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- [00:01]
Joy Reid
Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money. Whether it's the funds fueling AI or
- [00:07]
Angie Nixon
crypto's trillion dollar swings, there's a money
- [00:10]
Joy Reid
side to every story. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now@bloomberg.com. Why does it feel like Monday? Hello everyone. Happy Wednesday. Happy Thursday, junior. Welcome to the Joy Reacho and thank you for being here. I'm very disoriented because it definitely feels like a Monday, but it's actually Wednesday because we're off on Monday. So I think having a day off is completely destabilizing to me. But thank you to everybody who's who's jumped in the chats early, everybody who's tuned in. Hope you guys had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. Eid Mubarak, to those who are our Muslim friends and family, today is the first day of Eid. Our producer Niva tells me it's the first Eid after people take the hodge. But it's everyone. Eid Mubar to everyone who is celebrating, that's our Muslim friends. And thank you all for, for checking in with us once again for another edition of the Joy Reed Show. Please hit like and subscribe. You know, we're doing this whole thing where kind of all learning together how the algorithm works. And one of the things that we definitely want you to do is hit like and subscribe. But also hit the little notification thing. It's really important. It turns out that you want to hit the notification and then when you, when the notification screen comes up, you want to hit select all because if you do that, it'll make sure that YouTube serves you all of our live content. So when we go live, you'll know about it because the by itself, the algorithm really doesn't work that way. So we want you guys to make sure that you're always in the know and then you always know when we're going live. So just hit hit the notification bell and then select all. So please do that. We would really appreciate it also if you have not sent this link to five Friends. I mean, come on, ambassadors, what are you doing? Send this link to five friends. We're trying to get to 500,000 subscribers on our happy climb to a million subscribers. We are almost a year old, you guys. We're going to turn one on June 9th, which is crazy. We've been doing this for not even a year and we've already hit nearly 500,000 subscribers. Remarkable growth for a YouTube channel. So thanks to everyone who supported us. But there's more we can do. We can we can do more. Please help us out. So I really want to appreciate everybody that's not just on YouTube but also on Substack. We are climbing toward a quarter million subscribers over there. And thank you to all our premium subscribers. We will do our premium substack chat tomorrow at noon. It's a surprise guest. We'll tell you who that is when you get on. So get on at noon if you got. If you're not in on these premium conversations on Substack, you're really missing out. They're actually really great. We have fantastic conversations, really insider. We get real into the minutia on these elections and how we can win. And then you are the ambassadors that we want to send out there into the world to try to help us in November to figure out how to. How the hell. How the hell to beat this fascist tyranny. Mm. So we're doing that together, and we do that through our. We do that through our Substack premiums, and it's called Joy's House Insiders, and that's every Thursday at noon. Hey, Jason.
- [03:30]
Jason Johnson
Hey, Joy. Real quick, because I know we have a packed show today. We don't say Happy Wednesday. I, too, thought today was Monday, but I remember we had Monday off, so let's get this show on the road.
- [03:40]
Joy Reid
We enjoyed Monday off. I did some. If you guys are watching me on. Read this. Read that. It was my wind down. That I cleaned my office, which is really great, so I can go back into my. My. My girl chamber. My girl cage. We call it. Your girl My. You're. You're my man girl cave. My girl cave. Right. So my girl cave is cleaned out, so I'm able to go back in there. Terrific. My shed. My shed. Yeah, so I cleaned that out. Did that this weekend. We had a really great time, so we did lots of fun stuff. But anyway, we'll move on from that. I also want to say hi to our Twitchies, also our friends on Facebook, our friends on LinkedIn, our LinkedInies. I'm still calling you Link Dennies until we come up with a better name. And just everywhere you're watching, if you're listening on an audio platform, we appreciate you all as well. Hopefully you enjoy the mellifluous sound of my. Of my radio voice. And so that is the housekeeping for the day. Let's now get to. Oh, I have, like, the totally wrong thing up. So I can't even tell you guys what's happening today because I got the whole wrong thing up.
- [04:35]
Jason Johnson
Take your time. Set that up because I gotta go grab that first element.
- [04:38]
Joy Reid
So yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and do that because I've got the whole wrong thing up. That's hilarious because it's so I'm so off that I've got the whole wrong thing. Let's go ahead and thank our, one of our sponsors because we've got lots and lots and lots of sponsors who we have to thank for making this show possible. And one of our fabulous sponsors is our friends at 120 Live. Here it is. This is our 120 Life. Now May of course is High Blood Pressure awareness month. And that means you need to be paying attention to your blood pressure. It's one of those things a lot of people do not know is a problem until it's a problem. And once it's a problem, it may be too late. So you want to do the things that you can take care of your health, improve your health and also to bring that blood pressure down. Because high blood pressure is one of the leading, it's the leading cause actually of mortality in the country. And so you do not want to play around with blood pressure. You want to bring it down as soon as humanly possible. Oh my goodness. This little mouse decides it doesn't want to do it. 120 life is a really great way to do it. It's a fabulous juice based drink. It's made with a thousand health professionals. Actually, they go for its use. They love the fact that it helps you bring your blood pressure down. And what they ask you to do is you drink it once a day. It's a functional drink. It's made with ingredients that help support healthy blood pressure. Tastes great, it's refreshing. It's got one gram of sugar if you use the powdered version. So here's the two choices. You get the powdered version and you've got this one which I actually like is the liquid version which you can drink right after you get out of the gym or for me after I do my tai chi because you know, we're trying to do all the things and if you try it for two weeks and your blood pressure does not go down, they will give you 100% full refund. So if you go to 120life.com, that's 120life.com use the code joy or read you get 20% off. Try it risk free for just two weeks and if your blood pressure does not go down, you're not happy with it. You can return it for a full and a hundred Percent refund. So we gotta love that. And also, by the way, don't wait till next month. Nothing to lose except your high blood pressure. Go to 120life.com use the code joy or read to get 20 off. These statements have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease at the wrong information. It's not never a good thing. So thank you to 120.
- [06:44]
Jason Johnson
Did you get everything situated over there?
- [06:46]
Joy Reid
I really 100% did. It took a while because it feels like Monday and I think I'm kind of just like off.
- [06:51]
Jason Johnson
Yeah, you got to go back and we still got to do that QR code.
- [06:55]
Joy Reid
Oh, I forgot. So we have something that we created that is now ready to roll and you guys should check it out. We remember last week we talked about this slush money, the slush fund that Donald Trump has put together. Well, our wonderful team here, big ups to Sean, who has did the majority of the work. I did the graphics, but she did most of the work to put together something called runmemyslushmoney.com runme my slushmoney.com if you go on run money runmemyslushmoney.Com and register. We're going to make sure that you get updates on how to apply for your share of the Trump slush fund, on the latest news regarding the Trump slush fund. And also if you have a story of being abused by the federal government and you feel that you've been wrong such that you should be a recipient of the slush money. But also, there is a way through this. Run me my slushmoney.com for you to send your member of Congress or your United States senator a letter that's pre written for you, a nice, polite letter demanding that they do proper oversight and give proper information and transparency to the slush fund. It's really important that we get involved as citizens. This is a great way to do it. So please just go to runme my slushmoney.com you can also hit the QR code and that will allow you to go directly to runme my slushmoney.com oh, yeah, we're in this fight, y'.
- [08:10]
Reverend Nelson Rivers
All.
- [08:10]
Joy Reid
We are going to fight this slush money from both ends. We both believe it's illegal. We appreciate Harry Dunn, who's one of the lead plaintiffs in trying to sue to stop the slush money. And also Daniel Hodges, Officer Daniel Hodges. They're the two lead plaintiffs suing the slush money fund. But if this thing stands, these Republican members, if they don't take it down, which they should, but if they don't, every single one of us wants the slush money.
- [08:35]
Jason Johnson
Look at this, Troy, we started this off when last week. We came up with the idea on air last weekend.
- [08:40]
Joy Reid
Look at it. We workshopped it live and now we're doing it live. Doing it live. Absolutely. We appreciate it. So there we go. So let's get to some headlines now. So Alabama, the state of Alabama is now rushing to the Supreme Court to their friend John Roberts to ask the Supreme Court to let them use a congressional map that wipes out Democratic representation in this year's elections despite a lower court in the not a lower court, but the US The Supreme Court in the state of Alabama ruling that the redistricting plan that was made after the Calais decision intentionally discriminates against black people and is therefore unconstitutional. The state's Republican leadership filed an emergency appeal with the right wing justices of the court a day after a three judge court refused to let the state of Alabama use the map that they adopted, which they adopted actually three years ago that has a majority black population in only one of seven congressional districts, meaning 27% of the state only gets one congressperson that already went to court and it was ruled unconstitutional and a gerrymander that was racial. And so they added a second. Now they're like, no, we want to take it back. So the judges in the state supreme court have required the state of Alabama to continue using a court ordered map that was put in place in 2024 that includes two districts where Black residents comprise a majority or close to it. Attorney General Steve Marshall told the Supreme Court that the state did not intentionally discriminate against its black residents and should be allowed to hold elections this year under a map chosen by Alabama lawmakers, not judges. The Alabama case stretches back several years. This is the case that goes back to 2023, the Milligan case, which I talked about back on my old show, which ruled that a map that was drawn by Republican state lawmakers intentionally diluted the voting power of black citizens. The court said the state, which is about 27% black, as I said, should have two districts where black voters are the majority. The court selected map was used in the 2024 elections. So now that's going to the Supreme Court. Can anyone guess? Anybody want to guess how John Roberts and Steve Alito and Clarence are going to rule on this? Because remember, so far their record is if a Democrat attempts to do gerrymandering they say it's illegal. Except California, they let that go through. But if a Republican does openly racial gerrymandering, they say that's perfectly fine. So my assumption is they're going to rule for Alabama. But we'll see because we'll see, right? We're already in the primary season. So that's Alabama. Let's go to South Carolina. In South Carolina. Let me show you. This is a two Jason this is how the lines looked over the weekend. Look at this. This is courtesy of Christopher Webb, the very online Democratic prognosticator. Online, Christopher Webb, he did this video, which is amazing, to see how long the lines were in South Carolina. The people showed up, y', all, in droves to counter the Republican legislature there, threatening to shred their maps, just like Alabama and Louisiana and Texas have. The idea was that if turnout is super high, it will be harder for the Republican legislature to mess with a vote that's already in progress. Their primaries technically June 9th. But early voting has already begun. And that plus the threat of an SEC boycott by black athletes seems to have made an impact, even though officially the state is not admitting to the latter thing. Senate Republicans in the state of South Carolina, they failed to pass the governor and Republican leaders map and instead they adjourned. Here's the story from local outlet wltx, which is the CBS affiliate there a controversial effort to redraw South Carolina's congressional district ahead of the 2026 elections that is effectively dead. After the South Carolina Senate rejected a procedural motion needed to advance the bill on Tuesday, lawmakers spent days debating the proposal during a special legislative session called by Henry McMaster. The measure would have redrawn the state's seven congressional districts and made the sixth congressional district currently represented by Jim Clyburn, more favorable to Republicans. They would have taken Jim Clyburn, his district away and made it a Republican district. But supporters of the bill failed on Tuesday to secure enough votes for a measure known as cloture, meaning they needed to overcome a filibuster, which would have limited debate and forced a final vote on the legislation. The cloture vote failed. Even though this is a Republican majority legislature, it failed 20 to 24. Senators needed 26 votes for the motion. Several senators who had previously supported the redistricting effort changed their votes on Tuesday, citing concerns that the process had moved too late in the election cycle. Meaning those long lines that you saw gave them pause. So they said Senator Richard Cash State Senator Richard Cash said he could no longer support redistricting with Voting already underway. According to the South Carolina State Election Commission, more than 32,000, 32,300 voters had already cast ballots by 1pm yesterday. Here's the South Carolina governor's response. He says President Trump needs a Republican Congress to continue pursuing conservative policies that make our nation stronger. I'm confident that one day South Carolina's congressional districts will be completely Republican. I'm disappointed that day is not yet. That is Governor Henry McMaster. So what he's basically saying is, f the one third of my state that's Black and votes 90% Democrat, you're going to have nothing but Republicans eventually get on the plantation and shut the hell up. Well, apparently the answer was no. Republicans are like, we're not doing that. We're too scared. Democratic online strategist Christopher Webb, who I mentioned earlier and who provided that video, posted that this was always the plan. And he noted that the black population percentage in the target states is as follows. Louisiana, one in three residents are black. Mississippi, two and five are black. North Carolina, one in five. Tennessee, one in six. And the goal here is to wipe out all. As you see, that little map on the right of their representation, such that in their red states, they would have no members of Congress. Zero. And I will note South Carolina, just over one in four. As I mentioned, 27% are African American. In Texas, it's about 15%. And they're saying that in none of those states would there be even one black Democratic representative or even one Democratic representative. It would be all Republican. This very. And this I normally, you know, wouldn't just randomly quote a right wing person on Twitter. But this person, I think is interesting. This is a guy who was a conservative strategist and a veteran of Trump's 2025 campaign. And he put this up on social media, which I'm not sure if he was trying to be clever or glib, but he said his name is Ryan Amacha or whatever his name is. He said black voters can now elect their own Byron Donalds or Wesley Hunt in their respective districts. You hear that? So what he's saying is, oh, yeah, you can have a black representative. They're just going to be an obedient black. An obedient black like Byron Donalds or Wesley Hunt or Tim Scott, who does as they're told. So what they're basically saying, the actual plan is they're telling black Americans, hey, you can represent representation. It's just going to be our pet, our blacks, the blacks, who are obedient to white Christian nationalism and to maga they're obedient to maga. You can have a black face, you just can't have black policies. You can have a black face, they're just going to have anti black policies. Jason and I were talking this morning about the Heritage foundation now passing into the hands of K. Cole James, who is a black conservative. So they can put a black face on Project 2025 or their next thing, Project Esther, but it'll be a black face. It's just like Clarence Thomas. I mean, he's black. That is their argument. That is Byron Donald's argument. Their man in Florida who says it was worse for black people to be under Lyndon Johnson's Great Society than to be under slavery or Jim Crow. That's the kind of black person they wanted. And let me just play for you, one other member of the right wing MAGA core. This is somebody who actually hates Donald Trump, probably really in real life, but who's kissing Trump's ass. This is Lindsey Graham and this is what he's saying. Two black and immigrant people living in the South. Take a listen.
- [17:02]
Captain Bobby (Bobby LePen)
Young people out there of color to young immigrants. This is a great state.
- [17:07]
Joy Reid
The one thing I can say without any doubt, you can be an African
- [17:11]
Captain Bobby (Bobby LePen)
American and go to the Senate.
- [17:12]
Joy Reid
You just have to share the values of our state to every African American out there.
- [17:17]
Captain Bobby (Bobby LePen)
Look at my record. I've been supporting historically black colleges and universities and I'm glad President Trump has
- [17:23]
Joy Reid
made it a permanent fixture. Now we don't have to beg every
- [17:26]
Captain Bobby (Bobby LePen)
year for the money. I care about everybody. If you're a young African American, an
- [17:31]
Joy Reid
immigrant, you can go anywhere in this state. You just need to be conservative, not liberal. So he's saying as long as you align with MAGA and you're obedient to us, you can be black and we'll let you have offices.
- [17:46]
Tim Scott
Here's Tim Scott, interested in where we're going and where we've been and who you think I am when you don't even know me. We ought to be able to debate that without me being anti black, which means.
- [17:59]
Joy Reid
Or him being pro black.
- [18:01]
Tim Scott
I think that I'm not anti black, but I'm not. I'm also not pro anything. I'm pro America. That's, that's what I'm pro. I'm not pro ethnic group.
- [18:10]
Joy Reid
He said I'm not pro black. I'm not pro anything. I'm pro American. And that's the kind there's like you can be if you're Herschel Walker, if you're. They're like, you'll have blacks. Don't worry. They're about to run a black woman in Tennessee. They're saying she's black. She's just like that. Here's a little bit more. That was Tim Scott back when he was a congressman. That's before he was the United States. He was running for Senate the first time. Here he is now.
- [18:32]
Tim Scott
More recently, it's happened with our friends on the left is that they've lost their minds because they keep losing their voters. And so one of the things that they posit during redistricting is that in South Carolina, it would be impossible to elect a black, black person because we're getting rid of congressional districts that favor liberals. The truth of the matter is that, A, I won in the first Congressional District when it went from Charleston to Myrtle Beach. B, I won in the first Congressional district when it went from Charleston to Hilton Head. And see, I've won statewide. Where do I win? I win in the most conservative parts of the state and do better in the moderate parts of the state. So what we know with clarity and certainty is a black person. Yes, look at me, I'm still black. Who ideologically is aligned with their state or their district can win anywhere. Final point is simply this. You can have a concern about having minority populations. And I don't mean blacks at this time. I mean, Democrats in South Carolina go without representation based on a congressional matter. But the one thing you cannot argue is that people of color can't win who are ideologically aligned with the state. And I gotta say this with great certainty. South Carolina will like people who don't look like the majority population, because we've already done so. But we also elect people who do feel like, walk like and talk like philosophically who we are as South Carolinians.
- [20:04]
Joy Reid
He's made it very clear he aligns with maga. And they're saying, you can have black representation, but these are the kind of blacks, the only kind of black people you're ever going to have. You will never be able to have a black representative who also challenges white supremacy. You will never be able to have a black representative who challenges white Christian nationalism. You will never have a black representative who challenges the current distribution of power. You can't have a black representative who is what they would consider rebellious. You can have one if they're obedient. And note that even during enslavement, there were a certain number of black people. They said, you can have privileges. You just can't run away, encourage anyone else to run away encourage anyone else to read. As long as you're obedient, we'll let you have a few privileges here and there. And that's what the Republican Party is saying to black people. You will have no representative who will ever challenge our power. And if you try to, we will suppress you and will violently separate you from your votes. We're going to talk about that and a bunch of other stuff, including what's happening in Texas. Let me bring in our panel. Jason Johnson is a professor of politics and journalism at Morgan State University. My friend Jason, I'm seeing you in a minute. My friend, Reverend Nelson Rivers, vice president, the Religious affairs and External Relations at the National Action Network, who is a South Carolina legendary civil rights leader, hopefully.
- [21:34]
Jason Johnson
Get his camera.
- [21:35]
Joy Reid
Okay, we're gonna wait for him. We've got Lev Parnas, our buddy, now an independent candidate. Oh, he's not here yet. Oh, and State Representative Jalanda Jones of the great state of Texas, our lady of the maps. Okay, we're gonna go with what we have until the other folks come in. Hello, friends. Let me start with you, Jason, because, you know, it is an interesting pivot for Republicans because they are now very ostentatiously pushing forward their version of black representation, including in the state of Tennessee. And you have their people, like Tim Scott, saying, oh, no, no, you can have black people. They just have to be obedient.
- [22:12]
Jalanda Jones
Yeah.
- [22:13]
Jason Johnson
I mean, I'm not surprised. And this works fine for Tim Scott. Look, you're saying a lot about yourself when you're like, I'm still black. Like, if you have to tell us that, you're speaking volumes about the level of representation. And we know the difference between substance of representation and symbolic representation. But here's the myth of all of this Joy. Everybody knows everyone observing this. The members of the state, the Republicans in the state, the Democrats in the state, people who are white, who are black or Hispanic, they all know that this is racialized gerrymandering. They all know that if this was really just about ideological distribution, that then naturally some of these maps would have occurred anyway. But the fact that they only occurred after the Supreme Court basically said you can racially gerrymander as long as you pretend and you're not wearing a Klan hat when you do. So we know that's what the motivation is behind this. So I'm not surprised that Tim Scott's gonna carry water for this kind of nonsense. I'm not surprised that you will have some ambitious black Republicans in the south think that this is gonna work in their advantage. But history, common sense, and anyone who is not blind recognizes what's really gone on.
- [23:14]
Joy Reid
Yeah. And Jalanda, I remember when we were talking about the Texas gerrymander, you were saying explicitly, we need to call this a racial gerrymander. We now know they're all racial gerrymanders, but they've now gotten a real free pass from the Supreme Court. As long as they just say the word politics, they can do it. But I think they're being very clear. Even the Alabama Supreme Court was like, hold on, guys. This is clearly a racial gerrymander.
- [23:37]
Jalanda Jones
Well, of course it is. And I would say that they only want Stephen from Django Unchained. Black people. They won't step and fetch it. Black people. They want people like, who were in Africa, the black folks that look like us, that sold us into slavery. Black people. That's what they want. They want Jim Crow black people so they won't house Negro black people. They want Clarence Thomas Negroes. I digress, though, but let me say this. Call a spade a spade is racist gerrymandering. They literally. And I think one of the. I think Tim Scott said something like, oh, Democrats are complaining because they keep losing their votes. No, we're losing our voters because of racist gerrymandering. That's cracking and packing us like they did with Congressman Al Green here. So that's why we're losing. We're not losing because of anything natural. We're losing because of white supremacy. And they don't want to call a thing a thing. And the thing is that they're racist.
- [24:35]
Joy Reid
I. I am gonna. I'm gonna throw in there just to defend. I mean. Well, and I agree with you, there were some Africans who were selling blacks into slavery or selling blacks because they had no idea they were selling them into chattel slavery. And they were also being raided by white Europeans who were, like, snatching and grabbing. So just want to make sure we put that on the record. But I, I. Your overall point, I think, stands. Let me talk about another place that Republicans feel like they're winning, and that is, of course, in the York great state of Texas. So John Cornyn got mocked. I think there's just no other better way to describe it. It was a routing of epic proportions. He lost 64% for Ken Paxton to 36% for Cornyn. Let me play, y' all what James Talarico's response to that was.
- [25:24]
James Talarico
Just happened in Texas. The most corrupt politician in America just became the Republican nominee for the United States Senate three years ago. Ken Paxton was impeached by his own party for using his public office to enrich himself and his donors at the expense of the people. That kind of corruption is the rot at the core of, of this broken system. It's why we can't afford anything. It's why we can't get ahead no matter how hard we work. For 50 years, mega donors and their puppet politicians like Ken Paxton have stolen from us with their bribes, their bailouts, and their billionaire tax breaks. Ken Paxton has gotten away with it. They've all gotten away with it. But that ends this year. In this state, in this race. If we the people can come together to defeat the most corrupt politician in America, we can defeat this entire corrupt system. We can start unrigging this economy. We can start raising our pay, cutting our taxes, lowering our costs. We can finally get ahead. It's time to come together. The people the versus Ken Paxton.
- [26:44]
Joy Reid
State Representative Jalanda Jones. Is that an effective message against Paxton?
- [26:49]
Jalanda Jones
I think it's one of them. I actually think Trump is the most corrupt politician, so I think Paxton is his mini me. But let me say this. I sat in the House impeachment trials. I listened to every ounce of testimony. I voted to impeach Ken Pask, as did most, most Democrats and most Republicans in Texas. It's just when it got to the Senate, they acquitted him. So I know better than anybody what a crook he is. So now Kent Paxton, literally, as I said before, is Trump's mini me, right? With a. With a closed eye. He's. He's a convict, he cheats on his wife. He's like the seven deadly skin that seven deadly sins rolled all into one. And the problem in Texas is, is that the Republicans are moving more right to MAGA extremism like Trump is and whatever Trump says the Republicans do here. So that in every person who ran nationally who Trump endorsed in Texas won, Alex Mueller beat Briscoe Cain, who was a migrant Republican, in the House for Congress for the Republican nomination for CD9, which is what they stole from Congressman Al Green. So, yeah, Paxton has no morals. I respectfully disagree with my colleague James Talarico, that he's the worst crook in the US he might come a close second or he might be Trump's mini me. But, yes, he is absolutely a crook. He's unfaithful, he's an adulterer, he ain't Christian. If he is, he a fake Christian. And. But those kind of Republicans win here in Texas, sadly.
- [28:31]
Joy Reid
Yeah. Jason, I'm sorry to skip. Can you go to a 13, please? And whenever you just let me know when you have it ready. And Jason, and we're going to welcome Reverend Nelson B. Rivers III in just a moment. But Jason, when he was on with the great Lawrence o' Donnell shortly after the night closed in Texas, he kind of gave that same answer because Lawrence asked him, are you glad you're running against this guy because he's got such a representative, you know, reputation for corruption. And he gave a very kind of mild mannered answer about the corruption, but he didn't really go in.
- [29:04]
Jason Johnson
Right.
- [29:04]
Joy Reid
Do you think that the sort of nice version of what Talarico is doing is enough against somebody who to Representative Jones point is just like Trump?
- [29:15]
Jason Johnson
So I say this with all humility. I am not a Texan, so I can't speak for Texas. I can't even speak Texan speak. But what I know of Texans and my friends and colleagues and analysts who are in Texas, they like it rough and tumble. They like you to speak how it is. Now look, if you are authentically sort of a soft spoken person, you can be. But to me, the idea that your primary message is the people versus Paxton, that's great. But that doesn't make them vote for you. Right. The people may be against Paxton, but that's not necessarily for Talarico. And all too often Democrats, whether they're in Texas, whether they're in Nashville, whether they're in Florida, whether they're in different kinds of parts of the country, are too often running with the message of this person is terrible, but not why you're better. So I would say that Talarico, fine, he can say he can speak aggressively, he can speak softly about the corruption. But if he doesn't tell people that he is a better option, if he doesn't tell people that, he can put on his boots and his hat and he can go out there and rustle up some of these people who've done bad things like anybody else. People may just stay home and then the MAGA people will put Paxton in office because he hasn't convinced them that Talarico is going to be a better option.
- [30:23]
Joy Reid
Yeah. And I think, Jason, I didn't put up a 13. I don't think I maybe dropped it in. But it's basically Louie Gohmert said he's incredibly corrupt and maybe the most corrupt attorney general that Texas has ever had. Let me just read just a little bit of this. This Jason, this is a 12 if we have it. There's a the inside the child sex abuse case that resulted in Ken Paxton's office offering a plea deal of just one day in jail. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is under fire for a plea deal his prosecutors offered last month to a Waco man charged with repeatedly sexually abusing a young boy. The deal in the case, which Paxton's office took over about three years ago after the locally elected district attorney recused himself, would have let the man plead guilty to just two misdemeanors and serve a total of just one day in jail. Representative JALANDA Jones. That would be my campaign message every day. I would Willie Horton the hell out of Ken Paxton if I were running that campaign for Talarico. Your thoughts?
- [31:19]
Jalanda Jones
And I would, too, except for Joy. Here's the deal. No Democrat is going to win in Texas unless black people come out to vote. Right. So I think what Talarico is trying to do is not appear too overly progressive because he's, he's, I don't know, reaching out to pandering to independence and, and moderate Republicans and Cornyn supporters who may hate Paxton and vote for him. I think what the Democratic Party has done across the country and what the Democratic Party is doing here in Texas is they're miscalculated by black people. The fact is no Democrat is going to win statewide without us. I think Talarico needs to hire black consultants who are experts at getting us out to vote, because the people versus Paxton is not going to turn black people out. It's not going to motivate them. We're too busy struggling, trying to afford everything, stave off homelessness, try to find a job and things like that, afford gas, not walk, because gas is as high as whatever. But my point is the Democratic Party always plays it safe. I think the Democratic Party needs to get in the gutter. And when you are in a tough campaign, you're. You're supposed to lean into your base. And whether the Democrats want to admit it or not, especially progressive white Democrats want to admit it or not. And I'm probably getting trouble right now for saying this, you got to lean into black people. You can't take us for granted because right now we are not motivated to come out as bad as Trump is, because we're too busy struggling. So we are basically living in a triage in our mind, trying to figure out how to pay our bills and keep our heads above the water. So you're going to have to speak to us. And so I think that some of the Cornyn Republicans may vote for Talarika or they may stay home. But one thing is for damn sure, if you get black people to the polls, nine times out of 10, we gonna vote for Democrats. And so the question remains, and I've been trying to talk to Talarico about this, are you going to invest like pay money, not take us for granted and hire black consultants who, who know the areas, who know who runs whatever neighborhoods to actually GOTV us to the polls?
- [33:32]
Joy Reid
Right. That is the question. Let me welcome Reverend Nelson Beaver as the third to talk a little. South Carolina will bring South Carolina into this as well because it's, it's a similar thing there. I mean, South Carolina is not a state where the national party has invested a lot of money. They didn't really. When Jamie Harrison, rather, he raised a lot of money. He did not manage to beat Lindsey Graham the last time there was a Senate race. But in this case, you saw people, Reverend Rivers, come out in just huge numbers for early voting in South Carolina to send a message, diagnose why you think that was what motivated folks. Was it just the Calais decision or was it this threat of an SEC boycott as well?
- [34:14]
Reverend Nelson Rivers
No, the SEC boycott came later. Folk turned out because of the messengers and the message and the reality when folk tell you they're going to take out Jim Clyburn. I drew Jim Clyburn's district when I was with NAACP in 1991. Jim Clyburn has been in that seats in 1992. Despite the other foolishness folk may say he's easily the most popular elected official in South Carolina of any color for my community. And when they come at them the way they did, then black folk responded because they looked at that as a political lynching. And black folk responded because the church got on the same page. Organizations and groups, sororities, fraternities, the whole black community got on the same page. I tell you what was amazing, Joy, I'm so glad to see you too. That when I got to the polls that morning getting ready to go to Columbia to stay in this fight, what struck me was how universal the reason was. Everybody who I talked to didn't have any confusion about why they were voting. It was to be against redistricting, to save Jim Klein Burns district and to save our right to vote. That's a message that got through. And it got through that the weekend before, we did a videotape to send out to every church that would do it. I'm also the director of social justice for the state Baptist Convention in addition to working revenue Sharpton Religious affairs for the whole land. And what struck me was how many people said they Saw it or heard about it. The message was not complicated. It was straightforward and it worked. It worked so well that by noon, 50,000 plus folk had voted. It took days to get to 50,000 early votes. The last time by noon, by the time I got to the Senate, we also had something unusual to happen that we need to find out why. I think I know why. I've talked to a couple of them. We have 12 Republicans out of the 24 to vote with the 12 black, the 12 Democrats, four I think, of which are black. And they won. Now, it took a lot. What we cannot overemphasize. You cannot win. Just raising hell and talking. There has to be a strategy. And the strategy was getting with us, civil rights community, church community, communicating the message that if you want to stop them, go vote. Go vote Tuesday, vote early. And over this weekend, the black church promoted that, organizations promoted it, and folk went to vote as groups. Sororities together, fraternities together, families together. But the main thing was there was no question about what we were supposed to do that morning. Go vote. By the time I got to Columbia and got in the Senate gallery, the mood has shifted so much that the Republicans who were with us got emboldened to take the mic and call everything out. It was an amazing thing. I've been at this a long time, as you know, and I did it within the ACP for 10 years in South Carolina. 20 years, including being a volunteer. Been with Reverend Sharpton since 2014, working with the great Sister Trudy Grant. And the truth of the matter is, I've seen it work a few times. And every time, it is this uniform work in our community, across groups, across differences. One message, vote Tuesday. Why? Because we want to save Jim and save our right to vote. Then we made it very personal. A personal attack. Our folk will respond to personal. The sisters had a right, except that my training has been you have to have trusted messengers. You can't just have folk who are getting paid to do this know they're getting paid to do this, because that only works for folk that gets paid to do it.
- [38:02]
Joy Reid
Yeah.
- [38:02]
Reverend Nelson Rivers
What we ended up doing, we were there every week for three weeks. We met with the governor, we met with everybody. And what I found is that our folk knew it. Social media has been a big help compared to the way we did it in the days going by. But. But the message has to be the same. And folk in my own church were telling me before I told them, I asked them to go vote. We're going to vote tomorrow. We're going to vote Tuesday. They meant that. And I say to us, our folk are not nearly as complicated as we make them. Most folk know that the man in the White House is a racist and a bigot. Most folk know that the party that he comes from has not been a friend of ours in South Carolina. What they were shocked about was 12 of them took the risk. Now, let me be clear, that was not all courage. No member of the South Carolina Senate is up for election this year. None. They can't be primary. They cannot be intimidated. That's why 12 of them broke. A gentleman from down in Beaufort, Tom Davis, a great guy, a Republican, he gave the speech that ended that part of the session. When he got through, made the motion to kill it. When he made the motion was after a powerful speech, went to kill it. We listened as they counted and I was stunned when we got past 12, when we got past 10, I just couldn't believe it. We've not seen that before. That could be something that's once in a lifetime or it could be something we can use, a strategy we don't know. But my folk, I want to commend the Black Caucus of South Carolina. I've been working with the Black Caucus since I was the youngest member's age. I've been at this with them since I was 25 years old and now I'm 75. So you do the math. And I learned that this leadership group, there's a sister who's the chairperson of the caucus, Annie McDaniel, they work more cohesively, more unity, more strategy than I've seen in the past. I'm not saying that it was not done, but they were locked in. And being locked in made a big difference. There was a strategy in the House to slow it down. Even the governor, who I went to meet with, who is not a friend, we're friendly, but he's not a friend. I found out by confession from one of the leading senators who were against us and wanted the bill to pass that the governor delayed two days. He's never going to confess it. But our meeting was just in time for the delay of two days. I didn't know that's what he was doing. He may not have been doing that, but one of them got it out the bag yesterday that they got it two days earlier. They would have been on Monday instead of the day before. Two days before, since they worked through the weekend.
- [40:35]
Joy Reid
Well, we are out of time for this segment. I want to give Jason one more last word on this because the last the Question I have, and I appreciate that background from you, Reverend Rivers. Last question to you, Jason Johnson. Because it does seem to me that Republicans may be taking a little bit of a pause and maybe realizing they maybe took this too far in Georgia. Brian Kemp seems to be delaying it because, you know, there's a governor's race that could be impacted by black folks getting as mad in Georgia as they were in South Carolina.
- [41:03]
Jason Johnson
Oh, look, they don't want to do this. They're not about this life. Like they. They like saying terrible and racist things. But you saw what happened in Indiana. You see what's happening in Georgia. You see what's happening in South Carolina. Most Republicans, even if I want to be critical of their policy positions, they're not neo Nazis, they're not white nationalists the way that MAGA is, and they don't want to do things that. That are gonna disrupt business, disrupt their neighbors, disrupt their colleagues, even if they're colleagues that they don't agree with. So I think that this is an example of people pausing, but I'm not trying to be cynical. They're gonna try again, and next year, I would not doubt. And I spoke to several friends and colleagues from South Carolina. I wouldn't be surprised if they try this again next year because this kind of pressure from the White House is not gonna magically disappear once people cast their votes in November.
- [41:50]
Joy Reid
Absolutely. Thank you so much, Jason. Reverend Rivers and Representative Jalanda Jones, thank you all very much. As we had more time, we have another guest. I wan. We get her in as well. Thank you all for coming and come back often. Appreciate y'. All.
- [42:01]
Jalanda Jones
Thank you.
- [42:02]
Reverend Nelson Rivers
Thank you very much.
- [42:03]
Joy Reid
Thank you very much. Want to note for you guys that this show, the Joy Reid show, is brought to you by our friends at Audio, the audio marketing gurus at Radioactive Media. Now, if you're a business owner or decision maker in marketing and you are still on the sidelines, podcasts should no longer be optional. They're essential to how consumers spend their time. Clearly, their attention and trust. Podcasting is the fastest growing digital media. I'll bet you didn't know that podcast ad spending is pacing to increase by 33% this year. And podcasts like this very one you're listening to now that utilize video are up 97.7%. Podcasting is no longer on the edges of the marketing mix. Research shows that more than half of Americans now listen to podcasts, at least monthly, listening close to an hour a day. Podcast audiences don't just tune in. They lean in. They form relationships. 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To get the lowest rates in podcast and radio, Radioactive Media can surpass your current strategies with new ad innovations and ways to make you sound better. Go to Radioactive Media.com or text RESULTS 511-511-Text RESULTS to 511-511 today. Message and Data rates apply. Okay, so down in the state of Florida, this happened county My whole adult life you've always been able to count on me to deliver results for our community. Today I'm announcing my candidacy for reelection in congressional district 20 because we cannot let Trump destroy Broward County's power. Oh well, that has caused some backlash. And Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was on this show, she had her district redistricted, probably illegally, on the orders of Ron DeSantis who ordered the super majority Republican legislature to draw new districts despite the fact that in 2010 the people of Florida passed the Fair District amendments, which means you're not supposed to be able to do this kind of gerrymandering. They did it anyway and her district got merged and moved to another district, which would be harder to win, a little more Republican. So she decided that she's going to jump into the race for this seat, Florida 20, which is the seat that used to be Alcee Hastings seat, but where the sitting member of Congress recently resigned, Congresswoman Sheriff Flores, I think I pronounced her name properly because she has some ethics investigations happening. So all of that is going on and the race for that seat is becoming ugly because Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who is obviously a white Democrat, is looking to have the seat that would be a black Democrat. But for the gerrymandering. And there's a lot of anger over this. There's a lot of anger over this because the thinking is, hey, why would you come in and try to take this seat from a black candidate when you could just run for your old seat and just be a little bit more competitive? I will make one more note here. There are at least five other Democrats running in this seat, running for this seat, five other black Democrats and Debbie Wasserman Schultz. And if you do the split, if like six people are running, he would only need to really do well among the 30% part of the district that is white in order to carry the seat which would displace a black Democrat. This does not. This sounds suboptimal to me, but that is what is happening. Joining me now is Florida State Representative Angie Nixon, union organizer, mother and proven fighter, born and raised in Jacksonville. And she is all. And she is somebody who has stood up against this gerrymandering to the point of facing arrest. And also joining her right now is hip hop legend turned congressional candidate Luther Campbell, aka Uncle Luke, who is a candidate in congressional district 20. Thank you both for being here. Of course. I want to start with you, Representative Nixon. I'm going to show this video and let. Jason, you can just turn this down and you can just talk over it because you stood up against this initial gerrymandering with a physical protest. And here's what happened when you refused to leave the state House talk about what was going on and what you were doing. And did you actually get arrested?
- [47:16]
Angie Nixon
Yeah, for sure. So previously, a few weeks prior, I disrupted House proceedings because there's a lot going on. And the Republicans, Donald Trump requested to the southern governors in red states to basically rig an election for him and redistrict in such a way that is partisan gerrymandering here. And so I want to be clear that in the state of Florida in 2010, we voted, the voters, over 63% of us voted to not allow for partisan gerrymandering in the Fair District's constitutional ballot amendment that voters put on the ballot. Right. And so I stood up and pushed back against that and actually disrupted proceedings with pink megaphone because they were doing something that was illegal and unconstitutional. And fast forward a few weeks later, I was actually formally reprimanded by House leadership who, by the way, did not tell me I was going to be reprimanded. They didn't tell me anything. I learned about it on social media and by reporters calling me and the Very next day, after my formal reprimand. But I might add that there have been fist fights, literal fist fights on the House floor, and they never received a reprimand. But the very next day, there was a rally that took place, and I was a part of the rally. And then we walked over to the governor's office asking to meet with him. They say that he wasn't there. And then we asked could we speak with someone from his office. They told us they were going to allow us to do that, and they didn't. No one came out. And so we stood there and we stayed there. We wanted to meet with someone, and they didn't allow us. And so they arrested three other individuals first, and then they arrested me for trespassing and resisting without violence. And they did this when they really should have been addressing issues like property insurance, when they really should have been addressing the fact that people can no longer afford to live in the state of Florida. But instead, Ron DeSantis wants a job because he's a lame duck and he's really kissing up to Donald Trump. And so he decided to rig these maps.
- [49:30]
Joy Reid
Yeah. And the result of that, Luther Campbell, is this mess in Florida 20. Because this is a seat that the late, great Alcee Hastings held a version of the seat. I'm not sure if it's exactly the same district. The current congresswoman resigned because of an ethics issue. She's running again. She is one of the many people in this race, along with yourself and several other people. You have called out the Congressional Black Caucus. And we can put this up, Jason, before, because so far, there hasn't been an official statement from the caucus. No, actually, I'm sorry, Jason. B3. There it is. This was what you posted. This is on Facebook saying that they need to say something to Debbie about Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Say more.
- [50:17]
Jason Johnson
Yeah, I mean, thank you for having me on your show. You. I. I really appreciate it. And shouts out to the state rep running for Sen. I mean, this is. This is bad for more reasons than one. I mean, you just had some people on talking about gerrymander in the map. Uh, us going after Republicans because they gerryman map to take over black seats. And now here we are with a Democrat, Debbie Watson shows coming into congressional district 20 with 54% African Americans, 20% white, 15% Hispanics. Her coming in with the notion that, okay, yeah, I'm gonna get all the white voters. I'm coming in with $15 million in my war chest. I'm coming in with $3 million of cash money that I could come in and take this district when I really do live in congressional district 22 where I can run in 22, where Donald Trump only won by 10% but Joe Biden won it by 5% and Donald Trump approval ratings are down right now. Why not run in 22 where you can flip that seat? Because the last time I checked, it was all about us Democrats trying to flip seats that have a possible chance, take all that money and run in that district where you live at and at the same time let black folk have their seat. Now, I think, in my opinion, I think it's a conspiracy because Jared Bosco was originally worked for Ron DeSantis giving out the COVID money. So he probably gave Shiller too much money and then all of a sudden, allegedly, you know, her falling up into an ethics situation. But why not run against Jared? So my point is this. If they won't run against each other, but they'll run against us, what's the difference between them in, in Louisiana? What's the, between Alabama? What's the difference between any of these Confederate states that we sitting here talking about boycotting, but yet, and still there's a, a Democrat, a ranking leading Democrat that is running to take a congressional black seat that will leave us with only one black seat in this great state of Florida. I mean, I just don't understand it. I really don't understand it. It's either greed or is it selfishness. And for the Black Caucus not to say anything about this when the Congressional Black Caucus of black Broward county said something about it, when the, the Democratic Party in the state of Florida pushed back on it.
- [52:58]
Angie Nixon
Well, I wanna, I wanna say the Democratic Party did not push back on it. The Florida. Yeah, yeah, there was dnc, some DNC members, but the party did not see members.
- [53:14]
Jason Johnson
And there was two of them that did not. So who were they?
- [53:18]
Ashley St. Clair
Right.
- [53:21]
Joy Reid
No, go ahead, Representative Nixon. I wanted to say more about this because this is a challenge, right. Debbie Wasserman Schultz is the former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. Right. I mean, she angered a lot of Bernie Sanders voters back in 2016 because they felt that DNC was unfair, et cetera. So there are a lot of sort of, you know, people who are more. Bernie, Bernie, you know, pro Bernie, who would love to see her lose. But it is a serious question because the Democratic Party is supposed. The base of the Democratic Party is African Americans. That is the most loyal base of the party. It is a little surprising that there's been no real pushback I can tell you just from some reporting that she attempted to get the support of members of the Congressional Black Caucus, and they have denied that to her. They have said they are not going to come out and formally endorse her. So they're not proactively supporting her. But can you tell us that inside of these state Democratic caucuses, you're saying there has not been a universal opposition to what she's doing?
- [54:17]
Angie Nixon
So I would say that I know that the Florida Black Caucus, this Florida State Black Caucus, we issued a letter in regards to that stating that we are not in support of that. And we also, I was told that leadership reached out to the congresswoman and unfortunately, I believe she didn't have time to speak with us. And so that is very unfortunate what it is saying to us and what many of the constituents across the state that are members of the black community are saying that it feels as though they are okay with our labor, but they do not want us to be in leadership. And I would like to say that I can at times agree to that. I mean, think about the fact that I'm running for United States Senate. And some folks are often say, like, oh, well, she's been a great fighter, she's been a great representative, but she's unelectable because she's a black woman or because she is against the status quo and the establishment. At the end of the day, people are hurting and these times are not normal. We are facing chaos and corruption of epic proportion, which is one of the reasons that I did decide to lead that peaceful protest on the House floor. And so that means that we cannot continue to do business as usual, politics as usual. We are boldly being attacked, and now is the time for bold leadership in this moment. And we cannot continue to do the same thing that's been happening, which is basically bow down to these greedy billionaires and corrupt corporations. I really believe now is the time for us as a community, as a country to allow for hardworking, everyday people to shape what our communities look like and what our economies look like. We cannot continue to let the wealthiest of the wealthy determine what our country, the direction our country is going and the type of legislation that folks want to push. Like, if we allowed regular everyday folks like, you know, bus drivers and cafeteria workers and custodians and single parents, like, what if they were the ones who were our state lawmakers and our federal lawmakers? We would see things like Medicare for All being pushed. We would, we would not witness nearly $2 billion a day going towards a war that we didn't ask for. We wouldn't witness a billion dollars in a ballroom that many of us will never dance in. We would not see these handouts, these no bid contracts going to Donald Trump's folks or to Ron DeSantis folks. We would actually be addressing the needs of hard working people across the country.
- [56:57]
Joy Reid
Right? Yeah. I think you, I think no one would disagree with you on that. And for you, Luke, for you, Uncle Luke, I'm so tempted to always call you Uncle Luke.
- [57:08]
Jason Johnson
On the is Luther Uncle Luke Campbell? Because I want people to know that this is the right one.
- [57:13]
Joy Reid
Well, I have to say I think it's an advantage for you. Can we just, if you can put up Jason, who's all running in B4, because I think, and thank you for highlighting and I should have mentioned that in your introduction statement, Representative Nixon, you are running for U.S. senate, so you will be running for that as well. But look at this number of people, Uncle Luke, that are running in this race. You have the most well known obviously among the people who are running. Rudy Moise, I will note, did just drop out of this race. He's now going to potentially run in another race we're about to talk about. But with all of these people running, isn't this one of the reasons that Debbie Wasserman Schultz has an advantage, Uncle Luke? Because there are so many people running. She only has to win like 20, 25% of the vote and she's in there. There are no runoffs in the state of Florida.
- [57:55]
Jason Johnson
But that, that's, that's the, the notion of her getting in this race, you know that. But it is really sick to think that every white person is going to vote for her just because they're white. That, that's, that, that, that's kind of, that's kind of sick. But that is the harsh reality of it all. But I don't think I'm betting on, I'm betting on the people of congressional district 20. I'm betting on every individual that's in this Democratic Party that they're going to do the right thing. The white, Black, Hispanics, the 15 Hispanics to do the right thing. Most people look at what she's doing as, as narcissistic. You know, most people look at this as a bad thing. And again I go back to the Black Caucus. If the Black Caucus of Broward county came and said, look, we pushed back on this. If only two people in the state of Florida said, oh, two people didn't, didn't write a letter saying they depot opposed this hell Morgan. And Morgan came out today and said he has a problem with this. You know what I'm saying? I mean, you know, he run thousand ads all over the country. You know, it's just, it's sad because of where we at in this state of, of age. This is what I think gonna happen. And this is what if we're if fragile right now. And I'm on here with two beautiful, smart, intelligent sisters. Y' all know for a fact black men are on the edge in this with this Democratic Party. And if you don't know that, then you should have looked at the last election when with Kamala Harris ran, even though we voted at 92%, but black men are feeling some kind of weight. This woman rolls up into this district, win take over this district. What's what every African American, American man gonna say, look the part the party don't give a damn about us. They ran this white woman into a black district, she won. You know what the end results are going to be? Black men are going to stay home. They're going to stay home in the, in the general. You know what's going to happen also, Byron, Byron Donald is going to easily win the governorship. He's going to, he's going to walk right in there. You know what's going to happen? A stronghold of Broward county that has been the backbone of the strongest hole in the state of Florida that always been blue. It's going to be split in half. It's going to be split to the core. And, and I look at it from this standpoint, I look at it that this is a very, very important moment in history. We could play games if we want to. Hakeem Jeffrey could play games. The black markets could play games. But this is a very important moment because if we want the Republicans to stand down and we're going to call them out for the things that they've done and disenfranchise them, well, we need to be able to call out Debbie Wattsman Shultz. And if we don't do that, then we're hypocrisy, hypocrites. And I'm not gonna be a part of no hypocrite.
- [60:55]
Joy Reid
Amen. You know what? I, I agree with you. Look, you know, I'm not involved in politics anymore. I, I've left. I'm on the journalistic side. But I will tell you, as a citizen, as an American, as somebody who cares about the Voting Rights act and who cares about the, the, the, the preservation of Black power. Because we cannot live in a country in which we have no power. We have no say. And. And as I said in the a black. We're being told the only kind of black representation we're allowed to have is a Byron Donalds who's an obedient black man who will do whatever white supremacy says. If that's all we're allowed to have in a state like Florida, then we're sunk. And so I think Debbie Wasserman Schultz is making a tremendous error. And I don't know that she can see it yet because she's obviously in her emotional feelings about maybe not being in Congress. But baby, have a plan B because Congress is not the only job opportunity that you could possibly have. Stepping over into this district instead of running in your own and having the courage, as Uncle Luke said, to stand for election in the city where you live. Right. Do that. Because stepping over into District 20 to me is an absolutely shameful decision. I'm going to be honest, a nice person, Debbie Wasman Schultz. But I also question the money, the APAC money, the foreign interest money that's pouring into her campaign. This is a problem. It's a problem for me as well.
- [62:14]
Angie Nixon
It definitely is a problem, Joy, and thank you for highlighting that. And she, Uncle Luke, to your point, you know about the black men. I mean, she's causing issues within black women. Right. Like, we are somewhat upset. We are not somewhat. We are very upset by what's happening as well. But I also want to put blame where blame lies initially. Right. Like all across the south, we are seeing Republicans are leading this effort to basically allow for politicians to choose who. Who their voters are instead of allowing for voters to choose who the people to choose who represents them. And I want to be clear, right. Because Joy, I know you used to be in, you know, you're from Florida a little bit, you stay here for a little while or whatever. And so like we. It is very disingenuous for people to say that they care about black people or they care about the South. And Florida is not in the conversation. We are a part of the South. Y' all hear this drawl. I know y' all hear this drawl, right? And so we have the second largest pop population of black people in the country. Money needs to be here and invested in our state year round. We have been holding it together as much as possible. We are ground zero from the anti DEI bills, the stop woke. All of that originated here and we're still here. And now we need support, right? We need Support this would not have happened this way if, you know, I will say the National Democratic Party like did not turn their back on the state. And so how can you say that you care about uplifting the black community if you do not invest in Florida?
- [63:56]
Joy Reid
I wholeheartedly agree 1000%. I wish we had an endless amount of time to talk to you both. Angie Nixon, we're gonna put up your website. It is angienixon.com and of course, Luther Campbell for Florida is where you can get Luther campbellforflorida.com there it is. Luther campbell4congress.com Luther campbell for congress.com that's where you can support both of these candidates and I hope that you will. I will also note our friend Chevron Jones may be running for Congress in the other seat, Florida 24 District 24. If Frederica Wilson decides not to run for reelection. It's a whole other conversation we gotta have. Thank you both. State Representative, thank you for having me. Candidate Angie Nixon and congressional candidate Uncle Luke, Luther Campbell. Thank you, my brother.
- [64:39]
Jason Johnson
I appreciate you.
- [64:40]
Joy Reid
Uncle Luke, I know you're voting for. Okay, we know you're support. I don't know if she's in that district. She might not be in that district. You know, it's a, it's a tough situation. And of course, if Debbie Wasman Schultz would like to come back on the show, she's absolutely welcome to come back. But she. Representative Nixon was absolutely right. At the end of the day, Republicans created the Hunger Games and this is what they want. They want Democrats to fight it out among themselves. They don't mind if it creates racial tension and arguments. Intraracial, intramural conflict within the Democratic base. They love that because the more conflict, the better for them. And so this is their fault. At the end of the day, this is what they want. They want black and white Democrats to fight it out in a hunger Games over these seats. They want AIPAC money, fighting against anti APAC money. That's what they want. And this is literally the outcome that they dreamed of. It is very, very sad. But I think people are fighting back. People are angry and people are not having it. And yes, Debbie Wasp Mitchells, do you are welcome to come back on and discuss. Feel free. Welcome to hour two of the Joy Reid show. Do be sure to hit that like and subscribe button and be sure to also hit that notification button and click all so that you always know when we are going live and you train that algorithm to obey you. We want the algorithm to be obedient, not the Humans. And yeah, Byron Donalds is probably like, am I invited to come back on? No. I mean, what are we going to talk about? You already said that black people were better off under Jim Crow. I'm not sure where we go from there. Could you be the governor of Florida? I would say no.
- [66:11]
Jason Johnson
I was about to say hell no.
- [66:15]
Joy Reid
I mean, if he insists. But I mean, the reality is this guy, I already know what his, what he's about. He's going to get on and yell and try to be a bully and say Donald Trump is the greatest president ever and he gets a, A plus plus for the economy. And Trump is amazing and he's just going to kiss ass to get himself into that gubernatorial seat. And then he's going to find out just like Michael Steele will tell you he found out when he became the chairman of the Republican National Committee. Oh, they don't want you to lead. They actually just want you to be black and shut the hell up. They wanted Obama to smile and wave and be grateful, but not to like pass health care. As soon as he got health care through, they were like, destroy him.
- [66:49]
Jason Johnson
And it's gonna be, hey, Mr. Donaldson, do you really think that you're going to be able to spend this budget? You think you're going to.
- [66:55]
Joy Reid
He won't be in charge.
- [66:56]
Jason Johnson
You need a minder, brother.
- [66:59]
Joy Reid
They're going to have a, he's going
- [67:01]
Jason Johnson
to have a mind.
- [67:01]
Joy Reid
If he wins, he, I mean, look, Tim Scott is the model for what they want. Tim Scott. Name a bill. That's Tim Scott's bill. Name an initiative that Tim. He tried to do police reform, but it was like his job in the sort of police reform effort was to water down police reform. Just be very clear. The version that he was pushing through of quote, unquote, police reform, watered down the whole thing. As long as they're doing that, they're fine with it. They don't mind him being on the police reform bill as long as he waters it down so that it doesn't do anything. And Byron Donald would be expected to obey the same way. And he can get mad if he wants, but there's no what they do, not what. The reason that they don't want to teach about the rebellions during slavery is that rebelliousness is what the right fears. They fear the rebelliousness of minorities. They fear that they will not obey. That is why there are. That's what they fear the rebelliousness of women. That's why they don't want women to go to college, want them to go the Hell home and make butter turn butter. Because when women go to college, they don't obey. They fear the disobedience of minorities, the disobedience of non white people. Because as long as you're obedient to white supremacy, they're like, you can be here. And Byron Donaldson's like, I'll be obedient. What do you need me to do? What do you need me to say? You want me to say Trump is amazing, the economy is great, people aren't broke at all, gas prices are low. I'll say that. And if you're willing to do that, they're like, great, come along and then. But the problem for Democrats is that isn't enough to beat someone like that because Byron Donald will read to a lot of African Americans like a regular black person. He's very good at that as well. Low key. Apparently he used to pretend to be Jamaican. He is Jamaican. His background is Jamaican, used to speak with a Jamaican accent. But anyway, he's good at cosplaying. And there will be enough black men who say, I relate to that guy and they'll vote for him. And they'll soon find out you did a Clarence Thomas. Again, he's no different. How's he different from Clarence Thomas? Give me 10 ways. Give me two ways. He's different from Clarence Thomas. He's the same. So if you vote for him, you're voting for Clarence Thomas, but a politician, I mean, there's another guy, Sheriff Demings, who's also running for governor, but they people will be like, well, he's a cop and they won't vote for him. People get in their heads, strange reasons for not being for someone. And they'll look at Byron Donalds and say, well, he seems like a regular brother and they'll vote for him. And then you get poof. Clarence Thomas. That's what you get. Or you get Tim Scott. What do you be? He won't be any different. I'm just being honest. So if he wants to come on and discuss that, I guess. But Debbie Wasserman Schultz, feel free because I would love to hear your explanation as to why you feel that you need to step into Florida District 20 instead of staying in your, your district. Let's talk about some of our other sponsors. We have another amazing sponsor and that is First Day. Let me actually show you guys these. They are. I actually had this this morning. First Day is one of our amazing sponsors. And what I do absolutely love about First Day, no added sugar, no added dyes, nothing unnecessary. First day, super transparent about the ingredients that are in it. Everything tested for 200 plus toxins. It also has the clean label purity award. And I also love that they do not do a one size fits all. Vitamin 1st A actually makes different formulas for toddlers, for kids, for teens and for those of us grown folks. So it's tailored to your stage of life. Absolutely. 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Day to two gummies a day, easy to stay consistent, honestly makes a huge difference. More than a million families use first day and they have a 45 day money back guarantee. So if you'd like to try it, get more energy, get better mood, get all the good things. For a limited time only, list our listeners. The Joy reacho listeners or viewers. Viewers are getting a just insane deal. Use the code Joy to get up to now. This is serious. 57% off@first day.com. 57% off and a free gift if you use the code joy@firstday.com after you purchase they will ask you where you heard about them. So please let them know it was at the Joy Reid show. Support our show and tell them that we sent you on ova. Get your vitamins. It's good. All right. We also have to note that our show is sponsored by this book which is actually quite present in this moment and it is called Bullies, Paradise Parasites and Slaves. There it is. Make sure I'm holding it high enough so you can see it. This book is actually quite good and it's actually quite fresh and it's like right on the nose. And it's made. It's by a guy called Dr. George Byron Koch. And what I love about it is that it actually makes sense for right now and it makes sense for all the things that we're dealing with. True leaders do not benefit themselves. Hello. They work to meet our common needs. That is the difference between a bully and a parasite or true leader. Bullies will pretend to protect us while actually using us to guard their own privilege. But they can be stopped. This is the important part. Every refusal to submit, every expose of their exploitation moves us closer to a future where true leadership prevails and the old methods of domination lose their power. We can get there together and prosper together. So here's how to start. You got to read the bull the book Bullies, Parasites and Slaves by George Koch. Now, you will definitely use these insights. So go to bps online, bps.online, sorry, bps online or just text care, which is easier to 5 11, 511. And that's how you get the book bps online or text care to 511-511. And guess what? The price is right. It's free if you need it. Text CARE to 511-511-today to receive a link to get your book today. Tax rates may apply. That's the one thing you might pay for is a text. All right, so this week, Pope Leo, who I is my official favorite Pope. I absolutely love Pope Leo. He did something really amazing. He issued an historic apology, not just for slavery and for slavery happening, but for the Catholic Church's involvement in it. Now, if you all remember when Pope Leo was first canonized, I told you that he named himself after the previous Pope Leo, who was the first pope to acknowledge enslavement and to acknowledge it as a singular evil. And so that's why he chose to call himself Pope Leo. After that, Pope Leo, well, now he's issued this incredible apology in his encyclical. It's very historic that he did that. He also did a speech in which he went in on AI and the dangers therein. It was pretty incredible. So, yes, big shout out to Chicago's own Pope and also New Orleans, because we'll never, we will never forget that he is a New Orleans Creole turned Chicagoan and he's going in. And the subtle and amazing ways that he dings the current administration and does it in American English. I love it so much and I absolutely love Pope Leo. So, big ups to the Pope. But this is what I wanted to go in very Very quickly. So do you. I don't know if you guys follow Ashley St. Clair. She's the former MAGA influencer who has a baby with Elon Musk. So she's been, like, giving a lot of tea. Here's a one piece of tea. She was on the. She was on. I've had it news with our friend Jennifer Welch, and she talked about the racism inside maga, which is not something shocking to know, but it's just interesting to hear her talk about it here at C2 just is the movement.
- [74:50]
Ashley St. Clair
It's pretty racist.
- [74:51]
Joy Reid
That's what I mean.
- [74:52]
Angie Nixon
I think it's just. Would you say that's at the epicenter of it?
- [74:55]
Ashley St. Clair
You know, I've texts from Stephen Miller where he's like, we need white boy.
- [74:58]
Joy Reid
What?
- [74:58]
Ashley St. Clair
Oh, yeah, you have texts from Stephen Miller. Used to text me every day during the election. He's like, share this. I don't. I. Every time I've seen him, he's sitting down at the board with a drink, so don't know. He.
- [75:10]
Angie Nixon
What would he text you?
- [75:11]
Ashley St. Clair
We need what White Boy November. He's like, we need the white boys. This is going to be White Boy November. Like, he's just a loser. And so, like, he's begging me for retweets. He's like, we need to get.
- [75:21]
Angie Nixon
Hold on.
- [75:22]
Ashley St. Clair
So that guy is reaching out to you to reach. I think they're just hateful, racist. Like, I know. I think what bonds them together is hate and that they weren't cool in high school. Like, they're really. These people are so deeply insecure.
- [75:40]
Joy Reid
Hate and the fact that they weren't cool in high school. Facts, right? I mean. I mean, hell, I wasn't cool in high school, but I don't want to, like, destroy America and the Constitution because of it. I mean, these people were nerds in high school. They were hated in high school, and they've decided to take revenge upon the entire world. And apparently, you know, he must have gone to a school where black and particularly brown people were cool, because Stephen Miller is on, like, he's like a really hateful, really obsessive crusade to destroy brown people. It's just weird. But it's interesting. Ashley St. Clair, she has reformed herself. She is out of the MAGA movement. And listen, when I tell you, she's telling. But the realty is not about the racism. We knew about the racism. It's about the Matrix and it's about whether or not the 2024 election was stolen. Now, this is something I have gone back and forth with. I was initially a absolutely not. The election was not stolen. There were just flaws in the campaign. They didn't turn out enough voters of color, didn't turn out enough voters who were pro Palestinian, didn't put the Palestinian woman on stage on all of that stuff on stage, all of that. And I still think all of that is true and that there were a lot of flaws in the Harris campaign. But listen to what Ashley St. Clair has to say that Elon Musk told her about the election. Take a listen.
- [76:56]
Ashley St. Clair
And then October rolls around. And in October, Elon tells me that he is ready to release his, in his words, anomaly in the Matrix. And I am like, oh, like, who's that? And he says that he has 10,000 lasers in space, referring to his satellites. I say, because I am like, rather uncomfortable and I know the gravity of what he's trying to tell me right now. I say, wow, finally a focus on the Jewish vote. He keeps going and he says, you know, this is not something on. This is not a piece that they'll see on the chessboard. And I, I straight up tell him, I say I would ask more, but I really don't want to be deposed. To which he says, very wise. Shortly after that, you know, he's involved with America Pack and all of this other stuff and he's sending me some internal data from America Pack real time delta vote metrics. And I am just like, how the. Do you have this sort of data? You don't get this from door knocking. Because that was my first, one of my first jobs in politics was in campaigns and, and cleaning up this bad data from, from door knocking. Because the, the vendors that America Pack is using at this point is a vendor that hires Craigslist crackheads for door knocking. And I wish I was exaggerating there, but I'm not. I know like, I have caused harm with my rhetoric. However, I never like, sought out to cause harm. Like there were parts of me that really wanted like, the best for the country, for America, for democracy. And one thing is I have always, always hated big tech. So then to have arguably the most powerful man in the world who is sending me things about, you know, using his space technology in the election. I should also say that I have all of this backed up with many people with explicit instructions should anything happen to me. Okay, but, but this was something that I was internally wrestling with while publicly not really showing that I, I was having any of these internal ethical conflicts.
- [79:53]
Joy Reid
We can stop it though.
- [79:54]
Ashley St. Clair
Regarding. Got this information.
- [79:57]
Joy Reid
Okay, that is frightening. And then she talks about on election day, she's doing her makeup. These are Get Ready With Me videos that she does on her TikTok channel. So you're watching her do her makeup in the end. But it's, it's, it's, it's. I'm gonna let. Just put a pin in that. I want us to just want to just noodle on that on your own time. It's interesting. Let's talk about Tennessee on a totally different note. I just wanted y' all to hear that because I. We're going to come back to that in the show. And we are actually trying to book Ashley St. Clair to come on this show and talk about it. But it's interesting. I just want to leave a pin in that. Let's talk about Tennessee. So Tennessee has postponed the planned execution of an innocent man. We talked about the Tony Carruthers case on this show. There is no evidence tying him to the 1994 triple murder that he is soon to be supposed to be executed for. There have been calls for clemency. The ACLU has taken up his case. We had the ACLU person on to talk about it. They have not been successful. And they tried to execute him, but they could not find a vein. State of Tennessee. And so now the governor is saying they're going to put a stay of execution and they're going to try again next year. What is happening in this state, also in the state of Tennessee, again, one of the states that has snatched away the voting rights of black Tennesseans. They've also, they proposed a bill that would take foster young men, young people who age out of foster care, and put them in detention camps, essentially concentration camps for people who age out of foster care. That is what's happening right now in the state of Tennessee. In addition to what they're doing to destroy the voting rights of black Tennesseans, all of that all at the same time. And we thought to ourselves, who can we talk about these two things and the rest of what's going on with. And we thought, aha, we know. State representative. Oh, I think he has his call drop. Okay, we'll try to get him back on the notion that this state, which already has a pretty robust incarcerative system, carceral system, and that also has a pretty aggressive cooperation with ICE to try to use detention camps for foster youth. It seems almost too cruel, but maybe not too cruel for a state that also turned down money for free school lunches for children. Is he there? Okay, we're Waiting for state representative. The state representative to come back in. Okay, so we're waiting because we have a little bit of a technical issue with him. Aha. There he is. State Representative Justin Jones. We've got you now. Hey, Representative Jones, thank you for being here.
- [83:00]
Justin Jones
Of course. Thank you for always amplifying these issues that are happening here in states like Tennessee, trying to bring us backwards to some very terrible times.
- [83:08]
Joy Reid
You know, I haven't gotten a chance to talk to you since you did this, but this image remains with me. And, Jason, you can Play. Play at C6. We don't have to play the sound. You, during these fights about the Confederate. About the. About the redistricting and gerrymandering of your state, burned a Confederate flag inside of the state house. Jason, if you have that, you can play it without the sound. And that image, I think, is so iconic because it really speaks to what we're really fighting, which is this neo confederate sort of trying to bring back that same ethos of the Confederacy. And I take the idea of executing an innocent black man and then basically torturing him and say, we couldn't get a vein. We'll just kill you next year. And then incarcerating young people who are in foster care in detention camps. It all, to me, seems to be the one in the center. Same. What do you. What do you make of it?
- [84:02]
Justin Jones
I mean, I think most definitely what we're seeing in Tennessee is, once again, Tennessee is the tip of the spear. You know, whether it's trying to execute and in so doing, torturing a black man for an hour and a half as they try and prod him and poke him, you know, and he would have been the first person executed in over a century, in almost a century, who had to represent himself in court with all these flaws in the case, you know, this Jim Crow justice system. And yet what do we see on the other side? We see white insurance getting a reparations fund, you know, who actually committed crimes and who went through a process and yet are treated as heroes and as, you know, patriotic Americans where black folks and children are being caged and are being mistreated. And these kids in foster care were seeing, you know, this exploitation of their trauma where they should be treated like children, but instead they're gonna be locked up with no due process. And so we do see this is the vestiges of the new Jim Crow, of this school to prison pipeline, of this criminalization of black and brown bodies, as well as taking away our voice in the democratic process. They're all One and the same of this Confederate system that we're trying to resist so vehemently here in Tennessee.
- [85:05]
Joy Reid
And you're one of the people, one of the Democrats, who is fighting the hardest and the loudest and irritating the right wing the most. Do you have back your committee assignments? Are you still stripped of your committee assignments because you dare to protest?
- [85:23]
Justin Jones
Yeah, I mean, and the most egregious thing about that, because initially it was reported that every Democrat was stripped of their committee. And what we found out later on by talking to our colleagues and by looking at the state website, was that the white men who were Democrats were not stripped of their committee. So it was that blatant that every black Democrat and every woman was stripped of their committee with the white men. There's five white men in our Democratic caucus were not shipped to their committees. And so we see how blatant and how they see them as colleagues. They see them as, you know, as legislators, but they see us as subjects and, you know, as people to be suppressed and to be, you know, stepped on. And that's what they did, you know. And, you know, Joy, you were one of the first people to ever report when we got expelled. You're the one who shined light on that. And so, you know, getting kicked off a committee is kind of lightweight compared to getting expelled. And so they've done the worst to us. But I think it just goes to show that that gerrymander, that Jim Crow gerrymander, was about silencing the voices of dissent. And we saw it with expulsion. We saw it by stripping our computer committee assignments. We're not allowed to speak on the House floor. You know, all these punishments that they create now, they're not saying they're not, you know, they're not going to give us per diem. And so I'm just trying to go through all the things in my head because I think what is really the case right now is that I hope that the nation's paying attention to Tennessee because it's a laboratory for what's coming to the rest of the country if we don't stop it here. Like, Tennessee is always a few, maybe years ahead of the curve, but we are in the midst of a rising confederacy here in which, you know, maybe in a year from now, Joy, if I talk to you, will we even have seats? Because they're coming after our state legislative seats next. Why even be a member? That seems to be the end goal of removing black representatives from their position. Removing women, removing voices of dissent. And so that's kind of what we're facing right now.
- [86:56]
Joy Reid
Yeah. I mean, I see it as an attempt to recreate not the 1950s, but the 1850s. Right. They want a world in which it's only conservative, right wing white men and that's it. They don't even want. Want women around. They want. They don't want anyone around. And this, I showed it earlier in the show. This white consultant who was on the 2025 Trump campaign, he said black voters can now elect their own Byron, Donald and Wesley Hunt in their respective district. And I don't know if he was being glib or if he was being serious, but that is the plan. Right. It's not that they don't want anybody black. They just don't want anybody black who's disruptive. They don't want anybody black who thinks for themselves. They want anybody they want. You can be black, but you have to be obedient. And if you're not obedient, that is who they want to expel.
- [87:44]
Justin Jones
Yeah. I mean, they want black faces that, that are really representatives of white supremacy because you can be black and be a representative of white supremacy as Clarence Thomas. And so whether, again, they're wearing white sheets or black robes, we have a white supremacist problem in this country. And I think, you know, we should ask ourselves at the time where we're struggling right now, if you go to Washington, they're building a fighting ring outside the White House. You know, this is, this is how we've denigrated ourselves as a country. And, you know, I think this is a moment we have to wake up, particularly in the South. I was just In Jackson, Mississippi. 6,000 people marched in Jackson to protect their black congressman. A state that has the largest black, you know, demographics of any state in the nation. And yet they're trying to take away their one seat. You know, we were in Montgomery together. We saw folks there all across the nation. We went to Montgomery. We saw thousands showing up. So I think people are finally paying attention to the South. And what I want to tell people is that in a state like Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, you know, we're not states that the Democratic Party usually pays attention to because we're not swing states. But what we are are states that will swing back on these folks and that we have to fight with everything we have in this moment because if we don't act right now, we may lose multiracial democracy in the South. And that's not alarmist to say it's the reality that we're facing 1 in 5 black Tennesseans cannot vote currently because of felony disenfranchisement. We rank at the bottom of voter turnout. We're seeing the resegregation of our schools by defunding public education. 37208 until recently was the most incarcerated zip code in the nation. Headquartered in Nashville, where also which is the headquarters of Corecivic, a for profit private prison company. All these things are connected. And so if there anybody watching this show who's thinking about coming to play, you know, sports here, please reconsider. If you're thinking of having a convention here, please reconsider and let them know why you're not coming here too. Let them know that you will not come to a Jim Crow state. We just had a big announcement that the super bowl is coming to Nashville. To the folks of the NFL, do not hold the super bowl in a Jim Crow state. You know, we have to encourage people to boycott economically because we have to speak to oppressors in the, in the only language they understand, which is in their pocketbook.
- [89:39]
Joy Reid
Yeah, I mean the only way that, you know, apartheid South Africa was taken down was through economic boycott. It was through divestment. And that is the thing that, that speaks loudest to oppressive people. And you, you went right where I was going to go next. Tennessee. The football teams inside of the SEC are estimated to be 60 to 75% black. The basketball teams in SEC in the state of Tennessee are 70 to 85% black. And I can go through all of the other SEC states and it's the same. Alabama football roster, 60 to 80% black. Basketball roster, 70 to 90% black. Georgia and Florida football roster 65 to 80% black. Basketball, 75 to 90% black. South Carolina, Mississippi, football team, 60 to 75% black. Basketball team, 70 to 85% black. Louisiana, same 70 to 85% black on the football field, 80 to 90% black in basketball. And lastly, Texas, 60 to 75% black. In football, 70 to 85% black. In basketball. Actually, one more, North Carolina, 50 to 70% black. On the football field, basketball, 60 to 85% black. The bottom line is in states like Tennessee, black players are making these programs, such as the one at the University of Tennessee very wealthy. They're making the coaches wealthy. They're making the school's coffers the fat and wealthy. Sometimes the economy of the state is riding on black players. So you've just said it. You believe that people who have been admitted, basketball, football players that have been admitted, they should say no, right? To the University of Tennessee.
- [91:22]
Justin Jones
I mean, the simple reality is that you're not safe in a Jim Crow state, that your voice is not valued, your human dignity is not valued. And they want to see you as some object to entertain them or to be brutalized for their entertainment on a field or to sing for them. But they don't see you as a equal member in this democracy. And so don't come to a state. There's so many other schools, schools you can go to. Don't come here. And. And for those, you know, events and conventions that want to come to the south, please boycott Tennessee as a representative of natural. They don't deserve your dollars right now. Go somewhere else. Where. Where they believe in equal protection under law, where they believe in, you know, equal participation in our democracy, and they don't believe in a separate and unequal system. We are back in a Jim Crow system here in Tennessee. It's been confirmed, you know, year after year in the legislature. But I think this final gerrymandering vote was the final signal that they are going to do everything they can in their power to bring us backwards. And, you know, if you study history, Tennessee was one of the first states to pass Jim Crow laws. You know, following the Civil War and end of Reconstruction, we were one of the first states to do that. And so I think we're leaning back into that dark part of our history to do that once again. And so let us be the canary in the coal mine and shout. But, you know, but I will say, if you do want to support folks on the ground, because I don't want you to abandon us here, invest in local organizations, those groups who are suing, you know, to protect youth who are being criminalized right now. Those groups who are registering black and brown voters, There are groups who are protecting immigrants. There are ways to support us in the south, but not to do it by coming investing in programs that are about profiting a few wealthy white men at the expense of black and brown bodies.
- [92:48]
Joy Reid
I think you're speaking to. What so many people, I think are feeling right now is that people understand that we are not helpless like that we actually do have choices, economic choices, choices to vote. You saw in South Carolina, people came out to vote in just wild, insane numbers because they're like, oh, you're trying to take Jim Clyburn's seat. You know, when it. When it's personal, I think people behave a little differently. Do you see that kind of a reaction from people within the state of Tennessee? Are people roused to the Point where they're willing and ready to fight back.
- [93:21]
Justin Jones
During special session, folks showed up by the thousands in our Capitol rotunda once again. Again, just like when we were expelled, to disrupt business as normal. You had folks who are willing to do things out of the ordinary, which is required in this time. We cannot allow them to get peace. There's this episode of a TV show. They said, we don't get no peace because of y'. All. Y' all not gonna get no peace because of us. And that's the, that's the energy we need to give to these Republicans, these MAGA Republicans, wherever they go, because they're gonna come to these restaurants in Nashville. And if you're a waiter, you don't have to serve them. If they want to come to your small business, you don't have to serve them. You know, and because they have to feel, you know, there's, you know, my sister Ayanna Pressley puts it this way that, you know, there's two ways that change comes about. Either they see the light or they feel the fire. And I think they haven't seen the light, sister Joy. So it's time for them to feel the fire. And so we're seeing that on the ground here. And I think what we will see, hopefully in the south is, you know, 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer. Once again, if we turn out in the numbers, we can, we can hack this gerrymandering system because they're counting on voter suppression. They're counting, counting on, you know, low voter efficacy. That's what their strategy relies on. And so Tennessee is not a red state, I don't believe, but we are a voter suppressed state and we're a state that has, you know, where people have been disempowered for so long. But we don't have to feel that. I think that there's hope and particularly in our state legislative races, that we flip 10 seats in the legislature, we can break the Republican super majority. That is doable. That is doable. And so, you know, there's a lot of these races, you know, a lot of people love Congress, they love federal races. But these state races, you can win with a few hundred votes. I run, I won my election with 281 votes. If you invest in these state races, you can flip some of these state house seats. And that's who does gerrymandering, that's who does your education funding, that's who does your prison funding, your prison policies. It's at the state level. So that's where we should invest as well.
- [94:59]
Joy Reid
Amen. Thank you for saying that. Because. Right. Everybody pays attention to Congressman, not the school board. Right. They're paying attention to Congressman, not the state. Who do you think is drawing the gerrymander maps? It's the state House and the state Senate. That's who's drawing the map. That's who is taking away your right to bodily autonomy. It's not the Congress that's doing that. It's your state representative, your state senators. It's so important. I will note that the SEC has signed, like, a $800 million TV deal, and it'll be a whole different kind of thing if there's no black players. And so I think people need to start realizing that there's a lot of power in our presence. And look, they may want to come, they may want to deport all the brown people, but they still want all the Mexican food. They want to eat their food. They want to eat the soul food from the people who. Who can't even vote in their ideal world. They don't want you able to vote, but they want you to cook for them. They want to eat your soul food. They want to sit down and enjoy jazz music and listen to the blues. Maybe we just say, no, you can't have any soul food. You can't have any jazz. You can't participate in any of our culture. You can't have any of it. And you can't have us. We just won't perform for you. We won't sing for you. I hope that artists, musical artists, will skip. As much as I love Nashville. Skip it. Don't go to Nashville. Why are you going there? Why go to New Orleans? We got to stop. We go every minute. And black folks are running to Miami, running to Orlando for conventions. Just stop. We shouldn't do anything in these states until they act. Right?
- [96:16]
Mayor Mamdani
Yeah.
- [96:16]
Justin Jones
I mean, we should not bless them with the beauty of our culture, of our diversity. You know, let them be like that Teemu super bowl party where they. All they had was Kid Rock and all these folks I don't even know. No. No rhythm, no beat, just. Just foolishness that no one. They. They even were tuning into Bad Bunny. They were so. You know, they were so disappointed. So don't let them enjoy the beauty of who we are as a multiracial democracy. They want to have this white majority apartheid government. That's what they can have, you know, day after day. I really believe that we need to find ways to disrupt business as normal and do things that will let them know that Even when they leave these capitals, we're going to keep up the pressure when they go back to their districts and try and do a little ribbon cutting at the, at the Kroger, at the, with the Girl Scouts. People need to be out there protesting and, you know, making it so uncomfortable. You know, you go to church with some of these folks, you know, maybe too, you got to ask them, what would Jesus do? Because it's not what y' all are doing. And so we, we have to push back in every way we can because they're going to be coming. It's election season, they're going to be coming. Fourth of July parade, you know, Labor Day parade, all these things. When they show up, we need to let them know that we didn't forget, that we don't have amnesia when it comes to violations of our rights and our dignity. And I think that's. That's what we need to remind them. You know, they just had this ribbon cutting here for the NFL coming for the super bowl, and there should have been a big protest. I was in Jackson, so I wasn't here, but there should have been a big protest outside of that, letting them know that we're not going to allow you to have a celebration when you're stepping on our rights and bringing us backwards in history. And I think that's what, again, the language that they will understand. And I think it's going to be the energy that will rise to this moment. And I've been telling people all across this country that history is not going to judge us by what we do, but by what we don't do. So err on the side of action, err on the side of doing something, because we have to be proportionate to the forces of authoritarianism and apartheid that we face. Now's the time to do things that maybe make us uncomfortable. You know, it's not always comfortable. When you see somebody in a grocery store, be like, hold on, Representative. You're the one. You know, like, it's not always comfortable when you see them in, you know, passing out literature at the, at the parades, to actually be like, hold on. I actually remember what you actually did when I was there. But sometimes we have to put ourselves in uncomfortable situations because this is the moment, you know, that this is what the moment requires of us.
- [98:17]
Joy Reid
State Representative Justin Jones, one of my favorite people in the world, because this is the kind of message that he brings wherever he goes. A true student of the movement and a leader in every respect. So, representative, thank you very much. And keep us Posted on all the things. Because we're here for it. Whatever we can do to support the boycott movement, we're here. Thank you.
- [98:34]
Justin Jones
Appreciate you. Thank you.
- [98:36]
Joy Reid
Thank you. Thank you very much. And that's it. I promise you. There should be also the potential to boycott any advertisers who advertise in the Jim Crow Super Bowl. There should not be a. The super bowl should not be going to Nashville. It should not be going to any red state. And if you're down with Jim Crow, we should not be down with you. We should pay attention to advertisers who decide that they want to be there. They shouldn't get amazing black singers who come to Nashville and sing the national anthem. Why? Why should we participate in any way? They don't like black people. They don't want black people to vote. They don't want brown people to vote. They don't want women to have bodily autonomy. They don't want Aapi people to vote. They want to deport them all. You want to deport all the Cubans, all the Venezuelans. They want. If they only want Kid Rock, then they should just have that. They don't want us in any of their spaces, and they don't get to be there. And you don't get the spicy whites either. They don't like you either, so you don't. And you don't like that. So you don't get any punk rock. You don't get any more of your. You know, I just saw a punk rock artist. Just have to read this fool who's in the front row of his concert, try to tell him what his music was about. It's like you don't know what punk rock is. You don't realize punk rockers don't like Trump. You've been listening to too much Kid Rock. Your brain is off, okay? You messed up because you thought, oh, wait a minute. This is a punk rock band. They're white. They must like us. No, they don't. Punk rockers despise you. So if you go to one of their concerts, you're in the front row. They're probably gonna, you know, crack on you. They're not gonna. They're not gonna be your friend. They're not gonna sign your album. They don't like you either. Nobody does. If you guys want to live in that world, it's just you and Kid Rock and Trump and just be happy with that. You can't have any soul food. No more soul food. No more. No mas, no Mexican food. No. You can't have it. All right. Now, if you are in Maryland, particularly in the Baltimore area, you are, especially if you're probably very much online, you're probably familiar with a guy called Captain Bobby.
- [100:30]
Captain Bobby (Bobby LePen)
So here's the boat.
- [100:32]
Jason Johnson
He's incredible.
- [100:38]
Joy Reid
Okay, babe.
- [100:40]
Jason Johnson
All right.
- [100:41]
Joy Reid
When we come back and still be married.
- [100:45]
Angie Nixon
Thank you.
- [100:51]
Captain Bobby (Bobby LePen)
So you ready to get married? All right, let's do it. This is the day that you both begin the next step in your journey together. I am proud to be the first to call you a husband and wife.
- [101:03]
Jason Johnson
You may kiss
- [101:06]
Captain Bobby (Bobby LePen)
partners in love and life. You may kiss.
- [101:11]
Jason Johnson
You may kiss.
- [101:22]
Joy Reid
Everybody. Marrying the people on the boat. Well, if you are a Captain Bobby fan, you're going to have to get familiar with him in a completely different visage because he is running for the united. For the state Senate. Not for the United States Senate, but the State Senate. The Maryland State senate in District 46. Here's his campaign video.
- [101:41]
Captain Bobby (Bobby LePen)
For too long, we have sent politicians into marble rooms with promises, only to watch the promises fade away the minute a developer or a donor or a lobbyist walks in. We're told that we have equity and opportunity. But some people in Baltimore can't afford rent. They can't afford a doctor. They can't afford to heat their homes. The rich get tax credits. The people get silenced. And every election year, we're told to be grateful, to clap, to settle, because that's just how politics works. Well, if that is politics, then politics is the problem. I was born here. I taught school here. My small business is here. I served my country. I served my community. When I walk into a corner store or down this street, it's not for a photo op. It's because this is my home. And when your home is being ignored, when your home is being threatened, you just don't stand around and watch it happen. You stand up and you fight. Working people have carried the city on their backs while lobbyists carried their wish lists into rooms where decisions are made. This is bigger than just fighting. Bill Ferguson. This is about a system that speaks in a language of progress, but keeps power where it's always been. In the hands of the mega rich, of the corporations, of the well connected. And when a machine keeps grinding people down, you just don't stand aside. You step in, you take it apart, and you change the way the gears work. So today, I am not asking you to support a campaign. I am asking you to help take back our voice from a machine that thinks it owns us.
- [103:29]
Reverend Nelson Rivers
Okay?
- [103:30]
Captain Bobby (Bobby LePen)
And I want to be clear. I will not take a single dime from a developer or a corporate pack. I will not trade silence for access. I will not walk into a room simply to fit in or to get a vote. If I walk into a room, it's to speak for the people who live here, the people who built this city, and the people who are tired of being ignored. So if you feel forgotten, if you feel priced out, if you feel afraid, this is not my declaration. This is yours. We don't need permission to act. We just need to stand up together and have the courage to fight.
- [104:23]
Joy Reid
Well, alrighty then. Bobby Le Pen, veteran small business owner, state senate candidate in State Senate District 46, joins me now and he is taking on the state Senate president, Bill Ferguson. Bobby. Are you Captain Bobby?
- [104:40]
Captain Bobby (Bobby LePen)
You call me whatever you like, Joy.
- [104:43]
Joy Reid
How you doing? Well, first of all, I'm doing great.
- [104:45]
Captain Bobby (Bobby LePen)
I haven't seen those videos for a while. That's like, what a change. What a shift from the captain. Marrying folks on boats, surrounded with love. Now I'm fighting Trump and corporations and corruption. It's, you know, what a change, what a change.
- [105:03]
Joy Reid
And so the guy that you're fighting, most people do not know him, but what people came to know him for was standing in the way of redistricting and he said he was against redistricting even though he's a Democrat because he just didn't think it was right to play politics with gerrymandering. Is that what drew you into the race?
- [105:23]
Captain Bobby (Bobby LePen)
It's one of many reasons. You know, in the end of the day, just like every other working person in this country, I am just sick and tired of being sick and tired, man. I, we're like drowning in bills. Whether it's utility bills or health care bills or food bills or, you know, going to the gas pump. Now, I have a different approach than I think most politicians do in this country is I believe we should always invest in the people first. That's why I don't take corporate money, that's why I don't take developer money. I think when you invest in people, when you invest in public transit, when you invest the time to try to lower people's bills and make life easier to live, that everything else will work itself out. You know, that's. So that's one of the biggest, biggest reasons why I got involved in this race. Because, you know, I have a bottom up approach when I see the world and my opponent has a top down approach when he sees the world and trickle down hasn't worked for us yet. I don't think it's going to Ever work for us?
- [106:22]
Joy Reid
Yeah. I mean, coming from New York, one of the things that's sort of shocking about any place that's not New York is the lack of public transit, the lack of buses, the fact that it's actually harder to get around in places like Maryland, you know, like Baltimore City without a car. Is that something that you feel government can have an impact on?
- [106:40]
Captain Bobby (Bobby LePen)
Government needs to have an impact. I mean, not just can they need that. They should. It is their role, you know, only. Only so those. Those folks in Baltimore who rely on public transit only have access to less than 9% of the jobs in the area in under an hour commute. That's crazy. So think what we're doing. All these parents that. For working people, for students, for young people, trying to find a job. If you don't have a car in Baltimore and we don't have good public transit, like, how are you going to find that job? How can we tell people to pull yourselves up or whatever, work really hard when we don't even offer the basic foundation to do so? And, you know, it's just one thing. I think I was speaking to the choir. Anybody watching this, if you're not a millionaire, you'll probably get it, you know, but, like, coming back to how my campaign or how my opponent's campaign got national attention and it is over redistricting. He's the one Democrat in the country who has stood up against tactical, defensive redistricting of Maryland's map to prevent us from Trump's steal of this next election from the MAGA steel of this election from Texas to Alabama to Louisiana. I mean, it is literally like a Jim Crow 2.0. So many people in our history have fought and died for civil liberties that are now overnight being stripped away. And that is not okay.
- [108:11]
Joy Reid
Yeah. I mean, you're a veteran, and we've seen veterans services slashed, veterans hospitals getting fewer and fewer services and a lot of disrespect. I mean, Donald Trump joking about the Congressional Medal of Honor not being as good as the presidential one because the people getting the congressional ones are largely dead and thinking, that was funny, you know, and sort of doing his dumb dance in front of our troops. Like, why do you suppose so many people who are veterans like yourself still vote for that guy?
- [108:42]
Captain Bobby (Bobby LePen)
Well, you know, I actually pulled this percentage. It's been a while, but now and again, I'll pull it. It looks like each and every single day, less and less veterans are, I think, the same reason why corporations are allowed to rule the roost in this country or others or how politicians take advantage of the people. I think it's people just become complacent. They stop watching the news, stop watching shows like yours. I mean, look, our lives are hard enough. We should just believe that there's some adult in the room that's managing the stuff in the background while we're just, you know, raising our kids, walking our dogs, you know, living our lives. But the fact of the matter is there are no adults in the room. And the biggest child in the room right now happens to be the President of the United States. Any Democrat, like if we. Any Democrat who fails to stand up 10 toes in the ground and fight to protect civil liberties in this country, fight to protect the working people in this country, fight the corporations who always put profits over people. If you're a Democrat, that is not standing up and fighting for that, I'm sorry, but you're not a Democrat. Like, if we really want to change the Democratic Party, we have to change what kind of Democrats we elect. You know, a lot of times people say, you know, why would you battle another Democrat, especially the Senate president, this all powerful politician in Maryland. But in the end of the day, it's not between me and my opponent. It's not Bobby versus the other guy. It's about values. And when your representative no longer represents the values of the majority of the people, the progressive values that we all long to actually see come to come to light and come to reality, well, then that person has to step aside and let someone else take over.
- [110:27]
Joy Reid
Has he debated, has he been willing to debate you?
- [110:30]
Captain Bobby (Bobby LePen)
Yeah, we had. Well, we did, we did invite him to a debate. Instead there was a community forum which was kind of like a debate. So he said no to our debate. Yes to the community forum. That was my first time doing that. That was. I didn't, I didn't do. I did pretty, pretty good.
- [110:48]
Mayor Mamdani
Yeah.
- [110:49]
Joy Reid
Well, listen, you keep it real. And I think just being yourself is the key to that. Right. I think trying to perform is how you go wrong when you're trying to debate. You know, Maryland has been really hit hard by this doge, the doging of the federal government because 31,000.
- [111:03]
Captain Bobby (Bobby LePen)
31,000 employees.
- [111:04]
Joy Reid
Absolutely. So many federal employees. It's one of the reasons that Maryland is such a wealthy middle class state. Right. Because there are so many federal employees. It's a bedroom community of Washington D.C. what can state government do for the people who are now really struggling without their. What was a safe federal job?
- [111:22]
Captain Bobby (Bobby LePen)
Well, so to be honest with you, Governor Westmore has done an incredibly good job at trying to reach out and protect these folks. In fact, I think that's how I met the governor. He reached out to me with my social media platform. I was already battling Trump and being vocal. Everyone, quick background. So everyone. Anyone that owns a small business will know this. Everyone told me, My wife, my mother, my neighbors, my friends, dude, you have a small business. Don't go political. But at some point, man, like I said, I was just sick and tired of being sick and tired. I had enough, and I started leaning into him. Especially, you know, on the army's birthday, where, what was it, a $45 million parade he was hosting. And let me tell you something about soldiers. The last thing you want to do on a Saturday is walk in a parade. You know, that's the last thing you want to do. You want to be home, you want to. Want to have your day off. And I think I ended that video with, you know, I don't need a draft dodger to tell me to be proud of my service, because I know I'm proud of my service. And that kind of started this whole thing. It's when the death threat started coming, lots of all the death threats. But in the end of the day, it's. I met. I met Wes Moore, the governor, when the bridge collapsed. That's what it was. When the bridge collapsed. I was the volunteer coordinator trying to help the first responders get food. Fast forward, he remembered me. I'm on Instagram. We're losing all kinds of federal jobs. And he says, can you spread the message about this package of stuff the state is doing for federal employees? You know, and it goes beyond just unemployment insurance, you know, or helping with your health care. Helping, you know, working with banks so folks can get a break on paying their mortgage until they find something else. But we're trying to recruit these folks as school teachers. I know it's. If you really look at the salary from one end to becoming a school teacher, I mean, these folks who had been let go from the federal government are some of the highest educated folks in the country, some of the most experienced in what they do. Their wealth of knowledge is just incredible. And to maybe to basically kick them to the side, as this president did, I mean, it's just. It's unforgivable. And a lot of folks are stepping up. There are a lot I've actually met on the campaign trail here because a lot of my constituents were these federal employees that were let go. I met two people who are now becoming schoolteachers in Baltimore City. And they're like, hey, man, you know, I made enough in my life. I'm doing good, and I want to serve some more. And that just speaks volumes about the people who choose federal service. You know, you could always go to the private sector and make so much more money. You know, you can go from one contract to another, never having real responsibility. These folks that choose to take less pay and more work to become federal employees, they do it because they're serving their country. And to have some billionaire come in and doge them is, again, it's unforgivable. I'll never forget it.
- [114:21]
Joy Reid
I will tell you, having a small business as you do and having a very active social media profile to take care of, and deciding to set that aside for a moment to run for office is a noble thing. I think people don't give enough credit just to the idea of offering yourself for service to your community. So congratulations on running Bobby Lapin. You can come back anytime. And I want to go on the boat.
- [114:46]
Captain Bobby (Bobby LePen)
I want you to come on the boat. You know, I did an interview with Brian Tyler Cohen. He's gonna fly out after the election. We're gonna go on the boat. Why don't you come over to the boat?
- [114:54]
Joy Reid
Done. Done.
- [114:56]
Captain Bobby (Bobby LePen)
Live stream from the boat.
- [114:57]
Joy Reid
From the boat. We're doing it from the boat. I appreciate you.
- [115:02]
Captain Bobby (Bobby LePen)
Can I pitch. Can I pitch my website real quick? Remember, I'm not taking corporate money. I'm not taking developer money. This is a people powered campaign. So if people believe in what I'm saying, if people want people like me to actually win, you know, and take office and change things, I need them to chip in@makegoodchange.com makegoodchange.com I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for the plug.
- [115:24]
Joy Reid
Put it on the screen. Makegoodchange.com Everybody throw a little coin in there. Help this good man become a state senator. We need more people like you. We need more regular folks who care about regular folks and who've lived in the real world and have not been spending their whole life doing politics. Yeah, 100. And it's not taking that corporate money and billionaire money. Thank you, man. Best of luck.
- [115:45]
Captain Bobby (Bobby LePen)
I appreciate you.
- [115:46]
Joy Reid
Take care. All right, Cheers. I love it. Captain Bobby.
- [115:50]
Captain Bobby (Bobby LePen)
Come on.
- [115:50]
Joy Reid
Come on, Baltimore. You know you want to elect Captain Bobby. He's running in State Senate District 46. Make good change is his website. You can put that website back up one more time, please, Juan, so we can see it. Well, there it is. Makegoodchange.com. why don't you guys throw a little coin in the till for him because he's a good guy. And look, we've been doing all candidates the whole show and talking about this for an entire show, for a reason. Because people keep asking, well, what can I do about fascism happening? This is what you can do. You can actually elect better people. It's unfortunately, there's no sexy answer to how you stop fascism. The way you stop it is you have to get rid of the fascists. And the way you get rid of them, you have to vote. Now, we do know that there is a chance that there's some funny business going on in the satellites, and that's why I wanted to show you that clip because we want to keep a weather eye on that. But knowing about that and that possibility is also what helps us fight. And we now we've heard some strategy. I hear a lot of people say, well, what's the plan? Well, here's the plan. Economic boycott. We're going to divest ourselves of these Southern states that are taking away the right to vote. If you take away the right to vote, you should not get our convention money, our vacation money. We should not be coming to your state with our, our D6 conventions. Those should not. D9 convention, should not be coming down there. Attorneys, sororities, clubs, links, all these organizations should not be doing stuff in these states that are doing wrong. If they're doing wrong, we shouldn't be hanging out with them, we shouldn't be going near them. Right. The super bowl is coming up, allegedly going to be in Nashville. We need to think about what we do about that. And all of these red states that are attacking the right to vote, because in the end of the day, they're going to start with black people, they're going to get to everyone because what they want is to be in power permanently where you cannot remove them. We're not going to allow that. Economic boycotts, voting en masse, voting with discernment for the kinds of people who actually care about people and are not just in it for the power and, or jumping districts just so they can stay in office and that sort of thing. Picking people who actually care about you, whether or not they're a career politician, even if they are somebody who just has good ideas and is a good person and is intelligent enough to do the job. Not like a Trump, that's an idiot, but a person who may not be a politician, but they actually can. They're a quick learner and they understand politics. I've been watching A lot of Bobby Le Pen's interviews, he's gotten a lot smoother about the policy issues. You know, I think the, like, he did an interview like the day after he jumped in Atlanta was like, what are your policies? He's like, I just got in.
- [118:23]
Jason Johnson
Why, why should people be polished to run for governance?
- [118:27]
Joy Reid
Exactly.
- [118:27]
Jason Johnson
They, I mean, they shouldn't be polished. Be yourself. You know, that's the whole thing about authenticity. If, if you're staging yourself for being a clown, you know, what's that word is imposter syndrome.
- [118:37]
Joy Reid
Well, it makes you seem like an imposter. Imposter syndrome. We don't need that. And people. Exactly. Stop going to Disney World. I really would love to call on all of these organizations and honestly, ESSENCE Fest. Are we going to that? I think not. I don't understand why ESSENCE Fest is still in New Orleans. I don't understand why they're still in, in Louisiana. Louisiana is a dumpster fire of rights abridgment. It's a dumpster fire of incarceration attacks on, on black citizens. Why should, why should. First of all, if you have a restaurant down there, first of all, you shouldn't be serving any of these MAGA people trying to come in and eat your gumbo while they want to deny your right to vote. And so from both ends of it, you know, people are saying, don't come here. Treat them like white South Africa because they want to be white South Africa. If you want to be white South Africa, would it treat you like white South Africa? That's what you want to be. Fine. We're going to treat you like white South Africa. No more conventions in Nashville, no more conventions in Orlando, no vacation in, in Hawaii or California. If you want to go to the beach, you don't have to go to Florida. Forget Florida until they, until they get right. And then while that's happening, you need to have a national investment in building up those state parties so that the Democratic parties or the third parties, like the Working Families Party, can get in there and register enough voters to get rid of these people. And I have to say I'm going to add one more thing before we play our moment of joy. If Democrats ever get back power, federal power, they need to pass a law banning any insurrectionist or neo confederate from holding office. They should not be able to hold office. And they can ground that in Article 3 of the 14th Amendment. They need to enforce Article 3 of the 14th Amendment even if John Roberts won't.
- [120:21]
Jason Johnson
They should have did that would after
- [120:22]
Joy Reid
the Civil War, they Should they never did. They should have banned. And you, you need, if you look, go by Article 3 of the 14th Amendment, you have to have a waiver from Congress if you are an insurrectionist in order to run for office. I believe insurrection should not be able to hold a public license, meaning a doctor's license, a lawyer's license, a barber license. They should not be able to hold any federally approved license or run for any office. If you're an insurrectionist. And that means every single person that Donald Trump pardoned, that means every. Because one of them's already running for office. He's running for governor of Florida. One of the insurrectionist is running for governor of Florida right now. Enrique Tarrio keeps threatening to run for office. Why should Enrique Tarrio get to get a taxpayer funded job? He shouldn't be able to be a congressperson. That means we, the taxpayer pay his salary. Why should we pay an insurrectionist salary? We shouldn't be paying Trump's salary. And oh, he doesn't take a salary. He doesn't take the salary. Yeah, he's just stealing everything that's not nailed down and having crypto schemes and selling busted golden phones and, you know, feeding all of his stupid supporters who buy all his dumb merch. And we shouldn't have to pay for that. And we certainly shouldn't have to pay for his slush fund that he's going to hand out to all of his cronies. Run me my slush money.
- [121:41]
Jason Johnson
That's what's up. There you go. Run me my slush money. If you can be giving out money, I want mine.
- [121:45]
Joy Reid
It's our money. It's our tax money.
- [121:47]
Jason Johnson
You all should get some, period.
- [121:49]
Joy Reid
Again, split it up among the American people, with the exception of insurrectionists. Insurrectionists should not be able to receive federal grants. They should not be able to receive federal loans. They should not be able to receive federal contracts. If you're an insurrectionist, you should be barred from any of it. And I want that law passed. If Democrats get back control of Congress, I want that law passed. Article 3 needs to be actionalized. Right? Well, what happened was the 13th, 14th and 15th amendment were not being enforced until the Civil Rights act of 64 and the Voting Rights act of 65. Sometimes constitutional amendments need to have enacting legislation that actually makes them kick in. It took 100 years to get the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to actually become the force of, to be, you know, become the law, the land, and actually be actualized in law. And that was the civil Rights act of 64 and the Voting Rights act of 65. You could also say the Civil Rights Act. 57. But you needed legislation. So now we need legislation to make the Article 3 of the 14th Amendment active. No insurrection. Should be able to hold office, hold public office because the federally paid job. Hold any federal contract, hold any federal grant. You shouldn't be able to get student loans. I'm sorry, go move to Russia or China or whatever of your. Whatever your. Your sort of ideal country is. You can't go back to South Africa. They don't want your ass. They got rid of. All the white South Africans are coming here. According to Stephen Miller, they're the only decent immigrants. Let's play our moment of joy. And this moment of joy is strictly for my New Yorkers. Sorry, everyone else. This was the scene. E1 Days is a scene outside of Madison Square Garden on the day that it happened. Yes, this is the scene. Big up to Niva, our, our wonderful producer who took this video. This is a scene outside of Madison Square Garden msg, when we know what happened. Oh, you know what happened. In four games straight, the New York Knicks blanked. The Cleveland Cavaliers. They didn't even get. They didn't even let him win one game. Four, zip. Let's hear our moment of joy by Mayor Mamdani. Yeah, Mr. Mayor, I know you watching the games. You've attended the games. There are a lot of Nick fans here. What are your plans for future public
- [124:05]
Angie Nixon
watch parties and having safe watch parties?
- [124:10]
Mayor Mamdani
You know, first, if we could just play live in La Vida Loco one more time that's available, just so we can skip back to that moment in time. 1999. 1999. It has been a long time. And I know that Knicks fans are incredibly excited, as we all should be. This is an incredible moment for this city. And so I just first want to begin with a congratulations to the team because what they have done for this city, you really can't push into words the excitement that you see on people's faces. You know, people whisper to me in every kind of event you can imagine Nixon 4. You know, and I have to just keep a straight face as we're going through that event. But when it comes to your question, we're going to have watch parties across the city. We're incredibly excited about those watch parties we saw just last night. I think we saw watch parties at Radio City where we even had the T shirt cannon out there.
- [125:11]
Jason Johnson
And.
- [125:11]
Mayor Mamdani
And we also saw a watch party at Brooklyn bowl. And then we saw New Yorkers celebrate Everywhere that they could find. I think, you know, I think Henry Rostov, I'm not sure if he's here, but we also saw videos from everybody, everywhere that they could find. So we're very excited about that. We're excited about making it easier for New Yorkers.
- [125:27]
Joy Reid
Yeah. Will it be so? Of course Mavdani is going to make it easier for all folks to celebrate. They can celebrate in restaurants, they can go wherever they want and enjoy the Knicks new season. And I just wanted to look, I looked it up. You know how old Mayor Mamdani was in 1999? 7. That is the year that he moved to the United states from Uganda. 1999 is the year Mamdani came to America as a seven year old child. So he does not remember 1999. There's no way he actually remembers 1999. But we congratulate and it is very exciting. The, the Reed household, minus like one are all Nick. Well, minus two are Knicks fans. So go Nicks. They're our moment of Jo. Yeah, we have one.
- [126:16]
Jason Johnson
He, the middle one is a Miami fan.
- [126:18]
Joy Reid
He was born in Miami.
- [126:19]
Jason Johnson
Born in Miami. He's been a mighty fan. Die hard.
- [126:22]
Joy Reid
We're mad about it.
- [126:22]
Jason Johnson
It's all.
- [126:23]
Joy Reid
We didn't raise him right.
- [126:24]
Jason Johnson
No, we got love for him. It's all.
- [126:26]
Joy Reid
We love him. But yeah, we wish he was a Knicks fan. No, we. Yeah, we got one. We got one and then we got one. Who's. Who doesn't pay any attention to sports at all. But. But we do. The three of us, Jason, myself and Miles. We are excited. And yeah, 1999, Jason, that was so. I mean, basically our youngest son was
- [126:45]
Jason Johnson
ironically, I was about to say the same thing. That's the same year Miles was born.
- [126:49]
Joy Reid
The same year Miles was born is the last time they were in the finals, y'. All. This is wild. It's been a long time challenging life for the Knicks fans. So, you know, I had to make that our moment of joy. Please make sure you like and subscribe. Whether you're a Nick fan or not. Don't hate on us. And if you're a Cleveland Cavaliers fan, you. You going to be all right.
- [127:05]
Jason Johnson
You had your rings with LeBron.
- [127:08]
Joy Reid
You had LeBron.
- [127:09]
Jason Johnson
We haven't got a ring since 74. Can we get one, please?
- [127:12]
Joy Reid
Can we get. Can we get a ring? Don't. Don't hate on us. And them, them west coast and Oklahoma and all them people, y' all be all right too, because you got to get beat. The Lord intends it. Happy Eid that We got a. We got a Muslim mayor, and he's our good luck charm. And we're going to get the ring
- [127:29]
Jason Johnson
for anybody else who's in New York supporters, you know, we still love y', all, but, you know, me and Joy have been going hard for the Knicks
- [127:35]
Joy Reid
for our whole life, basically.
- [127:38]
Jason Johnson
Do you remember when I seen Patrick Ewan in the airport and I. Yeah, I just didn't do it.
- [127:44]
Joy Reid
This is how serious I am. I was a Knick fan in Denver instead of the Nuggets, to the point where when the Nuggets finally, like, went all the way, I was kind of indifferent to it, because even as a Denver bro, and I, you know, I rooted for the Broncos as we must do. If you live in Denver, they'll kick you out. I rooted hard for the Broncos, but I was a Knick fan all the way. I used to also be a Giants fan, but that knew the Giant that got up there was like, I'm pleasured to be around Trump. Like, ew, Giants are gross. So forget the Giants.
- [128:10]
Jason Johnson
Yeah, we love Patrick, but damn, brother, you should have dunked that boy.
- [128:13]
Joy Reid
Oh, my God. I will never forget that layup as long as I live. That layup that cost us. Ooh. And that was the year that Michael Jordan was sitting down playing baseball, and that was our chance to go through them damn Pacers. Damn Pacers would always stop us, right? And then also we had the chance. And that layup. Oh, Patrick, you.
- [128:30]
Jason Johnson
There's nothing worse than when they came back nine points down when we were under, like, tens. Anyway, I'm getting painful.
- [128:38]
Joy Reid
Spike Lee is probably the only bigger Nick fan than us. And really, our son Miles is, like, even bigger Nick fan than we are. He is like a die hard. So we're very excited. Congratulations to the New York Knicks getting into the finals. And let's go all the way. We want total victory. Spike Lee is going to be incorrigible. Y' all not going to be able to deal with Spike Lee or us when the Knicks get that ring. Thank you all for watching. Please hit, like, subscribe and share and also the notification bell to train the algorithm to obey notifications.
- [129:04]
Jason Johnson
Sorry, guys.
- [129:05]
Joy Reid
I hit the all hit the all hit notifications and all because the only obedience we want is AI. We do not want people to be obedient. People need to be brash, bold, and disruptive because that's democracy. Good night, everybody. See you on the next story Reach on Friday. Goodbye.
- [129:22]
Jason Johnson
Getting back to the basics. Grassroot level.
- [129:25]
Joy Reid
Let me dig a little deeper with
- [129:26]
Jason Johnson
the shovel plenty can't tell the forest from the trees and I'm hard to detect Like a black hole in a dark 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 sure.