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The Joy Reid Show
King Day 2026: MLK & Immigrants Yes, Ice Tyrants: No - The Joy Reid Show LIVE!
02:01:46
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- [00:05]
Joy Reid
Okay.
- [00:13]
Happy Monday everyone and happy mlk day.
- [00:28]
Reverend Mark Thompson
How long will justice be crucified and truth bearing?
- [00:37]
Joy Reid
We must keep moving with the faith that unmerited suffering is redemptive. We must keep moving with the faith that dark yesterdays can be transformed into bright tomorrow. We must keep moving with the faith there can be a day right here.
- [00:58]
Reverend Mark Thompson
In the black belt of Alabama and.
- [01:02]
Joy Reid
All of God's children will be able to walk the earth with dignity and self respect and life. For me ain't been no crystal stair. Life for none of us has been a crystal stair. But we must. People, if you can't fly, run. If you can't run, walk. If you can't walk, fall. But by all means, keep moving. Amen. We here at the Joy Reid show and I'm sure you in the chat, both on YouTube, big up to y' all as well as on substack. We only acknowledge one American king and it's Dr. King. We don't acknowledge that other person that wants to be King. We acknowledge Dr. King. Cause this is his day. Amen. The FBI posted their own Dr. King commemoration and elicited a very salty response. That is their real post saying they commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which elicited the response from a comedian named Jaboukie. Just because we killed MLK doesn't mean we can't miss him. And scene. As well as lots of bots on X Twitter calling for the holiday to be canceled and replaced by commemorations of Robert E. Lee and or Charlie Kirk at Tracks Maggot. David Easterwood is a pastor here. He is also the director of the field office for ICE And a weekend in which a highly ironic pastor who you just saw for a moment, we're going to see him again in a moment of a place called city's church in St. Paul, Minnesota, where protesters came to protest the murder of Renee Nicole Good. And those protesters alleged that one of the church's pastors, a guy named David Easterwood, also leads the local ICE field office overseeing the operations that have involved violent tactics and illegal arrests. Okay, now here's some footage of that protest. Oh, so someone who claims to worship God teaching people in this church about God is out there overseeing ICE agents. Think about what we've experienced. The murder of Renee Good at the hands of ice. A Venezuelan national shot by ice. A six month old baby who almost died died as a result of ICE unleashing military gray weapons on our community. How dare you claim to be a pastor of God and you are involved in evil in our Community.
- [03:44]
Don Lemon
Do you think Jesus would be understanding? We're, we're about worship. We're about spreading the love of Jesus. But did you try to talk to them as they. No church had gathered for worship, which we do every Sunday. We were interrupted by this group of protesters. We asked them to leave and they.
- [04:03]
Joy Reid
Obviously have not left. I have no doubt where Dr. King would be and would stand in this moment as immigrants are being arrested and people protecting immigrants are being shot in the great state of Minnesota. So I don't think it's at all unclear. And I want to show you guys just another. Let me just explain to you all what's happening, by the way. So PBS is reporting that Attorney General Pam Bondi, we call her Pamela Jo, she has weighed in on that protest and she has claimed that those people have committed a crime. David Easterwood, the pastor that you saw in that clip, according to protesters, is also the leader of the local ICE field office which is overseeing the operations that have involved violent tactics. Right. So you've got a guy who's supposedly a pastor but who's also helping move people out of the state using ice. So PBS is reporting that Pam Bondi has said that any violations of federal law are gonna be prosecuted, that those people might be prosecuted. Nikima Levy Armstrong, one of the participants in that protest who leads the local grassroots civil rights organization Racial Justice Network. She's dismissed the calls by the DOJ to potentially prosecute those people. She's a call for their investigation of that protest. She's called it a sham and a distraction from federal agents actions in Minneapolis St. Paul. This is her quote. When you think about the federal government unleashing barbaric ICE protests upon ICE agents. Sorry. Upon our community and all of the harm that they have caused. To have someone serving as a pastor who oversees these ICE agents is almost unfathomable to me. She added that she herself is an ordained reverend. She adds if people are more concerned about someone coming to a church on a Sunday and disrupting business as usual than they are about the atrocities that we are experiencing in our community, then they need to check their theology and they need to check their hearts. The website of St. Paul based city's church lists David Easterwood as a pastor and his personal information appears to match her PBS that of the David Easterwood identified in court filings as the acting director of the ICE St. Paul field office. Easterwood appeared alongside Kristi Noem, the DHS secretary at a Minneapolis press conference last October. Second City's church did not respond to PBS's calls for comment and emailed. They didn't respond to the email request for comment either. And Eastwood's personal contact information could not be immediately located. You saw a little clip of Don Lemon who went to Minneapolis to report on all of this. He's one of the journalists who went to report on it. Let me play you a little bit more of his interview with Pastor David Easterwood. This is a four.
- [07:26]
Don Lemon
I mean, this is unacceptable. It's shameful. It's shameful to interrupt a public gathering of Christians in worship.
- [07:35]
Reverend Mark Thompson
So.
- [07:36]
Don Lemon
But there were folks who. I have to take care of my flock.
- [07:40]
Joy Reid
Okay? But listen, we live in a.
- [07:41]
Don Lemon
There's a constitution in the First Amendment to freedom of speech and freedom to assemble and protest. We're here to worship. We're here to worship Jesus because that's the hope of these cities, that's the hope of the world, is Jesus Christ. I'm going to be very respectful.
- [07:53]
Joy Reid
Please don't push me though. We're.
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Don Lemon
We're here. We're here to worship Jesus. That's why we're here.
- [07:58]
Joy Reid
Okay?
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Don Lemon
That's why we're here. That's what we're about. What do you think Jesus would be understanding? We're about love these. We're about spreading the love of Jesus.
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Jolly Good Ginger
But did you try to talk to them as they.
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Don Lemon
No one is willing to talk. Okay? I have to take care of my church and my family. So I asked that you actually would also leave this building.
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Jolly Good Ginger
You don't want us to worship?
- [08:18]
Joy Reid
I'm always worship.
- [08:18]
Don Lemon
I'm a Christian. We're here. Well, we're here to worship.
- [08:20]
Jolly Good Ginger
We're here to worship.
- [08:21]
Don Lemon
Okay, thank you very much.
- [08:22]
Joy Reid
I appreciate it. I don't think there's anything more ironic than a pastor who's supposedly there to worship Jesus being anti immigrant when Jesus admonished his followers to love the stranger. You can't make this stuff up. You can't make this stuff up. Jason has popped on camera. Look at y'. All. Look at God. 20, 26.
- [08:46]
Reverend Mark Thompson
Now I'm gonna go back away.
- [08:47]
Joy Reid
No, no, no, don't go. You can't make this stuff up. This is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. How do you. Anyway, I gotta go. It doesn't make any sense to say that you worship Jesus when there are over a thousand admonitions in the Bible to care for the poor and the stranger, meaning the immigrant. And when Jesus was himself a refugee, to be an anti immigrant Christian. That makes zero sense. It makes no sense to be a deporter, an actual deporter and then claim to be a lover and follower of Jesus. It makes no sense. None. I think those are the folks who are gonna get more in trouble when the judgment come.
- [09:31]
Reverend Mark Thompson
Cause you are literally.
- [09:33]
Joy Reid
It's Antichrist pimping in the name of the God. It's Antichrist.
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Don Lemon
You lead the flock to your service.
- [09:38]
Joy Reid
And then you just ice takes them away. It's insane. It's insane. Okay. It's insane. And now our friend Lev Parnas, you've seen many times on this show, is reporting that Pamela Joe and the Department of Injustice are potentially looking at prosecuting Don. Don, who was, as you saw, simply covering the event and using in the ultimate irony, the kkk act of 1871 to prosecute Don Lemon using the Reconstruction act that was designed to protect formerly enslaved black people from lynching by the Klan, by the bitter enders in the Klan who never got over losing their slave holding powers and and tried to use terrorism to prevent the newly freed African Americans from voting. Which is why you need a civil rights movement and why There was a Dr. King in the first place. Let me put up on screen for you what the KKK act is. I'm reading you this from the Constitution center in case you can't squint and see it on your screen. In December 1865, at nearly the same time that the 13th Amendment abolished slavery nationwide, a group of former Confederates formed a self proclaimed self defense organization, the Ku Klux Klan. Again, the people who formed the Klan were former Confederate soldiers. They formed the Ku Klux Klan. Right? Former Nathan, former general, Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest served as the Klan's first Grand Dragon. And from 1866 onward, Klansmen engaged in a campaign of terrorist violence against African Americans, Unionists, Unionists, loyal state government agents and federal officers in the South. Introduced by Representative Samuel Shellabarger of Ohio, the KKK act, officially known as the act to enforce the provisions of the fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and for other purposes, was the third of a set of increasingly detailed efforts to curb the violence. Curb the violence and to protect African Americans and Reconstruction authorities and allies in the South. The modern version of the KKK act, which is 42 USC 1983, is one of the primary means of vindicating federal constitutional rights against state and local actors. Even today, Donald Trump has been sued under the KKK act. And now Pamela Joe is saying because of the insurrection, which was violence against the state that was trying to enforce the majority will that included a majority of people of color, voters of color in 2020, 2021, January 2021, Donald Trump and his insurrectionists attempted to abrogate the will of the majority of voters, including the majority of voters of color, and to take away their right to vote. And that is why some members of Congress even sought to use the KKK act against him. And now Pamela Jo is saying no, she is going to use the kkk allegedly, potentially. This is what left Parnas is reporting. We do not have it from anyone else that they're going to try to use that against Don Lemon. Now, I spoke with Don earlier today, as you can imagine, and he is doing his show actually on the road after giving an MLK Day speech. So we are keeping an eye out for him. I have my cell phone open in case he is able to pop on, but it isn't. He agreed. It is absolutely insane to even consider prosecuting journalists for covering a protest that was a legitimate protest against an ICE official. Jason, you're giving people faith in mankind. Lorena Taylor says you're giving him faith in mankind. I also want to note all the people who are joining on the substack chat. I am watching both chats. I both got my eye on both of y'.
- [13:22]
All.
- [13:22]
So thank you to people in both the substack chat. We've got Janet Demaray, we've got Mike Vimont, we've got lj, we've got Amy Oscar in the sub stack chat. We've got Amy. Vet, army vet. Sorry, army vet in the YouTube chat. We've got Black diamond in the YouTube chat. Big up to all of you guys and also our team TJRS members. Much love to you guys. Let me take a quick break and quickly note that this episode of the Joy Reid show is brought to you by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. I wonder why we need that. I wonder why we need that. Let's just talk about for a moment. Who pays the price when church and state merge? Very apropos of what we were just talking about. Who pays the price? Women, LGBTQ people, religious minorities, immigrants. It's anyone who does not fit a narrow white Christian nationalist vision of America. Apropos of what we were just discussing. The First Amendment exists to stop that. The Freedom From Religion foundation is fighting in courts and communities to to keep public institutions secular so that no one is forced to live under somebody else's theology. This is a civil rights issue vote. Visit FFRF US newyear or simply text my name joy to 511511 to learn more and also to join. So go to FFRF US newyear. Or just text joy to 511511 and help protect a country that belongs to all of us, including the immigrants. Give you it one more time. FFRF US newyear. You can go there today. Message and data rates apply and you can see why it's needed. Thank you to Michelle Sumner, sumra for the 1999. We appreciate that. Thank you very much for the support. Nietta Green, thank you for tuning in on Substack. We appreciate you. Corey Lear, appreciate you as well. On on the Stack we got to make sure we acknowledge everybody. So this is where we are on this MLK Day. We have a regime that is doing this weird, almost deliberate, like Nazi cosplay while they're screaming, don't call us Nazi. Right? Don't say we're Nazi. From the storm troopers in the streets going door to door hunting for brown non white immigrants to this strangeness. Look at this for a moment. This is weird. That is Greg Bovino walking around. This is the head of the border patrol, Greg Bovino. He's also the guy that you saw invading a Target store in Minneapolis when his goons like dragged out a 25 year old employee who is a US citizen, just Latino. And he's running around doing this weird cosplay with all of his storm troopers. And that look that he's rocking, that outfit with the long coat and sort of the way he's behaving it is causing folks on the social media to say, you know what? It's giving. Stormtrooper. It's giving. Let's pull a B2 for a moment. Just think about the way he's dressed, the way he's storming through the streets. It's giving something. It's giving. And yet they're saying, don't call us. Doesn't it look really familiar? It's a weird thing where they're saying don't call us Nazis. But then they're doing things. I don't know what Greg Bovino's ideology is, but they're doing a thing where they're almost cosplaying as 1930s Nazis even as they're saying, don't call us Nazis. And then they're doing things. Right? They're doing things. Let me show you this. The Department of Labor, they have these ad campaigns and these social media posts. Here's one. This is B3 calling for one future, one homeland, one people, one heritage. What is that? Remember who you are. American. What is that? A lot of people are comparing it to ein woke, ein Reich, ein fuhrer which isn't the same thing. It's one people, one realm, one leader. But it's also talking of. This is during occupied Europe, as Hitler is occupying all sorts of countries in Europe while Donald Trump is screaming he's gonna occupy Greenland. It's. I'm not saying that they meant it to sound like Nazism. It's just weird cosplay for people who are saying, don't call us Nazis. Let's look at another one. You will not forget, I'm sure, this Twitter campaign on the top, you see the Twitter campaign from the Department of Labor saying, this is America, homeland's future, Americans first. This is the people who should get the jobs. They'll show it to you. This is what the American family looks like. They're doing this weird cosplay, and then they're saying, don't compare us to Hitler. But the things at the bottom are Hitler and the old Soviet Union. And I'm not saying that they think of themselves, but it's a weird. It's a weird thing that they're doing. And by the way, it doesn't get more insane than ICE and the Border Patrol dragging indigenous Americans into their web. Hard to believe, but it is happening.
- [18:20]
Don Lemon
These are five Oglala Sioux tribal council.
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Joy Reid
Members.
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Don Lemon
And they have four. There was four tribal members who were picked up by ICE in a community called Little Earth, right here in Minneapolis St. Paul. And one of them has been released, but they couldn't locate the other three. So the council members here, who are, they're all elected officials of the Oglala Sioux tribe, and they gained access to the facility, and they couldn't find their three tribal members.
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Reverend Mark Thompson
They're not.
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Bernice A. King
They.
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Don Lemon
They claim that they're not classifying them by their nationality, which tribal members are also citizens of the United States. Since 1924, you know, there's nobody more American than American Indians, but they were unable to find them here today. And so they're going to continue on. They got some contact information. They love the fact that you're here, that everybody's here, and they're going to be giving out tribal IDs to their tribal members who are in Minneapolis St. Paul, at the American Indian center down on Franklin Avenue.
- [19:22]
Reverend Mark Thompson
But I just want to say thank.
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Don Lemon
You to everyone that's here. Stay vigilant and stay assertive, stay constructive. We're in unprecedented times, the way that I see it. So this. It's not lost. I made that. President Trump's favorite president.
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Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal
He has.
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Don Lemon
The painting on the wall is Andrew Jackson. That's the father of the Indian Removal Act. The fact that we're here at Fort Snelling, this is a concentration camp, a prison for Dakota people. Abraham Lincoln, hung, ordered the largest mass execution in American history. 38 +2 Dakota people were hung here, right here. And so it's not lost on us at all. In fact, it seems like a deliberate jab at the soul of our people. But we also have relatives. They don't understand that we are America. How could you possibly target Native Americans and with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and then imprison us? That is impossible. It's legal, legally impossible to do that.
- [20:28]
Joy Reid
I mean, that, that, that's insane. And thank you to Status Coup News for that report. That is one of the really great independent news outlet that's out there. But can you imagine picking up indigenous people and questioning whether they are here legitimately, whether they are here legally? Joining me now is our panel for the hour. Our friend, Reverend Mark Thompson, civil rights and social justice organizer, veteran broadcaster and host of the Make It Plain podcast. Yossi Ross, a member of the Blackfeet Indian Nation, civil rights attorney who practices law in Washington state and various tribal nations. And Emilia Gonzalez Avalos. She is the executive director of Unidos Minnesota. Welcome to the panel. I do have to go to you first, Jassi, it is so good to see you. It's been too long. But I have to start with you and allow you to respond to the arrests of these three tribal members, which is bananas crazy. They were held at Fort Snelling, which, again, is historically associated with indigenous genocide. And while you answer, we're gonna just put it up without the sound. There was a protest in Minnesota over their arrest. There was a tribal protest. But please give me your thoughts.
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Don Lemon
Well, first and foremost, it's illegal on a whole bunch of different levels because they're citizens. Number one, there's no probable cause. We have that lingering thing, that annoying, inconvenient fact of probable cause that's required for any sort of arrest, any sort of detention, but particularly when you're talking about citizens. But let's amplify that by a million when we're talking about native people, the original people here who there's no question about the citizenship where we originate from. And it's kind of juxtaposed. Joy, it's nice to see you again. Happy New Year. It's kind of interesting that it's juxtaposed about around this Freudian slip that Trump had when he was talking about the annexation of Greenland when he said the fact that they landed a boat here 500 years ago doesn't mean they own the land. There are moments of truth within this very, very large and pervasive atmosphere of lies.
- [22:39]
Joy Reid
Yeah, he kind of admitted a thing. Before I get to the rest of the panel, and happy MLK Day to everyone, I want to really quickly play last week, the Joy Beachau did sit down with Dr. Bernice A. King, the youngest of the four children of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And Coretta Scott King. Before we bring everybody else in, let's listen to a little bit of that interview. Here's Bernice A.
- [22:56]
Bernice A. King
King.
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Joy Reid
We know now that we are trying to recover from the real shift in the atmosphere, the shooting death of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, Minnesota, not far from where George Floyd was murdered by four police officers, including Derek Chauvin, who is now spending some time in prison because of it. This particular death has resonated, I think, in part because it's a Viola Liuzzo kind of moment. A white woman who was there with her wife trying to support her brown and black immigrant neighbors by using her car to block a road where someone was being taken by ICE and was shot and disparaged by an ICE agent. And this is one of those moments that people are not walking away from, not backing down from. Talk to me about what the Kingian response would be. We've seen the mayor, Jacob Fry, the mayor of Minneapolis, call on people to not take the bait, to not take the bait when these ICE agents are being violent toward them. And he's sort of trying to get people to have a peaceful response, a Kingian response. What would be the right Kingian response to what we're seeing?
- [24:20]
Bernice A. King
Well, without being there and having to witness everything through media myself, I think it's important for those who are part of the Kenya movement, who get directly involved to study that movement, because you have to have a strategy and a plan. A lot of people will do things spontaneously, instantly, out of hurt, out of anger, out of. Because they saw before their very eyes what was unjust, unnecessary. And it ended up in a fatal tragedy that should never have happened. And so this situation is very difficult because, again, it comes back to what I said earlier, the decision to not cooperate with Good. But you have to do it with a strategy, because one or two or three or four people or 100 people loosely connected, not cooperating with Good getting snatched, another one getting killed would not be a good plan. So I don't know what it would be. But I do know that we have to find a collective way and a coordinated and cohesive way to stand up to what is happening in today's society and use wisdom. We got to have a lot of the legal community involved in this process. We got to make sure this year that we are using our wisdom when we go to the polls, that we are talking to our neighbors, that we are reaching across into other communities. Because this is affecting. We're seeing it. It's affecting everybody. It's indiscriminate. It's just going after whosoever. Will this just power and control, rather, and, you know, terrorists and trying to create fear in the American populace, which I don't think is going to work. I think there's a fearless part of our population that understands that you have to stand up for what's just and right, even if you have to pay some consequences. So I would suggest that everybody who's directly involved in the front lines of this, that they do coordinate and their efforts, that they do get in the room and figure out the strategy in light of whatever factual circumstances they can gather. Because, again, through generation after generation, we've had people who figured out, how do you get around this? How do you do this? How do you attack this? How do we make sure we have this support in place? I mean, when my father and them went to jail, they. They had to have some folks who were gonna, quote, unquote, bail them out. All of these different resources have to be thought out. When we're dealing with something that is this. That is so troubling, disturbing, and out of control like it is, there's no respect for person. There's no respect for the people who talk about respecting the law. They're violating the very law that they're asking everybody else to regard.
- [28:00]
Joy Reid
And that was Bernice A. King. And before we get to this panel, I'm sorry, we're gonna pause y' all for a minute because we do have. Don Lemon has jumped in. I know he is traveling, but Don has taken a few minutes just to jump in and respond to the threats against him, allegedly, at least according to Lev Parnas by the doj and also what happened in that Minneapolis church. Don Lemon, thank you, my friend, for being here, and greetings to all the lemonades in the chat.
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Don Lemon
Hello, my. My good sis. My sister from another. Mister, how you doing?
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Joy Reid
I'm good.
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Bernice A. King
I'm good.
- [28:28]
Joy Reid
I'm good. First of all, how are you? How are you handling the blowback? I saw a piece on you in the Daily Mail, which is never a good thing. And the attack on You. Because you were being a journalist and covering that Minneapolis church.
- [28:41]
Don Lemon
I'm okay. I mean, I've been. You know, it's been interesting because I've been in a bubble, Joy, because I've been working. I was in Minnesota, and then my flight got delayed three times. And so then I get to the hotel late, and then I jump into the breakf in the morning, and then everybody's is just bombarding me with texts and calls, and I. Joy, you're one of them.
- [29:01]
Reverend Mark Thompson
Are you okay?
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Don Lemon
You know Angela, right?
- [29:03]
Reverend Mark Thompson
Are you okay?
- [29:04]
Don Lemon
What's going on? And so I really appreciate that. My good sisters and brothers who are doing that.
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Reverend Mark Thompson
I'm okay.
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Don Lemon
It's a bit surprising to me that I've become a face of a protest that I have no to, an organization that I have no ties to and that. And that I did not prepare or organize or promote at all. I was simply covering. I went to Minnesota to cover the protests. The protest group that I happened to.
- [29:31]
Reverend Mark Thompson
That.
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Don Lemon
That I happened to join up with was this group. I didn't even know where they were going. And then finally they said, we're going to a church. I didn't even know the reason they were going to the church. And so anyway, neither. None of that matters. What matters is that I was there as a journalist and reporting on a story, and that's it. And now I feel like, you know, for some reason they're trying to silence me or, I don't know, maybe am I the biggest name that's involved. So in order for it to get traction of some sort, they're using my name. But, you know, whatever it is, I'm gonna stand and, you know, I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna continue to be a journalist.
- [30:08]
Joy Reid
Yeah, indeed. And last question. I know you have to go. I was told you have a very hard out. So do you view this because you kind of alluded to that as an attempt to make sure not just you, but just to frighten other journalists away from covering this story?
- [30:22]
Don Lemon
Absolutely. I mean, look, this administration wants the news shaped in the form and the image and the dialogue and manner that they want it shaped in. That's positive to Donald Trump and positive to this administration. And they don't want dissent of any type. Cover. They don't want dissent at all in this administration. Look at what happens to news organizations when people dissent. Or if they report the truth that happens not to be favorable to Donald Trump. Look at what happens to those people. They get fired, or they get the threat of being fired. They end up being becoming co opted by it. Look at what's happening at CBS right now and on and on and on. Yes. And on this particular story, they know that the public sentiment is not on their side. Joy, you can read the polls, you can read the stories. You talk to the people who are out there. So I, yes, I think that's what it is. And I also think in, in a way that they don't even understand is that they're not mobilizing people. They are mobilizing a resistance to what they're doing. They're unwittingly doing it. Doing it. And so I think that this is an inflection point for this administration and for this, this sort of tyrannical lack of due process that they are, that they are fostering, they have, that they have foisted upon people in America.
- [31:40]
Joy Reid
Don Lemon, I appreciate you all the Lemon heads in the chat. You know, we have a lot of Lemon heads who watch the joy reach. You know, they're always over acting up. They act up. We love them though. We love it. We love them when they are being disorderly. That's how we love the Lemon heads. Thank you, Don. And I would ask you about Nicki Minaj, but she is not worth our time on this Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We are not gonna focus on small people.
- [32:00]
Reverend Mark Thompson
Does, does Don have security? Don, you need some security?
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Don Lemon
I can't tell you that. But I mean, you can hit me up.
- [32:06]
Reverend Mark Thompson
Let me ask. No. Do you need some.
- [32:09]
Don Lemon
Why don't you hook me? Why don't you hit me up? You got my number. Rev, Mark, you got it.
- [32:16]
Joy Reid
Rev. Text Don on the side when we get off the show. Thank you, Don. Love you, friend. I'm going to go to you, Mark, because it is a great question of whether he needs security. It's one of those perils of being out there. Your thoughts about what's happening with Don, what's happening in Minnesota and what's happening period in this country?
- [32:32]
Reverend Mark Thompson
Well, first of all, happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day to everyone. And we ought to say that out loud. It was a big struggle to get this holiday in the first place. And we lift up also the name of Coretta Scott King, all the great work that she did. I always say to people that when we recite the 23rd Psalm, Thou preparest table before me in the presence of mine enemies, that literal and physical manifestation. Just google Ronald Reagan signing the bill. He didn't want to sign it. And he's sitting at the presidential desk with Coretta Scott King. Looking over his shoulder. That is the manifestation of the prepares to table before me. This, what we're seeing, is really a challenge to us all to not only commemorate or celebrate or be nostalgic about this day, but as Dr. Bernice alluded to, figure out ways vigorously and passionately to live the life he led. And I'm afraid we can't just start this every time in reaction to something like this. Dr. King was tireless. Every day of his life was dedicated to justice and human rights. And good to see my dear brother, Big Indian Jassi. We haven't seen each other in a while. I love you, brother. So you got to get in the habit of this. What we do here, all of us here on this screen, we're in the habit of this. And everybody else had better get in the habit. People need to get in the habit of voting. We've been talking about that. But not just voting. Voting is once a year. If that get in the habit of justice and agitation, civil disobedience. And one other thing I'll point out, what's going on in Minneapolis is the same thing that happened in Memphis. I don't think some of this behavior is organic. They send provocateurs to discredit our movement. And I'm pretty sure that's what's going on in Minneapolis. That's what's going on. That's what happened in Memphis. And so we have to be smart about that, too. And if we're in the habit of being in the streets and mobilizing in the streets, we know one another, we develop relationships with one another, and then we can recognize the provocateurs when they show up, and we can call them out and expose them. So what's happening with Don? This is the white lash, if you will, or the backlash. It's the same thing that happened during Reconstruction. We are still under the white lash from Obama, as well as the mobilization under crazy Donald Trump. Insurrection in Minneapolis, but there was no insurrection. January 6th. Let's save protesters in Iran. But we don't care about protesters in Minneapolis. No, certainly there's only one King, Donald, and that's Martin Luther King, Jr. And we celebrate him, not you.
- [35:19]
Joy Reid
Amen. Amen. Amelia, let me bring you in here. Welcome to the show. And you know what's happening? It is, you know, for African Americans. We are watching what we know happened to our indigenous brothers and sisters, then happened to us, now happening to the Latino community. It is brown people who are the primary targets, although it's now extended onto anyone who they think looks Somali. Talk about how the community has responded to it. Have they gotten over the shock and what is the response on the other side?
- [35:51]
Thank you so much, Joy, for having me. And yes. Well, I want to begin by saying that I am part of the DREAMER movement. Many of us were shaped by the undocumented youth movement. The DREAMER and immigration justice movement did not invent its strategy in isolation. It stands on the intellectual moran and strategic foundations built by black civil rights leaders in the United States. States. So nonviolent mass action, court challenges, moral appeals, public confrontation of unjust laws were pioneered and refined by black left movements. And part of being raised in Minnesota, being educated in the United States, was learning about that legacy and whose shoulders we are standing on in particular. Minnesota is also the birthplace of the American Indian movement. Little Earth is right there, less than a mile away from this intersection where Somali communities, African American communities, and Latino communities converge and build community. We go to school together. We have businesses together. And so it feels that. It truly feels from the time of pandemic and the public killing of George Floyd, then when they truly come for one, they come for all of us. So what you're seeing right now is an actual organic embodiment of multiracial solidarity. Because we know in Minnesota, Minnesotans are proving to the national arena that the offer that we're given by this federal government is just not good enough for us.
- [37:25]
Amen. And you know, and Jassi, it does feel like it's sort of they're going after everyone all at once. And it's sort of a strategy of like mass distraction and massive violence. Can we, if we can put a B10, Jason, they're doing it all. When the actual number of deportations, it's definitely higher. You can see the number is. Is higher than all of Joe Biden's years combined, but it's not significantly higher than you saw during the Obama era. So they're doing it with more flash, more cruelty, more killings, but with, you know, what do you make of the actual data when it comes to how many people they've actually deported?
- [38:04]
Don Lemon
That's a great question. And I have to think that a big part of it, as you identify Joy, is the chaos is the coming from all directions ness of it. But also this is the part that's particularly interesting to me as an attorney, that's my day job, and without due process, because the difference between when Obama did this was the courts were the refuge, the arbiters. Ultimately the wheels of justice move very slow. Fair enough. But ultimately, you Were going to get your day in court under Obama. And that's a significant difference. When we throw these stats out there and there will be these false equivalencies. Not saying you, Joy, of course not. But I'm saying that that's what people say. Well, Obama did this, but Obama also respected the rule of law. He respected process. And so ultimately there would be vindication. If there was vindication to be had, there would be that day in court where ultimately you can talk to a disinterested tribunal and they would obey that rule of law. Now, we're being told that these officers, these federal officers are going to face absolutely no accountability. They're not going to face any sort of reprimand. And that's a really dangerous place to be. When you had Sister King talking about, you know, the comparison to these, these historical fascist regimes, that's where we're talking about when there's no legal redress. Because ultimately, as people of peace, as people of order, that's ultimately what we have as our big sibling, that's going to make sense of this all. And without that, that's a dangerous place. And that's, I think, a very significant distinction from those stats that you pointed to.
- [39:59]
Joy Reid
Joy, if you can Disney, if you put B10 up again. Because this is an important point that I think people need to understand. If you look back at this stat, every bar that is to the left on your screen of the big bar under 2025, all those people went through court. That bar, nobody's going through court. It's literally they're snatching people off the street. And the difference is if you look at the bar that says 50,000 are going all the way. Previously, all those previous people under Biden and under, even under Trump, the first time, most of those people went through a court process and most of those people had at least some criminal conviction because despite the fact that Tom Homan, Mark, was also in charge of deportations and ICE under Obama, they were hyper targeting people with criminal convictions. Now, only 28% of the people who are being snatched up and detained by ICE even have ever had a criminal conviction, let alone have one. Now, Mark. Right.
- [40:59]
Reverend Mark Thompson
And this is, and I appreciate what everyone said, this is, this is targeting, this is xenophobia. This is ginning up the base. That's all they have left. They've got to scuttle everything, create distraction from Epstein, from the Epstein files, create an environment. And people still have a hard time believing this, but I'm convinced he does not plan to leave, create chaos Whether that's by martial law, whether that's by Ellie Mistahl of the Nation has predicted that the red states just put them back on the ballot. We'll go to Supreme Court. Supreme Court will uphold it. So it's really to turn everything upside down, and that's what a paid agent from another country will do. It's to undermine and make everything over here fall apart. Overwhelm us with. With attacks every day. It's Nigeria on Christmas, then it's Venezuela, then it's Minneapolis. We'll wake up tomorrow and it'll be something else. But, you know, when Dr. King back to Dr. King, when he was alive, you know, I think the young kids would say about Dr. King, the term they use Dr. King is doing the most because some people back then said, Dr. King, you're doing too much, man.
- [42:13]
Joy Reid
We can't be over here due to.
- [42:15]
Reverend Mark Thompson
Poor peoples and do Vietnam. But he said, no, we must, and we must have the same attitude, because, frankly, Dr. King was one person and it was a smaller number of people. All of us who follow him are in greater numbers. All of us watching under the sound of our voices are baby doctor Kings. So we can take on all of these fronts. We can fight them. And whatever our vocation is, whether it's in the courtroom, in the law, whether it's in the pulpit, whether it's on the air, whether it's just being your own creator on social media, we must engage. And if we love and lift up his holy name, that is absolutely. That must be our calling.
- [42:53]
Joy Reid
Yeah, indeed. Let me very quickly play. This is. Jason, if you could just pull up B8. This is another piece of our. This is about 53 seconds. This is another piece of what Bernice King said. And I want to go to Amelia on this because it's something interesting she said about Harriet Tubman.
- [43:07]
Bernice A. King
Ways think about Harriet Tubman. You know, in recent times, she's become an inspiration for me because I always say, how did Harriet Tubman get to the North? She had never traversed that pathway before. She had no navigational system. But she figured it out. There was something within her that figured it out. And really it was her reach for God Almighty. And I think this is a time that we really have to center ourselves and draw upon divine wisdom and guidance. Because these are some very. Some very perplexing times we're in when it looks like everywhere you turn, a door is shut. There's no way through. We're running up against a brick wall. But our people have always been able to rise and Overcome. And I think we can, too, Amelia.
- [44:00]
Joy Reid
It does, I suspect, feel that way for many immigrant communities. We're hearing about places where kids are afraid to go to school, where they're having to do remote learning. People are afraid to go to church, go to the store. The goal is to torment these communities.
- [44:17]
Yeah, the goal is to torment, humiliate, and cruelty. To have a public display of cruelty. And it's really inspiring to hear the words about Harriet Tubman, because it is truly a more than body sort of guidance that you need. In this moment. People are relying on faith and mission and what's ahead. As part of the efforts of organizing Mutual Aid Rights, the online network, we have technology that we can use in our disposal, although there's already a lot of technology being used against us with surveillance and new facial recognition that was supposed to be created with alarming conditions for immigrants. But now we are seeing that they're using it with citizens alike. And so having a grounding on a mission like this, this is what we're trying to prove as Minnesotans and as Americans right now, that we are the multiracial coalition that will embody what it is to be. What it is the concept of self government, what it is the concept of a high functional democracy, what it means to be a participant in public life that belongs to all of us, that all these distractions and the oppressive systems are trying to break away from us having access to this public life. And we are saying, not in Minnesota, not in our communities, not in our public life. So these fabrics of society are being threaded by this notion of being a good neighbor, being a good support system. But if we think about it, the meaning goes to that kind of spiritual awakening that I am sure held people like Rosa Park, Martin Luther King Jr. Harriet Tuffman, in times of challenge and trying to carve the way out of nowhere. So it is as a person of faith, I know that there's a lot of prayer going on right now. There's a lot of contemplation going on right now. What I am asking to the Lord Almighty is to reveal to me. We know that crisis reveal us. What is the lesson that we truly and deeply need to learn as human beings in this moment? Because if we don't learn the lessons, we are destined to repeat and repeat and repeat our mistakes. So it's a humbling moment, crisis, like I said, crisis reveal us. But then they also teach us. And so it's showing up in public life with humility. What is that we're trying to learn together? And I think that reflects the resistance that is happening in the state. And I have never been prouder as an immigrant that was not born here, that my parents chose this place to raise me. I have not been prouder to be a Minnesotan right now.
- [47:29]
Bernice A. King
Amen.
- [47:30]
Joy Reid
Amen. Amen.
- [47:31]
Reverend Mark Thompson
And listen, is Sister Amelia a preacher too? She said, making a way out of nowhere. That's a doctor.
- [47:37]
Joy Reid
Right now, she's the reverend doctor. Joining this beautiful mosaic because we want the. We want to make our mosaic very broad. Our mosaic is always broad. Y' all know the readers. We come in all flavors. And so joining the table, we got to get our ginger flavor in. Jolly good ginger. Prominent social media influencer, political commentator and activist known for his anti racism work and challenging white supremacy. He's been in Minneapolis covering these protests. Welcome to the beautiful mosaic. Jolly good ginger. It is so good to see you. Oh, you're muted. You're muted. Oh.
- [48:08]
Jolly Good Ginger
Oh, sorry. I really appreciate you having me here. I'm humbled by to even be allowed in the same room as these guests as you. You're amazing. You're incredible. And I just glad to be part of the conversation.
- [48:20]
Joy Reid
I appreciate you. I wanted you to come on because I wanted to get some of your firsthand reporting on what you've seen in Minnesota, in Minneapolis, and what you make of the. That pastor, who appears to be both a pastor and an ICE official.
- [48:37]
Jolly Good Ginger
Right. So. So, I mean, this was my shocked face when I heard it. So, like, you know, I said today, I've said it a thousand times. I'll say it more. If we listen to the black, brown and indigenous community at any time during the past, we wouldn't be here. It's no surprise that, you know, the people that call themselves Christians, that are the spearhead of what's happening in this country, would also have an ICE director as their pastor. You see their Jesus, we call them Jim Crow Jesus. That's who they worship, right? They. They went and they. They opened the Bible and they made Jesus white. I grew up in the church. I grew up in the church. I went to church on. On Sundays, you go twice. On Saturdays, we go out and we knock on doors. It's called. We call that witnessing. On Thursday was youth group. On Friday, we did band practice. Half my. Half my week was spit in the church. And in the church I went to, on the wall was a beautiful picture of a white Jesus. And you know that that is the reality of the white Christian nationalist movement in this country. They get mad at me when I say it. They try to discredit me when I say it, and that's how I know that they know I'm telling the truth. And I learned most of the hate and bigotry that that was built into me. I learned it from the church. I learned that God said, if you're gay, I should. I should not like you. I learned that God said, if you're different than me, I should not like you. I learned I was told directly from my father and shown the exact place in the Bible where God did not approve of interracial marriage. This was how I was raised in church. You know, obviously, I've deconstructed from that. Obviously, I've learned the re real. The real truth in history of this country. But it doesn't surprise me at all. I'm not surprised. And so I shout out to Nakima For Dr. Nakima, I apologize, Dr. Nakima, for exposing this to people. And I think that watching the backlash now, they're trying to investigate Don Lemon. I'm sure you probably already talked about this. They want to investigate Don Lemon. One of the activists that was there is a friend of mine. The DOJ has targeted him. That's because this is their opportunity to be the victim. If there's one thing I knew when I was going to church as a kid, I knew this. The true victims in America are the white Christians. I knew that. Right. And so now this is their chance to say, see, they're after us, rather than saying, wait a minute, the pastor's a Nazi. Maybe he shouldn't be the pastor. So that. That's where we are.
- [51:09]
Joy Reid
Really quickly. I want us. Jason, I'm sorry. I'm jumping around just a little bit. If we could just pull up C1, because this is somebody who showed up. We talked about provocateurs who show up and are showing up in Minnesota. This is a guy named Jake Lang. This was him in January. On January 6, 2021, he and 1599 of his friends were pardoned by Trump. This is him wielding a baseball bat at police officers. Well, now that he's pardoned, he is doing a few other little projects. One of them, he is running for the United States Senate. He's running for Marco Rubio's Senate seat in the state of Florida. The Republican Party has not yet rebuked him for that at all. He then shows up in Minnesota to decide to stage his own little protest where he's gonna burn a Koran. And Jason, if you can grab C3, this is how that went. He was saved by A black man who pulled this enormous crowd off of him and they were marked hitting him with a super soaker in the freezing cold Minnesota winter. And he ends up with the help of this black man and apparently a trans woman crying and going to his car. Your thoughts on his adventures? Whoa.
- [52:28]
Reverend Mark Thompson
Yeah, that's wild. And truthfully, I mean, all of this is as pathological as their leader.
- [52:38]
Joy Reid
I'm sorry, Mark, I don't mean to cut you, because before you get to that about the pathological, I just need to play one thing for you all. Just, I feel like, you know, Jolly, I love that he spoke about what he learned in church before he got saved by the gospel of multiracial and multicultural democracy. But this is Jake Lang and I normally would not play an idiot like this on the Joy Reid show. But I need you all to hear this because I think people don't understand how so many of your fellow Americans think and what they actually think. And I think you'd be kind of appalled by it. But this is what he said last year when he did the same stunt in Michigan. Today. We wanna make sure our children can.
- [53:18]
Jolly Good Ginger
Grow up in the same America that.
- [53:20]
Joy Reid
I grew up in. White crazy Christian country.
- [53:22]
Jolly Good Ginger
Our founding father's blood soaks this land.
- [53:25]
Joy Reid
Not for Muslims and Islamic jihadists to.
- [53:28]
Jolly Good Ginger
Play their prayer calls where our children walk to preschool. It's disgusting what they've done to Dearborn, Michigan. They have turned this into Rome, they've turned it into London. It looks like another country here. Every single sign on every single street is in Arabic. How can you consider yourselves as assimilating.
- [53:46]
Joy Reid
Americans when you don't eat the same food we eat? You don't speak the same language as me. You don't do anything that Americans do.
- [53:53]
Jolly Good Ginger
Minneapolis in 1970 was a 95% white city and white state. Minnesota. If you ask Gro, the next 1,000 children born, only 42% will be white. We are seeing rapid demographic shift and ideologies that are clashing here in Dearborn. These people, people want to see white Christian men eradicated. They want to see our forefathers land be destroyed. They do not have any love in their hearts. They are here to dominate.
- [54:24]
Joy Reid
They're here to dominate us. That's a right wing website that posted that. Actually celebratory of what he was saying. But that is a sentiment that in my opinion is what drives maga. Mark. That is what maga.
- [54:36]
Reverend Mark Thompson
Yes, well, and, and, and, and Jolly laid it out very well in terms of the victimization. As some of you know, I'm back in seminary. I'm working on my doctorate and it just so happens a class I just finished last semester is the Psychology of Christian Nationalism with the author of the book, Pamela Cooper White. I strongly recommend it. She's a clinician. She understands this. And victimization is a big, big part of this. We as whites. I'm speaking as though I'm them. We as whites are under attack. There is the replacement THEORY and frankly, Dr. Frances Crest Welsing and her research at Howard University before she was fired for that research also brought this up. That was the basis of lynchings and violence against us. There was this fear of genetic annihilation, this fear of miscegenation, this fear of cross breeding. So what you just heard was someone, and this is the sentiment of those of that ilk, that their race is the only race. Not that we're in the human race, not that all of us are human beings together, as Dr. King would say, but that this is the race, the only race. And we've heard that before in Germany with Hitler, who said it out loud. So that in and of itself is the crux of the problem. I noticed someone else in the chat and you got some bots in the chat. Chat too. I'm looking at that. But one nonbot said, for these MAGA people, fear is their God. And I think that clip you just showed prove that Reverend Miller Wilson in D.C. has an acronym. He spells it out as an acronym. Fear. False evidence appearing is real. Diversity is nothing to fear. Humanity is nothing to fear. Human rights is nothing to fear. And as Dick Gregory used to say, God, truly, if we're going to be faithful, God, whatever your faith is, God and fear cannot occupy the same space. So even when they go to church, I'm here and in my Christian nationalist church, God and Jesus, that's really a false form of worship because if you fear other human beings, if you fear and loathe others in creation, if you feel that your race is the one that's, that's victimized and under attack and about to be taken out, that's not a godly space to be in. There's nothing in, in the Bible, in the scriptures or anywhere that supports that foolishness. And, and you know, we can do a whole show sometime on, on, on public religion, which is, is very, very different in this country from what real faith is. But I'm glad you showed that joy because it shows the illness and the sickness. Again, Dr. King, I'll stop here and just say, you know, and, and folks, you can see this in the Driving Miss Daisy movie, when Jessica Tandy goes into the movie, into the, into the dinner, the banquet and Hulk, Morgan Freeman can't come inside because it's a white audience and it's a fundraiser. And they played Dr. King's voice and one of his most significant quotes was, you know, we will never have to answer for the violence and vitriol and hatred of the children of darkness. We'll have to answer for the fear and apathy for the children of light. We are the children of light. We cannot be afraid. And this obviously is going to cost some of us our lives. Once again, as it did in the 60s, Renee Good and Keith Porter lost their lives. They are martyrs. They are the Viola Luzo and the Reverend James Reeb and the Schwerner, Cheney and Goodman of this generation. And we must avenge their deaths. And it may ultimately cost some of us some of our lives. But as Dr. King said, we must do this if we're going to change any of this.
- [58:39]
Joy Reid
If.
- [58:39]
Reverend Mark Thompson
And hopefully change some of those who are misled. Jolly change others change too.
- [58:47]
Joy Reid
Let me get final thoughts first from Jassy and then Amelia and then Jolly. So Jassy, your final thoughts if you want to respond to that video as well.
- [58:55]
Don Lemon
Yeah, just, just briefly, first and foremost. Thank you, Joy, thank you for this, this platform. Thank you for, you know, having us on. It's good to see big brother Mark. It's good to see everybody here. It's nice to meet you, Sister Amelia. I think that there's a level of, of guilty conscience that comes with that ideology where you're scared. The replacement theory that Brother Mark talked about with Francis Crest Welsing. I was, I was a disciple, a young disciple of Francis Crest Welsing as well. And there's some other theories that go with that that probably would be a different discussion. However, there was a replacement that happened previously, correct? Yeah, there was a, there was a group that was largely homogenous on this continent that was encroached by another group and that ultimately through horrible, horrible tactics, inhumane, devastating, no respect for humanity, no respect for anything sacred whatsoever. The so called religion that they were observing and doing these things in the name of the so called manifestation, destiny. There's that guilty conscience, there's that DNA memory. Oh, I see this. And the truth is, and I, I know this is a show and I. We've been touching on, you know, spirituality and God during this conversation. I know this. Not necessarily, you know, I don't want to get in that conversation, but we are a more soulful people. History has shown that we are a people that absolutely do not have the same values. And we have exchanged cruelty with humanity. That's what the record shows. And a lot of our folks have lost their lives in exchanging. There was even the brother and, and the trans person that was, that was helping this, this white race baiter, this, this hate mogger. They were, they were, they were helping him in the midst of this chaos. And so that's what we do. We're soulful people. We don't have that same hunger that, that insatiable quench, a desire to conquer and rule everything. That was manifest destiny. So I will say respectfully that that fear is misplaced. It's misplaced. It's there. I understand why it's there, because there is that memory. They've read those same history books. They see the demographics. Because before Minnesota and Minneapolis was a 92% white city and 92% white state, guess what? It was a hundred percent native state. It was 100% native territory. So, you know, I understand where that fear is coming from. But at the same time, I say respectfully to anybody who's listening that's trying to engage with these thought processes that maybe this guy is telling the truth. We don't have that same ambition, folks.
- [62:02]
Joy Reid
It is ironic, jolly, that the idea that this guy's railing against the replacement in a state that replaced the original people, it is ironic. And that he in the end had to be saved by the very people he hates.
- [62:20]
Jolly Good Ginger
Well, you know, so much. I can say so much to unpack about it. First of all, I want nothing he said is new. I heard it all when I was knee high to a grasshopper. Everything he's saying. I was told that as a child. I mean, the difference between a bigot and a parrot is that one doesn't have any new ideas and just repeats what everything says around them and doesn't learn. And the other one's a bird. And so like there's not anything, there's not anything that you're going to hear from these guys as nude. Hate is so easy to pedal in my community. My community loves hate. My community thrives in hate. When you say white fear, it's a fear of out of our own uneducation. When you mentioned that he was saved by a black man and a trans woman, by the way, I was there the day that he was there. I filmed all of it. I watched it. I was standing right by. I mean, I don't mean to make you guys jealous, but I had a front row seat to, to watch him get driven out of Minnesota or Minneapolis. And it's, it's kind of like a metaphor for what? For America, honestly, that he was saved by a black man and trans woman. Because I learned hate from my community. I learned hate and fear from my community, and I learned love and acceptance from every community I hated. And that's a fact. And I don't care. I'm not saying that white people can't love or what. I don't care. People, if you, if you're offended, didn't work it out. But what I'm saying is, like, I didn't learn acceptance and love from my community. And, and it's hard for white people to comprehend that a man that this man hates would be the one that saves him. But it doesn't surprise me at all because the same communities I hated wrapped their arms around me and taught me the things I didn't know, taught me the things I, I had never heard before. And, and that until America realizes that multiculturalism is the way of the future, then, then we're going to continue on this path. What scares me the most is after we defeat fascism and after we defeat this rise of maga, what scares me the most is white people trying to return to the status quo that got us here. Can't do that. People act like Donald Trump ushered this in. People act like Donald Trump brought ice here and brought these ideas here. These ideas brought Trump here.
- [64:34]
Joy Reid
That's right.
- [64:34]
Jolly Good Ginger
That's what we got to realize.
- [64:35]
Joy Reid
Amen. Amen. It is not Trump. I've said it in our last show and I'll say it again. Trump is actually the least interesting part of this story. He did not create it. He just benefited from it and enabled himself. He's like a make a wish kid that is living out his dreams as a result of this. He didn't create it. Donald Trump's not that creative. He's just benefiting from it. And Amelia, I'm going to let you have the last word here because you represent multiple levels of what they fear. They fear independent women because they cannot control the birth rate. And they are panicking, including Elon Musk on his X Twitter, panicking about low birth rates. They're angry at women, particularly white women, for leaving the home and not being willing to marry them. They're incels. This guy, I guess, is an incel as well. And they're angry at your community. They believe that the people replacing them are people like you, that Latinos and Latinas are the ones who are doing the great replacement. So I want to give you the last word, particularly on this King Day when our beautiful mosaic and we needed an AAPI person, we would have been complete. And an Arab or Muslim person, we would have been complete. So we're almost there. Our beautiful mosaic on the. On tjrs. I'm going to give you the last word.
- [65:49]
Amelia, thank you so much. Well, we learned from the black civil rights leaders grounded. They're struggling this truth. Dignity is not granted by the state. It is God given. The immigration, justice and dreamer movement inheriting this theology where we insist that no human being is illegal, no life is disposable, and not communities outside of God's concern. When I hear white supremacists invoke God and religion as part of one of the tools at their disposal, it makes me think about Dr. James cone and the work that he did with Bonhoeffer's concept of cheap grace as a critique to white American Christianity. Cheap grace as the one that preaches forgiveness without justice. The ones that talks about faith without liberation, reconciliation without repentance, and salvation without solidarity with the oppressed. And so what I'm seeing from these white supremacist pastors is a new generation of cheap grace that won't free them from their own hate, that keeps them slaved to their own ignorance. It keeps them trapped in their own defeat. And at the end, we will all be free because the truth is on our side, because God is on our side, and because our cause is just and righteous.
- [67:27]
Amen. Amen. Amen. They love to quote the Bible. Let me go Old Testament on it again. We want the Freedom from Religion Foundation. We do not want religion in our public life and in our laws for this reason, because people have bad religion. Emil, you just preached a sermon. You are now the reverend doctor. But Leviticus 19:33 said, When a foreigner resides among you and are in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native born. Love them as yourself, for you are a foreigner in Egypt. And it was the kindness, really, and the grace of indigenous people who welcomed and saved the lives of those colonizers and then got got by them. That is the reason that people like that guy, Jack, whatever his name is, get to even be here. And so they ought to be thanking the original people of this country and apologizing to them, not attempting to dominate them. What an incredible Martin Luther King Day panel. What a great way to start the show. Don Lemon, the Reverend Mark Thompson, the Great. Giasi Ross and the Reverend Dr. Emilia Gonzalez Alvalos. We have ordained her in this moment. And our jolly good Ginger representing the Spicy White Coalition in our beautiful mosaic. This is when people ask, what do you mean by spicy White, Jolly good Ginger. He is the captain of the Spicy White team. We appreciate y'. All. Happy MLK Day, friends. I appreciate y'. All. Thank you for being here.
- [68:51]
Jolly Good Ginger
Thanks for having me, Julia.
- [68:53]
Joy Reid
Appreciate you. This was a. You guys. Was that not a great panel? Jason, can we get a round of applause for that panel? What an incredible panel. That is how you start off Dr. King Jr. Day. And I think the stage substack chat loved it. Definitely the YouTube chat loved it. That was excellent. Amelia preached a sermon at the end there, Jason. I think we might need to. We might need to go to her church. She was going all in, boy. She went in, she said that thing. That was beautiful. I want to announce, just let you guys know, there are going to be a couple other protests that are happening in Minnesota. We can put up C7. There are a couple of protests that are actually coming up on this weekend. We're going to put them up on screen. There's an Ice out of Minnesota Day of Truth and freedom protest on January 23rd. I want to say, what is that Saturday? Let me look at my clock here. That's Friday the 23rd. And then I will put up the next one. There is one more protest that's planned, and it's going to be a statewide. Same one already, Sorry. It's a statewide day of nonviolent moral action reflection. So the folks are calling for no work, no school, no shopping, only community conscience and collective action. So if you're in Minnesota or you just want to be in community with the people in Minnesota, that is this Friday the 23rd. No shopping, no work, no school. If you can just be with your community and your conscious and your collective action. Thank you all very much. That was a great panel. We really appreciate y'. All. I want to note that this hour of the Joy Reach show is brought to you by our good friends at Helix. So how's your sleep? Probably not great at this point. I know from personal experience that issues like, I don't know, stress, night sweats, back pain, arm pain from side sleeping. I'm a side sleeper. All of that can really mess with your night, which also then in turn messes with your day, right? And that is where Helix comes in. You can take the Helix sleep quiz to get matched up with the perfect mattress based on your personal preferences. And sleep needs. It makes buying a mattress a breeze. Helix is the most award winning mattress out there, tested and reviewed by experts like Forbes and Wired. They also offer free shipping seamless delivery. Helix will deliver your mattress right to your door with free shipping in the us. And do not forget the Happy with Helix guarantee. Rest easy with seamless returns and exchanges. It is a risk free customer first experience designed to ensure that you are completely satisfied with your new mattress. So enjoy a 120 night sleep trial and limited lifetime warranty. Here's the bottom line. Helix helps you sleep better and sleeping better is going to make your life better. A study that they ran found that about 82% of those involved in their study saw an increase in their deep sleep cycle while sleeping on a Helix mattress. So if you want to give it a try, head over to helixsleep.com joy for a 27% off bonus site wide. 27% off site wide. That is Helix Sleep 27% off. The offer is exclusive to the Joy Read show audience. It's just for us, so make sure that you enter the show name after checkout so they know who sent you. Helixsleep.com joy thank you all very much. Now, in our interview last week, we also asked Dr. Bernice King about the future of the Voting Rights act and here is what she said. Concerned that the Voting Rights act will effectively be gone before we even get to November. And what does that, what does that mean in your spirit?
- [72:19]
Bernice A. King
How do I say this again? Nothing surprises me. I have a different frame of reference related to all of this because I'm Dr. King and Coretta Scott King style. I still believe no matter what happens, we will recover. It will take a lot of work, a lot of plan, a lot of strategy. We're going to have to stay on our P's and Q's again. It's unfortunate, you know, but also, what's the next level and layer of this?
- [72:49]
Joy Reid
Indeed. And it is a concern. Right. The Voting Rights act is teetering on the brink of deletion essentially by the United States Supreme Court. The majority, particularly John Roberts, are not for it. But even before we get to voting, and there is that Calais case which we're covering on the show, which we're going to keep following up on. And that is whether or not we actually can have fair districts and vote at all. That is what the Calais case is about. But before we even get to voting, we need to ensure that we're not being subjected to a surveillance state that is designed to make sure that it doesn't matter who we vote for, that only the regime can win, no matter what. And the trajectory of this regime, it's really super troubling in part because of the kind of other states that they're mirroring. I want y' all to take a look at this report from Perfect Union, which is going to really feel like a Dr. King throwback with higher tech because it's about how ICE is tracking every move we make. Draw a digital line around your neighborhood and see the location of every phone inside it. As thousands of federal agents deploy to cities like Minneapolis. An exclusive report from 404 Media reveals the surveillance tool they're using to hunt people down. It's called WeBlock. Here's how it works. An agent draws a shape on a digital map. A city block, a workplace, or a protest site. System instantly pulls up the history of every mobile phone that's been inside that shape. It shows where you sleep, where you work, and who you spend time with. It creates a pattern of life analysis to predict your next move. They don't need a warrant, they don't need a subpoena. They just buy the data from apps installed on your phone right now. Yesterday an ICE agent shot and killed a US citizen in Minneapolis during an operation. Today we know they have the technology to watch the entire city without leaving their desk. So that was 404 Media, another really great independent media outlet. 404 Media, please follow them on substack. They, they do excellent original reporting, which is really fantastic. But did you hear that? But when you're seeing Greg Bevino walking around with his phone, when you saw him walking into that target and he started putting up his phone and taking pictures of people, they're not only using facial recognition technology to try to track all the brown and black and all the non white people, the AAPI people, anyone who isn't white. They're also being able to track neighborhoods. Neighborhoods. Now I want you to listen to another report. This is from Prem Thacker, who works for Zateo News. Hard not to see the parallels, the violence, the in your face lies, the.
- [75:10]
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal
Slandering of their victims and the self victimization of themselves.
- [75:14]
Joy Reid
Take the murder of Renee Nicole Goode. The administration is demanding that you believe something that's completely different from what you can see with your own two eyes. They accuse her of terrorism and say that she weaponized her vehicle and that she was stalking agents who then feared for their lives. ICE is behaving how Israel does every time they kill a Palestinian child, doctor, journalist or parent. We describe it simply. Every accusation is a confession. Everything ICE has done before and after killing Renee Good make the parallels almost too hard to ignore. For one, both the Israeli army and ICE are unimaginably violent, often unprovoked. Both have a knack for ramming people's cars or pulling people out of them, brutally arresting and assaulting common people as if they're dangerous threats, and blocking doctors or ambulances from reaching their victims. Both also act as completely unaccountable occupying forces in Palestine. Israeli soldiers oversee a vicious apartheid system in the us. Masked agents demand people's papers, beat up kids at Target, and march around towns as if they're scoping out another country for the US to attack. And then there's the rhetoric. In addition to smearing victims as terrorists, they both build pretexts to justify even more violence, even against kids. Both after acting in a way that causes any normal person to be outraged, but after then howl that they're the.
- [76:45]
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal
Ones with the right to defend themselves.
- [76:48]
Joy Reid
That guy acted in self defense. Both use propaganda videos to not just lie, but completely reframe reality. ICE agents and CBP officers that are out on our streets doing God's work live in these communities and both are pouring millions into influencing you and keeping the violence coming. And finally, there's the links between US and Israeli agencies. Security partnerships and cooperation agreements, synergy and admiration between their border walls sharing the same weapons and surveillance suppliers. There's even an ICE office in Tel Aviv. It's all so similar for a reason. If the people in power saw how tolerant we were to send our tax dollars to help Israel occupy and carry out a genocide in Palestine, some of those same tactics were bound to come home. Violence we support or even tolerate elsewhere only tarnishes our own soul and it makes it all the more likely it'll.
- [77:48]
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal
Come back to be used against all of us.
- [77:51]
Joy Reid
That's right. Including you. Thanks to Prem Thacker at Zateo News, another great independent media outlet which you should also be following. And that's not good, right? So we're seeing the same kind of tactics used in Israel against Palestinians in the occupied west bank in Gaza, then being repatriated here. Note that many U.S. police departments train with the IDF and get training. So we're having a cross pollination both of training and of tactics. So not good, right? And yet the democrats in Washington are being advised by the smart people to not call for the abolition of this agency, ICE, which has only existed since after the 911 attack. So it's only existed since 2001. It's not in the Constitution I'm holding here. Let me actually read you this reporting from the Bulwark Democrats risk falling into a trap of Donald Trump's making if they revive calls for the abolition of ice, warns an upstart Democratic think tank in a new memo that reads in part as an emotional plea to others in the party. And this is the Bulwarks reporting. The memo, put together by Searchlight Institute and released on Wednesday, draws a direct comparison between the anger felt by voters following last week's shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis and the killing of George Floyd by police officer Derek Chauvin in the Same City in 2020. The calls to defund the police in the wake of that tragedy, the group writes, may have felt righteous in the moment, but it constituted bad policy when adopted literally, and handed a massive cudgel to Republicans. Electorally, the same, writes Blas Nunez Nido, a senior policy fellow at Searchlight, is true of Abolish ICE now. Abolish ICE is not some proxy for more humane immigration enforcement or to change ICE's culture, to adhere to due process or to impose accountability on rogue officers. It's advocating for an extreme, the memo reads. Unless you truly believe that the United States should not have an agency that enforces immigration and customs laws within our borders and you want to increase illegal immigration, you should not say you want to abolish ice. Instead, the memo encourages Democrats to adopt an alternative approach toward ice, one it calls reform and retrain. The Searchlight memo is the latest in a growing and increasingly frenzied effort by Democratic allied groups to shape the party's response to goods shooting. It comes as the party's base has grown more outraged over ICE's brutal tactics and as lawmakers on Capitol Hill have hotly debated how best to retain to rein in ice. So far, the approach from the party has been uneven. Some progressive Democrats have called for the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Others have attempted to revive the Abolish ICE movement, arguing that the agency has become so lawless and rogue that the only reasonable option is to disband it once back in power. They and like minded operatives have been buoyed by recent polling data showing support for ICE plummeting, including a Yugo flashpole showing net positive support for abolishing the agency. So that is where Democrats stand in this moment. Joining me now is Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, who has represented Washington's great 7th district since 2016 and she is the leader emeritus of the House Progressive Caucus. Congresswoman, happy MLK Day. It's always good to see you.
- [81:07]
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal
Happy MLK Day. Joy. Always great to see you as well.
- [81:11]
Joy Reid
Thank you so much. So I'm holding here the memoir from the aforementioned Searchlight Institute which goes on at length saying that Democrats should not be calling for the abolition of ice. And it says instead these are their three recommendations and I want you to respond to them. Number one. Well there are a few. There's one retrain on use of force policies, retrain on community policing practices. And here's one that is going to get you identify and weed out the bad apples. There was bad apples and right size ice. Your thoughts?
- [81:46]
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal
Well look, for years I have been calling to completely disband DHS. It was only created after 9 11. And what they did is they took all these different agencies, they stuck them together in this massive, very unaccountable force. And I can't remember the last, I don't think I've ever in Congress. In fact I know I've never voted to continue to give more funding to ICE and CBP because it was clear to me that they were unaccountable and lawless. And we tried not just pushing for retraining but we wanted to have not have daily quotas for how many people could be rounded up. For example, now we're in a situation where I was just in Minneapolis. I was holding one of my hearings that I've been doing called Kidnapped and Disappeared. This was the sixth one I hosted with Representative Omar in Minneapolis. We had 28 members of Congress. Democratic members of Congress come from 18 states. That's the most Democrats that have really engaged in this issue ever. And what I said over and over again is we cannot have these ICE and CBP agents just going out and randomly arresting anyone they want. Right? Shackling US citizens, putting them into detention facilities and then releasing them without any charges, but also without any accountability. We have these officers who are shooting people, putting tear gas into we heard a lot of testimony about this into cars. And so to me this is an agency that just got $170 billion in the big bad betrayal bill that Republicans passed without any Democratic support, I will add. But that agency has become a complete force for violating constitutional rights of us citizens and non citizens alike. And so the task right now when we don't have the gavels is to make sure we don't give another penny of funding to this unaccountable agency. But the task when we get the gavels back and Hopefully I'm chair of the immigration subcommittee, is to completely disband these DHS as an agency. And actually, you know, it's not a question of a couple of bad apples, Joy. I mean, these folks that are being hired, I'm convinced, are people, perhaps insurrectionists who have been pardoned by Donald Trump. There's no screening, there's no training. And so we have to understand that that's who populates these agencies. It's not just a question of right sizing, it's really a question question of recreating agencies that are actually accountable and do the job and do not have all this money to just go out and violate constitutional rights. So whatever you want to call that. I never used abolish ICE because for a whole bunch of reasons, because I think people then try to use that to say you don't want any enforcement at all. And my bill that, you know, people say was an abolished ICE bill was really about taking them, taking the enforcement, putting it somewhere else and.
- [85:02]
Joy Reid
Right.
- [85:03]
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal
Sizing it, you know, in, in not in a small sense, but in a big sense. And so whatever they want to call it, we just can't have this unaccountable agency that violates people's rights, period.
- [85:15]
Joy Reid
And the thing is, is that people act as if ICE is somehow part of the founding. Dr. Yeah, I'm reading here that in 1790 there was a law that was the first to even specify who could become a citizen. There didn't even used to be a law about that until 1790, there was no such law. And that law limited the privilege of citizenship to free whites of good moral character who had lived in the US for about two years. So basically, if you were a free white person, meaning a non indentured servant white person, and you had quote unquote, good moral character as determined by some random federal. There wasn't even a federal agency to do it. You could stay. They weren't asking for papers, they weren't asking for a background check. They didn't do anything. For up until really at well into the 20th century, there really was no real process. So ice didn't even exist. White people could land at Ellis island, walk in, get a medical check and walk in and become a citizen. So they're suddenly getting very, very delicate about who could be citizens when again, they stole the country from the indigenous.
- [86:17]
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal
No, that's right. I mean, you're just pointing out the whole system, right? The immigration system has always been a very race based system. Let's be very, very clear about that. And you know, that's not a shocker for you or me, but it is a shocker for a lot of people out there who are like, oh, we've always had this or that or the other thing. That's not true. And ICE as an agency, as I said, was only created after 9, 11. That doesn't mean that there wasn't immigration enforcement enforcement before that. There was, but the largely the immigration function within the government was actually around services and the two were very separated. I mean before DHS was formed, you had immigration services, immigration naturalization services. And then you add the enforcement piece, which was a relatively small piece because everybody understood that the real issue here is how do you create a system that allows people pathway to citizenship pathway that allows people to have a fair process to be able to get in, be with their families, work, etc. That wasn't biased, race biased in the way that it was before. Like people forget that, you know, the Indians, me, I'm an Indian, you know, born naturalized citizen now US naturalized citizen. But we weren't allowed to be citizens until very, very recently. That was just the 60s, the Chinese exclusion act, of course black people, you know, were from Africa, the African continent, were not allowed and still aren't in many ways do not have the paths to citizenship that that were afforded to other countries. And so both the process and the enforcement has been very, very uneven. And ICE and agents as an agency is not constructed in the right way and is not operating and now has. You know, I was looking at the numbers of amount of dollars that's been spent on ICE and it dwarfs the amount that is spent on the Bureau of Prisons like local and state jails. We are now detaining about 56,000 people every night. And we shouldn't say detaining, we should say incarcerating. Detention is not supposed to be punitive, but it certainly is right now.
- [88:33]
Joy Reid
That's right. We're using concentration camps and private prisons. I mean, you know, and to your point, these are not people who have been adjudicated as having committed a crime because again, staying in the country past your visa date or coming in the country over the border without documentation, that's a civil, it's like a misdemeanor, it's not a felony. But they're being treated as if just being here means you've committed some sort of felony. That's actually just not even true according to, according to the law. And to your point, the sort of the way that it's migrated to allow people like you to come in, it Used to be ins. When my mother was made a citizen, there was a thing that existed called ins. We had all of these agencies before there wasn't ice and we seemed to figure out how to do immigration. So why do you think that the leadership in the Democratic Party is so afraid of the idea of getting rid of an agency when the Republicans are willing to get rid of the Department of Education?
- [89:29]
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal
Exactly right. And listen, this is what we have to work towards. Right? This is why I came to Congress, because I was frustrated that even my own party didn't take on immigration in the way that we should. We often just follow along with these conservative think tanks, these middle, you know, sort of middle of the road. But really, I think they're quite conservative think tanks that say, don't talk about immigration, you know, don't lean into it. Go and try to out Republican, the Republicans on the cruelty. And I think that we now have a moment. They don't come around that often, but I do think we have a moment. We do have to play it smart because there are a lot of people that want us to fail at this. And there's a lot of money, a lot of profiting off of these private for profit incarceration facilities that are called detention. Your point? I just want to lift it up because it's so important about the immigration system. Being a civil system, not a criminal system is something that people literally don't understand. And that I keep saying over and over again and Republicans keep, you know, trying to poke holes at me, but we have a system that is a civil system. That's why people don't get attorneys, Joy. That's why we don't provide attorneys to people, because it is supposed to be a civil system. Even on ice's own website, it talks about detention not being punitive, but that is exactly what they're doing. And right now, even according to their own data. I was just looking at. The New York Times has a brand new report where they've analyzed the trove of data of who the Trump administration is picking up. 70% of people have zero crimes at all. And of the 30% that are left, it's like a parking ticket, a misdemeanor of some sort. It is not any kind of a violent crime.
- [91:12]
Joy Reid
That's who I tell you, Congresswoman. But a crime like let's say they committed, they stole a pack of cigarettes. But like 30 years ago, like 30 years ago, current crime, we're talking about any crime they've ever committed. There are people who are being deported because like, 20 years ago, they shoplifted.
- [91:30]
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal
That's exactly right. And those people, by the way, are legal permanent residents. Like, in many cases, these are people. And now they are actually going back. They have quotas now for denaturalization. I mean, look at what the Trump administration just did around this massive dozens and dozens of countries where they are now saying, we're not going to process any green cards or, you know, anything. They're taking people out of the naturalization line.
- [91:58]
Joy Reid
I.
- [91:59]
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal
It took me 17 years to become a US citizen, okay? And I remember that moment when I was standing there about to get my citizenship. What an incredible journey it had been, how much I studied the test, which probably most Americans could not pass, in order to get that citizen citizenship. They are going and pulling people out of that line when they're just about to get their naturalization, and they're saying, we're not. And. And actually, one gentleman, a Sudanese man, they put into deportation proceedings. So, I mean, this is really. I think it's got to be the moment where right now in Congress, there is a DHS appropriations funding bill that's coming up. We have to vote no on that bill because we are not going to get the guardrails, the accountability of any kind. And then when we have the gavels back, Joy, we have to really. We've got to get rid of the way that DHS is structured. It doesn't mean you're not going to have any immigration enforcement. Of course, we believe there should be some sort of immigration enforcement, but not what we have. And what we've had, you know, with the increasing funding, with the increasing immunity to being able to do anything that these agents want, and a lot of these people that are in these agencies now that were hired by Trump and given these $50,000 bonuses they got, we got to completely, you know, restructure and get rid of all of that.
- [93:29]
Joy Reid
And just for the chat, just so that, you know, just so I can lay out for you the difference between civil and criminal. Donald Trump was civilly adjudicated to have sexually abused Eugene Carroll. That's why he's not in prison for raping Eugene Carroll. If he had been criminally charged with sexually abusing E. Carroll, he could have been incarcerated for doing that to her, but instead, that went to civil court. Similarly, Donald Trump was civilly adjudicated to have robbed the State of New York to the tune of $500 million. That's why he owed them $500 million. But he was criminally adjudicated to have committed fraud against the state of New York criminally adjudicated, which is why he has a mug shot. So there's civil and there's criminal. When you are in the country and you overstay your visa, you have a visa, you've checked it. Then you said you're gonna leave November 1st, and then December 30th, you're still here. That is on the civil side. You don't get incarcerated for that. Just like Trump didn't get incarcerated, even though he should have been for sexually abusing E. Jean Carol. You don't get incarcerated yet. They're taking people who are in this civil process where they should simply be told, you need to go to a judge and you need to clean this up. They're putting them in concentration camps. They're putting them in private prisons. Congresswoman, how can Congress, let's just say Democrats get back control. What could be done to stop them? If it takes some time for Democrats to get their minds around getting rid of DHS, which again, we didn't have until 2001, what do we do in the meantime to hold these people accountable? And can these people who are killing people and roughing people up in the street and spraying journalists in the face with pepper spray, can they be held criminally or civilly accountable?
- [95:20]
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal
Absolutely, they can be held criminally accountable. They have to be prosecuted to the full extent of law. And every single one of these people, I'm going to haul before our committee and we are going to investigate them and we are going to hold them accountable because they are literally, and you may have seen the decision from the temporary injunction from the judge on Friday in Minnesota essentially saying 80 page decisions saying, no, these people are violating constitutional rights. You cannot stop somebody from following an ice cream car. You cannot, you know, pull somebody out by the hair out of their car and, and push them face down and then shackle them and take them to a detention center. You can't even stop somebody because you don't like what they're saying to you. These are constitutionally protected freedoms. You can't go ramming into somebody's front door with battering rams without a judicial warrant. That's. These are just some of the things that were pointed out in that court case. And, and so, you know, when we have the gavels back, we do listen. I don't know how long it's going to take to reform DHS and restructure it, but we can certainly hold these people accountable. We can certainly stop funding private for profit incarceration centers. We did that on the criminal justice side, we should do it on this side. I have a bill to do that. It's called Dignity for Detained Immigrants. We have a lot of legislation that we can pass now. We will need 60 votes in the Senate. We will need brave Democrats in the House and the Senate. And of course, if Trump is president, maybe he will see that immigration is no longer his golden ticket to, you know, to re election, which he seemed to think before. And Democrats kind of bought into that story. I think the country is in a very different place because of the abuses that people are seeing in Illinois, in Minnesota and across the country. I mean, it's in smaller ways in places like Portland and, and, you know, even now, Maine, Florida, you name it. This is happening in every community. I think what Americans have to understand is, don't think that this is something that's just happening in Minnesota or Illinois. This is happening. If it can happen there, it can happen to you. If it hasn't already, it will. And by the way, let's be very clear that this, this absolute lawlessness that we're seeing in Minnesota, the vast majority of people in Minnesota are actually U. S. Citizens. It's got one of the smallest populations of undocumented immigrants, but also, by the way, the fourth and fifth amendment of the Constitution and many others and the free speech rights of people do accrue to both citizens and non citizens alike. So everybody's got those rights. Nobody's got the right to just be, you know, have, have their door battered down or stopped and have their, you know, have their car stopped and pulled out of the car and all that stuff. Whether you're a citizen or a non.
- [98:21]
Joy Reid
Citizen or, or Democrats could simply create their own version of doge and do to ICE and DHS what was done to the Department of Education. Just my thought, Congresswoman. From.
- [98:34]
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal
With you, Joy.
- [98:36]
Joy Reid
If they can go to the Department of Education, they don't want to educate people. You don't want to help kids who have special needs in school. They could just eradicate it. Nobody asked, nobody asked if they could put Trump's hideous surname on the Kennedy Center. They're just doing it. Sometimes Democrats might just need to.
- [98:48]
Steve Schmidt
I agree.
- [98:49]
Joy Reid
Wow.
- [98:49]
Bernice A. King
I agree.
- [98:50]
Joy Reid
Later. Thank you, Congresswoman. Bye bye. Thank you very much. Let y' all know what the poll is looking like right now. The poll said, would you support any Democrat who does not include dismantling ICE as one of their policies? 83% of the folks in the poll, and this is the poll on the YouTube side, say they would not support such a person. 17% say yes. That is on the YouTube side, 83% said they would not support any Democrat who does not include dismantling ICE as one of their policies. Please chat about it also on the substack side. Let us know in the comments. Do you want to see a Democrat the next Democratic president? Let presidential candidate, let's say, say we're getting rid of it. We had, we didn't need it before. I don't know why we need it now. Let's talk about the way we ended our interview with Dr. Bernice King. We ended that interview by asking her what she would give America for America's 250th birthday. And here's what she said.
- [99:46]
Bernice A. King
Faith to America. It's time for us to lean in closely to the peoples of Dr. King. We need to be from a nonviolent nation, not just about protest and movement, but in every aspect of our engagements, our interactions. We need to embrace nonviolence. It gives us the emotional intelligence to deal with conflict, to deal with injustice, to deal with inequity without letting it poison our soul and draw us into its way. You know, we have to defeat injustice without becoming, becoming unjust. And so that's what I would give you. I would give you Kenyan nonviolence that we call Nonviolence365 because we were founded in violence. But if we can start again from a nonviolent love centered way in everything that we do and the way forward, we will begin to create policies and engage in practices and behaviors that honor the dignity, worth and value of every human.
- [100:50]
Joy Reid
Amen. Amen to that. And our next guest wrote a really poignant piece today that seemed to really, it seems really appropriate to get to given that it talks about the nonviolent movement that was conducted and practiced by one Medgar Evers. So you know, I have an interest in. Let me read a little bit of this piece. Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett, a racist and segregationist. I'm sorry, Everyone in America knew who murdered Medgar Ever. That's the first line I want to read. Everyone in America knew who murdered Evers. Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett, a racist and segregationist, came to Beckwith's trial to shake hands with the killer in plain sight of the all white, all male jury. When Byron De La beckwith ran for lieutenant governor of Mississippi in 1967 after two hung all white Mississippi juries refused to convict him. His campaign slogan was Straight Shot. Byron Della Beckwith believed he would never face justice. He died in prison just like the ICE murderer Jonathan Ross Will. Justice came for Bylan De LA BECKWITH In 1994 when a Mississippi jury said guilty. Justice also came in 2005 for three young men, civil rights workers James Cheney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman. Everyone knew who killed them. They were murdered by police which were run by the Ku Klux Klan on Mississippi Highway 19 south en route to Meridian. Outside the courthouse where justice was hindered until 2005, sits a 65 foot tall Confederate statue of a soldier cast in the familiar pose of memorials from 1915 to 1925 in the South. I thought about Medgar Evers, James Cheney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman standing in the middle of that road. I thought about the terror and courage of the young men who had come to register black people to vote in Mississippi and asked myself a question, why did they do it? The answer is important because it helps the country understand what is happening in Minnesota. And joining me now is the writer of that really terrific substack piece which we're gonna distribute on our substack is Steve Schmidt, my friend, founder of the Warning and Steering committee, member of the Save America movement. Steve, it is good to be with you. Happy MLK Day. And one of the things I loved about your piece is that it talked about the fear and courage of people who came to witness and to stand in the gap for justice. That is what Renee Nicole Goode was doing. She was being an ally. She was standing in the gap for her brown and black neighbors. And just like Mr. Goodman and Mr. Schwerner and James Reeb and so many other civil rights witnesses, she was killed for. She's a Viola Liuzzo of today. Your thoughts?
- [103:35]
Steve Schmidt
I completely agree. She is their peer. She's a lineal descendant of Medgar Evers and the civil rights workers. And Mr. Reed, an Episcopal bishop in the state of New Hampshire today called for clergy to prepare their wills, to prepare for a new era of martyrdom, not towards violence, but to be prepared to die for love. And when we think about Trump and we hear Stephen Miller's words, which are those of a Nazi, and we see that slogan, one of ours, all of yours. That was policy of the Reich instituted by Reinhard Heydrich, the principal architect of the Holocaust, a man known as the Butcher of, of Prague. And when Heydrich was assassinated in a heroic action by Czech and Slovak paratroopers, commandos who had come from England, the reaction by the Nazis was collective punishment. And they did not target Jews. They went to a village called Ladice and there you can find one of the most haunting memorials, I think, anywhere in the world world where you see the children of Ludice, they were all sent to Chelmo. They were sent to the gas. The women were mostly sent to Ravensbrook and killed there. None of them were Jews. They were all Christians. And the men were lined up and executed in the village. Priest was told by the SS that he could leave, but he chose to die with his flock. And that is what the bishop is talking about. The Nazis salted the earth so that nothing would ever grow there again. And we see in this moment abuses that take us back to the terror of the 1870s of the Ku Klux Klan. We see the mass men targeting minorities. And this is a day where it's really important, I think, for white America to understand the magnificence of the patriotism of black America, that people who were not loved back by their country love their country so much that they believed in what it could be and did not revile what it was. And so King comes to the Lincoln Memorial. And he comes there, he says, to collect a promissory note. Not to burn it down, but to say, we deserve this freedom too. And Medgar Evers was a Normandy man. He was a combat veteran of the Second World War, killed by a Marine combat veteran wounded on Okinawa, who blew him away with a 30 odd 6 Enfield rifle to the back. And he crawled and died in front of his wife and his kids. But on his gravestone spelled out is the word Mississippi. And Medgar Evers made clear many, many times as he told Merlee Evers, that he didn't know if he was going to heaven or hell, but he was going from Jackson, Mississippi, and his crime was appearing on television and telling the truth. And his wife said to him, why don't you get a new suit, Medgar? There's a sale on the store. And he looked at her and he said, well, the only suit I'm going to need is the one they bury me in. He could have left, Ray. Renee Goodman could have left. Could have left Renee Good. Could have left. We all could walk out. King could have walked out, but none of them did. And today is a day where we remember a lot of things, but the incandescence of the courage should surely be one of them.
- [107:59]
Joy Reid
What do you make of the people who on the MAGA side, they sort of fundamentally reject the idea of honoring Dr. King. They're out there saying, no, we should replace it with Charlie Kirk or something else. But they see it as a black people's holiday when We've been very intentional on this show today to show the gorgeous mosaic like we've had. We've had one of almost every group that exists in the country on today because this is not a black people's holiday. It's a holiday when America is supposed to see its better self for a moment and the possibilities of its multiracial democracy. That is what King Day is for, as far as I'm concerned.
- [108:36]
Steve Schmidt
One of the great heroes of the country is General Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. And when Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. Became the fourth black man to graduate West Point, he joined his father as the only two active duty army officers who were black in the entire United States Army. And Davis would go on to command the Tuskegee Airmen. And when the Tuskegee Airmen were finally given P51 Mustangs and turned loose in the skies over Europe, they were recognized because the tails of their planes were painted red. And the white pilots of the 8th Air Force could not believe that those were black men flying those planes. But the Tuskegee Airmen, like the all Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team, was known very quickly by their achievements. And the white pilots came to understand that their chances of survival were much higher when they were escorted by the red tailed planes of the 332nd Fighter Group. And it came to be that those white pilots started to request that they be escorted by the Tuskegee Airmen. That they started to demand that they be escorted by the Tuskegee Airmen. And Benjamin O. Davis changed the name of his aircraft to by direct request. When he was at West Point for four years, he was silenced. He was not spoken to. Think of the loneliness, think of the degradation and the humiliation. He was 18 for four years. Silence. Graduated in the top 20% of his class. First four star officer, black officer, United States Air Force course. Benjamin O. Davis's biography has one word in the title, American. He was a patriot and he loved his country. And like Mark Kelly's, being threatened with he too, like Jackie Robinson, faced a trumped up kangaroo court martial. And Benjamin O. Davis persevered like the country will, through faith and belief. And because of the Tuskegee Airmen, because of the men who were part of the Red Ball Express, like Medgar Evers. The US military was desegregated in 1947 and by the way, its name was changed to the National Military Establishment, colloquially and commonly known as the Department of Defense. We don't have a Department of war.
- [111:44]
Bernice A. King
Right.
- [111:45]
Steve Schmidt
It sets in motion a chain of events that on a direct line includes Rosa Parks Jackie Robinson, Emmett Till, Medgar Evers, and Martin Luther King. And King, unique amongst all Americans who has ever lived, has given us the queen clearest prophecy of that shining city on a hill in his last words in the mountaintop speech, where he transits through all time from ancient Egypt to the future. And like all prophets, he does not get to where he sees his people going. And you know what? We may not get there either. We don't know when that vision of his will come to be. It may be in our grandchildren's lifetimes or their grandchildren's lifetimes. We just know that King did not say things that he did not believe. And I choose to believe that what he said he saw is true. And I accept it. And because I accept it, I have faith that we will persevere through this crisis. And that faith is not a black faith. It is an American faith. And the idea that a black man or a black woman cannot be as great an American as George Washington is nonsense. Martin Luther King, King and John Lewis are the founders of the 50 Star Republic. And it has only been since we have had 50 stars on the flag that we have not lived in an apartheid society. And that faith that Lincoln believed in, step by painful step, that now we feel like we're being pulled back from will not endure forever.
- [114:01]
Joy Reid
Amen. Amen. You can get an amen. It's not even Sunday. Steve Schmidt, the Warning. You all should subscribe to it on Substack, my friend. Thank you very much. Happy MLK Day. Thank you for those words. So appreciate you. Dad is appreciating you, and I will see you soon.
- [114:15]
Steve Schmidt
Thank you, Joy.
- [114:16]
Joy Reid
Thank you so much. You see that? Look, this is a holiday, as Steve just said, that is supposed to represent each and every American. And there's a reason why we want to hear from people who are not just African Americans. We're not going to be sitting alone at the lunch table celebrating someone who only stood for us. As we have found out, all of the gains of the Civil Rights movement inured to everyone else. The only reason there's an Americans with Disabilities act is the Civil Rights movement. The only reason that we were able to finally get LGBTQ rights on the books is the Civil Rights movement. The movements that stood for free education in this country inured to white children who also weren't going to school. You know, most countries around the world or many countries in the world, you have to pay to go to elementary school and high school. And all of these movements by African Americans have inured to the benefit of immigrants. That's the reason you got the 1968 Immigration act that ended the Asian Exclusion Act. The civil rights movement literally metastasized across every aspect of society to make America greater, to make America function. And those who try to demonize the civil rights movement, demonize Dr. King, or ignore this day, ignore the very history that attempted to make this country great. And this country will never be great until everyone in it is safe, secure, and free. And that's just a fact. Let's go to our moments of joy on this really great King Day. I hope you guys have enjoyed the show. I've been watching the chat. Do you want to go to. I mean, we have two. We have two. We have two of them. And I, I. We did. I did a mo. I did a. A historic moment of joy. Jason and I did a contemporary one. So I want to start with the historic one first, because it's really fun. There's a guy named Lawrence Carter Senior who posted this photo on social media. And it's. Look at this photo. You guys, take a look. It's a wedding party in Cleveland, Ohio. And there's a thing called Signal Cleveland that write this. You can keep this up while I read this. Prior to his assassination, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Frequently visited Cleveland. Some of his earliest visits to the city included giving a lecture at Glenville High School, where he discussed the Montgomery bus boycott and supporting the campaign of Cleveland's first black mayor. Carl B. Stokes. Rev. Otis Moss, Jr. Former senior pastor at Olivet Institutional Baptist Church, and his wife, Edwina Moss, formerly served on the staff of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. They worked with King on numerous projects throughout the 1950s and 60s and became family friends. The Moss family sat down with signals Cleveland to recall some of their fondest memory, the King family. And they presented this photo. Otis and Edwina Moss are in the photo. It's their engagement party. And you can see in the party the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Coretta Scott King, Andrew Young, Ralph and Juanita Abernathy, and other civil rights leaders that are all, like, just chilling at this engagement party. The reason I absolutely love this and the reason it's a moment of joy is that we only really get to think about Dr. King in crisis. We get to hear him say, speaking, doing his I have a dream speech or doing some other speech in which he's fighting against the system. But I love. And one of the reasons I love following Reverend Bernice King is she'll put up cute photos of them just chilling and hanging with the kids. I love seeing Dr. King and other civil rights luminaries joyful and alive. And it's a great reminder that they were just living their lives. Thank you to all the people who have complimented. They were having a good time. Great. They were not always sad. The civil rights leaders were laughing sometimes. They were enjoying their lives. They weren't miserable. They were joyful warriors fighting for a country where they could smile and where they can enjoy a party like that. So that is our historic moment of joy. Now, next moment of joy. You knew it had to come from Minnesota, y'.
- [118:16]
Bernice A. King
All.
- [118:17]
Joy Reid
And big up to the social media, folks, because this was on my. This was on my Instagram and I had to pull it and I knew this. So we're gonna have to bring it down. The people are bringing the protest, baby. And they're bringing the joy. And they're bringing the Portland style costumes. Let's put it up. This is the Minnesota resistance. This is what they're doing, y'. All. They are sliding an ice potato down. Look at the next one. Horchata is warm. Cuz f I going down. Just going down the slope. I love it when people do joints of. This is my favorite. Bowling pins that take pump and ice and a giant bowling ball comes rolling at them and boom. Yes. They all go down. They all go down and look. Fairy tale creatures. You've got to have creatures.
- [119:13]
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal
You've got to have creatures.
- [119:15]
Joy Reid
The reason that we're going to win Love melt ice. Love melt ice. Be Goode. Which is the theme for Renee Nicole Goode Be Goode. Is the movement around Renee Goode. I love it because our side is funnier than their side. We're more fun than they are. We do it big, but we do it happy. We are joyful warriors. And they're miserable. They miserable because we happy. And the more moisturizing that, huh? Miserable. They can't stand it. They go in and they hear somebody say hola inside of cvs, they freak out. They can't stand to see us happy. Rest in peace, Trayvon Martin. I am wearing the Trayvon shirt. Thank you all. Rest in peace, Dr. King. Coretta Scott King. Thank you to the wonderful Bernice A. King. We will be posting very soon the full interview with that with Dr. Bernice A. King. You'll be able to check that out. Thanks for tuning in, everybody, and happy MLK Day. Hope you have a great one. Thanks to all the chats. Love y'.
- [120:17]
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal
All.
- [120:17]
Joy Reid
Don't forget to like and subscribe.
- [120:22]
Reverend Mark Thompson
Getting back to the basics.
- [120:24]
Jolly Good Ginger
Grassroot level Let me dig a little deeper with the shovel Plenty can't tell the force from the trees that I'm hard to detect Like a black hole in a job Injustice anywhere, it's a.
- [120:34]
Steve Schmidt
Threat to justice everywhere Let me make.
- [120:36]
Jolly Good Ginger
This clear I got a bone to pick and I'll never fear the threat of poverty they don't want to talk about it they rap the party so I'm a real talk about it for sure.