Donald Trump (3:18)

Thank you very much.

Joy Reid (3:26)

Now, there is so much to unpack there. I almost don't know where to begin. Ilhan Omar is garbage, he said, use the word garbage describing a. You know, first of all, a citizen of this country, the President of the United States, from the highest office in the land, attacking an individual American citizen. That's bad enough, but we're also talking about a sitting member of the United States Congress. And the reaction of people in that room was to break out into applause. They applauded the President of the United States throwing a racist, vicious, racist attack against an individual citizen of the United States, an entire immigrant community in an American state, just blanketing the entire community in racial slurs and then attacking a member of Congress. All of those things were done in front of cameras, in front of reporters, journalists, and in front of a room full of Donald Trump's cabinet officials. And the reaction of the people in that room was to break out into applause. There were no shouts from the media demanding to know, well, what do you mean calling a member of Congress garbage? Is it appropriate, Mr. President, to call an entire group of immigrants in this country trash and garbage and to question their humanity, their basic humanity, from the perch of the presidency of the United States? Is that appropriate, Mr. President, to. Do you think that's appropriate? If any president besides Donald Trump had done that, you'd think there might be some questions, some inquiries, some curiosity in that room as to why he mounted that attack. A little later in the show, I'm going to have more thoughts on this. I'm going to have extensive thoughts on it, because I think that this was both a failure, a governmental failure, a Cabinet failure. That should have been a 25th Amendment moment. But I also think it was a media failure. And I think the reaction of the media to that moment is not something I'M incredibly proud of as a journalist. Now, I'm gonna note that this is Route 100 night. I'm having a fair bit of FOMO because I did make the Route 100 list this year. Very, very grateful to the route for that. And there is a huge gala going on in New York City for that, which I am unfortunately going to be missing because I'm committed to doing this, almost committed to another event in D.C. on tonight. But that is a celebration this year in the Route 100 of people who stood up against authoritarianism and autocracy. And thank you very much. I'm very proud of it.

Joy Reid (6:09)

And it's. It's a thing to be proud of. You know, there are journalists in there, there are media people, there are artists, musicians, all kinds of incredible people in the substack. I'm going to put in a link to it so you can see all the people who were a part of that. But the bottom line is standing up to autocracy is something it's nice to get an award for. But it's also something that we just all ought to do, particularly in a situation where we have a literal white nationalist administration that's operating in the United States of America. And I do not say that lightly. We have talked about to a member of the United States Congress who.

Joy Reid (6:47)

Confirmed that in her view, this is sort of an ethnic cleansing administration. They're going after only brown people and black people who are immigrants. The people who they're excluding from receiving asylum are universally brown, black and Asian people. They're not excluding white Europeans or white South Africans. But other than that, you can't come here as a refugee. And they're not just excluding people, they're also maligning people in the most vicious, ugly, hateful and racist way from the President on down. And as I'm going to point out later in the show, it's not just him, but the attitude and ethos of white nationalism runs all through this administration from top to bottom. From their migration policy to the concentration camps that they're opening up in red states in order to warehouse non white immigrants. The way that they're selecting non white immigrants to judge them on the basis of their ideological views in order to bar them or detain them or arrest them or expatriate them against their will. The way they're choosing countries in the global south to warehouse and ship even legal migrants, even people who have no reason to be detained. The way they're describing every immigrant who isn't white as a criminal not to Mention the fact that they're literally committing murder at sea on a massive and grand scale right now, targeting non white people in ships. If you are boating in the Caribbean, you, you are now subject to instant death at the hands of the United States military. Remember when the Supreme Court said was asked, could Donald Trump send SEAL Team Six to kill any of his declared enemies and get away with it? Donald Trump is now answering that question literally sending Seal Team 6 to kill people in the Caribbean. No trials, no detention, no nothing, just kill them. And his detective Defense Secretary, who likes to style himself, the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, is now not only justifying murder at sea perpetrated against people of the global south, perpetrated against non white people simply for being at sea. Because now, simply because you are a brown or a black fisherman or person in a boat near the United States, not even near the United States, near Venezuela, the country they would like to attack and take their oil, you're now subject to being labeled a terrorist who is de facto at war with the United States. Even though you've done nothing that anyone can discern to the United States, they don't have to name you, they don't have to identify you, they don't have to try to apprehend you, they can just kill you. This is the ethos of this gangster president who also, while he's doing that, feels quite free to release known convicted criminals.

Joy Reid (9:46)

While he slurs and tars any immigrant from a country that he disrespects. And all the countries he disrespects are black and brown countries. Let's be clear. Unless they're giving him money, if you're Saudi Arabia or Qatar and you're willing to pay him, then he respects you. At least he respects your leaders. But this is the world we're living in now. We are living with a gangster president who is practicing white nationalism in real time, in full view of the press and in full view of his cabinet. And no one is saying anything.

Joy Reid (10:21)

No one is saying anything. And I don't understand.

Joy Reid (10:27)

How that is supposed to work. Because the thing is, if the people with the cameras who are in the room when Donald Trump is committing acts of clear and open white nationalism, who are rolling cameras and who can see him do it, aren't willing to challenge him in real time if they're not willing to to say anything, and if his cabinet is not only not willing to say anything or challenge the President of the United States, who by the way, is an employee of the American people, if they're not willing to challenge him, but they take it further and applaud.

Joy Reid (11:02)

When he behaves in a way that can only be described at best as racist, at worst as purely white nationalist in front of the cameras. I don't know what to do with that. I genuinely don't know what to do with it because we have to operate functionally as a multiracial democracy, but instead we seem to be operating as a gangster capitalist street gang led by a geriatric gang leader who is passing and handing out favorite to his billionaire friends while maligning people who have the crime and commit the crime of not being white Christian men.

Joy Reid (11:50)

I believe our very important guest is joined us now. Joining me now is Representative Ilhan Omar.

Joy Reid (11:57)

Of the great state of Minnesota, the fifth district, the Fighting Five. Thank you so much for being here, Congresswoman. I know we were going back and forth with your team trying to move mountains to get you here. It was just so important for me. As a daughter of Africa to a daughter of Africa and as an American. To an American and as a black woman to a black woman. I just want to get your reaction to that man calling you garbage and also maligning every Somali. And it is not Somalians, Donald Trump, it's Somali. Read a book. Every Somali in the state of Minnesota, your thoughts?

Ilhan Omar (12:36)

Well, it is joy to be with you, Joy. Thank you so much for, for having me. I mean, what, what can you say? You know, you know this man is bigoted. We know that he is hateful. We know he's sinophobic. We know he's Islamophobic. You know, you and I, I remember had a conversation when he called African nations shitholes. He talked about Haitians eating cats and dogs.

Ilhan Omar (13:05)

And, you know, it's frankly hilarious in many ways because I don't think he thinks right. And you say read a book. I don't think he reads. I don't think he has the curiosity.

Ilhan Omar (13:19)

To know those things. And I laugh at the fact that he says, I complain about the Constitution. I'm not complaining about the Constitution. I'm complaining about you not following the Constitution for the love of God. Like, you need to follow the Constitution. I'm a lawmaker. I'm your check and balance in the legislative branch. Like, I want you to follow the Constitution. And so, of course, he's been working really hard to deflect from the fact that he might have potentially committed war crimes. He's deflecting from the fact that he's partnering narco traffickers and people who have terrorized their own country. You know, he's deflecting from the fact that he hasn't addressed the economy and he's deflecting from the fact that he has overseen a pedophile protection party. And so to me, I know that those of us who are Somali in this country see ourselves as Americans. That's what our passport says. That's what our nationality is. And we know that we are protected by the 14th amendment. We, we know that we're not going anywhere. And there is no way, I mean, he needs to just, I know he says he hasn't met me. Maybe he should spend five minutes with me because then he would know that as Somalis, we are never intimidated and we're never going to.

Ilhan Omar (14:45)

Feel like our esteem or confidence is shaken by a bigoted fool making a mockery of the White House, of our nation and of the presidency.

Joy Reid (15:01)

And, you know, thank you for those comments and I'm glad you're able to laugh about it. I have to tell you, I was furious. Like, I heard it and like my face almost fell off like Kristi Noem in South Park. You know what I mean?

Joy Reid (15:16)

It's so purely racist. And I was equally angry at three groups of people. Donald Trump, obviously. But yeah, you and I both know he's a race. I mean, I've been dealing with, I wrote a Trump book. I know he's a racist. I believe Michael Cohen when he says it. He knows him better than I, I don't know him. But also the cabinet members who applauded and the media who were silent in that room because Trump is one thing, we already know what he is. What do you make of the fact that the reaction to that was no follow up question from any press and applause from his cabinet?

Ilhan Omar (15:48)

I mean, these are people.

Ilhan Omar (15:52)

Who are not that dissimilar from him that are in his cabinet. They all have their slew of bigoted racists, cinemaphobic, Islamophobic things that, that he said. Hexatlake has white supremacist tattoos and Christian supremacist tattoos. So, you know, these are not people that you would expect to react any differently. And I think the press in, in, in many ways that covers the White House.

Ilhan Omar (16:23)

I think have gotten used to his bigotry. They, they all have, I think, that delayed reaction. And they've all gotten used to all of his lies. That's why there's rarely a fellow up. But they also have gotten used to his abuse. You know, you, you seen him say to one female reporter, quiet, Biggie, you, you know you see him calling another one stupid and dumb. You know, this. This is a very abusive, deranged old man. And I think for a lot of people, it's still shocking, it's still jarring that he is the president of our country.

Joy Reid (17:04)

And as such, he does have control of the federal agencies who have the ability to wreak real havoc in communities of color. And they're doing it, and they're promising to bring that same energy to Minnesota and to specifically target Somali communities. What are you hearing on the ground about that from your constituents and from constituents outside of your district about their fears and what can be done about it?

Ilhan Omar (17:33)

Well, a lot of people have responded to it with resilience, with arming themselves and empowering themselves with actual information, you know, knowing what their rights are. I think one thing that he, again, if he was knowledgeable, he would know, right? Over 90% of Somalis in Minnesota are citizens and legal residents who have a green card. And, and so the, the, the people knew. You know, one of my.

Ilhan Omar (18:11)

Really good state legislators.

Ilhan Omar (18:15)

In Minnesota put out a video where, you know, she was like, we told you guys that he wasn't only for people who are undocumented. And none of you believed us when he says he wants to get rid of people. He's also coming for citizens. He's also coming for people who are documented in this country. And so for. For Somalis, we've known this and we have prepared ourselves by, you know, having passport IDs, by having our passport, by knowing where our certificates are. And a lot of people are actually kind of mocking the ICE agents who are stopping them and just showing their passport IDs and saying.

Ilhan Omar (19:02)

Get lost and probably cursing them out in Somali, which.

Joy Reid (19:07)

Of course, they don't understand. It makes them even angrier. But I mean, the thing is, it's sort of. It's so sad to me to think about that. Sounds to me like apartheid. You know, I. You know, we all are. If you're not white, you're carrying your passport. Everyone I know who isn't white carries our passports everywhere we go. And because they're also using words like denaturalization, they're using words like repatriation or, you know, they want people to literally. Immigration, Right, Exactly. They want people to essentially rescind their own immigration status by leaving the country or they'll do it forcibly. You know, these are the things that sound to me like straight up 1930s fascism or 1980s style apartheid. And they're using those terms.

Ilhan Omar (19:48)

Yeah, I mean, and I think what is Scary in all of this is that because of his ignorance, so many people have also become ignorant with him. He says these things, right? Like, they're going to take away people's citizenships and they're going to deport them. And then you have people who are, like, really joyful and waiting for these days to come. And for people who, you know, say they're patriots, who they love this country, they love the Constitution. It's a tiny book. Like, open it up and, you know, just figure out what actually the president has the power to do and what he doesn't. And, you know, that's, I think, the thing that scares me because it is not the lawful actions that the president can carry out. It is the actions of the people who are blindly following him and what they might attempt to do to, you know, someone like me or someone like you or anybody they think shouldn't be in this country because they don't. They don't have white skin, they're not men, and they're not Christian.

Joy Reid (20:57)

Yeah. And then the latest threat, of course, is to try to withhold SNAP benefits from blue states.

Joy Reid (21:08)

In an extortion attempt.

Ilhan Omar (21:09)

Basically to say that unless they create a registry.

Joy Reid (21:12)

Exactly. They want a registry so that they have this imagined world in which people who are undocumented are signing their names to a federal form to get federal benefits, which would be the way to get caught. But they think it's happening. But it also feels like they want this registry in order to create a national registry, which the right tenant used to not to like, so they could pick and choose who gets to stay. And they're using this allegation that there was a fraud that was run inside of Minnesota that involved some number, I'm assuming a tiny number of people, some of whom might have had Somali background. There's been no.

Ilhan Omar (21:51)

About 70 people.

Joy Reid (21:54)

70 people. And I will note that live there. Yeah, Exactly. We're talking 79, 800 people, 70 potentially involved in this. They're using this to withhold maybe SNAP from everyone in the state. What can be done about that?

Ilhan Omar (22:07)

Well, I am. You know, it's one of those days where I'm really proud to have Attorney General Keith Ellison in. In office. Because when, you know, they withheld the SNAP benefits, he sued, and those funds were released for Minnesota. And so I know that he's going to be ready to fight this administration and make sure Minnesotans get the resources, because people pay in. These are our tax dollars. This is not some magic money. You know, Minnesotans, we pay more than what we get back from the federal government in taxes. And so.

Ilhan Omar (22:46)

I'm glad and feel secure in the fact that we have an attorney general who is going to go to bat for us.

Joy Reid (22:53)

Two more quick questions. One on whether or not you're hearing the rumblings of what really does look like an attempt to start an Iraq war style, maybe wag the dog or just take the oil war against Venezuela. Your thoughts on how close we seem to be coming to that and on the murder at sea sea of those fishermen, including two Trinidadians?

Ilhan Omar (23:17)

Yeah, I mean, it's been something that he's talked about. Obviously. You know, we, we, there's some of us who believe the, the actions that they have taken in the Caribbean against the, the boats.

Ilhan Omar (23:31)

Might equal to war crimes. You know, there was certainly no legal.

Ilhan Omar (23:39)

Ramification on why they, they would engage at all. They haven't, they've been hiding from Congress. They haven't briefed us. We have not gotten a briefing. And so there, you know, there is an effort being led by myself, Gregory Meeks.

Ilhan Omar (24:00)

Ranking member, Gregory Meeks, ranking member, Adam Smith, and Jason Crow of Colorado, where we are trying to say, you know, you don't have the power to be able to do this. And there's also an effort that is saying you can't use any dollars that is appropriated to the Pentagon to continue to do this. And so, you know, we are preparing ourselves. I know that we're in the minority, but we're trying to figure out ways to force that vote.

Joy Reid (24:35)

Yeah, that would be good. Congress is actually supposed to be involved in the declaration of war. So I didn't know we were at war against fishermen in the Caribbean, but apparently we are.

Joy Reid (24:45)

A lot of what Donald Trump seems to be doing in a really frantic way, including some of the warmongering I think is about oil and about his greed and gangsterism. But there isn't also an element of his terror about the Epstein files that is to me, woven through a lot of what he's doing. There is now he's actually went ahead and signed this law that was passed that is supposed to involve the release of the files. Not everyone is too confident that it's actually going to happen. Are you confident that it will happen? And are you one of the members who agrees with those who have said maybe the name should just be read from the floor of the House?

Ilhan Omar (25:23)

So I would say there are two things that Trump's space signed up for. One is for him to inflict as much pain on everybody that they deem less. And, and the second is for him to release the Epstein file. And so because he has been spearheading this pedophile protection party, he has lost a lot of. A lot of his base and. And their support. And so we're. We're seeing him trying to do the other things right. That. That they kind of get excited about. What I am confident in is the fact that we are not going to give up in our pressure to get every single document that the FBI has and every single document that the Epstein.

Ilhan Omar (26:21)

Files that. That is with the state. And then secondly, I would say there has been an effort by some of the survivors to try to collect names and have some of us read it on the floor. And I've signed up to do so. Once we have those names.

Joy Reid (26:45)

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, thank you very much. I love your positive attitude. You're teaching me to have a bit more of a positive attitude and grace because I just get mad at that Batman when he does these crazy. Your joy.

Ilhan Omar (26:57)

You can't let them steal your joy.

Joy Reid (26:59)

That's true. Very true. It comes with the name. Thank you so much. Come back anytime. We'd love to talk to you about voting rights and a lot of other things. We'll come back and do that another time. Congressman, thank you for your time.

Ilhan Omar (27:08)

Thank you.

Joy Reid (27:09)

Cheers. And so there it is. There is the very gracious response. Jesus said. He says he's a. He's a stupid old man, which is. I mean, facts. But the fact of the matter is we. We. We. It. It is a thing that he said in the course of a week of really, really, really trying to get away from some very serious issues.

Joy Reid (27:33)

I want you guys to take you back for just a moment. I'm gonna take you back for a moment. Remember when seven members of the House and the United States Senate dropped this psa? I'm Senator Alyssa Slotkin. Senator Mark Kelly. Representative Chris d'.

John Gartner (27:46)

Aluzio.

Joy Reid (27:47)

Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander. Representative Chrissy Houlihan. Congressman Jason Crow. I was a captain in the United States Navy, former CIA officer, former Navy, former paratrooper and Army Ranger, former intelligence officer, former Air Force.

Pete Hegseth (28:00)

We want to speak directly to members.

Joy Reid (28:02)

Of the military and the intelligence community.

John Gartner (28:04)

Who take risks each day to keep Americans safe.

Joy Reid (28:06)

We know you are under enormous stress and pressure right now. Americans trust their military, but that trust is at risk.

Pete Hegseth (28:13)

This administration is pitting our union, uniform.

Joy Reid (28:15)

Military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens like us.

Pete Hegseth (28:20)

You all swore an oath to protect.

Joy Reid (28:22)

And defend this Constitution. Right now, the threats to our Constitution.

John Gartner (28:26)

Aren'T just coming from abroad.

Sean Harris (28:27)

But from right here at home, our laws are clear.

Pete Hegseth (28:30)

You can refuse illegal orders.

Joy Reid (28:32)

You can refuse illegal orders.

John Gartner (28:35)

You must refuse illegal orders.

Joy Reid (28:37)

No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or are Constitution.

Pete Hegseth (28:41)

We know this is hard and that it's a difficult time to be a public servant.

Joy Reid (28:45)

But whether you're serving in the CIA, the army or Navy, the Air Force.

Pete Hegseth (28:49)

Your vigilance is critical.

Joy Reid (28:50)

And know that we have your back. Because now more than ever, the American people need you.

White House Spokesperson (28:56)

We need you to stand up for.

Joy Reid (28:57)

Our laws, our Constitution and who we are as Americans. Don't give up.

Donald Trump (29:02)

Don't give up.

Sean Harris (29:03)

Don't give up.

Joy Reid (29:04)

Don't give up the ship.

Joy Reid (29:09)

Now at the time Republicans went like really crazy over that ad. And you think about the specific things they said, don't give up the ship. These, you know, sort of, I guess it's inside speak to military members, right? And Republicans got really like extra mad about it. Well, now I'm starting to wonder if they had a sense those members of something really off already happening inside the military. And the one thing I think maybe that those members in United States Senators should have included in that PSA was a warning that if you do give up the ship, if you do agree to perform illegal orders from your commander in chief, the current Secretary of State will likely throw you under the bus. Because now that seems pretty clear. It seems pretty clear that that double tap boat strike in the Caribbean on September 2nd in which there were two survivors who were clinging to the hull of the broken ship after the first strike, were then obliterated by a second strike and killed after it was said that Pete Hegseth gave the order down through the chain of command. Leave no one alive, kill everyone.

Joy Reid (30:26)

Seems pretty clear that that was a war crime. Human Rights Watch and others, Judge Napolitano, a Fox commentator who would know about this kind of stuff, a lot of folks are now being very clear. A lot of members of the military saying yes, probably a war crime. Pretty clear.

Joy Reid (30:41)

Well, now that that seems pretty clear to most people. Mr. Tough Guy Secretary of War Pete Hague said he doesn't seem to want to take responsibility for it. Suddenly it's the commander's fault that that.

Pete Hegseth (30:54)

Second strike happened or did it happen and the administration denies that Secretary Hegseth gave the order.

White House Spokesperson (31:01)

The latter is true. Abe and I have a statement to read for you here. President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have made it clear that presidentially designated narco terrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting in accordance with the laws of war with respect to the Strikes in question On September, September 2nd, Secretary Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes. Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated. And I would just add one more point to remind the American public why these lethal strikes are taking place. Because this administration has designated these narco terrorists as foreign terrorist organizations. The President has a right to take them out if they are threatening the United States of America and if they are bringing illegal narcotics that are killing our citizens at a record rate, which is what they are doing. And under the previous administration, there was enough fentanyl trafficked into our country to kill every American man, woman and child many times over. And so that's why you've seen a drastic difference in this administration's policy with respect to the last. And it's one of the many reasons the American public reelected this President and support this Secretary of War in conducting these strikes.

Pete Hegseth (32:19)

Admiral Bradley.

Joy Reid (32:20)

Okay, so. So Admiral Bradley is responsible. Okay, so. So she says Admiral Bradley is responsible. And the Pentagon spokeslady took it even further.

White House Spokesperson (32:33)

Also been approved by the best military and civilian lawyers up and down the chain of command. A completely fake story in the Washington Post, now discredited by the New York Times, tried to mischaracterize these successful strikes in bad faith. It was an attempt to damage the Secretary and the President and the people saw through it. The phony Washington Post story even attributed statements to the Secretary that were total, totally fabricated. He never said them. That is the epitome of fake news. As the White House confirmed yesterday, the decision to restrike the narco terrorist vessel was made by Admiral Bradley, operating under clear and long standing authorities to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States was eliminated. Secretary Hegseth stands Behind Admiral Bradley 100%. Admiral Bradley made the right call. And unlike the previous administration, we have our war fighters back at this department. This department will defend our homeland. This is not a catchphrase. It is a commitment. And as the Secretary said, when it comes to killing narco terrorists, we have only just begun. Lastly, I would like to announce that the War Department has created a new division for strategic marketing that will be led by Abby Lower, who will hold the title of Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of War for Strategic marketing. The division will be a new core function.

Joy Reid (33:56)

So. So, so she. She blames Admiral Frank Bradley, who by the way, is a Navy Admiral. And the team that committed to conduct these strikes is Seal Team 6. The Seal Team 6, that the same, you know, division that killed Osama bin Laden. Not the same people, obviously. So she blames Admiral Bradley, says, no, this is totally him. And, and all the stories are a lie. The New York Times story did not, did not disprove the Washington Post story, which is the original reporting on this. It didn't. It just gave more details.

Joy Reid (34:27)

So it was Bradley's fault. And also we have a brand new marketing team that's going to really be really great about marketing. The Secretary of War and the Department of War, which is still the Department of Defense because nobody's in Congress, has changed the name. But not to be outdone, Pete Hegseth himself even threw in. And I didn't even watch the thing.

Pete Hegseth (34:48)

First strike live. As you can imagine, at the Department of War, we got a lot of things to do. So I didn't stick around for the hour and two hours, whatever, where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs. So I moved on to my next meeting. A couple of hours later, I learned that that commander had made the. Which he had the complete authority to do. And by the way, Admiral Bradley made the correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat. He sunk the boat. Sunk the boat and eliminated the threat. And he was the right call. We have his back. And the American people are safer because narco terrorists know you can't bring drugs through the water. And eventually on land, if necessary, to the American people, we will eliminate that threat and we're proud to do it. So you didn't see any survivors?

Joy Reid (35:36)

To be clear, after that first strike.

Pete Hegseth (35:38)

I did not personally see survivors, but I stand because the thing was on fire. It was exploded in fire smoke. You can't see anything.

Joy Reid (35:46)

You got digital.

Pete Hegseth (35:47)

This is called the fog of war. This is what you and the press don't understand. You sit in your air conditioned offices or up on Capitol Hill and you nitpick and you plant fake stories in the Washington Post about kill everybody phrases on anonymous sources, not based in anything, not based in any truth at all. And then you want to throw up really irresponsible terms about American heroes, about the judgment that they made over a whole. I wrote a whole book on this topic. Because of what politicians and the press does to war fighters, President Trump has empowered commanders, commanders to do what is necessary, which is dark and difficult things in the dead of night on behalf of the American people. We support them and we will stop the poisoning of the American people. And Mr. Secretary, on the second.

Joy Reid (36:31)

So a few things there. Number one, we're not at war with narco terrorism. The war on drugs does not involve actual war. Does he know that? Number two, no. Nobody's casting aspersions on the quote, unquote war fighters. They're casting aspersions on you. And for somebody to have an actual quote that said, Pete Hegseth said, leave none alive, that means the call is coming from inside the house, Pete. Someone inside of your small circle and the small circle of that military operation must have been the one to leak that to the Washington Post. They didn't make it up. They. They must have got it from somebody inside the military who clearly felt uncomfortable with what happened.

Joy Reid (37:13)

And the idea of stopping drugs. Sure. Great. We don't want fentanyl, but number one, fentanyl doesn't come from Venezuela. Rand Paul already said that he'd already admitted that he's United States Senator. I mean, he might know that is not where fentanyl comes from. And number two, even if those boats were full of drug dealers, you cannot legally shoot to kill them and then shoot them again when some survive. Even if they had been combatants and we had been at war with Venezuela or with boats in general, if anyone is left alive after a strike, you're supposed to rescue them and detain them. That didn't happen. And then one more thing, Pete. Here's the problem. Back on September 2nd, when this thing happened, you went on Fox and bragged that you did watch it. So the president is sending a message to other cartels, right?

Pete Hegseth (38:13)

A very clear one, I can tell you. That was definitely not artificial intelligence. I watched it live. We knew exactly who was in that boat. We knew exactly what they were doing, and we knew exactly who they represented. And that was Trende Aragua, a narco terrorist organization designated by the United States trying to poison our country with illicit drugs.

Joy Reid (38:34)

So you did watch it, you did know about it, and you did approve it. Check, check, check. And because these decisions go all the way to the top, to the commander in chief, let's see if the commander in chief will take the L.

Sean Harris (38:51)

If.

Joy Reid (38:51)

There were a second strike that killed.

John Gartner (38:54)

People.

Donald Trump (38:58)

I don't know that that happened. And Pete said he did not want that meeting, even though what people were talking about. So we'll look at. We'll look into it. But no, I wouldn't have wanted a second strike. First strike was very lethal. It was fine. And if there were two people around. But Pete said that didn't happen, does that mean I have great confidence saying.

Joy Reid (39:20)

You know, second strike?

Donald Trump (39:22)

I don't know.

Joy Reid (39:23)

So he says, I, I didn't hear about that. Pete says he didn't know about it. And I wouldn't have wanted a second strike if I heard about it, but I didn't hear about it. I'm just the commander in chief. I mean, it's not like we were sitting in the situation Room or anything or, you know, Pete was on like an open signal chat. So commander in chief taking responsibility, that would be a negative. But, but oddly enough, the weird thing about things.

Joy Reid (39:47)

On social media is that there's, there's a post Donald Trump on September 2nd. We're going to show it to you. Here he is saying, earlier this morning, on my orders, US Military forces conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified Trend narco terrorists in the southcom area of responsibility. TDA is a designated foreign terrorist organization operating under the control of Nicolas Maduro, responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western hemisphere. The strike occurred while the terrorists were at sea in international waters transporting illegal narcotics heading to the United States. The strike resulted in 11 terrorists. He said 11. That's all people on board killed in action. No U.S. forces were harmed in the strike. Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. Beware all caps. Thank you for your attention to this matter. So, with a lot of exclamation points. But here's the. So here's the problem. He said 11 people he called terrorists. He said they know their identities and they have information that they were part of Trinidad. So where's that information? Number two, we're not at war with Trend Naraga. And you can't just designate people as terrorists and then kill them at sea. It's actually a war crime.

Joy Reid (41:22)

And now he's going even further, hinting that there are more strikes to come, except this time on the ground.

Joy Reid (41:31)

Find out about.

Donald Trump (41:35)

Those numbers are down. Those numbers are down. They're way down. And they're down because we're doing these strikes and we're going to start doing those strikes on land, too. You know, the land is much easier. It's much easier. And we know the routes they take. We know everything about them. We know where they live. We know where the bad ones live. And we're going to start that very soon, too, Mr. President.

Joy Reid (41:57)

So apparently now we're going to have ground strikes, too. And if we do wind up now doing strikes on the ground, shouldn't we all just assume that it's going to be for the exact same Reason Trump has always wanted to go to war. Here's a 9.

Donald Trump (42:09)

On a humanitarian basis, immediately go into Libya, knock this guy out very quickly, very surgically, very effectively, and save the lives. After it's all done, we go to, what are the protesters who end up running the country. They're going to like us a lot better than they will if we don't do it. More importantly, we're going to save lives. And we should then say, by the way, from all of your oil, we want reimbursement. We should have said, we'll help you, but we want 50% of your oil. They would have absolutely said, okay, 100%. In fact, they would have said, how about 75%? So. And isn't it sad? We could have had anything we wanted. We could have had 50% of those oil fields. You know, in the old days when you had a war, it's to the victor belong the spoils. And now, remember, and I sent you the document, I said in 04, we should not go in and do that whole thing with Iraq. It was a disaster because I said that Iran will take over and it'll totally destabilize the Middle East. But there's nobody bigger or better at the military than I am. Are you telling me you're going to.

Joy Reid (43:18)

Send American ground troops into Syria?

Donald Trump (43:20)

I'm not telling you anything. And the reason I'm not is because if I run and I win, I don't want them to know the game plan. Let me just have to hit them hard. I'm probably going to have to say someplace. I have a way that would be very effective with respect to isis. But when I watch Obama get up and talk about in two weeks with the doing this, and in three weeks we're doing that American ground troops in to chase them around, take back the oil. Once you go over and take back that oil, they have nothing. But how do you know, right? You have to go in, you have to go. Ground troops. Well, you bomb the hell out of them, and then you encircle it. And then you go in and you let Mobil go in and you let our great oil companies go in one shot. We're buying oil from Venezuela. When I left, Venezuela was ready to collect lapse. We would have taken it over. We would have gotten all that oil. It would have been right next door. But now we're buying oil from Venezuela. So we're making a dictator very rich. Can you believe this? Nobody can believe it. You know, where the oil, you know, their oil is garbage. It's horrible. The worst. You can get tar. It's like tar. And to refine it, you need special plants and these people. And then they say he left troops in Syria. You know what I did? I left troops to take the oil. I took the oil. The only troops I have are taking the oil. They're protecting the oil I took. We're taking oil.

Joy Reid (44:37)

We're not taking.

Donald Trump (44:38)

Maybe we will, maybe we won't.

Joy Reid (44:39)

They're protecting the facility.

Donald Trump (44:40)

I don't know, maybe we should take it. But we have the oil right now. The United States has the oil. So they say he left troops in Syria. No, I got rid of all of them. Other than we're protecting the oil. We have the oil.

Joy Reid (44:52)

I love the way Laura Ingraham tries to help him out and the way Bill O'Reilly used to try on Fox. Remember why Bill O'Reilly left Fox? Right. Same reason a lot of them left Fox. Joining me now is Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz of the great state of Florida. Congresswoman, are we on the brink of another war for oil, but this time in our own hemisphere, in Venezuela?

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (45:14)

Joy, it's good to see you. Thanks for having me on. And you know what we're dealing with here with Trump's policy towards Venezuela. And Maduro is really completely inside out. Inside out, upside down, backwards. It's astonishing. He targets alleged drug boats and there's no evidence, no due process, no declaration from the United States Congress. But then he pardons drug lords that are convicted in a US Court. He declares Maduro a terrorist, but then he props him up by lifting sanctions and letting oil money flow into his coffers, which keeps him in power. He threatens to shut down airspace, which he can't do. But he keeps up the deal he has with Maduro for deportation, flights. And all of this is in service of making sure that the oil money continues to flow, that money in general continues to flow into his own coffers. That's always what it's about at the end of the day for Donald Trump.

Joy Reid (46:18)

And Donald Trump asked oil companies to give him something like a billion dollars. During the, during the campaign, he pledged, you give me oil to people that could pay for play. And Lev Parnas has been on this program saying that what he's attempting to do now is this is the play, right? They paid. And now the idea is you heard him name check the literal individual oil company in one of his previous rants about taking the oil. Is the goal here to let American oil giants now go and exploit Venezuela and get it up to speed in terms of its oil output. It's the largest oil reserves on earth, but they are way underwater when it comes to actual production.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (46:58)

Yeah, of course they are, because, I mean, Maduro has driven his country economically into the ground. He is a brutal terrorist who is illegally holding power. The rightful president of Venezuela is Edmondo Gonzalez. And we need a democratic transition if we really want to make sure that we can restore Venezuela back to, to its prosperity and it being an economic power in the region, we need to make sure that we can transition Venezuela to democracy. But, I mean, Donald Trump is destroying democracy here, so no one should expect that he would make democracy a priority in Venezuela.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (47:37)

He has an incongruous, hateful, horrific policy, by the way. I mean, Joy, you've spent time in South Florida and you know how vibrant our Venezuelan community. I represent one of the largest concentrations in, in our country. And these are folks we. I mean, he's deporting. He revoked TPS for Venezuelans who had to pass background checks and who went through the lawful process to be able to be here safely in our country. And a guy who he's declared a terrorist, who he's threatening with some of our most significant military assets. He is saying, on the other hand, that it's a safe country to send 400,000 people back back to.

Joy Reid (48:19)

And 400,000 people whose family members who are Venezuelan American, largely voted for Trump. Cuban Americans and Venezuelans are both on that list of people that they are culling in huge numbers and that they've marked for exclusion. No more immigration from those two countries. And yet they, as you said, and I think accurately, according to Maduro, declare him to be an illegitimate dictator. Right.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (48:43)

I won't cry tears if Maduro's gone. He should be gone. But there's a way to have him be gone. We need to bring our allies in the region together. We need to bring pressure to bear. We need to reapply sanctions. And look, I'm not going to shed any tears if Maduro is no longer in power. But we also need to not be putting Americans in harm's way in order to bring that process about. And we need to not be sending hundreds of thousands of people who went through a lawful process under TPS back into the arms of someone we declared a terrorist. And by the way, over the airspace that.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (49:25)

Trump has declared closed, he's coordinating with Maduro. That's the bribe that he's paying. He gets oil revenue and Trump gets to deport tens of thousands of Venezuelans over the air through the airspace back to Venezuela.

Joy Reid (49:41)

Yeah, it's a Nakib Buyele sort of situation. Bukele Nayib Bukele situation where he would do business.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (49:46)

Venezuelans opinion story. Venezuelans opinions in my community are drastically shifting. I can feel it on the ground. They shouldn't count their chickens before they're hatched through this next election.

Joy Reid (49:59)

The challenge of course with Venezuela is that there are not very many good guys. There's a lot of bad guys all around. And I want to play you some sound from one of the people who is thought to be applying to become the new leader of Venezuela. She is the Nobel Peace Prize laureate of this year, Maria Corina Machado, who a lot of people were just glad Trump didn't get it right. But she praised Trump upon receiving the prize. And then let me play you a 10. She spoke at the America Business Forum and she kind of repeated that, kind of, she repeated what she had said first on Donald Trump Jr's podcast. Here she is, Maria Corina Mocharo.

Ilhan Omar (50:40)

Amazing, super exciting for me. We will open Venezuela for foreign investment. I am Talking about a $1.7 trillion.

Joy Reid (50:50)

Opportunity not only in oil and gas.

Ilhan Omar (50:54)

Which is huge and you know that the opportunities because we will open all upstream, middle stream downstream to all companies, but also in mining, in gold, in infrastructure, power. We have our grid right now as.

Joy Reid (51:13)

A 17 gigawatt opportunity of energy potential.

Ilhan Omar (51:20)

That needs to be rehabbed certainly for.

Joy Reid (51:23)

Technology and AI and tourism.

Ilhan Omar (51:27)

You know, Venezuela has 2,800 kilometers of pristine Caribbean coastline.

Joy Reid (51:35)

We can leave it there. Coastline, oil. She's selling the country in advance.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (51:41)

I don't think she is. I know Maria Karina Machado and I've been able to meet with her multiple occasions. You know, the first thing I'll say is that she has been an incredibly brave leader with a spine of steel. She's had threats against her family and her personal life. She's essentially been in hiding because Maduro would assassinate, have her assassinated. What she, what her comments reflect there at the American Business Forum, by the way, like you said it to Donald.

Joy Reid (52:12)

Trump Jr. And she was very even clearer about the fact that she's like put me in coach, America can have our oil. That sounds to me like she's trading away her resource, the resources of her people, her country for power.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (52:26)

I don't agree with her aligning herself with Trump. But when you are in the situation that she is placed where, you know, recognizing that Trump only responds to business deals and self serving arrangements, I mean Maria Corinna Machado's Number one priority is a democratic transition in Venezuela. At the end of the day, remember, she really should have been the nominee of the coalition party, but Maduro prohibited her from even running. That's why Edmundo Gonzalez was the candidate. And so, I mean, the critical priority is to get Venezuela back to a democracy. And, you know, I think her, the governance of the rightful, the rightful elected officials there would be quite different than certainly the way Donald Trump is handling it. And I mean, in order to make sure that she can, we've seen it if you to keep Donald Trump focused on, on a shred of movement towards democracy, she has to make sure that she's speaking their language. And I understand it, even if I don't really care for the game that she's gotta play.

Joy Reid (53:37)

It's giving Ahmad Chalabi vibes. I'm but we only have a short more time with you, so I have one more question. And this is 8:12, Jason, you did meet with Prime Minister Beni Netanyahu when he came to the United States. We're talking about people who are dictators, who are autocrats, who are sucking up to Trump and cutting deals with him. Bibi is one of those. He's all three of those things. He's also at this stage, an adjudicated war criminal per the icj. He's now asked for a pardon in his country. Does it muddy our message to the world when we are declaring Machado to be a bad guy, to be a terrorist? But we're, you know, this country, Democrats and Republicans, Biden and Trump and many Democrats embracing Bibi Netanyahu? Does it muddy our message?

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (54:22)

Well, let me be clear. We have a difference of opinion on whether Prime Minister Netanyahu is a war.

Joy Reid (54:28)

Criminal, has adjudicated him as such. Right.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (54:31)

And I disagree strongly with the ICJ's decision about that. He is not a war criminal. He's the elected prime minister, like it or not, of the, of the state of Israel. And they suffered the most significant deadly attack since the creation of the state of Israel and since the Holocaust and certainly had every right to defend themselves and also make sure that their national security interests were protected into the future. But the difference here, the difference here, Joy, is that Bibi Netanyahu is an elected official. He is right, like it or not. Who he is the elected legitimate leader, even if some people don't like his policies of the state of Israel. Maduro is someone who stole power, who refused to leave power even though he clearly overwhelmingly lost the election. And he has been abusing his Own people. You've had millions of people flee Venezuela in order to make sure that they could make a better way of life for themselves and their families. And Donald Trump is sending them back into the arms of someone he has declared. He has declared a terrorist. Well, very quickly, because I don't have a lot of time.

Joy Reid (55:44)

Technically, Bibi Netanyahu is also the occupying power over the Palestinians, who have, per the icj, been subjected to a genocide. I mean, Gaza is gone. It's wiped off the face of the earth. Every hospital. And so he and he and Vladimir Putin, if the ICJ is going to be respected and are going to look at what Trump is doing in the Caribbean, and they have designated that both Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin are war criminals. Can we pick and choose who we believe are war criminals? Only based on our policy preferences.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (56:19)

Over and over, the Palestinian leadership, over decades, have refused to take yes for an answer. There have been multiple peace deals proposed, entered into the last one giving the Palestinians everything they requested, and they walked away.

Joy Reid (56:36)

I think there's some dispute about that.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (56:38)

I want to not leave that.

Joy Reid (56:39)

There's some dispute about how they're. How good that deal was, how much land they were going to get. But I know I'm losing time with you, but I think that's just my question. I would really love your answer to before I let you go. If we're going to say that the ICJ is the designating authority on what is a war crime, and we're going to start to debate whether Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth are committing war crimes in the Caribbean, do we not have to respect their designations when it comes to Netanyahu, who they've designated? They've also designated that apartheid is happening in the west bank, that settlement activity amounts to apartheid. This is the designations of the world body.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (57:16)

We have a Secretary of Defense who has signed off on war crimes and a president who has signed off on war crimes and not come back to the Congress of the United States to be able to make the decision under our constitutional authority on whether or not we should be engaged in that conduct. And quite frankly, the ICJ has corrupted itself. And so I can tell you that there are. I mean, I think it's very clear that there are many leaders across the globe that no longer have the kind of confidence that the ICJ should be able to have, but that we can't trust any longer because they are not making decisions consistently across the board, including as it relates to the state of Israel.

Joy Reid (57:58)

Well, we need to come back and have a longer conversation. I'm being told I need to let you go. But thank you very much for being here. Congressman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Thank you.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (58:05)

Thanks, Joy. Thanks for having me.

Joy Reid (58:06)

Thank you very much. We need to definitely have that debate about because the ICJ is either they're either legit or they're not legit. So that's kind of where we stand there.

Joy Reid (58:17)

It's a question. It's a question that I guess we will just have to get an answer to at another time. By the way, I want to play for you. Wait, hold on, let me scroll down, let me scroll down, let me scroll down. Oh, let me take a break, actually, before I play something for you. I have something else I want to play. But first, I want to actually acknowledge our sponsor because tonight's the Joy Read show is brought to you by the Tamsen Show. And the question I want to throw out there for you guys is what if midlife was not the end of the story, but rather the start of your strongest chapter on the Tamsen Show? Emmy winning journalist and New York Times best selling author Tamsen Fadal has the conversations that too many women were never invited into. She's joined by powerhouse guests like Halle Berry. Who would not want to listen to Halle Berry. And the great Stacy London, along with leading experts on dating and midlife, navigating divorce, and building real confidence for your next chapter. This is not small talk, y'.

Ilhan Omar (59:11)

All.

Joy Reid (59:11)

It's real talk. It's smart, unfiltered, and deeply relatable. So whether you're facing brain fog, I can relate. Hot flashes or just you want a total life reset. You want to start your life over in your seasoned period. The Tamsen show is your guide to clarity, strength and connection as you move forward. New episodes drop every Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts because you shouldn't have to go through this in the dark. And you'll never again have to ask, why didn't anybody tell me? Listen to the Tamsen Show. Your strongest chapter starts here. All right, so Donald Trump, as we've been mentioning throughout the show, ripped the sheet off once again in that unhinged rant against Somalis and against Ilhan Omar.

Joy Reid (60:01)

And I think you know, well, I'm gonna have so much more to say about it later in the show, but the reality is it isn't even his first moment of madness even this week. I'm actually gonna hold on. I'm not gonna go into that just quite yet because I just wanna circle back for just one moment to what he actually said, because I'm gonna get into it a great deal at the end of the show, but I wanna hold off because we've got some other guests to get to in between. But I think Representative Omar's comments on it I think were more gracious than mine because I saw them not just as unhinged but also as indicative of something else about his character. And it's not even, or not his character, but also his state of mind. And it isn't even the first moment of madness that we've seen even this week. I want you to listen to him for one moment attempting to answer a question about whether he would attend the funeral of the 20 year old National Guard member that he himself sent to Washington D.C. to occupy the city, who was shot dead by a man that his own administration admitted into the United States after the CIA used him allegedly in death squads in Afghanistan. This is B1. Oh, we're going to. Well, we're going to, we're going to play it in just a second. He's asked the question by a journalist whether or not he intended to attend the funeral of this young lady who should still be alive today. But for Donald Trump, but for him sending her and her colleagues to dc, she'd be alive today. So he's asked by a journalist, are you going to attend her funeral? And this is what she said. Early stages, obviously, but do you plan to attend Sarah's funeral?

Donald Trump (61:34)

I haven't thought about it yet, but it certainly is something I could conceive of. I love West Virginia. You know, I won West Virginia by one of the biggest margins of any president anywhere. And it's, you know, these are great people. I love the people of West Virginia, I love the people of our country. But I haven't given it any thought, but it sounds like something I could do. Yeah, it's very raw.

Joy Reid (61:59)

Joining me now to unpack what in the hell is going on here is our friend, noted psychotherapist, Dr. John Gartner, founder of Duty to Warn Dr. Gartner. You know, when I saw that I thought first of all, wow, what an asshole, you know.

John Gartner (62:12)

But second of all, that's the baseline. We start there.

Joy Reid (62:14)

Yeah, but the second of all is the non sequitur. Made me want to talk to you. So what am I saying exactly?

John Gartner (62:21)

Well, that's the, that's one of the indications of his organic cognitive decline is the increase in the non sequiturs. I mean, we could have a whole show just about the non sequiturs. And that's one of like 12 signs of cognitive decline. It happens often. I was just looking at another similar piece of tape from a while back where someone said, so how long are people going to be at Alligator Alcatraz? He said, I didn't hear the question, how many longer people going to be in Florida? And Alex Alcados, because, well, I love Florida. You know, I have a house there. I'm probably going to spend a lot of time there. Just like he pivots to, I love New Hampshire, you know, I love West Virginia. They all voted for me there. He frequently skips tracks, sometimes more obviously or more grossly than others. But this kind of tangential thinking is part of cognitive decline. Just give you another example. When he was on the USS Washington, he said, you know, I never like good looking people. I never admitted that before, but you see, I'm allowed to now because we won in the Supreme Court on the basis of merit. This is a direct quote. You know about that right now, everything in this country is based on merit. None of those sentences relate to each other. It's non sequitur after non sequitur after non sequitur. And this is where the press is really san washing him. Okay? They'll show something very provocative that he says, very inflammatory, very. But they won't show you the process of his perambulations and how thought disordered it is.

Joy Reid (63:47)

This is my challenge too. I agree with you. Because, you know, even in the Ilhan Omar clip, the thing, the two things that are more disturbing to me even than what he says, which is disturbing enough, are the applause by his cabinet members, who should all be googling article 25, the 25th, you know.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (64:07)

They should.

Joy Reid (64:07)

Be googling the 25th amendment.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (64:08)

They should.

Joy Reid (64:09)

Instead they break out into applause like train seals. But then there's also the media, the journalists who no one shouts out, Mr. President, is that not an inappropriate comment to make about a United States Congresswoman? Mr. President, is it appropriate for the President, United States to attack an entire group of immigrants in an American state? Everyone just sort of stands there kind of catatonically and listens to it and they don't say anything that's not helpful even to him cognitively, right? No.

John Gartner (64:40)

And the thing is, because the bar is so low, we don't always notice the regression. But the nature of dementia is it is a deteriorating illness. So he's gotten worse since you last had me on this show. And he will deteriorate between now and the time you next have me on the show, should you? I'd Be so lucky. And so he's always been a racist. He's always been a disgusting racist.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (65:01)

Okay?

John Gartner (65:01)

He just has. But the expression of it now is more disinhibited and primitive and disorganized. Right? So instead of it being kind of a dog whistle, it's just now it's like diarrhea, if, you know, I'm sorry to be. You know what I mean? It's more. More primitive and explosive and uncontrolled. And we're seeing this in all kinds of areas. We're seeing this in the way he's relating to journalists. Right. Quiet, piggy. You know, he's always been disrespectful to journalists, but now it's kind of like anybody asks him any question and he just says, oh, shut up, duty head. You know what I mean? Like, he just. He just.

Joy Reid (65:36)

He can't. There's a sense of sort of an out of control, you know, rage, that he's angry all the time and that the minute he's challenged in any way. And I wonder if, you know, we have, you know, elders and you notice that they get a lot crabbier when they can't remember something, when they. When they sort of lose connection and they'll retreat back to something they feel safe in. You know, I have an elder that will just tell the same stories because it's a comfort zone. And so telling that story is a comfort place. But also there is an anger that's there when, you know, when they're searching for a word, you know what I mean? And you see that that happens in an elder. Is that kind of pushing his rage and his disinhibition.

John Gartner (66:18)

Disinhibited. Disinhibited rage is a big problem in nursing homes. One of the issues that I've actually fought is the over prescription of antipsychotics for people in nursing homes because we actually have evidence that it actually kills them. I mean, it actually kills them. And the FDA actually has a black box warning, do not give this to people over 65. It kills them, but we overuse it anyway because it helps control a rest of population that in some ways is also can be out of control. So it's really the. They're giving the medicine not for the benefit of the patient, but the benefit of the staff because the patients are so disinhibited and aggressive. He's starting to show that kind of demented, disinhibited aggression. So he's, again, he's always been aggressive, but now it's more Disorganized and discontrolled and primitive.

Joy Reid (67:04)

Let me play another sort of aspect of the thing we're seeing a lot more often, and that is Donald Trump seeming very tired and sleepy. This is B2. It never would have happened if you've been president. But this war is going on, and.

John Gartner (67:16)

The president is trying to end it.

Joy Reid (67:17)

Not because, listen, we got a million things to focus on in the world as a country, but he's the only leader in the world that can help end it. And that's why, even as we speak to you now, Steve Woodkoff is in Moscow trying to find a way to end this war to save lives of 8,9000 people. Mr. President, as you want to, are dying every week, more people.

Joy Reid (67:37)

And what the media will do with that is say they've said he's praying. They'll say he's contemplating anything. But, I mean, I can remember working in mainstream media and being told we were not to say. He was saying, sleeping when my eyes can see him sleeping.

John Gartner (67:52)

So who are you going to believe, him or your lying eyes?

Joy Reid (67:56)

It almost like I wish he snored so that he could make a sound that would force journalists to report that he's asleep. So is being sleepier. That's just part of aging, right? Because who among us hasn't, you know, been really tired and nodded off?

John Gartner (68:09)

No, it's not just part of aging. It's part of dementia at this level. This issue of his falling asleep inappropriately is something that I've been talking about for a long time. When he was on trial, okay, he fell asleep at his own trial most days. Now, I've spoken to about a dozen lawyers, and I said, I was just asking Dino Badiah the other day on his show. He's a lawyer. I said, in your entire career, have you or any colleague you've ever known ever known a defendant to fall asleep at the table, ever? Anyone? One example. Can you think of one? Can you think of anyone who knows of one example? And they all say, no, okay? He said, I've seen a few judges fall asleep, but I've never seen a defendant fall asleep. And he fell asleep most days. That's how irrepressible this is. And now we learned from the New York Times recently that actually his schedule is that he comes in on an average of 1208. He comes in at noon and he leaves. Trump does, and he leaves at 5. Okay, so he's working noon to 5, but he still can't stay awake. I mean, come on. And so they're Praising him. Oh, he's the most wonderful. Thank God.

Joy Reid (69:16)

Insane.

John Gartner (69:17)

It's insane.

Joy Reid (69:19)

The other piece of it is the mri. I mean, you as a clinician, have you ever heard of, you know, I've had an mri, but it's always been diagnostic. You don't just get an MRI just as part of your regular checkup. Like, that's not a normal thing for a man that's 79 years old if he's getting multiple MRIs a year. And he also doesn't know what part of his body they're on. Allegedly. Allegedly. He knows there is brain.

John Gartner (69:45)

Yeah. They're lying. That's the simplest explanation. They're lying because it doesn't make sense. And many doctors have come forward and said, look, this just doesn't add up. We never, ever, ever do this in medicine. We don't give preventative MRIs or routine MRIs. We only give MRIs when we're trying to rule in or rule out a serious disorder. So they're lying, and so we really don't know what's going on. But I think that either they're just not telling us what happened, or they're completely incompetent and they're committing malpractice because it was your father or my father, and they were showing the signs of cognitive decline that he's showing. They would give him a neuropsychological battery and an mri, or he just refused to take the test. That may be possible, too, but he's already given us some clues. First of all, he said that he took multiple cognitive tests. He used the word tests, plural, three times. So if it were just a dementia screening exam, which sometimes we give to older people as a matter of course, we don't give them a series of cognitive tests unless we're trying to rule out or rule in a serious cognitive problem. So we kind of gave away the game there. When he talked about multiple tests. And Obama's White House position said there's something else that didn't add up about that Walter Reed encounter was he was there for about four hours. If he was there for an MRI, that takes about 15 minutes. So what was he doing there for four hours? He was getting, obviously, some kind of much more intensive workup. And if he's taking multiple cognitive tests, a neuropsychological battery takes about three or four hours. It's a long process. You take, really, a lot of tests. It's a very comprehensive and granular kind of analysis. So I suspect that he was there in part to get these cognitive Tests and to get a brain mri and they're just not telling us the truth.

Joy Reid (71:30)

And you? Well, I mean we had a President Ronald Reagan who was suffering from dementia at the end and we were not told. We found out later that various people were running the White House, maybe even Nancy from time to time. How will we know when Donald Trump. Because he's already so odd and he's already so racist and creepy in so many ways. How will we actually know when he slipped into the kind of dementia Ronald Reagan at that advanced stage?

John Gartner (71:57)

Well, you know, I think there's starting to be some cracks in this wall of silence. One manifestation was the New York Times article that came out, you know, a couple of days ago. Shorter days, signs of fatig faces, the reality of aging office. That was a breakthrough.

Joy Reid (72:12)

The other thing, I think the reporter was one of the one he called ugly.

John Gartner (72:16)

Oh, I'm sure he did.

John Gartner (72:19)

The other thing that I found hopeful is Dr. Vin Gupta, who is a MSN contributor, said not on MSN now but on Midas touch independent media. And I'm quoting him exactly because I wrote this down. Mr. Trump has long rambled in his speeches in his second term. Oh, sorry, that's the New York Times. Then Gupta said, it's clear there's age related cognitive decline. That's obvious.

Joy Reid (72:46)

Okay.

John Gartner (72:46)

He's confused a lot. He sometimes mumbles incoherent nonsense when he is asked a question in the press pool in the Oval Office. So here finally is a physician who's just saying, look, it's obvious he's mumbling incoherently in the Oval Office. And I remember I said months ago, I said what's it going to take? What's it going to take for people to acknowledge that Donald Trump is showing cognitive decline? Does he have to mumble incoherently in the Oval Office? Well, apparently that's not enough.

Joy Reid (73:14)

Yeah. And you combine that with the unexplained bruises on his hands, which look to me, I, you know, I was a pre med for one semester at Harvard. I never really went through the program, but it looks like maybe where you would want to put an IV like bruising from trying to find a vein and put an eye. But I don't know. But there are the bruises on his hands which have never been explained. And then there's the chemicals, there's the really, really warped and swollen ankles, which they said is an issue with venal, you know, insufficiency.

John Gartner (73:45)

Right. Yeah.

Joy Reid (73:46)

When you, if you had a patient with all of those symptoms and he wasn't present United States. What would you say?

John Gartner (73:50)

Well, a lot of doctors are saying that it's much more likely that he has congestive heart failure. That they're really giving a very benign explanation for what looks like a more serious circulatory problem. But even more, a lot of people are suspecting that he's having mini strokes. If you remember that the whole left side of his face was sort of, right side of his was sort of drooping. You know, that's not something that happens when you're old or when you're tired or when you're drunk. That is specifically a stroke related problem because it's one part of the body is, is not working, you know, and the other is, and you see the contrast. The other place we see something that could either be a stroke or frontotemporal dementia or what happens sometimes with the, the combination of somebody who has dementia, often has strokes and that's often once they have a stroke, then they deteriorate much more quickly. That happened to one of my relatives. If you saw that footage of him with his grandson at the White House that was shown a lot on the media, what you see is he evidences a particular symptom, what we call a wide based gait. He's been showing it with his right leg for about a year now where instead of having a normal gait, he swings his right leg around in a semicircle as if it's a dead weight and he's kind of swinging it around. That's been getting worse and worse because all the symptoms of dementia get worse and worse, but it's become dramatically worse recently. If you look at that footage, it's extremely dramatic. So there is clearly something going on with his gait and with his physical presence that they're just not telling us about. But we can definitely see it. Again, who are you going to believe, them or your lying eyes?

Joy Reid (75:24)

Yeah, last question to you because you know there was a lot of heat over about Joe, you know about Joe Biden decline and there was an obsession with it in the media. I'm not surprised that Republican, that the Republican president gets a pass on it because that is our media, they're so afraid of being seen as liberal. They really kind of ignore a lot of things with Republicans. But given if you compare them, just as an expert, do you think that Donald Trump is in a greater state of decline in the first 10 months of his presidency than Joe Biden was at the end of his one term presidency?

John Gartner (76:01)

I think there's absolutely no Question about it. I think he's much worse. And of course, as you point out, he's in much earlier stages as president. This isn't Ronald Reagan on his way out the door, deteriorating. This is at the beginning of his presidency. I think the biggest difference is that the Biden people were, in a sense, smart or devious enough to keep him out of the public eye. So we actually didn't see so much evidence of the deterioration. But Trump is such a narcissist, okay, that he insists on being in front of the camera and displaying his dementia, but somehow he acts like, well, on me, this looks cool.

Joy Reid (76:34)

And it doesn't. It just doesn't. It just is weird and disturbing. Dr. John Gartner come back often. Thank you very much. I appreciate you. Thank you for having me. Thank you very much. Well, well, well, there you go. That's pretty definitive. And if you had a relative that was behaving in this way, you know, you'd probably hospitalize them or at least get them seen to by a daily nurse. And for all we know, he has a nurse that's hanging around with him. We don't know. They don't tell us these things. Welcome to hour two of the Joy Reid Show. Was really excited to have Representative Ilhan Omar on to talk about and react to Donald Trump's attack on her. Also, thank you to Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz. I think we need to come back and debate a little bit more about Bibi Netanyahu and the icj. We appreciate both of them coming on, but, you know, those two were experts. They're members of the United States Congress. Like, they should weigh in on stuff, right? But not everybody actually has to weigh in on all the things they really don't. Stephen A. Smith, for example, offered his, let's say, sports related thoughts on that PSA that I started the show with tonight by seven Democrats who were elected military veterans. Here are Stephen's thoughts.

Sean Harris (77:45)

Police Senator, what the hell are you doing?

Pete Hegseth (77:47)

One looking into the camera and, and.

Sean Harris (77:51)

Telling military men and women to ignore.

Donald Trump (77:55)

The Commander in Chief. How dare you? How dare you do that?

Joy Reid (78:01)

That's right. I'm calling out.

Sean Harris (78:03)

I never served in the military. That's true. I have family members who did. Some of my best friends have Marines, Air Force, Navy, Army.

Sean Harris (78:14)

I haven't heard one of them, not one of them say that was okay.

Donald Trump (78:18)

How dare you do that?

Joy Reid (78:21)

Is it treason?

Sean Harris (78:22)

No. Is it punishable by death? It shouldn't be. So the answer is no.

Donald Trump (78:27)

But you know better. Senator Kelly, you know better. How Dare you do that?

Sean Harris (78:33)

What are you supposed to do? You're a ranking senator.

Sean Harris (78:38)

You could go to the Senate.

Donald Trump (78:39)

You could go to the House.

Joy Reid (78:41)

You can put up drawer paperwork.

Sean Harris (78:43)

You could try to start articles of impeachment if you think there's something illegal. I mean, damn, it ain't like y' all haven't done it before. You impeach the man twice.

Donald Trump (78:52)

Where'd that get you?

Joy Reid (78:54)

Got his behind back in the White House.

Sean Harris (78:57)

Had you left them alone in 20, since 2020, maybe he wouldn't be back.

Sean Harris (79:02)

Respectfully, Senator.

Joy Reid (79:03)

What? Well, that MAGA money must be good, because first of all, why are you screaming? Why are you yelling at us?

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (79:11)

I know I'm not supposed to cuss, but damn.

Joy Reid (79:14)

Can I just say, Please, you.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (79:16)

Stephen.

Joy Reid (79:17)

I was gonna say it, but, you know, thank you for adding it. I agree. He. He thinks he's supposed to weigh in on everything. Since when is he a political pundit? First of all, what do you know about anything about politics, Stephen A. Smith? You had to jump in, and you don't the. What's worse, Jason, than being wrong is being loud and wrong.

Sean Harris (79:33)

Yeah.

Joy Reid (79:34)

Because you know what? Stephen, Stephen, Stephen, you have a lot to say about a lot of things. And I know you think you're styling yourself as a potential president that something no one wants. But, you know, you might want to just catch up, because it sure looks like that, that warning by those people who actually have served. They didn't have, like, friends who served or relatives who served or people I know who served, people on my block. It's like they served. And it sure seems like their warning actually made a whole hell of a lot of sense. By the way, even this guy here used to think that there should be consequences for the commission of war crimes.

Pete Hegseth (80:09)

There are some guys at Leavenworth who made really bad choices on the battlefield. And I do think there have to be consequences for abject war crimes. If you're doing something that is just completely unlawful and ruthless, then there is a consequence for that. That's why the military said it won't follow unlawful orders from their commander in chief. There's a standard, there's an ethos, There's a belief that we are above what so many things that our enemies or others would do.

Joy Reid (80:38)

That was TV Pete Hegseth in 2016 when he was a TV presenter. Except that that guy also spent much of his time at Fox defending war criminals. And he literally used that consistent defense of war criminals to endear himself to Donald Trump to get himself nominated for Secretary of War. He and Stephen A. Smith both yell out, ah, Secretary of War. At which time he could be out and proud about his belief that it is time to take the adult gloves off and let the war kids run wild. I want you to check out this great find from our friends at Midas. Touch.

Pete Hegseth (81:17)

You've got to do it along all three levels. You, tactically, first of all, you have to unhand, you have to untie the hands of war fighters. Get the lawyers off the front lines or off the backs of guys. There's always going to be army lawyers.

Joy Reid (81:28)

I get it.

Pete Hegseth (81:28)

But they need to be defending our troops more than trying to prosecute them and creating all these complicated laws that say even in a civilian environment, in a complex neighborhood, if you kill one civilian, you're the bad guy. You can't fight and win a war that.

Joy Reid (81:41)

That way.

Pete Hegseth (81:42)

Operationally, you need to have, you know, battalion battalions of brigades where these lieutenant colonels and colonels are totally invested in having the backs of their guys and know exactly what they're doing.

Sean Harris (81:54)

Now, what's.

Joy Reid (81:56)

Thank you. Minus touch. And here now is part of TV Pete's speech to a forced audience of all of our nation's generals and their senior staffs.

Pete Hegseth (82:06)

Fight to win. We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy. We also don't fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our war fighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement. Just common sense. Maximum lethality and authority for war fighters. That's all I ever wanted as a platoon leader and it's all my E6 squad leaders ever wanted. Back to that E6 rule. We let our leaders fight their formations, and then we have their back. It's very simple, yet incredibly powerful.

Joy Reid (82:54)

So, let's see. We shouldn't be worrying about all the little civilians that might get hurt when we're conducting our lithium. Lethality. And also, we need to take the gloves off and let the fighters fight. Let the warriors war. Man, why can't we just let them be who they are and do their thing? Why are we worried about the lawyers and the law? I mean, it's just the law. Who cares about that? Why are we. Why are we constraining and holding, making them tie their hands behind their back while they're fighting the war? Let them bomb a few civilians. No big deal. No biggie. There's no such thing as a war crime, you know, except for the ones in Leavenworth. Maybe those are really bad, but the rest of it's really not that bad. And who can forget this unforgettable Kid Rock style poem?

Pete Hegseth (83:34)

Restoring victory and clarity as an end state, restoring intentionality to the use of force. So at your direction, Mr. President, the war Department is going to fight decisively, not endless conflicts. It's going to fight to win, not not to lose. We're going to go on offense, not just on defense. Maximum lethality, not tepid legality. Violent effect, not politically correct. We're going to raise up warriors, not just defenders. So this War Department, Mr. President, just like America is back.

Joy Reid (84:11)

Thank you for, Mr. President. If the glove don't fit, it must acquit.

Joy Reid (84:18)

Maximum lethality, not maximum legality. These are my 16 bars in the white House because I like cars. Anyway, he's like a failed rapper. It's embarrassing. But all the stuff he's saying there. Right. All the stuff he's saying there is that he, in his days as an active duty member of the military, was annoyed by the constraints of the lawyers stopping them from committing more crimes. And he was annoyed when he was at Fox with all the lawyers adjudicating whether people who had committed crimes and cooing against civilians were war criminals. I mean, damn. I mean, he literally. There's a Wall Street Journal piece about it that he was literally like, leaning in constantly to being, you know, wanting to unconstrain members of the military and being able in war to basically commit war crimes if they wanted to do whatever they needed to do to win, not just not lose.

Joy Reid (85:17)

And Hagseth's response to finally being able to authorize murder on the high seas has been both to kind of make a joke of it, like he did with this really sadistic tweet in which he used the cartoon character Franklin the Turtle to joke about murdering people in a fishing boat.

Joy Reid (85:40)

I guess he would say it's a drug fishing boat. They were fishing for victims in the war on drugs. He thinks that's funny. He thought that was very hilarious. Ha ha ha. But also to literally throw those commanders and war fighters that he claims to love straight up under the bus rather than defend them.

Joy Reid (86:03)

He basically says, ain't my fault. I didn't do it. The commander did it. The commander is responsible for it.

Joy Reid (86:17)

Jason, would it be possible to pull up C10 if you could? These literally.

Joy Reid (86:25)

Is a man. This is a man who, first of all, is not qualified for the job of defense secretary. Yep. C10, who thinks that he is the Department of War.

Joy Reid (86:36)

He's not Defense secretary. He's war secretary because, you know, when the, when it was started, the department was called the Department of War. And that's the thing that he thinks he's accomplished as Defense secretary. It's still called the Defense Department, son. But he thinks that now he's finally free to do the things he's always wanted to do. And he's free to do that and then walk away from responsibility for it. Claim he really wasn't in there watching when he was in the Situation Room. He kind of watched the first strike, but then kind of bounced to do some other work during the second one. He really wasn't there. Let's let Judge Napolitano, who is a conservative right wing commentator on Fox, but who also knows a few things about this, tell us whether he thinks this was legal.

Sean Harris (87:17)

No.

Donald Trump (87:17)

Pleasure to say what I'm about to say because I worked with Pete Kaiseth.

Joy Reid (87:22)

For seven or eight years at Fox News.

Donald Trump (87:25)

This is an act of a war.

Joy Reid (87:27)

Crime ordering survivors who the law requires.

Sean Harris (87:31)

Be rescued instead to be murdered. There's absolutely no legal basis for it.

Donald Trump (87:38)

Everybody along the line who did it, from the secretary of defense to the.

Sean Harris (87:41)

Admiral to the people who actually pulled.

Donald Trump (87:43)

The trigger, should be prosecuted for a.

Joy Reid (87:45)

War crime, for killing these two people.

Sean Harris (87:47)

And who would.

Joy Reid (87:49)

And that's Judge Napolitano. He is a friend of Pete Hegseth, a former co worker of Pete Hegseth. And he thinks, yeah, this was a war crime. And he thinks the commander's on up. Now remember again what those seven Democrats who are all military veterans said, don't give up the ship.

Joy Reid (88:09)

And now let's listen. Well, we're gonna wait. In a moment we're gonna listen because the reality is before I let you listen, I'm gonna let you listen just for a moment to what Republicans had to to say about it. Is that the ethos that Pete Hegseth was discussing when he was a Fox commentator is probably what a lot of people who are in the United States military think on the ground. They're like, here's a village. I think that there are members of the enemy in there. Why can't I burn it? It is what literally American troops did in Vietnam because they were told we need to wipe out this village. I've got napalm. I think there Viet Cong in there. Why can't I drop a bomb on it? Those were war crimes in Iraq where you had members of the United States military saying we need to get these Iraqis to admit that Saddam Hussein was behind the al Qaeda strike on 9 11, which it wasn't. We need them to tell us where the fighters are who are opposing our invasion and didn't want to. We'll just string them up, put a bag over their head and electrocute their generals. Why can't we? And we'll take pictures of it. Because we're the United States of America. We can do whatever we want. This has been the ethos of our war fighting since Vietnam because we've gotten out of the business after World War II of actually prosecuting people for war crimes. The same way that we let the entire Confederate south off the hook for shooting and killing American troops and trying to secede from the Union and becoming our enemy. Not only did we let them off the hook, the United States military erected monuments to them, named military bases after them, after their generals. And where is the General Tecumseh Sherman Base. They name everything after the enemy. And so since the thing that Pete Hankseth complained about.

Joy Reid (90:05)

To the President when he did his poem, his spoken word poem, is that the Department of War was switched to the Department of Defense after World War II, and that per his storytelling, the United States never won another war after that. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq. We didn't win anymore when we were the Department of War. We won, but then we switched the Department of Defense. The hinge point there is World War II. What happened at the end of World War II? The Nuremberg Trials. The Nuremberg Trials in which largely American prosecutors and European prosecutors and investigators put on trial Nazi soldiers who committed war crimes and atrocities against their own Jewish neighbors in countries like Germany and Austria and Poland and did that, claiming that they were just following orders. And so all of those war fighters who Pete Hegseth claims to love and respect and want to empower, they're going to be responsible for the crimes they were ordered to commit. And if they say they were just following orders, that's not going to wash if they wind up before a war crimes tribunal. I mean, Bibi Netanyahu claimed he wasn't a war criminal. He still is. Regardless of what the congresswoman wants to say. He's adjudicated. It's happened. It's a thing. And these troops that are, that participated in this, it does make you wonder why the brother admiral quit. He said, I didn't want to be part of that.

Joy Reid (91:40)

And to Stephen A. Smith's question, why couldn't you just do something about it? Why couldn't you just legislate and do the cake? Let's play C7 if you could. Jason, there is a Gentleman who is running for Congress in the great state of Georgia, who, if he were to actually win election, could theoretically do something about it. Stephen, here is his ad.

Sean Harris (92:03)

I know that you are scared. You're concerned about your grandkids, your kids, everybody in your family, because Marjorie Taylor Greene has left us. Marjorie Taylor Greene does not want to represent you anymore. Marjorie Taylor Greene simply wants to get rich off the back of each and every last one of them. In this last election, I received more votes than any other Democrat since 2012 right here in Northwest Georgia. In this district, Democrats, independents, and common sense Republicans all came together under what we call leadership matters, and we scared Marjorie Taylor Greene. Now, Marjorie Taylor Greene is in a civil war with the Republican Party, and they have even told her, we don't want you anymore. With us all working together, we can beat her. Whatever you can do, do it wherever you at. Send out postcards, knock on doors, encourage people to get registered to vote. Since the last election, I've been at the protest for our veterans. I've been protesting for immigration up in Dalton. I've been all over this state fighting for you. Just like I told my soldiers when we were running around in Afghanistan, I will be with you every step of the way. You would never have to worry that I will abandon you. Let's go out here, do everything that we have to do to win this election for everyone. I'm talking about farmers. I'm talking about veterans. I'm talking about educators. I'm talking about senior citizens so that we can beat Marjorie Taylor Greene. And let's go do it.

Sean Harris (93:52)

I look forward to seeing you out there.

Joy Reid (93:57)

And joining me now is Sean Harris, who is running for Congress in the seat being vacated by the aforementioned cash in Marge, Marjorie Taylor Greene. Mr. Harris, thank you so much for being here.

Sean Harris (94:09)

Thank you, Joyce. It's. It's awesome to be on your show.

Joy Reid (94:12)

And. And I know that you are a military veteran, so let me get. Get your designation right. Tell me, what is your. What is your designation in the United States?

Sean Harris (94:18)

I was a brigadier general, but now I'm retired, so it's just good to call me Sean.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (94:21)

Okay.

Joy Reid (94:22)

Okay. Brigadier General Sean. I like to give people their flowers and the things they've earned. I can. Can I get your comment before we come to your district, your race, and mark to the green. Since I do have the benefit of having a veteran who is at a very high level in the military in front of me, what do you make of the Pete Hegseth skirmish away from the admiral, who he is now he and his spokesperson and the White House spokesperson are now effectively blaming for that second strike that killed two survivors from that sec. September 2nd attack on it. On a boat.

Sean Harris (94:58)

Yeah. You know, the reality is our Secretary of Defense, he's not a leader. Leaders take responsibility. It got it starts at the top and go all the way through. The real. The reality of it is I actually know the admiral, Admiral Bradley. I know him personally. Him and I served together when I was down in Tampa doing some things for centcom, Outstanding leader. And for Pete to say that he was in the room last week and then today or yesterday when he was with the President, said he went to another meeting. Nobody goes to another meeting when you actually conducting a strike. So what, what needs to happen right now? Investigation needs to start. We need to get the facts and they need to release that second video that shows if it was people on the side of a ship or inside of the boat, then guess what, we got war crimes and somebody gonna have to be punished for it.

Joy Reid (95:52)

And just to stay on that just moment because, you know, in the Situation Room, which weirdly enough, Lauren Boebert was dragged into in order to sort of strong arm her to not vote to release the Epstein files. That's a whole nother topic.

John Gartner (96:04)

But.

Joy Reid (96:07)

In your knowledge, your understanding of the way it works. Cause I'm thinking about when Osama bin Laden was, you know, killed by Seal Team 6. You see that picture, the famous picture of President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and all of these members of the, you know, senior national security team all sitting around watching this, you know, unfold on video. Would it be normal for in that moment the Secretary of Defense to excuse himself and say, you know, can y' all open door and let me out because I got some other meetings until it is completely done?

Sean Harris (96:40)

No, no, not at all. At the end of the day, when the, when we do these type missions, everything is rehearsed. Everybody knows what, who's doing what and when. And if the Secretary of Defense or if the President wanted to see it, they would see it from start to finish. And you used a very good example there that when we took out Osama bin Laden, everybody watched it from start to finish. Nobody says, I have another meeting. He, the Secretary, Pete is, is talking as if he's some low level officer that has to go to a meeting. He controls the schedule, he controls everything that's going on in the Department of Defense. And, and that is just a very lame excuse to say, and I think when this investigation come out, a lot of things going to come out about what happened that particular day or that night.

Joy Reid (97:31)

There's also the commander in chief in this situation because on that very day, Donald Trump on his truth Social media. Social media, which again, how on earth does the President of the United States own a social media company? That just seems like a national security nightmare. But, you know, we'll leave it at that. He posted on his social media that on my orders, these 11 people who he claims they know who they are and they are narco terrorists, part of trend Nicaragua were killed. So he took responsibility for it that day. And now he's saying he didn't know anything about it. And Pete says he didn't know either.

Sean Harris (98:08)

Yeah, if you, if you watch the words of a few weeks ago versus the words of the President and Pete yesterday, when it was in the staff meeting, everybody is trying to separate themselves away from this particular issue. The President was sitting right beside Pete and tried to separate himself from Pete and pretty much said, I know really nothing about it other than what Pete has told me and I trust Pete. Then Pete turned around and started trying to throw the ammo under the bus. Well, I think what actually happened in Washington D.C. today or tomorrow, I think the airmen is going to come in a top secret briefing and actually tell everybody what's going on. But at the end of the day, the American people won't hear that top secret briefing so that something needs to be declassified so that we can let the American people know what's going on. And again, that will actually happen with Congress and they need to get up and do their job on a bipartisan point of view. Democrats and Republicans need to be on the same sheet of me on this one. This is not political.

Joy Reid (99:04)

No, at all. And it's about the integrity of our military. The Nuremberg trials were about members of the German military committed war crimes, saying they were just following orders. Let me put up the laws of armed conflict. I'm taking full advantage of having you here. I know you're talking about your campaign, but I've got to take full advantage of your presence. Laws of armed conflict are pretty clear. If you strike a vessel at sea and people are left alive, you're supposed to rescue them. It says a second strike killing survivors would have been illegal under any circumstance. According to a gentleman named Mr. Schmidt, who was an expert on the law of war. He says that he doesn't believe the US Is in a legitimate armed conflict with drug cartels, which he said would have to be committing a high level of violence against this country itself. One example would be Colombia's battles with the FARC rebel group. But that's not what we're seeing with these drugs. It says that selling drugs that are killing people, that's not the same thing as an armed conflict. It's because they were using force against the government of Colombia in an effort to do their drug activities with impunity. That's why they were considered at war with the government of Colombia. If the US Is not in armed conflict, that means that it violated international human rights law, which governs how countries treat individuals, including in extrajudicial killings. You can only use lethal force in circumstances where there is an imminent threat, like now to limited threat to life or a really serious injury. And that was not the case with these boats. These boats were near Venezuela. They weren't near the United States. They weren't approaching the United States. There were not missiles on them aimed at the United States. It's literally just a boat that's next to Venezuela in the Caribbean Sea. How can that, as the President be designated, that we're at war with those people?

Sean Harris (100:53)

Well, you know, I'm glad you went through that for your audience because that's. That, that is the key is, first of all, we're not at war. The President of the United States just can't say we're at war. The Secretary of Defense can't just say that that is a role for Congress. So, so if whatever we doing down in the Caribbean at this moment in time, it all needs to come back into Congress. And Congress needs to say or ask the senior leadership, the President and Pete, this simple question. What's your intentions? Are we actually going to war? And if we are going to war, prove to me why we're doing it. What is our mission? But the most most valuable thing that we learned from many of the wars that I have participated in is what is the end state? How do we know that we actually won or actually met your intent? And right now I think President Trump and his administration is struggling trying to even figure out what they trying to do because we all have lived through the war on drugs and we know how that turned out.

Joy Reid (101:55)

Let's talk about your run against Marjorie Taylor Greene. I googled to try to see if I could find anything that she had to say about this boat murder, this murder at sea. I didn't see a whole heck of a lot. She did have a lot to say about the Epstein files and about Israel. And those seem to be the things that she is naming as part of the reason that she's left office that Donald Trump did not live up to his commitment to release the Epstein files fully and that she felt that AIPAC and the Israel lobby were targeting her. What do you make of her exit? Because it seems to me that if she was fighting to release the Epstein files, there was still more work to do.

Sean Harris (102:34)

Well, you know, when, when I look at Marjorie's exit, I don't call it exit. She quit. She quit on, on the people here in Northwest Georgia. That is, period, all stop. The reality of it is, is my campaign, we actually had a course of action that said, if we wake up in the morning and all of a sudden Marjorie Taylor Greene has decided to quit, what is our next steps? We had no clue that it would not happen early in the morning. It actually happened at 8:30 on a Friday night. And as you go back and look, you can see my first statement came out about 8:45, 8:50 that same night. So with that being said, Marjorie Taylor Greene to us is the past. We're looking to the future. But I will tell you one thing. Marjorie Taylor Green and I, Sean Harris, agreed on one thing the entire time she was in Congress and that was releasing the Epstein files. I made that very clear. So I want to give her credit for that. However, what I would also say to you is this. Marjorie is in D.C. right now. We got the health care crisis happening. People prices are going crazy. The question is, all these things that she has talked about in these last few weeks, is she going to do anything for the people here in Northwest Georgia or is she going to go back to the old Marjorie Taylor Green and just talk, but put in no votes, write no policies, do nothing? Only thing Marge is trying to do now is make it to January 4th so that she can lock in her retirement for life and at the same time get insurance for life. And that's why she's staying to January 5th. It's not about us here in northwest Georgia is 100 so that she can get her retirement and insurance for the rest of her life.

Joy Reid (104:18)

Yeah, exactly. She won't have an insurance crisis and she's claimed her kids have an insurance crisis. But that would mean extending the Obamacare subsidies. Are you for, for doing that? I mean, that's what would need to be done so that people can Afford Health Care 100%.

Sean Harris (104:31)

I'm, I'm all in. We need to extend it right now. I think the count is right now they have roughly about 11 to 10 more days that are actually working days in Washington D.C. i'm a realist I don't see them getting to yes on this. I also foresee that the government is probably going to shut down again come January 30th. It's a lot more fights going on. And that's why people need leaders like me that I call myself. I'm an adult in the room. I'm the person in the room that says, calm down, relax. Let's focus on what we need to agree upon. All that other stuff, get out the room, put those ducks at the table, and we can get the yes. And we can get the yes. With leaders like me in D.C. what.

Joy Reid (105:12)

Is the, what are the folks in the district think about how rich Marjorie Taylor Greene has gotten while she's there to trade in stocks?

Sean Harris (105:17)

You know, our district is, is, is beautiful from a point of view of the rolling hills. The people are just outstanding. But the people, Democrats, independents and common sense Republicans, Ronald Reagan, Republicans are also saying this. How did she get so rich in one day? $9 million in a trading thing. But she says she didn't have any inside. You know, at the end of the day, I, I, I don't actually, I, I have stock in the stock market, but nobody's ever called me and told me I made $9 million in a day. That just don't, that just don't happen. You don't get that lucky. So, so I'll just say this. I'm happy that Marjorie's moving on so that the people in this district can get somebody that's going to focus on them, get somebody that is never, ever going to move. When you actually start a cattle farm.

Sean Harris (106:13)

You'Re not packing up tomorrow. You just can't sell a California in five seconds. So at the end of the day, people pass by my cattle farm all the time and they, they say great things about our cattle, but they also know that I'm all in. I'm never leaving. I was born and raised in this state. I chose to come back to this state. And I'm, I'm gonna always be here and look out for the people in Northwest Georgia.

Joy Reid (106:33)

You have a cattle farm. How are those tariffs and all these international bullying deals Trump is doing around the world?

Sean Harris (106:40)

I, I tell you, Joy, the President needs to stay the hell out of the cattle business. Point blank. I, I know that's not the normal political speak, but at the end of the day, when he made the statement that he was going to bring down the grocery prices and beef and all that kind of stuff, what he didn't understand, or maybe he did, is by that Statement made cattle prices, our side of the House, the cattle prices drop. And then on top of that, when he actually gave the $40 billion to Argentina. Yes, not helping us at all. So right now farmers are very upset. You know, here in Georgia, maybe you don't know, but in Georgia, our number one industry is agriculture. And right now across the board, if you're a cattle farmer like me or row crop guys with soybeans, peanuts and cotton, we are hurting across the board. But I'll even go a step further. Our guys that are isn't in the forestry business, our paper mills are shutting down. So we are hurting across the board. So when somebody tries to tell us that it's going to be okay and we're going to have a great day, you know what? We, we, we know, we know what BS is down here in Georgia. That's probably the best way I can say it.

Joy Reid (107:51)

No. Yeah, look, no, look, it's not, we're not a broadcast news. So you could have even said the whole world. The actual. You seem like too nice of a guy to do it. I know you've run in this district before. It is a very red district. It's really hard to win for a Democrat. How are you going to do it?

Sean Harris (108:08)

Well, Joy, you know, I, I love when people say it's really hard. Guess what? You know what else is hard? It's very hard to join the United States Marine Corps enlisted, then go to a place called Tuskegee University, go to amrotc, then graduate and go through all the ranks and retire as a brigadier general with the last assignment being in Israel. That's hard. What is easy is talking to everybody in the district, making sure that everybody just know that they can come and talk to you and, and you're going to listen and you're going to show real leadership when you representing them. That's easy. So the way I'm going to win this election is very simple. Democrats are highly motivated. You saw what just happened last night throughout the United States. Maybe Tennessee didn't go our way, but that's okay.

Joy Reid (108:55)

Very close.

Sean Harris (108:56)

But some things happen here in Georgia and I'll go a step further. So Democrats are highly motivated. Independence always are coming to me. They came to me last time ago, home at this time. But guess what else is coming to me? Ronald Reagan. Republicans are already coming to me because they are saying, wait a minute, this mega thing is not the real Republican Party. I need to find somebody that's closer back to the center. And guess what? Sean Harris as the Democrat is Closer to the center than any of these 5, 6, 7, 10, 15 Republicans that claim they want to run against me. Because every last one of those guys, they are focused on what does Donald Trump want? When it comes to me, I'm focused on what is best for northwest Georgia. The Democratic Party knows joy that hell, I, I can't be like somebody else. I live in the country. I live in a ruby red district. So when I get to D.C. i can't be yes on everything. I got to make sure that I'm representing the people here. And that is the definition of a representative. And that's why leadership matters.

Joy Reid (110:03)

Sean Harris, I wish you the best of luck. I hope you'll come back and talk about your campaign as it proceeds. You know, I guess for the people in your district, it sure would be nice to have somebody who's actually focused on the job, not on, you know, being on social media, getting a lot of attention and getting really rich. Are you in favor of a ban on stock trading by members of Congress?

Sean Harris (110:23)

100%. And I don't. I'm not taking any money from APAC. I've never received any money for APAC. And so I just want your order to know I don't need that money. I'm a retired brigadier general. It's going to be okay. And I'm going to stay within my budget, so I don't need any extra money. I want to make sure that nobody will ever buy Sean Harris, because my focus is the people right here. Enjoy. Before you get off, come on down here to the country. Do your show from right here in Rockmark, Georgia. We'll do it in a coffee shop and I'll show you the farm.

Joy Reid (110:55)

I. That I will take it. That is an invitation I will accept. I definitely want to go and check that out. Brigadier General Sean Harris, I wish you the best of luck and, and keep that door, that invitation open because we coming on down. Remember, I don't come by myself. You know, we're a little team, but, you know, we won't eat too much. We'll try to be not too greedy.

Sean Harris (111:13)

You come down here, we from the south, we're going to feed you just right and everybody else.

Joy Reid (111:16)

See, look at that. I love it. Thank you very much. John Harris. Tell them your website. Tell about your website so people can support.

Sean Harris (111:21)

Your website is seanforgeorgia.com Go there, visit. See what I'm talking about. See what we're trying to do. First thing I always tell people, pray for me. This thing is not going to Be easy. And then if you have some money, please donate. But guess what? If money's tight, feed your kids, Sean. You'll be okay. So. So. But if you have something, give something to us. And we're going to make sure that you are proud when we actually win here in a few weeks. Whenever this special election is announced, I love it.

Joy Reid (111:47)

Other Team TJRS folks are super generous, and so I think they're going to put a little something in the tail. But the prayers are already done. Done, asked and answered. Thank you very much. Appreciate you.

Sean Harris (111:57)

Thank you.

Joy Reid (111:58)

Thank you. All right, Sean Harris. Wouldn't be nice to have a nice person in that district. Somebody that's actually cool, you know, that seems like they care about the people. Love that. Okay. We gotta love that. All right, so I want to, you know, end the way we started. I want to go back one more time to that insanely racist Trump rant against Ilhan Omar. Jason, if you could fire that up just one more again, President, has Mauro offered to leave?

Donald Trump (112:30)

And I see these people ripping it off. And now I'm understanding. And you're going to look at tedxka. I hear they ripped off Somalians, ripped off that state for billions of dollars. Billions every year. Billions of dollars. And they contribute nothing. The Welfare is like 88%. They contribute nothing. I don't want them in our country. I'll be honest with you, okay? Somebody would say, oh, that's not politically correct. I don't care. I don't want them in our country. Their country is no good for a reason. Their country stinks, and we don't want them in our country. I could say that about other countries, too. I can say it about other countries, too. We don't want them to help. We got to. We have to rebuild our country. You know, our country is at a tipping point. We could go bad. We're at a tipping point. I don't know if people mind me saying that, but I'm saying it. We could go one way or the other, and we're going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country. Ilhan Omar is garbage. She's garbage. Garbage. Her friends are garbage. These aren't people that work. These aren't people that say, let's go. Come on, let's make this place great. These are people that do nothing but complain. They complain, and from where they came from, they got nothing. You know, they came from paradise and they said, this isn't paradise. But when they come from hell and they complain and do Nothing but bitch. We don't want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it.

Donald Trump (114:13)

Thank you very much.

Joy Reid (114:16)

Says the country. Their country stinks. Says the guy in a full diaper talking about people bitching and complaining. Says the guy who cannot say enough negative shit about the United States. He was constantly complaining, we're a dumb country. We're a stupid country. We're idiots. Stupid country. He even says, I like the uneducated. That's who likes me. Just constantly complaining, you're a piggy, you're fat. The country's. We're losing. We're getting beaten. The whole. Everybody's taking advantage of us. All he does is complain about this country and his people came from Bavaria, which at the time apparently was hell. That's why they came here.

Joy Reid (114:57)

So besides being just a racist heathen, our sundowning racist grandpa is attempting to cobble together words you could see in that clip about an alleged fraud scheme in Minnesota, which also is what caused him to call that state's governor Tim Walls the R word, which even repulsed some Republicans who are unshockable at this point. Yet here is how one reporter at MIZ now attempted to explain the whole thing.

Joy Reid (115:26)

Now, you heard Mayor Fry there say.

Pete Hegseth (115:28)

That the Somali American community has definitively made this community a better place. The president takes a different view. And the Somali diaspora here in Minnesota has been shrouded in controversy in recent years. It was recently found out that close to a billion dollars have been stolen from Minnesota State social services and fraudulent schemes. Fraudulent schemes that were orchestrated, many, in many instances, by members of the Somali diaspora. But what Jacob Fry says is that the wrongdoings of individuals shouldn't result in a collective punishment.

Joy Reid (116:03)

Ana. Alex Tabett, thank you for that reporting. Two things. I don't blame that reporter. I'm sure they're under a lot of constraints from Standards and Practices. Not to disparage the president in any way, but a different view. Come on, seriously. And then also to put a graphic at the end after saying nearly $1 billion was stolen, but the graphic literally adds up to, like, 230 billion million. And as we spoke with Representative Ilhan Omar earlier in the show, we're talking about, like, maybe 70 people involved in a scheme in a community of about 80,000 people. So a different view. I don't know. You know, 70,000 people, 37,000 of whom, you know, 37,000 Somali. That's the population. The Somali immigrant population in Minnesota. It's about 79,000 people, 37,000 of whom, by the way, are children under 18. Hell, 12,000 of them are children under 5 years old. It's 21,000 households total, according to a site called Minnesota Compass. That is out of a population of more than 5.8 million people statewide, per state government estimates. So if you're a mathy person, that makes Somalis 1.3% of the Minnesota population. 1.3%. And yet Donald Trump continually lashes out against these Somali immigrants in Minnesota. It's an obsession that goes back to his first time as president. Back then, he targeted Somalis at a rally, saying, and I'm gonna quote, leaders in Washington brought large numbers of refugees from Somalia to Minnesota without considering the impact on schools and communities and taxpayers of 1.3% of the population. What will be the impact? They pay more property taxes so the schools would have more money. Last month, he claimed in a Nov. 21 post on his social media app, which again, why does he have a social media app, that, quote, somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great state and billions of dollars are missing. And then he announced that he would end temporary protected status for Somalis, effective immediately. And then on the day after the shooting of those two National Guardsmen near the White House, Trump ordered a review of green cards issued to migrants from 19 countries of concern, including Somalia, even though no one from Somalia was involved in any way in that attack. And then in a Thanksgiving message posted on Truth Social, he announced that he would permanently pause migration from, quote, Third world countries, a term we don't even use anymore in, in the United States, and then attacked the Somali community in Minnesota. Again.

Joy Reid (118:51)

He focuses on Minnesota because it happens to have the largest Somali origin population in the United States. And Trump has deluded himself into believing that they are completely taking over the state at 1.3% of the population. He claimed in a post on his busted social media app last month that the state has become a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity. And he announced an end again, to TPS protections. And he also claimed, with no evidence at all, that hundreds of thousands of Somalians are ripping off our country and ripping apart that once great state. Again, you idiot, it's Somalis, not Somalians. And there aren't even 100,000 of them in Minnesota, so there literally cannot be hundreds of thousands of them ripping off the state.

Joy Reid (119:39)

Oh, yeah, and this is also, again, why he used the R word against Tim Walls, right? Prompting, you know, because he says that. But I think maybe, I don't know, he was talking to the man in the mirror.

Joy Reid (119:52)

Also the allegations, again, they, they don't even add up to the numbers that he claims that they do and the number of people actually involved in the actual benefits fraud allegations that they also claim. Scott Bessen over at treasury claims that they had something to do with sending benefit money to Al Shabaab, the terrorist group.

Joy Reid (120:17)

Which there's no evidence of.

Joy Reid (120:20)

And as to Trump's supposed concerns about fraud, as USA Today recently pointed out, he has used his clemency power recently, pardoning all 1600 January 6th goons, including at least one sex offender and the violent ones. And he's also used his clemency power to pardon people convicted of fraud. Now quoting the paper, Trump has used the presidential clemency power, including pardons and sentence commutations, on several high profile cases like the January 6 Capitol rioters, former Representative George Santos, who pleaded guilty to felony wire fraud and identity theft charges, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao convicted of money laundering and reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chersley Chrisley, who were also convicted of financial crimes. Trump recently used his clemency power for a private equity executive who was 12 days into a seven year prison sentence when he was released, according to the New York Times. And here's what we know. David Gentile, 59 years old, had his sentence for multiple fraud charges commuted. The White House confirmed a commutation is another act of the president's clemency power, like a pardon. Gentile was the founder and CEO of GPB Capital, which prosecutors say raised about $1.6 billion from investors based on misrepresented successes of the private equity fund. White House press secretary Carolyn Levitt Caroline Levitt said on December 1 that the Biden administration, whose Justice Department oversaw the prosecution, mischaracterized it as a Ponzi scheme and Gentile had concerns about false testimony.

Joy Reid (121:54)

So basically, Trump, who himself was convicted of fraud in New York, clearly doesn't have a problem with fraud any more than the voters of maga and even the voters of his new home state, Florida, had a problem electing the guy who was the CEO of the health care company that settled the largest Medicare, Medicaid and Tricare fraud case in history, elected that guy Rick Scott to be their governor and then their senator. Trump cares about fraud about as much as he cares about drug dealing, given that he just released from prison one of the biggest drug dealers in the Americas simply because he used to be president of a country like he's president and also cuz he wrote him a nice letter. Here he is Talking about that Mr. Kennedy is so clear how you want.

Donald Trump (122:38)

To keep drugs out of the U.S. can you explain more about why you.

Joy Reid (122:42)

In pardon a notorious drug trafficker?

Donald Trump (122:44)

Well, I don't know who you're talking about.

Joy Reid (122:46)

John Hermano Hernandez.

Donald Trump (122:48)

Well, I was told, I was asked by Honduras, many of the people in Honduras, they said it was a bit set up. I don't mean B the Biden until he was alive, but it was the people that surround the Resolute desk, surround bite when he was there, which was about 4th of the time. And the people of Honduras really thought he was set up. And it was a terrible thing. He was the president of the country. And they basically said he was a drug dealer because he was the president of the country. And they said it was a night administration set up. And I looked at the facts and I agreed with them. What evidence did you share that he.

Joy Reid (123:25)

Was set up, that he wasn't?

Donald Trump (123:27)

Well, you take a look. I mean, they could say that you take any country you want. If somebody sells drugs in that country, that doesn't mean you arrest the president. But I'm in jail for the rest of this country. Can I just clarify? That includes this country. Okay. To be honest. I mean, if somebody does something wrong, you put the president of the country in jail. They said it was a Biden setup, it was a Biden administration set up. And you have a big race going on this week. Next week, I think it's going to be a very important race of reinterest in Singapore, Honduras. That's what you're talking about, right?

Joy Reid (124:02)

Sorry about that sound. It is the president of Honduras that he parted. He said, look, just because somebody's people are dealing drugs in the country doesn't mean you arrest the president of the country. Really? But you're claiming, Donald Trump, that you've got to remove Maduro from power because people on boats are supposedly carrying drugs somewhere near the United States, which you haven't presented any evidence of anyway.

Joy Reid (124:31)

So the idea that he just has a different view on the tiny number of Somali nationals involved in an alleged fraud. Screen that again. Scott Besant, the guy who has the same mortgage type that Trump is trying to prosecute the New York attorney general for and Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve and Adam Schiff and Eric Squalwell for.

Joy Reid (124:49)

The tariffs are okay guy. The guy who we're supposed to hang our hats on. That guy to okay a sweeping rate of the Twin Cities and shut down refugee status for like less than 2% of the population. I don't understand it. And did I mention that immigrants from all of Sub Saharan Africa, not just Somalia, but all of Sub Saharan Africa, make up only about 8% of all immigrants to this country.

Joy Reid (125:17)

You can see that the waves have changed. Sub Saharan Africa, tiny, tiny number, come from sub Saharan Africa vs other parts of the world. The vast majority of people who immigrate to this country, the incoming immigrants over the last several years have come from Mexico, which is unsurprising because so many people in Mexico have family ties to the United States, because half of this country used to be Mexico.

Joy Reid (125:43)

After that is India, then China, then the Philippines and Cuba. Somalia not on the list. But Trump is targeting for exclusion almost solely Africans and people from Asia, Central America and the Middle East. And why is he doing that? I now refer you to Michael Cohen, who you've seen on the show Trump's former lawyer, who explained this to everyone in a congressional hearing in 2019.

Sean Harris (126:06)

Mr. Trump is a racist.

Joy Reid (126:10)

The country has seen Mr. Trump court white supremacists and bigots. You have heard him call poorer countries shitholes.

Sean Harris (126:20)

His private in private he is even worse.

Joy Reid (126:25)

He once asked me if I could name a country run by a black person that wasn't a shithole.

Donald Trump (126:31)

This was when Barack Obama was president.

Joy Reid (126:33)

Of the United States, and while we.

Donald Trump (126:36)

Were once driving through a struggling neighborhood.

Joy Reid (126:38)

In Chicago, he commented that only black.

Donald Trump (126:42)

People could live that way.

Joy Reid (126:45)

And he told me that black people.

Sean Harris (126:47)

Would never vote for him because they were too stupid.

Joy Reid (126:52)

And yet I continued to work for him.

Joy Reid (126:58)

What he said Trump, per his own former longtime lawyer, is a racist who particularly hates Africans, which presumably is why he has an obsessive hatred of Barack Obama, whose father is African, and why he believed that this half African man should not be in charge of running our country.

Joy Reid (127:19)

As we heard from Dr. John Gartner earlier in the show. He's also sundowning and sundowning so hard that all it takes is one of his minions to shove a newspaper article in front of him saying that some black immigrant somewhere was accused of something. And he's all in on every black immigrant from that country or any other black country or brown country or Asian country being thrown out of the country, even if the person that he's talking about is a sitting United States congresswoman. But please don't bother our here nor evil see no evil media with those facts, because apparently Trump's racist rant is just a different view. Which unfortunately does not surprise me, because this is the same media that refuses to say any words when Trump goes off on women who work with them or even who are them?

Donald Trump (128:08)

Will you let me finish my statement? You are the worst. You're with Bloomberg, right? You are the worst. I don't know why they even have you.

Donald Trump (128:20)

When you say that. Darling, that's fake news.

Joy Reid (128:22)

Why would the Department of Defense. Listen, Be quiet.

Donald Trump (128:25)

Listen. You don't listen. You never listen. That's why you're second rate. It's not the question that I mind. It's your attitude. I think you are a terrible reporter. It's the way you ask these questions. You start off with a man who's highly respected asking him a horrible insubordinate and just a terrible question.

John Gartner (128:47)

I'm not thinking.

Donald Trump (128:48)

Mr. That's okay. I know you're not thinking. You never do.

Joy Reid (128:50)

I'm sorry.

Donald Trump (128:51)

No, go ahead. Because they let him in. Are you stupid? Are you a stupid person?

Joy Reid (128:59)

Or. When he has attacked women over the decades in what has become a habit of gross misogyny that for whatever reason gets swept under the rug by media who largely refuse to acknowledge what they can literally just see and hear with their own eyes. And it's not just Trump. You would never know by listening to most of the media that then Senator J.D. vance literally used an identical slur to the one Trump used on Representative Ilhan Omar against the then sitting Vice President of the United States on the eve of the 2024 election. We are going to take out the.

Sean Harris (129:33)

Trash in Washington D.C. and the trash's.

Joy Reid (129:36)

Name is Kamala Harris.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (129:40)

Trash.

Joy Reid (129:41)

Garbage. Viva difference. This after Vance and Trump dropped a racist libel on Vance's own constituents in Ohio simply because they were Haitian, claiming that this also tiny Haitian immigrant community in Springfield, Ohio were literally eating people's cats and dogs and then tripling down on that lie when they were actually confronted from time to time on it by journalists. Folks, we have a media problem in which unfortunately my profession simply refuses to acknowledge even bald faced racism and misogyny because nobody wants to seem like they're being unfair to conservatives. Nobody wants to seem like they're liberally biased. So when people on the right say these just insanely racist and misogynistic things, or when Trump goes into his sundown mode and starts barking at women journalists, you know, he just has a different view. He said she was garbage. It's just a different view. You know, I'm gonna go with Cohen on this one. Trump is a racist. He's always been a racist and a misogynist creep who said that he could grab women by the pussy and then literally did that to Eugene Carroll and then said she Enjoyed it, he said.

Donald Trump (130:51)

I did to her. She fainted with great emotion. She actually indicated that she loved it. Okay. She loved it until commercial break. In fact, I think she said it was sexy, didn't she? It was very sexy to be raped. Didn't she say that?

Joy Reid (131:08)

So, sir, I just want to confirm.

Donald Trump (131:09)

It'S your testimony that Eugene Carroll said that she loved being sexually assaulted by you. Well, based on her interview with Anderson Cooper, I believe that's what took place.

Donald Trump (131:22)

We can defy that. You'll not to show that. I'm sure you're going to show that, but she was interviewed by Anderson Cooper and I think she said that rape was sexy, which it's not, by the way, but I think she said that rape was sexy. And it was. She actually said things that were very strange. And then she was a different person after the. When he said. We'll take a break right now. We're going to take a break right now. No, he didn't like what she was saying. He was.

Joy Reid (131:53)

By the way, you do realize, Donald, that you answered her question in a way that made it so that you were admitting that you sexually abused Eugene Carol.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (132:02)

Right.

Joy Reid (132:02)

And because she fainted with great emotion and you're claiming. Yeah, that. That you're saying she loved it. Yeah. You admitted you did it. I'm just, just saying that's probably why you lost and why your appeals are not working. So. Yeah, I mean, he, he thinks that. He thinks that it's, you know, he thinks, hey, when you're a star, they let you do it. He said that on tape. He also thinks Africans are garbage. They're shithole countries. Every country that's run by a black person is unrunnable. Women are pigs. It's their own fault if they're sexually abused. He thinks women are piggy and stupid if they ask him questions or whatever else he thinks because he can get away with it because journalism is apparently not allowed to honestly assess what right wing men say. Same thing with Charlie Kirk. Don't quote him. Just say he's a great family man. Don't quote him. Gonna get fired. It's a weird thing where our media now today is about kneeling down low enough to kiss right wing ass. And I don't understand it. And also, why is Matt Gaetz. Why is Matt Gaetz in the press pool now?

Pete Hegseth (133:12)

The process the administration will use to determine whether or not current members of the Venezuelan military or Venezuelan government have.

Joy Reid (133:20)

A role in a post Maduro Venezuela. You say representation matters, Jason. Mind your team. Representation matters.

Joy Reid (133:30)

Well, okay. There. And he still got his representative Matt Gaetz jacket on. If you. If you went and see it. He. He works for, like, Newsmax or something now. So that's weird what is happening.

Joy Reid (133:43)

But anyway.

Joy Reid (133:46)

Yeah, I would love it and enjoy it if any member of the media would push back and say anything other than naughty when Donald Trump says racist things or misogynistic things. It's a dream. I'll keep dreaming. All right, let's move on to our final block, our E block tonight, because guess what? She came so close. Afton Bain, who we had on this show. Look at that margin. It was pretty close. Closest election in decades. And as you see those little numbers there, 96,000 some odd votes for Matt Van Epps, the Republican. 81,000 some odd votes for Afton Bain. So close. So close. So close. But, you know, it was a very, very ruby red.

Joy Reid (134:33)

District, and she made it as close as it's been in a long time. And what I love about Afton Bain, who we got to meet on this show, is the way that she closed out with absolute joy here. Here she is. We may need to turn this on.

Joy Reid (134:56)

So I think you maybe can say it, because this is actually a campaign area.

Sean Harris (135:00)

I don't see any problem with it.

Joy Reid (135:03)

Okay, well, she starts. She comes out.

Joy Reid (135:11)

You can barely hear it there. But she starts sitting, working nine to.

John Gartner (135:14)

Five, which is absolutely adorable. Yes.

Joy Reid (135:18)

We start sitting, working nine to five, dancing thing along.

Donald Trump (135:21)

Because, look, if you're gonna.

Joy Reid (135:22)

If you're gonna go down your.

Sean Harris (135:25)

And we're gonna make that a moment.

Joy Reid (135:26)

Of joy because we're very proud of her running, and I hope that she's not gonna get out of the business of trying to step up and run again. She still has her seat. Apparently, she's a state representative in the state of Tennessee. So she's still gonna have a future in politics, and hopefully she'll try again. Because the reality is, is one of the things I don't like in politics is when people run and they run a really strong race and they don't win, the parties, particularly the Democratic Party, tend to discard them and say, we're just not even gonna mess with you anymore. And I can tell you that coming up next week, we've got someone else who ran a race, did not win the race, and is running again. That's your little teaser for next week, because that's what's going to happen. Last thing I want to throw up before we go. Our other moment of joy is that you all sent $700 to the justice for Greenwood Foundation. This is the thank you note. I wanted to share it with all of you because it's not just a thank you note for the team here at Team tjrs. It is for you guys, those of you who put the little tillers, little coins in the tiller. That's what it added up to. We actually plussed it up. It was like not 700 even. So we just put it up. We plussed it up to make it an even number because we love an even number and we really appreciate everybody who gave to the justice for Greenwood Foundation. They're going to do really good things with it. That is it for the show. I want to thank everybody who tuned in. Thanks to everybody in the chats. Thanks to everybody who listened on Substack, who listened on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Please make sure you hit like and share. And also please subscribe. If you are lurking, please stop lurking and become a subscriber. We don't want you guys to be just, you know, hanging out without joining the fam. We want you guys to be part of the Team TJRS fam. And don't forget, if you buy merch, we appreciate it. I have to show you guys the other mug. This is the big mug. When. This is when, when I know that it's. It's tough out here when I need a big cup of coffee. This is a big I'm a reader mug. It's ginormous. Look, I'll show you the comparison with the. With the little mug. This one actually counts as little compared to this one. But we've got that and lots of other stuff. Thanks to everybody who's bought from the. From the store. And we'll keep the ideas coming. If you want to reach out to us with I with ideas for things that you'd like to see in the store, you can always reach us at readers the joyreadshow.com I need to drink some water. But that's it for the show. Thank you very much. Thanks to our sponsors and we will see you on the next the Joy Reed Show. Bye Bye.

Sean Harris (137:45)

Okay.