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- [00:05]
Joy Reid
Okay.
- [00:14]
Jason Johnson
If I only had a clone. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Joy Reid show. It's Wednesday. I can already see the chats already heating up. Y' all are already in here. Somebody's got some like anger emojis. Why are there anger emojis in the chat, y'? All? Come on, don't be angry emojis. We just started the show. Welcome to the show. Big up to everybody who's watching on YouTube. I can see the YouTube chat here, looking here at the Twitch chat. Let me jump over and say hi to the Twitchies. Hello to everybody that's watching on the stack. That is the substack. That's our cute way of saying the substack chat. Thank you all for being here. Wherever you're listening, if you're listening on an audio platform, we appreciate you as well. Let's not forget our friends on LinkedIn. We still haven't come up with a name for the LinkedIn people. I call them LinkedInies, but apparently that's not supposed to efficient. So we're going to come up with something for them. Also our Facebook. Not the LinkedInies.
- [01:03]
Joy Reid
Absolutely not.
- [01:04]
Jason Johnson
LinkedInies. I'm a link. We've also got the people who watch on Facebook, our Facebook friends. We appreciate them as well. We just appreciate everybody. We just are thankful that each and every one of you is joining us. We have now topped 444,000 subscribers on the tube. 211,000 plus on the stage stack, 30,000 plus on Facebook. It's a small but vibrant community. And of course our about 400 strong on twitch, the little tuties. I haven't really been able to count the LinkedIn people. That's maybe why they don't have a name yet. Y' all come up with your own name, tell us what you want to be. But you're all readers to me. Everyone is a reader. We appreciate each and every one of you. Thank you to everybody who who has been voting in our our eyeglasses contest for shopredbag.com we're very excited the numbers are coming in. I peaked at them, but I don't want to. I don't want to jinx it by really telling you what's happening, but if you go on shopredbag.com or go on shop.jo annreid.com you can continue to vote for one of the three specs so we can create our readers. Our Vontel frames is our vontel partnership. So thank you all for voting in that. Please continue to vote because I really need help figuring Out. I'm going to tell you all I told Jason just before the show that. Well, I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say anything more. I'm going to say vote for one of the frames. Okay, let's just vote for one of the frames. We're going to figure out. We're going to. We're going to lock in and we're going to figure out what kind of frames you want, what kind of colors you guys like, what kind of style you like, should they be stylized? Should they be plain? What color should they be? All the things. Okay, we're going to figure all that out. The shape, all those things. Okay? So please continue to do that. I want to start. You know, we normally do the moment of joy at the end, but I actually want to do a moment of joy right at the top because, y' all, listen, I can't hold it to the end of the show. I can't wait two hours to tell y', all. We won a Webby. We. Jason, can we get an applause? We won a Webby. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Oh, spontaneous applause that I asked for, that I requested. Oh, my God. Thank you. Amazing. So the Webbies are the Oscars of the Internet game. So the Oscars of the Internet are actually the Webbies. We won one for best new podcast, and we are the best new podcast. The so. So big up to the team. Our. Our mighty eight person gang. We won a Webby. So big ups to everybody on the team, Team tjr. Big ups to you guys, all of you viewers who've made this all possible, who've subscribed and, like, please continue to hit subscribe and, like, don't be a lurker. Especially now that we're winners. You want to be on the team with the winners. You want to rock with the winners. Thank you, family. Appreciate it. Thank you. Yes. Thank you for the continued support. Indeed.
- [03:41]
Joy Reid
Try and keep it good for y'.
- [03:43]
Jason Johnson
All. We're going to try to keep it good. The train. The train is. Is out of the station, and we are excited about you guys being on it and hanging out with us. Everybody else, who won, my good friend Brittany Pack Cunningham, fellow machete. She also won one for her podcast. Don Lemon won one as well. He got a Webby as well. It was really great. Smart list. One of the best podcasts out there. They won one. It was a. It was a really cool category, and we're going to see if we can. You have to write a five word acceptance speech. So if you guys have five words that you guys think would be good, you have to write a five word acceptance features because they're going to let everyone. It's like hundreds of people won in different categories. They're the entertainment. There's a lot of celebrity categories. So we have to write a five word. Except. Do you want to reveal our five word speech? I can tell you that one of our, I don't know if she want me to say which one, but one of our team members said my five word acceptance speech should be I am still here. I am still here. What do y' all think of that? I am still here. So that, that's one of the options that one of our amazing team members came up with. But yes, very excited and I think it is definitely an affirmation of the fact that leaving mainstream media is not the end of your media sojourn and career. It's actually the beginning. I am so grateful to be in independent media because we're allowed to say and able to say things that I never could really say at work. When I was working for corporate media, I still gave you my, the truth and I still spoke my mind. Maybe too much, which is why I got fired on my day off. But I had to shape what I was saying knowing that there could be jeopardy, you know, on the other side or I could get a call or somebody yelling at me or getting mad at me if I cuss I got in trouble if I, you know. But here, you know, there is no boss. We're the boss of ourselves. And that is an amazing place to be in. And I love, I love, I love being about. So we, we won and I'm excited about it. And that is that. And let me now get to some breaking news. I want to get right to. There's some breaking news that literally just broke this hour because we'd love to get to the headlines. A Virginia judge has blocked the state of Virginia from certifying the results of the election that just happened yesterday. Yesterday, the referendum to do mid census redistricting in Texas. And this is the vote that you can see there. You can leave it on the screen, Jason. So this Virginia judge has blocked the state from certifying the results of this election, this, this congressional redistricting. And Virginia's attorney general Jay Jones, who was just recently elected, he has confirmed that they are going to appeal this decision. The order, according to officials, came from the Tazewell Circuit Court and its Republican appointed chief judge whose name is Jack Hurley. He's the this is the same court that previously blocked the referendum after repeatedly deeming the vote and the resolution for the referendum to be unconstitutional, siding, of course, with Republicans who have filed several lawsuits over it. That vote narrowly passed. You can see it on your screen. The blue is actually no. The red is yes. And the more you can see, the more populated areas of Virginia voted for this. And then, Jason, if you could put up a three, this is another little map I'm showing. These are all from the New York Times. Look at this. If you look at how people voted, you can see that on election Day, no, which again, is blue. It's kind of reverse of like red and blue. No is blue. Yes is red. So on election day, no actually won. No won 5,000, 347. But the early vote is where yes prevailed. So in the early vote, 5347. Yes, 1. And in vote by mail, it was overwhelming. Yes, 172 to 26. Now, you can see that is the reason, of course, that Donald Trump started freaking all the way out on his team of Twitter and crying vote fraud. And they're saying that the. It was confusing. And he's like, I'm a stable genius and even I couldn't understand the wording and demanding that the courts that the Federalist Society bought for him like a present, demanding that they fix it. And it looks like one of his judges has complied. Now, this victory, this very narrow victory, was not a big win, but it was a narrow victory that came after Republicans had tried to fool Virginia voters with these mailers with Barack Obama's picture on it at an old quote in which he opposed gerrymandering to try to trick Virginia voters into voting no. But Obama checked them by putting out a video calling for voters to vote yes, saying it was a temporary way to stop Republicans from stealing elections, and a majority followed his lead. So if you look at where we stand in terms of Congress, because remember, it was Republicans and Donald Trump specifically, who started this by ordering his minion in Texas, the governor of Texas and the legislature there, which is a super Republican majority, to gerrymander that state to get him five seats because he's so terrified of losing in the midterms and having to actually face a Congress that might check him. Right? Currently, there's 213 Democrats, 218 Republicans, one independent, four vacancies, actually five. Now, I think that Sheriff Lewis in Florida is now also out. She's also out of her seat. So you've got. And I think there was one person who actually Just died? Yeah, he died today. Today, yeah. David Scott, I believe. David SCOTT Right. So now you've got, I think five or six vacancies. So there's a lot vacant. It's a 435 seat house of Representatives. And Republicans had hoped to shift that by picking up five seats in Texas, but then they got checked by California, which they passed a constitutional referendum, which also was challenged in court by Republicans to gerrymander California in return. And then there started this sort of arms race. Democrats, you know, they vote to do it and then Republicans vote to do it. Was there, Republicans would do it and then Democrats were like, we're going to match you. Every single place Republicans tried to do this, Democrats vowed to match them with another state. Virginia was one of the match states, Maryland, which is still also fighting over whether they can do it. The governor wants to do it, but these Democrats, Democratic leader of the House here, is trying to fight it. So there's been battles in all these states over whether to do it. But the bottom line here is that with all the redrawn maps so far, I think even if you set Virginia aside, if you go through California, Missouri, North Carolina, Texas and Ohio, that have all done this, and Utah, due to a court decision, Ohio was actually mandated by their state constitution. If you add it all up, if Virginia stays, if this survives the court cases, it would mean that essentially Republicans, with all the gerrymander they've done, could pick up up to nine additional seats in states where they've done the redrawing. But Democrats could pick up 10 seats. So it's a wash. It appears that Republicans put us through all of this with Democrats having to flee the state of Texas. Remember, we had Jalanda Jones, State Rep. Jalanda Jones on with the maps. That all happened and the Democrats went right back home and lost. And it happened. Five seats gerrymandered, but now it's all moot. And then in addition to that, this is something Jason says a lot. We don't even know how the gerrymandering will really work in the real world. It could be that in Texas, in those five seats, Republicans don't pick up any of them or they pick up two of them. It's not even clear that they accomplished anything by putting us through all of this. Some more news, so we'll see how this works out. And I wouldn't be shocked if in the end, even though the Supreme Court already ratified Texas's gerrymander. So if this winds up in the Supreme Court and John Roberts doesn't want to look like a total shill, which he is. Watch if John Roberts tries to say that Virginia's gerrymander is illegal but Texas's was fine because they let Texas's go through. You'll recall John Roberts and them said Texas could do it. Thank you very much, Paula keys, for the $10. We appreciate it. Saying, wondering how these judges will thread this needle where it's okay in Texas but nowhere else. Exactly. That is the point. Correct, madam. Because if John Robertson friends say it's okay in Texas but not in Virginia, they're going to have to explain why. Or actually, they don't have to explain why. They are unelected bureaucrats, effectively, who are Republicans with robes on and they can do whatever they want. So I wouldn't be shocked if they say, yeah, but there's something about the Virginia ones, just not there. But you could do it. We just want Republican. They should just say, we just want Republicans to win. Just admit it. Just stop playing and faking like you're really upholding the. They don't give a crap about the Constitution. They just want Republicans to win because they work for the super rich. The super rich are who own the country, and the super rich want to get their way. And they always get it through the Supreme Court. Almost 80% of the time, they win. Speaking of super rich people who get what they want, remember Spirit Airlines? Spirit Airlines is like the Greyhound bus of flying. So people fly because it's cheap. I float it before Hitmo is one of the most terrifying rides of my life. But also Spirit can be very lovely. People who fly it, they love it. But Spirit's in financial trouble. And it now appears that the Trump regime is about to do a big bailout of Spirit Airlines and maybe also of the United Arab Emirates. I've got my, my Dubai, you see, I got my Dubai shirt on. This is my Dubai Air shirt. United Arab Emirates is maybe about to get a giant bailout. That happens to be the country that's a big investor in the Trump family crypto schemes. They have asked for a big bailout loan because of all the damage that the Iran war has done to their economy. So they want like a big bailout. They may get that because, of course, he has to help them because they invest in his crypto. He's also perhaps looking to bail out Spirit Airlines. Now, the Spirit deal is interesting. In a country that's supposed to be capitalist, the airline in this deal would get about $500 million of your tax money in exchange for giving the Trump regime An equity stake in the discount airline. So basically Maoist Chinese style communism as the government takes stakes in American companies. You know, like how China kind of owned TikTok before Trump's friend Larry Ellison bought it. The U.S. probably, you know, there's a whole thing about, you know, should U.S. steel have somebody they're trying to, like, buy parts of American companies to own them? That's what China does, but I guess we do it, too. Meanwhile, apparently the US blockade on Iran is collapsing. Reports are that dozens of Iranian ships are slipping past the US Navy ships and getting oil out of the Strait. Anyway, there's one report in the Financial Times that says that as many as 34 Iranian oil tankers have slipped through the blockade. Blockade, blockade, blockade, blockade. And soon I might be mpg. That song is very catchy. I'm sorry, that's one of my favorite little songs that has come out of the Trump mockery. But apparently the blockade, blockade is not working. About 19 vessels, according to the Financial Times, slipped through exiting the Persian Gulf, and another 15 ships entered the Arabian Sea going toward Iran. Six of those tankers were allegedly smuggling Iranian crude oil totaling 10.7 million barrels, according to the Times, which is estimated to be worth approximately $910 million in revenue for the regime. This as Grandpa Fuldiper pulled James David back from going to Pakistan to negotiate because, you know, what's the point at this point? And he's extended the ceasefire for the indefinite future. Oil is back up over $100 a barrel as it becomes clear that Trump basically has two options at this point. Escalate or surrender. Escalate or surrender. This as the Epstein class has successfully gotten the former podcasters who pushed for the release of the Epstein files during the campaign to bury them instead and put Ghislaine Maxwell in Club Fed. And Trump's approval ratings have collapsed into the low 30s, record low approval disapproval, record low approval and record high disapproval for Trump. He's in the 30s, and this is like even the Fox polls at this point. He's in the 30s. All the polls. There's a new NBC poll that has him, I think at 32%. It's an historic low, lower than any other previous president except the previous record holder, Donald Trump, 1.0. The Atlantic, by the way, has exposed Kashyap Patel as allegedly a drunken hot mess, for which he is now suing them for defamation in a case that would trigger discovery if it goes to trial. So he would have to. I mean, truth is a defense. So if they can prove It. And they apparently have dozens of unnamed sources. So. And let's see if that case goes through. And so in order to keep the MAGA distracted sufficiently, since all these things are going wrong, the Department of Justice, under Trump's personal attorney and Maxwell fixer Todd Blanch, has indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center. Yeah, the civil rights organization claiming, get this, that they have been behind the rise of right wing racist movements all along and literally funding them. Yeah, it's not been that there's a real racist far right. It's the Southern Poverty Law Center. Here's some of Todd Blanche and Kashya Patel in their press conference today.
- [17:00]
Joy Reid
I want to make sure, I understand
- [17:01]
Wajahat Ali
you're alleging that the Southern Poverty Law center was paying the leaders of KKK and other groups to continue their operations. Is that. I'm not alleging it. The grand jury returned an indictment that says that. And so what the investigation found, according to the indictment that was returned today,
- [17:22]
Jason Johnson
is that they were paying.
- [17:23]
Wajahat Ali
So Southern Poverty Law center is raising money, asking folks to give them money to dismantle racism. And over a very long period of time, they were using some of the money they raised from donors to pay to.
- [17:36]
Lev Parnas
They call them field, you know, basically
- [17:38]
Wajahat Ali
to informants, to, for information, for access,
- [17:44]
Jason Johnson
to just pay them for certain, to do certain things.
- [17:48]
Lev Parnas
And so, yes, that's exactly what the indictment charges.
- [17:51]
Jason Johnson
You mean like paid informants? So, Todd, you are a lawyer, right? So if a police department, let's just say, uses paid informants, they're actually funding the drug dealers that they're paying to be snitches. Is that what you're saying? You're saying they're paying snitches, you're saying. So you know what the Southern Poverty Law center does, right? They track hate groups. So he's saying, no, they weren't really tracking them, they were actually funding them. Let me read from the New York Times. The Justice Department charged the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group that has long tracked hate groups, on Tuesday with financial crimes, accusing it of defrauding donors by using their money to secretly pay informants inside extremist organizations. You know, paid informants is a thing. And let's keep going. And a news conference announcing the charges. Todd Blanche, the acting Attorney general, said that from 2014 to 2023, the group made payments totaling more than $3 million to, to people who are affiliated with extremist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan and the National Socialist Party of America. The law center, he added, was doing the exact opposite of what it told its donors it was doing, not dismantling extremism, but funding it. And here's the. Here's the money line from the Times. The indictment, however, offers little to support the notion that the group's payments to informants was meant to aid the extremist groups they had infiltrated. Paid informants is a very common way to uncover and to infiltrate extremist groups. That's so common. Law enforcement does it. But I guess we're now supposed to believe, right? According to Kashiap and Todd, that aha. Just as MAGA has always been trying to tell us there is no American racism. No, no, just deep state false flags that make Trump and his supporters look racist. Including the Unite the Right rally. Remember the tiki torch neo Nazi rally where a neo Nazi literally rammed a young white woman named Heather Heyer with his car and killed her? That Unite the Right, the Tiki torch march where people were screaming, you will not replace us. Followed by Jews will not replace us. Remember that with the tiki torches. So you know who organized the Unite the Right Tiki torch rally? Not the Southern Poverty Law Center. No, no, it was Richard Spencer, the self declared white nationalist who once threw an Elon hand gesture in the air with his friends and yelled, hail Trump, Hail our people. And who back in the day when he was a student at Duke, organized anti immigrant confabs with Stephen Miller. Yeah, that's Stephen Miller, who now runs the regime's evicted concentration camp, the Brown immigrants program. Though they later tried to deny that they were friends when the association came up during Trump's first run for president. And it became inconvenient for them to have known each other for so long. And you know who was one of the people at that Klan style Unite the Right rally? Nick Fuentes. Nicola Fuentes, the ironic Mexican far right wing Nazi curious streamer who is now a major opponent of the regime opposing them and their wars for Israel from the right alongside Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens and Marjorie Taylor Greene, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So Elon Twitterbugs are now, are now claiming, get this, that Fuentes, Nick Fuentes may have been a paid informant the whole time. So the new narrative on the right, if you can just wrap your mind around this, is that in addition to January 6th being an FBI setup to make Trump look like an insurrectionist and make MAGA look bad by somehow mind melding thousands of rabid Trump regalia wearing Trump flag waving goons to smash into the Capitol to take over the halls of Congress, to threaten to hang Mike Pence and try to attempt to kill or drag out Nancy Pelosi by her hairs, who. Who wore Nazi shirts and tried to jump through the speaker's lounge where the members were cowering with their 20 something year old aides under desks, the people who were terrified and couldn't find the panic button because it had somehow been dismantled. You're saying that that was all just a false flag, right? The FBI really did that? That was all false. What you saw with your own eyes wasn't real. That was just to try to make Trump look bad and try to make MAGA look bad and now unite the right was the same thing. But the Southern Property Law center is the one setting it up to make Trump look racist and to make MAGA look bad and make him look racist. Really? That's what we're supposed to believe. And all of this is happening right? While suddenly one of the most important and vocal right wing advocates for Trump, Trumpism and maga, namely the aforementioned Tucker Carlson, has turned against his supposed friend. Plot twist, right? Tuckham's is all of a sudden the voice of reason on Gaza, the voice of reason on Christianity and on respecting other religions and respecting Islam and even on war itself. To put a cap on this plot twist, Tucker has now apologized on his podcast for misleading his flock on Fox and on his post Fox podcast, which is one of the top podcasts in the country, misleading them to support Trump, who he's now pretty sure is the Antichrist. This as his son, Buckley. Buckley calls and quit his job. Which, by the way, did you know Tucker's son was working for JD Vance in the VP's office where he was the press secretary. Did you know that? Well, he's not anymore. He's now left that job to start his own consulting firm. I wonder who his new clients will be. Maybe like Joe Kent, maybe his dad, or maybe the other Buckley Carlson, fellow stepson of the late heiress to the Swanson food fortune, Tucker's brother, you know, whose also name is Buckley, who just quit his job working for Trump. Did you know he worked for Trump as a speechwriter? He did. And who Tucker was interviewing when he made his mea culpa?
- [23:54]
Joy Reid
I and everyone else who supported him. You wrote speeches for him? I campaigned for him. I mean, we're implicated in this for sure.
- [24:00]
Jason Johnson
Yes.
- [24:01]
Joy Reid
It's not enough to say, well, I changed my mind, or like, oh, this is bad, I'm out. It's like in very small ways, but in real ways, you and me and millions of people like us are the reason this is happening right now.
- [24:15]
Anthony Scaramucci
Yes.
- [24:16]
Joy Reid
So I do think it's like a moment to wrestle with our own consciences. You know, we'll be tormented by it for a long time. I will be. And I want to say I'm sorry for misleading people in. It was not intentional. That's all I'll say. But anyway. But the question does present itself immediately, like, what is this? Was this always the plan? You don't want to be a conspiracy nut, but, like, clearly there were signs of low character. We knew that. Yes, but it didn't. There are tons of people of low character who like outperform their character. It doesn't have to be sort of
- [24:52]
Anthony Scaramucci
the norm, actually, these days.
- [24:53]
Joy Reid
I say I've outperformed my character a lot. Kind of don't have especially high character. Right. But you know, you try to whatever, you try your best, but. But what, what, what was this? Was this always the plan?
- [25:10]
Jason Johnson
What is that? That's too much. You know, he's like, he goes in this like maniacal laugh. Like, you know, he's like, oh, greetings, we have somebody from London. Hello, Cheerio. Chip, chip, pip, pip. Celia Brooks. Yeah, yeah. What was that? What was that? Trump, Tucker, what was it? Tuckums, what was it? Was it always the plan? All these, like more than a decade that you've been riding with Trump, was he always fooling you so you would fool your viewers? And I see. What are you signing for, Tucker? Because all through Trump's first term, you were advocating for everything that he said he wanted mass deportation. You were for that. You pushed the racist white replacement theory thing that, you know, red pilled a lot of Trump based voters. You said immigrants make the country dirtier, literally dirtier. You were in favor of Trump bombing Iran or bombing whatever he wanted. You supported all of these Republican wars going all the way back to George W. Bush. Like, what is it they're saying you're sorry for now? I mean, it was Tucker, it was Tucker Carlson who reportedly pushed Donald Trump to put J.D. vance on the ticket. According to a New York Times report. He said he needed to put J.D. vance on the ticket or else if he put a neocon like Marco Rubio, he'd probably get killed, assassinated, because he'd be setting it up that the, the elite who, this elite son of an heiress who has bragged that he never has to work. And then the Fox News thing was just a fun thing he did on the side because he's so rich. That's something he has said that he pretends to be battling the elite. And his whole show was about battling the elite. But he admits that he's the elite, that he is super wealthy. Remember when he interviewed the guy, Martin Bregman, who was like, we need to be talking about taxing the rich. And he kind of screamed at him because he wouldn't back down from saying that you need to tax the rich. And he was so affronted that he, like, yelled at the guy, Remember that the taxes, taxes, taxes guy. This elite guy who pretends to be battling for the working man who took over Bill O'Reilly, who was doing the same shtick at Fox that's battling for the workingman. These very wealthy men were very privileged, saying, I'm here for the. With a working man. But he is friends with Peter Thiel, James David's sugar daddy, who is the person who essentially has his hand up. J.D. vance, like J.D. vance is a puppet. That's Tucker's friend. And he and the other rich boy bro said, you got to put our guy JD on the ticket. Someone else who used to say Donald Trump was maybe Hitler, that you can't trust him, that he's no good. And then all of a sudden, all these people who despise Donald Trump, Rubio, J.D. vance, Tulsi Gabbard, all these opponents who said that Donald Trump was unfit to be president. Horrible. Taking the white working man astray. All of a sudden, they all, like, on the team. And Tucker rubber stamped all of that. And now we're just supposed to believe that the guy who helped to assemble this team that's got us going to war because BB Wants us at war. Now we're supposed to just trust that he knows what is best for us. He knows what's best for America. He knows what's best for Christians, he knows what's best for Christianity because again, I have family members texting me the stuff he's saying on his podcast, saying, wow, this guy's really making sense. But this is the same guy who literally did a documentary while at Fox using Capitol Hill surveillance footage that was sent only to him by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy so that he could lie about the insurrection and claim that it was totally peaceful. He lied for Donald Trump and supported his continued lie that the 2020 election was stolen, helping to trigger that lawsuit by the voting machine firms Dominion and smartmatic that resulted in the discovery that he had sent emails calling Trump a demonic force, saying he hated him passionately and could not wait to never have to talk about him again. We're very, very Close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I hate him passionately. But he also then said, but I love Trump. He subsequently denied those emails and said, but I love Trump, and then was hanging out with him again after those emails were leaked. Which is it? Which is it? And how might it happen that Tucker might never have to talk about Trump again? How might that happen? This whole thing of never having to talk to Trump again. Well, okay, let me give you all a scenario. What if Tucker and Candace and Joe Kent and Megyn Kelly and Marjorie Taylor Greene and all of those guys, all of these people who are now the America first breakaways from maga, right, the mega MAGA split. What if they could lead the now doubly angry, broke, paying high gas prices, disappointed that the Epstein files didn't come out. QAnon curious. But turning out Trump is the guy behind QAnon. You know, all of those guys who are now pissed off about the war, pissed off about Israel, all that. What if this group could lead those angry MAGA base people away from Trump, steal them from him and hand them over to the new daddy, J.D. vance, whose sugar daddy is Peter Thiel or maybe Tucker himself, Peter Thiel's friend. Maybe he or Joe can't run for president themselves in 2028. They would certainly take a huge chunk of the MAGA base with them if they did. And who would control the White House if one of those people that I just mentioned, Joe Kent or Tucker or J.D. vance, became president? Who would control the White House? The people? The populist. No, Peter Thiel. And who does Peter Thiel represent? He represents Palantir. He's a part of that. The company that raked in $1.8 billion in mass surveillance cash last year from the federal government paid by your tax dollars and which is providing the AI tech that's being used to wage this war in Iran and the war in Gaza and the war on Lebanon. Alex Karp and the rest of the forever war and mass surveillance oligarchs, who, along with the fossil fuel oligarchs and the Wall street oligarchs and the people who want to cut down all the timber and turn it into whatever those are. The people who own this country, to use the old George Carlin term. Just a reminder for a moment of what Alex Karp sounds like. Take a listen. Strong military.
- [31:35]
Joy Reid
Make that military the strongest the world, give an unfair advantage to America. Do not treat all cultures as equal simultaneously.
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Wajahat Ali
Do not get on the whole neocon,
- [31:43]
Joy Reid
make the whole world like America think is it doesn't work.
- [31:46]
Jason Johnson
Be skeptical of immigration.
- [31:49]
Joy Reid
Built technology will be the determinant variable in who runs the world.
- [31:56]
Jason Johnson
These people who are. I mean, I used to think that Peter Thiel might be the most diabolically evil person on the planet, but now I really am convinced it's that guy Alex Carr. I mean, there is no soul in those eyes. He's just like, kill, kill, kill, surveil, surveil, surveil. You know, between him and Larry Ellison, who's just like the wax faced, you know, monster who's like, surveil, surveil, surveil. Camera in your car, camera in your room, camera in your bed. Camera, camera, camera watching you all day long. And this guy else copper is like, yes. Camera watching you all day long. Drop bombs. F those Palestinians. Kill them all. Kill in the name of the West. He might be the most evil at all of y'. All. I'm sorry, Elon. Bad. They're all bad. But he might be actually the most evil. Right, and so is it. Is this the gambit, though? I mean, and I cannot say that I know this. I'm not reporting that this is the gamut, but this is an interesting question, right? Is this the gamut, Right, the gambit for the other side. Because it kind of does feel like a heads, I win, tails you lose gambit for the country's owners to get the base back in line. Because just to come back to Trump for a moment, if you believe all the bad things that have been said about Donald Trump were really just lies that were fed to you by the evil media by the likes of the Southern Poverty Law center, that means you're gonna stay with Trump and stay under the control of Palantir and Peter Thiel and Tucker. I mean, I'm sorry, Palantir and Peter Thiel and the Epstein class oligarchs, you're gonna stay with them because you're like, trump was done wrong. Trump was lied to. I'm with the team. But if you leave Trump and go with Candace and Tucker and all of them, isn't that still rolling with Palantir and Peter Thiel and Elon? Because it's almost like Mag is being given the illusion of choice. While the endless war mass surveillance guys are on either side of that equation. They just need them to get in one of these lines, all of which lead to the same place. You roll with the Israel first neocons like Ben Shapiro and Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio and Mark Levin. You get AI driven endless wars powered by Israel. Or you roll with The Tucker Carlson team, and they're all allied with Peter Thiel, J.D. vance, all of them are all Peter Thiel people. So they're also allied with the AI oligarchs and Palantir. So no matter which way you turn, the same people would still be in charge no matter who wins in 2028 if it's a Republican. Because if you really believe that pretend anti war Peter Thiel puppet JD Vance and suddenly anti war, but anti non white immigrant and white replacement theory believer Tucker or far right Joe Kent are going to restore America first and bring infrastructure, not bombs or whatever else they're selling you, you really are not paying close attention. The winners of this game will be the same winners of all the games. Peter Teal, Palantir Elon, Jeffrey Sacks, Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, the CIA crowd, all funded with CIA money. The whole oligarch gang. They win either way. And I'd unfortunately throw some Democrats. Some powerful Democrats are in that bag too, because they are also Israel first. Wars against the brown people. Money for the B35 bombers will never stop funding. Endless, endless, never ending war. And what Israel is, I'm now realizing as I become an adult, is it's the war machine. It's the place that never stops going to war with its neighbors. It's perfect if you're a defense contractor, you've got to have an Israel. They just keep buying more bombs. And there are some Democrats that are in that bag too, y'. All. So we are now in a heads I win, tails you lose, mess. And the brown countries just keep getting bombed. You have the illusion of choice, as legendary comedian George Carlin used to say, when the outcome, however, will always be war to enrich them, surveillance to enrich them, and impoverishment and want for you.
- [35:59]
Joy Reid
A lot of things have happened since the last time I saw you. Just want to talk a little bit about that war in the Persian Gulf. Big doings in the Persian Gulf. You know my favorite part of that war? It's the first war we ever had that was on every channel plus cable. And the war got good ratings too, didn't it? Got good ratings. Well, we like war. We like war. We're a war like people. We like war because we're good at it. And you know why we're good at it? Because we get a lot of practice. This country's only 2, 200 years old and already we've had 10 major wars. We average a major war in this country every 20 years. So we're good at it. And it's a good thing we are. We're not very good at anything else anymore. Can't build a decent car. Can't make a TV set or a VCR worth. Got no steel industry left. Can't get health care to our old people. Can't educate our young people. But we can bomb the out of your country, all right? We can bomb the out of your country, all right? Especially if your country is full of brown people. Oh, we like that, don't we? That's our hobby. That's our new job in the world. Bombing brown people. Iraq, Panama, Grenada, Libya. You got some brown people in your country, Tell them to watch the out or we'll bomb them. But when's the last white people you can remember that we bombed? Can you remember the last white. Can you remember any white people we've ever bombed? The Germans. The Germans are the only ones. And the only reason for that is because they were trying to cut in on our action. They wanted to dominate the world.
- [37:44]
Anthony Scaramucci
Bullshit.
- [37:45]
Joy Reid
That's our job. That's our.
- [37:50]
Jason Johnson
That was in 1992. And he told it. Just saying. Let me take a moment to let you guys know about one of our wonderful sponsors who makes this new media venture possible. The Joy Reach show is brought to you tonight by Irestore. Okay, so, you know, being in this media business, one thing that you cannot escape is the impact of daily makeup on your skin child. It is just a fact, no matter how thoroughly you wash your face, how many products that you pack on your skin just takes a beating to. And it's a reality that I've had to live with since being in this media, right? And a good friend of mine in the business years ago told me that one way to refresh your complexion and beat back the breakouts and all the issues and that like dull look that you get when you just wear makeup all the time is LED light therapy. And so I'm like, you know what, let me try it. And that is why I am excited about Irestore. Irestore has been leading the way in red light therapy for more than two decades, helping shape the category with clinically backed devices that are trusted by over 500,000 customers worldwide. And with Irestore, they're having an anniversary sale because they are so excited about having been in this business for so long. It's running now through April 27th. And honestly, it's the perfect time to upgrade your skin care and your hair care routine. This sale is a celebration of the community that has grown alongside them. So to celebrate, Irestore is highlighting some of their most advanced devices which are designed to support both hair and skin skin health. The Irisore Elite is their most advanced laser hair growth system, using 300 lasers and 200 LEDs to help regrow thicker, healthier hair in as little as three months. It's effortless. You just wear it while working or reading or unwinding at night. And the Illumina face mask is a red light infrared light wavelength that helps to with anti aging, increased collagen production, hyperpigmentation, which is a real problem for African American skin, and improved blood flow to the skin. The blue light helps to reduce blemishes, clear acne and prevent breakouts and shrink your pores. And it's one of the first masks on the market that allows you to use all three modes at the same time. It is lightweight, cordless and packed with two times more LEDs than other top masks. Just 10 minutes a few times a week for brighter, smoother, healthier looking skin. And here's the best part. During their anniversary sale you can bundle the Irestore Elite and the Illumina face mask together, making it the perfect time to upgrade your routine. So if you're refreshing your routine or finally getting your hair and skin the attention they deserve, this bundle is a powerful way to elevate your routine and an even better value during this limited anniversary event. Irestore is so confident in their technology that they offer a 12 month money back guarantee. If you do not see healthier looking skin or fuller looking hair, you will get a full refund. No awkward questions, just results or your money back. There is a restocking fee that applies, but you will get your money back. All right, so Irisore is kicking off their anniversary sale with some huge discounts on their red light therapy devices. Right now you can save on customer favorites like the Irestore Elite helmet and the Illumina face mask. Just head to irestore.com that's I r e s t o r e dot com and use the code joy to take advantage of the sale. That is joy restore.com please support our show and tell them we sent you and give your hair and skin the upgrade they deserve so you can feel confident and refreshed. All right, so I want to remind you all just one more time of the real talks.
- [41:06]
Wajahat Ali
We are done with people coming in
- [41:09]
Jason Johnson
illegally and being treated better in a
- [41:12]
Joy Reid
more comfortable and more luxurious manner than
- [41:14]
Jason Johnson
we treat our own people well.
- [41:17]
Joy Reid
The whole point is to humiliate and degrade the Indigenous population of the British Isles, the white population. I mean, that's the whole point. And are they really gonna do something about it? What would that be exactly? You'd really have to force a lot of people to go back to their countries of origin. Millions of people, and you need to do it really soon. And are they actually willing to do that? I really. I don't know. But these are existential questions that we have been browbeat into ignoring for decades. But the question is, like, is Ireland Ireland if it's majority non Irish. Oh, shut up. They're Irish. No, they're actually not Irish. Same with the uk. Same with England, Scotland, Wales. Like, it's all changing so fast. Nothing like this has ever happened in all of history, except when, say, the Mongols swept across the steppe and raped everybody. Like, that was true demographic change on this scale. But even that wasn't as profound as what we're seeing in every white country around the world. I would say the west, but Australia and New Zealand also. So, like, what is that now? My brain is not big enough to understand what that is, I think. I mean, I have a lot of theories about it, but I don't know if they're true. All I know is what the numbers are, and that's real. And no one feels that he can say it. Everyone's like, well, if that were happening in China or India or Malaysia or Senegal, it doesn't matter. You'd be like, what the hell is that? Like, the population's totally different. Look at graduation, pick, I don't know, King's College, Law School. And look at the graduation picture for the last 30 years. Who's in it? Just, like, let your eyes tell you the truth for once. Like, this is a total change in population. Is it better? Is it worse? Can't have that conversation. Who's pushing this? Does the population want it? Population clearly doesn't want it. There's no polling that's meaningful on the subject. I mean, there's no referendum on it. You don't get to decide. You've got no voice in it other than you get to go to jail if you complain loudly enough about it. What is this? I think it's the biggest and darkest thing that has happened in the last thousand years for sure. And I think it's leading somewhere really, really bad. It's not happening by accident. That's obvious, because it's only happening in white countries.
- [43:19]
Jason Johnson
I mean, I think that.
- [43:20]
Joy Reid
Oh, shut up, white supremacist. In fact, I'm not a white supremacist. I'm just noticing what the hell's going on.
- [43:25]
Jason Johnson
You can just see peers just thinking it's fine. Yes, yes, yes. If only the British Empire hadn't created empire by taking control of India and, and much of Africa and enslaving so many blacks and bringing them here such that they could reproduce children and those children could actually reproduce children. And if we hadn't bring all those Malaysians, we thought you could almost see his mind working. If everyone enslaved so many people, maybe they wouldn't know where we were. Joining me now is our great panel, our friend Wajahat Ali, host of the Democracy Ish podcast, writer, recovery attorney, curator of the left substack, author of Memoir to Play and former Trump administrator. Alongside him, Trump Administration 1.0 Communications Director for the time period here to be known as one Scaramucci, the Anthony Scaramucci. Thank you both for being here.
- [44:22]
Wajahat Ali
Pleasure.
- [44:24]
Anthony Scaramucci
I'm digging, I'm digging the Millennium Falcon up there.
- [44:27]
Wajahat Ali
Thank you.
- [44:28]
Lev Parnas
Thank you.
- [44:29]
Anthony Scaramucci
I mean, it's true. Room rating. That's a 10 out of 10 room rating over there.
- [44:34]
Jason Johnson
I agree.
- [44:35]
Wajahat Ali
I want to make sure that I'm on the side of the rebel forces and not the empire. And going back to your point, Joy, you know, just listening to Tucker Carlson, he said, trust the evidence of your eyes. I agree. Trust the evidence of your eyes and your ears and you'll hear Tucker Carlson for the past, oh, I don't know, 10 years, parrot white supremacist talking points. I'm old enough to remember that. Tucker Carlson last year told a bunch of Trumpers, donald Trump is the daddy and daddy's coming home and he's going to give America, who's a little girl, a violent beating. I remember Tucker Carlson in the White House two months ago. I remember Tucker Carlson giving softball interviews to Hungary and Putin and saying America should be more like Orban's Hungary, the illiberal democracy that was also anti Semitic and Islamophobic. I remember Andrew Anglin, white supremacists in the first Trump administration, said, we white supremacists don't need a TV show. You know why? We have Tucker Carlson. So now Tucker Carlson is going on a redemption tour. And I just want to say, isn't it interesting, Joy, who gets redeemed in America? Who gets a slap on the wrist? The tent, the Democratic tent, always opens up a right word, never opens up a left word. And Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson and maybe a little bit of Candace Owens and Thomas Massie and all these people who are complicit in the rise of maga. They just have to do the bare minimum and slither, not even hop over a slither, over the lowest bar on earth. And then you see Democrats saying, you know what, let's make love to Liz Cheney, let's spread our legs open, let's open up every hole for Liz Cheney. But can't have Abdul Al Sayed, can't have Zoran Mamdani. And I'm afraid that the same thing's going to happen with the Marjorie Taylor Greene's, the Tucker Carlson. These people are exactly who they were. They are racist grifters. And I need to see more, if you will, contrition. And I need to see someone actually confront them and say, do you renounce all the white nationalism, your ties with Nick Fuentes, all the horribly racist things you said against black and brown people, your ties to Orban, your ties to Putin, do you renounce all of that? Then we can talk about redemption. But that's just me.
- [46:31]
Jason Johnson
First of all, we will not be making love to Liz Cheney, okay? I don't care what, I don't care what the price is. I don't care what we would get in return. It's a Hailton. And secondly, I think this is an important point, Anthony, because here's the thing. I was talking with a friend of mine about this the other day, that people are sending around Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson clips and we're talking about Democrats, people who are liberals sitting around being like, my God, they're making so much sense. And I always say to them, listen to their whole interview, don't just listen to that clip. Because if you keep listening to Tucker, he eventually gets to. But yeah, brown immigrants are destroying America. He eventually gets right back to that kind of white replacement thing. I watched that interview with him and Buckley and Buckley wasted no time doing a really nasty, ugly slap at Kamala Harris for no reason, out of the blue, with no reason to even refer to her, refer to her in a way that is disgusting and misogynist. This is who these folks are. Why do you suppose they're pivoting? Because I'm going to put it this up. Jason put up B2. He said I hate Trump in text messages to his friends. And when confronted with it, he said, no, no, I love Trump. Your thoughts?
- [47:42]
Anthony Scaramucci
Well, I mean, look, there's a lot there. So I think the first talk about Tucker specifically, Tucker's following the money. So he's trying to find his audience and he's just following the money. So that's an Unprincipled weather vein. You know, I. I think there's a mistake going to be made, though, by the Democrats, if you don't mind me saying so, because there are rational people, people that did make mistakes, going to work for Trump, helping Trump the first time. I think I'm a pretty rational person, and I've also owned up to the mistake that I made and offered an apology for it and offered an explanation. I've seen myself mostly as a centrist Republican. I have no home now, so the Democrats won't accept me. To Mr. Ali's point, I once worked for Trump, and so I. There's not enough penance that I could possibly pay for the Democrats to accept me. The Republicans hate me because I left Trump, so the Democrats don't like me because I was with Trump. You know, I spent six hours with Vice President Harris's debate team in the summer of 2024, and then I went with the vice president to Philadelphia to the Constitution center to help on the debate prep prior to the debate. I then went into the spin room with Governor Newsom and others to try to help her, because I understand the existential danger of Donald Trump. And by the way, I actually think it's gonna get worse from here. As catastrophic as the last 16 or 17 months have been, I think it's gonna get worse. But, you know, I helped her. They were very, very appreciative. I got a couple of zingers in there that I knew would really irritate Trump. And then I was asked to go on the campaign plane. And then I got a call from somebody that both of you know, wouldn't be important to give her name because it wouldn't be fair. But I called him. Somebody said, hey, look, you know, the hard left on this plane, they don't want to be anywhere near you. So even though the vice President wants you on the plane and wants your help, they don't want to be anywhere near you. And I understand Trump pretty well. I can articulate where he's going, and I can help defend against Trump. And weirdly, I think my firing gave me a platform to speak about the damage that he's causing. So, you know, to me, yes, you can hate those guys and say they haven't done enough penance and so on and so forth, but what I'm worried about are the 79 million people that voted for. We can't just saw them out of the country. We've got to say, hey, guys, there's a lot of different reasons why you voted for them, we got to get you back into the realm of normalcy and break the fever of the culture.
- [50:18]
Jason Johnson
Well, let me, let me say this because I think that what you've experienced, I cannot discount your experience. And I am sorry that that has been your experience, because I'm definitely not that person. I mean, we have left Parnas on the show in an hour.
- [50:29]
Anthony Scaramucci
Joy, let me tell you something, okay? I have clips of you slamming my ass in the White House. And I'm just gonna give you a ranking. You were like mild compared to Bill Maher. You were mild compared to Jimmy Fallon or Stephen Colbert. I went on all their shows. I got, I got serrated by Saturday Live. I went on as a guest. I own the mistakes that I made. I own the misunderstanding of where, what he was going to do as president. However, I do see the economic desperation of the people that are clinging to Donald Trump. I mean, we, we've got to get those people back into the, into the system. You know, there's a group, I grew up in a blue collar family. Guys, I was a, my father was a crane operator. We were economically aspirational. Those people today are economically desperational and they see Trump as an avatar for their anger.
- [51:25]
Jason Johnson
But here's my question. This is my question to you. And like I said, I can't discount your experience. But you didn't hear probably my open. Because I see Tucker Carlson and Candace and Megyn Kelly, who's one of the meanest people you wanna talk about. Mean. Probably one of the meanest people in the, in the business. But they are now seeming to try to lead MAGA out of Donald Trump's camp and into their own. But at the end of the rainbow that they are putting forward for these people who you're saying are so economically desperate is also Peter Thiel. Tucker Carlson is an ally of Peter Thiel. JD Vance is an ally of Peter Thiel. It seems to me that to your point, the people who are being led out of there are being led right back to the same people, just with different front men.
- [52:12]
Anthony Scaramucci
You know, I didn't hear your opening, but if I could just say one more sentence. I don't mean to dominate the conversation, but I say one more sentence, it's worse than even what your opening is, okay? Because they're looking around, they've met with their consultants, and their consultants are saying to them, Trump is a lame duck at the end of November, he's going to become politically irrelevant. You've got to keep this base that's paying you your podcast Income and you got to keep all of this stuff and we got to get you on side for the plutocracy that's coming. Because this project 2025, we can't believe we got it in place and started executing on it. And we misfired on some of the execution. I mean, we murdered people in Minneapolis and things like that. So we got to tone that down and be a little bit more subtle about the authoritarianism that we want to bring to the country. And so, yeah, no, there's. They're gearing up and by the way, they are way more organized, you know, and you guys are gonna be really mad at me for saying this, but the best thing they have going for them is the internal fight between the medium left, the more than medium left, and the hard left and the Democrats, because the Democrats are fighting amongst themselves and not really understanding how serious the threat is. And to me, I would be focused on that threat and I would be unified against one figure, two figures in that party. And I would tell everybody, okay, you may not agree with every single thing that this person's saying, but we got to go lockstep to beat these people, because you have the numbers to beat these people. They've been very, very successful at dividing you. Okay, I'm sorry to be.
- [53:49]
Jason Johnson
No, no, not at all. Because by the way, MAGA is divided, too. I don't know why I've led you back in here, because the reality is it isn't just the Democrats. And the Democrats, I think, are divided on the issue of Israel, let's just be honest. But I think both parties are at this point. Watch. It's not just the Democrats that are fighting amongst themselves as to how hard they want to go for Israel and how obedient they want to be to Bibi Netanyahu. Republicans on MAGA are too. That is the reason that Trump, that Tucker and Marjorie Greene et al, are able to field their own little group. I mean, Nick Fuentes and those guys are pulling people away for the exact same reason the Democrats are divided. Your thoughts?
- [54:26]
Wajahat Ali
Allow me to retort. We are dealing with an Epstein class. We're dealing with the top versus bottom system that is profiting off of the rape of our girls, the rape of our resources, and billionaires who give hundreds of millions of dollars to both sides of the party. The Democrats, like I said before, I'll say it again, the tent only opens rightward. It never opens to the left. Speaking of the left, the left is the majority, the overwhelming majority of Americans want to tax the rich. The Overwhelming majority of American, especially Democrats, now believe that Israel is committing a genocide. When Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, they had an opportunity. Should we invite. The bar was so low, Joy. It was in hell. We just need to invite a Palestinian speaker to the dnc. You know what they did? They told us to shut up. And they brought in Liz Cheney. Right? Even now, Ken Martin, the head of the dnc, he promised that he would release the DNC audit. He has it. Why? Because he realized the audit will actually conform to what you and I have said. Is that 18 million Democrats stayed at home because they thought their party betrayed them. Their they were too close to the right wing. Too close. Not fighting. They wanted rest, restoration instead of transformation. Now you see Gavin Newsom, vote D no matter who, right? Well, Gavin Newsom, when asked softball down the middle, do you accept taxing the billionaires? You know when he said, they're part of my big tent. You know who's not part of their big tent? Me. You. Abdul said. Zoran Mamdani. The most popular Democrat right now in America in 2026 is Zoran Mamdani. Chuck Schumer has been more close and comfy to Benjamin Netanyahu than Zoran Mamdani. Even Donald Trump, who knows how to play the game and wants to get close to people who are popular, has shown more love to Zoran Mamdani than Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries and Kristen Gillibrand. So the Democrats think, okay, we'll run to the right. We'll try to court Chet, this magical unicorn white man who lives in the Rust Belt and drinks real coffee with a real MAGA hat, and we'll just ignore our own base. And the reason why they're ignoring their own base, Joy, is their base is saying, no more forever wars. Stop sucking at the teeth of apac. Stop taking money from crypto. Stop taking money from AI Abolish ICE and tax billionaires. But the Democratic leadership and its donors have spent the past four weeks attacking Hassan Piker, who nobody knew, as a proxy to attack and ruin any Democrat who's progressive, on taxing the billionaires and what ending the genocide. So the Democratic Party has to realize this is where the majority is. This is where the base is. And guess what? It's not just the far left. Every single poll says that this is where the majority of Americans are. Latino voters who voted for Trump, they want to tax the rich. White voters, they want to tax the rich. When you frame it like this, it's The Epstein class versus us. The 1% versus the 99%. You see why so many people are surging whether you like them or not. Platner Abdul said. I predicted it three weeks ago. The attacks on him will only help him. What happened. He's now beating Mallory McMurrah. Zoran Mamdani. People are like, oh, wow. Zoran Mamdani, as the mayor, is taxing the rich, actually getting shit done. And guess what? These rich billionaires who are about to flee New York, they ain't fleeing nowhere, Joy. They ain't going nowhere. So stop trying to court this mythical unicorn that doesn't exist. Listen to your base. And George Carlin said it in that clip, it's a big club and you
- [57:34]
Jason Johnson
ain't in it very quick. I know we're keeping you guys a little bit long. I'm going to let you respond to this because this is the question that I do have, Anthony, is there is. I don't feel like the attachment to either the Democratic or the Republican Party is as strong today as it was even a year ago. I think that attachment is becoming weaker and weaker and weaker. And to Waj's point, it's becoming much more. The people who are on the maga, right, that at least are public and speaking and have little podcasts or little tiktoks or Instagram, they are starting to sound much more like progressives who are on the left. They're equally against the Forever Wars. They're equally against the Epstein class being able to hide their sexual predation. They're equally, in this case, is angry at Trump. They're both mad about the apostasy playing, you know, putting himself up as Jesus. Like, I don't know that this is a Democratic Party needs to become more centrist. It sounds to me like there needs to be a third option.
- [58:32]
Anthony Scaramucci
So I wasn't saying the Democratic Party should become more centrist. I'm not. I'm not even suggesting that. I actually will see to all the comments that Wash made if it's okay if I can call you.
- [58:42]
Joy Reid
Watch.
- [58:42]
Anthony Scaramucci
I see the points that he's making. I'm just saying Zoram Mandani has done something very interesting and maybe you guys should really look at it carefully. I live here in New York. He's doing the job. Oh, he's fixing the potholes. He's working with Commissioner Tisch. He's got the sanitation people on side. He's doing the job. The city's cleaner. I don't know if you guys live in the city, but I'm in the city. Every day. And the city's cleaner. He's doing the job. So to me, some of the campaign promises that he made, he's rolled back on one of them. Taxing people. I have no problem, guys. I'm a New Yorker. I pay my taxes. I have no properties in Florida. All my property is here in the state of New York. I have never once complained about paying taxes, and I understand it. And by the way, I'm a product of a public school education, so I want to work with the teachers. I was out in Dix Hills this morning working with some retired teachers on trying to get the reading capacity up on some of these elementary school kids. So I'm about that. I'm saying something different. Not saying go to the right or be more centrist, but be more healing. You have to open the tent for people that are lost in this political process that may have gotten sucked into Trump or may have. May have, I don't know, bought into something that isn't true. Do you understand what I'm saying? I'm just talking about healing and I'm talking about being very careful not to reject these people. They're not all white supremacists. That's all I'm saying. You want to tax these people, by all means, you should tax these people. We are wildly off base here. We're taking in 19% of the GDP and we're spending 26.5% of the GDP. That's not sustainable, okay? Moreover, just say one very progressive thing to think about, because the father of progressive was actually a Republican. It was Teddy Roosevelt. And if you read Doris Kearns Goodwin in the bully pulpit, he brought the robber barons to the White House. And he said, you got to knock it off. If you don't knock it off, okay? And he started busting their trusts and he put progressive ideas in place, which ultimately led to a progressive income tax system. And so listen, I'm the product of a burgeoning middle class, guys. My father operated a crane, and we had a small house on Long island and we had more than we needed. You got to bring those people back in. It's not what Wash said, the guy drinking the real coffee or whatever that is. It's just that you got to get back to the framework of the jobs and the opportunity. Don't miss the plot, okay? That's all I'm saying. I get it. You want to be inclusive. I like brown and black people. I had no problem with anybody. Italians weren't even white coming in, guys. Teddy Roosevelt said that we were black. They said in the thing Italians should be treated as non Caucasians for purposes of immigration. I got no problem. I'm just saying be open to the idea of healing the country for people that you may totally disagree with because you'll be surprised at how many people you can bring in your coalition. That's all.
- [62:01]
Jason Johnson
All right, well, before we let that is it, I think that is a fair statement. I feel like the chat is going to take that in and enjoy it.
- [62:06]
Joy Reid
But I.
- [62:07]
Jason Johnson
Before I let you guys go, I have to ask a final question.
- [62:10]
Anthony Scaramucci
Is not buying that. Okay.
- [62:14]
Jason Johnson
I think he disagrees. I don't think he disagrees.
- [62:17]
Anthony Scaramucci
I'm smelling off a watch that he's really not buying it.
- [62:20]
Jason Johnson
I don't think this book behind him.
- [62:21]
Anthony Scaramucci
I gotta. I gotta read the book because it's. That's what got me in trouble with Trump, by the way, when he said, go back to the country countries you originally came from. I said on the Bill Maher show, they said that to my Italian American grandmother. And I said, it's offensive and it's racist and it's nativist. And then Trump started going wild on me.
- [62:40]
Jason Johnson
Yeah.
- [62:40]
Anthony Scaramucci
And then, of course, I'm a New Yorker, so I punched them back. I think I called him the fattest president since William had his death. You know, he hates being so fat. And then the fight started. But no, I gotta go read Waj's stuff now. But I'm getting from Waj that he's pissed off at the people that were once with Trump. If I'm wrong about that, speak up.
- [62:59]
Jason Johnson
Go ahead. I'll let you get in real quick.
- [63:01]
Wajahat Ali
My retort to that, and I know you want to ask a question. The tent has to open for everyone. The tent has to open for everyone. The Democratic Party is more content chasing a Liz Cheney than their own base. I talked to Lev Parnas. I talked to Miles Taylor. I talked to Olivia Troy. If you have seen the light, I welcome you because politics is about numbers. However, if you're a Tucker Carlson and a grifter like Megyn Kelly, I know what you're selling. I want to use you because you're using me. I know you're using Israel and Palestine forever wars and the growing discernment about AI to cobble together an America first movement. I know you're using social media to win over a lot of undecided voters. So I'll let you use these issues to attack these issues. But I'm going to use you. I'm going to use you to weaken Maga because I know who you are. And then that's what I want to say about these people like Tucker and Megan Kelly and others. They're not like Scaramucci and they're not like Miles Taylor. They're not like Left Parnas, because I haven't seen in the fight. Lev is in the fight, Anthony's in the fight, Olivia's in the fight, Miles Taylor's in the fight. But with Democrats, I'll tell you again, somehow the tent only opens up rightward. It doesn't open up to the left. And if you're going to keep doing that, don't be surprised if 18 million Democrats stay at home again.
- [64:17]
Jason Johnson
That's. I think that you guys are more on the same page than you think. Before I let you guys go, I
- [64:22]
Anthony Scaramucci
think it makes a lot of sense.
- [64:23]
Jason Johnson
Yeah, I think you're more on the same page. You think. Before I let you guys go, I have to ask Wajahat Ali why you did Doug Wilson like that. I actually brought you on because I needed you to just explain. Those of you who have not seen the P. Morgan interview where Doug, Pastor Doug Wilson got taken to the woodshed by our good friend Waj, I just want to let you say more about how it felt to get in front of somebody who is, you know, talk about misleading people, misleading people in their faith and taking him apart. Your thoughts, and I'll give you the final word on that.
- [64:57]
Wajahat Ali
Yeah. Pastor Doug Wilson, for those who don't know, is a religious mentor and spiritual guide of Pete Kecseth, our Secretary of Defense. Pastor Doug Wilson has openly said that American slavery was sanctioned by the Bible. He was against chattel slavery, but he said slavery was mutually harmonious between the enslaved and the slavers. Openly said he doesn't believe in the 19th Amendment, which gave 51% of the population women the right to vote, believes women should be second class citizens. And he's a Christian nationalist who wants Christian dominionism. This man has openly said this, owned it. Pete Hex said not only has promoted him, but has invited him into the Pentagon this year to give prayer services. Right. This is a man who openly never gets confronted. Christian nationalism never gets named. And I had this opportunity, some might say joy to quote the Blues Brothers, I was on a mission from God. The Holy Spirit possessed me. And I'm like, really? Doug Wilson is coming on on this panel with me and Tim Miller and Piers Morgan. How can I resist? And so I didn't pick a fight with him, but it was Tim who said, I'm not going to call you pastor. And then Doug Wilson got offended and he said, well, I thought you were supposed to respect religious leaders like the Pope. And that's where I had to retort. And this is where the all boys Jesuit Catholic high school education came in hand. Because nobody confronts these people. Nobody uses Jesus in the Bible against them. I use biblical verses. I brought up the facts. I brought up, I think, in a very cool, calm, collected manner, his exact positions. And he had no rebuttal, no response. His only response was this really hackneyed, cliched, like, joke about Jesus not being a socialist. Jesus, by the way, sprinkled some Jesus magic on fish loaves and bread and fed everyone, didn't ask them to lift themselves up from the bootstrap. And when he healed the blind, he didn't ask for a copay. And the reason why I think it went viral. I've been trying to figure out why it went viral is because nobody ever sees these bullies get figuratively punched in the face. No one sees them just take it. And no one sees them being outdone by using religion and Jesus the way we know religion and Jesus. And he was just shook and he had no response. And it reveals Doug Wilson, Pete Hextha, Donald Trump. They're weak, fickle men. They're scared little boys with weak chins, weak knees and weak cankles. Figuratively punch them in the face. They got nothing.
- [67:06]
Jason Johnson
Wajahat Ali. I'm going to hold on to Jason. Just hold on to B4. If we have time, I'm going to play it later in the show. We ran out of time. We went a little bit over Wajahat Ali. Anthony Scaramuchi. Look, let's make friends. We, we, we are, we are making peace right here on the Joy Reed show. Please come back anytime.
- [67:20]
Anthony Scaramucci
A lot of respect for what you said. If I ever need debate prep, I'm calling Wajad Ali. I gotta get. I gotta get some of these sound bites in, man.
- [67:28]
Jason Johnson
You really should call him. It would be great.
- [67:31]
Anthony Scaramucci
I'm read your book and if I could reach out there, I'd love to get you on my podcast where I interview authors about their book.
- [67:38]
Wajahat Ali
So let's do it.
- [67:39]
Anthony Scaramucci
You know, I've had Shank on and a few other guys I'd love to have you on. All right, all right.
- [67:42]
Jason Johnson
Well, there you go.
- [67:43]
Anthony Scaramucci
Contact information from.
- [67:45]
Jason Johnson
I will pull you guys together. Facilitating new friendships across the ideological aisle.
- [67:51]
Anthony Scaramucci
We're all Americans, guys. We gotta, we gotta, we gotta take this back. This is really going off the rails, guys.
- [67:57]
Jason Johnson
Yeah. It is. Yeah, it is. Anthony Scaramucci, thank you. Appreciate you watch. Always appreciate you. Thank you all for being here. Come back again.
- [68:03]
Anthony Scaramucci
All right. Thank.
- [68:04]
Jason Johnson
Appreciate you. All right, guys, let me let you guys know first of all, before we hit a little reset for the top of the show. The Joy retro is brought to you by our friends at First Aid. This is like a new one. Okay, so here it is. I just started these this, this week. I actually started them today and I'm quite obsessed. They're very delicious. They're really great gummies. First Day makes clean science based multivitamins for kids, for teens, for adults. They make it easy to choose vitamins that you can trust. Whether you're looking for vitamins for your kids or like picky eaters, which can actually come from eating too many processed snacks. And actually it does impact their mood. It impacts the way that they can get through school. And not getting enough nutrients is a problem for a lot of young people, but also for women like myself who are looking to support things like health, concentration and mood. Although, I mean, my name is Joy, I'm always in a good mood. Yeah, no, it is one of the first brands with vitamins designed to fight hidden hunger and nutrient gaps. So this is it. This is it. I love them. They taste really great. It is an extremely. What I like about First Day is they are actually extremely transparent about what actually goes in their products. So there's no added sugar, no artificial ingredients, no fake dyes, no crushed bones. With just two gummies a day, you are boosting your or your kids nutrition, mood, sleep and health. They have nine essential vitamins for brain and mood support, and a superfood blend of 12 organic fruits and veggies. First Aid's vitamins has more folate than one and a half cups of spinach, more vitamin B than five cups of broccoli. It's tested for more than 200 plus toxins and it holds the clean label purity award. In fact, 83% of parents say First Day improve their kids overall behavior. And so it's good for kids and good for adults. What really sold me on them is that it works for the whole family. 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So here they are. I'm going to show them to you again. You can see the gummies on the inside. They're very pretty colors. They actually taste really good too. All right, let's reset real quick while I'm the second hour. We're a little bit late going into it of the Joy re show be do be sure to hit that like and subscribe button and make sure that if you bought merch you tag us on your social media. We always love for you to tag us. Please hit share, let people know that you are here. And I want to give you one more of our sponsors before we jump into our content because we're also brought to you by one of our new favorite brands which is Helix. Now we have finally, finally started really getting to enjoy our Helix. Helix is an incredible mattress model. It is really great for people who are side sleepers. You get that numb arm, you get like, you know, for me I get super hot and then super cold because you know, hashtag menopause. 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That's helixsleep.com joy for twenty percent off site wide. Please do enter our show name after checkout so that they know that we sent you@helixleep.com Joy okay, let's get to a couple of the hearings that have taken place this week. We do like to give you guys some sound when those, you know, members of Congress drag those Trump regime officials to Capitol Hill and make them answer for, for the things that they're doing. So Senator Chris Van Holland of Maryland, who is becoming one of my favorite figures in the United States Senate, he questioned our friend Mr. Lutnick, the guy who took his family to the Epstein island, took his kids and his wife. Very strange, Harold Lutnick. And he questioned him. And here is how that went at C1 of responses.
- [73:06]
Joy Reid
And so I am going to go back to requests and letters that were not responded to because you did say at the last hearing with respect to the Epstein affair that you had, quote, nothing to hide. I assume that is still your testimony today, is that right, Mr. Secretary? That is right. So why have you not responded to the letter that Senator Merkley and I sent following up on the last hearing, asking for documents, just to be transparent about the situation and answering the questions that we presented in that letter? The last time we were together,
- [73:53]
Jason Johnson
I
- [73:53]
Joy Reid
agreed and answered every question on that topic with this committee, and I answered
- [74:00]
Anthony Scaramucci
each and every topic.
- [74:01]
Joy Reid
I have voluntarily agreed in less than two weeks to sit and answer questions on this topic fully. Whatever questions are asked of me voluntarily in less than two weeks with your
- [74:12]
Anthony Scaramucci
House colleagues, I would ask you, if
- [74:14]
Joy Reid
there are any questions that you want me to answer, please give them to House colleagues. And I am going to answer them all. But I am here today to testify
- [74:24]
Anthony Scaramucci
about the budget and I look forward
- [74:27]
Joy Reid
to discussing the president's budget with you today. But I am volunteering within two weeks to answer any and all questions on this topic. Well, Mr. Secretary, I'm aware of that. We presented you with questions and requests from this committee that have not been responded to. So we're going to have to continue to pursue that. We will follow closely what happens in that proceeding. I hope you will provide them with the materials that we hope to secure here as well. And again, the reason I'm asking this question at this hearing is because we didn't get a response to the letter. No response at all to that earlier letter?
- [75:15]
Jason Johnson
No. No response at all. So Basically, he's like, Mr. Senator, I'm going to answer that in two weeks when I've had time to get my story together as to why I took my teenage children and my wife to Lolita island with Jeffrey Epstein. We can't answer sitting right there. I mean, you're right there. Just answer the question right now. If you've got an answer that makes sense and you're not going to lie. What if he doesn't answer the question? I don't understand it. Also on Capitol Hill, Congresswoman Nancy Mace is requesting that a member of Congress be expelled. She is. There's been this sort of rash of Republicans attempting to sort of act like they are doing sort of everything except for dealing with the Epstein files. So suddenly they want to root out all of the sexual predators and all of the people who are allegedly violent. There's suddenly this sort of moral impetus to sort of do this sort of work, Right? And so Nancy Mace, who is a big supporter of Donald Trump, who has defended Donald Trump despite he himself being a civilly adjudicated sexually abuser of Eugene Carroll and who got into a whole fight with on ABC with George Stephanopoulos over it, she's now calling for Corey Mills to be expelled. Now, Corey Mills is facing an ongoing House Ethics Committee investigation following allegations including domestic violence, stalking his former girlfriend, falsifying his military records. A Florida judge previously gave a restraining order to his former girlfriend. He apparently was violent with her. And so, you know, I can agree with Nancy Mace actually that he probably should be expelled. And there is now a sort of list of members of Congress on both sides of the aisle who are being accused of all sorts of things when it comes to either sexual misconduct or violence. And now there's a certain sort of rush to morality. And these people have been serving alongside these people all this time and have never said anything. But suddenly when you've got a war that's not going well, a president who's deeply unpopular, and now they smell blood, they're like, now this is the thing we can do to make it seem like we're actually doing something that we're actually, you know, having making a difference in Congress. So Nancy was doing that. I'm not trying to say that this is not a legitimate expulsion attempt. I think probably he should be expelled. But that is happening right now. But she's telling him, corey, your days are numbered. Start packing, she said in a statement. But, you know, he's also pointing the finger back at her because she's also been in the center of controversies as well. And he's saying, well, if it's about anyone who's under an investigation or accusation needs to be expelled. If that's the case, why wouldn't she herself be setting herself up for expulsion? And this is in reference to Nancy Mace being investigated by the House Ethics Committee over whether she improperly collected thousands of dollars in reimbursements for lodging expenses when she's traveling. So the Ethics Committee is also looking at Nancy Mace. They've been at odds for quite a long time. So yeah, she's got issues herself. Let's also do one more. This is a crazy story. Have you guys heard about the sugar daddy scandal? This is actually pretty nuts. So apparently there is a top level Trump counterterrorism official whose name is Julia Varvaro, or Varvaro, who allegedly is collecting money from sugar daddies to pad her exorbitant lifestyle. The Trump regime is basically like a mob outfit that's got all of these absolutely bananas people in, in house. I mean, the first Trump administration were quite normal in comparison. Scaramucci was in that administration. They were normal compared to these people. The people who are in here now is just a sort of cavalcade of messy, messy, messy people. So this woman, one man complained about her, this is in the Daily Mail, complained that he spent $40,000 on Ms. Barvaro during a three month fling that started when they met on a dating web. On the dating app site Hinge. She was an attractive girl and I swiped right, said an executive named Robert B. Who asked that his left name beheld. The 29 year old Ms. Barbara, who earned her PhD in Homeland Security in 2024, has served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism since May of 2025. But the divorced, the divorced father says that he took her on first class trips to Aruba, Italy, San Diego and South Carolina during their short fling. She's saying she did nothing wrong. I didn't know it was bad to go on vacation with your boyfriend. But apparently she has done this more than one time with wealthy suitors. Robert, this is this person. Robert has made an official complaint with the Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General revealing that Ms. Barbara had a profile on the sugar daddy website Seeking. On the page, which was seen by the Daily Mail, she called herself Alessa and offered seductive sophistication. Allegedly. She allegedly used the same photo that is on her Instagram. Alessa also said she is flirty, fun and fond of sultry spaces, mystery lounges, velvet shadows, wine in hand. She said she is drawn to masculine men. A masculine man who is attentive, protective and quietly playful for mutually beneficial experiences. Varvaro denied having a profile on seeking when questioned by the Daily Mail. The profile, which was set up on the day after Thanksgiving last year, was removed after the Daily Mail initially reached out for comment on the article. It's one of the weird scandals. There's just a lot of weird stuff going on in the administration. I just thought I would bring that to your attention. I don't even know why. Let's. Let's. Let's bring on our. Let's bring on our friend Lif bard us to bring some. Some. Le. I figured I would lead you in with something fun.
- [81:43]
Lev Parnas
Joy. I can't. I love you.
- [81:47]
Jason Johnson
Why are the sugar daddies at work in the. Why. Why is there sugar daddy scandal? Le.
- [81:53]
Lev Parnas
I mean, listen, you just remember how Trump met Melania. I mean, so, you know, allegedly.
- [82:00]
Jason Johnson
Allegedly. There's a lot.
- [82:03]
Lev Parnas
There's a lot allegedly going on.
- [82:05]
Jason Johnson
You know, there's a lot allegedly going on.
- [82:08]
Lev Parnas
Listen, Christine's husband and this.
- [82:10]
Jason Johnson
He's got the fake breasts on. This is like a freak show.
- [82:15]
Lev Parnas
Well, you said something extremely incredibly on. On the, on the. You. You say a lot of things that are just perfect, but that was like. I mean, compared to his first administration, we all look like geniuses.
- [82:29]
Jason Johnson
Even I.
- [82:30]
Lev Parnas
Even I want to raise my hand.
- [82:31]
Jason Johnson
Even I start looking.
- [82:32]
Lev Parnas
Looking for the good scarab.
- [82:35]
Jason Johnson
You know, Mark Milley was there.
- [82:37]
Lev Parnas
Yeah.
- [82:37]
Jason Johnson
Like people who, you know, Miles Taylor, we both know him. Perfectly normal. You know, there are people that we now know and that we speak with that are. That, you know, you know, we've criticized them for taking the job. Absolutely. But once they took the job, they were not crazy people. There were. There were. They were terror. There were Stephen Miller types in there. But there were people inside the. The administration the first time who were somewhat normal. Right. They were the generals. I didn't like Mark Kelly, but he was a normalish general. You know, it's now a freak show. Yeah.
- [83:11]
Lev Parnas
You might have not agreed with their policies, but you're 100% right. You had people that stood for the Constitution, weren't for dictatorship and. Exactly. So, yeah, we. We didn't know how bad it was in the first. And then now you have people. And that's what we always talk about. The enablers, the loyalists, the. The freak show. These are the only type of people that will work for Trump right now that will.
- [83:31]
Jason Johnson
They're all Steve Bannon.
- [83:33]
Lev Parnas
Correct. They take the oath of basically loyalty to Your leader because, you know, they follow in this because it's okay to do these things. It's okay to, you know, make money on the side. It's okay to lie and do as long as you. At the end of the day, please the leader. And that's what you're seeing not only all the way down from. I mean, look at the FBI director we just had, I mean, Cash Patel, the story that broke in the Atlantic, you know, talking about him drinking. I mean, we've seen pictures of him drinking. It's not, you know, the fact that. And now he goes. And the funny part is right away, what does he do? He sues. Who sued his mentor? Remember Devin Nunoz? He loved. He even sued a cow, a make believe cow. Remember that one?
- [84:13]
Jason Johnson
Yeah.
- [84:14]
Lev Parnas
You know, Donald Trump sues. He. They sued me for $350 million and I beat them. So they sue. That's part of, you know, just. And today look at what happened now. Trump lost the lawsuit. You know, basically it's part of the, you know, attack, attack, attack. Deny, deny, deny, Never. You know, and yeah, it's. If it wasn' scary what we're going through, this would be hilarious. And it is hilarious to some extent, but it's also very scary because you gotta understand, just think about who she is, her position and think about the compromise and the, you know, that could be going on that we don't know about. I mean, think about who her clients were or allegedly. Or who her boyfriend's allegedly or who she was, you know, on these sites and you know, what she, she spoke about or access to her cell phone or. I mean, you're talking about Major. Major. You know, same thing with Christy. No, I mean she was the head of, you know, her husband was involved on the side. I mean she herself, allegedly with Corey Lewandowski were more. I mean the things the telenovela that is going on in the Trump administration is, you know, if that was the biggest problem, we would, we could laugh. But the problem is all of these distractions. But the one thing I'll tell you, you know, I was watching your skit earlier, the segment before with the Scaramucci and Wash, by the way. Wash our man. Love him kick. Yeah, yeah. What he did to. I watched that more. That was, I mean, I, I wish, I wish I could have done that. That was so beautifully like, I mean it couldn't have done it better. And you know, I know Mooch very well. I actually traveled with Mooch to, to Israel, me, him and Huckabee back in 2019. He's a good guy. He's a little bit, you know, I agree and disagree with him on certain things. And, you know, and I, and I understand why he feels certain things. And that's a separate conversation that we could get into. But the scary part is with all of these distractions, they are organized to the fact that behind the scenes, there are things happening that the media is missing completely. And one of the things happened yesterday, and I sent you the article that I wrote about, actually about Joe digineva. A lot of people don't know who this individual is, but he used to be an ex prosecutor on the white under Ronald Reagan. He became a talking piece on Fox and all the mega, you know, radios and televisions for Trump. Him and his wife, Victoria Tunzing actually became Trump lawyers. They became part of the BLT team with me, Rudy Giuliani and Joe and John Solomon. They're the ones that introduced Bill Barr to, I mean, very influential, very involved. They were part of, they got paid in the 2020 election scheme. So very close Trump world. And yet. And the one thing that Joe de Geneva has been doing ever since is he's been in Trump's year about Brennan, about our former director Brennan, John Brennan, that, you know, he needs to be held for treason. Chris Krabs. Chris Krabs is somebody that Donald Trump signed an executive order actually to go after.
- [87:19]
Jason Johnson
So, and just for the audience, if you don't remember, Chris, he was the cyber head of cybersecurity who certified that the 2020 election was free and fair and the actually the most. What does he say? He was sort of, it was the freest, fairest election in history or something like that.
- [87:33]
Lev Parnas
Exactly. And right on that. What's his name, Joe diginevis said he should be tried for treason because he did that. So he's been in there. So what happened yesterday, and the media swooped right by it is Todd Blanche, who is not only auditioning to stay as Attorney General, but has done a lot of moves from getting basically stopping everything to do with the Epstein files to now active actively opening an investigation, making Joe de Janeira special prosecutor to go after Brennan and people associated to it. But that's not even the bad, worst part, because there's a connection I need to do for our audience here. Simultaneously, I've been talking about on your show and we've been speaking a lot about Tulsi Gabber. You see, she's quiet. You see the one person that was not at the White House Oval emergency meeting when he held about Iran Tulsi Gabber wasn't there. Everybody was. She wasn't. The reason is because she's in charge of election reform. Not only yesterday, there was more news that came out that now the FBI is requesting the roles for in Detroit, the polling in Detroit. But also there's also conversations behind the scenes and Tulsi coming out openly and saying that she now wants to prosecute the whistleblower, that base that started the first investigation, first impeachment into Trump. So this is very important, and this is crazy, but this is extremely important because they think about what they just did. They cleaned up basically with January 6th and they're redoing that whole story that the insurrection never happened by pardoning everybody, cleaning house, simultaneously putting a narrative that there was election interference and the Democrats were involved and there was foreign interference, not by the Russians, but possibly Venezuelans or people having to do with the Democrats. And now they're basically going back to the first impeachment of Donald Trump, which was, you know, him helping Russia, going after Ukraine, which I was involved with, with the same people basically saying that there was no Russian hoax, there was no Russian interference, and basically unmask the whistleblower. And I'm hearing that what's his name, Cash Patel, couldn't keep it in his pants because everybody was screaming that he's going to get fired. And he wanted to show everybody he's not going to get fired and came out and said that there are arrests coming shortly. And I'm hearing the arrests are possibly the whistleblower and Brennan and other senior officials in the. The ex CIA officials. Yeah.
- [90:15]
Jason Johnson
And so just so you all know, if you don't remember John Brennan, he used to be on I'm on the Readout all Day the time. Used to have him on my weekend show as well. He is the former director of the CIA. So we're talking about. Leb is talking about the idea that the Director of National Intelligence and the head of the FBI are now essentially conspiring to arrest the whistleblower who triggered the investigation into Donald Trump, playing ball with Russia and also the former head of the CIA. This is a big, big deal. If they decide that they want to do that. And what's the end game here? Is this back to the same conspiracy lab that you told us about before, that they want to cook up a fake case for election interference or international interference to go back to the Supreme Court to take national control of the November election?
- [91:01]
Lev Parnas
Well, Joy, it's even getting scarier than that. So let me give you Some more information that you're going to flip out right now, nobody's talking about. So, you know, the Save America act that they're trying to push, that everybody's saying that's going to stall in the Senate.
- [91:13]
Jason Johnson
Yeah.
- [91:13]
Lev Parnas
It's not going to get through. Okay. Well, while they're doing all of this, there's 23 states as of today, Joy, that have passed the Save America act in their states already. So half our country already has passed the Save America state by state and more states are about to pass it. And that's not to say that, you know, we're not even talking about ICE and everything else. So what we're saying here. Absolutely. When you're seeing the panic that's happening in the White House, the, with Susie Wilds right now putting pressure because of the polls, because of the Iran war and everything, that's all a disguise. The panic is, truly is because what they seen happened yesterday when the yes vote in Virginia where they're seeing this, but you saw what happened all of a sudden.
- [91:57]
Jason Johnson
Shut it down.
- [91:58]
Lev Parnas
Yeah, exactly. And they're doing everything they can. Everything possibly. Because it's not about wars. It's now, folks, it's if. If before it was about money, before it was about different things. It's their, their mode is right now they got the blinkers out. It's about elections right now. It's about staying in power because everything, because they, they understand that, you know, impeachments and everything else is coming. So I'm telling you right now that. And that's why one of the things that we're doing and thank you for joining our coalition with that, Joy, is enough is enough. And We've already have over 5, 000 calls a day going in and we're getting people joining more and more every day. And we're basically pushing state by state now to make sure that we push back America act by state by state. Because now it's not only a federal problem, it's a state by state problem. Because what they're slowly but surely pushing and with the gerrymandering and everything else, I mean, it's wide in the open and that's why we need to fight it state by state, federally, every which way. We can't allow them to steal our elections. Because now what I'm hearing also is they're creatively brainwashing because they, if they're not trying to just stop the election, they want you to have it and, and steal it. So this way it could be just like what they possibly might have and allegedly could have done in 2024 with Elon Musk, which I'm looking into also. So, I mean, it's, it's a very major issue right now, right?
- [93:28]
Jason Johnson
I mean, the biggest threat to the oligarch class that I opened the show about that owns the country, the biggest threat to them are voters who are actually informed. Right? This is something George Carlin said all the time. What they don't want are people who know what's going on, who understand they're being screwed and will do something about it. And so now that the Iraq, I don't know if you go back and grab B6. There's a poll that shows that a majority of Americans now believe that the American dream is dying. They do not believe that the American dream is even possible. A majority of Americans are now telling pollsters that the American dream is questionable. Right. And that it's less attainable for Americans overall, that it's less attainable for themselves, and only 10% saying it's more attainable for other people. And so we're now starting to see doubt as to whether you can actually even make it and get what we all have understood to be the American dream. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is waging war on Iran, preparing to bail out Dubai. There's another piece that posted talking about the fact that Russ Vogt, who is the guy who was one of the architects of Project 2025, is essentially acting as a shadow president, gutting everything that helps poor people, women, disabled people, immigrants, gutting everything from the federal government while allowing the military to bulk up to $1.5 trillion. These AI companies getting rich, everyone can see it's happening. And to your point, the only way they can stop the American people from punishing them for that is to make sure that we can't vote. And so they're going state by state to try to do that.
- [95:13]
Lev Parnas
You know, I just want to say God bless you, Joy, because you're one of the few people that come out here and really tell the important part and not just following the silver or the gold. Little what Trump is dangling everywhere you turn to. Everybody's talking about the Iran war. Yes, it's bad. Yes, there's a lot. And yes, it should be reported on. And I'm, you know, but not constantly. What should be spoken about non stop is what you're saying about informing people what's happening with our elections. Informing people what's happening state by state, informing people what we need to do, because the only line of defense we have, you Know you like it or not is our voting, our voices, you know, to go out there. Because if they stay in power, we lose no matter how. We could sit here and talk from here to tomorrow, but think about all of the rights we lost in just the first year of him being in office. Think about him having that power for four years or more. So that is why the most crucial thing that we should only be talking about educating everybody, making sure, protecting, making sure, uniting, making sure, getting as loud as possible, is election integrity. To make sure that we could have a fair and square election so the people of America could come out there and choose their representatives who they want in office. That's the only way. Otherwise, Joy, all of this means nothing. Because we could sit here and we could talk, we could protest, but God forbid we do not stand up and we do not and allow them to steal our election. This is how dictatorships and authoritatorship and, you know, go into decades. Because then they take over. Because then it's. If you don't break it right away and you let, you know it's like a cancer, it spreads so quickly, so fast, and then, you know, sometimes you can't stop it until it's too late. So that's why right now, you know, that's the most important. And that's why I say thank you, Joy, for keeping and sounding the alarm constantly when it comes to election reform, because there's a lot of problems, but that's the only thing that we could do to fix and save our country.
- [97:05]
Jason Johnson
Amen. Very well said. Lev, I appreciate what you do, because the reality is, is you've got that information from the inside. And that's what we need. We need people. You know, I know Scaramucci doesn't believe it, but we do want to talk to people on the other side because you guys are the ones who know what they want and know what they're doing. And so we appreciate you. Leviticus. You're always coming out here and giving us the tea. We, we want us, we think we should just call it tea with Lev. We gotta do it every week.
- [97:33]
Lev Parnas
I love you, Jay, but I'll tell you one thing about, just before we go about what Scaramucci is saying, that where I will agree with him, not it's not the people that don't accept us, it's the establishment. And that is why I'm running for Congress and to establish it's. It's the leadership. And if you listen to it, because I listened to the interview a little bit, Scaramucci was saying I was doing the same thing. I was behind the scenes trying to help Kamala and try to help the Biden administration. But they wouldn't listen. They wouldn't accept it. Their people wouldn't accept. And even. I'll even give you a perfect example. There was, you know, the first no Kings rally, they asked me to speak and I spoke. And I was. One of. It was one of the, they said the best speeches they had. Second no Kings rally, I was supposed to, I was supposed to be the head speaker. And then they got a call from radical left, far left group that was going to be there, said that they didn't want me there to have me. And I understood that because, listen, the one thing I could tell you is I, the. I don't look as far left, far right even. It's the radical left and the radical right that we need to. You know what I'm saying to you? Because any, any radical religion, radical politics, whenever there's radical in front of that word, it's no good. So I'm that word I want to say. But we need, that's why we need a new Democratic Party. People, fresh, clean, people that are willing to fight for people right. People that are uncorrupted, people that are not there for 40 years sitting there making deals. People there don't want grassroots, that don't want super PACs, don't want to be over that are there literally. Because what. The one thing I spoke to somebody today said, you know what? People forget about what it is. It's called public servant. You're serving the public. You're not there to go make millions of dollars. You're supposed to go there. And people forgot that because if you look at them, they get into office. It's all about making money, trading, doing. Yeah. You know, enough is enough forever.
- [99:23]
Jason Johnson
Amen. Give your website, we all know your website, but give it again where people can support you as you run for Congress. Left, please.
- [99:30]
Lev Parnas
Anybody? Lovepartners.org simple as that. Lovepartners.org Come support and we are going to get our democracy back. And thank you, everybody. God bless you. God bless America.
- [99:39]
Jason Johnson
God bless you. Lev, we appreciate you, man. Much love, my friend. Thank you very much. Lev Parnassa, he's a real one. You can give him a land of applause. Jason, you can throw that in there. It's interesting because these are the people who we knew when they were inside. And there have always been voices coming out of Trump world that were waving the red flag, trying to let people know that this was going on. But let me, let me go back through a couple of these because one of the things that I want to let you guys listen to before we even go any further, we've been talking a lot about that Wajahat Doug Wilson moment. I want you guys to watch it because one of the things that I think is important to realize, people tend to take people on the Republican side, the MAGA side, and elevate them to a level of brilliance and strategic brilliance that they don't deserve. We act as if these people are more frightening than they are. We act as if they are not defeatable because they have some sort of magic power. They don't. They just have usually an echo chamber that they speak into. And when they speak into that echo chamber, they must seem really smart. But when you, when they're confronted by reality, they generally cannot stand up to it. The reality tends to break them and silence them very easily. So I'm going to let you guys watch just a little bit of this just tour de force performance by Wajahad Ali. I'm going to set it up by saying this was a Piers Morgan interview. And he had on him and he also had Tim Miller. As Waj explained earlier, Tim Miller actually started the, the, the, the bromides against Doug Wilson because he said, I'm not even going to call you pastor because you spent a lot of time going after gays and going after women and saying all sorts of things that are very unchristian. And so I'm not even going to call you pastor. I'm just going to call you Doug. And then Doug Wilson said, well, I thought we were saying we shouldn't be attacking religious leaders. And then Tim Miller chimes back in and says, you attacked the pope. You're. What are you talking about? You attacked the pope and said he needs to stay in his lane. What are you talking about? This is supposed to be a pastor Doug Wilson. Again, Doug Wilson is the guy who plays pastor to Pete Exe, who has a giant church in Idaho that is sort of the mothership church for white Christian nationalism. He's the one who said slavery was actually a positive condition for black people. And black people ain't been right since, well, they got free and that women shouldn't vote, all of that kind of stuff, right? So that's him, and he's sort of the, the granddaddy or Goddaddy of the guy who wrote the book the Sin of Empathy, who is the founder of that church in Minneapolis that Don Lemon got and, and Georgia Ford got pro protest, covered the protest at when they covered that protest and those protesters got arrested. And so did the two journalists, Don Lemon and Georgia Ford. Okay, so now you got that again. I've reminded you all of that. That's the context. And now I want you guys to listen to what Waj said to Doug Wilson all up in his face.
- [102:44]
Wajahat Ali
Take a listen, Pastor. I have no problem attacking wolves in sheep's clothing. I have no problem attacking a man who wrote that American slavery was. Was mutually harmonious between the slave master and the slave. That's you. I have no problem attacking a man who proudly says he wants to do away with the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. I have no problem attacking a man like yourself who sits here incoherently supporting an incoherent, unwinnable, illegal war in Iran. I have no problem attacking you, a man who is the religious leader of Pete Hegseth, A man who's a cosplay crusader who's leading some type of crusade. Probably you put him on as a secretary of defense, getting Americans and innocent civilians killed. I wish you would be a better Christian. I wish you would open up the Bible. I wish you would meet the Jesus that I met when I went to an all boy Jesuit Catholic high school. The Jesus that took care of the sick, that took care of the poor, that welcomed the immigrant, that welcomed the marginalized, that helped them. But instead you've used Jesus as a mascot for, I don't know, your white Christian supremacy, your cruelty, your misogyny and I'm sorry. So glad that people are finally waking up to your cruelty and to the idiocy of your star disciple, Pete Heath, who keeps messing up and literally does not read the Bible and quotes Pulp Fiction. Just sit with them. Maybe both of you could read the Constitution, read the Bible and just take a break.
- [104:04]
Jason Johnson
Ouch. And I will tell you that after that, Pews threw it back to the. To Doug. We're just calm, Doug. And he kind of mumbled something about Jesus was not a socialist because he actually could get people breaded water and something like that. Like it. He actually didn't have a response, but you could see in his eyes him realizing in real time that the jig is up. You know what I mean? It was that moment when he realized that his fake sort of, you know, Christian grift only works when all the people in the room are already in on it or already part of the cult. When you take that outside of the cult, even for 10 minutes, he could see and Realize that the game is up, that this game doesn't work among the public who are not a part of it already. And this is the challenge that MAGA has always had, is that the things that they want to do and their ideas only work when they're around each other. When you take those ideas outside and you have them walk outside of the bubble, those ideas fall apart very quickly under the light of day, right? Sunlight destroys them immediately. I feel that Doug Wilson lost all of his power in that moment. Waj did more than just cook him in an interview. I think he ended anybody's fear of Doug, of Doug Wilson. At that moment, anyone who was intimidated by Doug Wilson stopped being intimidated by him. They realized he's just a grifter and he actually can't even, he can't even defend the things that he confidently says in his podcast. Of course he sounds confident in his podcast. His team edits the podcast. So he's not doing them live like we're doing right now, where you just get what you get and you just take it. You do what you do. He can't actually stand up to even the barest scrutiny live. And that's what happened. Which brings me to another attempt by maga because look, the only thing that they've ever been really good at is co opting the culture, seizing control of it and forcing the culture to kneel, right? They weren't able to create a great sort of journalist, right? They weren't able to create their own Edward R. Murrow. There's no Edward R. Murrow on their side. So instead they just seized control of CBS News and they are making CBS News conform. They're making CBS News Neo because they can't create their own. So they're just making it. They couldn't make Twitter, you know, create black Twitter or make Twitter Cool, because MAGA's not cool. They're mean, they're nasty, they're ugly. So they just had their guy buy Twitter and then he controls the algorithm and only their comments float to the top. They. They took Facebook and turned it into a MAGA stronghold because their guy owns it. Their people own these social media companies. And so they get to control what's in the algorithm, they get to control what leads. They get to control it. It's not like they could create cultural cool. They can just seize control of it. They take rappers who are sort of in the sort of twilight of their career, who are red pill for some reason, and that's the rappers they get. Where are the organic hip hop artists that come up maga that don't turn flip and become maga later in their career when they're in this sort of sunset of their career. Where are the ones who come up maga who are culturally maga on the way up, not on the way down. Where are they? Where are the ones that are organically right wing, just organically right wing and become popular right wing all the way up? There aren't any. The ones they get are the ones who are in some sort of sunset or have some other issue or some other challenge and suddenly they become maga later on down the road. They don't have any organic people that they can create. So when they want the culture, they have to purchase it, they have to bully their way into it. They wanted Christianity, which is based around a, you know, a brown Palestinian radical, anti Roman Empire activist basically. And they, they can't change what's in the Bible. They can't change. So they just seize control of it, kick that guy out and replace it with this angry, mean character who hates immigrants. But they can't stand up to it. When somebody like the Pope actually just reads the Bible to them. When he, when he just reads the Bible and reads Jesus's words, their whole thing goes up in flames. It only works if people never read it. If people don't actually read it, they can get away with it. They can lie about Barack Obama and say he's all sorts of things until Barack Obama talks and then that all falls apart, right? They can only, they can only enslave the minds of their base when their base doesn't know anything. You know, the people that Scaremuchi was talking about, they don't know anything. If you don't know any better and you just tell them that Donald Trump is a Christian, they're going to believe it. They don't know any better. But as soon as people get. This is why college educated voters are the ones who vote the other way. Because once you know a little something, their whole, the whole magic act doesn't work. It's called slave religion for the masses, right? They have to, they can only get you if you don't know, right? And so when it comes to culture, right. For instance, the White House correspondents dinner. Donald Trump has refused to go to the White House correspondents dinner all this time because he actually can't stand being made fun of. Because the last time he went, Barack Obama ended him and so he was too scared to go back. He would never go back. So he's finally going to go this Year. Why? Because they're not going to have a comedian. So the only way MAGA can take control of the White House Correspondents Dinner and Trump can feel comfortable going is that they dismantle it and make sure there's no comedian because he actually can't take it. The only. They can't get the Kennedy center because where are their, you know, brilliant artists that could perform? There aren't any. They have Kid Rock. And so they can only get the Kennedy center by seizing control of it and slapping Trump's name on it. And now nobody else wants to go, because where they go, nobody else wants to be there. When the magus show up, nobody wants to be there. So what they wind up doing is seizing control of cultural things, but they can't keep them cool. They have to let them become, like, whack and mag ited and mag eyes. Right? There's no. There's not gonna be a MAGA Hollywood. Nobody's gonna want to go see those movies. But they seize control of Paramount, they seize control soon of Warner, they're gonna seize control of CNN and ruin it, because that's the only thing that they can do. They can get their billionaires to take control of things, but they can't actually organically create cultural cool. They just can't do it. Which brings me to the Met Galaxy Gala. So the Met Gala is one of those things that I think we all watch. You know, the red carpet. It's. It's. It's fabulous. You know, it's this moment. It's this fashion moment. It's a fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And this year, guess who's decided to become the principal financial sponsor of it? Jeff Bezos of Amazon. And this is the way that the right. That MAGA attempts to infiltrate culture. He's just bought it. He's just bought his way into it. And so I think what they presume is that if they just buy the culture and they buy it up, they can just quietly merge into it, and suddenly MAGA can be a part of cultural cool. They can just. He can just join the red carpet. He can just walk up the red carpet with his fabulous $52 million wife. His. He and his $52 million bride, they'll just show up, and everyone will just pretend it's fine that they're there. I mean, he did get Oprah and all these big stars to come to his $52 million overseas wedding. And so this oligarch who has ruined the Washington Post, fired the black journalists, destroyed this venerable Institution gotten rid of the sports department because it's, you know, Trump is mad about whatever. He couldn't get them the name of stadium after him. This guy who's breaking culture, who's paying for the ballroom that is going to be in place of our beautiful East Wing. This guy who sucked up to Trump this whole time and made people hate Amazon because he's just so in Trump's pocket, he now is the guy running them. Running. That's the main sponsor of the Metcalfe and there are some amazing stars that are on the board. Lots of celebrities, people you really love. And so the question is, who goes to that? Now I can tell you who's not going is the mayor of New York city. This is D1. Mayor Mamdani has said he ain't going. He's skipping it. He's not going to go. And his wife is a fashionista. Like, she's beautiful, she's a fashion plate. These are young, fabulous people. This is the New York first couple. They're not going. Now he has said it's against his values to go hang out at a billionaire funded event that is just. He didn't name Jeff Bezos as the reason he's not going to. But if they thought that Jeff Bezos could then just be made to quietly mingle with the mayor of New York and his wife, he's got another thing coming that's not going to happen because he will not be there. It would not shock me if Trump went. Now that his boy is in control of it and he can assure that his boy will probably prevent any protests. We'll try to make it Trump friendly. Maybe he'll show up at it. Now if he shows up at it, you're going to watch that? You gonna watch that? Are you gonna allow Jeff Bezos to just quietly merge into cultural cool, into fashion? You've already had Vogue doing stupid things like calling an Afro a cloud Bob, and trying to like sort of, you know, co op that culture. But, you know, this is, you know, look, the Met gal is not the most important thing in the world, okay? It's not the most important thing in the world. And in, in an era when people can barely afford their lives, it might be even too gaudy of a thing to even be happening this year. It might be an absolutely sort of inappropriate moment, similar to the White House Correspondents association throwing a dinner that's about the First Amendment. But they didn't have the balls to have a comedian make fun of the president. So how is that a first Amendment celebratory event. White House Correspondents Association. What is your point? That the media has bent the knee and now Trump is invited to come over and watch them on the ground. He can loom over them as they are kneeling before him with all sorts of MAGA celebrities. I mean, what, who's going to come? Nicki Minaj? Like, who's going to be at those tables? Why would anyone even show up for that? That doesn't sound like a celebration of the First Amendment. And the Met Gala sounds like it's a celebration of Jeff Bezos to me. I'm sad about it because it's fun to watch. Fabulous event. And this year I think it's art as fashion is the theme. Probably fabulous. But I know I'm not going to watch because if MAGA is there, I don't want to go. And maybe that's petty. Maybe, you know, Anthony Scaramucci would say I'm being petty and that I should let it go and I should, you know, accept Jeff Bezos as a part of cult. No, but I don't. The problem is I am petty. I'm petty. Davis. Yeah, I like Anthony, but we ain't doing any of that. I like Anthony. Anthony seems good and he's welcome. Look, if Lev is in, Anthony's in. Olivia Troy is a wonderful person. I, I appreciate a lot of people who used to be in, but when it comes to Jeff Bezos, he's not ex. He's in it. I am not holding any of these righties hands. I am not holding. The only time I'm going to hold
- [115:24]
Wajahat Ali
their hands if we leading them to jail.
- [115:26]
Jason Johnson
And that's it. And the reality too is in a moment when the mayor of New York City is fighting to make New York affordable for ordinary people, just the idea of the Met Gala feels gaudy and extra. It feels just too much this year. People are suffering. There are a lot of people whose kids are going off to fight in Iran for no reason. We don't know how many of our troops are dead. We can't get real information about whether people, how many have been injured. We have no idea what they're doing over there. Israel is bossing our president around and forcing us to go to war for no reason other than that they want us to. We have forever war on either side of maga. No matter which direction you go. Peter Thiel's creepy ass is standing there. You go in any door and he's there. And Alex Karp and his creepy ass, they're on both sides of this mess or being smashed, surveilled, or being robbed. Trump is guacing crypto. Half his administration is resigning in disgrace. His labor secretaries resigned in disgrace. Half of the Congress are fighting each other over who's a bigger abuser. It's just a mess. Our country's a mess right now. This is a bad time in America. I'm not sure the Met Gal is what we even need in this moment. I'm not even sure that's what we need in this moment, but I damn sure know if Jeff Bezos is going to. I'm not watching. That's just me. Y' all let me know how you feel about it. But if Jeff Bezos is a part of it, it's tainted for me. It's like going to the Kennedy center when Trump stuck his name on it. Why would I walk in there? There's no artist great enough for me to walk in and watch anybody in a Kennedy center with Trump's name on the front. Or going to, you know, visit the new ballroom that Donald Trump has slapped onto our beautiful White House. Couldn't be me. Somebody might, but it couldn't be me. Play our moment of joy. This is a fun one. So this is a moment of joy. And it is by Sibone Gan Konke on Tick Tock. Sibone Gang K O N K E who you should follow on Tick Tock. They said they like LinkedInies. Thank you for liking the LinkedInies. Yes, thank you. Thank you. What we have, we have a damnit joy. Keep the knowledge, information and news flowing. I love your show. Oh, yes. Shout out to Jason. Yes. Thank you very much. And $50 in the 99 from Megan. Who is that? Megan. They went by so fast. Megan Underwood. Oh, my gosh. Thank you, Megan Underwood. $50 from Quentin Spivey. M4S. Thank you. Appreciate each and every one of you throwing some coins in the tail. We appreciate your support for new media. $20 from Lady Merge. 20 bucks. Thank you. Keep doing what you're doing. Thank you very much. Will do. We're excited. We are a Webby Award winner and that. That's the facts. Because we're the best new podcast in the news arena and we appreciate that designation. But, yeah, the. The whole Met Gal thing ain't on. Let's, let's, let's look at. This is a really fun one. This is. And this is. We call it Grumpy Baby. Sam. First of all, FRP Knox said, Damn, I'm broke. But you brought it. 4.99 in the deal. Thank you, FRP Knox. So I. I'm telling you, that baby said, I know y' all think I'm a baby, but I am literally the deacon of this church. And Deacon Jones is always over y'. All. He said, I'm a whole man. I am not a baby. And y' all got me in here with this upside down ice cream cone trying to sing me some happy birthday stuff, but I am a grown man. My name is Deacon Forrest Johnson Jones for Deacon Forest. Jones says, I am not about this life of y' all clapping and singing with this upside down ice cream cone. That baby said, no, I'm not a baby. He said, I'm not a baby. And I'm over all of y'. All. I hate y'. All. I don't want. I don't even want to hear it. Don't. I don't want to hear. So. So cute. He said, that's not what he ordered. Exactly. He said, I did not order this. I ordered a steak and potatoes. I said, I wanted a cold beer steak and potatoes. And y' all don't give me this upside down ice cream cone. And this is not the way I wanted to celebrate my birthday. We have. We have 6.99 from SFL. Six is Joy. We are not like them. We are not in a cult of hate. We are not in a cult of hate. We're not in a cult of hate. We're definitely not a cultivate at all. But what we are is in an exclusive club for people who actually care about democracy. And the price of admission to our club is that you actually believe that people have the right to vote. You believe that people have the right to go to college, even if they are a woman or a person of color. You believe you should not sue people who are trying to give black women just a little bit of financing for their businesses. If you're in our club, the price of entry is not that high. It's that you believe that immigrants should be respected, that if they need to be removed from the country, it should be through a process. That they should not be rounded up on the street, thrown into a random gray van, treated with disrespect, violent. We don't believe that protesters who are peacefully opposing that should be shot in the street by their government. We actually believe that women have the right to control their own bodies, that if they do not want to have babies, they shouldn't be forced to by the state. We don't want much. We just want women to be free to live their lives without A boss man called the government. And we just don't believe that our young people should be forced to go to war because Donald Trump's little friend said we should. Why should that. Why should his little friend be able to tell our troops that they should go and die for his country if he wants his people to go and die to try to stop Iran from getting a theoretical nuclear weapon that he's been saying they're going to get for 30 years? BB if that's what you want, let your troops do that. Your troops should go and die for that, not ours. Why should your little. Why should Trump's little friend be able to tell our troops, our young men and women, our bravest in the country that are brave, why should they have to go die because Trump little Fran said so? We don't want my children. We just want to stop all these forever wars. We do not want Palantir to have our data. We don't want a national surveillance state. We don't want Palantir. And we don't want Elon Musk rigging his cars to watch us while we drive. We don't want Palantir watching us in our phones. We don't want to be tracked by drones. We just want basic, simple freedom. I don't think we're asking for much. I don't think we're unreasonable. I don't feel like we're unreasonable. Thank you for the, for the, for the $20 there, my friend. AFP and A. I think it is. We. We don't. We don't want much. We just want y' all to leave us alone. Athena8000 we just want y' all to stop trying to bully us into submission to make us live in your Handmaid's Tale. If you like the Handmaid's Tale, go read the Handmaid's Tale and make your own little neighborhood or community or your household like the Handmaid's Tale. We don't want to live in it. We don't want to live by your fake Christian. We don't think that your fake pastors like that guy who got taken apart by watch or a real pastor. He's not our pastor, so why should we have to live by his rules? I don't think we're asking for much. We do not want to live in a theocracy. We don't want that crazy right Christian religion to govern our lives. And we actually don't want to live in a racist country where just being black or just being a woman or brown means you can't get a job because people are scared to hire you because anti DEI or if you're gay. We don't want you to be thrown out of your job just because of that which the right wants to be able to do, or if you're. You have a trans kid. We just want you to be able to parent your kid the way you want to parent them. We don't think the government should tell you how to parent your kid. We're actually. We don't want much. You know, people talk about farmers. We want our farmers to be able to survive without being bought up by billionaires who want to turn their farms into AI, you know, dirty AI factories, right? And we. We want people to have decent paying jobs where they can afford to live and survive and not have to be broke, even though they work 10 hours a day, sometimes standing on their feet all day. We want people to not be poor. If you work, you should not be poor. You should be able to pay your rent. You should be able to afford your mortgage if you want to buy a little house and buy a little plot of land. We're not asking for much. We're asking for a society where people don't have to be dirt poor and struggling and starving and hungry. Whereas they're like, no, we want a society where people are dirt poor, starving and hungry because that makes them better slaves. They want slavery. I'm sorry, did I say. I said. I meant to say Maga. You know, the mass religion for maga. They are out of their minds. They are. What is this? What is this? Tania 2873 said they're not like us. And through the some change in the tail. Two bucks until I agree they're not like us because they. I. I'm not. I'm end with this. I'm not gonna keep you all long. Psychic. What is this? Psychic Cadet Dion. Thank you 1999. I appreciate that. I always did. 999. I always tell y', all, it's always just one story. It's always just one story. I've been saying this before. It's one story. We say it's a lot of store, but it's just one story. There were always a group of oligarchs who wanted to be kings. They wanted to be kings. So they came to this country to get away from the actual king. And they set up a system in which their servants had to call them master and mistress, and which their daughters, when they wanted to marry, were sold to some other family using a dowry so they would sell their daughter to another family so that then they could keep the cycle going. They own their daughters, they own their wives, they own their enslaved people. That's what they want. And that system of perfect capitalism is what they always want. It's what all oligarchs want. Everybody, society. They want to be the king. And everyone else is a serf or a slave. And they're still trying to achieve that. It's just now the masters are tech lords and oil oligarchs, oil and gas magnates and the banking magnates and Wall street and all these rich people who just want to not pay any taxes and have everybody else work for them almost for free. And then they're like, well, we'll give you little crumbs to eat and little crumb. But you're not gonna be able to afford food. Every dime you get is going to go to rent. Every dime you get is going to go to just basic survival. And then we're happy because we're rich. They are literally trying to recreate the status quo ante of the country, which they say is when America was great. Doug Wilson literally said it. That's when America was great. It was a harmonious relationship between the masters and the slaves. Why does he think that? Because he's rich. Of course he thinks it was harmonious. He's rich. If you're rich, you're just around other rich people. You don't have exposure to people who aren't rich. And so your whole way of thinking is warped because you're just around other people like you. And it annoys you that the people who work for you want more money, want to have a living wage, want to be. Not be hungry, right? You're just around other rich people. So what do you know? You don't even talk to non rich people anymore. I'm telling you this as somebody who got into the media business, which used to just be a regular job, but suddenly became a place where you are exposed to very rich people and celebrities. And so you find that your circle becomes smaller and smaller and smaller and it becomes lots of other wealthy people. And if you're not lucky enough and smart enough, as Jason and I have been, to keep your original people in your life, to keep the people who ground you, the people who knew you when you were broke, who knew you when you had no style. I still have friends, I'm afraid. Chris was like, he knew me when I had no style. Honey, you got to keep those people. Because if you don't keep them, you wind up being so ensconced in other people who are wealthy that you really become warped. It warps your perspective because you start to empathize with the other wealthy people to say, yeah, why should we be paying in the 37% tax rate? And. And that empathy for the wealthy skews your view. If you don't have enough people grounding you around you to say, wait a minute, hold on a second. Second. This isn't fair. This isn't fair. People say they knew me when I had. When I had a Bob. Yep. When I had. When I had my Bob. Right. People in Florida when I had my flip. Okay. And I was making $60,000 a year on the radio, but I was. People knew how I was. I had any money. But this is the reality. We. We are living in a country where you have a small, small, small, small section of people who are fooling a very large group of people using false religion and racism, things that trigger them. And they know that the easiest way to trigger particularly white working class people is race. They can just keep. And this has always been the key. It's why they invented whiteness.
- [128:33]
Joy Reid
It's called slave religion.
- [128:34]
Jason Johnson
For maga, it literally is. We're going to make sure that exactly. That these white working class people stay on our side. Because if they ever went on black people's side and brown people's side and gay people's side and women's side, they'd be cooked. There'd be no way they could run the country. They could never survive in leadership. If everyone really lined up against the billionaire class, the Epstein class, they would be in a French Revolution situation. They'd be cooked. They'd be scared. They'd be living behind the highest walls they could because then the jig will be up just like it was when watch took that pastor down. He was literally looking shook because he knew. You've been so exposed, bro. No one's scared of you now. They know you're a paper tiger. They know you can't even defend your beliefs when confronted with somebody that just refuses to go along. Tim Miller did too, by the way. Tim Miller actually did a great job in that interview as well. Even Piers couldn't say that guy. So that's the reality. And the last thing I will say is be careful with this Tucker thing. Y' all are getting real red pilled by this guy. This guy is an entrepreneur and he knows the right position to get his audience to stay with him. When the right position was that Trump is practically Jesus. That was his position. And now that the position is the base is over, running, doing wars for Israel, that's where he is, too. Now, I'm not saying he doesn't actually have a problem with genocide. He probably does. He's a human being. And anyone who sees what the Israelis are doing, this is a violent state, and anyone who sees what they're doing cannot be for it. I promise you, most Jewish people aren't for it. Most people aren't for it. And so he's coming to the conclusion that every logical person with a brain and eyes is coming to. And it's a great entrepreneurial decision for him. But be careful in thinking that that means that he's for all the things you're for and that if you switch to his version of Maga, that's going to be a version of Maga that's going to end the forever wars. Keep in mind, he's part of that same elite that folds right back into the arms of Peter Thiel. They're all Peter Thiel. They're all with him. All right, y'. All. Let me let y' all go. We had our moment of joy. Thank you for the 1999 Peace. Peace Oasis 4643. 1999. Thank you all for. I appreciate you all. Thank you for hanging with me overtime. And ignore the Met Gala this year. Just my advice. We need to send a message. Just ignore it. And the White House correspondence dinner. We used to call it nerd promotion. If MAGA is in it, I ain't in it. Love y'. All. See y'.
- [131:07]
Anthony Scaramucci
All.
- [131:07]
Jason Johnson
On the next the Jarret Reed Show. Peace.
- [131:10]
Joy Reid
Getting back to the basics grassroot level
- [131:13]
Jason Johnson
Let me dig a little deeper with the shovel Plenty can't tell the force
- [131:17]
Joy Reid
from the trees that I'm hard to
- [131:18]
Jason Johnson
detect Like a black hole in a
- [131:20]
Joy Reid
dark injustice anywhere It's a threat to
- [131:23]
Lev Parnas
justice everywhere Let me make this clear
- [131:24]
Jason Johnson
I got a bone to pitch and
- [131:26]
Joy Reid
I'll never fix the threat of poverty they don't want to talk about it
- [131:30]
Jason Johnson
they rap the party so I'm a real talk about it for show.