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- [00:01]
Joy Reid
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- [00:01]
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Joy Reid
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- [00:35]
Congresswoman Analilia Mejia
Okay.
- [00:44]
Joy Reid
Well, hello everyone and welcome to the Joy Reid Show. I want to pick up to everybody in the chats. People already got here early. We know the lemonades are always early adopters that get here early. All the people throwing hearts, throwing love up, we've already got, we've got Karen Stooks. Our good friend is always here early. Birdie, Happy Wednesday to all of you as well. If you're on Twitch, if you're on Facebook, if you're on Substack, our stack friends. If you are on LinkedIn, anywhere you are. If you're listening on an audio platform, welcome to you as well. We got a big show tonight in the second hour. Dr. Freda is going to join us to talk about the findings, the preliminary findings in the Nolan Wells autopsy. So we're going to get to that in a second hour. Also, Ellie Mustall will join us to talk about all things legal and all the corrupt practices from the Supreme Court all the way to Congress to the White House. And it's Wednesday. It's, we're pretending it's third Wednesday, but we missed it last Wednesday. But we're, we're going to do it tonight. Robbie Jones will join us for our, our ongoing series on attempting to counter white Christian nationalism. And we're going to talk about the right's love for concentration camps and mass deportation and all of those horrors. So that is what's coming up in the second hour of the show. But I want to start off right now by playing you someone who I would argue is one of the most fascinating candidates on the ballot for the United States Senate. He's an incumbent senator out of the great state of Georgia. And of course, that is John Ossoff, who laid it down. And this was not his most recent speech, but I think it's one of his best speeches regarding the corruption that is just rampant and rampant in Washington and beyond.
- [02:25]
You guys know about Jared Kushner, Ivanka's husband. He's on the Saudi payroll for $2 billion. Did you know that? And now he's leading American diplomacy in the Middle east, apparently, while at the very same time asking princes and sheikhs across the Arab world to give him billions more. If you're watching this online, don't take my word for it. Look it up for yourself. Can you imagine, like a normal sitting US Ambassador just hitting up Saudi Qur Prince Mohammed bin Salman for billions of dollars? But he's a Trump, a royal, a princeling. The rules are for us, not for them. And it's not just Jared getting in on the action. A company owned in part by Eric and Don Jr. Has been pitching Gulf kingdoms on its drone interceptors during this war. The Financial Times reported, quote, Pete Hegseth's broker looked to buy defense fund before Iran attack. I tell you what. Never before have we seen so little effort to hide so much corruption. The Mar A Lago Mafia has taken American corruption to spectacular new heights.
- [04:11]
Indeed, the Mar a Lago Mafia, a term that John Ossoff has coined. I am going to appropriate it going forward. I think it's the perfect description of what Trump and his regime are doing. Well, right now, Congress is debating a bill called the Clarity act that would try to regulate at least the cryptocurrency part, the cryptocurrency industry, to try to reduce some of the loopholes that have opened the door to. To the kind of blatant corruption that allowed Donald Trump as President of the United States, to suck in more than $1.2 billion in crypto personal income last year, while the people who invested in his crypto schemes lost upwards of $3 billion. One of the sponsors of the bill is Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who also sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee, where this week he got the chance to grill one Secretary of war. It's really Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth here. It is them.
- [05:04]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
So my question, Mr. Secretary, reopening the Strait of Hormuz is necessary in order for us to win, right? That's just a simple yes or no question.
- [05:13]
Joy Reid
You asked me what the overarching objective is, and I would say ensuring Iran never has a nuclear weapon. That's been clear from the president from day one. That's why Midnight Hammer was undertaken, to obliterate their nuclear sites. That's why we're watching their nuclear sites. That's why that was a part of negotiations, ensuring that the next generation of Americans don't have to deal with an Iran that wields a nuclear weapon.
- [05:32]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
Since that's what you're leading with, Mr. Secretary, let me just say this. You said after Midnight Hammer, and I'M quoting our bombing campaign obliterated Iran's ability to create nuclear weapons, unquote. Clearly, that is not the case based on your testimony today. It's also a fact that the dni, Tulsi Gabbard, testified in front of the Intelligence Committee that it was our assessment that Iran did not intend to restart its nuclear program. The president of the United States just about a week ago said Iran has committed not to develop a nuclear weapon, which of course, is a commitment they've made for many years. We need to enforce that. That's what we are doing under the J.
- [06:14]
Joy Reid
And joining me now is the aforementioned Senator Chris Van Hollen of the great state of Maryland. And I will blatantly say, and this is me saying this, not just because he's here, one of, in my view, the most morally outspoken United States senators. Senator Van Hollen, thank you for being here.
- [06:33]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
Well, Joy, it's great to be with you and thank you for your voice in this moment when our democracy is under attack.
- [06:39]
Joy Reid
I would say the same to you, sir. And before I get to the Clarity act, which I think is really important because I think people a don't really truly understand cryptocurrency and don't understand how much it's not just corrupting the White House, but also corrupting the parties. They're one of the big that industry is one of the biggest donors to the Democratic Party. So I want to get to the Clarity act in just a minute, but you had a chance to grill the secretary of State and it is still, I mean, secretary of Defense, sorry, it's still the Department of Defense. You all in the Senate and House have not changed the name, but he did not seem to be able to answer to you why we're in this war and why the Pentagon needs more money for. The Pentagon is running out of money for the war, even though they have a trillion dollar budget. How is that possible? And did you ever get to an answer with Pete Hegseth as to why they need more money if he earlier said they've already obliterated Iran's military and nuclear facilities?
- [07:32]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
Well, Joy, the fact of the matter is I went into that hearing very worried about the future of our country, given the ongoing war in Iran, among other reasons. And I came out even more worried because it's clear that the secretary of defense and the president United States have no idea what they're doing in Iran. Their rationales are changing every single day. Donald Trump said that we won the war in Iran back in March. And the simple question is if we won it back in March, why are more Americans getting killed? Why are the Strait of Hormuz still closed? Why are gas prices shooting through the roof again? And they have no exit strategy? Should never have gotten into this senseless war to begin with. They should get out of it right now. And I, for one, will not vote for one penny for their illegal war.
- [08:26]
Joy Reid
And as a United States senator, you know, who sits on some pretty important committees. Do you, sir, have a number on how many American troops have been injured and, or, and, or killed?
- [08:40]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
Well, there are 18American troops, troops who have been killed in Iran. And you may have seen one of the president's, you know, social posts the other day where he was downplaying the loss of these American lives by trying to brag that more American service members had been killed in other wars. I would point out other wars that he had previously said were really stupid wars, and it really trivialized the death of the service members who we've lost in Iran. So on top of that, there are hundreds more injured. As you, I'm sure, seen, the Defense Department has sort of been very slow to let the public know about hundreds of injured service members. On top of that, of course, there are the civilian deaths. So this is administration that is working to cover up the harm and damage done because of their war.
- [09:39]
Joy Reid
So let's move on to the Clarity Act. First of all, describe what it is. And, you know, and I'm asking this question knowing that a lot of Americans who support Donald Trump have lost a lot of money. The numbers are staggering. You know, I've seen this piece here. I think this is the New York Times reporting up to $3.8 billion in supporters of the president who've invested in his meme coins. What would the Clarity act do to interfere with that kind of scamming?
- [10:07]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
Well, first of all, I'm really glad you're shining a light on this, because I call this bill one of the bottom crawlers that could rise up and strike at any point in time. And I do want to clarify something, no pun intended. I would support a Clarity act that actually had adequate conflict of interest rules and got at the ethics issues and one that also dealt with a number other important issues to sort of close the ability to use crypto for illicit finance. The current Clarity Bill in its current form does not do that. I am the sponsor of the proposed amendment to the bill to deal with the ethics issues, to deal with the conflict of interest issues, because as you said, we have the most corrupt White House in American History. And a lot of that corruption relates to crypto. You already mentioned the President's meme coin, where he has pocketed over $600 million while Americans have lost $3 billion. There's also his very corrupt deal with the UAE royal family, this World Liberty Financial, where he's essentially allowed the UAE to get access to a lot of very sensitive US Technology, lifted the restrictions on transferring that technology in exchange for them investing $2 billion in the family, the Trump family crypto company. So this is a huge issue. We just saw the White House proposal today to close the, to deal with the ethics issue, and it is completely unacceptable. It would essentially allow the President to continue the ongoing crypto corruption that he's in right now. So I will not oppose this bill unless we close this bill. Big, big ethics loophole. I also, you know, I won't support the bill without that, and I won't support a bill unless they also deal with this, this backdoor for illicit finance that's used by terrorist organizations, criminal enterprises, and the like. So they may call it the Clarity Bill, but it actually is trying to muddy the waters in its current form. And as you said, there are hundreds of millions of dollars from the crypto industry being poured into ads all over the country to try to essentially elect members of Congress who will do their bidding on the crypto issue as opposed to advancing the public interest. And so I'm really glad you're shining a light on this at this moment.
- [12:46]
Dr. Freda Fisher
Yeah.
- [12:47]
Joy Reid
My understanding from at least one source is that at this point, the crypto industry and AIPAC are the two biggest providers of campaign support for Democrats and Democratic primaries at this point. I mean, you, and you can correct me if I'm wrong about that, but these two entities are really leaning hard to choose the Democratic primary candidates so that in the general election, they win either way because they also support the Republicans. You opposed Adrian Boaffo, who was running in District 5 to replace Steny Hoyer. He wound up winning a very large race. 20 something people ran in the El Sayed race. Crypto is on the other side of Abdul El Sayed. You have supported him. What do you make of the way that the Democratic Party leadership, including Chuck Schumer, has reacted to this? I mean, crypto and APAC are picking Democratic candidates.
- [13:46]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
Well, that's right. They're getting very involved in these Democratic primaries. Crypto, for example, has already spent, by our count, over $189 million in these Democratic primary races. And you're absolutely right. AIPAC is the other huge player. They may have even spent more than that. AIPAC is pouring money into the race against Abdul El Said for in favor of his opponent, Haley Stevens. And look, this is not charitable giving, as you know. I mean, both AIPAC and the crypto industry are essentially trying to elect candidates who they believe will advance their interests, not the public interest, their interests. In the case of aipac, it's trying to further their cause of unconditional American taxpayer support for the government of Israel. And in the case of the crypto industry, it's essentially to pass legislation that looks like it's regulating them, but in fact contains all sorts of loopholes that allow for this corruption to continue. So, for example, the latest Republican proposal on the Clarity act would essentially allow Donald Trump to, to keep doing exactly what he's doing when it comes to crypto corruption. And then it would end all of the conflict of interest rules by 2029. So it's, it's laughable. And we should not allow this bill to pass, certainly not in its current form.
- [15:19]
Joy Reid
I want to be faithful to the time that we were given with you, but I have, I just have one more very quick question for, for you. It's sort of a two parter. There's been a lot of controversy over the mayor of New York City, Mayor Mamdani, saying that he believes that Bibi Netanyahu should be arrested if he comes to New York. He said that he believes he should be arrested, but that it is a federal issue. And I think that begs the question for Democrats. Do you believe that if Bibi Netanyahu, who is a war criminal for the icc, comes to the United States, he should be arrested?
- [15:53]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
So Prime Minister Netanyahu is a war criminal. He's wanted by the icc, just as Vladimir Putin is a war criminal wanted by the icc. Now, Putin has decided not to come to the United States, including for the UN meeting, since he was decided, but since the ICC issued the warrant for his arrest, Prime Minister Netanyahu apparently wants to come. As you know, Joy, I believe that every signatory to the icc, to the Rome agreement, has an obligation to enforce it and to arrest Prime Minister Netanyahu. The United States is not a party to that. So it's not clear to me whether or not the federal government should move forward. But I will say this for sure. Right now, the Trump administration is trying to undermine the icc, right? They're trying to sanction its judges. They're trying to get countries that are parties to the ICC to pull out of it. We should be supporting international organizations that are upholding international law. We should be supporting organizations that want to make sure that leaders don't commit war crimes. So I applaud the mayor. I applaud the mayor for speaking out on this issue. And as I said, whether it's Vladimir Putin or Prime Minister Netanyahu, my view is that the United States should do everything that. I support the findings of the court, but the United States is not a party to the court. So I don't know if we have the power to actually enforce it. But countries that are parties to it should enforce it with respect to anybody.
- [17:43]
Joy Reid
Indeed, in the last 10 seconds that I have, you, Abdul Al Sayed has said if he becomes senator, he would like to support you for majority leader if Democrats take the majority or for minority leader if they don't. Would you want that position?
- [17:55]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
So I really. That's not what I'm looking at right now. What I am looking at is trying to make sure we elect people like Abdul and other great Senate candidates around the country, whether it's in Texas or Iowa or other places. And then, Joy, I'm determined that we have a Democratic party going into 2028 that is not a finger to the wind Democratic Party, one that doesn't essentially do the bidding of powerful special interests that we talked about, and one that really will stand up for working people that will dramatically reform it. A tax code that right now is stacked in favor of the wealthy against working people, enact Medicare for all. So we finally have a system where our funds are going to patient care, not to all the middlemen. So I do intend, one way or another, to be front and center when it comes to fighting for Democratic, the strong Democratic platform going into 2028.
- [18:58]
Joy Reid
You have a lot of support to be majority or minority leader in our chats. So I think there's a lot of folks that would actually really love to see you replace Chuck Schumer in that role. Thank you so much. Senator Chris Van Hollen. Thank you. We appreciate you being here. Thank you so much. Just saying now, if that was the Senate leader, Different kind of Senate. Different kind of Senate. Let's very quickly do a quick ad break because this show is brought to you by, you know who, our best friends, our wonderful friends, our buddies at Mosh. Do you see a mosh bar in front of me? You don't, right? I know why. And you know why? Because I can't really get my hands on one. I try. I truly do try. I don't do so well because there are just too many Mosh thieves around me and you know you are what you eat. So a whole lot of people who either live in my house or work for the Joy Rico are mosh bars. Because mosh bars help apparently them live intentionally and live their best lives with something that's delicious. It's a protein rich, wonderful snack that also does good things. You know the story. Maria Shriver and her son Patrick Schwarzenegger founded this company with a mission to spark a conversation about brain health through food education and research. And they did that after Maria's father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. But they also know that Alzheimer's disproportionately affects women. So every purchase of mosh bars supports research into Alzheimer's and its impact on women. But while you are helping and doing good things, you're also taking in good things. Ashwagandha Lion's Mane Omega Threes. It's got a lot of good stuff. It's brain and body fuel, which is delicious but also nutritious. Wonderful flavors like hazelnut chocolate chip, peanut chocolate plant based options. Hey Jackie Reed. Including chocolate chip cookie but plant based. So it's really great. It helps your wellness routine actually mean something and can also get 25% off plus free shipping on your first 15 count variety pack. Do hide it somewhere where your family and kids can't get it and you can get 20% off for life on your monthly subscription. So you can swap flavors anytime you like. Or even just to be deceptive to your family members who try to steal your food, your favorite functional fuel is delivered directly to your door. They deliver it to you. You never run out. Well if you're not me and you support brain health and also do good things for the Alzheimer's movement because Alzheimer's this team, the mosh team is working to try to close that gap. So find your favorites, build your boxes, keep things fresh with a variety pack. Mosh bars are the best ways to customize your health while giving back. Head to moshlife.com read and subscribe today to get 25% off your First Friday pack and 20% off your monthly subscription with code REID READ. That is 25% off your first pack and 20% off your subscription of brain boosting bars delivered straight to your door. Start building brain health into your everyday with mosh bars. Thank you Mosh. We love you all. Thank you for sponsoring this episode. Okay, so the big question this summer, besides where all my scamming ass at is, is Mitch McConnell dead or alive? I don't know. In that picture he Looks alive. Ish. Or it's AI. And he's also reading a newspaper upside down and wearing a shirt while sitting in a hospital bed. So dead, alive, I don't know. And it kind of matters whether he's dead or alive, doesn't it? Because there happens to be a Democratic governor in his state, the great state of Kentucky, who ought to be able to replace him. Roll them.
- [22:11]
Governor Andy Beshear
Our state legislature has become so overly partisan with a Republican super majority that I had to get a Supreme Court opinion saying they can't take all the duties of a governor to and give it to an agriculture commissioner. This idea that we were just empty vessels, they'd move around. And originally it could start partisan. Right. We're going to give it to a Republican, but then it could have gone. We're going to give it to whoever will do what we want, which breaks down that separation of powers. And we've seen in D.C. what happens when. When one branch can't or won't or two branches can't or won't do their jobs. So they've passed not one, but two laws. They're so scared of me being able to fill a vacancy. But here's what they haven't looked at, and I admit it hasn't been tested. There is a section of Kentucky's constitution, I think it's 152, and it says that a governor has the appointment power to fill vacancies of offices elected statewide. The question is, does that apply to a federal office? Well, before there was ever a statute that the Republican majority could change or not change, Kentucky governors made appointments. And that constitutional provision was the only thing in writing at the time.
- [23:24]
Joy Reid
So what does that mean?
- [23:25]
Governor Andy Beshear
Well, it means that if we reach a vacancy, I think a lot of options are on the table, and I'll look at all of them.
- [23:33]
Joy Reid
And there you have it. And joining me now is the Democratic nominee for the United States Senate in the great state of Kentucky, our friend Charles Booker. Charles, how are you?
- [23:41]
Charles Booker
I'm doing well, Joyce. Good to be with you.
- [23:44]
Joy Reid
Thank you so much. You're there in Kentucky. Do you know whether Mitch McConnell is dead or alive?
- [23:48]
Charles Booker
You know, sadly, I don't. And in everywhere I go across Kentucky, everyone's asking, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, what in the world is going on with Mitch McConnell? This is beyond the worst TV show you can imagine. The transparency, or lack thereof, is really offensive. And we've had so much of this from Mitch McConnell over the years. And this isn't about whether he's recovering. We're not having that conversation. Are we having representation right now? We know the answer is no.
- [24:16]
Joy Reid
CNN has had to address Scott Jennings claim that he spoke with Mitch McConnell for 20 minutes. He says for about 17 minutes. That's his claim. But CNN had to address it and say that's not their reporting. Do you, anyone know anyone, Republican or Democrat, who has spoken to Mitch McConnell for 20 minutes or any minute?
- [24:35]
Charles Booker
Not one. And you know what? We've seen Mitch McConnell's health declining over the last couple of years. I don't know he could have a 20 minute conversation with anyone last year, let alone now. And the fact that he's been hospitalized for over a month and we have no idea if he's alert, if he has his capacities, if he can ever return to office. And there are a lot of votes that are happening right now that impact Kentuckians and we need leadership, which is exactly while I'm running this race. And I know we're all sick and tired of this status quo. So I'm going to say it now. Joy, go to charlesbooker.org Help us flip this seat. We flip Kentucky, we're flipping the U.S. senate.
- [25:13]
Joy Reid
And I think this is you're running for an office which the election is in November. But between now today, July 22 and November, the first Tuesday in November, the 4.6 million residents of Kentucky are, are one senator short. So this is taxation without representation. Like they actually need a senator. And the governor of your state, as you just heard, said to Katie Couric in an interview that he is going to look into his power to appoint someone because it seems crazy to me that the Republican legislature can prevent the governor from doing his duty even if that man is alive. He's clearly incapacitated. Has the governor reached out to you to talk about potentially appointing you so you would then be the incumbent in November?
- [26:02]
Charles Booker
Well, first of all, I want to commend the governor for speaking up. And you know, a lot of folks were wondering what in the world is going on here. And I was the first to put out the call for transparency because this really isn't about politics for me. And I appreciate that he has spoken up as well and saying that he's going to do whatever he can to make sure Kentuckians can be heard. We talk often, but we haven't had that conversation. What we have been talking about is how do we meet the needs of Kentuckians right now. And I've made it clear that I'm running a campaign that is ready for whatever comes, whether it's a Special election, whether we're making history now or of course, winning in November, because we know what change is needed and we're ready to lead. But this is unprecedented for all of us and this is uncharted territory. And most importantly for me is making sure the Kentuckians know that the voices matter. Because as you mentioned, with Mitch McConnell being out of office and us missing a senator, the committees that Mitch McConnell sits on are making the very decisions that impact the continuing funding for Endless War, whether we can get relief for the storms that have really hurt a lot of Kentuckians right now. So we don't have the leadership that we need in this moment. And I'm ready for whatever may come.
- [27:12]
Joy Reid
And you know, in the state of South Carolina, when Lindsey Graham passed, the governor immediately appointed his sister, who now apparently is going to run for the job. I mean, South Carolina effectively has more government support or more support from its government than Kentucky. It seems crazy, but Andy Beshear, who is a good governor, popular governor, the Beshears are political stars in your state. It seems to me that what the people who elected him twice or elected him to be governor, elected his father twice. What they would want, right, would be for him to make history by appointing that state's first African American senator. Be great and historical for him, he might be running for president. It seems to me that it's a kind of a no brainer that he could appoint you, allow you to run as the incumbent, except that he's made history, which will probably help him if he runs for president and let John Roberts sort it out if he, if the Republicans want to take it to the Supreme Court. Does that seem like a logical sort of solution to you?
- [28:10]
Charles Booker
Well, you know, I've heard a lot of folks saying the same thing. And the, the idea that we can meet this moment and make history, something that's not lost on me, but what I know from working with the governor, of course, when he was Attorney general, when it comes down to legal matters, he and his team are very thorough. And this is again unprecedented because we have the state constitution, but we also have this legislature, this Republican super majority that has done everything they could to circumvent our constitution and essentially take away power that is vested in the governor. And so I know that they're gearing up for whatever the fight may be. And I know the calls are growing for action. And that's why I'm continuing to speak up. Because again, this is almost 40 days and at this point there is no sound evidence that he would be able to return at all. So we have to do something. And that's why my campaign is gearing up now, ready for whatever might come. If it is taking on a legal battle, if it is a special election, we are ready, and we have to be.
- [29:14]
Joy Reid
Mitch McConnell, I would argue maybe the most powerful. He's at least among the most powerful Senate leaders in history. When he was Senate Majority Leader, he blocked more bills than Dixiecrats blocked during the civil rights era. He attempted to shut down the Obama presidency. He blocked President Obama from being able to lawfully replace a deceased Supreme Court justice. I could go on, but as a Kentuckian, what did he do? Did he use that power to better Kentucky? Because Kentucky, last I checked, is still one of the five poorest states in the union. What did Senate Senator Mitch McConnell actually do, if anything, for the people of Kentucky?
- [30:00]
Charles Booker
You know, Mitch McConnell has been in office my entire life. Literally, I was two weeks old. I know. I think I've told you that. And he's been screwing us my entire life. And to be honest with you, and this is what frustrates so many Kentuckians. Now, be clear, this is a unifier. People across Kentucky do not like Mitch McConnell. There may be people that fear him because of how he has played politics over the years, but people don't like him. And it's because he is the worst form of political leadership. He is the swamp. And essentially, over the years, he did deliver resources to Kentucky. And look, the Mitch McConnell that was elected when I was born would probably be called a progressive right now. He was for women's rights, he was for organized labor. And over the course of his career, he forgot about us. He decided to hoard power for himself and essentially turned his back on us. And we would not have a Donald Trump if it weren't for Mitch McConnell. And the fact that I'm running against someone who wants to replicate all of that mess, all of that corruption, there's no time for it. We can't afford it. Kentuckians, Democrats, Republicans, Independents alike, we're all sick and tired of being screwed. You mentioned us being one of the poorest states, one of the sickest states, too. And Mitch McConnell has been at the helm the entire time. So while we're trying to get transparency now, we are also saying that regardless of what happens, we damn sure ain't gonna let Andy Barr get this seat and take away the agency and Voice of Kentuckians and continue to screw us like Mitch McConnell has.
- [31:26]
Joy Reid
Yeah, I mean, I feel like, you know, say what you Want about Rand Paul, at least every so often he, he bucks his party. At least he seems to have some independent spirit. Right? Whereas Mitch McConnell, to your point, you know the title of his show tonight is Everyone for Sale. I think he clearly was for sale. Like he relaxed sanctions on a Russian oligarch who then turned around and poured money into the state. It's not clear whether his wife, who was Secretary of Transportation, her family's business based in China, benefited from his leadership. Like it seemed like a lot over time of what he did, benefited himself, benefited Donald Trump, benefited some small number of Republicans, but not the people. So what does a Kentucky with a Senator Charles Booker look like that would be different from that?
- [32:07]
Charles Booker
Well, first of all, when we win this race as Kentuckians, from the hood to the holler, working people standing together, it will be an opportunity and a moment for us to finally deliver for the people. Not a politician trying to get rich to sell us out for gain and for power. But we've been hurting. We need health care that everyone can make sure they don't have to ration their insulin, that people don't have to choose between putting food on the table, keeping the lights on, that we can protect democracy, that we can make sure that we get big money out of politics, that we support organized labor, our veterans, our teachers, that we do the work of healing. And the thing that inspires me the most about this is that people across Kentucky see what's happening. They see how we're being hurt. They're seeing the prices rise. And they know that not only is Donald Trump breaking every single promise that he made, because of course he was BSing, but. But they see how Mitch McConnell set the stage for all of this. And so we're fighting for humanity. And our coalition is broad. We just wrote out endorsements today from the last four leaders in the House. On the Democratic side, our lieutenant governor has endorsed. Our governor has endorsed. And we're showing a broad coalition because we're not going to miss this moment. This is for all Kentuckians, no matter party, no matter background. And if you're sick and tired of being sick and tired, help us win this.
- [33:28]
Joy Reid
Do you see yourself being able to work with Rand Paul?
- [33:32]
Charles Booker
You know, I've actually been on the record commending Thomas Massie and Rand Paul because as you mentioned, a broken clock can be right twice a day. And, you know, in the moment of speaking up for the end of endless war and also making sure that there is accountability instead of protecting child predators, that we actually stand up for Kentuckians and stand up for victims and demand transparency that is not partisan. And I have shown over and over again, whether I was in the state House or even in this moment now, that if you're fighting for Kentucky, you're gonna find a partner in me. I really don't care about party. I'm just so tired of us being screwed over. And so I do commend Thomas Massie and Rand Paul for the moments where they have spoken the truth. And then, of course, I'll be a light for justice and humanity even when they won't. But we need to build together. That's what this moment requires. And this country needs it.
- [34:24]
Joy Reid
What do you think is the sort of biggest source of corruption in Washington from your view from Kentucky?
- [34:32]
Charles Booker
You know, in the land that Mitch McConnell has stomped on for the last 41 plus years, it really is the big money in politics. It is the fact that Elon Musk can become a trillionaire while people are sleeping on the streets is the fact that we are seeing war after war, billions upon billions of dollars going to an illegal war to conflicts that the American people have not asked for, nor do they want, while at the same time, people are struggling to get the medicine they need or to keep the lights on or to take care of their children. The United States is the wealthiest country in the world, and why are we allowing the government to abandon regular people when we pay for it? So my message has been simple, hardworking Kentuckians, we pay for this government. We work hard every day to keep our lights on, to take care of one another. Let's make sure we have a senator that cares about us just as much as we care about our commonwealth. And that is the leader that I will be.
- [35:28]
Joy Reid
As you're going through and going, you know, door knocking and talking to folks who maybe are not Democrats, is there still that kind of cult following of MAGA that people feel that even if they like what you're saying, they are hurting economically, they themselves are broke, or maybe even they invested in some Trump stuff and lost money, they're still going to vote Republican because it's their tribe? Are you seeing any reduction in that tribal sentiment that could allow people who are maybe lean are, but mainly who are just independents, I would say, to vote for you.
- [36:00]
Charles Booker
You know, we're seeing the scales fall off of the eyes of a lot of Kentuckians. People are taking up those Trump signs. That really is a thing across Kentucky. And a part of what makes this moment so powerful in me as a candidate in this campaign is that we've been doing this for years. We've been organizing in communities across Kentucky that voted for Trump but still needed clean water, that voted for Trump but are sick and tired of going without the medicine they need or seeing their jobs leave and never return. And because of that, I've built a lot of trust. And so this is the power of organizing this campaign. And the fact that we're going to win is based on what community can do when we stand together through the tough times, when the floods come and when the tornadoes came through, we were there. Andy Barr was not there. And so that's why a lot of Republicans, Democrats and independents are standing with me. And yeah, they see what's happening and they know it's not Barack Obama. They know it's not Joe Biden. They see that Donald Trump has failed on every single promise that he made. And they see that Mitch McConnell and Andy Bar are helping to make it happen. And they're done with that.
- [37:02]
Joy Reid
Charles Booker, we're gonna put the website up one more time. If you guys want to support Charles Booker, there it is. Charles booker.org Best of luck to you, my friend. Wishing you the best of luck. Kentucky is a beautiful state and it definitely deserves better than what Mitch McConnell has been delivering. If you hear about him and his status of his health, holla at your friend.
- [37:21]
Charles Booker
I'll let you know.
- [37:22]
Joy Reid
Appreciate you. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Charles Booker is one of the good guys. He ran against Rand Paul the last time that he was running for United States Senate and he lost in a primary to somebody who just got shellacked by Rand Paul because she had no charisma. And what Democrats have to start, I always tell you, all the powers in the primary. I will also note that in the state of Maine, it appears that the most progressive, if he's a logger, is going to be their nominee. And again, that is because Maine voters are raising up and demanding that they get changed not just a D after the person's name. We saw Chris Van Hollen earlier. It does matter. It doesn't. It's not vote blue, no matter who. It kind of matters who. Some blue is good blue. Not. But not all blue is good blue. But some of these people, you've seen them tonight, are actually standing up for right? And standing up for a better country and a more fair country and a more equitable country. That's the kind of blue that you want. And so it does matter. And Charles Booker just, I've been covering him for a long time. And he is a very, very, very good person. Let me give you guys a couple of breaking news items here before we get to our next guest. Our producers always working hard behind the scenes. Go near the behind the scenes. This is breaking for the New York Times. The House has adopted Republicans $95 billion budget plan to fund the war in Iran and impose new election restrictions. This now is going to go to the Senate. So the House under Republican leadership under Mike Johnson has passed a bill to give Pete Hegseth the most incompetent Secretary of Defense we've ever have. Someone who styles himself the department, the Secretary of War, which does not exist anymore and has not existed since not long after the Revolutionary War. There is no Department of War, but he styled himself that way. Republican leaders muscled through the resistance in their own ranks to approve the budget blueprint for the war and other measures. But its prospects are far dimmer in the Senate. So now there's the time to call your senators and you have to hope that you have senators that are about something. And guess what? Kentucky only has one. And the one Kentucky senator is likely to vote the same way Charles Booker would vote on this. My guess is that if there were two senators there, if Charles Booker were already in place with Rand Paul, Kentucky might provide two no votes to continue funding a war we never should have been in the first place because it was purportedly started, I can't even tell you why. But it resulted in the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and then the goal of the war became reopening the Strait of Hormuz that was open before we started bombing them for no reason. No one can tell you why we're in a war with Iran. But the Republican led Congress has said they need another 96 billion, 95 billion of your tax dollars to go ahead and wage that war. Your tax dollars at work. So no matter that Pete Hegseth is an incompetent fool who could not explain why we're in the war, could not explain whether the goals of the war had been met. When he previously said we obliterated Iran's nuclear capability and obliterated their military. He now says but we need another $95 million billion dollars with a B to keep fighting a war he previously claimed we won already. This is why Donald Trump's approval ratings are down to 30% at best and 25% in some polls I've seen are in the 20s. Because even Republicans are like, okay enough, I think he's at about 60, some odd percent with Republicans approval rating because people do not understand why with Iran, like, why are we at war with Iran? We've always been at war with Iran. Why are we at war with Iran? No one knows. But we know that one of the goals of the war became reopening the Strait of Hormuz. It was closed because we went to war with Iran and eliminating Ayatollah Khamenei, which we did by killing Ayatollah Khamenei. And he was promptly replaced by Ayatollah Khomeini, his son, who's also Ayatollah Khamenei, just younger and will live longer. I mean, you know, natural death would have eventually eliminated Ayatollah Khamenei, the older one. But now we get to live with another 30 some odd years of Ayatollah Khamenei because the younger one's now in charge. That goal not met. By the way. The US has also approved giving Saudi Arabia nuclear capabilities, a nuclear fusion capabilities. They're going to have nukes within a year. I promise you they will, they will develop nukes. Because you may, I don't know if you know this, the Saudis are the other group entity out in the Middle east who also wants to have nukes because they also want to counter Israel. And everyone in the region wants to be a nuclear power because Israel has nukes and is a nuclear power. So both the Iranians and the Saudis historically have wanted nukes, although the previous Ayatollah Khamenei issued a, a decree saying we will never have nuclear weapons. And despite that, the Trump regime bombed the crap out of them and killed him. And then they claim, well, they're still trying to get nuclear weapons, even though he had literally issued a decree saying we're never going to get nuclear weapons. Now there's been no such decree from Saudi Arabia. Well, you would.
- [42:17]
Ellie Mustall
This is now going to force Iran
- [42:19]
Joy Reid
to get nuclear weapons 100%.
- [42:21]
Ellie Mustall
Because they don't want to have Saudi
- [42:22]
Joy Reid
have the him handle 100%.
- [42:25]
Ellie Mustall
They have now just basically sped up
- [42:27]
Charles Booker
Iran's pace to get a nuclear weapon.
- [42:29]
Joy Reid
It makes no sense. And, and I'm not saying I'm pro the Iranian regime. You know, the mullahs are terrible people, but if I'm them, I want nukes. Like yesterday.
- [42:36]
Ellie Mustall
If the Saudis have nukes, why can't I have nukes?
- [42:39]
Joy Reid
Why can't they? Exactly. If the Israeli state can have nukes and the Saudis, this is what it is. The Trump administration has officially signed a nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia that officials have said could help the kingdom nuclear enrich its own fuel for nuclear reactors. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Wednesday afternoon, per the New York Times, that he had signed the deal with Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the Saudi min Minister of Energy. So there we go. We're putting tariffs on, on Canada and giving Saudi Arabia nuclear technology which they're going to turn into nuclear weapons because of course they want nukes because Iran is now like got to have nukes. Okay, let's move on to another story of, of domestic horror. The House. Let me, let me go back.
- [43:26]
Hold on.
- [43:26]
Let me, let me, let me just go back here. So just a reminder of the chaos that we've seen since the spring at just one of the many ICE prison, private prison detention centers. Here's the one in Newark, New Jersey. Delaney.
- [43:37]
Charles Booker
Hal,
- [43:53]
Joy Reid
I understand, but he's a senator.
- [43:55]
Respectfully, respectfully. Still, you got the pictures over there.
- [43:58]
Chris Hayes
This is.
- [43:59]
Joy Reid
Let me ask you because attorneys for detainees at the facility, they say hundreds of them went on a labor and hunger strike last Friday in protest of what they call inhumane and unsafe conditions. You were able to get inside the facility and you said they were absolutely unacceptable.
- [44:16]
Congresswoman Analilia Mejia
Secretary Mullen, Homeland Security Secretary disputes that.
- [44:20]
Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman
Yeah, and I talked to the Secretary about this this past week and I told him my accounts and I told him I'm going to be following up with more here. But you know, look, there is undoubtedly things going wrong inside Delaney Hall. You know, when I talk to, with a man who has stage three lung cancer and he's not getting the medical care that he needs, these stories, they need to be heard.
- [44:42]
Joy Reid
Yeah.
- [44:42]
Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman
You know, and look, I get it. You know, you know, this is something that I hope the American people see. It's a choice, you know, like, like Delaney. Delaney hall is run by a group called Geo Group. Geo Group is getting nearly a billion dollar contract to run Delaney Hall. You know, so they, they tell me there's one full time doctor, you know, they could have for 800 detainees, they could have more doctors if they wanted to. But again, that's cutting into the profits that they're trying to pocket. This is a solvable problem.
- [45:14]
Joy Reid
And the violence against undocumented immigrants has to do with the MAGA far rights obsession with bleaching the country. Removing as many non white people as possible so that this will be a quasi European white country. They're sort of doing blankimiento like they do in Argentina. And they're doing it through multiple means. They're using violence, outright violence by ICE mask men, kidnapping people, but they're also doing it by trying to undermine the birthright citizenship provisions in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution so they could deport people who are even here quite legally by undermining or removing their citizenship. Well, a member of Congress has stepped forward to try to stop that. On July 9, the 158th anniversary of the 14th amendment's ratification, which was ratified on that date in 1868, the House Democratic Caucus announced Representative Analilia Mejia of New Jersey's great 11th district would be the co chair of the Defend the 14th Amendment task force. The task force is, is tasked with engaging experts and convening members to defend the Constitution, coordinate oversight legislation and public education campaigns to respond to actions by the Trump regime that undermine the rights and protections guaranteed by, by the 14th Amendment. And Congresswoman Mejia is going to co chair this committee alongside Representatives Emmanuel Cleaver of Missouri, Emily Randall of Washington State, Latifah Simon of California, and Suha Subramanian of Virginia. And Representative Analia Mejia joins me now. Representative, thank you for being here.
- [46:43]
Congresswoman Analilia Mejia
Oh, thank you, thank you. And I just before we move on from this nuclear deal, it is unconscionable that this president, especially in a moment in which we have been working so hard to stop nuclear proliferation in this country, to the idea that we would in any way augment insecurity in the region is just, it boggles the mind.
- [47:13]
Joy Reid
Yeah, that was just one of the things that just passed through in, in Congress. I will also note that this very controversial bill to well, there are two of them. One 95 million more dollars for Pete Hegseth to spend on a war. We shouldn't be in. Your thoughts on how, why should we give them 95 million more, 95 billion more dollars.
- [47:35]
Congresswoman Analilia Mejia
Oh my goodness. I mean we're talking in total this, this warmongering and this war spending. You know, we have the NDAA, the, the total proposal is 1 point trillion when we don't have money for health care, we don't have money for infrastructure, we don't have money for the American people. But we sure have money to expend on bombing and creating chaos and frankly the vanity project of men who are completely out of control. But that's just me.
- [48:09]
Joy Reid
Yeah, I agree with you on that. And one more I'm going to give you, since you were in the House and I and I and we've got these breaking news sort of House developments. The House also passed a $1.1 trillion, the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act. It passed 216 to 212. Six Democrats voted yes, seven Republicans voted no. And it includes this very controversial Section 219, which integrates US military intelligence and the defense industrial base of Israel. This is terrifying to me, given that Israeli kill tech could now be used inside of the United States and also around the world. What do you make of that? How did you vote on that bill?
- [48:48]
Congresswoman Analilia Mejia
I of course voted no. I mean, again, I think the American people. In a moment, you know, I have to say that over and over in the two months that I've been in Congress, I could sum it up to just the wrong choices, the wrong focus. We have Republican Party that has capitulated to a president and all of his vanity projects, whether it's speaking, spending way too much money on a reflecting pool, whether it's sending a ridiculous amount of money, spending a ridiculous amount of money in an illegal war. I mean, talk about misplaced priorities in this administration. And frankly, I have to say I am disappointed in my own colleagues who would take such an action again. Myself, I'm standing up for the people in New Jersey's 11th. The American people who are again, they're living paycheck to paycheck, have finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. And instead we're wasting money in ways that are. Is just unconscionable.
- [49:50]
Joy Reid
Yeah, $1.1 trillion is a lot of.
- [49:53]
Dr. Freda Fisher
It's a lot of billion.
- [49:54]
Joy Reid
It's a lot of billions. Like a million billion, A million million or a million billion? It's 1.1 trillion. It boggles the mind. It's hard for me to even explain the number of zeros. And we're gonna spend that on bolstering the Department of Defense. Again, that just came and whined that they need more money, that they're running out of money. I don't understand how they can possibly be running out of money.
- [50:16]
Congresswoman Analilia Mejia
They must need it in order to. They hate gender affirming care unless it's testosterone for their military buddies. So go figure.
- [50:27]
Joy Reid
So speaking of violence and militaristic violence, obviously ice. And of course in Newark, New Jersey, Delaney hall has been the subject of hunger strikes and protests. Allegedly a woman was hit by a car by an ICE agent. That video is all over social media. It seems that ICE is still out of control in the state of New Jersey. What is the status as you know it as a member of Congress? Can you do oversight there? We know that there's arrest when you try that.
- [50:55]
Congresswoman Analilia Mejia
In fact, I have, you know, as in before I came to Congress. I was an organizer, an activist, community organizer. And I was there on the day in which the mayor of Newark, New Jersey was taken into the gate in order to be arrested for trespassing. I was there when I saw the ICE agents put their hands on Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman and Congresswoman LaMonica McIver. And since being elected to office, I've gone to Delaney hall multiple times. And here's what I could tell you. There is, and from my opinion, there is medical abuse happening in that detective detention center. You played a clip of my colleague and fellow New Jersey Andy Kim, Senator Andy Kim. He is 100% correct. You know, you have hundreds of people detained in conditions that are prison like. I want your viewers to remember that up until recently, people who had TPS status, temporary protective status, had legal status in the United States. When the President rips it away, he then moves the line and makes people who were legal illegal. Now you're holding people in prison like conditions, and it could cost them their lives. I visited some of my constituents who have been violently detained, stolen from our streets, and here's what I found. People who are diabetic, not getting a quarter of the medication that their doctors prescribe, people with chronic health conditions, with cancer, as the Senator said, not getting the care that they require. And to me, this is not only unconscionable, but I quite question the medical professionals. How do you retain a license when you are watching people be essentially failed so miserably? To me, it is not right and we have to stand up to it. Once we fingers crossed, the 120th Congress will be a different story. But we still can do something. Now, me and my colleagues have been collecting information of the medically vulnerable, submitting names to, to the Congressional record so that we can return because I believe that we'll be able to prove medical harm for so many people.
- [53:01]
Joy Reid
I'm sure. I don't doubt it. I mean, and this other sort of, you know, there's the one shoe they're dropping, which is just outright violence, starving people, mistreating them in detention. The other part is trying to just undercut the 14th Amendment, period, so that they could deport even more people. It does seem that the conservatives on the Supreme Court are begging Congress to send them a bill to that would allow Donald Trump to declare who gets a birthright citizenship and who doesn't. Tell me what your committee, the defend the 14th Amendment task force is going to do about that.
- [53:30]
Congresswoman Analilia Mejia
So let me start by saying, you know, I am a first generation Afro Latina. My parents, my father, a black Dominican man, immigrated from the Dominican Republic fleeing political violence. My mother, Colombian woman, fled political and economic violence in Colombia. You know, they came to the United States. Love the United States taught my sister and I a deep love for this nation. And the things that we love about it is the freedom that everyday people that you and I get to enjoy in this country. But. But that freedom wasn't secured at the birth of our nation, at the original founding. It was secured in the second founding of this nation. It was through the Reconstruction Amendments, through black struggle, that we in the United States say, you know what, all men are created equal. Originally, we only mean land owning, cisgendered Protestant white men. We pull those words so that they cover more and more everyone. And because of it, because of that struggle, you have due process. You have equal protection. You can bar insurrectionists from running for office. You have the ability that the 14th Amendment undergirds bodily autonomy. Right to marry, public education, public housing, even collective bargaining and the right to form unions are all anchored in the 14th. You take a look at the assault that this administration has had on the freedoms that American people enjoy, and you could see that the Huns are at the 14th Amendment gate. That's why we fought to create. That's why we pushed to create this task force. I believe that we have to not only have an understanding of the ways in which this administration has tried to kill the 14th death by a thousand paper cuts, but so that we can be ready to restore it and rebuild it. I think there is a congressional fix, a legislative fix. I think that there are corrections in our Supreme Court that must be made. I am an advocate of both term limits and ethics reforms. But the bottom line is we have an ideologically extremist Supreme Court that is showing us that they're willing to strip the American people of their rights and we have to stop them.
- [55:39]
Joy Reid
You know, you anticipated my question somehow, because that was what I was going to ask. I mean, even if the task force came up with some great legislative fixes to try to protect the 14th Amendment, it's not clear to me that John Roberts and crew would uphold it, because I don't think they. It's not clear that they support the existence of the 14th Amendment.
- [55:56]
Congresswoman Analilia Mejia
I mean, to me, it's clear that they don't, in my opinion. But here's again, the bottom line. You know, our Constitution is an incredible document. And in particular, again, because of that second founding. And in our second founding, we clearly state that everyone in these United States has a set of rights and protections. Due process and equal protection is afforded to everyone, documented, undocumented everyone. And we can see that ICE is violating the supreme, is violating our constitutional protections. When they summarily execute people, they are both like judge and executioner of people in the streets of America. So we already know that we have been losing these rights. We already know that there are corrections that we must make. It means, however, for us in Congress that we have to not only analyze where are all the places in which it's been weakened, run a public education campaign so that our folks, the American people, should have a visceral reaction to the stripping of their rights. I mean, we have a lot of work before us, but, you know, in order for us to preserve the kind of freedoms that you and I have been able to enjoy up until this point for, for seven generations out, we have to do this work today.
- [57:08]
Joy Reid
This sounds like a plan. I love that you're doing that work. And you're right, I think the education piece is going to be key. My final question on this is legislatively, if Democrats take the majority in November, so next January, if it's a Democratic controlled House, should ICE be dissolved?
- [57:28]
Congresswoman Analilia Mejia
Well, I believe that ICE is irredeemable. I think that they have a recruitment problem, an accountability problem, an oversight problem. This President has been, this administration has been openly recruiting from white supremacist institutions, organizations, et cetera, factions. So I think that I am a fan. I believe that we should abolish and replace ice. We have to uncouple this like rogue police force from our border security. I think that we must, of course, protect our borders. We must of course have, have protections and have a fair system. But the correction to our immigration problem in these United States is that we don't have enough resources in judges, in lawyers, in the front end. It should not take 7, 10, 11 years for people to linger while they establish roots to determine whether or not we're going to embrace them into the fabric of our nation. If it takes seconds for you and I to fill out a credit card form and within seconds we can evaluate whether or not you and I are credit worthy, then it shouldn't take a decade to determine whether or not we want individuals to be able to be afforded the rights to, of a path to citizenship. Again, we have to invest in the front end and not in this chaos in our streets. Because I want to say just one more time when we allow. What this administration has been doing is weakening the rights of everyone by targeting the rights of immigrants. See, what we see are immigrants and their allies being denied due process and equal protection. But underneath it, we also see the gerrymandering to, to weaken black political power. And it goes hand in hand. It is in effect trying to weaken black political power, working class political power, immigrant political power. Because I think you said it best. There's a bleaching, there's a campaign to bleach the fabric of America. But I think again, we are going to be able, the American people reject this. And I think through education and activism and organizing inside Congress and outside side, we're going to be able to, to win this fight.
- [59:33]
Joy Reid
Congresswoman Analelia Mejia, one of the strongest voices for immigrant rights and for human rights in Congress. Thank you very much for being here.
- [59:42]
Congresswoman Analilia Mejia
Thank you. Thank you.
- [59:43]
Joy Reid
Always Joy, always a pleasure. Appreciate you. Yeah, please keep us up to date on that fight. Wow. She. She's good. She's good. And I will say that. And this will be controversial to say, but if you look at what ICE is, in many ways it functions in the same way as the Klan militias did in the late 19th and early 20th century. And as that entity function as like a militia, an anti black militia. This has been deployed as an anti non white militia. It's an armed masked militia whose goal is to remove non white people physically from the spaces where they live and then throw them into concentration camps in lieu of, in many cases, mass deportation. They're not really mass deporting people, they're putting them in private prisons where theoretically they could be convict, leased out like slaves. Because the 13th Amendment, in theory, these people, once they're incarcerated in a private prison, could be utilized by that private prison as a cheap workforce, that a workforce with no rights, a workforce with no more rights than a person in Sing Sing or in Rikers island would have. That is what they're doing.
- [60:57]
Charles Booker
But does that apply to private prisons
- [60:59]
Ellie Mustall
or state and federal prisons? That provision of.
- [61:03]
Joy Reid
Because, because states like Louisiana and other states, they cut deals with private prisons to lease their prisoners and they can send them to go work in McDonald's or to go work, you know, in low paid jobs in the fields too. And yeah, I mean, and the, the reality is these private prison industries are incredibly lucrative, by the way. They're incredibly lucrative. And they, they spend. And much like the enslavement era, they spend very little. They spend the minimum on things like food and health care. It's sort of reproducing a kind of enslavement level system of care, meaning you give them the minimum to Keep them alive. If you even care if they're alive. You give them minimum food, minimum health care, minimum care. You just, you just warehouse them. And then you just can't leave. People warehoused. If you can lease them out, make some money on them, you'll do that too. I mean, the whole thing is a nefarious. And this is becoming the industry of the United States. Imprisoning immigrants has become an industry in and of itself. Like slavery was. It's an industry. ICE has become one of the biggest employers in the country. If you're broke and don't have any other prospects, it becomes a job you can get with no education, 47 days of training in honor of the 47th president. They stick a badge on you, a mask over your face, and give you a gun and send you out to do damage and go wild and get them, you know, 25 to 30, 500 brown and black immigrants a day. Brown, black and Asian. They're just like, look at them. If they look brown and black, take them, throw them in a van. Not a good way to run a country. Let's welcome you all to hour two of the Joy Read Show. Do note that if you have not hit like and subscribe, you have waited such a long time. I don't understand why you have done that. You should hit like and subscribe right now. Bigging up, everybody. Please let us know where you are. I'm just sort of scanning the Twitter chat. The Twitch chat. Sorry, the Twitch chat. I am scanning the Facebook chat. I finally figured out how to work the work to get on the Facebook chat. So hello to the Facebook folks. I got Dr. Miriam Lisa. I got Eval, Kenya, I got Donna Michelle Jones over on Facebook. Let me look over on the YouTube chat. Oh, my eyes. They've got intolerably me. We've got Duango 2006 in Brooklyn. We've got the gold medallion with a little king's crane. I love that. We've got Marco in minutes over on the YouTube chat. Let me pop over to the Twitchies. We've got Raven Wolf. We've got ice icy honey143. Over on twitch. We've got Golganic, which is cool. That kind of sounds like Game of Thrones. I kind of Love that. And Y2MO. And Y2MO says on Twitch and then they tell them that the torture will stop if they self deport. Exactly. And the idea now that they're going to merge our military with Israel's military. So now the kill tech can come home.
- [63:55]
Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman
Great.
- [63:55]
Joy Reid
Let me Note a couple of housekeeping notes before we jump into our second hour in chief. Tomorrow at noon on Sunday Substack, we will have a Premium Insiders Only substack live with Ellie Leonard and Lev Parnas. Now this is one you're not going to want to miss because this is going to be regarding the mysterious death of an Epstein friend who was found DOA in France. It's a huge mystery. We're going to do an Insiders Only tea time with Lev and Ellie. And so all the tea is going to go first and so they get the T first. If you are a premium subscriber on Substack, you get that T first exclusively before anyone else gets to know what the tea is. You will get it first at noon Eastern time on Substack only and then at 1pm also on substack you get it first if you're on substack. And this is going to be for the whole Substack family. So all of you who are in the Substack family, you can watch us live. Me and Mike Fanone, me and Michael Fanone are going to go live at 1pm so right after the Levin Ellie substack for the premium people, the whole substack community will get to watch a 1pm Live with Michael Fanon and myself. We're going to discuss the arrest of one of the January Sixers who attacked him. One of his attackers has been arrested again for new crimes. We're going to talk about that and also the threats to our democracy, the threats to the November election. That will be at 1pm Eastern on subsec. That's for everyone on Substack and then it'll appear later on YouTube. So if you want to see it live and ask questions and get involved and be a part of it, just go over and be and subscribe at least as a free subscriber. If you're a free subscriber on Substack, you're going to get to see that. Hopefully that makes sense. And then after this show back on this show on the entire platform on Friday, we're going to do our monthly subscribers only after party 8pm Friday. After the show will be the after party. Be sure to prepare your security or your mocktails and get ready to ask me anything and get maybe Jason will be Nosferatu again. You never know, you might get Nosferatu in the after party. Let's note one of our wonderful sponsors, the Joy Read show, is brought to you by and I am obsessed with this by laundry sauce. So laundry sauce is they make stuff to wash your clothes, but they don't just wash your clothes. They make your clothes smell heavenly. These things smell so good that I literally just want to like rub them all over my clothes and just have them in my house everywhere that one is sold.
- [66:33]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
So I'll open.
- [66:33]
Joy Reid
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- [68:58]
Robbie Jones
I mean.
- [68:59]
Joy Reid
Okay, let me show them to you. They look like beautiful pearls of laundry sauce. Smell good, look good, feel good. Fabulous. This one is Indonesian patchouli. Indonesian patchouli. Fabulous. Okay. Thank you, laundry sauce, for sponsoring this show. So this morning, on a much sort of sadder note, the naacp, the national Action Network, and attorney Ben Crump held a press conference announcing the preliminary results of the private autopsy that the family had done in Washington D.C. prior to the 18 year old's funeral. Here's part of that.
- [69:31]
Attorney Ben Crump
Demetrius said that the focal area of red discoloration in the soft tissue of the back of the head, the occipital region, is significant because he cannot determine why you have that red discoloration in the back of his brain. That's significant. He also talked about Mr. Williams, if you can, just the fact that as it's common practice, he was missing his throat when they received the body and he wants to know why they held it back. He's not drawing any conclusions, but he said he would want to examine it if there were neck fractures or compressions to the neck. And he thinks that's significant to know at autopsy. The reason he says he would hold it back when he was medical examiner, because he thought that there may have been some issues with neck fractures. The last thing that is significant is what we said before about him. The condition of his body when he went into the water. Was he conscious or unconscious? Was he forced or unforced into the water? He said those things are very significant. But he started off talking about this red discoloration in the back of his head is something that was of great concern to him. The condition of building wells before he entered the water would be the crux of the matter. It would be of utmost importance to being able to determine a cause and manner of death. He said definitive circumstances of death
- [71:42]
Joy Reid
are
- [71:42]
Attorney Ben Crump
required to determine the manner of death. For these reasons, this mythologist cannot rule out. And let me really call your attention to this. For these reasons, this pathologist cannot rule out if any intervening non accidental factors contributed to or caused the death of Nolan Wills. Understand he said based on the examination of the body, he cannot. That is significant.
- [72:29]
Joy Reid
And joining me now ask and answered. We just saw somebody in the chat ask for Dr. Freda. Your request is our pleasure to provide. Joining us now is our friend, quadruple board certified physician, nephrologist and host of Dr. Freda Live, Dr. Freda Fisher. Thank you for coming back.
- [72:47]
Dr. Freda Fisher
My pleasure.
- [72:48]
Joy Reid
So none of that made much sense to anyone who is not a medical professional. Talk about what those preliminary findings and why would a finding be preliminary if an autopsy has been done?
- [73:05]
Dr. Freda Fisher
So Joy. Yes, we know that the final preliminary report is that the cause of death and the manner of death are undetermined at this time until further investigation. The reason that we have preliminary reports is that it takes much longer than the initial 24, 48 hours in order to get the toxicology. And so in order to test for drugs, for substances, for medications, it takes longer than that. It can take weeks, it can take months before the final comes back. And so we get preliminary reports just like with Senator Lindsey Graham. Very quickly we had a preliminary autopsy report of aortic dissection, but we still don't have the final report because it's going to take time to before toxicology and other studies come back. So that is standard for there to be a preliminary initially and then up to months later there can be a final. As far as the results, there are a few very key significant findings and or lack of findings of this autopsy. The first significant one would be that lesion. Attorney Ben Crump described it as being 12 by 8 inches on the occipital region of Nolan Wells head. So that's in the back part of your head. And he described it as per Dr. Roger Mitchell, the pathologist, the medical examiner, as being reddish in color. We don't have enough information to make any conclusions. But when you think about this, the differential diagnosis that you would think of is okay, was it from some type of a trauma? Was Nolan hit on the back of the head? Well, according to this preliminary report, there was no skull fracture. But also it could be due to the pooling of blood. If they would have had Nolan on his back, you know, while he was postmortem, after he had passed away, it is possible for blood and fluid to pull to the back of the head. And I recall being at Meharry Medical College and certainly dealing with cadavers and with bodies that had disease, you would often get blood pooled in the back of the head, pooled in the heels, just as per gravity. So that's still a possibility. What we don't know is the specific condition of the brain. So we don't know if there was a brain bleed, an intracranial hemorrhage, and so a lot of unanswered questions. Still a significantly sized lesion, and we can't rule out trauma, but we can't rule it in just yet. These. Yeah.
- [75:32]
Joy Reid
No, no, please go. No, keep going. Keep going.
- [75:35]
Dr. Freda Fisher
These second autopsies have limitations, which I thought that the medical examiner, Dr. Roger Mitchell, was masterful in pointing out. He's not. Dr. Mitchell was not the first one to have Nolan's body. And so with time, especially considering that Nolan's body was in likely warm water. Okay. Where there can be bloating and accelerate decomposition. He didn't get the first look. The Dr. Mitchell didn't get the first look with the independent examination. He does not, as he shared, have all the information. He doesn't know if Nolan was conscious or unconscious. He was not able to take the original photographs of the intact body before the dissection and autopsy began. That's the limitation. The other major limitation is that there were organs that were missing. When I say missing, I mean that the original examiners, the Mississippi medical examiners, held back the anterior neck structure. So interior means in front. So we're talking about the areas in front of the neck. What's in front of the neck, hyoid bone, trachea, larynx. And so you. If you are a crime guru, if you ever watch Law and Order and the, you know, all of the various crime shows, you may be familiar with that hyoid bone. They discuss if someone is being strangled, asphyxiated, there's pressure to the neck. Then there's a hyoid bone that might be fractured or displaced. And so that's very important for us to know what the interior structures of the neck are to rule in or rule out some type of a foul play. We don't have the interior structures of the neck. The original Mississippi medical examiners have it. We also don't know if there are any ligature marks or any kind of strangulation. We don't have the interior structures of the neck. We don't know if the windpipe has been broken or traumatized. And so I will say that Dr. Mitchell, the independent examiner, said that it is not uncommon to hold back anterior structures of the neck for further studies. Just given the climate, I will admit, Joy, I don't have full faith because from the very beginning, as you know, and as. As you know, they try. They. And by they, I mean the Mississippi law enforcement and the sheriff, they were saying, oh, it looks like it was an accident. Oh, we understand that Nolan chose to stay on the island even though he didn't have his phone. It felt like they were already trying to come to a conclusion that this was an accidental drowning before any evidence. And that makes me very uncomfortable with them still with the initial examiners having any of the body parts. But again, Dr. Mitchell did not suggest any foul play as far as what the original medical examiner is. He said it can be a standard of practice if you are suspicious.
- [78:15]
Joy Reid
Is it weird for you that the private autopsy results came out before the initial autopsy results, like, shouldn't, because we can't compare them because we haven't had a public. At least I haven't seen anything publicly about the initial autopsy. Does that strike you as odd?
- [78:33]
Dr. Freda Fisher
It strikes me as odd as an individual. You'll hear different stories, and, you know, when we're dealing with forensics and we're dealing with legal situations and possible crimes, you'll hear people say, okay, it might take longer, or, you know, we have to hold back the information. It's just when you put everything together, the suspicious circumstances, the young boys who, you know, considered themselves to be Nolan's friends, who had his phone, but initially did not share that they had his phone with his mother. When you have, you know, them, you know, canceling their Instagrams, and then you have one of the mothers or stepmothers who's a judge, you know, none of these things are, you know, enough to, you know, lock anybody up. And I'm not saying that they're guilty. I'm just saying that these stories are inconsistent. And the. The leaders of the investigation have been, you know, it did not seem that they were impartial. So when you put it all together, plus a huge delay with the first people to have the body not having the preliminary report out. Yes, to me, as an individual, it does feel suspicious.
- [79:39]
Robbie Jones
Yeah.
- [79:39]
Joy Reid
I think the next step is going to be to demand that the Jackson County Sheriff's Department and that the state of Mississippi release their autopsy. It is weird that the private autopsy, which was done quite a bit later, comes out first. And the people who have all the hyoid bone and all of the. They had the body first, got the first look at it, and have parts of this young. This boy's body that they have released their findings. We want to hear your findings, Ms. Dr. Freda, we appreciate you. Good. Says. Thank you very much.
- [80:05]
Dr. Freda Fisher
Thank you.
- [80:06]
Joy Reid
We will have you back because we're going to keep talking about this case.
- [80:08]
Dr. Freda Fisher
Sounds good.
- [80:09]
Joy Reid
Thank you so much. It's odd, right? I mean, it's, it's weird. It's weird. Cashew Sara is saying on Facebook, what about the police department who first tried to sweep it under the rug? That's a very good point, Kashu. Very good point. Because they came to a conclusion very, very, very quickly in the state of Mississippi and in Jackson county, which again, Mississippi has a history that ain't great when it comes to black death. When it comes to black folks going missing, Emmett Till. When it comes to the history, the history is not good. It's not on their side. It's not on their side. Stepping out of Babylon says there's also the fact that he was fully clothed when found. And stepping out of Babylon also says Mississippi medical examiner law enforcement. Have they been ordered to send photos, if not the body parts? Not to our knowledge, no. No throat, no brain, no lungs, no stomach. Included in the second autopsy. To Sarah. Sarah P. Studio on Twitch. All right, let's move on to our next topic. Weird. Okay, so let me play you a throwback video from the artist formerly known as MSNBC and my friend Chris Hayes show circumstances.
- [81:30]
Chris Hayes
Would a Supreme Court justice be accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars in foreign travel or paid tuition for family members or a recreational vehicle, motor, stagecoach? It's just outlandish for us to contemplate. I mean, that's like a jailable offense for people over here. And it's just like the normal business as usual at the Supreme Court that they're collecting millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of dollars from their so called friends. And so we need to clean that up. And that's why, you know, we said we're going to start with something simple that the whole country will be able to understand immediately and intuitively. We want a $50 gift ban for U.S. supreme Court justices. They make $300,000 a year. Pay for your own lunch and pay for your own vacation.
- [82:20]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
Yeah, that, that does seem quite clear, Congresswoman. And also has the advantage, again, there's particular issues to deal with the members of this court.
- [82:28]
Joy Reid
But in some ways, the only way
- [82:30]
Senator Chris Van Hollen
to legislate it or for Congress to act is outlaying some broad principles that are equally applicable.
- [82:37]
Lululemon Advertiser
Absolutely. And as all of us as public servants and federal public servants Whether it is, whether it is both chance of Congress, whether it is the White House, many of us are subject to the same, if not extremely similar and uniform code of ethics, and the fact that the Supreme Court, which is already unelected, at least for those of us who run for office, we have to rerun for office every two years here in the House. For an unelected body of nine people appointed for life to not have any sort of binding strict ethics code to which they can not only be held accountable, but which can be enforced is actually ludicrous. And it's almost unbelievable that we are sitting here in the year 2024, over 200 years after the establishment of this country, and that we actually have not addressed this issue. It is something that is long past doing and it's common sense.
- [83:39]
Joy Reid
Indeed. And by the way, that was in 2024. And things have not gotten better. In fact, they've gotten worse. It's just why the title of Tonight show is Is Everyone For Sale? And joining us now to answer that question is Our friend Ellie, Ms. Style Justice Correspondent at the Nation. Ellie, it's kind of amazing to look back at, first of all at the fact that that network was called msnbc and it's not anymore. It's like, that makes me sad. But you had Jamie Raskin and AOC back then saying, oh my God, we have rampant corruption on the court and it's gotten worse.
- [84:07]
Ellie Mustall
Absolutely. Before I get there, though, I didn't want to let the Nolan Wells story pass me by just because, Joy, I know you experienced this too, as a black parent. This is kind of our fear when we send our babies out into predominantly white or all white situations. Right. I'm not saying that the white friends are lying. I don't have any reason to believe that they're lying. I, I, you know, there's nothing legally so far that rises my suspicion, raises my suspicion that they're lying. But it's kind of not the point, right? Because they don't know anything. And that's the problem, right. When you send your black baby out with white folks, they don't know anything. They don't pay any attention. They don't know what happened. And that would never happen. When you, you never think that's going to happen when you send your baby out with, with, with our people right there, There ain't no way that you send your kid out with all of his black friends and five of them come home and one of them doesn't and they can't tell the mother nothing. They they don't know what. That never happens amongst us. But when you send your baby out with white kids, they don't know nothing. They weren't looking out for their boy. They weren't looking out for their buddy. They don't remember how. That's. That's. That's the fear. And so while that's not a legal issue, it is a social and an emotional issue, I think, for every black parent in this country. Lord knows, my two black boy children with predominantly white friends in a predominantly white school, when I am watching them play around with their. With their friends at birthday parties or holidays or whatever, that's what I'm looking for. Which one of your white friends gives a damn enough to notice if you're in the room or not? Gives a damn enough to have your back in a situation? Because that. That's what I need from a white friend to give a damn. So I just wanted to. So I just want to say that.
- [86:10]
Joy Reid
Well, I mean, the thing is, the idea is, you know, that we've come so far that, you know, we live in these integrated situations where our kids can even have black white friends, which was patently illegal, particularly in a state like Mississippi. Like, white kids and black kids, as they got to a certain age, they would play together as little kids, but as soon as they got to, you know, the puberty ages, the age they had to separate because of Jim Crow and because of the terror of white families, that their white daughter would start to like a black boy. And so there was a real danger around having white friends in the 50s, you know, previous. Prior to the 1970s. And so it's an interesting thing that, you know, people feel like we've come so far. But you're right. I mean, D.L. hughley did it, did a joke on. On his show where he said, what do you call a white teenager who goes out boating with black friends? He said, the answer is safe and alive, because I wish you would, as a black parent, come back without your little white friend. We will make you tell, where's your friend? And we're not gonna let you come back with that. Like, actually, that wouldn't happen. Like, you just, you know, this. The black parenting is. Is just that the idea is, you know, first of all, you know, that. That your black children would be under the jail if they didn't bring the friend back. Let's start with that. Because if these have been black boys who didn't bring the white friend back, the Jackson sheriff would have been behaving very differently. I can't imagine a sheriff saying that the one white friend that went with a bunch of black kids just chose to stay behind. I, I can't imagine that. I mean, maybe it could happen. I mean, I don't know everything, but it's just hard for me to imagine the reverse where the sheriff says, oh, there's nothing to see here. This young white kid just disappeared. And not literally turn over every black family's household, rifle through their homes, arrest them, grab those black boys, throw them up against the police car, interrogate them for hours until they admitted what happened to the boy.
- [87:58]
Ellie Mustall
Yep, that's 100% what happened. Yet when it's reversed, when it's the black child that doesn't, doesn't show up, they're like, oh, we must have drowned. Oh, something must have happened. Oh, no need to turn these white families lives upside down to figure out the real story. That, and, and, and, and I think we all expect, But I, again, as a parent, you, you, you worry, you wonder, how do you explain that to your children? Right? You don't want your own children to come in with that baggage. And yet they gotta know. They gotta know that if they're going out with their white friends, they are alone and they have to act accordingly. And that is that, that is, that is a parenting challenge, you know, for, for people like, like you and me. And it's apparent. It's one of the many parenting challenges that white families just don't face and don't even know about, don't like. If, if, if, if we're talking to whites, even your spicy whites, they don't know that. These are the conversations that we're having with our black children before they go out to the bar mitzvah, before they go out to the sweet 16, before they go out to the college party. These are the conversations that we have to have with them because we know what happens on the back end.
- [89:10]
Joy Reid
Yeah, well, you know, at least the spices want to know. That's how we love our spices. They want to know. They try to know. You know, they're like, David, jolly good Ginger. Who's like, tell me everything. I'm taking notes. Let's talk about this corruption thing. Because here's the other thing that people used to not have to have a conversation about was the Supreme Court. I mean, the idea was the Supreme Court, at least you want to talk about African Americans was the backstop for our rights. Right. Even an all white court, some of whom as young men had been right wing racist in the Klan. But the Warren Court kind of proved that even before it had a black member, before thurgood Marshall, that 20th century era of the Supreme Court was like a golden era for black rights, for disabled rights, for women's rights. It was sort of amazing that a court full of people who were probably born in some cases in, like, the early 20th or late 19th century did that. This court is dismantling it all and getting rich in the process, or living rich anyway.
- [90:06]
Ellie Mustall
And that that interregnum, that small period of time, from circa 1954 with Brown v. Board of Ed to around 1981, that period of time has warped the entire movement, has warped the entire civil rights movement, and into thinking that the Supreme Court is or could be or should be our friend. And it's not. That was actually a brief period of history. And if you look at anything before 1954, and if you look at everything after 1980, all you see is the Supreme Court acting as a stop, as a retardation on progress in this country.
- [90:43]
Attorney Ben Crump
Right?
- [90:44]
Ellie Mustall
And yet, if you are black of a certain age and you grew up in that area in that era, Barack Obama springs to mind, you have the wrong idea. You didn't get the memo as to what the Supreme Court is and has been, but for the 20 years while you were in college and the Supreme Court was doing some good things. So it is a. Is a nightmare that the black community needs to wake up from and understand the Supreme Court is against us and then do everything in our power to take control of the Supreme Court. And that, I think Jamie Raskin and AOC Are right. It starts with ethics reform. It is the most politically easy thing to do. But as you pointed out, Joy, that was a clip from 2014. We're in 24, we're in 2026, and ain't nothing happened. But I'll tell you what. So two weeks ago, Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett showed up in front of Congress asking for money. They were sent there by John Roberts because John Roberts couldn't lower himself to ask for money. So they sent Amy Coney Barrett to dance a tarantella and talk about how much the Supreme Court needs more money for security forces. Right? And Amy Coney Barrett told her sob story about the time that she got swatted and how she has to wear a bulletproof vest and explain it to her children. And people were all sad. And look, I get it. We were just talking about having black children. You know who else has black children?
- [92:06]
Joy Reid
Amy Coney Barrett.
- [92:08]
Ellie Mustall
Right. And so when she's talking about Being swatted and how dangerous that is for her and, and her kids. No, I get that. You don't want no cops banging through your door when you got black children at home because cops and black children don't mix very well. Right. So I was completely sympathetic to her story. But what was the ask? The ask was for more money. So that shows you that Congress needs to give them that money. And Congress could say no, Congress could hold that money and I'm going to use a word, hostage until these people sign an ethics reform bill. I would have looked Amy Coney Barrett dead in the eyeballs and said, you know what, Justice Barrett, if you want the security funding, you're going to sign my ethics reform bill. And if you don't sign my ethics reform bill, I suppose you should learn karate, right? I suppose you should learn that self defense thing where you put your key in your fist because you ain't getting a sense out of me until you sign on to ethics reform. Is that what the Democrats did? No, no. Steny Hoyer running to the camera as soon as the hearing was for. We got to make sure the Supreme Court has enough money for security. All the Democrats is falling on, oh, we got to make sure the Supreme. No, there were some Democrats who were just like Donald Trump has created this environment where these people are on the threat. The Supreme Court has created the environment. You don't need enough so much money for security if you actually have reasonable gun laws, which the Supreme Court won't let us have. Which is another thing that I would have pointed out to Justice Barrett to her face. But the Democrats don't do these things. And this goes to why the Supreme Court acts the way it does because they don't fear the opposition party at all. There's not one point where anybody sitting on the Supreme Court, starting from John Roberts, who again could not bother to show his face in front of Congress, not a single person on the Supreme Court fears what Democrats in Congress or a future Democratic president is going to do to them or their institution. They are truly out here, like, who going to check me, boo. And the Democrats keep saying, not me, not I, sir. Check them. Hold that money hostage until they sign ethics reform. It is a point and click way to bring these people to heal. And the Democrats won't do it.
- [94:32]
Joy Reid
Yeah. Or they could just say, why don't you get your rich billionaire friends who take you on fancy vacations to pay for your security? Let them pay for it. I mean, literally, they're giving you an rv, a tricked out rv. They're taking you on fabulous vacations. I'm sure they have security. When you go on vacation, tell them to keep writing another check. Write one more check for you to get private security. You can afford a private lifestyle funded by billionaires. Let the billionaires, let Leo, Leonard Leo pay for your security. That's what I would have told him. I would have said, we're not writing you another dime because Leonard Leo is giving you guys unlimited, what do you call it, expense accounts. To live like kings on your 300 and some odd thousand dollar salary. Plus you have a 300 some thousand dollars salary which is most, more than most Americans earn. Pay for your own security or get your billionaire friends to do it. Let your little friends do it. That's what I would have told them.
- [95:20]
Ellie Mustall
To say nothing of the fact that I don't want the Supreme Court to have their own private security.
- [95:23]
Joy Reid
An army.
- [95:24]
A private army.
- [95:25]
Ellie Mustall
To have their own private army. I don't think that's a good. I don't think that's what the Constitution intended. You don't need more security officers detailed to the Supreme Court. You need the Supreme Court to stop to get the guns off the street. You need the Supreme Court to stop making rulings that make everybody in this country armed and dangerous. That would protect them. And if they want additional funding for Congress, sign an ethics reform bill.
- [95:48]
Joy Reid
Amen. Let's do. I got two more quick things I want to talk to you about. This one is Zorhan Momdami. Let me play what he said that is causing the Democrats, let alone the Republicans, to lose their minds.
- [96:00]
Mayor Eric Adams
Netanyahu is a war criminal. The architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people. He is responsible for the killing of more than 73,000 people. For the maiming of tens of thousands of children as those who survive undergo amputation without anesthesia. For the targeting of neonatal hospitals and maternity care centers, denying newborns even the chance to live. For the countless people he starved as he blocked food and humanitarian aid from reaching them. For the gunning down of hundreds of aid workers and journalists. And just last month the UN confirmed that Palestinian children continue to be deliberately targeted and killed by Israeli armed forces. More than eight months after the so called ceasefire, the list goes on and on. All as we as Americans pay for the bombs that do the killing, there is a reason the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest. As human beings, we have spent generations building a shared understanding that there are crimes so grave they offend all of humanity. Anyone with their eyes, with their heart with their conscience should recognize the devastation he has wrought and understand that he belongs before a court of law. As I've said, I agree with the ICC that Benjamin Netanyahu should be arrested and tried for his crimes as I do for anyone else charged by the icc. My administration has reviewed every avenue available under applicable law to determine whether New York City could execute the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant if Benjamin Netanyahu came here. It is clear that we do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant. The federal government, however, does, and I call on them to join the ICC and execute this warrant. And I want to be equally clear, Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City, nor is any other war criminal at large. While we cannot end the genocide on our own, we can decide whether our silence will become another weapon, and we can examine every tool we have to defend the humanity and dignity of all people.
- [98:03]
Joy Reid
So, Ellie, I asked Senator Chris Van Hollen, who said he agrees that he should be arrested. His question is whether or not it could be implemented. Because obviously, this administration won't let me put up the number of countries who would arrest Bibi Netanyahu if he came to their country. That is E3 multiple countries. There it is right there. Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, even Slovenia. And that's where Mrs. Trump is from. Slovenia, Sweden, and Switzerland would arrest them. Your thoughts on why no Democrat other than people like Chris Van Hollen would.
- [98:40]
Ellie Mustall
Yeah. So, look, I obviously agree with Mandani. There's.
- [98:44]
Charles Booker
I didn't.
- [98:44]
Ellie Mustall
There's no lie in anything he said. But the reality is, is that he didn't need to talk to every lawyer in New York to figure this out. He could have just called me. There's no way. You can't even give Benjamin Netanyahu a parking ticket in New York City. And it's because Netanyahu has diplomatic immunity. And I will defend. Defend diplomatic immunity this far. The Union, the UN can't function without some level of diplomatic immunity. And that means that the UN has to be able to have people over who some might consider war criminals, some might consider bad guys, some might consider really problematic individuals. Right. You can imagine if the UN Was in London, our war criminals. Trump would have to be able to have some kind of diplomatic immunity to go to London. Like the UN can't function without some level of diplomatic immunity. So I don't even think that it's necessarily terrible that Netanyahu, when he's coming to the UN Enjoys some measure of Immunity, Right. If Netanyahu is just coming to, like, taking a show. Well, now we're in a different situation, right? But that situation, the reason why we can't do anything, even in. Even in the. He just went to see, you know, Hamilton or whatever, is because of our OG World War Criminals, which is not the Trump administration. It's not Hegseth. It's George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. And so they passed a law when they were in charge called the American Service Members Protection Act, I believe. And what that did was, was functionally pull the United States out of the ICC of the International Criminal Court, and according to this preposterous law, gives the United States the authority to, and I am not making this up, invade the Hague. Should one of our people be brought before the International Criminal Court there like that is. That is a law on the books in this country, and it was passed by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. However, I must point out Barack Obama had a chance to overturn that law, and he didn't. But Joe Biden had a chance to overturn that law, and he did it for some reason. Can't imagine why American presidents think it's in their best interest to not follow the icc, the International Criminal Court. And that then goes to answer your question. Why do even Democrats. Why are even Democrats unable to admit this about Netanyahu as much as Israel and AIPAC and all of that lobby puts a lot of weight on the Democratic Party. There's also the issue of where we got our own war criminals. We got our own horrible things that we want to do to the world world, or we have done to the world. And we as Americans accept no authority over our own. Which is why international law is bunk, because anybody with enough guns and enough nukes simply doesn't follow it. Right? So international law that ends up only getting applied to countries without a nuclear arsenal, which is a thing that African countries, Caribbean countries, the global south poor, Eastern European, is the thing that they've been complaining about the entire time that these laws, you know, Slobodan Milosevic is out here being like, why me? Right? Like, these laws seem to only apply to leaders and war criminals from poor countries and never seem to apply to leaders and war criminals from rich countries. So this is truly a problem that is not just a Republican problem and is not just the lily libert Democrat problem. This is an American problem where we refuse to acknowledge that there are international human rights that we are, that we should be able to follow. So absolutely, the way forward is to make the United States part of the icc. And that involves overturning this George W. Bush era law. But voters have to demand that voters have, you know, look, we're about to hit, you know, once we're through with the midterms, we're about to hit, you know, primary season 20, 28. Here it comes, right? And they're going to have all these questions from all these voters about, you know, where do you stand on the price of eggs or whatever the hell it is. Somebody needs to ask, hey, J.B. pritzker, would you submit to the ICC?
- [103:08]
Robbie Jones
Right.
- [103:08]
Ellie Mustall
Hey, Wes Moore, do you think international human rights laws should be followed and what will you do to make America a part of the international community as opposed to a rogue failed state like we are now? Tom Cotton, of all people, got it right, actually, when he went on FOX and he said, well, this is not really about arresting Netanyahu. This is about arresting Trump and Rubio and Hexeth if they should ever travel abroad. You're goddamn right it is. Yeah, you're goddamn right it is. It's about arresting Trump and Hexaf and Rubio if they ever travel abroad. And that will never happen unless the United States joins the icc, which is why it'll never happen.
- [103:52]
Joy Reid
Ellie Mostall, one of our favorites. For that reason, he is thorough. He is going to tell you all the things and give you all of the constitutional and legal tea. Thank you, Ellie Mostall, we appreciate you, man. Have a great weekend.
- [104:02]
Ellie Mustall
Thank you so much for having me.
- [104:03]
Joy Reid
Thank you very much. Wow. Well, there you go. Well, let's keep this going. On July 16, Marco Rubio and Stephen Miller spoke at the Ministerial on the resurgence of Political Terrorism. I know you've probably never heard of that. It's a conference that was convened by the State Department, by our State Department, and hosted in Washington, D.C. now, the point of their speeches was to lecture European counterterrorism officials that they these Europeans had developed a blind spot which doesn't allow them to see the real terrorists, that the real terrorists are people on the left who oppose mass immigration and who oppose exploitation by big business and big capital and big capitalism. And they use some language that went largely unnoticed. But I think you should notice it. Take a listen.
- [104:46]
Stephen Miller
We're assembled, to be blunt, not one of the people that is demonstrating looks like a normal person. Not one looks normal. They're all deformed in some way in their appearance, in their dress, in their mannerism. Why is that? Why? If you look at two photographs and you see a normal American street, you see an antifa protest. Why do the people that are violently demonstrating, why is there not one normal looking person among them? Every one of them, through the course of their life and their decisions, has scarred their body and their appearance in many different ways, to the point in which their outer appearance becomes a manifestation of their inner hatred. Trust your instincts to all people and across all civilizations. You know what normal is. You know what beautiful is. You know what good is. You know that families are right. President Trump issued a directive. In our parlance, it's called a National Security presidential memorandum, or NSPM NSPM 7 to be exact, that directs, for the first time in American history, all of our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to work together to disrupt, identify, defund, debank, arrest and prosecute these political terrorists that are operating in our country.
- [106:05]
Robbie Jones
This is what radical leftism is. It may wear various different slogans and ideologies across place and time. They can call themselves anti capitalists or anti imperialists or communists or anarchists or Marxist, but the fundamental character is always the same. It's always the same. It is a poisonous resentment cloaked in the language of equality and justice, liberation, an overwhelming need to tear down what greater men have built, to wreck what is beautiful and what is right on behalf of people who are only filled with ugliness and have nothing else to offer the world. Through violence and through terror, they once again seek to impose their ugliness on all of us. The old dogma was wrong. The old dogma was wrong. None of this is driven by idealism. It is not utopian. In fact, it is the opposite. One of the criticisms you sometimes hear of communism, for example, is that it sounds good in theory, but it never works in practice. That's actually not true. Communism does not sound good in theory. The world it envisions for all of us is small, flat, gray, leveled of all exception, drained of all that is good and noble in the human soul. The world it envisions is a world without question, courage, A world without creativity or ambition. A world without heroes or glory or great causes to strive towards, without a world without miracles, without myths, without men who rise above the rest to do incredible and extraordinary things. And the world Communism envisions is a world without God.
- [107:49]
Joy Reid
I know it probably sound better in the original German. Joining me now is our friend, Dr. Robert P. Jones, Robbie Jones to us, who is our partner. Well, he's the founder and he is the chief demographer at the Public Religion Research Institute and our partner in this series, which we call Countering White Christian Nationalism. And Robbie Good to see you. I will note that there is a doctor named Dr. Robert B. Shipner. He's a clinical professor of medicine in pulmonary and critical care at the David Geffen School of Medicine at ucla. And he wrote a whole piece about these speeches which really went unnoticed by much of the media. I'm just going to read you the last bit of it. He says, I've been practicing medicine for decades. Cancer is my vocabulary. Not. He meant Stephen Miller's. And I know what happened the last time a government borrowed it. The Nazis state central perversion was the medicalization of killing the enemy. As tumor, as bacillus. The nation is patient extermination as cure. Robert J. Lifton called it the biomedical vision. It recruited my profession first, and my profession answered willingly. When a government describes citizens and as a cancer, it was. It is. It has written the first line of a treatment plan. On Thursday, the plan was read aloud from a State Department podium in six verbs. I mean, this was Stephen Miller saying that any of the pleas of leftist protesters that their rights are being violated should fall on deaf ears. He called them ugly, physically ugly and deformed, saying their inner manifestation is outward in ugliness. And he's physically hideous looking. So it's wild that he said that. But doesn't. Didn't those speeches to you sound like, you know, decaf Nazism?
- [109:23]
Well, you know, yeah. Your original statement about, you know, sounded better than the original German, I think was not far off the mark. So joy, as you know, you know, we've got a new book coming out called Backslide. And I begin exactly here at this point where I begin with National Security Presidential Memo Number seven, which Rubio and, and Miller both cites and which, by the way, will be what they used to come after you and me eventually here, that it is about kind of declaring people who disagree with the administration domestic terrorists.
- [109:57]
Governor Andy Beshear
Right.
- [109:58]
Joy Reid
And, and, and, but here I think any scholar of early 20th century history Hair will be standing on end when they hear the speech, because this is exactly the language. It is. It is. I mean, it's not like Nazi language. It is Nazi language. It is straight out of Mein Kampf. Hitler did this over and over. Himmler did this over and over. This argument that you can look at someone and you can tell by their physical appearance whether or not they're morally upright. Right. And that people who are not morally upright and have made terrible choices. I mean, Miller actually spells this out, right? Their, their choices of envy create an outward ugliness. And then you can just trust your instincts by looking at someone. So this is the same argument that was used in caricatures. And you can look at, like, early 1930s German cartoons of kind of Jews with like, exaggerated, distorted features. This was all about this kind of pseudoscience there that kind of said that, oh, yeah, this. This immoral or inner disfigurement manifests itself and physical traits. It's all about racial hierarchy here. You know, you saw this in other. Other places as well. So that kind of a Western European or Nordic masculine features are the thing that are normal. And anything about that is not only about just difference, but it's about inferiority and in fact, moral disfigurement and closer proximity to evil and threat. So that's what is being spelled out here by the special assistant to the president, by her Secretary of State. It is straight up Nazi language.
- [111:40]
And I mean, you know, of course, the Nazis in Germany borrowed their tactics from Jim Crow. They were inspired by the Klan and by the right wing American treatment of black folks. And they also, in the right, in. In the US Even when they were called Democrats, they would do caricatures of black people, of black features being a symbol of moral depravity and using thick lips and big hips being a symbol of depravity. So you had the subject. Yes, exactly. And they did the same thing with Mexicans. They would use these pictures. They did it to get to take Hawaii. They showed the Queen of Hawaii as this hideous, monstrous looking figure to basically soften people up. Say, we can hurt these people because look how ugly they are. And it's interesting that Stephen Miller, who, again, is quite ugly, keeps talking about beauty. And I don't know if he wrote Rubio's speech, but they keep emphasizing beauty. And then you see what MAGA does, they make all their women get the same makeover. So they have the same sort of vapid look to them.
- [112:39]
Dr. Freda Fisher
Right.
- [112:39]
Joy Reid
They all have to look the same with the big hair and they have to have, you know, exaggerated breasts. Exaggerated like they're trying to look like a certain thing. Or this look maxing on the right among men who try to all break their bones in their face to look a specific Nordic way. It is. It feels like they're just reproducing Nazi Germany inside the Republican Party. It's hard to dispute what Don Lemon said, that MAGA is the closest thing that we have in the modern day to Nazism. It's crazy.
- [113:07]
Yeah. You know, I mean, and I. What's wild about it is that you think, okay, yes, you sound. You Say that and you even check yourself, right. Of saying, like, am I insane that I'm. That I'm saying this now about our own country and about one of our two storied, you know, long lasting political parties, that this is where one of our two major, not some fringe party, right, on the far, far right, but one of our two major political parties has now been taken over by this movement, by this MAGA movement. And you know, I'm an academic. I'm trained to not be shrill, to not be overreactive, to kind of be cautious in the claims that you're making. And I have spent a long time thinking about this and you know, in the first chapter of the book, you know, I basically lay it out and say, look, despite all of that, the clear evidence in front of us, I just say this is our 1933. And that was a moment, right. Of kind of. And what's wild is that in the speech, Miller mentions that we're not too far from the point of no return. And I think a lot of that language they're using actually is just flipping things on its head. Right. That I think, in fact what we're facing is the exact flip side of that, that we're not too far from the point of no return into being completely slipping into fascism. And not only fascism, but in a way that has. As long as we let this kind of thinking become normalized, every time we do it, we blunt our moral capacity. Right. Every time we let it speak. So I'm so happy if you not let the speech go by. It's absolutely critical. This is one historians will be bringing up 10, 20, 50 years from now as a kind of milestone, are a brick in the road, right. On our way to authoritarianism. If we don't like really stand up and say, oh no, no, no, no, no, that is not the country we want to live in. And for those of us who are Christians also, like, saying like that is not a vision. They talk about the Bible and Christianity all the time. Like that is not the true, the good and the beautiful that Christian theologians talk about. I mean, this is actually a manifestation of evil.
- [115:16]
Yeah. And by the way, the Nazis also purported themselves to be Christians, as did the Klan. Let's talk about the data. Because the thing is, is that this ideology really is seated, as you just mentioned, in one political party. Right. The Democrats used to be the bad guys, they were the conservatives. But conservatism jumped the fence into the Republican Party. And by the way, the same sort of clack of extremists used to caricature Lincoln as a hideous monster and imply he was a Negro because they emphasized that his sort of proclivities against slavery meant that he was distorted and physically ugly. But anyway, moving on, it is Republicans who where this doesn't live in both parties. So you've got some data here. Let's put up F3. Jason, be good. And it manifests itself in an absolute obsession with mass deportation. It's the main thing they care about. They care about it more than they ever cared about the Epstein files. We must remove Brown people. Talk about Republican. The data you have on Republican support for ice, and does it differ from other people?
- [116:14]
Yeah, I mean, this is one of the things I keep saying over and over. And it is really important to remember that we are not living in a 50, 50 divided country. We are living in a party where a extreme minority has taken over one of our two political parties. And you really see this in this data. I mean, social scientists call this asymmetric polarization. Like, yes, we're polarized, but we're not evenly polarized. So one of the reasons why I put this chart the way I did is I wanted to see, like, just how far from the mainstream Republicans have become. And this is just about isa. You could do this, actually on any number of issues, around immigration, around abortion, and you get these same kinds of gaps, but here it is quite remarkable. So, like, just on this question of, like, whether the surge of ICE officers are making our communities less safe, the number of people who disagree with that, it's 75% of Republicans. But if you look at all other Americans, that's independents, Democrats, people of no party at all, it's only 23% of the country that disagrees with that statement. And it's just down the board. It's basically 7 in 10 or more of Republicans, no matter what you ask them about ice, increase their funding. Yep. Should they be able to conceal their identity. Yes. Have a favorable view of them. Yes. Even after all the. All the killings, all the murders right in the streets by ice, we're seeing, you know, this kind of thing. And in every case, it is no more than a quarter of Americans who agree with Republicans on any of these issues. And I think that's really important to remember is that the. The moral core, I think, of the country is still actually intact here, but it is just having trouble finding its voice and actually finding its way to kind of push back.
- [117:54]
Yeah. And interesting. I didn't use it, but, you know, every. The latest polling showing Donald Trump's approval rating stuck at around 30%. You can go all the way back to when he was in office for the. He holds a third of the country. And you can now see why, because you average out Republicans with everyone else, you wind up with about a third. So his 33% is literally because he's holding a lock. He's got this lock on about a third of the country. Even more so on Christian nationalists. This is F14. You could put up that slide. So then when you isolate people who are white Christian nationalists, it's even more extreme.
- [118:26]
Yeah, well, I want to take a look at this, saying, well, what's, you know, parties are, are political entities, but they're driven by ideology. Right. And so what's underneath this? What's really driving it? And so without dealing with party at all, I kind of want to do the same exercise. So what happens if you look at white Americans who support Christian nationalism here? And basically you see a very similar pattern. It's again, 3/4 all the way up and down the line. No matter what you ask them about ice, they're all four all in for ice. And these, again, these are white Americans who support Christian nationalism. But if you look at. And even among white Americans, right? So this is not just a white thing. Even if you look at white Americans who do not support them, it's down only about 3 in 10. If you look at all other Americans, again, It's only about 3 in 10 here who support it. So again, white Christian nationalists, Republicans are just far, far from the middle of the country and, and, you know, but are dragging the country's illegal apparatus that direction, even while the kind of moral sensibilities of the country are nowhere near supporting that.
- [119:33]
And then now this is the scary one, because since we're talking about Nazism and the parallels to Nazism, support for internment camps, basically, to create concentration camps. Talk about this data.
- [119:46]
Look, you know, I think one of the challenges of our moment is that there's so much coming at us at once, all of it bad, that people and I have this problem too, like, okay, this is just the next moral outrage. But is it, is it something significant? Is it not so significant? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say whatever else is going on, we can safely say that building concentration camps on US Soil is a bright line we ought to pay attention to.
- [120:13]
Yes.
- [120:14]
Right. And so we've been asking this question here about whether people agree or disagree that the federal government should detain immigrants who are in the country illegally and Internment camps until they can be deported. And what we see here is again, look at this. Republicans and white Christian nationalists, adherence and sympathizers way out there, right? Three quarters on both of these questions. All other Americans in a very, very different place. And again, if you look even at white Americans who don't support Christian nationalism, it's down only around 3 in 10 who. Who support this. So it's not a white racial thing, but it is that combination of. And by the way, just to say this, the reason why these numbers look very similar is because the Republican Party today is 70, white and Christian.
- [121:02]
Robbie Jones
There you go.
- [121:03]
Joy Reid
Right, right. So if you draw the Venn diagram, you know, they're of kind of Republicans and white Christians. There's only a little sliver outside of that of those two overlapping circles. That's why this looks so similar. But this is the ideology. And that's why you hear in both those speeches, Miller talking about the Bible, people going to church. I mean, it is this vision. It is this literal white picket fence, white Christian vision of quote, unquote, normal. Right. And holding that up in some way. But this is the vision, right? It is an ethno religious state where people who do not believe like them or look like them. Right. Have no place.
- [121:40]
And part of the kind of mania that that has produced is this really kind of insane belief that these illegal immigrants that. That live in their nightmares day and night are stealing elections from them, stealing power from them, even as they control the whole government. They control the whole government and they still think that it's all being stolen from that every time they turn around. And I won't play the clip because it's too long, but, you know, Congressman Massie pointed this out and he said this isn't possible. Guys, we have the Supreme Court, the House, the Senate and the White House. How can you say elections? Let's play it real quick. We're going over time just a tiny bit, but let me just play it. This is Massie and then Warnock in Georgia.
- [122:27]
Congressman Thomas Massie
Let me just look at, look at this. Just from a basic common sense perspective. The year that I won, and by the way, I won two elections in Georgia, I won in 21, and in 22, our congressional delegation is majority Republican. So are you saying that on the same ballots that elected my Republican colleagues, their ballots are legitimate and the ballots that elected Jon Ossoff and myself are illegitimate? It defies common sense. And I just am thinking tonight about people all across my state who are genuinely struggling, whose health care premiums have been Doubled who have been kicked off of health care. The rural hospitals I visit in rural districts that are struggling and barely hanging out on farmers who are struggling. And the President of the United States is not focused on them. He's focused, as he always is, on himself.
- [123:25]
Joy Reid
But I think it's a distraction from our real problems. I think it's ironic that we control the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the White House, and we're yelling election fraud. I mean, we won all the damn elections.
- [123:39]
That kind of logic, you'd think would say, people go, oh, you know, you're right. I mean, it doesn't make any sense. If it was election fraud, how did my state representative win? But they don't. I mean, is there anything in your research that shows why this cognitive dissonance.
- [123:53]
Well, I'll tell you, I mean, I think this is one of the things that authoritarians do, is that the very idea of cognitive dissonance ceases to exist. Right. Because they train people, actually to simultaneously hold all kinds of untruths together in their head. I mean, it is part of the kind of moral deconstruction of the public, of kind of demanding. So when you demand, for example, that every person that goes up for an appointment in this administration has to affirm that the 2020 election was stolen, I mean, this is. It's not only a kind of mark of fealty, but it is a way of kind of breaking the public's moral sentiments. Right? And over and over again, my favorite stat, actually, of this is that when we asked Republicans whether the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, we have two thirds of them saying yes still today after, what, 60 court cases that they lost. But when we asked them about whether the next election that he won, 2024, was conducted in a free and fair fashion, 2/3 of them say yes. Absolutely. Right. So, and without. And this is in the same survey, we get these. These questions. Right? So I think that is part of. But it is part of what authoritarians do. They actually try to break these strands of chains of logic so that they can kind of act with impunity.
- [125:14]
What's so crazy about their belief system is that Donald Trump's two electoral victories took place when the people running the federal side of elections were Democrats. Democratic presidents were in charge of the deep state. And the one he lost is when his administration was in charge, he lost the one where his own administration was in charge of the federal apparatus. Make it make sense. The book. Put the book, book back up. It's called Backslide. Reclaiming Faith and a Nation after the Christian turn against democracy, it seems y' all like you're going to have to read this as a survival technique and also just because Robbie is just so brilliant. Thank you, Robbie Jones. I appreciate you, man. Weekend. Thank you very much. Well, there you have it. They are the closest thing to the Nazi party I know. They're going to get mad at Fox, they're going to get pissed off, but it's true. Name anything about them that's different, you know, emphasizing beauty and, you know, in this sort of this idea that they want this aesthetic that looks like ancient Rome embracing the camp of the saints insanity, that hordes of brown people are going to take over Europe and the United States, this obsession with Muslims, it's Islamophobia that Muslims are going to create Sharia law. Like all of the things they're doing really kind of add up to only one thing, and that is 1930s Germany and also much of 1930s United States. Let's not forget a lot of Americans were very much on the side of the Nazis in Germany and wanted to do here, recontinue doing here to Jewish people what they had already been doing to blacks, which inspired the Nazis in the first place.
- [126:50]
There you go.
- [126:50]
All right, let's get on to our moment of joy. A reminder one more time that tomorrow at noon, if you are a premium substack subscriber on at Joy's house, you are going to get to get the first bite exclusive tea with Ellie Leonard and Lev Parnas and myself. They are going to spill the tea on this new death in Epstein world. It is a weird case, but as you know, Ellie, she digs deep on this stuff. She's been diving in. Lev's been using all of his contacts and all of his internal contacts to to find out what the hel is going on with this latest Epstein pal who was found dead over in France. We're going to give you that tea at noon, then at 1pm for all of the substack. If you're on Substack Free subscribers as well, you all can get in on this one at 1pm Me and Michael Fanone, we're going to chop it up. We're going to talk about this latest arrest of a January 6th attacker who attacked him, physically attacked him, got pardoned by Trump and has now committed more crimes. He's back to criming. We're also going to talk about the ongoing threats to democracy and to the November election. Mike Vernon is one of the smartest voices on that as well. That is on Substack. Then right back here on Friday. On Friday we will have our after party, our after party after the show this Friday, 8:00pm Eastern Standard Time. Bring your. I had somebody who was the person on Twitch that said they already try their Willies remedy. Here's the Willies remedy. Make yourself a Willies Remedy mocktail. Make yourself a security. Make yourself a cocktail. Make yourself just get an iced tea, whatever you want. And it's an ama. Let me answer a couple questions before we go on Facebook. Cashew Sarah asked, has ICE made a difference in stopping illegal immigrants from coming to America? Has the number gone down? Here's the reality. The number of immigrants to the United States has in fact gone down. Not just undocumented immigrants coming across the border, but immigrants have. It's a net negative immigration. We're at net negative migration now. But that is not a good. That is not good news because that means we're not. Our immigration numbers are not keeping up with our job needs in the country. So people are choosing to voluntarily leave, but also people we want to be here are leaving US Citizens at record numbers are giving up their citizenship and getting citizenship in foreign countries. We have never in the history of this country that anyone has documented had net negative migration, meaning more Americans are leaving the country and giving up their citizenship and becoming citizens of some other country than people are moving here. There are more Americans leaving the country, becoming citizens in Portugal or somewhere else, getting the hell out of here. Spain, they're leaving to Europe, they're leaving to African countries, getting the hell out of here more than are coming here. And so we're having a challenge in terms of keeping up our Social Security, keeping it funded. Immigrants keep our job market flush. Our cadre of nurses, teachers are disproportionately immigrants. We're losing legal immigrants as well as, yes, the undocumented number has gone down. Meanwhile, it's not because of mass deportation. They're actually mass detaining people more than they're deporting them. They're keeping them in these private prisons to keep them around, maybe to be cheap labor. So none of this is working the way that they said it. We have a question on YouTube saying we need a hoodie. What is it? We got your we, we want a we got your back, America hoodie. Let me go and read this. This is from SFL6 says Joy. How about a hoodie with your face on it that says we got your back, America? What is it? Oh, there it is on the screen. Yeah, we got your back, America. Sounds like a good idea. We can make that hoodie. Last thing we're going to do is we're going to read one comment from our Twitchies. Who says, I'm very, very, very worried. Cesar P. Studio. I'm very worried because the FBI has currently been hijacked. Yeah, we don't have FBI. Poor Nancy Guthrie's never going to be found. We may never get an answer from the feds about what happened to Nolan Wells, but know that we're going to stay on the case. Thank you all for tuning in. We appreciate each of you. Let's get to our moment of joy before we head out. This moment of joy is a lot of fun because I show speed who is the. According to the daughter, he's the most pop. He is the most popular Twitch streamer, period, ever, ever, ever. He's like a superstar on Twitch. But he's had a hell of a World Cup. He was attending the World Cup. He did get to sit next to the mayor, Mayor mom Donnie, and was surprised that he was next to him. But he was catching racist hell at the World Cup. He was attending the games, and Argentina fans were throwing water at him, calling him the N word, doing monkey sounds at him. He was having a rough time at that World Cup. He did have fun, it seems, but he is our moment of joy because he had a fan moment. Now, lots of people are fans of him, but he had a fan moment. That is our moment of joy because I show speed came face to face with someone he's fans of, and that is the pop group bts. Take a look. Oh, my God.
- [131:48]
Attorney Ben Crump
To watch.
- [132:05]
Joy Reid
Big fan, bro. Big fan.
- [132:08]
Ellie Mustall
Oh, my God.
- [132:10]
Charles Booker
Big fan, y'.
- [132:11]
Congressman Thomas Massie
All.
- [132:12]
Joy Reid
Oh, crap.
- [132:12]
Robbie Jones
We just met. Bts.
- [132:18]
Congresswoman Analilia Mejia
It's the.
- [132:18]
Joy Reid
It's the joy. If you're not into K pop and you're not familiar with bts, ask your grandkids or ask your kids. It is so cool when somebody who is that famous meets somebody that in his mind, he's like, I'm a fan of them. I love that.
- [132:35]
Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman
For.
- [132:35]
Joy Reid
For I show speed, and he did great coverage of the World Cup.
- [132:39]
Dr. Freda Fisher
So big ups.
- [132:39]
Joy Reid
I show speed. Thank you for tuning in. See you guys on Substack tomorrow and see you guys back here on Friday. Same back time, same that channel. Until then, be sweet to someone. Bye. Getting back to the basics.
- [132:50]
Attorney Ben Crump
Grassroot level.
- [132:51]
Joy Reid
Let me dig a little deeper with the shovel.
- [132:54]
Plenty.
- [132:54]
Attorney Ben Crump
Can't tell the force from the trees
- [132:56]
Joy Reid
and I'm hard to detect Like a black hole in a jar and justice anywhere It's a threat to justice everywhere Let me make this clear I got a bone to pick and I'll never fear the threat of poverty the don't want to talk about it they rap the party so I'm a real talk
- [133:10]
Attorney Ben Crump
about it for show.