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- [00:00]
Ryan Reynolds
Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with
- [00:02]
Clayton Wiemers
a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying. No judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a try.
- [00:19]
Joy Reid
@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month Required intro rate first 3 months
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Narrator/Reporter
only, then full price plan options available,
- [00:28]
Joy Reid
taxes and fees extra. See full terms@mintmobile.com.
- [00:35]
Gary Chambers Jr.
Okay.
- [00:43]
Joy Reid
Hello everybody. Happy Friday. Tg. Oh, TGIF happy. Thank God it's Friday. Even though every day is Wednesday, I have to be honest with you. Welcome to the Joy Reach. Every day is Wednesday. They're all the same. Welcome to Joy Reach show. Big up to everybody who is watching on YouTube. We can already see the chats already starting to heat up on the YouTube side. A lot of Happy Fridays. Good evening. Lots of people saying good evening. Good reminders in the YouTube chat to please hit that like and subscribe button if you're on YouTube, please. We thank you for doing that and also hitting share to try to help us get to our half a million followers by our birthday on June 9. So we are well on our way. We are keeping it moving. Also, big up to those who are watching on Substack. Hello to our substackies. Those chats are always a lot of fun too. They're very different communities and they're all sort of unique in their own special way. Big up to everybody that's watching on Facebook right now. We love you guys, but we do not get news from Facebook. Let us not do that other than the Joy Reacher. You can get that but be careful on Facebook. But we appreciate everyone who is a Facebook viewer. Also our LinkedIn fam. Thank you for watching if you're watching on LinkedIn and if you're watching on Twitch. Welcome to our new Twitch subscribers. We actually increased after interviewing Hassan Piker, who is probably the biggest Twitch streamer in the land. And so welcome to all the new people who came to us because of our interview with Hasan. I really enjoyed that conversation. I was actually texting with Crystal Ball, who was actually who helped me make that connection. And she enjoyed the interview. It's high praise because Crystal is one of the sort of most important voices in the progressive media. She and her husband Kyle Kokinski. If you guys are not watching both of them, you should be watching them. Just like you're taking in you know Don Lemon and Midas Touch and Katie Fang, who's in a lawsuit right now. We're trying to get her for next week. She's filed a very interesting lawsuit against the regime. So everybody, it's all in together. Jim Acosta, all of our friends, we just big up everybody in independent media and ask you guys to keep on supporting all independent media because we are where the truth is coming to you from. Like we are the ones who or unbiased, unbought. We are not held down by the sort of, you know, oligarch interests and we basically only answer to you. We answer to our, to our, our, our, our subscribers and to our, those who follow us. Somebody who said my lip gloss is popping. I'm on the, in the, on the New York side. So Lynette is responsible for the glam. Thank you, Lynette, for the glam. It's usually Janice when I'm in the dmv. So depending on where I am, we get different glam. But the glam is always fabulous. We're always going to make sure that the news may be bad, but the beat is good. We're going to make sure that the beat is good even when the news is bad. So we've got a lot to talk about on today. This is the final day to vote in our Vontel contest to try to pick one of these three styles for our readers. And keep in mind, again, just because they appear to be shaded in, that doesn't mean that they have to be shaded in. In the real glasses we end up doing. We just want to pick a style. Do we want a designery looking frame like the block where it's got like a lot of, you know, a lot of beautiful art on it? Do we want something simple and chic and black like the Amina Tiffany, or do we want to go with Delta red? We go with something red like our 7th Avenue merlot. We. We are. We. We. I think we've broken the tie. Hundreds and hundreds of people have voted. Thank you to everybody who's voted. Lots and lots and lots of votes. Hundreds of people. So we want to make sure that we really pick a good, solid sort of direction to go in because we're going to make our own readers. And if you are interested, I've actually had a couple people text me saying they would like to purchase some of these frames, including one mom who wants to buy treat herself for Mother's Day. You can just go to shopredbag.com you go to shopredbag.com and you put enjoy. They're going to give you 20% off. And if you want to pick up those frames for your mom or for yourself, treat yourself on Mother's Day. Why not? All right, let's get on to the headlines. It's Mayday. Mayday, that's the name of the title for the show today. And that is because there have been about 3,500, you know, protests for Mayday that are happening all over the country. Really from all over the place, from North Carolina to London to Cuba to Washington, D.C. let's play a little bit of that.
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Narrator/Reporter
Last year's Mayday rally in Union park brought together thousands of people speaking out in opposition to the policies of the Trump administration. According to the agreement between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union, CPS will provide buses for field trips of students and educators to attend the 1pm May Day rally in Union park this year.
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Joy Reid
No hate, no fear.
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Jasmine Bernie Clark
Immigrants are welcome here.
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Joy Reid
No rage, no fear. And you can see that there's a common theme. That last one was North Carolina, which was sort of surprising. Pretty big protest there. And you know, of course, Mayday is an international celebration of workers and of unionized workers and of workers rights. It's like a, it's like a big day for labor. But on, if you ask Fox, if you go and look on right wing media or on right wing X Twitter, you would think it was like the communist revolution all over the world. Unions tend to have sort of a socialist lean, at least that's the way that they are perceived on the right. So they're losing their minds over today. But 3,500 separate protests, just that we know of in the United States, all over the country. And one of the things that they are doing is vocally, as you could hear in Chicago and D.C. and everywhere else, vocally standing up for immigrants, but also saying no shopping today, no participation in the economy, withdrawing our support for the economy on today to protest the policies on the right, which I have to say, if we're being honest about it, are really not working. You know, there's, there are two theories of the case of what actually makes people's lives better on the right. They say a strong military, a strong security state so that you have safety and not a lot of help economically. Economically, you're on your own. But the right says that the way that you make societies better is you have like, social order enforced by the state and that's all you need. Anything else that you need, you're on your own. If you need like preschool or medicine they don't care about that. They're just like strong security state and they believe that's what makes life better. And also sort of social cohesion, meaning racial cohesion, you know, sort of racial uniformity. Right. A very uniform ethnic state where everybody's like a white Christian and anybody else is like a guest. And they can only be here at the, you know, beneficence of the, of the majority. That's their kind of. But on the left, the theory is the thing that makes a state strong is social uplift. So health care protection from over policing, you know, it's a care economy. It's just two different theories of the case. And I have to be honest, right now we're seeing both of those two styles at work in this country. And both of those experiences are being tried on the right. You're seeing Republicans carry out a form of government, both in the states they control and in the federal government that says you're getting a hardcore security state where you can be arrested for your thoughts, where you can be arrested for being brown and having an accent, where there's constant, like aggressive enforcement of immigration to root out people who are not white Christians and to remove them out from society. And literally nothing when it comes to health care or care preschool, nothing. And on the Democratic side, you have Zorhan Mamdani, who's probably running the most active experiment in doing it the opposite way. And I have to say right now, and you know, I'm here in New York on today, this side seems to be working better. So Mamdani, he put an executive order, Jason, you can point that up. That's a two. So Zamdani has issued an executive order which will limit what ICE can do, what ICE agents can do in the city. Now, under the order, ICE agents are now barred from entering any New York City property without a judicial warrant. They need a warrant from a judge. The policy applies to city run facilities, including schools, shelters, hospitals and parking lots. So no more ICE in hospitals, no more ICE in schools, no more ICE in any city run facility. That's a huge big deal. Here's the quote. Mamdani announced this at an interfaith service this morning. And this is what he said. I am signing an executive order that will uphold our city's protection not just for our fellow immigrant New Yorkers, but also of all New Yorkers from abusive immigration enforcement. And he added, I consider my own faith, Islam, a religion built upon a narrative of migration. The story of the Hira reminds us that Prophet Muhammad Salah was Salam was a stranger too, who fled Mecca and was welcome in Medina. Unquote. Very interesting. Now, the order also includes enforcement of privacy protections to avoid New Yorkers private data being unlawfully accessed by the federal government, a Public Safety audit report submitted to the New York City mayor to ensure essential New York City agencies comply with city laws, and the creation of an interagency committee to coordinate policy at in the event of a major crisis so that the federal government can't abuse a major crisis to start over enforcing immigration laws. And so that's like a big deal. It's really doubled down on New York City's sanctuary status and provided protection for New Yorker's data. So this is the alternative version of the way that the Trump regime is governing. And so apparently, I think if you just look at the two and you compare them, apparently the democratic socialists version is a better place to live. New York is a very pleasant place these days. It's actually cleaner. It feels like somewhat of a weight is lifted. People feel hope in this city. Whereas when I'm, you know, back in the dmv, you talk to people, particularly after this Supreme Court ruling, there is a sense of despair. So one side is producing fear and despair, the other side is producing hope. It's just a. This is a experiment that we're seeing in real time. Now, today is also day 60 of the day that per the law, Donald Trump is required to go back to Congress to get permission from Congress to continue waging this war. The War Powers act allows a president to take action if there's some sort of emergency, which there wasn't. But in. But 60 days in, he has to go to Congress. Here's what Donald Trump said. This is a three when he was asked, are you going to go to Congress per the law, Mr. President? Day 60, are you going to seek congressional authorization?
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Gary Chambers Jr.
No other country has ever done it. It's never been, as, you know, most people consider it totally unconstitutional. Also, we had a ceasefire, so that
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Joy Reid
gives you additional time, but no other country's done it. We're in the midst of a big victory.
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Gary Chambers Jr.
This is a victory like we haven't had since Venezuela. Okay? To be honest with you, we haven't had. But, you know, we have a country that lost its way. It really lost its way. That's our country in terms of the military now.
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Joy Reid
Lord, this man is stupid. First of all, other countries have nothing to do with your country. You're the President of this country, you fool. Donald, you're the President of the United States. What other Countries do has nothing to do with you. US Law says you have to go to Congress. Doesn't matter what other countries do. That's number one. Number two, you're not King Charles. You don't just get to do things. Neither does he, by the way. In their constitutional monarchical republic, their parliament actually decides now, right? He can sign off on things. But you there. So, so, and then he says most people think it's unconstitutional. The right follow up there from the press was who is most people? Who are you? Who, who are you talking about? Because there's no one who interprets the law any differently than I just explained in 60 days per the literal written letter of the law. You got to go back to Congress. There are no, no people who think that it's unconstitutional. Maybe like Bill Barr and some other right wing lunatics who want to have a monarchical government. But you need to test that theory. You need to actually, if you're going to break this law, you would think Congress would challenge it, Right? But we don't have a Congress right now. We just actually don't have a Congress. Which is why they're not demanding that he bring his ass back to Congress to demand war powers. In fact, Republicans are blocking any attempts to stop him from starting another war in Cuba. This is the greatest victory since Venezuela. Venezuela was not a war either, you fool. Venezuela was you kidnapping the autocratic leader of another country. And now you have him locked up somewhere that we don't really know about and doing whatever to him. Maybe trying to interrogate him to get him to falsely admit to a lie that somehow his country stole the election from you because you're such a twit that you can't admit you lost in 2020 to Biden. There's literally nothing about what he said. He's just a liar. And he's allowed to do it because we don't have a media that's willing to challenge him. So that's the lay of the land right now. Donald Trump is, as of today, breaking the law when it comes to war powers. He has not gone back to Congress per the law. And he's saying, some people say I can do it. They don't say it's fine to do it. No one says that. Meanwhile, that, not war, war, which is apparently going to be endless because Trump has said he's going to bomb again and keep the Strait of Hormuz closed. That war, non war war, is triggering economic devastation globally. Gas prices, oil prices are up. They could hit $200 a barrel. Gas prices are up everywhere and that means anything that moves with gasoline is up. This is probably part of what's going to kill Spirit. Airlines off this discount airline can probably afford diesel fuel. Farmers can't afford diesel, but they got to keep paying for it. It's extremely expensive. That means crops are either failing or more expensive. Food's more expensive. Everything's more expensive because of this. And yet here is the House Majority leader, Steve Scalise, who I will never forget called himself David Duke without the baggage from the great state of Louisiana. Here's what he said when he was challenged on the fact that gas prices are so high it's starting to hurt people.
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Ryan Reynolds
Listen, markets aren't friendly to the GOP's chances for, for holding the House. I mean, even the Senate is somewhat questionable.
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Joy Reid
I don't know if you put any
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Ryan Reynolds
stock in that, but there were some developments this week. No, it seems like negative developments in Virginia. I think for, for Democrats, positive developments for Republicans in Texas. Something happening in Florida. Now what is your, do you think there's any way that your party holds on in November to the House?
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Joy Reid
Absolutely.
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Justin J. Pearson
And look, it's a path that is focused on turnout, number one and delivery.
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Joy Reid
What we've delivered is to finally start turning this mess around that we inherited a year and a half ago. People will remember.
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Justin J. Pearson
You go back two years ago, we
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Joy Reid
were paying almost $6 a gallon for gasoline.
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Justin J. Pearson
Right now it's in the threes.
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Joy Reid
Obviously we've seen a jump with the Iran conflict. When were we paying? Six, 52 and a half years ago.
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Ryan Reynolds
I think we weren't the average.
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Joy Reid
Where we are now.
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Ryan Reynolds
We're.
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Joy Reid
We were over 30% below where we
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Justin J. Pearson
were just two years ago.
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Joy Reid
That's just a lie. The CNBC guys even like, I'm a conservative and I don't. The CNBC is like the most right wing network that's not called Fox. They're like, no, no, that's not true. Here, here's the average gas prices. Jason's going to put that up. That's a five. The average gas price right now. It's. It's north of $4 a gallon. All right, it is, it is. And just so that you can, I can be clear and show my map and show my work here, like I'm in school. We're going to show you a six. This is the Wallet Hub, which tracks these things, showing you the gas prices by year. And you can see that they peaked like in 2012. They started to go down during COVID because people weren't Actually using gas. You can see they dropped during COVID in 2020, then they went up again, and then they sort of dropped down toward the end. But I put a little tick there that they were at 3, 33, 55 a year ago, which is when Steve Scalise is saying they were higher. You can see that they were lower. They were lower than $4.25 a gallon. Now, let's look at it by month. That's the next one. You can see that. The same exact chart, but this is showing by month. You see the little place at the far right of this screen where the gas prices shoot up? That's the Iran war. They're shooting back up. Trump actually was benefiting from gas prices starting to ease down during the Biden administration. They kept kind of drifting down because the US Became a net zero producer of oil, meaning we were producing more oil than we were exporting. So we. Gas prices went down because we were putting more oil on the market. Trump destroyed his own benefit of us producing more oil by invading Iran. That's a little tick up at the top. So what Steve Scalise said is just actually not true. It is actually higher now, and they're just lying about it, thinking that they can get away with it. And who do you think Americans are blaming for all this? You guess? Let's let Harry Enton tell you.
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Ryan Reynolds
Oh, the buck stops at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Donald John Trump, the President of the United States. And to a historic degree, look at this. Blame for the increase in gas prices. 77% say Donald Trump. I look back at every president I could find on a similar question, which is, when the gas prices rise, who gets the blame? Trump gets the blame more than Joe Biden did back in 2022, more than Barack Obama did in 2012, and more than George W. Bush did back in 2005. 71%. Donald Trump takes the cake. He owns this mess, according to the American people. And it is quite the mess, because as gas prices climb ever higher and the increase in the percentage that blame Donald Trump climb ever higher, his approval ratings go down in the basement.
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Joy Reid
So presidents always get blamed, but he's getting blamed more.
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Ryan Reynolds
He is getting blamed more to a historic degree.
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Maurice Mitchell
What about the partisan breakdown here?
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Ryan Reynolds
Now, this is where it gets really stunning. Okay? You know, we've seen numbers that are this bad for Trump, you know, disapproval rating on gas prices around this area, the percentage blaming him for the increase in gas prices around this area. But when you break it down by party, this is where it gets, oh, my you know, this is a Republican base that has been infatuated with Donald Trump for years. But even here, blame Trump for rising gas prices. 55% a majority of Republicans, Republicans blame Donald Trump for gas prices. That is the highest ever blame for gas prices from one zone party. Then you see 82% of independents, that's the highest percentage who blame the President of the United States. Among independents, not much of a surprise. 95% of Democrats. But majority, majority, majority. Rarely do you get the trifecta of majority from across the political spectrum agreeing on something. But here we have it. The majority of Republicans, independents and Democrats all blame Trump for higher gas.
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Joy Reid
We can leave it there from inside one's own party. Yeah, it's Harry. Anton has screamed it out. I love Harry. And he's actually a lot of fun. Yeah, so there you go. But you know what, when in doubt, there's always a Byron to play Stephen in Django Unchained. Here he is a nine.
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Ellie Mistahl
Do you think Donald Trump has delivered on his promise to lower prices?
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Joy Reid
Yeah, he actually has. I know gas prices are a little bit higher because of what's happening in Iran, but across the country a lot of prices actually have stabilized.
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Ellie Mistahl
I think, you know, inflation's hard, but
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Gary Chambers Jr.
I remember where we were with the Biden administration.
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Ellie Mistahl
Airline tickets jumped 50%.
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Gary Chambers Jr.
It was insane. So he's doing a great job.
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Joy Reid
We need the other side of the aisle to come and help us just do common sense business. But president's doing great.
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Ellie Mistahl
If it were a report card, what
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Joy Reid
grade would you give him on the economy? Oh, he gets an A.
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Clayton Wiemers
An A, yeah.
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Ellie Mistahl
Got it. Thank you.
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Joy Reid
You gets a A boss man. You get a. Of course, of course, of course. Byron Donalds, who by the way, is one of four count of four Republican black Congress members, all of whom are leaving, they're all leaving office to run for other offices. Meaning there will be this many black members of Congress when? No, when, when, you know, when January 5th comes and we get a new Congress. Right. But oh wait, the Republicans have decided that it's not enough to eliminate all the blacks that are Republicans in Congress, they're gonna try to eliminate all the blacks period, who are Democrats as well. Because when in doubt, if you've got a problem in which the President of the United States and his party are being blamed for the economic condition of the country and that threatens their rule and their ability to keep grifting and stealing and doing corruption, you can always count on John Roberts to step in with his neo confederate right wing anti black friends, including the black one, technically Clarence Thomas, to swoop in and help. The Supreme Court majority has decided to put the final nail in the Voting Rights act in order to try to save Republican power. And they did that in the Louisiana vs Calais case and Contraband camp, I think had, I would say probably the best sort of summary of it. Michael Harriot always knows how to summarize things and he basically just said we lost. Because what the Supreme Court decided to do is to try to fix the problem of this country turning on Donald Trump and Republicans by making it impossible to remove Donald Trump and Republicans by cutting the guts out of the Voting Rights act, something that John Roberts has been trying to kill dead since he was a Reagan appointee in the justice department in the 80s. And he's now gotten Sam Alito to be the hitman. And so the final murder of the Voting Rights act in order to ensure what John Roberts cares about, the only thing he cares about, which is continued eternal right wing Republican rule, so that he and his colleagues and his party can continue to grift off the American people, destroy us in endless wars and allow corporations to run roughshod over our rights. That's what John Roberts cares about. If anybody believes he's anything better than your average knuckle dragging, knee jerk, racist neo confederate that you haven't been paying attention to John Roberts or Scalia or any of them, including their pet Clarence, let me allow you to listen to. Actually, let me just read you a little bit of Elena Kagan's brutal descent from that Michael put in. I'm going to read it here. The Voting Rights act is, or now more accurately was, one of our most consequential, efficacious. This is Elena Kagan. And amply justified exercises of federal legislative power in our nation's history. It has been one of literal blood. It was born, sorry, of the literal blood of Union soldiers and civil rights marchers. It ushered in awe inspiring change, bringing this nation closer to fulfilling the ideals of democracy and racial equality. And it has been repeatedly and overwhelmingly reauthorized by the people's representatives in Congress. Only they have the right to say it is no longer needed, not the members of this court. I dissent then from this latest chapter in the majority's now completed demolition of the Voting Rights Act. Elena Kagan, with some eloquent words to describe the complete judicial overreach of these six neo confederates who have rewritten the law rather than interpreting it. They rewrote the law to eliminate the Voting Rights act because it is inconvenient to their mania to maintain Republican rule against the will of the people. Let me let you hear a few more reactions to this evil, I have to say, wicked, monstrous decision in Louisiana versus Calais. Here they go.
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Gary Chambers Jr.
That's the great and tragic irony of this moment, is that we are seeing Trump and his enablers in Congress and in the Supreme Court attack the need
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Joy Reid
for
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Gary Chambers Jr.
racial justice to be addressed and the tools for doing that. They're attacking the tools while at the same time advancing a decidedly race conscious agenda. They abhor diversity. They don't like inclusion and the foolhardiness of them deciding. First of all, no one elected this court to decide what kind of remedies we need in this moment.
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Ellie Mistahl
The decision by the Supreme Court today on the Voting Rights act is an abomination. It is an attack on a crown jewel of our democracy.
- [26:26]
Joy Reid
Illinois is the proud home to having sent more black congresspeople to Washington than
- [26:34]
Ellie Mistahl
any other state in the country. The decision that was made today rather by the by SCOTUS about the Voting
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Joy Reid
Rights act is an attack on minorities across this country.
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Ellie Mistahl
We're not going to stand for it in Illinois.
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Gary Chambers Jr.
We're going to push back.
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Joy Reid
We have options for pushing back and
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Ellie Mistahl
that is under discussion with the legislature even today.
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Gary Chambers Jr.
And right now the dominant thing this country about is corruption. Yeah, we are a corrupt nation. We have a corrupt administration. We have a corrupt Supreme Court. In my opinion, my again, my opinion is this is the single most corrupt administration not ever. If you took all the corruption in every other administration before and you added it up, you wouldn't come close to what we had from 2017 to 2021. But just that was nothing compared to what you've seen from January of 2025 to Derby Day of 2026.
- [27:37]
Joy Reid
The Ragin Cajun speaking the true facts. This is a corrupt Supreme Court. I'm working on a substack that should be up later on tonight or first thing in the morning in which I will go through in detail just how corrupt these six right wing neo confederate members of the Supreme Court are. A little bit later in the show, we're going to talk with some people who are planning responses to this and we're going to have three expert voices as well on what the plan is to undo this whole nightmare. Before I get to that and a couple other things, I want to let you all know that we do have a wonderful sponsor that is making this show possible. The Joy Reach show is brought to you tonight by Helix. So just so that you know, Helix is the mattress that we now use Jason and myself and it is a game changer when it comes to being able to sleep comfortably. If you're a side sleeper, if you got the numb arm, all the things that come from not sleeping well, it's a game changer to be able to finally get good sleep. It's really particularly important. Upgrading your home with a Helix mattress is a way to think of to deal with things like spring allergies. It's a way to deal with things like not being able to get good night's sleep in terms of insomnia, all of those things. They have about 20 mattress models so that you can find the perfect model for you. You take a little sleep quiz and they help match you to exactly what you need. They're also offering free shipping, seamless delivery, a 120 night sleep trial and a limited lifetime warranty. This Happy with Helix guarantee means you're going to be happy with that mattress or they will take it back and give you a refund. It's an award winning, incredible mattress. It will change your life to sleep better. Go to helixsleep.com joy for 20% 27% off site wide. This offer is exclusive to the Joy read show audience that is helixsleep.com joy which is for 20 off site wide. Make sure that you enter our show name after checkout so that they know that we sent you helix sleep.com joy okay, so Brandon Carr, the guy who wrote the FCC the chapter on in the, I want to call it the Handmaid's tale in Project 2025 about how to break the FCC. He is now threatening to find unnamed networks. Think Jimmy Kimmel's ABC for unnamed violations. Think Jimmy Kimmel. If they don't act right here he is on the table. I mean ultimately whether we pull a license for a big broadcaster like that will be decided by their own conduct.
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Ellie Mistahl
I'd be surprised if we ultimately don't
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Joy Reid
go down the path of license revocation for some, but it will be up to them in their own conduct. Joining me now is Clayton Wiemers, the North America director for Reporters Without Borders. Because we are in a stressful situation in all things, but in terms of press freedom and media freedom, it's particularly fraught. Thank you for being here, Clayton.
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Clayton Wiemers
Thank you for having me. And I'm glad you brought up that Brendan Carr penned the chapter in Project 2024 because man, that feels like a long time ago. But it shouldn't really be that surprising that they're doing all the things they said they would do.
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Joy Reid
Exactly and doing it systematically because they're painting by numbers. Right. They wrote down the way they were going to break the fcc and he's doing it. But I want to zoom out from, I want to zoom out from that. You guys have a press freedom inde and I want to let you explain it and walk us through it because it feels like in every way we have lost ground when it comes to being a country that people think of as a free country when it comes to speaking in the press. So we're going to put this press freedom index up. As we think about the fact that Brendan Carr is saying if these networks don't act right, they're going to lose their licenses or be fined. Please explain this map. It is a freedom of the press worldwide index.
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Gary Chambers Jr.
Yeah.
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Clayton Wiemers
So my organization, Reporters Without Borders, we're an international ngo. I run the US based North American outfit, part of it and we compile the data year after year on press freedom in 180 different countries and then we rank them all and we release it every year. We released the 2026 edition yesterday and as of 2026 the US has hit an all time low in press freedom. We're now ranked 64, fourth in the world out of 180 countries. And as you can see on the map, we're in that orange group of countries where you want to be is green. And unfortunately there are fewer and fewer green countries at this point. More than half the world's population lives in one of those red or dark orange countries where there is virtually no press freedom, where it's genuinely very dangerous to do journalism. And unfortunately the United States is trending in that direction.
- [32:00]
Joy Reid
Loretta, put the next slide. Jason, if you could, because this is where we got to the numbers. And it's interesting, Clayton, that when I opened this chart, you know, I'm not saying I had the best vision in the world, but I was like, I can't find the United States. I kept going through and trying to find us. There we are in row three. If you guys can squint and see where we are. This is a bad place. We have talk about the fact that we are. The European countries are like the, what, six or seven countries that are in green? There are very few left in green. We are down here, you know, close to Israel is worse off than us, but they're. There are other countries worse off than us. China is obviously worse off than us. But talk about the countries that surround us and where we stand.
- [32:42]
Clayton Wiemers
Yeah, well, I think sometimes this is very surprising for people because as Americans, we really do value the First Amendment, or at least we say we do. And we have press freedom enshrined right there in that First Amendment. In fact, journalism is really the only profession that gets called out specifically in the Bill of Rights. That should say something about our values. And yet we really seem to have, have taken our eye off the ball on this one. And you know, it's, it would be really tempting to say this is all Donald Trump's fault and clearly the drop this year is in due large part to the actions of his administration. But frankly, last year we were at 57th and that's not great either. And so that tells me is we've got a structural deficiency on our hands. That is not a Trump problem. It's not a one politician problem. It's not a one election will save us problems. It is something that we have to solve as a country if we really do value press freedom. And I think it's time to have that hard conversation now. I don't wanna let Trump off the hook too much here. He is the one pouring gas on the fire, but the fire was already burning.
- [33:46]
Joy Reid
And just to let you all know, I mean, we are behind Japan, Botswana, Mauritania, Tonga, Armenia, Romania, Croatia, South Korea. We're behind Ukraine. Well, behind Ukraine, Italy. Italy. So the only other country sort of down there in that C grade category with us. I mean, we're beating Hungary. I mean, that's small comfort that we're still beating them. But can you talk about the specific things that have changed between the Biden era and the Trump era to knock us down even further?
- [34:25]
Clayton Wiemers
So really, the thing we've been tracking in the past year is what I, what I would call an all out campaign against press freedom that the Trump administration has unleashed. And I'm talking about things like defunding public media entirely, taking away money from NPR and pbs, but also going after the international broadcasters, Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia. And now this month, he's been going after Stars and Stripes, so targeting the media for our servicemen and women. He banned the AP from the White House because they don't want to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. He's doing a number of media outlets. He's weaponized the DOJ to go after journalists he doesn't like. The FBI showed up at the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Nathanson and took her to work and personal devices and still has them and won't give them back. The DOJ is also going after Don Lemon and Georgia Ford. For reporting in Minnesota. They still have charges pending against them. He's weaponized the fcc, as you pointed to earlier in this segment with Brendan Carr, turning what should be an independent federal agency into a political arm of the MAGA movement. That's really, really startling. He's using it to go after critics and try to stifle speech. And that's the stuff that we see in places like Hungary. It's the stuff we've seen in places like Russia and Turkey, and we do not want to be heading in that direction.
- [35:42]
Joy Reid
How, how much, you know, onus do you put on these media organizations themselves? I mean, many of them are now owned by oligarchs who have business before the regime that want to curry favor with the President and that seem to be actively seeking to comply. I think about CBS, which is gutting itself, gutting its own premier program, 60 Minutes. That's CBS doing it to itself. ABC and other companies. Paying Donald Trump, the guy who owns the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, his company, paying what amounts to a bribe to the first lady to do a documentary, which is basically just a handoff of cash to her. How much is the fault of the administration and how much onus is on the media itself for complying?
- [36:26]
Clayton Wiemers
Well, I don't want to sound like a broken record, but this is another thing we've seen before. You know, one of the first things Viktor Orban did in Hungary was make sure that his cronies were at the heads of major media companies. And, you know, that looks a lot like what's going on with Donald Trump putting his thumb on the scale for the Ellisons to buy up any media company they seem to have their eyes on any particular day, whether it's paramount or, you know, whatever is going to come next. But I would agree that the owners of the media themselves have a lot of responsibility here. I've always said that if you're going to. To be in the business of telling the news, you've also got to be in the business of defending the First Amendment. And if you're not willing to do that, you should get out of the news business. I don't want to paint too broad a brush here. The media, you know, I hate talking about the media because there's no such thing as the media. It's so many different people with different motivations and different experiences. But we've seen some startling examples of companies that have the means to. To defend themselves against this bullying, choose to not defend themselves. And then Disney paid a $15 million settlement or bribe that you might even call it to make their problems go away. So did cbs. But I think the Disney board of directors is probably asking themselves right now, was it really worth it? What did we buy ourselves? Certainly no goodwill from the President or the fcc, because here we are, right back where we started with Kimmelgate 2.0.
- [37:53]
Joy Reid
Yeah.
- [37:53]
Clayton Wiemers
Jimmy Kimmel's not a journalist. But if they can do it to Jimmy Kimmel, they can do it to George Stephanopoulos just the same way. And so at the end of the day, what's at stake here is media freedom, not whether or not a comedian can tell a joke and whether the president can take a joke.
- [38:07]
Joy Reid
Yeah. Which he can't. And we are losing our media freedoms. I want to make sure I pronounce your name right, because journalism is also accuracy. Is it Weimers? Tell me how to pronounce your name right.
- [38:15]
Clayton Wiemers
It's Weimers.
- [38:16]
Joy Reid
It's Weimers. All right, Clayton Weimers, thank you so much for being here. For. Please keep us posted on all developments in terms of media freedom. We appreciate you.
- [38:23]
Clayton Wiemers
Yeah, I appreciate being here.
- [38:25]
Joy Reid
Thank you very much. So there we have it. Everyone we are in a country that has. Is starting to trend in the direction of Hungary. Great. That's just great. Right after the White House Correspondence center, which was supposed to celebrate press freedom. And who doesn't love that? All right, who doesn't remember? Who remembers? I want to let you guys ask you guys, who remembers this ad? This is C1. Play this.
- [38:46]
Gary Chambers Jr.
For we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal. But here in Louisiana and all over the South, Jim Crow never really left. And the remnants of the Confederacy remain. In 1873, when a black man named P.B.S. pinchback won a U.S. senate race, he was never seated. They claimed election fraud. The attacks against black people, our right to vote and participate in this democracy are methodical.
- [39:11]
Ellie Mistahl
Jesus.
- [39:11]
Gary Chambers Jr.
Gerrymandered districts are a byproduct of the Confederacy. Our system isn't broken. It's designed to do exactly what it's doing, which is producing measurable inequity. One in 13 Black Americans are deprived of the right to vote. One in nine Black Americans do not have health insurance. One in three Black children live in poverty. It's time to burn what remains of the Confederacy down. I do believe the south will rise again, but this time, it'll be on our terms.
- [39:41]
Joy Reid
That is really my favorite ad from the 2022 election cycle. That, of course, was Gary Chambers Jr. S opening ad in his United States Senate campaign. And it was it was not just. It was a literal fire ad. Right. He burned a Confederate flag in the ad, got a lot of attention for it. And it is literally the energy I believe that we need to have in this moment and after that Louisiana vs Calais decision. Because what you're seeing is a Supreme Court trying to resurrect the Confederacy and Confederate ideals. It is a neo Confederate Supreme Court majority and a neo Confederate Republican party. So ironic given the fact that the Republican Party originally was the party that was the anti slavery party, but the current party is vehemently anti black, even as they have some pets like Byron Donald's willing to go along with it and of course Clarence Thomas. But it has decided to center black people as the people who have to be removed from the ability to vote for the people of their choice because they know that's the surest route to ensuring permanent Republican right wing corporate Epstein class rule. And after that Calais decision, the old south, the neo Confederate south, didn't waste a minute. They wasted no time getting right down to business. I want to show you guys the, the potential map of what this country could look like if every Southern state does what we think they're going to do. It would go from the left, which is Democrats holding 24 seats in the old Confederacy, to Democrats holding 12 fewer. And if you look at that map, you can see the states in which Democrats would have no seats. That includes the states of Mississippi and Florida. And I mean Florida, maybe they'd have one or two. It includes Mississippi, Alabama. There will be no seats. And Mississippi is a state that is one third black, one third black. Louisiana and Mississippi would have zero black representation in Congress. Neither would Tennessee. It goes to zero. You see that it would go to zero in states that have. And I want to remind you as you look at this map that more than 50% of African Americans live in those states that you're looking at. More than half of black people live in the south. And more than half of black Americans would then live in a part of the country in which multiple states. South Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, in South Carolina. In those states, African Americans would be represented by zero African Americans. I did my little TikTok the other day or my little Instagram post and people thought I was being over the top when I tell you they're trying to zero out black representation, period. Louisiana already canceled an existing ongoing vote. The vote for the. The primaries have started already. Louisiana has said. Louisiana governor said we're canceling that. Tennessee Republicans are eyeing a new redraw as well. That would eliminate the one and only Democratic held seat, just one in the whole state of Tennessee. Not to be outdone, Ron DeSantis in the Great state of Florida has proposed a new map that would all but wipe out Democratic representation. I want you to listen to one state senator responding to that. This is C3 maps go beyond just being illegal. These maps are racist.
- [43:38]
Ellie Mistahl
Democratic Orlando State Senator Carlos Guillermo Smith.
- [43:41]
Joy Reid
They break up the Puerto Rican and Hispanic community in Central Florida into little pieces. They break up the black and African American community across the state to intentionally dilute those communities voting power. More than 150 people signed up to
- [43:58]
Ellie Mistahl
speak to the redistricting committee, almost all
- [44:00]
Joy Reid
of them in opposition. Let's not make it worse by having
- [44:04]
Narrator/Reporter
the complete lack of transparency to allow the voters to be able to look at it. Thank you for your it should be rejected.
- [44:11]
Joy Reid
What part of no do you not understand?
- [44:15]
Ellie Mistahl
Governor Ron DeSantis is under intense pressure from the President to win approval of
- [44:20]
Joy Reid
the Governor's new congressional map. It could give Republicans up to four
- [44:24]
Ellie Mistahl
more seats in Congress.
- [44:26]
Joy Reid
Both the state Senate, President, Senate GOP members and Republicans in the state House
- [44:31]
Ellie Mistahl
have indicated they're on board with the
- [44:33]
Joy Reid
governor's plans and they have the votes to approve it. The Governor drew a map and it is our job to entertain that map,
- [44:39]
Justin J. Pearson
to debate it, to converse it and
- [44:40]
Ellie Mistahl
to eventually vote on it.
- [44:42]
Joy Reid
That's what this body is going to
- [44:43]
Ellie Mistahl
do and everyone in this chamber is
- [44:45]
Joy Reid
going to have an opportunity to ask questions, to have debate and eventually to vote either in favor or in opposition. Joining me now, joining me now is Ellie Mostall, justice correspondent at the Nation. His latest piece is entitled the Supreme Court has completed its quest to kill the Voting Rights Act. We're going to link to it in the description of this show. Also joining us is State House member Justin Pearson, member of the Tennessee House of Representatives 86 district. He is running for Congress in what would have been Tennessee's 9th congressional district, which apparently was no longer exist so there will be no Democratic representatives. Also joining us is Jasmine Bernie Clark. She's the founder of Equal Ground Education Fund and Action Fund who are fighting for black representation in the great state of Florida. And also joining us, the aforementioned, the man who lit the Confederate flag on Fire in 2022 and who we would love to see do the same again, Gary Chambers, junior advocate, thought leader, entrepreneur and change agent. What a fantastic panel. A dream panel on this Friday. Thank you all for being here. I don't even know where to start first, so I'm just going to do what I would would normally do on on Miss now and just go to Ellie. Ellie, go off.
- [46:01]
Ellie Mistahl
The Voting Rights act is the single most important piece of legislation in American history. It is the most effective piece of civil rights legislation in American history. Before the 1965 Voting Rights act, this was an apartheid country. This was a country where people who were living here had no right and no ability to participate in the democratic self government that the white folks did. After the 1965 Voting Rights act we didn't suddenly become post racial utopia. No, no, no. There was still white supremacy, there was still racism. But the Voting Rights act allowed for the first time in American history black people and brown people to have a chance at participation in and democratic self government. And boy did we flood the zone with that chance. They opened a crack and we punched in the door. In 1964 there were four black representatives in Congress. In 1968, just after the passage of the act that doubled to nine. Today there are 67 black people in Congress. There are 56 Latinos in Congress. The Voting Rights act also had a huge impact on the representation of women in Congress. Before the the Voting Rights act there were 13 women in Congress. Today there are 157 women in Congress. And the Republicans hate it. They've always hated it. They hate the idea of black and brown and female political power. And the Voting Rights act is the thing that allows that power to happen. Which is why the six Republicans on the Supreme Court killed it this week. And that is where we are.
- [47:48]
Joy Reid
That is where we are. State Representative Justin J. Pearson, you are running for the seat that apparently according to your Republican colleagues should not exist. Go off.
- [47:59]
Justin J. Pearson
Yeah. Look, this is racism being codified into legislation. We've been called back into session this upcoming Tuesday and we're going to put fight with everything that we possibly can because we're going to see the greatest dilution, not only black political power, but black representation likely since we saw the retribution period in American history after Reconstruction. This is devastating to a community where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Was assassinated, where Ida B. Wells Barnett was fighting to in lynching against black people in the United States of America. And in the state where the Ku Klux Klan was actually founded, the vestiges of racism, the vestiges of bigotry continue to show up. And that's what we're being asked to endorse. Majority white maps are somehow okay for us, but to have one singular majority black district, to have one singular Democratic district in our state is wrong. And in this moment in time, where obviously I'm in the race for the US Congress as a black representative. We know that this is very particularly and acutely targeted toward our community, toward our district.
- [48:59]
Joy Reid
And the person that's holding that seat right now isn't even black. So he's not. And so the reality is they're not even limiting it. They're saying that there should be no Democrats in the state of Tennessee in the United States Congress. So let's just be clear about that. Let's go to Florida. Jasmine. Bernie Clark, thank you and welcome to the show. You're fighting for something that I fought for in my own way as a member of the media in Florida. And it was not easy. It's a very difficult state post Obama to rouse the black electorate in Florida. They were there for Obama two times. After that. They peaced out. So it's Europe go off.
- [49:37]
Jasmine Bernie Clark
Florida is a difficult state. It is a hard state to work in, but it's a state worth fighting for. And I think it's worth fighting for because we are sitting at a stage where we are at the second bite at the apple here under Governor DeSantis. Prior to the Calais case in 2022, Governor DeSantis cut black congressional representation in half by 50%, taking away elected representation for anyone who lived in the middle of the state, which is Orlando, up to the northern point of the state of Florida. So we have already seen what it looks like to have black representation just stripped from our hands. And this week, the governor submitted a brand new map 24 hours before the special session took place on Fox News, by the way, submitted it to Fox before he submitted it to a state legislature where he stripped away four of the eight Democratic seats in the state of Florida. He caused a near chaos, if you will, not only amongst Democrats, but amongst his own party who have been asking him not to do this because not only is it unprecedented, it's illegal. Florida has the Fair District's amendments which mean you cannot draw maps based on partisan, you know, preference or based on race. And this governor has done both of those things. And at the foundation of democracy, you know, the principle is self governance and the idea that people govern themselves and their consent and collective decision making should obviously shape the laws. But that is not what is happening here in this state. And while this week's ruling obviously set a dangerous precedent and further eroded one of the most important civil rights protections in modern US History, it is not a mandate for states like Florida to continue to strip voters of their rights. And that is what we are seeing under Governor DeSantis leadership. And in his final term, he certainly put the nail in the coffin by stripping away even more protections and rights by eliminating four of those eight congressional Democratic seats in the state of Florida.
- [51:38]
Joy Reid
Gary Chambers, you know, I believe these, all of these so called leaders in these neo Confederate states to be wicked. But your governor, your governor is a special kind of evil in my personal opinion. He reversed some of the really great gains that Louisiana had begun to make in terms of being an incarcerated state. He would say, yeah, he's like no more. That we're just going to throw people in prison again. And no one, I think has fought harder than you to try to rouse black voters in the great state of Louisiana to live up to their legacy. So I'm gonna go ahead and give you the floor. Good brother, go ahead and go off.
- [52:18]
Gary Chambers Jr.
You know, Joy 1, I thank you for having the conversation. I think that those who thought that we were too extreme, we were too loud, we were too bombastic when we were saying that these issues need to be addressed. When they decided that they would expel two black men in Tennessee from their seat in the state legislature, we should have knew that we should have made Tennessee a priority when they decided that they would sue us in the middle of this situation to get our congressional districts, where Louisiana only had one black congressional district, though we make up a third of the state that we had to sue to even get this seat. And in the first term that it exists, you're suing to take it away. But if you had been paying attention to Louisiana before, the architects of Project 2025 did his dissertation on Reconstruction, Reconstruction and slavery in Louisiana. So this is the blueprint. This is ground zero. You have number one in the House and number two in the House from Louisiana. And there's no serious investment coming to this state to unseat them. And so the question I have for the Democratic Party, for the CBC is what you gonna do now? Are you ready to get down to the deep south and camp out and expose the bigots in the Tennessee legislature, Expose the busy bigots in the Louisiana legislature, Expose the bigots in the Florida legislature so that the people know who to put the hell out of office? Because the only way that we are going to win now is to take back control of state government. Florida has a governor's race up. Tennessee has a governor's race up. Louisiana has a governor's race up next year. If it's the fight you want, then you got one. Let's go.
- [53:54]
Joy Reid
Amen to that. We beat the Confederates the first time, Ellie. It's very quick, very clear. They can be beaten. But I want to zero in on the Democrats there because the question of what do we do now, part of it runs through the fact we know Republicans control both houses of Congress. But number two, in the House, the person that Gary was talking about, he called himself David Duke without the baggage. They're not even hiding who they are. He called himself that. I didn't call him David Duke without the baggage. He called himself David Duke without the baggage. Steve Scalise. So that's what we're dealing with on that side. What are we dealing with on the Democratic side? And what can they do?
- [54:29]
Ellie Mistahl
Yeah. So let's talk about why you and I are not on Ms. Now just at the moment.
- [54:33]
Joy Reid
Right.
- [54:36]
Ellie Mistahl
Dick Durbin, you started your segment with Dick Durbin, who's like, oh, look at these maps that we're going. Yes, Dick, that is what they've always been promising. So in 2021, when you had the House, the Senate and the White House and people were begging you to kill the filibuster and pass the John Lewis Voting Rights act, what did you think we were complaining about? What did you think we were screaming about? We were screaming about stopping this from happening. When I'm talking about expanding the Supreme Court and adding pro democracy justices to undercut the 6:3 conservative supermajority, why do you think I'm making that argument? Why do you think that I'm up your ass with that argument? It's to stop things like what we saw on Wednesdays, to stop everything that we're doing, talking about on this panel, that the time to stop that was 2021, when Biden took office and the Democrats had both houses and they did nothing to stop this. And now, in the words of Al Gore, we are living in the time of consequences. So what do we do going forward? We have to work extremely hard to get back in 2029 to where we were in 2021. And if by miracles, if by blood, sweat and tears from people on the ground, from black folks, brown folks, women folks on the ground, if through some miracle we get back in 2029 to where we were in 2021, with control of the White House and both houses of Congress, we have to pass legislation, we have to do what we should have done, we have to pass, we have to restore the Voting Rights act, we have to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights act, that would not just take back what the court did on Wednesday in Calais, but also take back what they did in Burnovich which eliminated the ability of individuals to sue for civil rights violations under section 2 of the Voting Rights act and to take back what John Roberts did and Shelby County v. Holder and bring back pre clearance and restore the voting, just the voting fairness in this country. That would be job number one. Job number two is to expand the Supreme Court because even, even at this point, if you pass something like the John Lewis Voting Rights act, the conservatives on the Supreme Court have made it very clear they will just strike that down before breakfast. They don't care if you, you read the decision. Don't forget Thomas and Gorsuch wrote a concurrence. You know Thomas, the Clarence, sometime it be your own people. Thomas and Neil Gorsuch wrote a concurrence saying they would dissolve the Voting Rights act outright. Why are we even pussyfooting around here? They would just get rid of the Voting Rights act outright. So if we're going to pass. So first we have to pass legislation and then we have to pack the court with enough people who will uphold the legislation. And I've been saying that since 2021. I've been saying that since before 2021. Hopefully in 2029. I don't know, people will get it. People like Dick Durbin won't be there and hopefully people will get it. But the only way forward is through at this point because the Democrats did not do enough to prevent this from happening when they had the very small chance to stop this from happening.
- [57:42]
Joy Reid
Representative Pearson, what is the, the gentleman, Representative Cohen, saying that he's going to do right now? Anything.
- [57:48]
Justin J. Pearson
He isn't saying he's going to do anything. He's doing what he always does, which is send a press release and a statement and maybe show up to a press conference. But we're going to organize, we're going to mobilize, we're going to activate our community. I'm working right now to plan a march from Memphis to Nashville over the weekend. And we need folks to go to defend district9.com Sign our petition to the House, the Senate and the governor demanding that we do not have racist maps, that we preserve our district and we preserve our right to participate in this democracy. And to the point, Democrats who've been in Congress this whole time, when Democrats were in power most recently and before dropped the ball, they missed the opportunity to actually protect our democracy because they got complacent with the way that things are. They were comfortable in the seats that they were in and the money that they were getting. From lobbyists and corporate PACs. And they did not fight to preserve our constitutional rights. And now here we are. And so we're in a fight, literally for our lives, waking up in a country where we have fewer rights than we did and our ancestors did in 1964. This is a scary time, but we can't pretend anymore. We have to activate, we have to work, we have to mobilize, and that's what we're doing. And that's what leadership I'm going to bring to Congress when we win this race, too.
- [58:52]
Joy Reid
Jasmine, you know, in your state, we know Byron Donald is giving Donald Trump an A for his handling of the economy. So I presume he has no problem. He's junior Clarence Thomas. I'm sure he's fine with this. And all four, by the way, black Republicans are out. They're all running for other offices. They're gonna be zero black Republicans anyway, of their own volition. So for you, is Byron Donald's seat something that your pack is gonna be focusing on, trying to flip? Like, what is the breadth of what you all are trying to do? Are you going to try to salvage the seats that are there to try to win whatever is left, or are you going to go after the seats like the ones that he is vacating in Florida to run for governor?
- [59:32]
Jasmine Bernie Clark
You know, I think it's a priority to focus on all fronts in the state of Florida at this particular juncture. The fact that the Democratic Party has divested from Florida, the national Democratic Party has divested from Florida nearly 300% since the 2020 presidential election. You saw a $50 million budget and investment in the state of Florida compared to a $5 million investment in Florida when the Kamala Harris campaign was set up here in the state, That's a significant divestment, which means we are on our own. And so, yes, it is looking at what Byron Donald's seat or what the Republican Democratic apparatus, sort of Republican and Democratic apparatus looks like in the state of Florida for the gubernatorial election. But it also means looking at all of the seats down the entire ballot. We cannot just singularly point to one specific separate and prioritize that. We have to look at the entire ballot. My main concern, however, is when Democrats get power, will we know what to do with it and will we know how to use it? What will we do, what will we prioritize and what will we make sure is a significant change for the Floridians here in this state of Florida? Specifically, what will be material changes for people in this state? When they have been down bad for so long under this particular administration. Right. Where Governor DeSantis has passed voter suppression laws every single year since he has been elected. We have not seen anything different and we have not seen any safety net coming from the Democratic Party both nationally or in state. There is also not a plan here in the state of Florida. So it's on black voters, it's on brown voters, it's on youth in this state to come together and figure out what it is that we want to prioritize and how we also do that together in our organization where works primarily with black and brown people across the state of Florida. That 150 people you saw in the Florida legislature are the folks that we put on buses at 3am in the morning and brought them into the Florida Capitol because they wanted to ensure that their names were on the record, that their stories were on the record, that they could look their legislators in the face and tell them that this was not right. And that's what we are going to continue to do. We've been taking folks to the legislature for the past five years and we will not see stop doing that at the state, at the county level or the city level either. It's really about the grassroots work now again, because we are on our own.
- [61:44]
Joy Reid
Gary, you know, if Florida voters are demoralized, Louisiana voters, you do this on your Instagram, like I follow like every other day. It feels like you're posting the low turnout, the sort of exhaustion factor. People just don't turn out most of the time. What can be done about that? Because the only way to pay these people back is to vote out these people like Landry's up next year. Is there going to be enough energy in Louisiana to put a Democrat in there? And what kind of Democrat, what is the state of the Democratic Party in Louisiana? Don't seem like it's that great.
- [62:16]
Gary Chambers Jr.
The state of the Democratic Party in Louisiana is broke. And so if the country wants to do something right now for Louisiana, you can fund the Democratic Party, you can fund Power Coalition, you can fund Voices of the Experience. They are people and organizations. I'm going to go out this summer and do my civics for the people summer sessions so that we can engage people around the state. Right now there's an election that's early voting starts on tomorrow in Louisiana. The governor has five constitutional amendments on the ballot. We should try to do everything we can to turn out every black voter in Louisiana to kill his five constitutional amendments. If people from around the country want to Talk. Tell everybody in Louisiana right now to show up so starting tomorrow and vote the governor's constitutional amendments now so that you can give him a message that you can do what you want to down there, but your days are numbered. We are sending you home. We are preparing a way for you to do whatever you want to do but be governor.
- [63:11]
Joy Reid
What do we have to do to get you to run for governor, Gary, next year?
- [63:15]
Gary Chambers Jr.
I think the country needs to spend money in this state. I think that the Democratic Party needs to invest in the state. If the Democratic Party party wants to get people like me to take a statewide run again, they need to invest in Scott Colomb in Mississippi right now who's running against Cindy Hyde Smith who can be beat. And they have, 38% of that state is black. You have black folks that are in. So if 38% of the state is black and if you invest the dollars there the way that you did in Wisconsin where you didn't win, the way that you did in Pennsylvania where you didn't win, you have a higher probability of getting black people where black men vote for you over 80% and black women vote for you over 90% to get a higher yield out of the investment that you put there. And then you only need 15 to 20% of sensible, forward thinking white people to join you in order to take the state legislature in Mississippi and get the veto power to be able to minimize the impact of some of the things that these people intend to do. They have played the states rights game far better than we have and now it is biting us in the ass because we sit here playing this national game every day, acting like what is happening in these states is not going to crawl out of the states into our national politics. Now you've ignored Louisiana long enough and it's bit you in the ass. Are you going to let it cut your head off before you do something about it?
- [64:34]
Joy Reid
I mean they're, they're literally, they're talking about taking Clyburn seat. They're taking your leaders seats away, y'. All. They're going to take your own seats in a lot of these states. There's the one member in Mississippi. They're going to take that seat like hello Democrats, I'd have to ask you, I've gone over, I apologize, I've gone over in this second a little bit, but I can't stop this conversation right now. It's too important. Representative Pearson, have you gotten any national calls? Is national money calling you?
- [64:57]
Justin J. Pearson
We've been, we've been able to do some fundraising. But truly, we need more to the point of the resources. We haven't invested in the south, and that is part of the problem. We haven't built infrastructure in the South. And when you don't invest at the state level in the State House, the state Senate, you don't invest at county commission, you don't invest at city council level. I mean, literally, what it takes to run a gubernatorial race in Mississippi is probably what it takes to run one California congressional race. We just do not get the same resources because we aren't located in the right places. But as your map showed earlier, 50% of black people live in the South. The most significant demographic and voting block for Democrats are black folks in the South.
- [65:35]
Joy Reid
Right.
- [65:35]
Justin J. Pearson
This is what changed, ultimately, Joe Biden's ability to win the presidency, United States. What happened in South Carolina with black voters, we have not received the investments, the care, the concern, and the infrastructure that's necessary at every level of government. And so people opt out.
- [65:53]
Joy Reid
If you only show up during presidential
- [65:55]
Justin J. Pearson
elections, people opt out. And now you're seeing with these maps, we. Where is that being passed by the US Congress? No, that's being passed at the State House. Those are state senators, those are state House representative members that are making these decisions. And we haven't made the necessary investments over the. Over the long term.
- [66:12]
Ellie Mistahl
Yeah, I just asked Justin, remember, with these maps, because part of what they're doing with these maps is that they're trying to take your heart. They're trying to make you feel like there's no chance. Remember that all of these maps are based on a mathematical determination of. Of what turnout is going to be like.
- [66:29]
Ryan Reynolds
Right.
- [66:30]
Ellie Mistahl
And you can break any one of these gerrymanders with overwhelming turnout.
- [66:35]
Ryan Reynolds
They.
- [66:35]
Ellie Mistahl
They expect a certain number of people to show up.
- [66:38]
Joy Reid
Say it again. Wait, hold on, Ellie.
- [66:41]
Ellie Mistahl
More than more people show up than they expected.
- [66:43]
Joy Reid
Hold on, I'm rewinding you, Ellie. I need you to say that again. Does that sound so good? I need you to say it again. Repeat. Repeat it. Say it again.
- [66:50]
Ellie Mistahl
The gerrymanders are based on a mathematical determination of who is going to show up. And so you can defeat each and every one of these gerrymanders if you have overwhelming turnout. If they don't think that you're going to vote and then you show up and vote. That messes up their map. That messes up their math. Right. The math doesn't. Math. If you have overwhelming turnout. People have looked at the Texas map. Texas is black. Latinos vote about 60% for the Democratic Party. If Latinos show up in Texas and vote 80% for the Democratic Party, Latinos show up in Texas and vote for Democrats the way black people vote for Democrats. Texas is blue, baby. Like Texas is blue overnight, baby. And that's true for every state in the South. You can break these, these districts if you show up to vote. So don't let, don't let the red veil take your heart away. Don't let it. Don't let them make you feel like it's hopeless. Like there's no point in fact. All of those maps can be broken with lines around the block.
- [67:52]
Joy Reid
Jasmine, I need you to talk about Florida. I worked in Florida campaigns and in 04, we had no shot. Suddenly in 08, a black man named Barack Hussein Obama won that state. He then won it again in 2012, and black people were the turnout difference. Please talk about Florida because I think the whole Democratic Party has given up on Florida. Make the case why they should be spending money with your organization, with black voters matter with other organizations that can get Florida back.
- [68:21]
Jasmine Bernie Clark
Here's what we saw this week. We saw the entire nation look at Florida as an example of what could be possible if we were able to defeat a map. If we were able to turn away Governor Santos from being able to obtain four seats, then we could declare victory and help the rest of the nation. But we can't declare victory in a state where there has not been an investment. We cannot declare declare victory in a state where we have been abandoned. And there is an expectation that poof, suddenly we will be able to create something out of nothing. Now, don't get me wrong, black folks have been doing that for a very long time. And black folks in this state are tired. Their labor is not free and their votes are not free. They need the serious investment, but they also need a leader that they can believe in. They also need a party that they can trust in. They also need a party that they want to actively participate. And in the state of Florida, that's just not a real thing. This state party both have abandoned black and brown voters. And we are seeing that consistently election after election. If there is divestment, then you do not have participation. It's very simple math. You don't go to work if you don't get a paycheck. And that is what is happening in the state of Florida. I'll also add that this year's election is going to be interesting when it comes to the gubernatorial race because two black men are vying to be governor in the state of Florida. You have Rhonda. Excuse me, you have Byron Donald as a Republican, and you have Jerry Demings as the Democrat. Now, we both know the saying, all skin folk are kin folk. And so we know where these both gentlemen sit on the ends of each of the spectrum. But in a state where black diversity is being banned, DEI is being banned, where books are being banned, just a few months ago or years ago ago, you know, now all of a sudden, we have a gubernatorial election where a black man could be ruling the state. And that brings me deep concern because I don't know if black folks have the voter education information they need to decipher between a black face and white policies that are going to be backing him up.
- [70:16]
Joy Reid
And by the way, Jerry Demings is a sheriff. And if it goes down like Val Demings, his wife, who ran for the United States Senate instead of governor, which I think she should have run for, black folks were dismissing her because she's a cop. I want y' all to understand. You could say Jerry Demings is a cop, but he's a cop who cares about civil rights. The other one is Byron Donalds, who has decided to make himself the House pet of the Republican Party, let white men pat him on the head in the United States House of Representatives, and gave Donald Trump an A plus for his running of the economy. There's two black men. This is the Georgia situation again, where people were certain that Herschel Walker could, because he's a legendary football player, was going to win in Georgia. Georgia was red until it wasn't Georgia. It was impossible for Democrats to win statewide until it wasn't, until it was suddenly possible. And then suddenly they have two Democratic senators. Every state that is red is just a purple state that shifts one way or the other. All these states are purple. I'm going to give you the last word on this, Gary Chambers, Jr. Because I'm literally saying the stuff you say all the time when you're. I just might as well let you say it. Go ahead, brother. You get the last word.
- [71:18]
Gary Chambers Jr.
I think the answer for us now is that if there is a calvary to come, now's the time. I think that this is the most consequential moment in my lifetime. I'm 40 years old. I have not seen anything to this magnitude that will impact not just black people, but Hispanic people. It will impact white people eventually as well. Because the people who are down there fighting for your investments to stay, the people who are actually down there fighting for your wic, for your snap benefits, for your housing assistance. That is not the Jeff Landry's of the world or the Jeff Clander's of the world. That is not the Brian Kemps of the world. Those are the people who are putting the work restrictions on you to make it harder for you to be able to get assistance when you are already struggling. And so if you think that it's hard, it's going to get harder now. But the way that we stop this is to show up and find fight back today. If there ever was a time for us to fight, it is now. If I'm a member of the cbc, I'm quantifying how much inappropriations do the members of the CBC spend in each community each legislative session and give a dollar amount about what is going to change from your community when white Republican rule ends up making the decision about where those government appropriations go when it's not your people in there. Even if we don't agree on everything, if I pick the one that goes I know that my interests are at least being protected. There's nobody that's going to protect our interests better than us. So it's time we stand the hell up and fight to be for the ability to continue to protect our interests.
- [72:53]
Joy Reid
Let's let everybody give their websites. Gary, is there a place that people can reach out if they want to support what you do?
- [72:58]
Gary Chambers Jr.
You can go to all of my social media Gary Chambers Jr My links are in my bio.
- [73:02]
Joy Reid
Absolutely. Ellie Massall we know we can get you at the Nation. Give us your socials as well so people can follow.
- [73:07]
Ellie Mistahl
I'm on at L NYC on Blue Sky. I'm not really on the apartheid side anymore.
- [73:13]
Joy Reid
Same Representative Justin J. Pearson Tell us where we can where people can specifically donate to your campaign to make sure that you are elected.
- [73:23]
Justin J. Pearson
Thank you so much. Go to votejustinjay.com that's votejustinjay.com and on social media@justinj pearson. But vote justinjay.com please support, please give. And we're going to be using a number of those resources to defend our district.
- [73:36]
Joy Reid
We're going to put that link in the chat description as well. Jasmine, people in the chats are saying they love you just because your name is Jasmine and they love all Jasmines on this show and they said oh another Jasmine we can fall in love with. Please tell them where they can support what you are doing doing and donate and give to help you flip Florida.
- [73:57]
Jasmine Bernie Clark
So folks can visit my organization@equal-ground.com and then Equal Ground FL across all social media platforms. Your support is needed more than ever right now in the state of Florida. So we really appreciate it.
- [74:09]
Joy Reid
Jasmine, Bernie Clark, Gary Chambers, Jr. We got to give honor to the dad, Ellie Mistahl and Representative Justin J. Pearson, a super panel on this difficult Friday. Thank you all for making the time.
- [74:24]
Ellie Mistahl
Thank you for having us.
- [74:25]
Justin J. Pearson
God bless you.
- [74:26]
Joy Reid
Thank you. Thank you very much. Yes, go Justin. Listen, we went over on that segment because I think it is just very, very, very, very, very important that we had that full conversation because this is, this is what we're facing. This is the war that we're in. And when the other side declares war on you, as I've always said, you are at war. Welcome to hour two of the Joy Reid Show. Do be sure if you are enjoying what you're hearing, hit that like button, the subscribe button. Please help us with the algorithm. We can't do this work if we don't have algorithmic support. It's really important that you not lurk and that you actually join. And joining just means you don't have to subscribe for money. All you have to do is hit like and subscribe. If you want to join and become a team TJRS member or a reader, we appreciate that. We'd love it. If you want to become a premium member on Substack and do that Thursday fun thing with us where we talk in depth with people like the panel that you just saw there. You could do that too. Support us however you feel like it. Thanks to everybody who's thrown a little bit of coin in the tail to try to help make this independent media venture thrive. I want to let you all know that this hour of the Joy Reach show is brought to you by our
- [75:28]
Ellie Mistahl
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Joy Reid
Hexclad is high end cookware, but without the high end price to get in. Those hexclad pans are the ones that you've seen on your tv. They are the ones that you've seen with the chefs that you watch on television that you enjoy watching. The Gordon Ramsay's of the world. Gordon Ramsay himself uses hexclad at home as well as in his restaurants. And by the way, he is the toughest critic on the planet. He will cuss you out. All hexclad products come with a lifetime warranty. It's literally the last set of pots that you will ever have to buy. Their 12 piece set is the ultimate all in one cookware upgrade. With three versatile pans, two sauce pans and a family sized stock pot, each with its own lid, you will have every tool that you need to cook for a crowd or to master any recipe. Built with hexclad's patented hybrid technology and backed by a lifetime guarantee, that set is guaranteed to be the last cookware set that you will ever need. The easy release surface means that you do not have to use much oil or butter to get great results, which means it's better for your health as well. I cannot say enough about hexclad. It's like dream cookware. If you're looking for another great Mother's Day gift and your mom likes to cook and she's a foodie, that might be a place to go if you'd like to give it a try. For a very limited time, you can shop at Hexclad's Mother's Day sale for up to 49%. That's almost half off site wide and score big savings on their best selling sets. All you have to do is go to hexclad.com joy you can support our show and check them out at hexclat.com forward/joy. After your purchase, please make sure to let them know that we sent you at the Joy Reid Show. Celebrate Mother's Day with cookware that is as exceptional as your fabulous foodie mom is with hexclad. All right, so let me just really quickly play you a piece of sound that I thought was important for you to hear. And as you listen to this, note that the man you're about to hear is pulling 5,000 of our US troops out of Germany, which is part of our NATO commitment that we've made since World War II. Over the next six to 12 months, a bunch of them are coming home while they're also feeding slop to our members of the military. But let me let you hear him not answer a very key question about our upcoming elections. This is D1.
- [77:44]
Narrator/Reporter
We've never had to do that. So Secretary Hegseth, if the President who regrets not signing that executive order to the then sec. DEF in 2020 asks you to seize ballots or voting machines in states during the 2026 election, will you stand up for the Constitution and say no? Or will you salute and do his bidding?
- [78:08]
Joy Reid
Senator, I didn't get a chance to answer the front part of your question, which, you know, there was a lot of deferred maintenance under my administration that needed to be addressed because the world was in chaos. Just when president address the election issue, please. Well, again, that's the most important thing.
- [78:22]
Narrator/Reporter
It's what's happening.
- [78:23]
Joy Reid
It's yet another gotcha hypothetical, which is your special.
- [78:27]
Narrator/Reporter
It's not that.
- [78:27]
Joy Reid
We have and ultimately order under the Biden administration in 2024.
- [78:32]
Narrator/Reporter
It's not a hypothetical. I refuse to accept. You give that answer all the time. You and I have done this dance before. Get over it.
- [78:38]
Jasmine Bernie Clark
Okay.
- [78:39]
Narrator/Reporter
In 2020, he. He's the president. Your boss, the guy you're performing for right now, told the Journal this year that he wished he signed that executive order to your predecessor. And your predecessor said publicly, thank God, we didn't actually go forward with it. What are you gonna do? You're the guy here in the seat. It's not hypothetical. Tell the American people, will you deploy the uniform military to our polls to collect voter rolls or machines?
- [79:06]
Joy Reid
Are you accusing me of performing because you're performing for cable news right now. But, Mr. Secretary, it's a hypothetical. By the way, in 2024, under the Biden administration, 15 states did deploy under their governor's authority.
- [79:19]
Narrator/Reporter
When their governors asked, what did Jo
- [79:21]
Joy Reid
Biden say about that?
- [79:21]
Narrator/Reporter
Fundamentally, I don't think anything. Because he needed them for cybersecurity and for Covid. Trump did it too, under Trump, but it was not the federal decision. It was those governors of the states under their authorities. Okay? It's never been done in our history. Please stand up for the Constitution. Do not send uniform military to our polls.
- [79:42]
Joy Reid
That was Elisa Slotkin. You know, please do just answer the question. I think the answer there was yes, they are planning on using the United States military at the polls. Just yet another barrier. Eliminating African American held seats throughout the south, essentially wiping out black representation in Congress, including eliminating, in some cases the only Democratic seats that are held in Southern states, essentially turning the south back into the Confederacy, where every black and brown person is governed parentally by white Republican conservatives. That is Confederate behavior, clannish behavior. That's what's happening, ironically, by the party of Lincoln and at the same time threatening that those who are still not compliant, still not bending the knee, will face potentially the United States military on our soil, attempting to enforce eternal, perpetual Republican rule. Something John Roberts is clearly in favor of. You see where we're going. It is a complete Handmaid's tale operation. We're going to get to some of the solutions in this, in this hour, because there is a way to fight back. There are people who are working to fight back, and they're not all in the Democratic Party. Before I get to the guest. I want to thank a few of our amazing supporters. Wonder doggy giving us some thanks, saying, great panel. It helps. And throwing 1999 in the till. We appreciate you. Joanna in New York City, $50 saying great panel. Thank you very much. We appreciate you. Thank you so much for your support. DCTBG also $50 in the till. Try to help support this independent media venture. We appreciate all of your support, whether you're giving or not or just here or gifting memberships, whatever you're doing. We just appreciate every way that you all are showing up on today because the Republican Party has declared war on us. And the way I see it, if you declare war on me, I'm at war with you. So Republicans, you say you're at war with black voters. I'm a black voter. Then you're at war with me. So I'm going to give war right back. And I'm not alone in that. There are many people who are standing up and fighting back. One of the greats is the Working Families Party and its wonderful leader, Maurice Mitchell. I want you all to hear him at the D.C. may Day rally. And here he is. Go.
- [81:51]
Maurice Mitchell
In the richest country in the world, the cost of everything is going up while paychecks stay the same or go down. And the same people overcharging us and underpaying us now want to replace us with AI robots. And the people, the people of this country see it. They see how we somehow find the money for everything else. We find money for Trump's tax breaks for the wealthy. We find money for wars and coups. We have the resources to make sure every person who calls this country home has the things that they need to build a good life, to support their families, to leave something for their kids and grandkids. And so the Working families guarantee is what we're going to demand of the wealthy, of the well connected and politicians that are in their pockets.
- [82:41]
Joy Reid
And joining me now is the aforementioned Maurice Mitchell. Maurice Mitchell, nationally recognized social movement strategist, visionary leader in the movement for black lives, and the national director of the Working Families Party. Hey, Maurice, good to see you.
- [82:56]
Maurice Mitchell
Joy, it is such a, a joy to see you.
- [83:01]
Joy Reid
Listen, is anybody smiling in this era? I'm for them because I'm like this era. Everybody I know is mad, Maurice. Everybody's mad as hell. And on top of the fact that these neo confederates on the Supreme Court, including Uncle Clarence, have said now, y', all blacks don't need no districts, y' all don't need no Representation. Let the. Let the white conservatives represent you. They'll represent you. Fine. You'll be fine. On top of that, the same people who are trying to take over the entire south and put it all back in the hands of white Christian nationalists are also saying, by the way, workers, you're not going to have jobs anymore. Because Sam Altman and Elon and Peter Thiel, they about to replace y' all asses with robots. So the robots get the jobs, the women go the hell back home and churn butter. And I don't know what they think the white men are going to do because they said they're supposed to take over the country, but they're not going to have jobs either. So what does it do? So please, please explain. The Great Replacement has begun.
- [83:54]
Maurice Mitchell
Oh, absolutely. And here's the. Here's the kicker. The folks who fell in love with the Great Replacement Theory because they thought it was about race did not completely understand who authored the Great Replacement Theory and who they were replacing. They were replacing all of us.
- [84:15]
Joy Reid
Everybody.
- [84:16]
Maurice Mitchell
Everyone. And so I actually think that we are at a fork in the road as humanity.
- [84:24]
Joy Reid
Right.
- [84:24]
Maurice Mitchell
This is in some ways bigger than partisanship.
- [84:26]
Joy Reid
Yes.
- [84:27]
Maurice Mitchell
This is deep. This is a moment where we're actually entering a new era. Like the Industrial Revolution. It feels.
- [84:34]
Joy Reid
Yes. And by the way, I'm sorry, I want to let you. I'm rewinding, people. I'm like a DJ tonight. I'm rewinding, folks. I got to rewind you again. Like, I had to rewind. I need to say it again. Because at this point, and one of the reasons I love having you on it literally is no longer about party. Like, it's literally. Forget the Democrat and Republican thing. There are neo confederates and people who are complicit with that. Even in the Democratic Party. Let's just be clear. And there are people who are against the Confederacy just now as they were back then. Doesn't matter. They switched party labels. The party that's doing it is the party named after the party of Lincoln. They took the same name. They put the disguise of the Republican Party. They're wearing the skin of the Republican Party, but inside are just the same old ass Confederates. The same Confederate ass people. The Klan took off the robes and put on a suit. And then they said, now I'm a Republican. And they're like a Republican. It's like, yeah, Lincoln's rolling his grave. He was racist too. And so the reality is, it's like the labels are so meaningless. The Working Families Party is the one party whose name actually means what it says. So say it again. This is not about party. This is about. Go ahead, Sandy.
- [85:37]
Maurice Mitchell
This is so much bigger. This is. And look, I'm going to test your audience because this is bigger than party, is bigger than ideology. And the Working Families Party is the party to ensure that government works for working people at a time when there's one party that is controlled by those neoconservatives, those neoc confederates. And those neo confederates are being fueled and supported by, by a small group, like literally a handful of oligarchs, of tech oligarchs who believe in this crazy dark enlightenment idea that is anti human. Right? You could look it up. This is what they believe. They don't believe in humanity. They believe in the robots and the machines. That's one party, right? But then you have this other party that is a status quo party, right? And they're also fueled by status quo billionaires and oligarchs. We have a problem because there is a pissed off majority that disagrees with both of them that disagrees with the status quo, which basically says that things are basically okay. Right, let's go back to how things were and disagrees with the anti human confederates, anti black people, right? There's a majority of people who agree that yes, we want in the richest country in the history of the world to we should have guaranteed health care, we should have childcare, we should tax the wealthy to afford all those things. We should have time with our family. And so it's bigger than party because we're at a fork in the road as humanity. And in one direction is Sam Altman's fever dreams where they just want to colonize our minds and colonize the collective intelligence of humanity and then replace us. And then on the other fork of the road is a pro human future where we could invest all those resources not in bombs in Iran, not in bombs in Gaza, but in education, in our children in the commons so that we could all thrive. That's what's ahead of us. And that's one of the reasons why we build the Working Families party because we know there is a pissed off majority that we might disagree on a thing here and there, but when we see the Epstein files and we see that by it that we're all, all of us, when we hear about how AI is, is is just buying up space for their data centers and driving up our utility prices and, and corrupting our air and water so that they could have more data centers so that they could fuel AI that wants to replace Us on our jobs. Most people, Republicans, Democrats, independents, black, white, Latino, we reject it. But that neocon Confederacy, what it does is it creates this sort of, like, shell game where it tries to convince some white folks that they are actually in it for them. They're in it for them. And what they seek to do is settle scores against us. But all of that is just a divide and conquer strategy so they can replace all of us with the rope.
- [88:54]
Joy Reid
That's right. That's right. I mean, we'll. We'll be fighting each other over whether some random trans kid that you'll never meet can play soccer. We'll be fighting to the death over that. That. That. That nameless, faceless child that you'll never meet while they're literally replacing both sides of that argument. Everyone who's in that fight, when I tell y' all, that has nothing to do with what these people want to do to you. While y' all fighting about that, they want you to fight about that. They're like, oh, shiny keys. Fight about the trans kids playing soccer. And while you're worried about which trans kid is swimming in the swim meet, they are replacing you. The. The woman you think should be homework, and she gonna be. Everyone's getting replaced, guys, we're all chattel. These people believe in the original system of the country in which there was chattel slavery. They just think everyone's chattel. Instead of just the blacks, Everybody's chattel in the end game of this. And they're using the media lie to you. The poor military. They're using the military and then feeding them slop. They don't even feed them. They don't even respect those people enough to give them a good meal. Put your family. Jason, please put back up this guarantee. You guys have a working families guarantee. Can you walk us through this? As Jason puts it back on screen. Go ahead. Walk us through what the guarantee is that you all are talking about.
- [90:06]
Maurice Mitchell
And I want to be clear. Like, look, we believe that in this moment of crisis, we need to fight for something. We can't just say Trump's bad. I agree. You agree Trump's bad. And leading Democrats are.
- [90:18]
Joy Reid
He's not even in charge, bro. He's bad. But they literally have him playing with crypto on the side and talking to himself and staring out the window, talking about a ballroom. His mind is gone. He's not even in charge. He's more in charge of America than he is. That man is not even in charge.
- [90:36]
Maurice Mitchell
Correct, Correct. The tech oligarchs and his friend Bibi Netanyahu are leading the charge. And here's the thing, yes, that's horrible, right? But the working families guarantee, it's an agenda for winning working class voters of all races that both parties have left behind, frankly. And Trump and the Republicans, like, look, we agree they made sure our economy only works for the ultra rich, right? This to me is the plan for how we fix that. And it's not like small or piecemeal reforms. These are guaranteed benefits that will improve the lives of every American, regardless of who you are. And with this platform, we're saying that it's not enough to just win back power to just vote out Republicans. We have to use that power to make people's lives better. Democrats are banking on the backlash against the GOP and MAGA and Trump. But backlash is, is not a strategy. And we need to develop a strategy that embraces what people actually aspire for. So like Joy, polls have been coming that have showed that these ideas are actually very popular with a lot of people, right? The vast majority of voters support this idea that was considered niche that we should have guaranteed health care in this country, that raising taxes on the wealthy is a sensible thing, that we should have a guaranteed quality housing, that your government should support policies that make sure that happens. And that quality housing is something that you could afford whether you're a renter or whether you want a home on your own, that you should find if you are willing to work, guaranteed high road union jobs. And this isn't like some idea that's come out of space. We used to actually do this. The federal government invested billions of dollars into jobs programs, right? That by, we got, by the time we got to the 80s and the Reagan era that they shifted into austerity. But this was something that we relied on our government to do and we could do it again. And we should. We live in the richest country in the history of the world.
- [92:44]
Joy Reid
Can I just say one thing? They didn't shift to austerity. Honestly, the one thing I will disagree with you, and I gently disagree, they shifted to investing not in factory jobs and in jobs that people can use for labor and for employment. They started taking federal money and investing it in companies like Palantir. They're still spending money creating jobs. The jobs they're creating are. The CIA had its own basically investment company and they, they, they took that same federal money and shifted it to investing in, in surveillance companies. And that got the hyper drive for that was 911 at. And when 911 hit, suddenly there was no more Investment available for factory jobs and jobs that people can go to work in. They took that money and they invested it in Palantir. Literally. Paler was funded by, by, by the, by us, by the federal government. And they are. And they took that money and invested it in Northrop Grumman defense industries. They invested it in drone and surveillance companies. They just invested the money in surveillance and in war. But anyway, put the. I'm sorry, Jason, put it back up. I interrupted, I interrupted my friend.
- [93:56]
Maurice Mitchell
It was a friendly interruption because you're right, you know, we spend a lot of money in this country and our government, both state and federal government, make a lot of investments and they're making choices they have chosen. At a time when the majority of Americans are trying to make ends meet, when gas prices are skyrocketing because of this illegal and immoral war, they're investing in the uber wealthy. Right? Like the big beautiful bill, Big beautiful bill that was just a massive historic transfer of wealth from all of us to the wealthiest people in America. So they have no problem investing in corporations and people and surveillance and war. They do have a problem in investing in all of us. Investing in health care, investing in things that we know make our community safer. And we should have a problem with that. The pissed off majority, just everyday regular smuggler people. We should do something about that. And we can. We should recognize that the power actually is in our hands. But we need to build an insurgency against these people and we need a direction, we need an agenda. And the working families guarantee is that
- [95:09]
Joy Reid
so we've gone through so home you can afford which seems to be sort of a basic. The roof over your head, healthcare you can rely on that doesn't cost you more than it costs in every other country on earth. A good job to support your family. That seems like a no brainer. If they invested in Palantir, they can invest in companies that create jobs for us. Right. Childcare, when and where you need it. That's for women to be able to go to work and not have to worry about where your kid is going to be or who's watching them. Time to spend with your family. Can you talk about that one a little bit? Because that's not normally a guarantee that political parties make.
- [95:41]
Maurice Mitchell
Yeah, I think it's actually a really important guarantee because like what are we actually doing here? We're doing what we're doing on earth. And the whole reason why we go to work is to live a good life. Right? Which is why I like when people say earn a living instead of like just getting a job. We're trying to earn a living, and that means we want to enjoy our lives. We want to spend times with the people, with the people closest to us. And so there are policies that the government could enact, right? Like, wouldn't it be nice if in this country we had guaranteed 12 weeks of family leave, like many countries have 12 weeks of paid family leave. Think about how that might transform the lives of so many people. Think about how that might transform your life. If you want to plan your family, but you're concerned about how can I have a child or expand my family and take on this job, if you knew that by law, you could get paid to stay home and to nurture your child in the most precious moments of that child's life, or you could take off time to take care of an elder, or you could take off time because you're ill. These are things that we should expect, and our government should build the guarantees to make that happen. And, Joy, this might seem like a challenge to some people, but this is the reality that so many people are living today. We have states in this country that have some strong policies on this, and we have whole countries where this is the standard. This should be the floor. This should be the floor in the richest country on the history of our planet, not the ceiling. And, and the fact that it's the floor and the fact that we haven't gotten it yet speaks to the dysfunction in Washington. This is not controversial. The only place where this is controversial is in corporate C suites and with the billionaires that want to steal money from us. And unfortunately, way too often in Capitol Hill with Republicans and way too many Democrats.
- [97:43]
Joy Reid
You know what's so crazy about it, Maurice, is as I'm listening to you, people have been so groomed to be focused on government waste as our. Our spending in this country has topped the trillions. Like we hit trillion with a T was during Reagan, and it's only gone higher.
- [98:05]
Maurice Mitchell
That's right.
- [98:05]
Joy Reid
And what is it? $26 trillion or whatever we spend. Right. And people don't think it's wasteful if that money goes to Palantir, to federal policing, to ice, to, like, enforcement and cruel. But they're like, oh, totally wasteful if it goes to daycare. You know what I mean? Like, I think it's part of it is that we've just been groomed to say there's good spending and bad spending, and good spending is spending for the military, it's spending for policing, it's spending for drones and bombs. No one asks why it costs $90 million to build one F35. Then Iran shot down. That's 35. That's $90 million that went down in one go do the one plot gone, right? No one asked why it costs like $72 million to build one naval carrier. Like, no, no one ever. Yes, but, but if you say free health care, they go, that's a waste. You know what I mean? So what is it about? How do we ungroom ourselves to rethink about what's wasteful?
- [99:00]
Maurice Mitchell
Well, here's. This is why I'm excited about the moment that we live in, right? Because I see, see things shifting, right? I think we're in a very populous moment where everyday people are beginning to ask those questions. So people are. And look, this is why I say it's bigger than Republican or Democrat. Everybody needs to gas up. That needs to gas up. And you know, a lot of folks, including in quote unquote, Trump country, they're gassing up. They're looking at that $4, maybe $5, listen, gas. And they're drawing a direct line between that gas, the fact that it's costing them their whole paycheck to gas up, and that illegal and immoral war in Iran that their leaders didn't even have the dignity to explain to them why they're even there. And they're beginning to now ask the question, finally, why are we spending billions of dollars in that war? Couldn't we spend that money back here
- [99:57]
Joy Reid
in a country that produces more oil than Iran or Russia or any country we produce the most oil? But how is it people are starting to put two and two together if we produce the most oil and we are literally energy, if completely energy independent, why the hell if we produce so much oil, is my gas prices so high? I want you all to ask yourselves that. Go ask your Trumpy uncle that. We produce all the oil we need. Mama Pops, why are our gas prices high? Because. Because we don't use the gas that we make. We sell it on the open market in the world. So, so you have to ask yourself, is your government even taking care of you enough to do that? They won't even do that. And so the reality is you need to start asking what? It's not about how much they're spend, it's what they're spending it on. One, I have to do one more thing before I let you go. Let's just, let's just strategize in public.
- [100:45]
Maurice Mitchell
Oh, let's go, let's go.
- [100:46]
Joy Reid
We're Gonna strategize. We're gonna pretend that the audience isn't there. Y', all. This is just me and Maurice talking. Nobody. Nobody can hear this. Pretend like y' all didn't hear this. We're going to do the flashy thing.
- [100:54]
Maurice Mitchell
You in the group chat.
- [100:55]
Joy Reid
In the group chat. Keep it to yourself. No, no. Actually tell everybody. Okay. We're going to strategize in public. Okay, Maurice? Jason, can you put up C2? We have this use. Okay. You see this map, Maurice?
- [101:04]
Maurice Mitchell
Yes.
- [101:05]
Joy Reid
This is where Republicans are planning to. You see on the right, they're planning to eliminate all the Democrats in about five states that I can see here. South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama. They would say, no, there will be no more Democrats.
- [101:23]
Maurice Mitchell
That's right.
- [101:24]
Joy Reid
How many states of those Southern states is the Working Families Party active in?
- [101:29]
Maurice Mitchell
So we're in Georgia. We built a presence in Georgia, and we have activists in every one of those states. And we're currently talking about long term. We're talking about what it might look like. Brittany Whaley's somebody you should bring onto the show. Bad Sister. She's organizing our Southeast region. And we've been talking about what it might look like to recruit folks on the hyperlocal level to run for office over the next few years. And we're gonna be expanding our presence in many, many more Southern states. So let's go.
- [102:03]
Joy Reid
Is there a way that by. Even if it can't be this midterm, is in months away by the next cycle, in 2028, could working families be up and running in all those states? Because if. If Republicans are like, we're getting rid of all the Democrats, what if all the unregistered people registered as working families? They wouldn't know what to do. Because if you're working families, you might be right, and you might be left. They have no idea. Working families people kind of come from a little bit of everything. If you look at Mom Donnie's base, some of them people were maga, but they were like, I'm a mom, Donnie. Maga, Right? There are AOC people who are also Trump people. Like, there are Obama people who are now Trump. If you're. If you're not a Democrat, how they going to come for you? What would they do if suddenly they look in district whatever in Alabama, and, like, 30% of the people are working fam. They won't know what to do.
- [102:54]
Maurice Mitchell
You're speaking my language, Joy. So, you know, like. And I'm going to, by the way. I don't think I don't think this person has any integrity at all, but I'm going to use her for, for a reason. So Marjorie Taylor Greene, her public platform, when she, when she tweets now sometimes she sounds more like a Working Families Party person than. And that isn't because she has some sort of transformation. It's because her people are there. Right. It's because we are in a populist moment and there is a pissed off majority. I'm going to say it again. There is a mass of people who some, you know, there's some folks who swing left, some folks who swing life, some folks who don't really think about that. But all of those folks need to gas up their car and are, are pissed off by the policies that are coming down. Like there are like a core of people who are MAGA cult followers of Donald Trump and then there's everybody else.
- [103:52]
Joy Reid
Right? Right.
- [103:53]
Maurice Mitchell
For a lot of reasons. There's people who wouldn't touch the Democratic Party with the ten foot because of all of the baggage attached to the brand. Right. The Working Families Party is a brand that meets everybody where they're at. And best believe. Joy, I just came from a conversation where we were talking about reaching some of those places that Democrats don't invest in anymore. Right. Because they call it Trump country. Right. Those are just counties that have been under invested in and under organized. Right. And all those people like the folks in Appalachia who are under the poverty line, they have more in common with the folks in the South Bronx that are under the poverty line. Billionaires got us confused.
- [104:39]
Joy Reid
That's right.
- [104:39]
Maurice Mitchell
Working Families Party were very interested in the idea of building a space where folks could come together in order to challenge the corporate proto monarchs that want to take, take our money, take our jobs and just have us eating AI slot. And I think in this moment, absolutely, if we all organize together, we could turn this around. Right. Because the Republicans and Roberts, they think that they checkmated us. Listen, we could out organize them if we come together and use strategies outside the Republican Party and the Democratic Party to do so.
- [105:22]
Joy Reid
We are speaking the same language. We're on the same wavelength here. Maurice Mitchell, thank you for strategizing me in public. Let people know how they can support working families if they're interested.
- [105:31]
Maurice Mitchell
Well, you could go to all the platforms. We're at Working Families on all the platforms or on the web@workingfamilies.org and you can find me at mauricewfp.
- [105:42]
Joy Reid
Maurice Mitchell, thank you very much. Maybe the head of maybe my, my future party for a while. Thank you very much.
- [105:50]
Maurice Mitchell
I appreciate you.
- [105:51]
Joy Reid
Thank you. All right, so, so listen, I, I, I've blown out. I, I went way over. I had a whole nother segment I wanted to do. I'm probably have to now do on Monday. But listen, I'm telling y' all this, this is very important for you guys to understand, right? Is, is to as Maurice said, John Roberts thinks he's very smart. He thinks he's very slick. He is a Republican first and final, right? All he cares about is Republican outcomes. He is a right wing Republican who has better manners than Alito, but he's really no better than him. He's a neo confederate like all the rest of them. They want to eliminate the twin. I've said this before, there's a thing called that I've always wanted to write a book called repeal the 20th century. That is the goal. They want to repeal the 20th century because in the minds of people like John Roberts and Sam Alito and even Clarence Thomas, they believed the 20th century was an abomination. They believe that the 20th century ruined America. It's the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. And they believe that the country was ideal between the Declaration of independence and 1913. And they believe that after 1913, this country went downhill. And it went downhill because rather than being an oligarchy, which is what they believe in, or a monarchy, which is what they clearly want back and what they clearly miss, which is why they all were so geeked up and excited to go and party with Donald Trump and the King of England. They were so excited to be in the presence of the King of England. And I wanna let you know, this is some reporting I can give you based on very strong sources. The entire Supreme Court was at that state dinner for King Charles. You know who was not at that state dinner? Neither of the three liberal members who were appointed by Democrats were not there. And a lot of people took that to mean that the three liberals were boycotting. But no, no, no, no. I have very solid sources that say that that is not true, that they were actually not invited. And that state dinner took place on the exact same day that John Roberts and Alito released their decision gutting the Voting Rights Act. They very pointedly gutted the Voting Rights act and then went to dinner with the King of England and Donald Trump, with their spouses, several of whom have been enriched, enriched through the presidency of Donald Trump. Amy Coney Barrett's husband opened his White Shoe law firm in D.C. after Amy Coney Barrett joined the United States Supreme Court, and her husband represents many White Shoe and Whale Hill clients, including the parent company of Fox News, whom he has represented in lawsuits. We already know Samuel Alito has absolutely benefited from the, in the, in, you know, the presence of Donald Trump, who has essentially been given the license to bribe. Right? But he's been doing his, getting his free gifts even before Trump came along. But Donald Trump got them to essentially do a ruling that said bribery is basically legal if politicians do it. Mainly Republican politicians, right? Same with him and same with Clarence Thomas. They've been doing this sort of organized bribery for decades. But Trump basically put a rubber stamp on it. Donald Trump gave Samuel, gave Neil Gorsuch a stolen seat that shouldn't have even been his. He shouldn't even be there. And since he's been there, he's been working on behalf of polluters the whole time. His sort of goal is to essentially allow polluters to run roughshod over our rights. We know that Brett Kavanaugh would have never made it through a hearing had Republicans not been lockstep because of the very credible allegations of sexual abuse of a schoolmate when he was a young man. And he now has gotten to come in and create what we now call Kavanaugh stops, where he said, you can use race to profile non white people with immigration stops, but you can't use race to draw districts that allow black people to vote. And I say black people to say that it isn't about. It isn't that they're not also doing this to target women and Asian Americans and Latinos, but they're very specifically focused both on the affirmative action rulings and in the rulings on dei and in all of these rulings that have to do with gerrymandering on black people, they're very focused on black people. And the reason they're specifically focused on black people is that it is black people for whom the best three amendments in the Constitution were written. The 13, 14, 14th and 15th amendments. Those three amendments were written specifically for black people who had been slaves. And this sex tuplet. These six people who came from the Federalist Society are very specifically focused on neutering those three amendments. And so in order to do that, they're targeting the people who first of all vote the most liberally, who vote most consistently for Democrats, who used to vote most consistently for Republicans. I gave a stat on the other week when I was doing this that at the time that black people switched and voted for FDR in 1932, something like 70% of African Americans were still Republicans, but they gave him. Or 60% were Republicans, but they gave FDR 70 plus percent of their votes. And they were still calling themselves Republicans while voting for the Democrat. They didn't formally switch parties yet through all three of his terms. Roosevelt, during all three of his reelections, black people who voted overwhelmingly for him were. Were never majority Democrat. They weren't majority Democrat till Harry Truman, but they just started voting the other way, right? And so black people have consistently voted for the most progressive candidate who they think can win. It's why black Democrats voted for Joe Biden over Kamala Harris in 2020 in that primary, because they're like, we're going to vote for the most progressive Democrat who can win. It's why the majority of black Democrats initially voted for Hillary Clinton now, not Barack Obama, or at least sided with him in the polls before he started to beat her in the polls. When he won in South Carolina, that's when they believed. And black people then started voting for him. But black people are very consistent. Whoever's the most progressive candidate who can win, regardless of how socially conservative black people are, black people are the most consistent about voting for Democratic policies and liberal ideas because liberalization has always helped to free black people from oppression. And so we're the most consistent. The next most consistent have been Latinos, but they've sort of slipped. The next most. Well, actually, the next most consistent are Jewish voters who are 80, 20 Democrat. Then the next most consistent have become Asian Americans, who are about 70, 30 Democrats since Obama came along, and then Latinos who have been about 60, 40. But the most consistent throughout the history of the United States in fighting for civil rights, for more freedom, for free public schools, for universal health care, for all the things that eventually benefit even white liberals, are black people. And so black people are always the target. It's not that they specifically care only about black. They don't like anybody that isn't a white conservative Christian. They don't like any of these groups. But black people are the largest group of consistently progressive voters. That's why they target them. And so now John Roberts thinks he's finally found a way to outwit the 20th century. They hate the 20th century because in the 20th century, you got labor rights, you got child labor abolished, you got union rights. Women got the right to go to work and get out of the home and not just be homemakers. That will be white women. White women broke out of the home and stopped being obedient to Their husbands stopped marrying in large numbers, started becoming more single, started becoming professional, started going to college even more than white men. They got birth control, they got abortion rights. They hate the 20th century. The disabled got rights, immigrants got rights, they destroyed. The Asian Exclusion act was ended in 1965 with that 65 voting rights. And the Supreme Court throughout the 20th century affirmed all of these positive changes affirm what we think of as progress. But those six think of that as regression. They think it destroyed the country because in their mind, the perfect America is the America that existed in 1776, 1776 to 1778. That is the perfect, perfect America to them. And oligarchy were very wealthy white Christian men owned everybody else, including their wives and daughters. They want that back. If they can't have an outright king, they're going to get damn near close to it with a conservative Republican president. And so John Roberts has always hated the Voting Rights act because it enabled black people to gain enough power to tax rich people or to cause rich people to be taxed, to cause universal health care to finally come to fore with, with Obamacare, to, you know, to, to challenge social hierarchy, which he clearly believes in. And he hates it. He hates it as much as Alito hates it. But he has to be more urbane because he still wants to go to the nice dinner parties. So you have at this state dinner, these monarchists literally dining with a king, the King of England and his consort, Queen Camilla, and the three liberals were not invited to be there. And that was the same day that that six, while clinking glasses with the literal King of England and the wannabe king, Donald Trump, eviscerated the Voting Rights act, put the last stake in the heart of it, destroyed it. It's still there in name only, but it doesn't really exist. It's. It's dead. It's like a zombie. And that's what John Roberts has always wanted. He finally got. He thinks he checkmated us. But here's the way you checkmate him back. In chess, it can seem like you're losing when you're down to your last few pieces. But you, I mean, I play chess against our youngest son. Sometimes I think I'm winning and I get to the last bit. Now that he's gotten good at chess, sometimes he'll beat me. In the end, when I think I won, you think you've got the person down to their last few pieces, but you never know who the other side can turn into a queen. You never know when the other side will come out of nowhere and make one of their pieces elevate to a queen and kick and kick your ass. In chess, you've never won until you've checkmated the other side. What the Supreme Court did was check, not checkmate. And there are still moves on the board for the pro democracy side. And one of those moves is if you're. When. When the right was the Democrats and the left, if you can call it the left, or the liberals, were the Republicans, Democrats looked at the Democratic party, which was the Klan party, and said, if this is the only way to wield power in the south, we're going to join the Klan party. And it was literally the party of the Ku Klux Klan. They were like, you know what? If this is the only way for us to wield power or to gain power in the south, we're going to just join that party. And then the white people in that party did white flight and went into the party they hated, which was the Republican party. Moving into the Democratic party was a strategic move by Democrats and at first, I mean, by black people. And it was a strategic move that they started by doing just by voting for Democrats, voting for the hated Klan party in 1932, even as they continue to call themselves Republicans over time. They said, we're not just going to vote there, we're going to move there. And they moved there in the 50s, and the white flight started on the other side, where white Democrats said, we don't want to be in a party with them. We're going in this hated Republican Party. Black voters have always been very strategic like that. Right? They can move again. Y' all have no idea what we're thinking most of the time. You. You think our Afros are cloud bobs. Like, you really have not paid attention to us. You don't really know us very well, which is an advantage for us. We're kind of still the unknown, unknowable. We're the people who at work, if we're not smiling, white people get nervous. They're like, we don't know what you're thinking. We need you to say what you're thinking and smile so that we know you're you. Like us. Black people can use this to our advantage and not just black people. I'm speaking to black people right now, But I mean this for all of the groups who are being targeted by John Roberts, But I'm focusing on black people because he is. He thinks he's checkmated black people by wiping them out in the south and that there will be no more black Democrats in the South. And most Democrats in the south are black. So he's like, checkmate. No, it's check. It's check. Because there is still a move. And one of those moves in theory could be so fine. If the Democratic Party has no power in the south, why should we be Democrats? Maybe some of us should just be Working Families Party. And y' all try to figure out who's in this party. And are all of us liberal? Ask yourself, Republicans, do you think for sure? Are you sure that every Working Family's Party person is a liberal? Are you sure? Because you really can't be sure. If you look at Mamdani's base, you have no idea what those people believe internally. Inside of the Mamdani coalition are some conservatives, some liberals, some libertarians. There are all kinds of people. And you have no idea what they're going to do. You have no idea what they want. You have no idea what they think. You have no idea. So maybe it's time for pro democracy voters to become a little less predictable. Figure out some ways to be unpredictable. So they have no idea what you're going to do. But one thing you absolutely have to do is vote. It's never been more important that. Whatever. If you can't stand the Democrats and you're in the south, you know, like, the Democrats are a bad brand. I like it, then good, join the Working Families Party. But you have to vote. And one thing you must do is you must remove every single Republican elected that you can. They're all tainted at this point. I don't care if they're nice, I don't care if they're friendly. The only thing they understand is power and unemployment. And at this point, they have declared war on us. And not just black people, people. They've declared war on women, gay people, trans people. They've declared war on basically unmarried women. They've declared war on Democrats, liberals. They've declared war on independence. They declared war on people who have to use gas. They've declared war on military people who have to go to war but can't get decent food to eat. They're eating slop while they're being sent to a war they didn't decide that they wanted to to wage. They declared war on Jewish people by linking them to a genocidal maniac and saying that he represents all of them. They have besmirched and disparaged the Jewish faith by tying it to Israel and beating Netanyahu and Smotrich and Ben Gvir. As if that's what all of them believe. They've declared war on Muslims lying and saying they're trying to take over America. It's a complete lie. They've declared war on the Hindu people inside their own party. All these Indian Americans running for all office like Vivek Ramaswamy, they hate them. They want to get canceled all their H1B visas. They hate y'. All. They hate Asians too. They hate every single one of you. They use Asian Americans to try to win these wars against affirmative action. And then once they've won, the Asian people get slighted too and can't get in either. They pretend they care about Asians, don't give a damn about Asians. They've declared war on y' all too. You guys just don't know it yet. Y' all will figure it out. Their war against everybody that's not a white conservative, conservative right wing Christian ban. Even white folks. If you're not a right conservative Christian, if you're not a conservative right wing Christian of the exact same sect they are, they hate you too. They declare we're on poor people, middle class people, working people, people who want to go on vacation who now can't afford it. Spirit Airlines is dead. They said they were going to buy it. They didn't. They declared war on anyone who uses social media. They declared war on anyone who needs truth in the media. They've declared war on the press. They've declared war on everybody except the small group of people who they think are going to live in Elysium while the rest of y' all are cattle. And if you don't know they're at war with you, it's just because you're not paying attention. You don't want to believe it, but one day you're going to figure it out because they're going to come for each and every one of you. Black people are the canary in the coal mine. They always come for us first because they hate us the most, but they hate you the second most. And whoever you are, I mean you. And so you need to figure out a way to be a little unpredictable in this moment. You need to play a little crazy and you need to do a few crazy things. One crazy thing. Go ahead and elect that black man in Mississippi and put him in the set instead of Cindy Hyde Smith. Watch them shake and watch them be real scared if all of a sudden they can't win Mississippi as freaked out as they were when they lost Georgia because they never thought they were going to lose Georgia and all said, poof, they lost Georgia. Make them lose states they think they're going to win. Make them spend money in Florida. Why not? What the hell have you got to lose at this point? They've already declared check on us as Americans, as free people. They're trying to turn us into Hungary. And even Hungary figured that shit out and got rid of Orban. So that's it. That is the end of my rant. I'm telling y', all, you need to be a little unpredictable. Working families party is an option. If you're in the South. You don't like the Democrats, join them. But you cannot not vote. I'm being Gary Chambers for a minute. If you're in Louisiana, you are governed by the devil. That man wants to lock every single one of you up. Unless you are literally related to him or his business partners or friends. He wants to lock you up. That's his industry in the state of Louisiana. He wants to put AI factories in your backyard. He wants to poison your air, poison your water. He doesn't care about any of you. And you, he's going to take your health care away. He's declared war in every single Louisiana. And that's not his friends. Y' all need to do some crazy stuff. You need to play crazy, elect a whole bunch of people they do not expect coming. And if that means you're going to come at it as a working families voter or even as a Republican, you guys need to stop being so damn predictable. America. Y' all do predictable shit. And that's why the right is trying to destroy you. They're going to destroy this whole country if you don't do something about it. We have a few more months until these midterm elections. Y' all better all vote. I don't want to hear about anybody staying home at this point because we are at war with them. Because they are at war with us. I'm not saying I'm declaring war on them. I'm saying they declared war on me. All right, we need a moment of joy. So. So to set up my moment of joy, with apologies to my amazing winsome who got all this data and information about the segment I'm going to do on Monday. I'm going to take it all. I'm going to do it on Monday. But I want to skip forward and I want to play a piece that I call. Why am I agreeing with Curtis Lewa? Here it is. E3. Speaking of strange bedfellows, go ahead or nay?
- [123:03]
Ellie Mistahl
The Mets dominate the Yankees for the next 25 years.
- [123:06]
Gary Chambers Jr.
Nay, nay, nay, nay.
- [123:07]
Joy Reid
I hate the Mets. So how do you feel that Juan Soto switched sides like that? Why'd you leave us for Citi Field, Soto?
- [123:13]
Gary Chambers Jr.
You the man.
- [123:14]
Maurice Mitchell
You the man.
- [123:16]
Ellie Mistahl
Can I get a k Lok for the Dominicans out there?
- [123:18]
Joy Reid
Hey, Kello K.
- [123:22]
Ellie Mistahl
We just got to
- [123:22]
Joy Reid
get you a hookah, and then you're good. Say that again.
- [123:25]
Ellie Mistahl
We just got to get you a
- [123:25]
Joy Reid
hookah, and then you're good. No, no, no, no, no, no.
- [123:28]
Maurice Mitchell
I ain't hooking up with no hookers out here.
- [123:30]
Joy Reid
Whoa, whoa. That's not what I said. I get a letter from the border.
- [123:33]
Ellie Mistahl
I'm talking about hook, hookahs.
- [123:35]
Gary Chambers Jr.
Hookah, the little smoking device.
- [123:36]
Maurice Mitchell
Oh, you mean the Maui Wowie and the Hindu Kush.
- [123:40]
Ellie Mistahl
Yeah, sure.
- [123:41]
Joy Reid
Oh, okay. I need to figure out now who did it. I'm sorry. I forgot to put the. To get. I have to give credit to whoever that is that created that video. And I apologize now. I did not write it down. It's my fault. I will figure out who it is. Do you know what is. We'll put in the scripture. We're gonna put it in the description. But that is hilarious. That is Curtis Leewa. That was actually not the clip I was gonna play, but I'm gonna use that anyway. That's our moment of joy. Curtis Leboy is emerging as the weirdest kind of funniest character in New York politics. He suddenly pals with Zoran Mamdaemi, who is his rival for the mayor. The mayoralty. But the founder of the Guardian Angels has become really one of the most hilarious characters on the streets of New York. And if Curtis Lewa, who ran for the mayor, the office of mayor as a Republican, can become a hilarious sort of comic villain or whatever he's become if he. If we can come together on finding Kerles Curtis Slee were hilarious and make him our moment of joy. America. We can defeat the oligarchs and the Epstein class and put them back in their place. Make them go home. Stay the hell home. Shut the hell up. Take their stupid AI and stop trying to replace us with robots. And that is it. That is the end of my rant. I appreciate everybody. Hope you guys have a fabulous weekend. Please vote in our vontel competition so that we can come up with some cute readers.
- [124:54]
Gary Chambers Jr.
You don't want to play that last
- [124:55]
Joy Reid
one that you said he was going to play. Well, that was the one I was going to play before. That was my.
- [125:00]
Ellie Mistahl
You didn't make it specific.
- [125:01]
Gary Chambers Jr.
I mean, I completely.
- [125:03]
Joy Reid
No it's literally called why am I agreeing with Curtis Leewa. That's the one I was going to play E3.
- [125:07]
Maurice Mitchell
Why am I.
- [125:08]
Joy Reid
You played the next one, which was
- [125:10]
Ellie Mistahl
Dominican, but I can rock it right now.
- [125:12]
Maurice Mitchell
It's not a problem.
- [125:13]
Joy Reid
Okay, so. All right, so let's go backwards. We're doing it in reverse. Okay. So that was a moment of joy was Claire to Sliwa being an honorary Dominican. And. And actually, Winston, if you could just go on Twitter real quick and see if you could look it up and figure out who actually made that. That clip. This one is Curtis Sliwa responding to some local media who asked him about Zorhan Mandami, saying that he would.
- [125:39]
Maurice Mitchell
Yeah, what I'm talking about. What else about Zawebby.
- [125:42]
Joy Reid
Oh, no, not that one. Oh, oh, not the other Curtis Levo one. Well, we might as well play the Curtis one too.
- [125:47]
Gary Chambers Jr.
I already.
- [125:47]
Joy Reid
That's the only ones I have in here. Oh, you don't have the Curtis Lieble other one. Oh, okay. Well then fine. So the last thing we'll do is we won a Webby and we asked each and every one of you guys what should be our acceptance speech. And people had a lot of good ideas. And the winner of this was not actually one of the you guys, even though you guys had some really terrific ideas. Oh, by the way, it's called We Outside by Side Talk. We Outside NYC is who did that hilarious interview with Curtis Sliwa wearing his orange do rag. It is called We Outside by side Talk. I want to make sure I give them credit. It is their content. So we want to make sure we give them credit. The one we're going to play now is we ask each and every one of you what should be our exception acceptance speech for our Webbies. Each winner is allowed to give a five word speech. Only get five words. You guys had some great ideas, but this was the winner. It's actually an in house winner and it was only because hers was the best. It was not an inside game. Niva had the best idea and so this is the one we chose. Thank you all for for giving ideas, but this is what we picked. Here it is. I am still here. That was it. That is our acceptance speech. You will hear it if you watch the Webby Awards. It's going to be a part on the hopefully of the compilation that they do of all the acceptance speeches. We appreciate each and every one of you voting or not voting for, but you know, just giving suggestions as to what we should say. Congratulations to the whole TJRS team. We are a small but mighty army of pro democracy zealots. We believe in the democracy. We're fighting for it. Thank you all for watching. Have a great weekend and we'll see you on Monday. And I promise you we're going to get into that missing scientist. I keep saying we're going to do it but we doing it on Monday. I promise we're going to work on it because it's a whole mystery and we're going to get into it. See you on Monday, have a great weekend and goodbye. Happy mayday.
- [127:52]
Gary Chambers Jr.
Getting back to the basics Grassroot level Let me dig a little deeper with the shovel Plenty k T the force from the trees that I'm hard to detect Like a black hole in a dog Injustice anywhere it's a threat to justice everywhere Let me make this clear I got a bone to pick and I'll never fear the threat of poverty they don't want to talk about it they rap the party so I'm a real talk about it for show.