Tiffany Cross (10:25)

All.

Joy Reid (10:27)

True story. Democracy docket busted. The lean plaintiff formally described in the lawsuit that reached the high court. He was described in the lawsuit as a non African American voter from Bruce Lee, Louisiana, whose congressional district changed after his state redrew the districts, and a member of the local board of supervisors in 2024. He's actually, however, a guy named Philip Bertkillay, a 2020 election denier who posted video on his Facebook showing that he was at the Capitol with the other insurrectionists on January 6, 2021. His posts, by the way, are no longer available for some reason. He also has a thick Twitter history. We're going to put up a couple of his ex Twitter posts. Jason, please. Screeching about the mail in balloting in Louisiana, demanding that disabled voters find someone to haul them into the polls rather than vote. App absentian election endangered elections. And as you can see in that picture, that's also him posing with a fellow election denier celebrating their Supreme Court win. But you know, I'm sure Samuel Alito had no idea, no idea that he was facing a fellow insurrectionist in the courtroom and making a ruling enshrining Trump's election denial conspiracy theories into law. No idea at all. Joining me now is Judd Legum, founder and former editor of the progressive website Think Progress and author of the political newsletter Popular information on substack. Hey, Judd. Hey.

Judd Legum (11:53)

Good to see you, Joy.

Joy Reid (11:54)

Good to see you too. So how surprised are you, like, how shocked are you to discover that the Calais lead plaintiff is a January 6 election denier insurrectionist?

Judd Legum (12:06)

Well, you know, not that shocked, to

Joy Reid (12:08)

be honest with you.

Judd Legum (12:10)

You've got, you've got these two sort of threads that have been going on, both relating to Republicans seizing control of elections. You kind of have this way out there thread of, you know, people who are signing up fake electors, the, the storming of the Capitol, the conspiracy theories. And then you have the more buttoned up approach of the lawyers and the strategists. They're taking these cases of the Supreme Court and they're kind of chipping away at The Voting Rights Act, a piece at a time until where we have now, there's not much left. And I think what this story shows us is these actually aren't as separate as they might appear. You know, they're, they're different in their rhetoric, they're different in their approach, but they're after the same, same thing, which is power.

Joy Reid (13:04)

And the thing is, when you say they, unfortunately, that includes at least six people on the Supreme Court, right? I mean, you've got the wife, the wives of Alito and Thomas involved in some way, even symbolically in the insurrection, Ginni Thomas more directly, but Mrs. Alito allegedly being the one flying the upside down US flag on her property, him claiming, well, that's her, even though there's no evidence it's not him too. They all seem to agree with the purpose of the insurrection, which is to install Donald Trump permanently in office. Which brings me to some of your reporting on popular info. You're seeing like who's benefiting, right? I mean, you have a piece up on popular info about this grift that is the defense budget, $1.7 trillion. Who benefits?

Judd Legum (13:52)

Well, that picture you've got up there right now, Trump is showing the golden dome. And that's a huge project, you know, many tens of billions of dollars in this budget, but ultimately it could be much, much more. And that's really a huge transfer of wealth to a lot of the close associates of Donald Trump. You need an enormous amount of satellites to put this up. And the company that's putting those satellites up in the air, you've got SpaceX, Elon Musk. You now kind of understand why Bezos has taken such a hard turn to the right, trying to ingratiate himself because he's also competing with Musk, trying to get those satellites up. Now, the people who are the scientists will tell you there really isn't a way to put up enough satellites to make this thing actually work, because you can now throw all these drone, you know, addition to the missiles, you can have the decoys and everything else. But to try to put this up, you will need to put up a lot of these satellites. And then on top of that, you've got the software that is running the whole system. That's Palantir, Peter Thiel, he's the one who's, who's doing that. So it's really this giant pool of money for a system that probably will never work. I mean, this has obviously been going on since the 1980s with Star Wars. This sort of idea that you're going to create this force field in space over the United States. But there's a, there's a fundamental problem, which is just that the technology of the missiles and how many you can send is always going to outpace your defense. You know, so it's, it's an enormous expense. You can see why it's gaining traction. But ultimately, it looks like it's just going to be a huge waste of resources.

Joy Reid (15:53)

Well, I mean, it's a waste of resources if you're the taxpayer, but if you're a defense contractor, it's endless money. Right. It's the same way that they've built, you know, sort of planes for the military that ultimately have to be scrapped because they're subsufficient. They're, they're, they're, they're, they're not, you know, they're insufficient. They don't do what they're supposed to do. Star wars itself was a huge glut of money that went to defense contractors. If you're Palantir or you're Jeff Bezos's company or your Elon's company, you don't care if ultimately it doesn't work. You just keep getting the money. It's like, you know, here in New York, when they're paving the roads and it takes like a decade, you just keep getting paid. This is a grift. Yeah.

Judd Legum (16:29)

And one of the things that's really been remarkable, the Trump administration hasn't been, the second Trump administration hasn't been in place for that long. They're coming into with a baseline military budget of 8,900 billion dollars. He's proposing for next year 1.5. So you have almost a doubling of. Already was a huge amount of money. We have almost doubled it in two years. So just the amount of money that is sloshing around is unbelievable. And by, by the way, they, they passed a law, I think it was about seven, eight years ago, saying you got to audit the Pentagon every year. You got to audit it. They've never passed an audit. There's, there's billions, hundreds of billions of dollars. They don't know what's happening to it, where it is, where they can't account for all of the assets they have. I mean, this is one of the biggest sinkholes. Of course, it's not something that DOGE or any of these government efficiency committees really look into, but this is where so much of the nation's resources are going.

Joy Reid (17:42)

Oh, Judge, Silly, silly. You're supposed to. DOGE is supposed to cut food for Poor kids in Africa. That's what Doge is accomplished.

Judd Legum (17:51)

That they did accomplish.

Joy Reid (17:52)

They did accomplish. That last thing before I let you go, is the other grift here. And it's the reason a lot of even MAGA supporters are scratching their heads and not really believing the assassination attempt that just happened at the White House Correspondents Dinner. Suddenly, surprise, surprise. Donald Trump's 300 million turned $400 million ballroom, which is now a billion dollar budget. Senate Republicans are saying, voila. Because of what happened at the White House Correspondents Dinner, the American people should pay a billion dollars for it. Your thoughts?

Judd Legum (18:22)

Yeah, I mean, this was something we were told this was going to be paid through private funds and then it was going to cost $200 million. Now it's a billion dollars. It's a, there's a big hole in the White House but beside the White House. So it does seem like a bait and switch here. And whatever happened at the White House correspondence did or this attack, it sort of seems like, well, if it was unsafe to go there, maybe he shouldn't have gone. But it doesn't necessarily mean you need a big ballroom at the White House. They've been having large events at the White House. All the presidents have them. So you can do it without a ballroom and you could be relatively safe, I think.

Joy Reid (19:07)

But maybe he shouldn't have gone with the entire continuity of government and put them all in the room and had almost no Secret Service service active. I mean, the lightest security that people had seen ever. And having been to that ball in the past, which I never would go back, it's usually really tight security and this time it wasn't. It's all very strange. Judd Legum, I appreciate you promote your, your, your wonderful substack and let people know where they can. Yeah.

Tiffany Cross (19:32)

If you want to, want to hear

Judd Legum (19:33)

more of what I've got to say four times a week, go to popular.info it's popular information and that's where I'm putting up my writing.

Joy Reid (19:42)

And I am a subscriber and can tell you it's good stuff. It's stuff that you're not going to hear all the time on mainstream media. Judd Leggum, you're the best. Thank you very much.

Judd Legum (19:50)

Thanks for having me, Joy.

Joy Reid (19:51)

Thank you very much. And so there you go. The Supreme Court justices making tons of money, their wives getting Buku rich off the Supreme Court gig, the Pentagon contractors all eating. Everybody seems to be eating. It's very interesting. Right. Let's acknowledge one of our other incredible sponsors this one's quite apropos for the Evening Detroit Read show tonight is brought to you by Bullies, Paradise, Parasites and Slaves. Surprisingly enough, just weirdly apropos for the moment, a book by Dr. George Byron Koch. Now you heard me talk about this book before. Underpaid workers subsidize the wealthy. The average retail clerk makes $15 per hour with zero health care. The CEO on average makes $8,000 per hour literally with complete healthcare and benefits. If you want to read an expose on all of this nonsense, you can find it at VPS Online and also how to change it in one book. The book teaches us to think again about who we allow to lead us in our nation and the world. This is not the way it has to be. Bullies, Paradise Parasites and Slaves by George Koch is free if you need it at BPS online. Or you can just text the word CARE to 5 11, 511 or online at BPS Online. Text CARE to 511-511. You can get it now. It can change your life. It's a way to really understand what we're seeing as it seems that everyone is grifting and they're using racism and anti blackness as the key to to get their base to go along with it while they themselves are getting robbed. The book is Bullies, Parasites and Slaves by George Koch. Check it out. Text CARE to 511-511 or go to BPS online. You can actually get it for free. Text Fees may apply. All right, so remember this instant classic

Tiffany Cross (21:47)

white male who's experienced discrimination at work based on your race or sex. You may have a claim to recover money under federal civil rights laws. Contact the EEOC as soon as possible. Time limits are typically strict for filing a claim. The EEOC is the federal agency charged with enforcing federal anti discrimination law against businesses and other private sector employers. The EOC is committed to identifying, attacking and eliminating all forms of race and sex discrimination, including against white male applicants and employees. Check out EEOC.gov to learn more and read our one page explainer about DEI related discrimination.

Joy Reid (22:29)

Well, someone bit, you know because she said including but she really just means just just the white guys. The eeoc, the agency led by that woman, her name is Andrea Lucas and she's a longtime proponent of this idea of quote unquote reverse discrimination. Putting up the bat signal for white men to bring their potential lawsuits to her so they can so that she can help advance Trump's the Trump regime's cause of restoring 19th century social hierarchy to multiracial America. That agency led by her, is now suing the New York Times. Here's how the paper reported the lawsuit. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the New York Times on Tuesday claiming that the paper had engaged in, quote, unlawful employment practices and had discriminated against a white male employee because he didn't get a sought after promotion. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. district Court for the Southern District of New York says the Times stated race and sex based representation goals influenced the decision not to advance the man's candidacy for a deputy real estate editor role in 2025, the year of Trump. The New York Times categorically rejects the politically motivated allegations brought by the Trump administration's EEOC, said Danielle Rhodes Daniel Rhodes, H.A. a spokesman for the Times, Our employment practices are merit based and focus on recruiting and promoting the best talent in the world. We will defend ourselves vigorously. I hope that they stand strong. The lawsuit followed a rapid escalation of an investigation that began last year when an employee filed a complaint with the eeoc, likely in response to that video in New York. And the lawsuit indicates that the employee, who was not named, had worked at the paper as an editor since 2014 and applied for the deputy editor job in 2013. 25 it is this warping of critical race theory turning like upside down the whole notion of racial discrimination so that the only group literally who can make such a claim are white men. Women can't make it. Gay people can't make it. Black people certainly can't make it. No one can make it. Only white men. That is who this administration is vowing to protect. It's really the perfect ending to a movement to eradicate DEI that was launched by right wing think tanks, including the guy who was the face of it, a guy named Christopher Ruffo who if you put up B3 Jason telegraphed back in 2021, the year that I interviewed him on MSNBC, the artist formerly Known that his goal was to make it so that if white Americans heard anything that made them uncomfortable, that they would brand it as DEI and oppose it. Joining me now is Kimberly Crenshaw, one of the key architects and creators of the real Critical race theory, not Christopher Ruffo theory. She's a pioneering scholar and writer on civil black feminist legal theory, race, racism and the law. She was a founder and has been a leader in the intellectual movement of actual critical race theory. She's a distinguished professor at ucla, professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and the co founder of an executive director of the African American Policy Forum. She has a great new memoir out called Back Talker, which lets you get behind the scenes of the mind that built critical race theory. Kim Crenshaw, welcome.

Kimberlé Crenshaw (25:34)

Hi, Joy. So good to be back.

Joy Reid (25:37)

So good to be. Good to see you again. So before we get into the book, your, your response briefly to this New York Times, this lawsuit against the New York Times, which absolutely does invert the idea of critical race theory on its end.

Kimberlé Crenshaw (25:50)

Yeah, well. And it inverts the idea of equality. Look, we've seen this coming for quite some time. If DEI is anywhere involved or. Now, even if it isn't, the belief that white males should always win is going to be a prima facie condition of any claim that they're going to make. When they see a person that's not them in a position of power and a position of authority, that is, by definition, discrimination. And, you know, the president has led the way whenever he sees a person of color, whether it's in a position of authority in the military, whether it's a position of authority of authority in any other government agency, by definition, to him and others who think like him, they are sitting in a seat that belongs to a white male. We're going to have, we're going to see a whole lot more of that.

Joy Reid (26:46)

Right. I mean, it basically opens the door. And you know, the head of the eeoc, by the way, a job Clarence Thomas used to have, and he kind of used it in a similar way. Right. Anytime they see, anytime they now ask for promotion, you're working at your job. I want a promotion. And they don't get it. And anybody black or a woman or gay gets it, they'll say, aha, I've been discriminated against. And now they have a willing partner in the eeoc, in the Justice Department. They could just get that organization sued by the government. I mean, it is a really interesting way to Karen your way to getting everything you want, whether you deserve it or not.

Kimberlé Crenshaw (27:21)

And let's talk about what the condition of that possibility is. When the government claims that any kind of history that explains why an institution is disproportionately white, when they claim that textbooks and artifacts of that past are improper ideologies that ground these claims for greater inclusion, they're basically removing any evidence that you might be able to point to to say that the institution needs to diversify or to say that we need to have policies and practices that ensure equitable access to everyone. They're taking away our ability to identify what is inequitable. And this is the end Point.

Joy Reid (28:14)

And the thing that's so wild about it is that the New York Times is overwhelmingly white and probably the ed staff is overwhelmingly male. And just really quickly, kudos to our intern, Bella. U.S. senators 65 to 70% white male. U.S. members of U.S. congress 55 to 60% white CEOs are white, are 70 to 75% white men. Businesses receiving angel investments, 75% white men. Employees at Silicon Valley 60 to 70% in leadership roles, white men. So white men are doing pretty well. They are the vast majority in every position, everything.

Kimberlé Crenshaw (28:53)

And joy, let's not forget the recipients of investment capital. So an effort in the Fearless Fund case to bring capital to black women who get less than 1% of all venture capital dollars is turned into a discrimination case against the Fearless Fund. My colleague and co founder Luke Harris says that all of these reverse discrimination cases are about the diminished over representation of white people. It's, it's not even getting close. The diminishment of the tremendous overrepresentation. That's what this constitutional crises is all about, in their view.

Joy Reid (29:38)

Yeah. And by the way, when I cite 60 to 70% know that white men are 30% of the population. So they are, they are represented times two in everything. If. So if you're 30% of the population but you're 70% of the CEOs and then you're like, but I didn't get this one job, I want more. That means what do you want to be like 100% apparently. So pretty much. I want to start with just a fundamental question. I've asked you this back when I was on at the Artist formerly known as msnbc. But just tell us what actually is critical race theory?

Kimberlé Crenshaw (30:09)

Critical race theory is the recognition that inequality can be produced without there being complicit express statements of racial intent. There is no need to have a burning rope, as we sometimes call it, in order to identify the way that institutions can enact racial inequality even through colorblind race neutral policies. That's what critical race theory studies. And it especially is looking at the role that law has played in facilitating greater and long term forms of racial exclusion.

Joy Reid (30:46)

Your book is called Back Talker and it sort of builds you toward understanding you so that we can understand how you. There it is. There's the book. And is that you and your brother?

Kimberlé Crenshaw (30:56)

Yes.

Joy Reid (30:58)

And so how did you become such a back talker, ma'? Am? And what, what, what built the mind that built Critical Race Theory?

Kimberlé Crenshaw (31:05)

Well, you know, I became, I became a back talker sitting at the knee of My mother and also my father, they were quintessential race men and women of the 20th century, and they got it natural. My mother, as a three year old was taken by her mother to integrate the local swimming pool. My grandfather on the other side was investigated by HUAC for using the church to do labor organizing and civil rights organizing. So I, I, there are ways in which I think, you know, I can't really claim being a back talker as part of my, you know, sort of personality. I was made into a back talker. I had to go to the dinner table every night with something that I observed in the world to say something about it. So it kind of, it came naturally to me to be a back talker.

Joy Reid (31:57)

Yeah. And so as you were going through sort of your educational, you know, sort of journey, what led you to kind of the components of taking what you were of experience, experience growing up and saying there's a whole theory behind the way we as, as black folks in this country have to move in such a way that there needs to be something that codifies it as a legal theory.

Kimberlé Crenshaw (32:19)

Yeah. So, Joy, it really comes from putting together some of the stories of my childhood. I mean, I remember moving into a neighborhood that was nearly all white. When we came to look at the house, there were a lot of white kids playing in the street. When we actually moved in, it's like they, they all disappeared. Absence. The month of absen went indoors. Right. So recognizing how neighborhoods turn, seeing real estate folks come to my, my mom's house and, you know, trying to thinking that my mom actually was not the black family that moved in. She was relatively light skinned, trying to, to block, bust. Having a woman that we used to call Barefoot Annie. She couldn't afford to move out, but she hated the fact that we were there, so she was always calling us names and trying to spray us with water. So those are moments where it became clear that there was something attached to us, something attached to the way we look that meant that we were going to be treated differently. But the systemic recognition came when my mother lost two homes in an apartment building to urban renewal, which was otherwise known as black removal. And the way they were able to steal so much black property, not by saying no black people can own property, but by saying this neighborhood right here, we're going to raise this neighborhood and we're going to do it to build an industrial park, we're going to take away their property to build a highway, because everyone's going to benefit from that, right?

Joy Reid (33:58)

Wrong.

Kimberlé Crenshaw (33:59)

Everyone didn't benefit from that black folks were unable to pass on any kind of intergenerational wealth because it was a leaky bucket. They were always able to create some kind of policy or practice to take the property away. So by the time I got to college and then onto law school, I knew there was something called institutional or systemic racism. I knew it didn't require a bull Connor to say, we hate black people. We're going to take your stuff. I knew the law helped facilitate that. What I wanted to learn was how it helps facilitate it and how we can argue, lobby and mobilize against it. And that is more or less the observation that made me particularly interested in thinking critically about race and the law.

Joy Reid (34:48)

There's this weird thing where what anti blackness is in this country is telling black people stop complaining about slavery, but then trying to essentially recreate the conditions of slavery where you can't have anything and saying, build up your neighborhoods. And then we do, and they're like, we're burning this down because we don't like the fact that you have it. And then they say, get to, you know, get, get into Congress and just, why don't you get your own elected officials who can like pass stuff for your neighborhoods? And then we do, and they're like, oh, you can't have any members of Congress. We just need to let the white people have the Congress seats. Sorry. You know, it's like every time that black people, like, do what it is that this society says to do in order to be upstanding citizens and civically minded and have good neighborhoods, they say, yeah, yeah, you can't have that. We're burning all that shit down. You can't have any. As if the. Their only answer is the original condition. The only place that they're comfortable with black people is enslaved. Because if we're free in any way or we have anything, they're mad about it.

Kimberlé Crenshaw (35:41)

Well, some of the stories that I tell in the book Joy have to do with recognizing that it's not our lack of success that justifies their attitude against us. It's when we win. And that is why we're in the middle of a backlash, unlike one we've seen since Reconstruction when black people won. So we're in a long term reaction to the elevation of Barack Obama. We're in a long term reaction to the fact that it was black folks who delivered the electoral victory to Biden. It's when we play the game that we're told we're supposed to play, and we play it well. That creates the most serious, the most violent, the most repressive kind of backlash. We've seen it all over history and that's what we're seeing now.

Joy Reid (36:32)

What's the most important thing people will learn from Back Talker?

Kimberlé Crenshaw (36:35)

They will learn that back talking is what we need to fight against backsliding. We don't know exactly what's going to happen, but we know that if we don't talk back against authoritarianism, and in particular that anti blackness that is at the core of this authoritarian moment, something that many of our allies don't want to talk about, if we don't put that in the mix, if we don't back talk against those racial tyranny that is at the core of so much of authoritarianism in this country, then even if that current occupant in the White House may one day have to vacate it, there is no guarantee that we will be part of the recovery of that democracy. So we've got to back talk right now for any hope of a future in which black folks are not left under heel.

Joy Reid (37:26)

Yeah, give me a little backtalk on this question of race neutrality. Because what Samuel Alito does that's so insidious is he says, all we want is race two childhood. We just want what Dr. King wanted. They grow to the color of our skin. Not content of our character. By the way, the content of the character of everyone in the Trump administration is terrible. These people have no character, no intelligence, no merit. These are the dumbest, most corrupt, foolish there are. I mean, heads up alone.

Kimberlé Crenshaw (37:50)

This is unqualified, unqualified, not even qualified.

Joy Reid (37:54)

They're just like you, white, your man, you get the job. Right? So tell me why this idea of colorblindness is actually black.

Kimberlé Crenshaw (38:02)

They are relying on us not really knowing our history. They are relying on the fact that we don't know that. In fact, even when they were trying to disenfranchise black people immediately after Reconstruction, they were doing it through race neutral means that were racially specific. Think about it. A grandfather class. They didn't say black people can't vote. They could say, you could only vote if your grandfather voted. Right. We all knew the grandfathers at that time were enslaved people. So that was race neutral. The poll tax was race neutral. The interpretation clause was race neutral. So they've always known how to use race neutral means in order to achieve race specific ends. That's why the Voting Rights act was so beautiful. It's why it was a crown jewel, because they said, look, we're not going to tell you the specific things you can't do, we're going to tell you the effects that you can't create. You cannot create an electoral system that dilutes the power of the black vote, the ability of black people to elect someone of their choice. That's the reason they've gone after Section 2 of the Voting Rights act, because it basically says it's about your fair share of power. Doesn't matter how they go about it. If that's what they're trying to do or that's what they're effectively doing, it's illegal. So now they're going to take that away. They're going. And here's the last thing that's really, really important. They say that drawing districts to protect incumbency is race neutral. Can we talk about this? We're in Louisiana. Incumbency is all about a race specific project. So now you can continue to draw districts that will allow Bubba to get elected in perpetuity. The effect on black political power, cracking it, stacking it, making it impossible for black folk to elect someone of their choice in order to make sure that they're not robbing the incumbent of his ability to get re elected. That's considered to be. That's considered to be okay. And if we try to respond to that and say, no, you can't do this to black communities. You can't take away their ability to elect someone of their choice because you want Bubba to get elected, that becomes the racial problem.

Joy Reid (40:30)

Right? And the. Oh, Kimberly Crenshaw. You know, the only racism is literally saying the N word with a hard R, not the A in a rap song. There's no other such thing as racism. They didn't say like black slavery. They just said slave. Enslaved people. And then it just happened that only black people could be slaves. It's race neutral. Kimberly Crenshaw. The book is Backtalker. It's available in the store. If you go to shop.thejoyreadshow.com you can get your own copy. Let's make this book a bestseller. You all this is essential history from the actual creator of critical race theory, not the fake one, Chris Rufeld. Thank you, Kimberly. Congratulations on the book.

Kimberlé Crenshaw (41:07)

Always a pleasure.

Joy Reid (41:09)

Thank you very much. Yeah, y'.

Kristen Clarke (41:11)

All.

Joy Reid (41:11)

You know they say it's race neutral, man. It's just slavery. It just says slavery. It didn't say black slavery. Oh, by the way, only black people can be slaves. Ta da. Race neutral. Okay, we gotta. Let's flip the script. Do you guys remember this classic, classic trailer? Take a look One man I love is Mary and got a kid. You tell my baby girl that her daddy loves it.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (41:34)

To find the perfect love.

Tiffany Cross (41:36)

Michael is not pretty, but he's available.

Joy Reid (41:38)

You get the best loving in the world when a man is begging.

Kimberlé Crenshaw (41:42)

Oh.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (41:44)

To take control of their lives.

Jason (41:46)

I'm leaving you for her.

Joy Reid (41:48)

You wait a minute. I give you 11 years of my life and you're telling me you're leaving me for another woman? Huh? That was Waiting to Exhale, one of the greatest films of all time and starring just a incredible star studded cast. That was like 1995. Can you believe that? Do you feel old? Because that was. And you know, the. The song Waiting to Exhale by Whitney Houston was a part of it. The soundtrack was epic. But the story of sisterhood and black love and the search for love was the foundation of the story and also of a lot of the classic black films of the 1990s. This idea of loving oneself, loving one's sisters, loving one's community and searching for love was like a theme of a lot of the music of the 90s, a lot of the classic black films in the 90s, and the TV, the cable TV version of that, on the day when we're talking about Ted Turner, the cable TV version to me of Waiting to Exhale was. It came from the brilliant journalist who gave us moments like these on her very own cable news show and on CNN's most caustic panel show. Take a look.

Tiffany Cross (43:03)

As we commemorate Women's History Month, I thought it might be a great time to talk about sisterhood. Not long ago, I was speaking at a conference about the need for more black women to be decision makers. And a white woman offered a retort saying that we cannot bring people along before they're ready, and went on to suggest. Suggests that we unite as women, all women, no matter what color, against these men who are trying to control our bodies. But diversity, that takes time. She said, girl. Bye. That's what I said. I just don't always have the energy to break out my PhD in white supremacy and educate the willfully ignorant. And that's essentially what Karen, Sharon Osborne demanded on a recent episode of the Talk when she was defending, of all people, Piers Morgan and his racist remarks about Meghan Markle. Wow. When I saw that scene from Atlanta, I knew I had to talk about it on this week's Cross Connection because it's really not something we see on TV every day. And that's black men in therapy. And of course, you may remember Kendrick Lamar's album which dropped this summer that also explores this very timely topic. Now, according to researchers, black men are about half as likely to pursue counseling and as their white counterparts when experiencing anxiety or depression.

Joy Reid (44:15)

Well, the first, I mean, you know, you phrased this as a retreat from Minnesota. I would say it's not a retreat.

Judd Legum (44:20)

I would say it's a successful mission

Joy Reid (44:22)

that is now over.

Tiffany Cross (44:24)

You're calling this they shot a mother in the face and a nurse in the back, and you're calling that a success. So at best, at best, this is a tap dancing performance for Donald Trump, or at worst, it is a gross lack of humanity for fellow human beings.

Joy Reid (44:37)

Things joining me now. Well, by the way, her new book, her new book is called Love Me A Letter to Black Woman in a Toxic Country, Career and Relationship, which went on sale officially yesterday and which you can and should buy in hardcover at thejewelry shop@shop.thejewelryreadshow.com the host of the Cross Connection, one of the most epic TV shows ever, ever, ever. My, my friend and sister. And yes, we are, we just say we're related. We are related. We're both Ghanaian people. Tiffany Cross.

Tiffany Cross (45:11)

Hey, girl. Joy, oh my God, that clip segment just made my heart so warm. I'm so happy to be in community with you. I have to tell you, my pub day was yesterday. And I want your audience to know the kind of person that Joy is. She's like, it's your pub day. We're going to get cocktails. And we went to one of Joy's favorite spots in New York. I won't say, but we went there and just had all the cocktails and Sunny came and my good friend, our good friend Van Newkirk came and I just, I was so proud to spend my pub day with you because those clips would not have happened had it not been not only for our friendship, but your belief in me as a journalist and for you to deem me worthy of filling your shoes, which, you know, who can ever fill the shoes of Joy Reid? But for you to say, yeah, girl, get out there and try it and do it and take this space and make it your own, I would not have gotten that opportunity were it not for you. And you say if you can't name your replacement, you're not ready to move on. And so I'm, I'm so forever in your debt for greasing the wheels for that opportunity for me because it was a life changing moment. And just knowing you has been life changing. So I love you and I'M just so thrilled to share space with you.

Joy Reid (46:22)

You are too kind. And by the way, I was only passing a torch that was passed to me by Melissa Harris Perry, our dear friend and one of the legends of Cable 10, the OG in that 10am space that was a sacred space for black women. But I have to tell you, this book, you know, I have named it, I tell you, I had to put Waiting to Exhale on to start this segment because to me, your show, the Cross Connection was our Waiting to Exhale in cable news forum. And it's like it was the most similar to that because it was about friendship, it was about community. It was a moment for us just as viewers to feel like we were your girlfriend, we were your good girlfriend as you were talking us through issues that dealt not just with the black community, you know, anything from black men and needing, you know, the idea of therapy, but also the AAPI community centering the, you know, the Asian hate, the indigenous communities. Listen, Jassy Ross, I know him because, you know, right. He was on your show every week. So talk a little bit about the really traumatic story of getting that, of getting that show, which I had put together as two separate events because you were dealing with a major health crisis at the time, that your historic show was also being greenlit, which I had somehow in my mind separated as two separate. But, you know, my mind we working like that. And Joy, I re remembered it was the same exact time. Tiffany.

Tiffany Cross (47:42)

Yes. Yes. So Joy, we pray for Joy's memory. Joy was literally with me every single day during this process. We were talking, we were texting, we were chatting. But I love that so much. It feels like 100 years ago because so much time has passed.

Joy Reid (47:58)

Yes. And you were reading like, what I didn't know that was the same time.

Tiffany Cross (48:04)

Yes. And the re. So what. What happened? I was having a hysterectomy at the time. And I later went on to talk about this and the disproportionate impact of fibroids of black women on the Cross Connection. But I was having surgery at the time. And I tell this story in more detail in the book from my own perspective, but also from a black woman's perspective, from a historic perspective. And while I was on my sick bed, literally having been sawed in half, I talk about what was happening in the process. And there was a person who went to I, I appeared on their flagship morning show and had a debate with Joe Scarborough. And he. I didn't think it was a debate. I thought I was just giving Factual information. And he afterwards, basically, according to a few sources who later spoke to me, he told people that he didn't want me to have the show. And he felt like I called him a racist on television. And so I get this news while I'm on my hospital bed. My wonderful doctor, Dr. Lynn Lightfoot, said, listen, it's your time to heal. So I don't want you watching the news. I don't want anything that can stress you out. I just want you to relax and heal. And when I heard that news, I was maybe 36 hours out of surgery, and my body, I felt my core tighten. I got hot. I was sweating because I was so uptight. I worked so hard, not just in the immediate process of trying to get this show, but since I was 15 years old pursuing this career of journalism. And so I write what happens after that. But Joy, you were there. Even though you don't remember, you were there every step of the way.

Joy Reid (49:48)

Oh, I remember being there for the surgery. I'm just like, wait a minute, this lady was. By the way, you have to read the book because she takes you through it. You really actually almost physically feel the pain because she's filling in in the spot. Because I was already being transitioned into the primetime spot. So she was filling in unpaid, by the way. This is another story about the cable news world. Unpaid fill in day after day and having to negotiate to be able to at least do it in D.C. rather than travel with your surgical. I remember them. Surgical. You have. You were.

Tiffany Cross (50:19)

Yes.

Joy Reid (50:19)

Up. Your whole body was wrapped in tape.

Tiffany Cross (50:22)

Yes.

Joy Reid (50:23)

And you're then having to move from city to city as a fill in unpaid. One of the things I think that it talks about that this book really kind of highlights that I think is for a lot of people who are trying to get into the business is some of the cruelty of the business. Yeah, right. It's a very unfeeling business in a lot of ways. Even though the thing you're creating, you're pouring your heart into completely.

Tiffany Cross (50:44)

And you know, I. I don't want to. I don't want to present this as though we're the only people going through it. I think that is what I try to communicate in the book. Whether you are a black woman on a TV news set, whether you're an associate in retail, whether you're at a law firm, no matter where you are, there is an armor. We have to sheathe our swords. You know, before we go into a space and adjust so much of who we are, naturally to try to navigate their world. And so, you know, it's not a memoir. I'm just saying, look, here's the stuff I went through. Here's the things of Joy went through this, too, and how we were able to navigate that. Like. Like, for example, during my certain. The recovery of my surgery, I had to come off. I didn't. I wasn't getting paid. I had no healthcare insurance. I had to come off bed rest early because the network was like, we want to see her one more time. Even though I had filled in, like, six or seven times, you know, and they did. They dgaf. Okay. They were like, we need her to come back and fill in one more time. Joy, Sunny, Sunny Hassan, Angela Rye, Brittany Pagnet, Alicia Garza, our whole Machete crew, they were sending me, like, robes and, you know, just things for comfort. And I was so surrounded in all this love. And I had to come off bed rest early being sawed in half. And there was. It was covet. So there's no hair and makeup, and I'm, like, literally sitting on the edge of the tub, feeling like my insides are falling out, trying. And I couldn't. I didn't have the strength to do all my hair. So I was like, you know what? They're only gonna see the front of my hair. I' ma just curl the front of my hair, and the back is gonna look like I licked my finger and stuck it in the socket. And that's just what's gonna be what it is. And I had to get. You know, I'll go in and audition for the show again. And when I finally got the show, it was still somewhat diluted. They disrupted the space of this being a space to be led by black women. They gave, you know, the Saturday show to me and the Sunday show to Jonathan Capehart, who, you know, has his own experience, but I did not experience him. I've experienced him as being a black person, of course, but not always a black voice. Respectfully. We, you know, just did not navigate things the same way, you know, and that's what. What happened. And so I talk about that process, because even though that's what I went through, there is a woman who was due to make partner who didn't get it because of similar circles. There was a woman who should be the store manager, but she didn't get it because of some unfair bs. There was a woman who should have been promoted to the CEO, cfo, cio, cmo, whatever, and she didn't get it because of similar circumstances. So I talk about the toxic relationship that we as black women have with our careers. That so that is not specific to cable news. But I thought in order for me to ask of black women to love ourselves deeper, I had to be bold enough to bear myself and show my scars and show the things that you may read and say, oh, that was a misstep on her part. Or you may read and say, oh, no, I understand her. And even in talking about the demise of the show, I really didn't put a lot of stank on, you know, anybody's name. I really just tried to display. This is what happened. Because there are occasions where we splinter. But for majority of my life, and particularly with our friendship, I. The way that we are able to navigate these spaces, the way that I was able to get through is because I had you right there with me. We could go to each other's offices and complain. We could talk on the phone and, you know, try to navigate and figure out and strategize. And those things were so important. I don't think I would have survived without you. I could not have survived that place without you. I wouldn't have wanted to.

Joy Reid (54:07)

It was. Yeah. And I think, as you said, it's every. And I wouldn't have wanted to be in that place without you. I mean, you were such a brilliant finder. I felt so proud of myself. I'm like, ooh, look at this. This person is associated with me. I'm like, But I mean, I think the thing that you do in the book that is really special and really important, I think for everyone, no matter what business or career you're in, is it is a very vulnerable book. And there's a theme that goes throughout it that I think people who see you on TV and see your confidence will be surprised by, which is this navigation of this challenge of feeling unworthiness. And I think all women go through this. No matter how successful you are or what you achieve, the challenge of really believing yourself to be worthy of it. Talk a little bit about why you decided to open yourself up and open your soul up in that way and talk about that.

Tiffany Cross (54:52)

You know, I think there, there comes a knowingness to you when you get to be a certain age and I'm navigating middle age and I see, you know, 30 year old women and I have a knowingness, you know, I can see the unworthiness, the sense of unworthiness draped all over them. And that unworthiness can also. It's a short trip from being feeling unworthy to feeling unlovable. And I really had to probe myself when I found myself at the. The bottom, you know, in the depths of life's darkness. When I had this toxic relationship. I was, you know, I lost my job. This multi billion dollar company was trying to humiliate me. This empire of a country was, you know, saying it's okay to be openly hostile to black women. That in those moments I had to probe, why do I feel so unworthy and why do I feel so unlovable? Because this is not something that came when I face confronted challenges in my life. This was something that I've carried with me. And sometimes, you know, that comes from our home unintentionally. But it can be something as small as, you know, your parents saying, don't you get out here and embarrass me in front of these white folks. As if white folks are somebody to impress, you know, as immediately you think, oh, they are the, the better, you know, community of people or. And you have to unlearn that behavior. When you go into a space and you're surrounded by white folks, you have to unlearn the. The instinct to shrink. You have to unlearn the. The instinct to be quiet and kind of unheard and to apologize for your presence. So every part of society since I was born had taught me on some level, you are unworthy, you're unattractive, you're unmarriable, your hair is bad, your family structure is wrong, your belief systems are wrong, your idea of community doesn't look like ours. And I think we all go through that. We all go through that. And that permeated every area of my life. And I don't know that I really fully understood it, but I knew I was displaying behaviors that promoted it. I just, everything I got, I felt a little unworthy. I had subordinates on my team at the Cross connection who felt like they were peers, you know, that we were professional peers, that they could challenge me in a way. And those moments tested my resolve. You know, are you going to feel unworthy in this moment, or are you going to assert yourself as the leader of this show and establish protocols that are just okay? And I think, think so many black women in professional spaces go through that because it's not the natural order of things for some white people to be instructed or employed by or paid by a black woman. And I just, I wanted to probe those things on a very deep and personal level. Joy and very unfiltered. You know, it's interesting because people have started reading the book and people are dming me and making these comments and, you know, citing things that are very personal in my life. And I'm reading them, like, can you get out of my business? Like, how do you know that? And I'm like, oh, I wrote that. Never mind, girl. Okay, I got it. I got it. Like, I forget so much that I shared so much. But the truth is, like, I feel. I just feel grateful. I feel so close and so in community. Because, you know, Joy, you and I may not have. Have said all the things that I write in the book out loud. And our, you know, on our machete vacations, we certainly talk deeply and share deeply with each other and in whatever sister circles that we navigate. But there are some things that are in the depths of our spirit that we may not feel comfortable sharing at brunch tables that we may not feel comfortable saying out loud. And I try to pin that in this book. I try to give language, to give voice to those feelings and those thoughts, because I do think that level of self awareness is contagious. I hope that level of courage and the only way out is through. And so first, acknowledging it is you. You can't disrupt it before you acknowledge it. And just knowing, like, oh, I was meant to feel this way. The structure of this country makes me feel this way. The structure of how we, you know, these. These systems are for our labor. They're built by white men for white men. Like, we're having to adjust. I'm meant to feel this way. I'm meant to feel unwelcome in this office space. I'm meant to feel grateful to work 12 hours a day for, you know, a company making a white man richer. And so, yeah, and I'm meant to feel unlovable. You know, this is a country that has long told us we aren't beautiful, you know, and so, yeah, I just. I wanted to bear it all. I wanted to bear my soul and hoping that it would prompt discussion among black women, their circles, with their therapists, but most importantly, with ourselves.

Joy Reid (59:33)

With ourselves. And this is something that you have done throughout your career. I have to play before I let you go. So, you guys, Jason, if you could roll this next thing that is a great memory from our days at msnbc, wanted to make this not just a sisterhood experience, but also a cultural experience.

Tiffany Cross (59:52)

You embody the spirit of Shirley Chisholm in her office.

Kristen Clarke (59:57)

We are seen as a problem in this country, but of course, I argue that we're the solution.

Tiffany Cross (60:02)

We have that super woman cape on all the time, and we forget that

Joy Reid (60:07)

it's okay to take the cape off.

Tiffany Cross (60:09)

Here's to black women.

Joy Reid (60:11)

The culture is Black Women.

Kristen Clarke (60:13)

Sunday, June 19 at 10 on MSNBC.

Joy Reid (60:17)

First of all, can I briefly honor that wig? That was my face. That was a good wig. I'm sorry. That was a good wig.

Tiffany Cross (60:24)

You know what? You look gorgeous. But this look, Joy, when you came out with this, it was a game changer. You look gorgeous on this show. But I remember. I remember seeing this look, and I was like, this is it. This look framed her face. Yes. You look so beautiful with this haircut.

Joy Reid (60:39)

Well, one of the things that you will learn in Love Me, which you definitely should buy. Remember, it's available in the store, is the creation of that special that was a journey in and of itself. And it was one of those moments where, despite this being a love letter to black women, a black woman was not loving and loyal necessarily toward us. And so you tell the story of the creation of this incredible special. By the way, we got a $2 million budget on us. After a pitch that you created, I signed on. I was the sidekick in this whole special. It was your idea. You wrote the deck. I'm just telling y' all right now. I was just like, okay, sounds good to me. She was like, any changes? I was like, no, the deck looks great. Count me in. And then it was, like, affirmed by this multimillion dollar corporation. And then what happened?

Tiffany Cross (61:31)

So, you know, it's unfortunate because I think when we see each other, when I see another black woman, it is presumed safety to me. I see your face in the place, and I know I'm safe immediately. And I felt that, you know, Rashida Jones was the first black woman to helm a cable news network. She became president a few months after I was hired, and I felt honored to host a show on her, you know, on this network that she was leading on her watch. And I remember sending her some brown liquor to congratulate her, you know, and, you know, obviously, I showed deference toward her, but I also just felt kinship toward her. And in navigating that relationship, I think for both of us, you know, there are black women who, you know, who. They. They play by the white man, too. They adopt, you know, we. We celebrate them achieving these accomplishments, and they, you know, climb to the top of the empire to become one of them, you know, not. Not to disrupt the empire, but I am going to be the black woman's version of the white man who was, you know, running a network. And when you have that mindset, you can be resentful. Of women like us who have a completely different agenda. Neither of us wanted to get a television show on MSNBC to be a pretty black face, you know, to do cooking segments on the Today show or to do giveaways to, you know, audiences. We were there to disrupt narratives, to. To recreate an environment where folks like us could see themselves reflected on their screen, to break down complicated government discovery, discourse, you know, to create a pathway. Like I said, you. You wouldn't have your show without the original Melissa Harris Perry. I would not have my show were it not for the amazing Joy and Reed. And so I think there, I felt like there was resentment from her, you know, like, who was this broad up there on that horse kind of chick. Yes. Yeah. Because even when we showed her the deck, it was like, this is cute, you know, but when we showed her boss, it was a lot more attentive. He was, you know, into it. And so anyway, she, in typical behavior, tries to colonize this special, and I, you know, tell what happened there. And again, this is not a memoir. Like, this is not all about Tiffany stories. You know, it's like. That's right. I know what y' all are going through. Let me just tell you real quick this story that happened to me, and then I'm gonna talk about what's happening to y'.

Kimberlé Crenshaw (64:00)

All.

Tiffany Cross (64:01)

And the same. Like, I tell a story about Rashida and Bakari Sellers, knew each other in South Carolina, and there was a huge betrayal that happened between the two. And I tell that story in the book, and you can see, you know, where she works now, but she's just a few pages in the book. This is certainly not like some books about her, But I thought it was important to at least share that part, because so many people ask what happened at msnbc? And I was like, you know, let me just go block by block and tell you this is exactly what happened. And as I was writing, Joy, you lost your show. And I thought it important to say, because I remember how supportive you were for me. Like, you were just there for me when my heart was just cracked wide open. Because not only did I lose my show, but they were trying to destroy my career. They were planning. You know, allegedly, they were planning hit pieces and paid six and telling people I couldn't be trusted with a live mic. And there's certain things that I'm. I don't even have a heart to do that to another black woman. Like, damn, I don't even. That's beyond my imagination. I remember Lady Olena said to Cersei Lannister like, there are some things that are beyond my imagination. That's how I felt about this black woman maneuvering that way. It was so bizarre to me. And so going through that at the time. I remember the first time I came back into the MSNBC building because they didn't give me the courtesy of the last show. I was never allowed back in the building. And so I left work one day thinking I would come back the next. And I wasn't the same as hundreds of thousands of black women right now. And the first time I went back into that building was to stand with you when you hosted your last show. And I remember as you were saying goodbye, Nicole, Hannah Jones and I were there, and we hugged each other because she was tearing up and she wasn't sad. It was rage spilling out of her eyes. And it just felt like such a moment. I started to choke up when she started to choke up. It was such a moment. But that moment birthed this beautiful moment. Or your show gets more eyes than a lot of the cable news networks. But it is still hard in those moments of darkness. And we see it happen again. With Jani Norman, with Evan McKinnon from CNN. Janai Norman, of course, from GMA. Good Morning America, ABC. There are fewer and fewer black women taking up these spaces. So, you know, we. And then they got the nerve to be like, oh, y' all need to save America.

Joy Reid (66:22)

You know, please save America. And also, if the guy doesn't get a promotion at the New York Times, it's a lawsuit from the eeoc. We're living in bizarre. But the one thing that we have is community. We have each other. This is an absolute love letter to black women. It is literally not about the cable news world. It is about black women and our relationships. You talk about your relationship with your mom. Very poignant. My favorite chapter is called the Repo Man. That's my tease. You have to read it yourself to

Kristen Clarke (66:49)

find out what it's about.

Joy Reid (66:50)

But the Repo man is my favorite chapter in the book. Tiffany and I are gonna be doing a live talk in person in D.C. looking forward to it. I think it's on May a brunch.

Tiffany Cross (66:59)

Sunday, May 17th. We're hosting a brunch together.

Joy Reid (67:02)

Yeah.

Tiffany Cross (67:02)

I mean, yes, it's a sold out.

Joy Reid (67:04)

It's sold out.

Tiffany Cross (67:05)

Like, we sold out in, like, two days. But that. That just means we'll do something else somewhere. But I'm also. I'm in Philly tonight when. As soon as I get off, I'm gonna go and be in conversation with Mark Lamont Hill. I'm in Dallas on Monday with Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett. So please, if you're in the Dallas area, you can find us there. And then on May 12th, I'm in Chicago. And then Friday, when are you in Atlanta? Oh, Atlanta. Oh, hello. I'm in Atlanta tomorrow. So Thursday I'm in Atlanta with Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms at the gathering spot. You can find all this information on my website. Friday, I'm in Gwinnett county. And then Saturday I'm with our boy Michael Harriet at the Auburn Avenue Research Library. And that's going to be like a little speakeasy set. That's at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. We're gonna do a little champagne toast. Mike. I wrote a lot of my book at Mike Michael's house, which you know how magical that place is. So we'll. We'll talk about that. His lovely wife Karen is coming. And then the following Friday on the 15th, I am in conversation with Machete member Jamel Hill and our brother Van Lathan. So I'm all over the country and please join me on tour, because that's the best part, Joy being in conversation with people.

Joy Reid (68:08)

Yeah.

Tiffany Cross (68:08)

So I can't wait for that. But Mahogany Books is doing our event with Joy and I, and they sold out in a day. People are DMing me, asking, can they get passes? I'm like, I don't know what to do. Can we get a bigger. We have to move venues used once, because it was. And they were like, we'll give you 50 more seats. So I think people. I want. It's going to be like they're eavesdropping on our conversation, you know, which I think is so great about. I love being in spaces with authentic people, and there's authenticity here. We will be having the same. The same conversations we were having last night. We just happen to have it now on the screen in front of all the people watching. But we're always consistently the same people. So I just. I love you so much. Every time I am on a stage, I talk about Joy. I cannot tell my story without saying Joy Reid's name. And I. When people ask how can they support me? I'm still working through that. So I say, well, for now, please tune into the Joy Reach show. Please subscribe, please share, please tell people about it, please support whatever product, whatever Joy is doing. That's how you can support me. Because it makes sense. You want everybody around you to be doing something dope. You want everybody around you to Be elevated. Because if everyone. What? Just because. Just because as a community. But also if you fall and everybody around you is doing something dope, then they catch you. So you can't be gatekeepers for money opportunities. You know, like, we all rise. I truly believe by osmosis, collectively, we rise. And that's true for our sister circle, but that's also true for our community as black women and as black people and brothers. Read this book, too. I mean, because y' all got mamas, wives, sisters, girlfriend, like, some of the relationship stuff, you know, I mean, you. You met the guy who I was dating, who I write about. And I think men need to know the kind of pain that they may not intend to cause. But you know that. That it happens. So it is a book full.

Joy Reid (69:58)

I mean, I just love you right back. There's another thing you can do about it. My good sister friend, I adore you. This book is amazing. It's beautifully written. It is poetic. It's searing. It will have you in tears at points. It is gorgeous. So congratulations on an incredible book. I actually think your publisher is dope, too. Big up to your publisher.

Tiffany Cross (70:17)

Chrisean. Chrisean.

Joy Reid (70:18)

Chrisean is dope. It's amazing, y'. All, Please get this book. It is available at shop.thejorico.com right in the store. Click, click, click. Buy the book. Get the hardcover. Because we want this book on the New York Times bestseller list. Tiffany Cross. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Give your website one more time before you go. What's your website?

Tiffany Cross (70:35)

Www.tiffanydcross.com. and you can find all tour information under the Love Me book tour. And I just want to say thank you to the Joy Read audience, because I sold the most books on this show, and I do think, you know, the New York Times bestsellers is a great goal.

Joy Reid (70:50)

Don't.

Tiffany Cross (70:50)

Don't get me wrong. Because that makes it easier for other black authors, you know, to. To secure deals. But I also feel like this book, I. I think it will send a message to the country with a cover like this and a title like this, to have success, to let them know black women are not freaking these days. Like, we really are not. Yes. We are not messing around. Yeah. So you've created something amazing by selling books. And I wrote every single word in this book. And I want to honor every single reader who thinks enough of me to buy this book. Every time I wrote every sentence, in every way it could be written until it flowed. Because I thought if I'm asking you to spend money to read this Book, then I have to keep you centered in everything I write. So I thought about that for the. The years of research and the years of writing. So I'm just. I'm excited to have it out in the world and can't wait to hear from people. And I've heard already from retailers that they sold out, which is great.

Joy Reid (71:51)

Yes, they're gonna sell out, y'.

Kimberlé Crenshaw (71:53)

All.

Joy Reid (71:53)

If you're in Philly, go and see my sister with our brother Mark Lamont Hill. That should be dope. Kiffany Cross. Love you, girl. Congratulations. Thank you.

Tiffany Cross (72:01)

Thank you. I'll see you soon. Bye.

Joy Reid (72:02)

See you soon. Thank you very much. Look at the book, y'. All. Get it in the shop. Listen, the book is out. It's a book, baby. When you have a book, baby, the gift that you give, the push gift is buy the book. All right, I want to welcome you all to hour two of the Joy Reid show. And we are just very blessed to have really great sponsors for this show. We couldn't do it without them. Please hit like and subscribe. If you have not hit like and subscribe yet, it really helps the algorithm. They love it. We're trying to claw our way toward 500, 000 subscribers on YouTube and to 250, 000 subscribers on Substack. So please hit that like and subscribe button also. Chatting and being in the conversation helps us as well. But this Arab story show is brought to you by our friends at Moshi. Y' all know about Mosh. Now, the old adage, you are what you eat is very true to all of us in the modern day. And, of course, you know, I'm always looking for a good ghost snack because you're on the road, constantly traveling. We're on the train, we're on the plane. We're moving from here to there, and you want to have a fabulous snack. And thank you to Maria Shriver and her son Patrick Schwarzenegger for coming up with not just a snack, but a mission to spark a conversation about brain health through food, education, and research. After Maria's father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, they set out to create something bigger than just a protein bar. Mosh bars are made with ingredients that support your brain and your body, like ashwagandha Lion's mane. Omega 3s. Plush mash is the first and only food brand that is boosted by something called Cognizant. It's a premium form of citrocholine that helps support focus, memory, and mental clarity. And, you know, I need that and the taste is amazing delicious. They got chocolate chip cookie, they got hazelnut chocolate chip, peanut chocolate chip. It's so good people keep stealing them. And y' all know that there was a whole controversy as to who is eating my mosh bars. You can hear winsome coughing in the background because she knows she might be the one who did it. But y' all decide who you think did it. But either way, as you are trying to help us solve the mystery of who is eating my mosh bars because I can never get one. I do love the chocolate chip ones. If somebody could please get me one, maybe send it to me or just go ahead and get your own. 25% off plus free shipping on your first 15 count variety pack and 20% off for life on your monthly subscription. If you are a team TJRS member or TJRS viewer, you can swap flavors anytime based on what you like. You can keep your go to's repeat and try something new. It is brain fueled with a purpose. All right. So if you would like to try it, you can find your favorites@moshlife.com Read subscribe today to get 25 off your first variety pack or 20 off your first monthly subscription with code R E I D R e I D. That's 25. 25 off your first pack or 20 off your subscription to brain boosting Mosh bars, which hopefully you'll be able to hang on to better than I have because I can't seem to get any mosh bars. I tried but they keep disappearing. Who took my mosh bars? I'm not going to comment on my investigation until I complete it. All right, let's move on. Sam Alito, who we talked about in our top of the show, is nothing if not consistent. And his latest arguments, if they're to be taken seriously as an indication of how the court's going to rule going forward, voters will soon be unable to have the votes have their votes counted if the mailman fails to get them to the election authority in their state by election day, even if they mail their document out on time and the postmark says pre election day. Here's Sam Alito.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (75:26)

We have lots of phrases that involve two words, the last of which, the second of which is day, Labor Day, Memorial Day, George Washington's birthday, Independence Day, birthday and Election day. And they're all particular days. So if we start with that, if I have nothing more to look at than the phrase election day, I think this is the day in which everything is going to take place. And we're almost every Everything. And then we have three points in time, 1844, 1872, 1914. And we can ask what would people have thought on those days is meant by this phrase, Election Day.

Joy Reid (76:13)

Which, which of those should we choose?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (76:15)

Which of those days dates should we choose?

Joy Reid (76:18)

Well, I think you could choose any of the three. I mean, honestly, I think the single best one, if you're just going to choose one, is 1860. And the reason I say that is because 1914 is the latest in time, but that's the one that Congress gave the least thought to. Yeah. So effectively, I think what is being signaled by that line of argument by the same guy who got rid of Dobbs, meaning got rid of Roe v. Wade. I mean, who ruled in Dobbs to get rid of Roe v. Wade and who now recently is the hitman John Roberts put in place to kill the Voting Rights act by gutting Section two. That guy seems prepared to lead probably another six three decision in a case that's that was brought by Republicans who no longer want absentee ballots to count if they are mailed before election day, but arrive after election day. Meaning that all that the regime has to do to destroy mail in balloting is not eliminate at the federal level, which Donald Trump says, says take it, take control of elections. Federally, he can't do that. But what he could do, since he controls the postal service and his minion is control of it, is just slow the mail down. And so if people mail their ballots on election day or the day before election day and then it arrives after election day, per the Supreme Court, I promise you, they're going to rule this way. They're going to rule that those votes are invalid, and then all they have to do is slow down the mail. Do you see the way they're trying to choke off off every means of removing Republicans from power? Everything that they're doing, everything that Sam Alito specifically is doing, is designed for the overtly political purpose of maintaining a permanent Republican majority in the House, in the Senate and in the States, period. There's nothing they're doing that is not about that. And there's a reason why they have a self interest in doing it. Because again, Sam Alito and Clarence, Uncle Clarence, are taking lavish gifts from billionaires who have business before the Court. They are corrupt by just these standard Webster's and Merriam Webster definition of corruption. John Roberts wife, in just the first 10 years after he became chief justice, made about $10 million in fees working for companies that have business before the Court. Amy Coney Barrett's husband opened a white shoe law firm in Washington D.C. after she joined the Supreme Court. And he's made millions of dollars. One of his clients, the parent company of Fox News, they're each in their own ways, grifting along with their party. They're all Republicans. They want Republicans to win and keep winning. Because if Democrats win, I don't know, maybe a House or Senate Judiciary Committee might investigate how Brett Kavanaugh's six figure debt suddenly disappeared. They might. If you have a, a Democrat in the White House and they now get to appoint the FBI director, I don't know, maybe they'll reopen that case and look into whether there were any other alleged victims of Brett Kavanaugh when there was a credible allegation of sexual abuse. Maybe they'll look into it. Maybe Neil Gorsuch's you know, very strange affinity for polluters maybe becomes an ethics question. Maybe, you know, a Democratic led Senate might try to impeach one of them for corruption. They can't have that. And they know that the only way to keep the Republican grift going and their own grift going is to maintain Republican control forever. And so everything they're doing should not be read as interpretations of the Constitution. It should be read as partisan attempts to maintain Republican control permanently, including by making sure that the most Democratic voters, black people, cannot ever again elect their own choice of a member of Congress. That every congressperson in the south will be a right wing Republican or a Democrat who's cut a deal and will play ball. Therefore no one will ever oppose the grift. And the Southern states, which are the poorest states in the union for a reason because they undercut their own economies by not allowing non white people to thrive economically. They keep them down even at the risk of making their states poor. Kentucky, Mitch McConnell, most powerful probably majority leader ever. His state is poor as dirt. West Virginia, a state with like one billionaire and everybody else is poor. Mississippi, a state with like a couple of really rich people. Everyone else is poor. Louisiana, poor, they're all poor. Oklahoma, poor. But they have a couple of rich people who never want to stop grifting off of their low paid workers. And the way that they trick it is they say to white people, hey white people, you need to be concerned about blacks taking everything you have and immigrants taking everything you have. You need to focus on deportation and not on our grift. Pay no attention to the billionaire grift, just pay attention to the black. Join me now to discuss and see if maybe I Don't know if she agrees with me as Kristen Clark, who is newly the, the, the assistant general for former. Sorry, former assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division of the United States Justice Department, and she is now the general counsel of the naacp. Kristen Clark, welcome.

Kristen Clarke (81:46)

Thank you so much for having me.

Joy Reid (81:49)

Let me just get your take on what appears to be Samuel Alito's sort of presaging a decision to say that even if one mails their absentee ballot before the election, it shouldn't count.

Kristen Clarke (82:09)

Well, look, I think that Justice Alito is fulfilling an agenda. We know that Justice Alito and Roberts and Thomas have been bent on tearing down our civil rights laws. I'm deeply concerned about this attempt to interfere with the way that states run their elections. But I also am still reflecting on the fallout that we're contending with from last week's decision.

Joy Reid (82:43)

And let's talk about some of that fallout. We do know that there is now an attempt to recall Jeff Landry, who is the governor of Louisiana, because people are so angry that literally in the midst of an ongoing primary election, he was like, halt the election so we can redraw these maps in midstream. And Justice Alito snippily, angrily castigated Justice Ketanji Jackson for saying that seems political and partisan. And he got all snippy about it. And it's like, no, we're going to get this done now. We want these. Isn't it unprecedented for the Supreme Court's order to go in, to become, to be enacted in the middle of an election? Isn't that unusual?

Kristen Clarke (83:30)

Well, Justice Kavanaugh created this doctrine that we've called the Purcell Doctrine. A few years ago, he refused to allow a discrimination remedy to take place because in his view, it was too close to an election and we had to keep the status quo to kind of keep things sane. And it stands in stark contrast to this moment where we see sheer chaos unleashed across Louisiana as the governor takes this unusual step of declaring a state of emergency. You know, I work closely with folks across Louisiana who are trying to figure out what is the message that they should be sharing with folks right now who heard, on the one hand, the election is canceled, but on the other hand, know that there is not just the House race, but other important things on, on the ballot this cycle. So, you know, pure chaos. It is a Supreme Court that almost seems to be acting, you know, with the, with the full complicity of some of our elected officials at state level and in this administration.

Joy Reid (84:44)

You mean, it feels coordinated that they're coordinating with the state.

Kristen Clarke (84:48)

It feels like a coordinated strategy. And Alito kind of put the cherry on top with this decision last week, which of course was, you know, the case was very unusual, a case beautifully handled and argued by Janae Nelson of the Legal Defense Fund. But the court heard argument, we waited for an opinion. And then the court takes this very, very unusual step of saying, you know what, we want you to come back and re argue the case. And this time we want you to take up this question about the constitutionality at every turn. This case has just defied the norms, defied ordinary procedures. And it just underscores the fact that this is a Supreme Court that has been hijacked. And it's why I think there are, there are so many people in this moment who are calling for Supreme Court reform and it is just not sustainable.

Joy Reid (85:52)

If you were still in the Justice Department, would you investigate whether or not there had been actual coordination between Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and the Governor of Louisiana and the governor of Tennessee, who is now convening a special session to eliminate the only Democratic congressional seat for which Justin Pierson is literally running for a seat that would no longer exist? There were huge protests in Tennessee about that because it's in the letter of their law that you cannot gerrymander this way. They're trying to do it anyway in Alabama. They're trying to get rid of a seat. If you were still in the Justice Department, would you investigate this for potential criminal collusion?

Kristen Clarke (86:34)

I would enforce the law. And I think that when this pendulum swings, we're going to have to have a hard conversation about accountability because I think we see a lot of unlawful actions from this administration, a lot of weaponization of the machinery of government to intimidate people, to throw their lives into chaos, a lot of targeting of our black elected officials. I think there will be a reckoning and a day where we have to talk very seriously about what accountability looks looks like.

Joy Reid (87:09)

Well, talk about, I mean, in your role in naacp. I mean, I'm thinking about the fact that Leonard Leo effectively casted this court. He's the casting director about at least six of them came through Leonard Leo and the Heritage Foundation. Leonard Leo put together about a billion dollar fund to fund shifting the courts in his favor and in favor of his fellow billionaires interests. And all of a sudden out of nowhere, a January 6 insurrectionist named Calais launches this lawsuit over a claim that his district was shifted unlawfully and that he was a victim of racism, effectively right of legal racism. He then takes his case to the actual justice whose wife flies the upside down insurrection flag, a justice whose wife, Clarence Thomas, participated in the Stop the Steal movement, and a justice, the Chief justice, who literally wrote the decision that says Section 3 of the 14th Amendment is inoperative when it comes to the insurrection of state, Donald Trump. If it looks like collusion to me, I'm not even a lawyer person, I'm sorry. But it looks to me like all of these people are behind the scenes coordinating to rob 52% of the black cohort in this country of their vote.

Kristen Clarke (88:36)

It is deeply troubling and I feel like everything that you said is spot on. But we also have to look at this ruling in the context. Right? We have the SFFA decision that's come from this court.

Joy Reid (88:49)

What's that?

Kristen Clarke (88:51)

The SFFA versus Harvard decision that found that race conscious admissions in the higher ed context is no longer permissible. And we're seeing this administration stretch that ruling to attack diversity in every sector of society. It is a court that, I think there is no balance on this court. And you combine that with an administration that is really about weaponizing the actions of the court and taking them to their furthest extent. That explains why we find ourselves in this moment, which, as you know, is one where we are seeing lawmakers literally take us back into Jim Crow by single handedly dismantling congressional districts in the Deep south that provide black voters an opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. But we, we are not going to stand by idly. We're not going to stand by idly.

Joy Reid (89:56)

I mean, and I want you to talk about what the NAACP's plan is and what your plan is as their new chief counsel, but just a couple other pinpoints here. Just to note for the audience. The Department of Justice has now demanded not just the ballots which they seized from Fulton County, Georgia, which is the county where Donald Trump lost big, because of course, it's a very black, heavy, very Democratic leaning county. But Donald Trump is still mad that the Secretary of State of Georgia wouldn't give him the 11,000 plus votes that he needed to flip the state and steal the state. They've now demanded the names of all the poll workers as if they're trying to still prove this fake theory from Rudy Giuliani that somehow the poll workers were stealing the election from Trump. That's one thing I want to put a pin in. The second one is that the FBI has now raided the office of El Louise Lucas, who is the very vocal African American woman state representative in Virginia, who was the one who pushed the hardest for Virginia to pass its own gerrymander to counter what's being done in red states. This seems to me to be the Department of Justice, where you used to work, jumping in to try to weaponize its own federal power to try to intimidate any black elected official from local down to poll leading poll workers all the way to state representatives to punish them for standing in the way completely,

Kristen Clarke (91:23)

hands down, it's an effort to target and intimidate and harass black election officials, black folks who volunteer to work the polls. It reminds me of what we saw after Trump's first, you know, Trump's first loss, where they went out and targeted Detroit and Philadelphia and Atlanta and Milwaukee. Milwaukee. I mean, it was a very directed attempt to diminish and disenfranchise black voters. And we're seeing that now, right? We're seeing them kind of double down on Fulton county with the goal of sending a message to other black voters across the country.

Joy Reid (92:13)

What is the NAACP's plan to push back?

Kristen Clarke (92:17)

Well, we're working to push back in Fulton County. Their efforts to seize election results was incredibly troubling. But right now, we're working with our thousands of units across the country and our hundreds of thousands of members to make sure that, that a.1, folks are paying attention to what's happening from this Supreme Court and understanding how it impacts our civil and voting rights. Two, we're activating people so we have folks who are hosting town halls across the country of folks who showed up in full strength to protest in Tennessee, to protest in Alabama as they attempt

Kimberlé Crenshaw (93:01)

to

Kristen Clarke (93:03)

silence our voices and disenfranchise us. And then there's the legal strategy on the back end of this. If they are successful, we will use every tool available to challenge something that is so patently racist, something that cannot be explained on any other means than race.

Joy Reid (93:27)

And if what. What do you recommend that people do with. So we effectively don't have a Voting Rights act anymore? I think if we're being honest, right, the Voting Rights act is, is a, is a zombie. It's dead. So if you're a voter and you're a particular voter of color, what do you recommend that people do?

Kristen Clarke (93:44)

Well, there are a few things. One, it's important to make sure you are registered to vote. We need folks not to just turn out, but we need folks to turn out in full strength this election cycle to overcome the efforts to disenfranche, disenfranchise and suppress our voices. Two, we need folks to activate and to make sure that everyone in their circle is registered to vote, ready to vote, has a plan to vote. We need people to write their governors right now and tell them that. That they should not disenfranchise citizens in their state. We need folks advocating for reforms like the state Voting Rights act, which I know is championed by lots of our friends and community organizations. We just saw passage of the state Voting Rights act in Maryland and in New Jersey, and they provide a path that shows that this is possible. And then we need to be talking about reforms that we need once the pendulum swings. We need Supreme Court reform. We need to continue to talk about the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement act. And we need to talk about the reforms that can help ensure that we have in place true guardrails so that our democracy never falls back into this perilous place again.

Joy Reid (95:11)

Are you in support of the recall petition of Jeffrey Landry? I'm just reading about it, Right. It's two women from Baton Rouge that have filed this petition to recall Governor Jeff Landrieu from office. I would represent. And let's give them. Let's say their names. Marian Goodbye, One Hills and Caitlin Stepter. And I will note for the audience if you are in or near Louisiana or you have family and friends in Louisiana, they need 500,000 signatures in order to get this recall on the books. 500,000 signatures. If you know anyone who can participate, we're going to find that link and put it in the. And put it in the description of the show. Everyone should be supporting this. Is the NAACP able to officially support this recall effort?

Kristen Clarke (95:55)

Stand by for our official position on this. But I will say that we fully support recall petitions and ballot referendums like what we saw in Virginia as a tool to counter some of the grave threats that we face right now. People should use their voice.

Joy Reid (96:12)

Yeah, absolutely. How can people support.

Kristen Clarke (96:16)

Visit NAACP net.org make a donation, register to vote, volunteer to work the polls.

Joy Reid (96:25)

We appreciate you, Kristin Clark. Thank you very much. Wish you were still in the DOJ instead of the people that are there now. Thank you.

Kristen Clarke (96:31)

Thanks for having me, Joy.

Joy Reid (96:33)

Thank you very much. Kristin Clark. She's a much nicer person than I am. My name is Joy, but I'm not. I'm not. I am for total war. And what I would say to those of you who are out there is I, you know, the NAACP is a storied institution. They're going to fight within the bounds of the law. They're going to do all the things, and you should definitely support them. Support all the civil Rights organizations, ldf, everybody that's working hard. But some of the things that you can do right now, and one of the things that you can do right now, yes, Don Lemon is from Louisiana. All the Lemon readers, they're calling yourselves Lemon readers. They're in the chat. Yes, he is from Louisiana. And look, we got to get down there. We need to. Gary Chambers Jr. Is also from Louisiana. He sent me a text today that showed that there are 840 some odd thousand eligible Louisiana black voters who have still yet to go to the polls. You still need to be going to the polls. They haven't canceled that election yet. There are referenda on the ballot. And if you are in Louisiana, you need to to vote. You need to go in there and vote. If someone's trying to take something from you, that means it's valuable, and they wouldn't try to take it from you if it wasn't worth anything. Now they're literally making war against you as a black voter. If you don't vote now, you're basically laying down in the midst of a war that's being made on you, your children, your mom, your dad, your whole family. The Republican Party has decided that just as Lincoln waged war against the Confederacy, the new Republican Party is going to wage war on black people. Let's just be clear. It's very clear. They're waging war against black people. They're waging war against women, particularly white women. They're angry at them, too. They're booting them out of even the soybean board. Women can't get any position in this administration unless they are complete sellouts like Kristi Noem and Pamela Joe Bondi. And even they're not safe. They get booted out as well, as soon as they look bad. And Pete Hegseth can continue to fail his way to the top. But the white women in the administration, they don't even respect them. They boot them out as fast as they can. You know, as soon as they look embarrassing in any way, they're out, too. They don't support them either. But white women, you're on the table. They're taking your voting rights away. Not your voting rights. They're taking your bodily autonomy. They already did that. Y' all didn't do nothing about it. Still voted for them. And so they're going after everybody. They're going after Aapi people. They're saying they're going to boot y' all out. Tom Holman doubled down and said they're going to do mass immigration if you're brown and you think you can, you know, sort of play the game and. And play the game of trying to aspire to whiteness, they hate y' all most of all. They hate y' all almost as much as they hate black people. They said. Tom Holman said, we're tripling down. We're coming to New York, we're coming to sanctuary cities. We're deporting everybody. He says you haven't seen nothing yet. That was his quote. We ain't seen nothing yet in terms of mass deportation. Hello, brown people. The Iowa bullet for Donald Trump people. They coming for you, too. They hate y' all Cubans, everybody. And it's war. But the war on black people is the OG American strategy. They always come for black people first because black people vote the most progressively. Black people are easy also to attack because black people tend to live in concentrated places. So it's easy to mess with us because we're concentrating, quote, unquote, the black belt. So all they have to do is look at a map and see where the black belt is. Take those voters. I did this on. Read this. Read that. I'll do it again. It's like Charlie Brown and they're all sitting around the table, and poor Franklin, who was sitting on the other side table by himself because they were racist. Charles Schultz put four little Franklin on one side of the table. But it's basically as if the way. What gerrymandering is. Explain. Use this to explain it to your, you know, ignorant family members who don't understand what people are like. Well, there still is just as many black people there. Why can't they vote? Because if Franklin has a piece of piece and Linus has a piece of pie and Charlie Brown has a piece of pie and Lucy has a piece of pie and Peppermint Patty has a piece of pie, everybody has a piece of pie. The piece of pie is the votes there. That's your ability to elect the person that you want. Everyone's got a piece of pie. Snoopy's even got a piece of pie. Now, gerrymandering means that technically, Snoopy, who just by his attitude, is definitely black. In the real world, Franklin and Snoopy would each get a piece of pie just like everybody else. But in gerrymandering, what they do is they take Franklin's pie and they cut it up into pieces and give everyone else at the table a piece of Franklin's pie and leave him with a tiny sliver. They don't give Snoopy any pie because they say He's a dog. Dogs don't eat pie. So Snoopy gets none. Franklin gets a sliver. That's called gerrymandering. And now what they're doing in the south is they took that gerrymandering in which everybody else at the table had a piece of pie except Snoopy because they said he was a dog. He didn't get any. Snoopy was the lost vote, the lost seat that every black person in the south should have had. That second seat is that piece of pie that Snoopy should have had. That he didn't because they said he's a dog. He don't get no pie. And now what they've done is not only does Snoopy not have any pie, but they took that last sliver from Franklin and divided that up between all the rest of the people at the table. So now everybody at the table has their piece of pie, plus a slice of Franklin's pie. And Franklin ain't got no pie. Franklin is now sitting there, pie less just like Snoopy. They have zero pie. That is what they're doing. This is gerrymandering. There's still the same number of people at the table. Franklin's still sitting there. He just has pad pie. He has no pot. Snoopy still ain't got no pot. Even though I'm a dog, I could have at least enjoyed a piece of. Of piece. Now they're like, nope, because you're the. You're the second black seat in Mississippi. You're the second black seat in Alabama, which we briefly gave you. Snoopy for a minute in Alabama got a piece of pie. They slid Snoopy a little slice in Alabama after a Supreme Court ruling in their favor. And now they don't took that away. They're like, no, we're taking that away in Tennessee. Snoopy has no pie. Franklin has one piece of pie that's currently being held onto by a white character, Cohen. And a. Franklin is running for that seat. Justin Pearson is running for that Franklin seat. And now they said, well, that's not gonna exist. We're taking that away. The Franklin pie is going away in Tennessee. Do you understand what gerrymandering is? It's called, you slice up Franklin's pie and give it to everyone else and leave Franklin with no pie. They want to know what Woodstock is. Woodstock. Where is Woodstock in this analogy? It's an excellent question. Oh, what's not black, too? You see how he act? That's why Woodstock never had a chance. Woodstock never had a chance. Woodstock is the. You know what no, actually, I'm taking it back. Woodstock is AAPI because they just don't even poll them. Woodstock is aapi. And how you know that is they never poll AAPI people. They don't even count them in the poll. You know how they do? Like, like black, white, Hispanic, white, Hispanic, non Hispanic. And then they say other. They throw the AAPI people in there. As many different AAPI people. The fastest growing different in the cartoon poll. They poor behind. Woodstock is Asian. Woodstock, they let him hang around. They act like he's like the modern minority, but when they go to poll, they don't even ask Woodstock. Woodstock is Asian? Yeah, he is Snoopy black. Woodstock is Asian or what's the Native American look? No, what look? Let me tell you who's who. The Native Americans are. Snoopy's house. The whole community is built around Snoopy's house. Snoopy's house. That has no rights whatsoever. They have taken everything. They still let them have a house. That's the casinos. They let one or two of them have half Snoopy's house. The Asian Americans just represented in there. Okay. Yeah, that's right. Woodstock is on Woodstock. Yeah, Woodstock API. And they built their whole community on Woodstocks on that, on that. That house. And that house should be. Should have all the whole community, whole neighborhood. The house should all belong to the house. Okay, let's move on. Yeah, they took Franklin's pie. Explain that to your friend. That's how you. That's how you can get them to understand what. Jerry, man. Poor Franklin and poor Woodstock. And that house is not a home. It's not a home. Let's move on. Did you. Have you guys. Have you guys seen this? Have you heard about the sick cruise? Let's play this real quick.

Judd Legum (104:42)

Three people, meanwhile, evacuated from a cruise ship off the coast of Africa due to a deadly suspected hantavirus cluster on board. Initial test results, though, say that they have tested negative. Negative for the disease. The rescue boat crew were in full protective gear. The patients were transported by an air ambulance for specialized treatment. In the Netherlands. Swiss authorities confirming a new case, bringing the total number of suspected cases now to eight. On that ship, three people have died. Officials suspect a rare strain that may spread from person to person.

Joy Reid (105:15)

We do believe that there may be some human to human transmission that's happening. Among the really close contacts, the husband and wife, people who've shared cabins.

Judd Legum (105:24)

The WHO believes some passengers may have been exposed before they got on that ship in Argentina last month. Hantavirus is usually spread through exposure to rodents. Workers are now disinfecting cabins. Spanish officials say all passengers remaining on board are asymptomatic.

Joy Reid (105:41)

This is terrifying. Okay, just imagine. Imagine that cruise ship. Imagine that cruise ship disembarking in Miami, Florida, where Ron DeSantis, the anti mask guy, is the governor. And the threat of human transmission literally coming our way through a Florida cruise ship full of that hint of virus. And God bless those poor people on that ship. But imagine them disembarking here and that human transition spreading and another pandemic and another lockdown. There are a lot of people who are saying, cannot do another lockdown, can't do it. I don't think our country would psychologically survive. Private. But if that cruise ship were to disembark in Florida, the man in charge of the federal response would be the admitted former heroin addict who eats wild animal leavings that he finds on the side of the road, who took his grandkids to swim in the sewage and bacteria polluted Potomac river in D.C. because he apparently does not believe in germ theory. Who has presided over multiple measles outbreaks because again, he's a no vaccines, just supplements that he happens to actually make money off of selling guys. And who last year fired every single Centers for Disease Control vessel sanitation inspector, meaning he fired the people who investigate illnesses on cruise ships. I of course, am talking about RFK Jr, who based on his past statements, also actually doesn't believe, get this, that HIV AIDS, which has killed more than 43 million people worldwide, is caused by the HIV virus or really by any virus at all. Rotate.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (107:16)

Tony Fauci won a power struggle with Broder and he said this is an infectious disease. We've proven it with Bob Gallo, proved this is being caused by a virus. There's a lot of people that said it's not a virus. The virus is a passenger virus. And these people are dying mainly because of poppers. 100% of the people who died in the first of the first thousand AIDS were people who were addicted to poppers, which are known to cause Karposi sarcology one

Joy Reid (107:53)

poppers. He said poppers were all 43 million people who died on the planet. Were they all on poppers? And what about the 40 some odd million people who are living with HIV right now? Are they also on poppers? Are that many poppers in the world?

Kimberlé Crenshaw (108:09)

World.

Joy Reid (108:10)

This Nepo baby from the Kennedy, the Kennedy clan, most of them do not claim him, by the way, has theorized that Covet was a race based bioweapon that targeted white people. And black people, but not the Jews. Roll tape.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (108:31)

I know a lot now about bioweapons because I didn't doing a book on the past two and a half years. And, and you know what we, the technology that we now have to develop these microbes we have, we've put hundreds of millions of dollars into ethnically targeted microbes. The Chinese have done the same thing. In fact, COVID 19, there's an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID 19 attack certain races disproportionately. The races that are most immune to COVID 19 are because of

Joy Reid (109:16)

he said it target is white people and black people. It's ethnically targeted, but not the Chinese. Well, see, here's the problem. Somebody in China must have messed up a plan because Africa, you know, black people in Africa and people in the Caribbean actually had the lowest global death rates from COVID So if it was targeting black people, it didn't work. And as far as the death rates in China, we don't know the death rates in China because China is, how shall I say, a communist authoritarian country that did not report its death rates and hid the death rates. So we don't even know how many people died. So what do you get? What are you talking about? And also you're not a doctor. What are you saying? Undeterred, RFK Jr also seems to just constantly be doubling and tripling down on the notion that really no vaccines are safe and effective.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (110:00)

Vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.

Joy Reid (110:04)

Big words.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (110:05)

What about, can we talk about the. Well, here's the. Here's the problem. Yes, yeah, here's the problem. The polio vaccine contained a virus called simian virus 40 SV40. It's one of the most carcinogenic materials that is known to man. In fact, it's used now by scientists around the world to induce tumors in rats and guinea pigs in labs. But it was in that vaccine, 98 million people who got that vaccine in my generation got it. And now you've had this explosion of soft tissue cancers in our generation that kill many, many, many, many, many more people than polio ever did. So if you say to me that the polio vaccine was effective against polio, I'm going to say yes,

Joy Reid (110:53)

but by the way, you would eat a rat. So. So man who would eat. So think about this. He says that polio vaccine killed more people than polio. And the proof of that says this non scientist who has no scientific degree and is not a doctor and not a scientist at all. The proof is rats that he Would eat. If they were on the side of the road and he found them upside down in the street, he would just cut them open and eat them raw or snow cocaine out of their. Out of their opened, out turned bellies. What are we talking about here? This guy would eat a mouse and. And we're supposed to take him for. And by the way, people are like, his voice. Yeah, his voice makes me feel like I don't feel well, so I'm sorry to inflict it on you now. On the upside, RK Jr did once correctly diagnose Trumpism in an audio that inconveniently leaked.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (111:44)

You know, one of the things that you write so beautifully and your stuff is so fun to read, but you write about Trump, the way that you build a truly vicious nationalist movement is to wed a relatively small core of belligerent idiots to a much larger group of opportunists and spineless fellow travelers whose primary function is to turn a blind eye to things. We may not have that many outright Nazis in America, but we have plenty of cowards and bootlickers. And once those fleshy dominoes start tumbling into the Trump camp, the game is up. When you talk about fleshy dominoes, Chris Christie comes to mind. Yeah, exactly.

Joy Reid (112:25)

No, no. When it comes to fleshy dominoes and bootlickers, you come to mind. K junior You. You are the fleshy domino that is the bootlicker that you described and you accurately describe what MAGA ism is. It's a bunch of people who are bootlicking a orange weirdo who pretends. Used to pretend to be a billionaire, but now he's a billionaire because they let him grift his way to being a billionaire with cryptos and. And the rest. And they're all kissing his ass, even though most of them hate him. And maybe including you, based on what you said. I mean, J.D. vance hates him. He thinks he might be Hitler, but he's like, you know what? He may be Hitler, but I kind of like Hitler, so I'm going to be with Hitler. Right? He's like, when we. When he said he might be Hitler, we thought that was like. Like a diss. But it might have been a compliment because he's like, but I can be Himmler. He's Hitler. Yeah, fleshy dominoes is what he said. Fleshy dominoes. And he was right about that. And this might be the reason that this is the kind of treatment that RFK Jr. Has gotten when he's gone on Capitol Hill. In this case, he got cooked to cinders by a representative from California named Representative Raul Ruiz. Roll Taylor. You're getting your sound.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (113:31)

You're not getting.

Unknown Speaker (113:32)

It has been reported by Bloomberg that the President, the White House have sidelined you. They've benched you because you are making the President look bad. Are you aware of that?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (113:44)

That's not true.

Unknown Speaker (113:46)

How does that make you feel? Mr. Secretary, you must be aware of that. I mean, it must be nerve wracking, especially after ag. Especially after Secretaries Noem and Chavez de Rimmer got fired for making the President look bad. You see, I think the reporting is correct, Mr. Secretary. You're just making the President look bad. Especially before the midterms elections. You talked publicly about snorting cocaine off a toilet bowl seat. Your words, not mine. You said that if you were President you would quote, unquote, reparent black children again. In other words, taking them away from their parents. Your words, not mine. Furthermore, the American people think your anti vaccination crusade is too extreme. A KFF polling shows that 55% of the Americans disapprove with 37% strongly disapprove of your work, Mr. Secretary. 56% have little to no confidence. The majority have little to no confidence in your work with vaccines. And you keep losing. Americans are sicker now more than ever. Measles cases were up to 2,288 in 2025, more than the previous year. This year is going to be worse with cases already at 1,748. So Mr. Secretary, you should resign for your dangerous dismantling of our public's health and before the President fires you too. And when you do get fired, don't

Joy Reid (115:19)

say I didn't sell you. We are all Representative Raul Ruiz. Bravo to him because we can't wait for that dude to get fired. Although I fear who Donald Trump would replace him with Mata Hari in the chat in on the YouTube side called RFK Jr. Dr. Popper. And now I can't. I can never unhear that. We have Tweety in the chat saying please use closed caption every time RFK speaks. Pretty, pretty please. A fine idea, ma'. Am. A fine idea, Tweety, A very, very fine idea. But the bottom line here is that is who we would have to turn. Well, I don't know if I would but we would have to turn to if the deadly cruise ship virus comes ashore. Diesel Flowers enjoy is enjoying this while our ears bleed. I'm sorry how much I've been enjoying. I. I am enjoying it. I apologize to you Diesel Flower, but trolling fools Is something like him that I had to do. Is there a poll? Okay, we have to. Let me. Let me look at the poll. How do I get the poll? How do I get to the poll? Windsor, tell me, where's the. Oh, it's in the comments. Okay, let me find the poll, y'. All. Somebody just shout out the poll to me. Come on, somebody tell me what it is. It's in the comments. Scrolling through the comments, trying to look at it, but it's impossible. Oh, I can't do it. So somebody put the poll into the Slack channel so that I can see what the poll results are. But, yeah, I definitely fear a new lockdown, a new pandemic, because when Donald Trump is in office, a pandemic almost always follows because Donald Trump is an idiot and the people around him are idiots. The meritocracy is a sham and a scam. And the only merit here is that they have the right color of skin and not the right content of character. None of these people have any character. And what they're doing is they are allowing, or they're using the Supreme Court as their lead man. They are trying to lock in their incompetent leadership for the rest of our lives. In their minds, they should have total job security in their incompetence. And Donald Trump should only be able to shuffle out the members of his administration at will when they don't do, he says. But in the end, what they really want is to be able to rule this country forever in the most incompetent, stupid way possible. All right, so here is the poll. This is why we love our TJRS team. What do you think is stuck in RF Jr. S throat? Choice 1. The worm that is eating his brain. Choice 2. A bottle of poppers. Choice 3. A bag of toilet coke. Choice 3. A raccoon's conchititipiti. It's his titi piti contotiti. A raccoon's conchititi. A bag of toilet coke, a bottle of poppers, which, as you know, are what caused the AIDS pandemic and the worm that is eating his brain. I love the poll. And what's the poll result? We're gonna have to find out. The winner is. I'm gonna vote. Can I vote in our poll? Winsome. Am I allowed to vote? Winsome. Our fine producer, who is sitting across me has said. And who also, by the way, is one of the suspects. Sex into eight my mosh bars. I'm just saying I appreciate her assistance in this moment, but I. She looks like, like, like she had a good snack today, and I feel like it was my mouth bar. Let me just look happy. It means you have a smile on your face, and I think you might have done it, but you contributed a fine poll. I have all of the above seems to be trending in the chat, and I think what might be happening, you guys, as before we hit our moment of joy, is that the worm that's eating his brain is also on both toilet coke and poppers simultaneously. It is a worm that is high as hell on poppers and toilet coke and which, even as it's eating his brain, is wrapped with its little worm body around a raccoon's conchititi pipi. That's my answer. I'm sticking to it, giving back the phone. It's wrapped around the concept because he one time popped off a little raccoon, and I guess he ate it.

Jason (120:03)

In the comments, somebody asked, where is Jason? Right? Jason is right here minding his business, having nothing to do with this conversation,

Joy Reid (120:13)

but do you have a mosh bar in your presence, in your hand?

Jason (120:16)

Actually, I don't know. I have no marsh bars today. I've had, as I've said many times before, I haven't tasted none because you win some Juanjiro or so just eats them.

Joy Reid (120:28)

Y' all let nigga off the hook.

Jason (120:32)

Yeah.

Joy Reid (120:32)

Never be smiling too much. Never be smiling. Like she look on innocent, but she looked like she was snacking too. Well, somebody I know, Cameron,

Jason (120:45)

unfortunately, I can't see well over here, but I actually gonna leave the poll alone because I don't know what RFK is doing. But, yeah, I would go for yeah,

Joy Reid (120:56)

because like I said, it could be that the worm has one. Its little teeth are in his brain biting down, and his body is stretching down to the conchititi pompom at the bottom. And then he's already high. And the reason he's into that is that he's just so high on poppers and toilets, literally.

Jason (121:17)

He's basically been trying to come off of his hive for many years, but that worm, the worm ain't letting him do it.

Joy Reid (121:23)

He can't get down. He can't come down. He's trying to come down. He's trying to come down off of the toilet coke and the pot poppers, and he can't because, you know, the bottom of his body is wrapped around the tontin, the pong ponking, which is what he. From a raccoon.

Jason (121:52)

All right, y', all, maybe the reason why he likes a raccoon. Raccoon. So much because maybe, you know, he probably has envy problems with the raccoon. So he figures if I.

Joy Reid (122:01)

You think that like Trump, you know, because, you know,

Jason (122:05)

this is probably like, you know, some kind of remedies that they heard if we eat such animals, they can grow appendages. I mean, maybe that's what it could be.

Joy Reid (122:13)

I promise you, every single male member of the Trump regime gives me micro penis. I'm like, you definitely all have micro penises. There is no chance whatsoever that. That each and every one of y' all is not a micropenis holder. I know. And you know what? And. And. And it's okay if you have a micro penis. It's okay. You know, everyone is lovable and everyone has a right to live and exist. And if you have a microp and you have a. It's like this. That's you. You still alive. You're still human. I still respect you as a human. Unless you are a maga, in which case I don't feel sorry for you at all. Take your microtone tint on and stop using it as an excuse to oppress me and my people and women and everybody else.

Jason (122:56)

Most of those guys would never let it go because that little micro. What do you call it? Microphone.

Joy Reid (123:01)

It's a micropomp.

Jason (123:02)

Yeah, that thing right there. They'll never get over it. That's a lifetime curse. Yeah, they should talk to the grand. Maybe they should talk about their great great grandfathers. They've hung a lot of. Of black men that way, so maybe that's the penance. But anyway, let's get to this moment of joy.

Joy Reid (123:20)

Let's get to this. I think we've Talked enough about RFK Jr. And why he's going to kill us all in another pandemic that's going to start on a. The worm one. The worm. Okay. The worm is the winner. People did not have the imagination to imagine all that the worm could be going through. There's no empathy for the worm who got him high. That nobody cares. And so the worm is the reason that his vocal cords sound that way. The worm is eating his brain. Let's get to our moment of joy. Our moment of joy is from a really hilarious creator named Reggie Coos. I think he's Reggie cuz I don't think he's ready. Regicus. R E G G I E C O U S Reggie cuz he's popular on TikTok and Instagram and he's doing a fabulous series on having a sugar mama. And as we play this, please feel free to sing along because apparently this has been around a long time. The young people already know it. Here it is. Moment of choice. Send your text about the new computer you wanted and I' ma give it

Tiffany Cross (124:20)

to you under one condition.

Kimberlé Crenshaw (124:23)

No.

Joy Reid (124:24)

What is that? You better let me feel them body parts. If you want that new, I give it to you. No chance. But you gotta do something for me. Gotta do something for me.

Kimberlé Crenshaw (124:59)

Oh, the door will be open for you.

Joy Reid (125:03)

And no draws allowed. I didn't listen to it all the way. I didn't know about the draws. I didn't listen to it all the way. I was supposed to scream these in advance. I didn't listen to the ending. Jesus. Lord, help me, Lord. Oh, so that Jesus, that's the price he gotta pay. I promise you, that's what the worm is dealing with right now. I promise y'. All. That's what the worm is dealing with. Inside of RFK Jr. When he said. He said, can I get out your brain? And RFK said, you gotta do something.

Jason (125:43)

I should have watched that.

Joy Reid (125:44)

I should have watched that whole. You are terrible.

Jason (125:52)

Oh, my.

Joy Reid (125:53)

I should have watched that whole thing.

Jason (125:55)

That was bad. Oh, my God.

Joy Reid (125:59)

Lord, no draws a laugh. Thank you all for watching the Joy Retro. If you guys are in New York and you want some of this foolishness in person, but also with Godfrey joining in, please jump on. It's called live.the.com. if you go to live thejreshow.com you can get this foolishness in person. It's going to be at City Winery in New York City. You can hit that QR code if you want to attend. We're going to do a whole lot of foolishness and fun. It's going to be really fun on June 11th. That's a Thursday night, so you can still get up and go to work in the morning because you're going to have your zbiotic before you even start. Have your zbiotic before you leave your house, come on over, maybe have a mosh bar so you're not too full, because you don't. So you won't overspend. And then you come on over, have some cocktails with us. You can even get a security. We are plotting. That's one little tease I'll give you, is that we will. You will be able to taste security because we're going to make sure it is at the bar and that they know how to fix it properly. So if you're in New York and yes, Those of you are saying, come to Chicago, come to Atlanta. Our very first one is going to be in New York City. But that's not Godfrey. That is Rick Wilson drinking Ricky. Oh, I'm looking forward to this on tomorrow for our sub Stack Premium fans. And that is our. Our up, our upscale super nerds over at Substack. Tomorrow's guest on our noon chit chat. We call it Joy's House Insiders. It's gonna be me and Rick Wilson. Baby, listen, I know Rick's. I mean, we're gonna cuss. He gonna be cussing because he cussed. He used to cuss on msnbc and they used to be like, does he have to cuss every time? Like, yeah, he does. I mean, it's who he is. I cannot wait. We're going to talk with Rick Wilson tomorrow about all the things. And yes, there it is. And there is the live show. You can get it also at the City Winery New York website. If you want to go straight to the City Winery New York website, you can get your tickets there. We the tickets are selling fast, so please get them. Don't wait. Because if you don't get to go, I can't help you. Once they sell out, there's nothing I can do. And once this one is in the books, we will be taking this on the road. So there'll be some in your cities, but if you're in New York or if you're near New York, in New Jersey, anywhere near, please, please come and hang out with us. It's gonna be a lot of fun. Yes, Rick is hilarious. So see y' all tomorrow. If you are a Substack Premium subscriber for Joyce House Insiders at noon Eastern standard time, hopefully see you all in June, June 11 at the Joyrisho live at City Winery. Thank you all for tuning in, and you're gonna have to see my toilet seat. Cocaine on the toilet sea Getting back

Unknown Speaker (128:30)

to the basics grassroot level Let me dig a little deeper with the shovel

Joy Reid (128:34)

Plenty can't on the forest from the

Unknown Speaker (128:36)

trees that I'm hard to detect Like a black hole in a job Injustice anywhere it's a threat to justice everywhere Let me make this clear I got

Joy Reid (128:44)

a bone to pick and I'll never fear the threat of poverty they don't want to talk about it they rap a party so I'm a real talk about it for show.