muslims. I think it's a good idea. Sometimes you gotta do it. I don't. Like, never ever. I would quit that party. But. So you've got that other wrinkle where she's saying it's not discrimination to tell someone, hey, oh, you're gay, you're fired. Get out of here. That's not discrimination. That is the definition of discrimination. That is like in a book about discrimination. That's, like, page one. And John Reed, the lieutenant governor, Republican who's running, it's my friend Giselle Hashmi, has got no problem with it. And like, what's happened to you as a party because. And again, when you can't denounce I love Hitler, literally, when you, J.D. vance, cannot deny I love Hitler, everything is fair to me. The Republican Party is the party of tax cuts for the rich, the January 6th terrorist attack. I love Hitler. And now commuting George Santos, which Trump did just a few minutes ago. He's letting. He's not pardoning him. So he still has his convictions, but he's letting him out of jail just like seven years early. He served like a couple of weeks. That's the party. It is a complete, morally devoid party that is about the leadership. If you're loyal to Trump, you get things. And that's it.

Joy Reid (98:03)

That's it. And very quickly, before. Before I let you go, they also look, we have a Tara Palmeri predicted that the next two are going to be Diddy. Puff Daddy, as he still calls him, as I still call him, too, and Ghislaine Maxwell. I actually think that's going to happen. But let's go really quickly to Mamdani. He. I watched that entire debate last night. I thought he just rode circles around the other two, but let me play. Jason. This is actually C13. Let's skip to C13 because he went into the topic that I think is the most salient topic in New York City politics right now, and it is the rent is too damn high.

Dean Obadala (98:39)

If you think that the problem in this city is that my rent is.

Jason (98:41)

Too low, vote for him.

Dean Obadala (98:43)

If you know the problem in this.

Joy Reid (98:44)

City is that your rent is too.

Jason (98:45)

High, vote for me.

Joy Reid (98:47)

Very simple. And now I have to. So his best, I would say witness in his defense turns out to be Cardi B. Cuz Cardi B posted on her. I think it was on her TikTok or her ignore. And she really backed up mom Donnie's argument, I think, without even attempting to. But I think this was actually a pretty good endorsement.

Latasha Brown (99:05)

So, you know, I'm trying to help my friend get an apartment and. And I'm like, yo, why don't you just get an apartment in the Bronx? And it was telling me how, like, it's like, yo, it's expensive to look at apartments in the Bronx. I'm like, oh, here you go. Here you go with your excuses now, yo, why going on street easy. And I start to look for apartments in the Bronx for them. Yo, why rent is so expensive? How the is rent so expensive in the most cheapest borough? I can't even imagine how much rent will be in Brooklyn when I'm Chinese. People be living at or in Queens. Queens is expensive, period. You're not getting nothing if it's not 2500. Like how the apartment or one bedroom is like $1500 in Anderson, the rent prices. And I'm not. I'm out here asking y' all to buy my. My album. And I am so sorry, y'. All.

Joy Reid (100:08)

Okay. She's a little bit colorful. Yes. And you know, she's. She's not politically correct, but she's. But it's true.

Jason (100:15)

But this is so much more fun than msnbc, isn't it? It.

Joy Reid (100:18)

Sorry for the cousin saints. It's Friday night.

Jason (100:22)

And being honest, look, I live in New York. I want Zuron to talk to my landlord if he gets elect. I'm like, you got to come over here, brother, and talk to my landlord. I'll tell you. I met Zoran at the Muslim Democratic Club here a couple of years ago, and I was telling some jokes at the event, and I never met him before. We talked on the phone once, and he went and spoke. And after he spoke, it was like 50 people. I'm like, he's good. I was like, like, it was like that. This is like two years ago. I'm like, man, and then I saw one little rally, like a small fundraiser at someone's apartment during this campaign, early in the campaign, before he was ascending. And he spoke and we left him. Like, he is very special. Like, he's generational special. He's not born in the United States, so he can't run for president. But he has the qualities that you look for, like in Obama, like these unique people, that there's something about them. And he has that. I have to be honest. He really does. He's a remarkable guy.

Joy Reid (101:12)

He does indeed. I think he mopped the floor. One of the things I did, the dumbest question, was about parades. It was a really weird debate. They started asking weird questions at the end. But what I got out of that entire debate, honestly, Dean, other than that, Mamdani deserves to win. Based on that performance last night and just based on his campaign, I didn't know what Curtis Sliwa looked like without the red hat. I honestly didn't think he had any hair. I assumed he was bald, but he has hair, and I'm shocked. Weird.

Jason (101:38)

He looks a little odd, I'll tell you. I think Zorin should win. The biggest thing then is that it's not him winning that scares the billionaires, it's him being successful.

Joy Reid (101:46)

That's right.

Jason (101:47)

Scares the billionaires because he'll be a template for Democrats nationwide to win elections. Not running in the middle with his status quo argument. Let's get back to the status quo. But having government actually be transformative to fight with the working class and lower class in this country, that's what he's doing. He's leading 100% into it. That scares the corporate Democrats and that scares the billionaire class.

Joy Reid (102:07)

And indeed, and the fact that he won't promise to spend more time going to Israel to bow down to Bibi Netanyahu than work on lowering the rent in New York. He's like, I'm focused. I'm not interested in parades, going to Israel to hang out with Bibi. Y' all do that. I'm about to lower this rent. Dean Obadala, thank you very much.

Jason (102:27)

Thank you, my friend.

Joy Reid (102:27)

I appreciate you. Thank you. Good to see you. I'm telling you, he deserves to win just based on the fact that he's like, I'm focused on New York.

Latasha Brown (102:34)

Our next guest is.

Joy Reid (102:35)

Let's get back to talking about what is happening in our streets in terms of just the complete breakdown of law and order when it comes to the way that the Trump regime is behaving and having these masked thugs behave in the streets and discuss that on the eve of no Kings Day. Let's bring Maribel Hernandez Rivera. She's the National Director of Immigrant Community Strategies at the American Civil Liberties Union. It is so great to meet you, Maribel. Thank you so much for being here.

Maribel Hernandez Rivera (103:04)

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Joy Reid (103:06)

So let's talk about this. When we have seen these videos of people being attacked, tackled in the street, some people yelling, this is a citizen. This is a citizen. And in other cases, people, you know, screaming. I was watching one yesterday when men are screaming, are you the man? Are you the man? Are you? And he's literally screaming for his life.

Jason (103:25)

Life.

Joy Reid (103:25)

And the people who are attacking him are in regular street clothes. It looks like a kidnapping in broad daylight. There's no way that a passerby could even tell if this is law enforcement. Proud boys, oath keepers, 3 percenters. There's no way of even knowing. But people kind of freeze, and they don't know what to do other than film. What should people do when they see somebody that looks like they're being kidnapped in the street?

Maribel Hernandez Rivera (103:47)

Yeah, well, the number one thing that people should know is exactly what you said, is that this is a policy of cruelty. That what they're trying to do is they're trying to instill fear in all of us. And that means all of us, whether we're immigrant, whether you're U.S. citizens, it doesn't matter. And so what we need to do is we need to get together as a community, and we are seeing it. We are seeing communities come together. We're seeing communities reporting on what's happening, because the Constitution allows us to report what's happening. That's lawful. We should continue to do so to show the cruelty of this administration. We also should continue to document and then feel free to share with the aclu, feel free to share with organizations that are fighting against these abuses of power, because that's what we're seeing. We're seeing an administration who is currently using the federal government to target political opponents, to violate our First Amendment rights and to really try to disseminate the Constitution, a foundational document for our democracy.

Joy Reid (104:49)

I know your heart had to have sunk when the Supreme Court effectively ruled that federal racial profiling is legal, that these people, who, again, don't identify themselves even as law enforcement, basically anyone, I guess, who feels like they want to do a citizen's arrest of a brown person can do so based on the color of the person's skin and their accent. That has to be terrifying for communities of color, particularly Latino.

Maribel Hernandez Rivera (105:11)

Communities, as you can tell, Joe, myself, I'm a Latina myself. I came here when I was 13 years old as an immigrant. As a person who's an immigrant, I was once undocumented. So I know what that is like. I know what it's like to have a target on your back. But what's really important for people to know is that the courts are but one tool in our democracy. The most important tool is we the people. That is why our foundational document begins.

Latasha Brown (105:36)

With we the people.

Maribel Hernandez Rivera (105:37)

We the people are the strongest tool that we have if we get together, if we speak up. Because what they want is they want us to be quiet. They want us to just seed our rights so that they can do whatever they want. We have seen that as soon as we push back, they sometimes retreat. Right? We saw with Jim Kimmel, we saw it when, as soon as there was a letter that had more than 40 artists signed and more than 40,000 ACLU members who signed, no, we're not allowing this. Then what happened? He's back on the air. So we know that even though it's difficult because it is, even though it's scary because it is, we also know that we the people hold a lot of power. And the more that we make it loud, the more that we exercise our rights is the more that we show them that we're not giving up and that we're not letting them take away our democracy.

Joy Reid (106:26)

Do you foresee, I mean, at this point, there is no Congress. Congress is non functional. There are barely courts. John Roberts, I don't trust him at all. I think that he is a Roger Taney of the modern age. I just do. And so that doesn't feel like there's a civil society to fall back on. And to your point, it feels like all we have is each other. We can fall back on the people because there just isn't a civil society anymore. You as an attorney, is that how you feel or do you have a different take that is maybe more comforting than that one?

Maribel Hernandez Rivera (106:57)

Well, what I can do is the same thing as I said in terms of like. Like, we're not giving up on our rights. We're not giving up on our democracy. We're not giving up on the courts. We are seeing judges speak up and stand up to this administration. We are seeing that. We are seeing also cases, some cases where the courts are saying, no, we're not allowing you to do this violent and cruel and unlawful thing. And we also, historically, joy, I think this is really important. Historically, we have seen that when the people rise up, up when we speak up, and when we push back, we see authoritarian governments step back and retreat. So we have seen that again and again in history. So this is our time, this is our moment to get out on the streets and then push back. But I do have to tell you that I do still have hope in our democracy, in our institutions, because that is who we are as Americans. We are a democracy, and therefore our institutions are really important.

Joy Reid (107:52)

If somebody is accosted in the street, what's the first thing that you would suggest that they do?

Maribel Hernandez Rivera (107:58)

So the first thing that we need to all do, and let's do it right now, is know our rights. So remember, you have the right to remain silent. Let's be very clear. The Constitution protects every single one of us. Whether we're a citizen, whether we're documented or undocumented, we're all protected. So we all have the right to remain silent. We all have the right to not consent to a search. We all have the right to ask for an attorney. And if we are bystanders and we're seeing what's happening, we have the right to record. That is one of the most important tools that we have right now, because we're able to show the atrocities that are happening by just our little device that we all have with us record. Show the people what is happening. Because you know what's happening right now. The more the American people is seeing what happening, the more they're saying, enough is enough. We're seeing poll after poll. People do not support this administration's immigration policies. People do not support the sending of the National Guard and military troops into the United States. People are not supporting this administration's policies. But how they know that they're not supporting it. They see what's happening. And so it's important that we show them what's happening. And that's all of us, that's the media, of course, but also every single citizen. We can do that with our own devices.

Joy Reid (109:15)

And then this next question is, do these federal agents. Because again, we don't know who they are. We don't know if they are ice. We don't know if they are drug enforcement. We just don't know. But they're entering people's homes. Do they have a right to do that?

Maribel Hernandez Rivera (109:33)

Super important for us to know two things. So when we're talking about constitutional rights, when we're talking about our homes, that's where we have the highest protection. Our home is where we have our privacy. Our home is where we should Be safe. And therefore, we get to decide who comes into our home or who doesn't. So nobody can come into your home or any private space unless, one, you consent, or two, they have a warrant, and it has to be a judicial warrant, not an administrative warrant. What do I mean by that? A judicial warrant is a warrant that is signed by a judge that comes from a court. And be very careful, because what this administration is doing is often they show you an administrative warrant, and what that is is a warrant that is signed by an immigration officer, by some supervisor. Those do not allow officials to come into your home. So only a judicial warrant does that. So really important, if somebody comes and knocks at your door and they want to come in. Step number one, ask, do you have a warrant? If they say yes, ask them to put it under the door so that you can see it and see whether or not it's a valid warrant or not. And if it isn't, you don't have to open the door. If it isn't, you don't have to say anything. Again, that's where your right to remain silent comes in. That's the right where your right to not consent for them to come into your home. So that is protected by the US Constitution for every single one of us.

Joy Reid (110:55)

And basically treat them like sinners. It's a vampire at the door. Don't let them in. And you say they can come in, they can't. Y' all need to go see sinners. If you are accosted on the street and the person does not have a uniform on and does not show you any identification or a badge and does not announce who they are, do you have a right to physically resist them, to pull away, to fight back?

Maribel Hernandez Rivera (111:16)

So for us, it's really important that we think about people's safety. So, number one, you know, as we're thinking about, for example, the no rallies right now happening tomorrow, we're thinking about being peaceful. We're thinking about being nonviolent, and we're thinking about making sure that we're all safe. So the most important thing, when you are having an interaction with law enforcement, always ask, am I free to go? Always ask, are you arresting me? And if they say you are free to go, then you walk away calmly. And you can even narrate what you're doing. You're saying, okay, you're saying, I'm free to go. I'm walking away. Because you don't want to give them an excuse. Because that's what. And this is why it's important to Know, you're right.

Latasha Brown (111:54)

Right.

Maribel Hernandez Rivera (111:55)

Because if they can claim that they had an excuse because they believed that you had a weapon in your pocket, they believe that because you were running away, you were doing something, then you're giving them that excuse. So do not give them that excuse. Always de escalate, always remain calm. Always ask, am I free to go? Always.

Latasha Brown (112:15)

And that's it.

Maribel Hernandez Rivera (112:16)

And if they start asking you questions, remain silent, because you have that right.

Joy Reid (112:21)

Let me just make sure that there's no other questions in the chat, because a lot of people I think are going to be going. Please let us know in the chat if you're going to be going to the no Kings rally where near you tomorrow. And please listen to this advice. Be peaceful. Try not to do any physical resistance. It's better to sue later. Live to tell another day and sue later. I am a big proponent of. If you see this happening, Maribel, to call out to the person, what is your name in English and in Spanish, if it doesn't seem that the person speaks English, get their name and get them to tell you their name. Is that legitimate to do or is that somehow getting them to not use their right to remain silent?

Maribel Hernandez Rivera (113:01)

You could be putting them at risk. Because again, if they're identifying themselves, you know, the more information you give to law enforcement, the more they can use against it, against you. Right. Like we've seen the movies. Whatever you say or do will be used against. So this is something important in terms of the no Kings rallies tomorrow. Something people need to know. Number one, every single rally is going to have security leads. These people are people who have been trained in safety, in de escalation, and in making sure that we have a peaceful demonstration. So if you are attending an All Kings rally and you see something that feels odd to you, you don't have to deal with it. You can always flag it for the person whose job it is to de escalate. That's number one. Number two, often we see people who come into rallies who just want attention, and that's why they misbehave.

Joy Reid (113:48)

Right.

Maribel Hernandez Rivera (113:48)

If they want to cause trouble, if you don't give them that attention, sometimes they get tired. So one of the major ways of de escalating is ignoring. We are there as a community. So if they're, you know, they're acting up, you can flag it for a safety lead and you can continue with your chats. You can continue being together in community because that often enough that de escalates. Now, if they come and they approach you, always remain Calm. Always calm. Keep a calm tone, because that's going to allow you to just have a better conversation. But again, it's not on you to do the security. There are people there whose job it is to make sure that we're all safe.

Joy Reid (114:26)

All right? So good. No more asking people what their names are. Just make sure you document it, get it, film it. Be peaceful and safe. Maribel Hernandez Rivera, thank you very much. We so appreciate you. Be safe. Be safe. Be safe out there.

Maribel Hernandez Rivera (114:36)

Thank you. Good night.

Joy Reid (114:37)

Thank you very much. Thank you. I'm looking in the chat, lots of people saying that they are going to attend no Kings rallies tomorrow. Some people are going to watch. If you're not going to attend in person, I have a big announcement for you. Here is a way that you can still be involved. Yes. Look out for a job provocateurs. Yes. Look out for paid agitators. Be safe out there, everybody. Be careful. Be safe. If you are not going to be attending a no Kings rally in person, I would like for you to do something for me. Come back to this channel. Same bat time, different no, different bat time, same bad channel. Come right back here to thejewyreadshow.com here or on substack on joyanread.com because we are bringing the band back together, y'.

Maribel Hernandez Rivera (115:18)

All.

Joy Reid (115:18)

Don Lemon, Jim Acosta, and I are going to be getting back together. We're going to be covering the no Kings protest. That's part du. The three of us will be doing live coverage starting at 11am we're going to go all the way to 3pm Most of the big rallies start at noon, so we want to try to gear up for it. Make sure that you subscribe like and share so that you can be a part of it. Hit that little notification thing. So, you know, when we go live. But we are going to be live on all three of our channels. So on the Jim Acosta show channel, on the Don Lemon show channel, on the Joy Reed show channel, we do this periodically because we have decided that you need a breaking news team. What you all used to love about MSNBC was when we would all get together, it'll be me and Rachel and Nicole and the gang. We'd all get together. And Lawrence and, you know, everybody would be together, right? And you guys enjoyed that. Stephanie Rule, the whole gang. And it was always really fun, right? We always really. We always enjoyed it. Chris Hayes, you know, all the gang, right? We used to really enjoy ourselves, but we don't have that now because we are in individual channels. And so now the way that we can basically do the same thing is that we can have our channels live stream together. And so we still give you the same experience of being in this breaking news triumvirate with the three of us. And so that is what we're doing. We are bringing back that same strategy. So we're going to collabo again. We did for the first was very, very successful. Lots of people loved it, enjoyed it. So we decided to bring the super group back together. Don Lemon, Jim Acosta and I will be hosting live coverage of no Kings Day 2 protests. They're going to kick off all over the country. We're going to have people reporting from everywhere, from Chicago, from Los Angeles, hopefully some Portland people. I need the frog. If you are the frog. If you're one of the frogs, I just need you to make yourself available, try to locate one of our no Kings two people and get yourself onto the show because we really want to see you. I love the frog. I'm very frog. I'm very pro frog. I love the frog. I think he's actually really, actually quite amazing. And so we want to make sure that you guys are all around for that. So that is one of the things that's happening tomorrow. That's tomorrow. Saturday, October 18, 11am to 3pm that's one thing. Second, big announcement. The store you guys have been asking about, merch will the store she is officially open. Your requests for merch are officially granted. You're welcome. You can head over to our cute little store. It is at shop.joann reid.comshop.joann re.com we're eventually going to load some product products right here on the YouTube channel as well. But for now you can head over to the substack which is shop.joinre.com you can also subscribe to the substack if you want. And so what we are doing right now is that we're doing 15 off discounts for everybody that's in this chat right now. So if you're in the chat, you're getting 15 off, you're going to get that discount. It's good until midnight tonight until 11:59pm midnight. That is how long you can get your discount. 15 off if you put the word freestyle. Freestyle F R E E S T Y L E. Just put freestyle into the discount code and voila, you get yourself a 15 discount because we love you and appreciate you. So go and get your merch. If you want merch, you got the joy read show t Shirts. We've got some cool sweatshirts. We've got stuff with, like, good insignias and, like, sayings on them. Really fun. I'm. I'm working on a frog product. I haven't done it yet, but we've got to get something that's got a frog on it. So we're going to try to work on that because we do love the frog. We do love the frog. We like all of the fairy tale creatures that are out in Portland. So thank you all for being here. I hope to see you guys tomorrow for no Kings Day 2 special coverage. It is actually going to be really great, and hopefully you guys will join us for it because it's going to be. It's going to be pretty dope. One of the things that I'm going to be looking for tomorrow are the crowd sizes. We're going to see how many people are actually showing up. We're going to see how large those crowds are. Donald Trump has said no one's going to show up. He's like, no one's going to show up to that. That the right are calling them Hate America rallies. They're very upset about it. They're having. They're deep in their feelings about these. No Kings Day rallies. Because Donald Trump, while he wants to be a king, he doesn't want the smoke that comes from being a king. Even he knows what happens during the French Revolution. The kings didn't make out so well. And so he realizes that people are pushing back against his idea of a king. It is very ironic that Donald Trump wants to build himself an Arc de Triomphe style, victory, you know, obelisk or whatever. He wants to sort of build himself this. This thing, this, you know, monument to his. His own greatness. He wants to be treated as a king, but he doesn't want the smoke. If you're going to build the Arc de Triomphe, Donald Trump, you need to do a little bit of research on the French Revolution, because the kings in France, it didn't work out so well for them. It really didn't work out, which is why France no longer has a royal family and a king. Because people do not want to be ruled. They want to be properly governed, and they wouldn't mind if their air traffic controllers got paid. All right, guys, we're gonna head on out now. But I have decided that our moment of joy is something that you've already seen in the show. It is 8:12. It is my favorite little clip on today. And I've decided because it gives me so much joy. It is gonna be our moment of joy. And I will play that for you now. Here it is. Jason will play it for you now. Moment of joy.

Robbie Roadsteamer (120:27)

Is this the war zone? Apparently.

Joy Reid (120:59)

That'S your moment of joy. Wait, are we gonna get to the end? We gotta get to the end, James. We gotta get to the end. We gotta get to the end. My favorite part is the end. Shake it. Bounce that belly. Bam, bam, bam. He's just a little, salty little frog. He's just a little tricky frog. He's tricky.

Jason (121:24)

Oh.

Latasha Brown (121:25)

Oh.

Joy Reid (121:25)

He's rude. He's rude. That's a rude frog. You rude. Oh, don't do it. Don't pepper ball the frog. How dare you?

Latasha Brown (121:33)

How dare you?

Joy Reid (121:33)

And you know he says wiggle, wiggle.

Robbie Roadsteamer (121:35)

Wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle.

Joy Reid (121:38)

Wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle, wiggle we go be Wiggle Wiggle Wiggly 11am to 3pm right here on the Joy Free Show. We got to see you tomorrow. Have a blessed weekend. Be safe here at no Kings Day rallies. Thank you guys for tuning in like Scrout, subscribe, etc and play the music.

Latasha Brown (121:53)

Love you. Bye.

Joy Reid (122:02)

Making films.

Dean Obadala (122:02)

Then you got footage in Dropbox.

Joy Reid (122:04)

Scripts and docs, notes and slack and.

Robbie Roadsteamer (122:07)

No time to hunt Dropbox Dash new.

Joy Reid (122:10)

From Dropbox pulls it all together so you can focus on the final edit.

Latasha Brown (122:14)

Learn more at Dropbox.com/.