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Charles Booker
Chill out.
Joy Reid
Okay? Happy Friday. TGIF. Dr. Tanya Evans. Dr. Tanya M. Evans in the YouTube chat already saying, joy stays busy, but I so wish this was a daily show. Who's with me? Who's with me? Stay tuned. You never know. That could happen. Anything could happen. Happy Friday, everybody. Welcome to the Joy Reid show. And notably, this is a national holiday. It is the birthday. I think we all know in our minds that there ought to be a time when we can celebrate.
Jason Reed
It's just birthday. Are you asking for me? Are you saying, oh, God, you guys,
Joy Reid
how much we love you.
Jason Reed
Hey, guys, thank you. In our way, I see some birthday greetings in the chat. I appreciate you guys.
Joy Reid
Yes.
Jason Reed
I'll take all the wish ins and everything after the show, but we got a good show going, guys. So let's get it going.
Joy Reid
Let's get it going. Happy birthday. Yes. Happy birthday to Jason Reed, who keeps the trains running on time. He's back there, the engineer in the station.
Jason Reed
This show starts on time, family. Just get it going.
Joy Reid
The trains out of the station and once it's out of station, it's gone. If you didn't get on the train, have you ever tried to run up to an Amtrak when you miss it, like about like two minutes, you're like, you couldn't wait too many. They're like, nope. Everybody, welcome to Joy Reed show. Big up to everybody on YouTube. Already reading YouTube comments and big ups to everybody that's also listening on Substack, on Twitch, on Facebook as well. Even though, again, don't be listening to no news on Facebook except for this show. You can get your Facebook news from us, but don't be going on Facebook getting news that ain't new. That's Facebook. That's like your crazy uncle and them who are just telling you, yeah, girl. And then I heard it's not true. But you can listen to our news on Facebook if you're listening on Facebook. Big up to those who are listening on LinkedIn. We still haven't come up with the name for the LinkedIn people. I call them LinkedIn. He said, I think it's cute. We appreciate everybody. No matter where you're listening. We just want you all to be a part of the family. We're cooking up some new ways that we can interact with you guys more. The interaction is. Yes.
Jason Reed
Could we ask the people, whoever's giving me birthday wishes in chat, where you guys give me birthday wishes from?
Joy Reid
Please, Please. Yeah. Wherever you've been giving birthday wishes from, please let us know where you're At Lemon Nation in the house as well. Please let us know where you're listening from. We're always curious to know where our folks are coming from. From all the different various places that you guys are enjoying the show. If you're listening on an audio podcast. Hello. You can't see us, but we see you. It's tricky, right? You don't know how we're doing that. We see you. I want to remind you guys that tomorrow in Montgomery, Alabama, the big protest, all roads lead to the south, that is taking place tomorrow. The official Protest is from 1 to 5pm and they are coming after the OR. They're pushing back on the destruction of the Voting Rights Act. They are pushing back on all of the terrible things that have been done in the country to African American voters, black voters in the South. They're going to be in Montgomery, Alabama. They're going to be setting up their and they're going to be protesting from 1 to 5. We will be live streaming that protest. We got Fresno, California in the house. Hello, Fresno, California. Got Rural Hall, North Carolina. We're going to be live streaming the event from 1 to 5pm right here on this channel. So pop right back on the channel tomorrow. Big ups to Roland Martin. Roland Martin, Unfiltered is the source of all of our live streams and he's probably got about 100 different folks that are live streaming. So we appreciate Roland making that happen. The one great thing about independent media is we all work together. It's not like I was actually having this conversation with Jennifer Welch of I've had it and we were having this conversation when I was on her show is that that's a beautiful thing about independent media is we're not like old mainstream media where we're like on different networks and we can't really even interact with each other. And we see each other as competition in independent media. We all work together in tandem. We all know the Midas people. The Midas people know these people. We know Dom, we know everybody. We all know each other and we work together to try to do right by the world and by the country because we're all fighting on the pro democracy side. We appreciate each and every person that's a part of this independent media. But we'd also like for you to like and subscribe to us in particular. So make sure that you are supporting us by hitting that like and subscribe. A little thumbs up does a lot. The algorithm loves it. Makes us very happy. Makes the algorithm happy. Particularly on YouTube. Hit that thumbs up, which is a. Like you can hit that subscribe button if you're not a subscriber. Don't be a lurker. Who, who likes that. Don't lurk. Don't lurk around. Just go ahead and just go. It's free. Go ahead and hit subscribe. Why not? If you want to go big, you can also become a member. That way you can participate in the members only chats that are going to happen. This one's going to happen next Friday. Once a month we do a members only chat on YouTube and substack also. I was just perusing the Substack premium chat. The premium members over there. It was, it was quite spicy and feisty. I love a little substack chat. They've got their own little community that they're creating there. We're creating these communities and soon we're going to try to bring all these communities together. And we got some secret new stuff that's coming up. So stay tuned for that because we want to make sure that everybody can get together. I want to let you guys know tomorrow, Sunday, on Sunday I'm going to be at an event with this beautiful lady, Tiffany Cross, and we're going to be celebrating her book Love me in the DMV in the D.C. area. Really excited about that. If you guys have not picked up the book, go in the store and pick it up. We are trying to get that book to be a bestseller. If want to you, it's such a beautiful book, beautifully written. You can get that in the shop. We've got another great author coming on tonight. But let's just jump into the news cycle right now because the news cycle is quite strange. And I don't think that any single clip better sums up Donald Trump and MAGA and Trumpism better than this one from just before Orange Diaper man got on a plane without Melania, by the way, to fly off to China to be humiliated serially by Xi Jinping. Here's the clip. When you're negotiating with Iran, Mr. President, to what extent are American financial situations motivating you to make it feel not even a little bit.
Donald Trump
The only thing that matters when I'm talking about Iran, they can't have a nuclear weapon. I don't think about America's financial situation. I don't think about anybody. I think about one thing. We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That's all.
Joy Reid
I don't think he said, I don't think about the American people's financial situation. I don't think about it at all. He does not. He doesn't think about y' all at all. Just so you know, he doesn't think about America's finances at all. And if you think that his party is any better, I want you guys to take a look at Congressman Jim Jordan. Sometimes they spell it G Y M Jordan for certain reasons. Watch him brush off the high gas prices that are crushing Americans left and right, because the diaper man launched a war to reopen the Strait of Hormuz that he himself closed by launching a war on Iran. Here's Jim Jordan. His promise in 2024 that if he was reelected, gas would be under $2 a gallon because of his policies. Well, gas prices were coming down until we had to deal with this situation. But, you know, that's. That's life. That's dealing with. With world. And the world we live in. I think the country gets the fundamental fact, and I know, I understand this. President Trump makes decisions that are in the best interest of our nation. 250 years, greatest country in history. He makes decisions that are going to help our country and the long term security and safety of the people. He has the. And I think you want a commander in chief like that. You want a commander in chief who's willing to do tough things that he knows are good for us, all of us, all of your viewers, everyone in this country, and frankly, everyone around the world. It is good if Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon. But if someone's listening to you and they were paying $2.98 a gallon a gas before the war started, and now they're paying $4.53. I mean, saying that's life might not, you know, make them feel better. Those are your words. Those are your words, not mine. I'm saying. No, you said that. This is the situation. No, no, no, no. He said that. Those are your words. Not, but. No, those are your words. You literally just said. You just said it. You said, that's life. That's life. Oh, that's what people say. You. You said that. And then you're like, well, I didn't say that. You said that. No, you said that, Jim Jordan. You just said it. Do you not remember what you just said? I mean, I really. Look, the menopause will catch my brain sometimes, too, but you literally just said. Never mind. Just by way of contrast, New York Mayor Zorhan Mamdani actually did a thing. He closed the budget deficit without consigning New York's poorest residents to the workhouses. Are there no workhouses? Not Anymore. Not New York. Here's the video that the New York Mayor's office released just this week.
Zorhan Mamdani
It's executive budget season, and I'm proud to announce that our city's budget is fully balanced. This budget isn't just about numbers on a page. It determines if our libraries get funded, if a street is safe to cross, if snow is actually shoveled after a storm. And you deserve to know exactly how we got here. We inherited a $12 billion budget deficit. We are speaking about a fiscal crisis at the scale greater than the Great Recession. Was the Great Recession? Great Recession. Many said the only way out of this was slashing services and passing an austerity budget. We rejected that. After months of painstaking work, that deficit is now zero. Our city is now on firm financial ground. We achieved this in two major ways. Increasing revenue and support from Albany and cutting waste and finding savings here in New York City. Thanks to Governor Hochul, State Senate Majority Leader Andre Stuart Cousins, Assembly Speaker Carl Hastie, and months of organizing from New Yorkers, we tax the rich. That tax alone will raise half a billion dollars per year. And that's not all. Thanks to Governor Hochul and our partners in Albany, we finally got a better deal for New York City. We're getting billions more from the state. And to help tackle the gap, at the same time, we've been poring over the city budget to identify savings. We reduced unnecessary overtime and found smarter ways for government to deliver services. This all added up to $1.77 billion in total savings. Our budget isn't just about closing deficits. It's about building a city New Yorkers can actually afford. On day eight of our administration, we announced a historic partnership with Governor Hochul to finally deliver universal childcare. That's $1.2 billion in new funding from Albany. And this was just the beginning. Investments in citywide trash containerization, cheaper groceries, safer streets, relief for taxi drivers are all on the way. And we're increasing funding for libraries, parks, and cultural institutions. I promised to make sure you were part of this budget process every step of the way. This is your city. These are your tax dollars. And this budget should reflect your priorities. We're proud to put forward a budget for the working people of this city. And we're going to do it again next year and next year and next year.
Joy Reid
So just to be clear, New York's financial capital, which is natural capital of the United States, now has a balanced budget. By the way, Politico, they couldn't even bear to just give the man credit by Himself. Do you see the Politico article where they're like, well, with the latest lifelines from Hokul. Yeah, yeah, he just said that in his video, too. But you give the man credit. I mean, he negotiated it and they managed to clear their debt. And like he said, they're not going to make poor people poorer to do it. They're actually taxing rich people. Voila. Surprise, surprise. That actually works. You know, I know what, I just really quickly did some napkin math. I looked it up. You know what our national debt is? $38.954 trillion. $38.95 trillion. That is the equivalent to a national debt service of $300 billion a year. It's. It's like, like what, $40,000 per family that you owe to pay our national debt? Because we can't do what the mayor of New York can do because, you know, we have to pay. To pay $1.5 trillion in defense spending. You know, we have to get the slush fund to the whiskey guy in the Pentagon. So there's where we are. But the big. The big news this week is. Yeah, and climbing. That's correct. And climbing. 38 trillion. And that means your grandkids will still be paying it, including for this war in Iran that we have no idea how much it costs. But meanwhile, the big news out of China is not only did a Trump Secret Service agent, like, get into a scuffle trying to bring a gun into a space they weren't allowed to, and it was a totally embarrassing moment. Trump tried to wriggle out of the awkwardness of a headline that Xi Jinping failed to greet him first of all on the tarmac, but also now views the US As a declining, decaying regime. China's attitude toward the US Is that we are a regime in decline and that China is on the rise. He's very confident that this is the Chinese century. And Trump has said. Well, he meant. He meant Biden. No, no, honey, he meant you. Trump's trip can pretty much be summarized by this embarrassing senior moment. Take a look.
Donald Trump
The Chinese now love basketball and blue jeans. Chinese restaurants in America today outnumber the five largest fast food chains in the United States all combined. That's a pretty big statement.
Joy Reid
You know, I feel like this clip from the classic comedy Billy Madison really probably best sums up my own thoughts.
Wajahat Ali
What you just said is one of
Joy Reid
the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point is in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber
Ilyasa Shabazz
for having listened to it.
Joy Reid
I award you no points. And may God have mercy on your soul. May God have mercy on your soul. I think that every time Trump talks, May God have mercy on your soul. We're all dumber. I'm sorry I made you all dumber. Your IQ is shaved off at people points listening to that. Trump, you stupid. Oh, but wait, there's more. Trump has apparently miraculously changed his mind after just a few days of flag waving, airport greeters, and being in the presence of an actual dictator for life who makes, you know, dictators make Trump swoon so hard that he's now perfectly fine with China buying up American farmland. And to maga's horror, and the America first people are very for klempt about this with letting half a million Chinese students enter the US and maybe stay.
Donald Trump
Well, we're going to protect it by saying, you can't come, you can't do it. We don't want you buying our land. We don't want you taking the land and basically taking it off the market, and we don't want you doing it. And they're buying at levels that nobody's ever seen before. We don't want you buying. It's very easy to do. That's a very easy thing to do do, but it's causing a lot of disruption and that's what they want to do. So we can do that very easily. Question Beijing. The issue of Chinese students in our universities, more importantly in my mind, is that Chinese nationals have been buying up
Wajahat Ali
thousands and thousands of acres of farmland,
Donald Trump
ranch land and land near military installations.
Joy Reid
Now, I would assume I'm in Beijing if I wanted to buy property near
Donald Trump
one of their military installations.
Joy Reid
I don't think President Xi.
Donald Trump
Nobody wouldn't let you.
David K. Johnston
I don't.
Donald Trump
Look, it's not that I love it. You want to see farm prices drop, you want to see farmers lose a lot of money, just take that out of the market. But they've had a lot of land for a long time. Obama did nothing about it. They bought a lot of it during the Obama administration, he did nothing about it. As far as the students, it's 500,000 students. They come good students. I could tell them I don't want any students is a very insulting thing to say to a country. They would then immediately go out and start building universities all over China. But if you don't have those students, good students, by the way, if you don'tand, we do Another thing, you know, if they're good and they want to stay in America, we won't give them a green card and things like that, you know, and that not only them, but other countries. But if you want to see a university system die, take a half a million people out of it. And you know, the ones that won't be heard are the top schools. The top schools will do fine, but your lower schools, your lower, the ones that don't do quite as well, those two, they'll be dying all over the place. I frankly think that it's good that people come from other countries and they learn our culture and many of them want to stay here. I think it's good.
Joy Reid
Well, welcome to the Resistance. Donald. The first clip was him in 2025 saying, oh no, no, they can't come by our farmland. We're never gonna let them do it. Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama ain't been president since 2013, buddy. He left on January 20, 2013 at noon. Like he been. He ain't been president for a really long. What are we, what are we doing? I'm sorry, 2016, sorry, 2016, 2017, 20. January 20, 2017. He was reelected in 2012. My brain. But he hasn't been president since then. You know, after Obama left, you were president, so then you were president because he left in, you know, January 2020, 2017 at noon, then he was gone. So he hasn't been present for a really long time. So you can't talk about him anymore. And also you now are for Chinese students coming and studying here and learning our culture. Really. Okay, well, welcome to the Resistance. But the real story out of the China trip was who also got to be there in addition to the alleged sex pest and rush hour, for if he ever gets it made, Director Brett Ratner, there were a whole bunch of CEOs on the taxpayer funded plane were Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX. Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, of Nvidia, Apple's Tim Cook, Blackrock's Larry Fink, Boeing's Kelly Ortberg, among others. And since Melania again didn't go, obviously you had to have a member of the Saddam Hussein family. Uday perhaps was too busy partying in his private DC social club, so Koussay decided to attend with his jolly wife, Lara Trump, who got a very, let's just say angry response online after she posted her fun selfie about taking the fam on a little pleasure trip to China. And she put the China in it because she thinks that's really Funny. And everybody on there was like, f you grifters. This was her post where people and others. The Trump, the Trump walking with big zooms. Yeah, people didn't like it. People didn't like it. Okay, remember the good old days when MAGA shrieked about Hunter Biden profiting off his father's presidency because he sat like on a board of directors or something and did art? Those were the days. The Grifter family is in full swing. You know, maybe Eric, whilst in China, could work on how to get the manufacturing completed for his formerly promise to be made in America. Trump phones. Get them out of the workshop. You could probably visit the workshop and see if maybe they're working on those. Those are supposed to come from China apparently and get into the hot little hands of Trump's easily duped fan base who paid $100 just on the promise of maybe getting a phone. They're apparently now shipping them out. But they've replaced the designed, the built in the usa. That used to be what it said on the scammy Trump Mobile website. Now instead it says that the, that they are designed with American values in mind. Designed with American values in mind, but not designed or made in America. But they do say that final assembly will happen in Florida. Of course there is always a scam Monuments clause. Ha. That's for the little people. Join me.
Jason Reed
Now don't forget that the devices are going to be manufactured likely in China.
Joy Reid
Yeah, they're made in China. I mean, while they're there, I'm sure, Hopefully Eric and Mrs. Jaina maybe visited the factory because that's where they're making the phones.
Jason Reed
Good luck with that.
Joy Reid
And then they're gonna, they said there's some sort of final manufacturing in Florida, but the people haven't gotten their phones. They're very upset about it. They're making TikToks about how they haven't gotten their phones. By the way, they're making their TikTok videos on a phone. So you want to replace the phone you're making the TikTok video on with a phone from Donald Trump and you're mad because you don't have it yet. So you're going to be on your other phone talking about the fact that you don't have a Trump phone, but you paid $100 for a Trump phone. That, that, that, that, that was just a promise of a phone. It was a concept of a phone. You may not be that smart if you, if you needed. Join me now. David K. Johnston, Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter, author of Three bestselling books on Trump and a professor at Rochester Institute of Technology. More importantly, my friend. Hi, David.
David K. Johnston
Joy, Good to see you.
Joy Reid
Good to see you. Have you got your Trump phone?
David K. Johnston
No. And, and after all, if it's not going to be made in America. And that was the. Think that I can just go right ahead with an Android phone or an iPhone and get the same thing.
Joy Reid
You could literally go to the mall in one of those little kiosks, buy a gold colored phone case and put a sticker that says Trump on it. It would be so much cheaper. If you are literally giving a $100 deposit for a Trump phone, you really might not be that smart. I'm just saying it may be a sign of a lack of do, do, do, do.
David K. Johnston
But you know what their hope obviously is, is that the poorly educated who Donald claims to love won't read or recognize the difference between a made in America phone and a phone where they slapped some label on it in Florida before they sent it to you, long after it was promised.
Jason Reed
Right.
Joy Reid
And it was definitely made in China. All right, let's talk about sort of what comes of this trip. I don't know what you sort of took from it, but I think the, you know, other than the, the foolery of having all of these CEOs there groveling and begging for money and contracts, which they all apparently did quite well at, is this warning from Xi Jinping that he said, effectively didn't announce it, but said, you know, if we come for Taiwan, you will do nothing. And that seems a little bit ominous to me.
David K. Johnston
Well, it is. And eventually China is going to take back Formosa, but the Chinese don't operate like we do on 90 day profit cycles and 2 year election cycles. You know, they think we're here forever. And Xi Jinping will move as chairman of the party to take back Taiwan when he thinks he can do it with the least possible damage and when it's in his interest. But the message here, I think is very important. And Joy, historians will look back on the year 2026 and they will say the American century ended at 81 years.
Charles Booker
Yeah.
David K. Johnston
This meeting in particular, and you know, this meeting began with a brilliantly conceived insult of Donald Trump, who the whole point of it was he didn't even get it.
Joy Reid
Yeah.
David K. Johnston
So Xi Jinping, a very highly educated man surrounded by highly educated, strategic thinking people. He starts off the meeting saying that we should, we want to avoid a Thucydides trap. Now, I used to teach the law of the ancient world so I could Tell you that this was the concept that when one power is rising to supplant the existing dominant power, it likely leads to war. In fact, there was research done at Harvard that showed that in 12 of 16 cases they examined, it led to war. If you'd said to Trump, so what about the Thucydides trap? He would say, oh, yes, the shirt, the curtains, they're such beautiful curtains in that color. Because he doesn't have a clue. And this entire meeting, and I do a lot of overseas television and newscasts, I've been on a bunch of them in the last two days. And everybody else in the world seems to get the insult, except American mainstream television networks, they don't seem to recognize what happened here, which was the carefully planned and carried out humiliation of Trump right from the start, when they had him walk in front of a bunch of bouncing up and down little girls. The Chinese really thought this through to humiliate Donald Trump and show what a buffoon he is. And, you know, if you live in India or the uk, you got it. The news coverage told you what was going on, not us. The journalists missed it.
Joy Reid
And, I mean, there were a couple of outlets that did note that Xi Jinping did not greet him himself on the tarmac, which, you know, when Trump went to France, you know, Macron greeted him, you know, when, when he brings Putin or brings Netanyahu here, it's a, you know, leader to leader meetup. But in this case, Xi Jinping sent his vice president. That's better than he did before. I mean, when Trump came in 2017, he sent a much lower level official, but that in itself was an insult. Right, right.
David K. Johnston
And by the way, let's not forget that Ping is not the head of the government. He's the head of the Communist Party, to which the government reports, as opposed to how we do it in this country, where a party gets to run the government for a while. But from the very moment the Air Force One door opened, this was all set up to humiliate Donald Trump. Now, Trump got on the plane and said, and so did Boeing, oh, we have orders for 200 jets from China. So some reporters at my former newspaper, the New York Times, go knock on the door of the Chinese government and say, well, tell us about the airplane orders. And they go, we believe in stable finance, stable trading relationships. There were no deals. There weren't any deals. Trump claims they're going to buy beef and soybeans. I'll believe it when I see it. Donald said Trump's going to help with
Joy Reid
the war in Iran.
David K. Johnston
Why would Xi Jinping step in to help Donald Trump who is twisting in the wind over this ill advised war? The five presidents ahead of him all listen to the American military planners. We have really good military planners. Really good. And they all told him the 6,000 reasons you do not want to invade Iran unless you want to go in under the Powell doctrine with an army of, I would guess a half a million people. And of course, A, Donald doesn't strategically think like that, B, he's annoyed all of our friends so none of them are going to come to help us even if they tried to plan this out in advance. And C, frankly, oh, the Powell doctrine, that's from a black man, must be no good because that's everything that anyone did. If you're black in America, you know, we can't have you as a Congressional Medal of Honor winner in a museum, a picture of you. Barack Obama did. It's bad. And Americans really appreciate the unbelievable depth and racial hatred of this man.
Joy Reid
Yeah. And it's costing us and the world dearly. What do you make of Donald Trump's 180 reversal on whether or not China and Chinese controlled entities can buy up farmland and whether or not Chinese students can study here? Now, I used to say this all the time, like, yeah, you guys go ahead and ban those Chinese students from universities. It's going to hurt the universities more than it hurts China because they pay full fare. I've taught in enough, I've taught in a couple of colleges. And you have a lot of these Chinese students here, they're getting paid full fare. They're not on student aid. And so I used to say that. Now Donald Trump agrees with me, but he's taken it further. He's essentially signed off on the idea that China and Chinese controlled entities can buy up our farmland. I thought that was, I thought he was America first.
David K. Johnston
Well, this is a great example of why I say using the word strategy and Trump in the same breath is an insult to the word strategy. There is no strategy in Donald. And you're absolutely right, the professoriate. We are earners of foreign capital and we should be recognized that we are bringing foreign currency into this country. People want to learn from us. But there's no principle in Donald. There's no freedom philosophy underneath things. There's no understanding. He is so appallingly ignorant. And I wish 15 years ago when I started saying that and it was Lawrence o' Donnell and me saying, Donald, here's who he really is. And basically nobody else in national Journalism, they would have listened. And the politics reporters didn't. And by the way, a little thing to think about. I've had now several students when I taught at Syracuse's law and business school and now at ritual who are Chinese and went through Western style education. The Communist party has been experimenting with getting away from the your professor is always right and you will sit there and say nothing but yes sir, yes sir, into Socratic method teaching. And those students, boy, they are the most impressive students I have ever taught. So you take the rigorous thinking demanded of the well educated Chinese and logic and reason, and then you add to it getting away from the you are just a cog in the machine and promoting individual thought. China's just going to run by the rest of the world. And why? Because they're out there. Electric cars, solar fields, wind turbines investing in pharmaceuticals and what are we doing? Vaccines kill people, wind turbines kill people. And solar, well, when the sun goes down, it doesn't generate power, therefore it's a useless product because we've never heard of something called, called a battery.
Joy Reid
And we're, we are, you know, 100% reliant on oil. And I think Americans kind of, it sort of, it confuses people that we are a net exporter of oil. We produce more oil now than we ever have in the history of the United States, maybe in the history of the world. And yet gas prices are through the roof. I just, you know, filled up, my truck was 562A gallon. And people don't understand it that the global market for oil, it's a global market, so it doesn't matter that we're producing more oil. But at the same time, I just think people are underselling the threat that China poses to the petrodollar. All it has to do is say trade in yuan and that's it.
David K. Johnston
Well, they've already done some trades in yuan. Americans, I don't think, appreciate how much the US dollar is a subsidy to us. We print billions of dollars that people are holding in their sock drawers in Egypt and places like that. When my wife and I were Falling in love 45 years ago, we went to Egypt to see her sister who was a low level diplomat, and we turned $500 roughly in cash into the equivalent of $6,000 and we're suddenly rich instead of being broke. And all over the world you can do this in various places. And as soon as China succeeds even in moving it to the euro as a more trustworthy, stable currency, then we're hurt by this. And what's happening right now around the world and I've done some videos at DC Report about this is other countries are forming new trading alliances that exclude us. They're just going around us because they don't need to deal with this madman who doesn't know what he's doing. And Xi sits there and he isn't worried about tariffs because A China doesn't pay him something, Donald doesn't get baked, but B, they're going to get refunded and in the meanwhile he's busy shifting their whole economy to export to other places. The Chinese are thinking way ahead. They're buying farmland and water rights in Africa. They are investing in ports and railroads that will allow them to control infrastructure. They're developing their own aircraft. They haven't been very good at that so far, but they're working on that. Yeah, and what are we doing? You know, we're chasing a past that didn't exist. We're reviving Jim Crow. We have a Supreme Court with five white supremacists, one of whom's whole life goal, we should, we should applaud John Glover Roberts, the Chief justice of the United States because he's achieved his lifetime goal of killing the Voting Rights Act. That's what he was hired to do in 1981 when Ronald Reagan became president. He was fresh out of law school and he is a brilliant lawyer. You gotta recognize that man is a brilliant lawyer. And he stuck to his knitting and he's gotten what he wanted, he thinks. And then we have the self hating black man who joins them, Clarence Thomas, by the way, all this twisting of hands and being upset by Democrats about the redrawing of districts. I don't think that's going to be a good thing for the Republicans because they're going to have to take districts that are 55, 58% are and turn them into districts that are 51, 52, 53% are.
Joy Reid
That's right.
David K. Johnston
Democrats want to win those elections. They only have to do a single thing. Get people to the polls, get them registered and make sure they cast ballots. That's all it takes.
Maddie J
Yep.
David K. Johnston
But in the meantime, you know, China is going to pursue its interests with its highly educated, strategic thinking, patient leadership. And we are going to fool around with vaccines, kill children.
Joy Reid
As one Chinese, I think it was a professor said, China's been around for 5,000 years. You guys have been around 250. We are patient. We can wait. We'll wait you out while you're, while your little, your little empire declines. Before I let you go. I have to let you comment on the fact that the Wall Street Journal, they have uncovered the individual who apparently is helping to rage bait Donald Trump. This is a White House aide whose job it is to go around with a digital printer and print out crazy tweets, crazy things from Twitter, crazy things from TikTok for Donald Trump to post on his Truth Social. He apparently is the person who came up with the. The Obamas as. As monkeys clip all of those things. And this is apparently her job. And there are some White House aides who are getting annoyed by it because this young woman walking around with a digital printer, she prints out the rage post, gives it to Trump for him to review. And apparently this is what he uses to calm himself. This is his binky. You know, pictures that can make him remember how much he hates the Obamas. And racist craziness is literally what he comforts himself with. And then he stays up all night long while either she's posting it or he's posting it himself. This sounds like an unwell person, David.
David K. Johnston
Holy cofefu.
Joy Reid
He should be institutionalized, right? I mean, this is insane. And this woman. How, How Explain what is going on.
David K. Johnston
Well, holy covfefe. You'll notice that a lot of the bad typing Donald has and the bad language is much more polished. So it's been known for some time somebody was doing this. I had no idea who, but Donald is as his frontal lobe dementia. A whole lot of doctors who work in this field, some I've been on TV with at the same time, have said he has frontal lobe dementia. As this sets in, he is going to retreat into what's comfortable. He's going to constantly stoke these grievances he has, because after all, if there's anybody in America who's been mistreated and not gotten what he deserves, it's Don Donald Trump. And someone like this appeals to exactly what he wants. You know, he. He wants to stoke other people's outrage and upset. And this is how Donald's always been. Just never forget this. Why did Donald Trump let Wolf, the author.
Joy Reid
Michael Wolf.
David K. Johnston
Michael Wolf, Right. When he was number one bestseller, I was number two.
Joy Reid
Which.
Wajahat Ali
What?
David K. Johnston
What? Why did he let Wolf into the White House? Which caused him enormous grief because he read the headline in a Hollywood Reporter article and loved it, loved the illustration and didn't read the article. And if he read the very first paragraph, he would have realized, this is nice. It's like, you want to invite me into the White House now, Donald? So this is how Donald operates And he doesn't get enough sleep. We know that he keeps falling asleep, although, frankly, I've long wondered if that's because he's diabetic and not being perhaps properly treated. Because if you look at the times he falls asleep, they're like 90 minutes or two hours after we reasonably assume he ate a meal.
Joy Reid
And could that explain the big cankles to the swollen ankles? That's interesting.
Malcolm X (archival audio)
I don't know.
David K. Johnston
Well, if he has congestive heart failure, I mean, there are a whole host of conditions that we cause this. Donald Trump is in very bad health. There's no question about that. We can all see that. The fact that they keep sending him for cognitive tests, he brags about somebody very smartly persuaded him, you should brag about this when. No, it means they're worried about your mental condition. And every one of these midnight tweet sessions, they embarrass us in the rest of the world. It's unbelievable. And the questions I used to get asked on overseas television shows where I appear all the time have so changed from a few years ago. It used to be, well, come on, Donald Trump's really a great man. He's, you know, people don't appreciate him. And now it's, why are you dealing with this buffoon? Can't you somehow replace him? He's obviously crazy. Just a huge shift. And that includes the Middle east countries that have me on.
Joy Reid
Yeah, it is. We're in a bad place, and we're in a bad place while we are declining and China is rising. Welcome to the Chinese Century. David K. Johnson, always a pleasure. You guys can follow everything dcjcreport.org you should definitely be reading dcreport.org you can get all of the great stuff that David puts out there. Thank you. Thank you, Joy.
David K. Johnston
Have a good weekend.
Joy Reid
You too. Well, just in time. The Joy Reid show is brought to you by Willie's Remedy. Jason, I think we might need this one right now to come around. Look at this. This is Willie's Remedy. Yeah, perfect.
Jason Reed
Oh, you haven't opened that one yet.
Joy Reid
Excellent. No, you can see this one's open already. Oh.
Jason Reed
Oh, so you tried it already?
Joy Reid
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Jason Reed
Somebody in the comment just said Joy since you've tasted it already. Well, how does it taste?
Joy Reid
It tastes good. It doesn't taste like alcohol but you have to drink a little and it tastes, it gives you a little euphoria. You don't have to drink a lot. This is why it lasts this long because you drink just a little bit but it's got kind of A. I can't really describe the taste. It's like, have you ever had anything with hemp in it? It's got a very mild taste. It doesn't have a strong taste. It's not like absinthe that has that really strong taste. It's got a really mild, easy, flowing taste. It's actually really good. I hear somebody who's tried it in, in the comments says it's really good. Jay swarmy. I think 240 is okay, Willie.
Jason Reed
Well, I'll take a shot of it tonight, see what it does.
Joy Reid
Yeah, absolutely. For your birthday. Toast for your birthday.
Jason Reed
Correct.
Joy Reid
All right. Now it is arguable, I gotta say, that Mitch McConnell is one of the most powerful and impactful Senate majority leaders ever in history, having literally stolen a Supreme Court seat for Donald J. Trump the first time around and also helping him to stack the federal courts with young right wing radicals who will serve basically until we're all in the grave. It's also arguable, honestly, that Mitch cognitively is already in the grave himself. Let's take a look at this clip.
David K. Johnston
Thank you all for being here.
Joy Reid
Baldwin, Shaheen and Kennedy. Baldwin, Shaheen and Kennedy. Still have questions. Wrap up after cold here.
Maddie J
Yeah, obviously there's not a whole lot
David K. Johnston
of time for second round, so we'll get through, everybody. And Senator Murkowski, I appreciate your taking over.
Ilyasa Shabazz
Thank you.
Joy Reid
Secretary Hegseth. Chairman. Elder abuse. At this point, it's elder abuse. Everybody say there. What did you say there? This is elder abuse. What? What are we doing here? Come on, guys, what are we doing? Donald Trump, of course, reacted to that and freaked out because he probably saw himself in that clip a little bit because he's really not that far behind and demanded that the aide who you saw leaning over Mitch be fired for making him look bad. That's not what made him look bad. The fact that he's 187 and still in the Senate is what makes him look bad. And what people really should be upset about, what Trump should really be worried about is the fact that despite the absolute and incredible power that Mitch McConnell has wielded, this man has been a senator since 1985. 85. When I was in high school, I was in 10th grade in 1985. This guy has presided over a state that is one of the poorest states in the union. Note that all but one of the 10 poor states in the union are run by Republicans. This man had all that power, all that power. And his state is poor. It is one of the poorest states in the union. And all the other top 10 poorest states are red states as well. Well, there is one man who is. There's one person of the two that are. That are fighting to replace Mitch McConnell. And the primary, the Democratic primary is actually coming this Tuesday. Take a look at his latest ad. Okay, so, Charles, why are you running again?
Malcolm X (archival audio)
You.
Charles Booker
I'm fighting for you. I'm fighting for all of you. I'm running because these billionaires and their puppet politicians have stomped on us for long enough. The family, because of all the work we've done together over the years. We're ready to win this fight for Medicare, for all, for groceries we can afford for our children, our teachers, stronger unions. Now they call us radical. And I've been all across Kentucky and what I know is fighting to put an end to the corruption in Washington, an end to rising costs we can't afford, and end to sending our loved ones into endless war.
Joy Reid
That ain't radical.
Charles Booker
My granddad taught me that. You fight for family.
Jason Reed
We are family.
Charles Booker
And what we know is when we fight back.
Robert (Caller)
That's right.
Joy Reid
And Charles Booker joins me now. By the way, y', all, the. The race is on Tuesday. The primary is on Tuesday. Hey, Charles.
Charles Booker
Hey, Joy. It's good to see you.
Joy Reid
Great to see you, too. Well, first of all, I think just on the matter of age, I feel like the time has come to replace ole Mitch. But if you had to critique what he's done with those decades since 1985. I don't even know if you were born in 1985. Were you alive in 1985? Did you exist in 1985
Charles Booker
when this man was elected? I was two weeks old.
Joy Reid
Okay. And seen. Okay. What do you think that he's delivered for Kentucky with all that power?
Charles Booker
If anything, you know, this is the thing that maddens so many people across Kentucky. We have all been frustrated with him, Democrats, Republicans and Independents, because he has a legacy of screwing us over. He's built power. He has built a Republican Party in this commonwealth. But it was all to enrich himself, to hoard power for himself. Because of him, we even have Donald Trump. And we are all sick and tired of it. We have a packed Supreme Court because of him, the gutting of the Voting Rights act because this man, so much of the damage that we're seeing now, the cuts to health care, the cuts to essential services that we need is because he sold us out for tax breaks for people like Elon Musk. So what a poetic way to send them package. But to replace him with a fighter for working people. And that's what this campaign represents. And I'm so fired up to win not only on Tuesday, but to win in November as well. We're gonna flip this tendency.
Joy Reid
You know, I assume that a lot of people who voted for Trump in your state were probably voted on the basis of pro life. You know, there are a lot of conservatives who just. That was their voting issue. Now that Roe v. Wade is gone, thanks, really, to Mitch McConnell, has life gotten better for Kentuckians?
Charles Booker
You know, not only has things have things gotten worse, people can tell. They can feel it. And they know it's not Joe Biden. They know it's not Barack Obama. They see that Donald Trump is crushing them, and they see how Mitch McConnell is the architect of it all. The fact of the matter is, and I've been across Kentucky for years, organizing as a state legislator through my Oracle to the Holler, and of course, running for U.S. senate, I've sat down in rooms with folks who supported Trump genuinely, because they believed him when he said he was gonna bring the jobs back, he said he was gonna drain the swamp and take on corruption. He was gonna end endless war. There are a lot of service members in Kentucky. A lot of folks desperately took a chance. And if you look at the map, a lot of people who voted for Trump voted for Bernie Sanders, too. We have a Rand Paul and Andy Bashir. So people are just looking for anyone who's gonna fight for them. And, of course, a lot of us knew he was BSing. But to see so many Kentuckians realize in painful terms that Trump does not care whether they live or die, it hurts. But it's also allowed people to sort of wake up to the fact that if we don't change things, we're going to continue to lose our loved ones. And that's why this campaign has been a rallying point for so many people. Organized labor is getting behind us because of this. Grassroots organizations, a lot of regular folks know their voice has to be heard. And these no Kings demonstrations across Kentucky, they're not just Democrats, they're lifelong Republicans that are speaking up and speaking out. And I'm proud of the fact that we're fighting back.
Joy Reid
I want to play you this Thomas Massie clip because, you know, it seems that, you know, you don't talk about people who voted for Trump. I'm quite sure Massie probably did, right? Who knows? But I would assume he did, and most of his voters did. And yet here he is, really leading one of the people leading the charge to release the Epstein files and going against some of these big corporate interests, he almost sounds like you sometimes. You know, some of these positions are really far right, but when it he. When it comes to fighting these big corporate corporations and billionaires, he almost sounds like he's with you. But I want you to listen to what he's saying is happening in his primary right now. These b4 JSON heard that the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, is coming to intervene in my campaign. Look, dogs don't bark at parked cars.
Wajahat Ali
And the fact that you got cabinet secretaries that may be coming to my
Joy Reid
district to campaign against me during a war, the Secretary of War during a war shows how serious this is to the global elites that I lose. And that's why it's so serious that I do win.
Wajahat Ali
If there's going to be any Hope
Joy Reid
in Washington, D.C. if there's going to
Wajahat Ali
be any voice, anybody that ever challenges the narrative, whether it's on war or whether it's on immunity for companies, whether
Joy Reid
they're data centers or whether they're pesticide manufacturers, look, there's all kinds of cronies
Wajahat Ali
that, not just the foreign influence cronies,
Joy Reid
but corporate cronies on the meatpacking industry. And you'll see occasional fake fights where Republicans may engage in a fake fight and then I show it's all fake. And that's why they hate me for breathing air in the swamp. It is wild to me that you could, if you just turn the picture off, I would say, okay, yeah, that's definitely Charles Booker saying those things. Well, first of all, tell me whether how the Iran war is impacting the people you're talking to. Is this a motivating factor? And could you see people who are going to stick with Thomas Massie and vote for him, voting for you?
Charles Booker
Absolutely. And you're right. There are times when a broken clock is right twice a day. And in this case, and also when it comes to the Epstein files, we've seen Thomas Massie be one of those voices of accountability to speak out against corruption, and I've commended him for it. And a lot of folks across Kentucky who understand that we need leadership that will speak up and speak out. They're supporting me and supporting folks like Thomas Massie because this moment is bigger than politics. It's bigger than partisan division. And I'm glad to see some of our colleagues find a little bit of courage. And he's getting a glimpse of what it looks like to speak the truth. And I've told everyone I will work with anyone who is fighting for the people of Kentucky, we need leaders who will protect working people and not the Epstein files. And as you mentioned, with Iran, this is a war that no one asked for, is, of course, illegal. And Trump is enriching himself in our faces. They're manipulating the markets. They are destabilizing our economy. And it's hurting Kentuckians. The costs are rising here. It's hurting our small family farmers. It's hurting small businesses. And again, they know who's doing it. So it creates an opportunity for us to build new coalitions. And that's why this race is so powerful, because we've been organizing for years on issues not about Democrats or Republicans, but about humanity, about the challenges we face. I'm from the hood. I'm from the struggle. Grew up in poverty and speaking out on the fact that we need Medicare for all. If we're going to fund Endless War, why are we not funding Medicare fraud? And in fact, let's end endless War. Let's make sure that our children have the care they need. In a state that's been one of the poorest and sickest states in the country, people are fed up, and that's why they're getting behind this campaign. And again, I think this is the type of race the country needs to see. The world needs to see. We're fighting for democracy at a time when it's needed more than ever.
Joy Reid
So I assume that if you were in the Senate and you were represented with Pete Hegseth's $1.5 trillion budget, I'm assuming you would vote no.
Charles Booker
Oh, a hard no. And, you know, this is another reason why I'm so loud about how important the Senate race is just by the numbers. We flip Kentucky, we're flipping the U.S. senate, and I think about, again, Mitch McConnell screwing us every step of the way. This man voted for Hegseth. He's voted to give Trump everything he's asked for, and he knows better. And we have to clean this mess up. I'm very clear. Trump needs to be impeached, removed, and arrested. And we need to finally have an agenda that centers working people. And that means no more funding for Endless War. We cannot fund genocide. We have to fund the investments in our people. And I'm going to fight for that.
Joy Reid
Medgar Evers was just awarded a posthumous law degree by the Mississippi College School of Law. Of course, he was denied the opportunity to live his dream and go to Ole Miss Law School. He never got a chance to do it. So he supported another man who tried to integrate Ole Miss. But Medgar Evers, at the same time may have his name stripped off of a battleship by that same Pete Hegseth who's going to be coming to your state to campaign against Thomas Massie. What do you make of his leadership and his erasure, really aggressive erasure of black people and his reinstitution of lauding the Confederacy and putting up Confederate statues and, you know, re establishing kind of the praise for the Confederacy, for the military.
Charles Booker
You know, he's a fraud. It's sick. It's exhausting. People are tired of it. And it's exposing their. Their plan for Jim Crow, their plan to. To lean into white supremacy. And it's hurting everybody, even folks who voted for Trump. They were looking again for the swamp to be drained, not for this mess. And while they're trying to weaponize hate, we're showing love in action here. We're showing faith in action. We're building community. We're providing mutual aid. We're showing that even if the government is going to turn its back on us, we're still going to look out for each other. And I'm just leading the charge and being the tip of the spear and saying that the government we pay for should be accountable to us, accountable to our voices, accountable to our history, accountable to our needs. And we're not going to let them use racism as a wedge to drive us apart anymore. That's why Hood to the Holler is so critical. We're locked arms, urban and rural, white, black and brown, Democrat, Republican and independent. And we are going to take this seat back and bring accountability to Washington.
Joy Reid
The chat is asking, are you taking any money from AIPAC or any AIPAC affiliated groups?
Charles Booker
Never would, never will. We're funded by the people. We are accountable to the people. My average contribution is still around 26 $27. So we need all the help we can get because we are not for sale. So Please go to charlesbooker.org and support us here. We need to show that we can beat big money. I'm being outspent in this primary. Although we're going to win it. We'll be outspent in the general. We're going to win that, too. But it's because of support from folks that watch your incredible show and all of our allies around the country.
Joy Reid
Just a couple more questions, just to get through some of the things that you'd be dealing with if you make it to the United States Senate. This question of whether or not the Department of Homeland Security should be funded if ICE gets money, too. There are ICE prisons in Kentucky. Apparently one in Boone is one of the main ICE prisons in Kentucky. Do you believe ICE or Boone County? I should say Boone County Detention Center. Should ICE be funded as it is constructed now?
Charles Booker
Absolutely not. And I know a lot of the news may characterize Kentucky. And of course, you know, we're called a red state. We have been an ignored state, a marginalized state, a disenfranchised state. But this is a unifier here. Folks across Kentucky see what's happening with ICE and that they are not enforcing immigration laws. They are inflicting terror. They are using the notion of keeping our borders safe to tear families apart and to trample on the Constitution. ICE needs to be abolished. It needs to go. And we can have an immigration system rooted in humanity and not brutality. And for a lot of folks who are trying to work on their farms, trying to keep their farms alive, a lot of factory workers, these are our family. These are our loved ones. These are innocent people. The criminals are in the White House, not folks that are in communities just trying to live a good life. ICE has to go.
Joy Reid
Would you support a bill banning United States Senators and members of Congress from trading in the stock market? Because obviously, senators and members of Congress get all this inside information that some of them appear to be using to get really rich.
Charles Booker
Well, we've seen that in Mitch McConnell. So as the person who will be falling behind him to clean up his mess, one of the most important things we have to do is not only get big money out of politics, but we have to make sure that our legislators are working for the people, which means they should not be enriching themselves while there. So, yes, we have to ban members of Congress being able to buy and trade stock using the information that they should be using to protect the American people, to enrich themselves. And this, it's only gotten worse in the era of Trump. They're doing it in our faces. They're robbing us in our faces. And what I tell folks is this. I don't care whether you're Democrat, Republican, or Independent, we are all getting screwed. They're robbing all of us. And if we don't stand together as family to stop this, we're going to continue to see our loved ones hurt. We're going to continue to see people sleeping on the streets while Elon Musk is trying to become a trillionaire. We're all tired of it. And we need leadership that cares about us and is not for sale. And I commit to being that leader.
Joy Reid
So the last time that you ran, I remember having you on my show at the Artist formerly known as MSNBC, you were running against, really one opponent, Amy McGrath. She's running again, but this time it's a little bit more of a crowded field. Dale Romans, a Louisville thoroughbred trainer. Amy McGrath, who ran again, she's running a second time. Pamela Stevenson is a state representative. And yourself are all in this race. How do you stand out from them? And why should Kentucky voters pick you and not any of those three?
Charles Booker
You know, this is a bit of a rematch. And again, I've told folks this feels like Rocky III for me. So I. I'm honored to be on this journey, and it is a bit of a rematch. But you name something powerful. It's different this time. This time people understand what's at stake. A few years ago, when I was running and working across Kentucky, folks said, well, you're a little too radical. You're talking about everyone having health care, true living wages. Dr. King talked about a guaranteed annual income. You're talking about universal basic income. I'll tell you this now. People are demanding the policies I've been leaning on for years. And so I've earned trust. I've built coalitions. I've built the type of infrastructure that you expect party structures to create, but it's because so many people are sick and tired. And so what has set me apart and allowed me to lead this primary by nearly 20 points over the same Amy McGrath and the rest of the field is because we have shown a vision to meet the needs that Kentuckians face. Yes, we're calling out Trump and his bigotry, Mitch McConnell and these big money robber barons. As my brother, Congressman Jamal Bowman, has been saying, we're calling him out, but we're also shining a light on our needs, our priorities. And that's what's inspiring so many people to get out and to mobilize. And that is why I'm so excited to be a part of this. I'm just a part of the journey with my family here.
Joy Reid
Yeah, I've been hearing through the grapevine that some people might have a little bit of buyer's remorse, having tried the sort of. Of moderate option before an Amy McGrath and thinking maybe try something new. And it isn't very interesting. State. This is a state, for those of you guys are unaware, is. Is. Is not a heavily black state. It's 7%. But Charles has crossover appeal and has to cross over in order to win. But I always tell people I'M reading these articles saying it's a red state, but the governor is literally Andy Beshear, like the governor and his dad was governor. It's like he's literally a Democrat who won statewide. Hello. Every state is just either a funded state and a paid attention to paid attention to state or it's an ignored state. Come on, Democrats, Wake up. Charles Booker, Give your website so people can support you. Oh, I think we have it on the air. Go on.
Charles Booker
Charlesbooker.org charlesbooker.org There you go.
Joy Reid
Charlesbooker.org Y' all go and support this brother because he's got the personality and I think you need somebody that's got a little bit of you've got has to have a little personality, has to have a little spark to try to win this race. And thank God you're not 79, 000 years old because poor Mitch McConnell needs to go sit down with his grandkids or something. Thank you, Charles. Appreciate you.
Charles Booker
Yes, ma'.
Joy Reid
Am. Thank you finally retiring because, oh, Lord, I get scared every time I see Mitch McConnell talk. I'm worried for him. I actually am thinking he's not going to make it. He's not gonna make it. Please note, not only is it the election on Tuesday, so if you're in Kentucky, please vote. Make sure you do not miss out on the opportunity because again, the primary is your power. This is when you get to pick. If you don't go and vote in the primary and then you're stuck with somebody you don't like in the general, then the argument is, well, it's this person or the Republican. I also want to know that in the state of Georgia, today is the last day to early vote for governor. I believe polls just closed at 7pm so early vote is done. Hopefully, if you want to early vote, you did it. That was the Supreme Court seats and also the governor seats. We'll have updates for you on Monday how that went. But I want to welcome you all to hour two of the Joy Reid Show. Be sure to hit that like and subscribe button. Definitely hit the little thumbs up that is like as you like. The show Also hit share if you'd like to share this with a friend and let lots of other people know that you love the Joy Reid show and also put in the comments why and where you're watching from and you know a little bit about yourself. We want to get to know each and every one of you. Want to know that this hour of the Joy Reid show is brought to you by Our friends at Fast Growing Trees. This is one of my favorite, favorite sponsors because I get to actually look at the products of the sponsorship in our backyard. And it's gorgeous. We love it. It is America's fastest and most trusted online nursery with thousands of trees and plants and more than 2 million happy customers, including us. 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And viewers of this show and listeners of this show get 20 off your first purchase if you use the code joy at checkout j o y. That's an additional 20 off. Better plants and better growing at fast growingtrees.com use the code joy at checkout fastgoingtrees.com and the code is Joy, now's the perfect time to plant. It's Spring. Let's grow together. Use Joy to save today. Offer is valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions may apply. And for those in the chat who are asking, what is the code for willies? It's also joy. We keep it simple around here because why make it complicated? Your life's complicated enough. So the code is Joy for fast going trees. The code is Joy for Willies for all the girls I've loved. So South Carolina State Senate rejected the Governor's plan to gerrymander that already super gerrymandered state even more to zero out James Clyburn's seat, which happens to be the only black held congressional seat in the state that launched the Confederacy. I will note that I believe there have been eight ever black congressmen from South Carolina, including the very first black person ever to go to Congress during Reconstruction. But the only one in the modern era post reconstruction is James Clyburn. And I want you to look at these maps. Okay? 26% of the population of South Carolina is African American, is black. Yet if you look at these congressional districts, you can see that that one district which is drawn to include basically all the blacks is Clyburn's district. But back in the day, if you go even back to the year 2002, the early aughts Democrats used to traditionally win two seats, they could win the second seat up there. That seat was also blue, but that was gerrymandered. You can see in the middle of the screen. Once the gerrymander happened and they merged two districts and they mushed these districts around, they reduced that 2 to 1. That was that first gerrymander. And now they wanted to go back and take a second bite at the apple and zero out that little blue at the bottom and make it all red. This, see this? This state is 1/4 African American. And the plan of the governor was to make it all red. That means a state with where 25% of the population would be represented by white MAGA Congress people. And that's supposed to be representing their interest. Seriously? Seriously. Clyburn had publicly warned his state's Republican party to be really careful playing with the Voting Rights act in a state because you just never know how it's going to play out. As David K. Johnston said, you just don't know. You have to make the red districts a little bit bluer to make the blue district really red. Right. You have to divide that pie up and give a little bit of those black people into those districts that didn't have any black people. And that changes how Things go, you just don't know how it's going to work. So he said, be careful. And the state senate said, yeah, we agree. Even though they are a majority Republican state Senate, they said no. But now the governor wants to have a special session that would start next week to force it through anyway. Sounds about KKK to me. Now, the end of the Voting Rights act has not come without protest. Take a couple minutes to enjoy this brutal read by a voter in the great state of Louisiana.
Wajahat Ali
Mr. Marshawn, I have trouble understanding the
Joy Reid
writing of your last name.
Wajahat Ali
You can state your name for the record.
Charles Booker
I know don't appreciate it.
Marshawn Kamisa
All right, let me see. Did I turn that off? Okay, here I go.
Joy Reid
I'm back on.
Marshawn Kamisa
I'm Marsha on Kamisa. I appreciate the other people that I have up here because I had something that I remembered to say, but that was about seven hours ago. But just, just to kind of get to it, I'll try to get through as much as I can. The state of Louisiana in 2025 deported multiple children, one of whom was born in, in New Orleans and had brain cancer. Donald Trump got the pro life, Bible thumping Republican Party to say, yes, we want more of that. As a matter of fact, send Gregory Bevino down here to harass more people. So I have no doubt in my mind that the map's gonna pass. If y' all can give us less than 0 seats, you would do it. Y' all do this under the orders of somebody that said the Civil Rights act was harmful to white people, that it caused reverse racism. RFK said that black children are overfilled on antidepressants and that they need to be re parented on different farms, all of them. Pete Hegseth constantly brings Doug Wilson to the Pentagon to give a prayer service. Doug Wilson is the same pastor that said that slave owners were on strong spiritual ground. I don't have no belief in, no morality on anybody that followed Donald Trump. If you wasn't with this map, you wouldn't be underneath this president. You wouldn't be in your party. You would stand up, you would stand against it, you would speak out about it. So as far as I'm concerned, if you here as one of these Trump Republicans, you already showed us who you are, you showed us what you want to do. And I believe the country as a whole is rebuking your party. Y' all are in a death spiral. That's why y' all have to redistrict. That's why y' all have to cheat. That's why Trump got to go to Texas and say he entitled to five more seats. It's because y' all know what y' all doing is abhorrent. We letting our people die in Iran based on false pretense that Tulsi Gabbard and Joe Kent say it ain't real. Y' all okay with all that, so I'm positive y' all gonna be okay with the maps. But the beautiful thing is the children that y' all have made and the people that's younger than y' all don't support none of this racism that y' all want. The MAGA party is the last breath of the Confederacy. And I'll be happy to see millennials and Gen C bury all. There will be no more of your party. The midterms gonna come. Y' all gonna get wiped out. Trump gonna get get dragged out of the White House. And I'mma love every second of it because y' all loved every second of the suffering that he caused to everybody in this country and worldwide. We starve in Cuba, we bomb Nigeria, we holding Zimbabwe and Zambia hostage for their minerals. We don't want to give them aid. Support the pro lifers that say all life is special. Y' all letting kids die of aids. What part of your Bible say that? Point out the scripture. I think everybody would love to see it. And we would love to see y' all in the midterms.
Joy Reid
Thank you for your testimony, sir.
David K. Johnston
The board is clear now.
Joy Reid
That was a read. He gathered the hell out of those devils. Gathered them. And that. Whoever that man is, somebody please tell me. Find out who he is. We're going to send him some merch. That dude was. He said it. He said everything that needed to be said. Amazing. Please, somebody find out who that man is. Marshawn. All right. We need to get Marshawn's information. I need to know who that is. And it's not just him. And it is not just in Louisiana, by the way. Can I just show you all the old and new map that is prompting that anger? This is the current map that you can see on the left and the other map, which again takes a state that is nearly a third black and says they only are entitled to one member of Congress of their choice. This is literally placing black people back on the plantation in the south in these former Confederate states. They're saying black people are not entitled to choose any of their own representation. They will be represented by MAGA Republicans, period. And only MAGA Republicans. There will never be another Democrat of their choice. In the Congress. The Congress will be only right wing, corrupt, Trump loving, crypto trading, insider trading, MAGA Republicans who will allow the corruption to continue. I want you now to hear North Carolina. Here's a North Carolina voter and he's reacted to the gerrymander that actually took place last year. But here is this voter's reaction are the wet dream of soft men who won't even look up from their phones to face their voters. These are men who lust for a world where the powerful do what they can and the rest of us suffer what we must. Jesus wept. So again, it is not just black people. It's everybody that understands that the whole point here is to screw over everyone, to screw over black people, to make way for the grift and the theft from everyone. Because if you remove black people's ability to vote for the Congress members of their choice and only MAGA gets to place all of the members of Congress in, then you're going to have a Congress that's going to allow maximum corruption to continue forever. If you can make sure that black people can never again. Because again in the south, the majority of Democrats are black and the majority of white people in the south are Republican. And it's much more extreme, polarized voting in the south than there is anywhere else. So all you have to do to stop Democrats from being able to win is make sure that black people cannot choose a member of Congress of their choice and then that makes sure that Republicans control the whole state. They control the gerrymandering, the redistricting, they draw the lines and they are all the members of Congress, meaning they go into the House and they sit there inert or trade and do insider trading with the corrupt Trump regime. The corruption continues. Let me give you some breaking news on that front. I told y' all when Dina Dahl was on that the Supreme Court was going to suddenly reverse itself on whether or not political gerrymandering is okay. And they have now done exactly what I thought they were going to do. The United States Supreme Court today has rejected Virginia's bid to restore a congressional map that would have given Democrats a chance to pick up four seats in the closely divided House of Representatives. The court's order. This is AP is the latest twist in the nation's mid decade redistricting competition. It was kicked off last year when Donald Trump urged Republican controlled states to redraw their lines and was supercharged by a recent Supreme Court ruling severely weakening the Voting Rights Act. That opened up even more winnable seats for the GOP in Recent days, the justices have sided with Republicans in Alabama and Louisiana who hope to redo their congressional maps and produce more Republican leaning seats following the court's voting rights decision. But today they said, nah, Virginia is different. Democrats can't do it. I want you all to once again, I told y' all that John Roberts was going to completely flip the script and suddenly openly political gerrymandering is not okay. They said you can't do racial gerrymandering. But now what they're saying is Democrats can't do any gerrymandering for any reason, whether it's racial or whether it's political. The only legal gerrymandering, per the Supreme Court, is when Republicans do it to make sure that the party that lets John Robert do corruption and lets Alito do corruption and lets Uncle Clarence do corruption and lets Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett's husband get rich. They all are corrupt. Kavanaugh won't investigate his FBI file. The Supreme Court is corrupt. They have now proven it to you. They have suddenly flipped the script on whether you can do political gerrymandering and made it clear that only Republicans can do it. If I'm Virginia, I would say, f you, Supreme Court, go get your army and let me see you enforce your ruling. I would do if I were Virginia, exactly what Alabama did. When they said you had to draw a second black district, Alabama said, fu Court, we're not doing it. They refused to draw the map that the Supreme Court ordered. They ignored them. And so now it is time for Democratic massive resistance. Virginia, go ahead and do your map. Don't go back to the voters. Only the Democratic states did a public referendum on whether to do this. California went to the voters, dragged that whole process out, made it take longer. Virginia went to the voters. And now, apparently going to the voters doesn't help you because the state Supreme Court run by corrupt Republicans and the U.S. supreme Court run by corrupt Republicans, both say, you can't do it if you're a Democrat. You can only do it if your goal is to put more Republicans in Congress. The only way you can gerrymander legally in America, per the Roberts Court, is if you are a Republican attempting to make a Republican majority in Congress become permanent. That's the only. They have now made it clear it is straight partisan. You can only gerrymander if your ass is a Republican. If I'm Virginia, I would say I'm not gonna put my middle finger up. I don't wanna get tagged on YouTube, but my five fingers without these three come and take it. I would say to the court, so sorry that you had wasted your time giving an order, but I'm not following it. Y' all go get ChatGPT. Make yourself a map with no Republicans in it. Put that map out and vote on that and tell the Supreme Court to go straight to hell. We're done. There's no reason to listen to these people. They are not legitimate. They are literally hypocrites. They can't even be consistent for a week. One week they're saying you can do political gerrymanning, the next week they say, no, you can't. And they're trying to lock in corruption because at this point, even Republicans see that they're getting screwed by the Epstein class who are stealing, doing crypto scams, doing Trump phone scams, getting rich. The Congress people are insider trading, including some Democrats. Hello, Fetterman, These people are all lying to you. You don't have a government anymore. You have a mafia that the Supreme Court is a part of. Even the Republicans get it. Listen to this C Span caller, Ohio Republican. You're on Open forum.
Robert (Caller)
Well, I like to first say I apologize to all of America and all of Americans. I was a die hard Republican. I cannot believe I drank the Kool Aid. Okay, I am guilty. I drank the Kool Aid of Donald J. Trump. In fact, I don't even know why we keep saying Donald J. Trump. This man is ruining the Constitution of the United States. What's going on in these Southern states, Louisiana and Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, they're taking away the vote from the black man, the fight from the black people that are part of our country. They're stealing their vote. They're making it null and mean nothing. And we need, or we need to, I don't know what we need to do, but I'm not going to vote for Donald Trump. I know that this country, if you see all the corruption, the billions of dollars that the Trump family is grabbing, it's. And he says it's never about the money. It's all about the money. The lies, the lies, the lies that come out of this man's mouth. Everything he says is not true is exactly what is true. And he just, it's just, I don't know what needs to be done. But the Democrats need to grab the helm and lead the people. What we need to do, they are overwhelming the system of democracy.
Joy Reid
Robert, when you said you drank the Kool Aid, what was it about President Trump that appealed to you initially? And, and what was it that made you Break with him.
Robert (Caller)
I mean, just seeing the lies just. He put us in a war. The straight of. All Donald Trump wants right now is for clean face. He wants the Strait of Hormuz open. Guess what? Before he went there, it was open. And the gas prices were beautiful. I mean, everything this man touches, he's putting up gold statues of himself. I mean, when are people going to wake up? Now I drink the Kool Aid. How did I drink the Kool Aid? I can't even answer that. I don't know if it was those stupid rallies I went to, those stupid look at, I got rid of my Make America great again hat. Okay, I got rid of that. I can't even believe I wore that hat. So that's where I'm at.
Joy Reid
Trust but verify. I need to see how you vote, friend. I feel your pain. Everything you said is absolutely true, friend. But I'm gonna need to see how you vote because a lot of time people get mad and then when the ballot's in front of them and it's a democr Democrat or another Republican, you voted for another damn Republican even if you are a Republican. And we just had the Kentucky never vote for another Republican. They're all corrupt. Let me bring in Waj. Join me now is Wajahat Ali, host of the Democracy Ish podcast, writer, recovering attorney, creator of the Left Hook on Substack, author of a memoir and a play, and also my friend that helps me enrage the fools of the far right. I just need you to react with me, Waj, to this Supreme Court. I told these folks that are watching the Joy Reid show that the Supreme Court was going to completely 180 it on whether or not you can do political gerrymandering. And before I let you go off, because I know you got, I know you, you're going to bring it the state court in Virginia. This is the reason they overturned 3 million people's votes in Virginia. Because they said the Democratic controlled legislature improperly began the process of placing the amendment on the ballot after. After early voting had already begun. That's what Louisiana did, too. Go ahead.
Wajahat Ali
MAGA has replaced the hoods with MAGA hats. The new Jim Crow is the old Jim Crow. They want to take this country back to 1863, but we won't let them because we're the majority. And meanwhile, as the Supreme Court is literally teabagging us to our faces, mocking us and ridiculing us, openly saying, hang on, we're going to go against our own ruling. In fact, we're going to go against our own ruling. We did two weeks ago in Calais. In fact, even though we said three years ago that Alabama's courts, Alabama's Republicans drew up racist maps, we're going to go ahead and just do what we want. We're going to ignore the Purcell doctrine that we implemented that said, wait, wait, wait, you can't have new maps before elections because that disrupts the election process. You go ahead and bum rush this racist map. Alabama Klan, go for it. What you going to do? Democrats? We know you're going to do nothing because you're cowards. You're weak. You're a bunch of weak bitches. That's what you are. We know what, that's what you are. So what are you going to do? Nothing. In fact, we're going to invalidate your election. In fact, we're going to go ahead and mock you and ridicule you as 3 million Virginians, including myself, came out and voted for new maps. And now we got these reeks in the Virginia state supreme court who said nap. You know what? The election itself, they could have said it was illegal and constitutional. They let the election go, but once they found out the election results, then they came out and said, oh no, no, now, now, brown and black cow, you can't have new maps. No new maps for you. But new maps for Louisiana. FU 45,000 voters in Louisiana. Those ballots go in the trash. Florida says, you know what, I'm not even going to go to the state legislature or the state supreme court. I'm Ron DeSantis, this is my state. I'm going to just openly create new maps. What you're going to do about it, Democrats. Then you got Tennessee saying, you know what? The old can is a new Klan. I don't even have to wear a hood anymore. I could just be a Republican representative and I'm going to divide up the one black district. What you gonna do about it? And in Virginia, if I may, Sorry, I'm in a spicy mood. In Virginia, if I may, I was waiting. I'm like, come on Virginia Democrats, come on. It's like you're begging for your team for once. Come on, team, do something. You got the state legislature, Spanberger. We gave you a double digit victory. You got control. At least show me you're willing to fight. The day that that state supreme court came out and invalidated our election, that's what they did. They invalidated our election. You know what the state Democrats said? I'm not making this up. We respect the court decision. You Respect the court's decision. Governor Spanberger, what did she say? Well, you know what? Even though we're very upset, I'm like, okay, first paragraph, give me some thunder. In the second paragraph, we're just gonna have to vote harder. We're just gonna have to show up in record numbers. And Hakeem Jeffries, Mr. Chatgpt, created by AIPAC and friggin, you know, corporate money. Well, you know, we're gonna go and vote and come out and record. You can't outvote gerrymandering. And then, if I may, if I may, what the Democrats are saying, because I have to take on the Democrats, because, folks, I'm done. I've been saying for 10 years. And say, waj. Oh, vote blue no matter who, and Waj, vote for Democrats. And oh, Waj, how can you say this? They've shown you who they are. They're not built for this fight. They're not made for this moment. I just tweeted this right before I came on. I said, virginia Democrats, we came out. We gave you power. You have the state legislature. You have the governorship. If you're unwilling to go scorch earth, resign. Resign. Step aside. You're not made for this. You're not built for this fight. You're not made for this moment. And I don't have time to waste. And if you don't fight now, you know what you are? You're a collaborator. You're complicit. Joanne, they are literally removing black voters. And Democrats are saying, f you, all black voters. We don't care about you in the South. We lost the South. They're not even willing to fight in Virginia. We came out, we voted for this. And Joanne, there's like, we don't care. And meanwhile, the Supreme Court is saying, guess what? My wife, she didn't fly just one. She flew two flags associated with January 6th. And you dumb bitches, you didn't do anything. And then guess what? Clarence Thomas said, guess what? I'm groomed by right wing billionaires. And my wife sent supportive texts to Mark Meadows, you dumb asses. You weak gimps. You did nothing. And now John Roberts is saying, and I'll end my little rant. I'm so sorry. John Roberts is saying, I showed you all what I was going to do in 2013 in Shelby. You've seen me since I was in my 20s. This has been my wet dream to gut the Voting Rights Act. And now I did it. And before I did it, guess what? We went back against our word. And we deprived women of Roe v. Wade and abortion rights. And guess what? What we did two years ago, we gave Donald Trump a blank check, absolute immunity. And we're going to keep doing it and doing it and doing it. I am done. I say F you to the Supreme Court, I say F you to maga, and I say F you to corporate Democrats and centrist Democrats. If you're unwilling to fight, step aside. Congratulations, you've radicalized the majority. I have more to say, but I'm done for now.
Joy Reid
No, no, I want you to say more, because here's the reality is there is a word called collusion.
Wajahat Ali
Absolutely.
Joy Reid
If you are an attorney at law, it is legal for you to give advice to a criminal you're representing. It is not legal for you to collude with your client in committing a crime. And so I'm going to propose. I'm not a lawyer, but what I see from my vantage point as a layperson, not a lawyer, is collusion. Waj, you have John Roberts, who wrote the ruling that invalidated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment that says a person who is committing insurrection cannot stand for federal office until they are cleared by Congress. He erased Section 3 from the Constitution so that Donald Trump could become president, saying he needed him to be able to take bold action. So he needs to effectively be a king. Then he has an insurrectionist named Samuel El Alito. Sam the Scam, whose wife flew insurrection flags at the house they both own, meaning that's his house, meaning that's his flags. If I flew a flag outside this house, that's me and Jason's flag. That's not my flags. Because if he don't know I'm flying him and he didn't consent to me flying him, if he disagreed, I couldn't just throw a flag up. We got to talk about it. So apparently they talked about it. So that's an insurrectionist. Then you've got Clarence Thomas, whose wife is literally texting and having phone calls with the people doing the insurrection on January 6th. This is collusion. And so therefore, if these three members of the United States Supreme Court, at least three colluded with insurrectionists. The person watch. Who brought The Kalay case, Mr. Kallay, was at January 6. He was part of the insurrection. You took a case from an insurrectionist, and the ruling was written by an insurrectionist, and he was assigned to write the ruling by the guy who negotiate who negated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to allow an insurrectionist to run for office. This ruling is invalid. If I am the Attorney General of Virginia or the Secretary of State of Virginia. I would say what I. I would look at what I just said and say, this ruling is invalid with a capital I F you, Supreme Court. Get out my chat. GPT. Here's my new maps that we just drew 30 minutes ago. We're not going to the voters. Why did you go to the voters? Virginia just do it the way that Louisiana and them did it. Write the map that really. That removes every Republican. And then while you're at it, call them people in Maryland and tell that Democratic state Senate president to stop playing around with Maryland. Wipe the Republicans out in Maryland too. I'm done. Please go.
Maddie J
No, no, no.
Wajahat Ali
This is what I would do if I were the Democrats in Virginia. New phone.
David K. Johnston
Who dis.
Wajahat Ali
Sorry, what?
Maddie J
Huh?
Wajahat Ali
Can't hear you. Bye. And then I just flex my power. I would create new laws. I would have creative interpretations of the existing law like this Supreme Court does. Treats the law and the Constitution like Plato to achieve their result. I do that. I said, you're invalidating the will of the people. This is what California and Virginia did, folks, which is different. Democrats actually left it up to the people. They actually had a ballot. They actually had election. We said, okay, let's leave it up to the people. My home state's California. What did Californians come out in droves, say, we want new maps. F y'. All F maga. F Supreme Court. What did Virginia say? F y' all F maga. They invalidated an election. If they can invalidate an election, what do you think they're going to do in 2026 and 2028? And then what Infuriated me. And I knew. That's why I'm not surprised. I want to be shocked. So I'm not numb, but I'm not surprised. What did for dumbass, feckless, pathetic, somnambulist, collaborationist Virginia Democrats do? Hey, the same Supreme Court that. That has these collusionists, that has Samuel Alito, that has John Roberts, that just gutted the Voting Rights Act. Hey, guys, can you help us out? Because our Virginia Supreme Court, they invalidate our election. Please help us. I'm like, what did you all think
Joy Reid
was going to happen, right? Do you not know John Roberts? Like, y' all know you painted? And then they come out and they'll say things like, yeah, but at least we can still admit for pristine. For now, they want to have one positive ruling, right? To cover. It's a cover up.
Wajahat Ali
There you go. Yesterday when that happened, I told some Folks, I'm like, this is how the Roberts courts vote. They Roberts realized, okay, I'll protect aca. And by protecting aca, that will give me the illusion, the moniker, the performance of moderate. And then I could just gut, gut, gut. I could gut the Border Rights Act. I could gut Roe v. Wyatt. I could help Citizens United. But then I'll say, look, I helped you with aca. And then right when it happened with the abortion pill yesterday. Oh, that's it. That's my sign. I know they're going to go ahead and give a green light to gut this Virginia election. I'm done with these collaborationist Democrats, these Vichy Democrats. Folks. I've been saying it for a while. What more do you need to see? While there's an illegal, unwinnable war, they've spent millions of dollars to attack Abdul Al said. They still won't embrace Mamdani. They'll still take money from aipac. They're still taking money from AI. They're still taking money from crypto even when we vote for them and say, all you have to do is fight. Just perform Joy. Just, just tweet. I just want a performance. Just cosplay.
Joy Reid
Come on.
Wajahat Ali
They're like, we won't even performance tweet. We won't be performance statement. We'll go to the same Supreme Court that literally is in collusion with insurrectionists, that literally is groomed by the right wing, that literally when it goes, when it gets its own ruling to bum rush a racist Alabama map that is allowing Louisiana to go back to Jim Crow era, that is carving up the Tennessee map. Look at what Republicans did. Ohio Republican legislature in Ohio. The Supreme Court said, hey, guess what? Your maps are unconstitutional. Can I tell you all what Ohio Republican said? New phone. Who dis make us do it. Make us do it. And so we in Virginia. I would rather make the mistake and apologize later than in advance make. Okay, I would really say, you know what? We don't approve of this 4, 3 decision. You're invalidating the will of the people. There was an election. We believe this is an illegitimate ruling. Go ahead and work around it. And you know what? It's too close to the. It's too close the election. I'm going to make up a rule. I'm going to interpret the law how I want. And guess what? We're going to draw new maps.
Joy Reid
And here's the thing. But by the way, if they just put out the maps that the people voted for and had the election that the people voted for, let the Republicans sue and send it back to John Roberts. By the time he has time to draw up yet another completely Constitution shredding, backstabbing, repugnant ruling, it'll be too late. The new person will already be in. They'll probably already have been sworn in. Make them leave. Make the Supreme Court enforce their rulings. This is what the south did as soon as the Brown v. Board happened. They spent decades doing massive resistance. To this day, they still have segregation academies in places like Virginia because certain Confederates refuse to ever let the kids go to school with a black person. Not sure what they think would happen, but they don't want to do it. And they won't do it. They'll never do it.
Wajahat Ali
Jim Crow. Listen, literally what Joyce said right now, you had the Civil war. You had 13, 14, 15th amendment. You had Reconstruction. The south said, make us.
Joy Reid
Yes.
Wajahat Ali
What are you going to do? What are you going to hear? The Mississippi code? Here's Jim Crow, here's the kkk, here's sundown laws, here's literally literacy tests. Here's poll tests. Make us. And this dumbass white supremacist country is like, well, you know what? Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, these racist, treasonous losers who lost the war, we're going to make monuments for them. And then Democrats said, you know what? I think it's time to forgive these patriots. You know, it was just a misunderstanding. Oh, economic anxiety. And this is what, Joy, listen. These weak, fragile, pathetic porcelain teacups, these MAGA racists, right? They condition, but they can't take it. And you and I, we get in trouble because we call them out. You and I, we get in trouble because, like, y', all, they don't want to go back to 1953 pre Bron versus Board of Education. They want to go back to 1850, 1853. And going back to the Supreme Court. Why were we able to have the Civil rights movement? Because we got a new Supreme Court that overruled Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown vs Board of Education. Which is why for 10 years I've been saying, they're going to come for Brown. They want to go pre Brown versus Board of Education. How do we get Brown versus Board of Education? How do we get the Civil Rights Act? How do we get the Voting Rights Act? How do we get the Immigration Nationality Act? Because of the Supreme Court. And still to this day, Joy, you and I have been saying this reform, this corrupt Supreme Court, this illegitimate Supreme Court. And even now, Democrats like, no,
Maddie J
don't
Wajahat Ali
say expand the Supreme Court. Don't say anything. Just outvote them and everything will be fine.
Joy Reid
I'm back out. Vote them. Let me just give you all a couple of items here. And I've blown through. I had so much I wanted to talk to watch about, but I can't do it. No, no, it's me as well. I am 38 hot. This breaking news came in as I was preparing to introduce you and it just came in. Thank you, nida, for throwing it in front of me so that I could lose my mind over it. This is C10. Jason, if you could. This is some things that are coming up right now. Donald Trump is preparing to give himself $10 million. Okay. I just want to show y' all how deep the corruption is. He is sued the IRS for $10 million because a person that was a contractor to the IRS disclosed that he had only paid 750. And that's not a typo 7, 5, 0 in taxes ever. That we can ever tell. Ever. He's paid 750 bucks. The person who leaked that and disclosed it was actually serving time for having disclosed confidential information. But Donald Trump sued, claiming he was damaged by people finding out he didn't pay taxes. He wants $10 billion and he would lose that lawsuit. The IRS has defended plenty of lawsuits like this. But now his new plan, watch, is to accept, quote, unquote, $1.7 billion my out of the 10 billion. He'll take the 10 billion and then he'll deduct 1.7 billion and give it to the insurrectionist. This is why I'm saying this is collusion. So now Donald Trump, who opposes reparations for enslaved, the descendants of the enslaved, is about to get from Scott Besant, who has already testified under oath that he will pay him. They are negotiating with themselves, they're negotiating with the IRS that he controls to give himself $10 billion minus 1.7 billion to go to the people who were in the insurrection. So Mr. K. Who brought the suit to Mr. Alito, the fellow insurrectionist who got together with him to overturn the Voting Rights act on behest of John Roberts. They're now going to split up $1.7 billion. And we're. And you know who pays for that? Let me put this is Michael. We pay for that. That is tax money. That is your money. You can barely afford gas. You can barely afford groceries. You can barely afford food. You will now pay Donald Trump and the insurrectionists 1600 insurrectionists reparations. That is the name for what they're going to Give them. They're going to give Trump reparations. They're going to give those insurrectionist reparations, including probably Klay, who killed the Voting Rights act with his lawsuit. Your thoughts?
Wajahat Ali
Terrorist slush fund paid for by US taxpayer dollars where 1.7 billion of your dollars go to 1600 violent insurrect who were incited by Donald Trump to overturn our free and fair election. Who stormed the US Capitol, smeared shit in the US Capitol, came and beat up cops and some of them were armed and came with the intention of killing Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi. Those mother effers are all pardoned and now they're getting paid. And this is a signal to Donald Trump and his reeks. Guess what? When I lose in 2026 and 2028, I'm going to do it all over again. Stop me. They are preparing to never leave. I'm going to say it once. I'm going to say it again. He is not leaving. He's not leaving peacefully. He's not leaving legally. Y' all aren't paying attention. They're sandbagging the Supreme Court, maga, right wing media, House Republicans, folks. Does it seem like they're leaving? Does it seem like they're preparing to hand over power peacefully? To me it seems like, oh shit, this is our Alamo. We're going to go down with the fight. So even if we go down, we're going to raid, we're going to raid the banks and take everything else. We're going to take the cookies, we're going to take the crumbs, we're going to take your milkshake, we're going to drink all your milkshake and we're going to take your straw and we're not even going to let you eat cake. We're going to take the cake and the crumbs stop us. And guess what? Who's going to stop us now? Look at Donald Trump if you don't believe me. Earlier this week, given a softball down the middle, how much do you care about the financial situation of Americans? I don't think about it at all. I don't think about it one bit. I don't even think about it one bit. Then he takes his cabal of kleptocrats and billionaires with him to China. Then we go look at China, he's selling out America. Then we find out today that him and the head of Nvidia, he bought Nvidia stock. Complete self dealing. And then Nvidia gets a green Light to sell these chips to China, right? And then Also he's made $5 billion with Tweedledee and Tweedledum off of crypto. He frigging pardons bz, a money launderer. Who is crypto. Who's his crypto partner. He's pardoning all the fraudsters. He pardoning all the violent insurrectionists. He lied to his base. Now he says, I want $1 billion for my bunker. I'm not even going to call it a ballroom. $13 billion for the reflecting pool, $29 billion for my failed unwinnable war. And now I want $1.7 billion to pay off and subsidize my soldiers. And then we have Democrats because, look, Joy, I'm telling you all, we know what they are. We know what MAGA is. The reason why I'm putting my fire on the Democrats is we have this criminal telling you openly, we're not leaving. We don't care about the Constitution. We don't care about the rule of law. We're going to go after black voters. We're going to go after Latinos. We're going to have to go after poor people. We're going to go after the press. We're going to go after all of you. And these Democrats still believe that they can win a fair fight. It reminds me of that Peanuts cartoon where you got Charlie Brown and Lucy. And Lucy picks up the football and Charlie Brown falls down on his ass, right? And the rest of us are like, charlie Brown, stop playing football with Lucy. Charlie Brown, for the love of God. She's going to take away the football. And these Democrats are like, you know, maybe this time, Joy, maybe this time she won't pick up the football. I want a Democrat to put on the brass knuckles. I want them to say, f you make me. F you make me. I have the majority. DONALD Trump, you're 31 in the polls. Donald Trump, Latino voters have left you. Donald Trump, you're 22% with independence. Donald Trump, you've lost. MAGA voters. You don't have the numbers. They behave with such cowardice even when he is at 31. Joy. The wind is behind their backs and they still don't fight. Joy, tell me why.
Joy Reid
Because they are institutionalists defending a dying institution in a dying empire. This empire is cooked. And they have decided to defend these niggling institutions that cannot save us, that have not worked, and that opened the door for Trump in the first place. I am way out of time. Before I let you go, I'm just gonna play this we're gonna play this without comment because I have to get to our next guest. Jason, this is C8. Because you said it. I said it, and now Trump said it. This is C8. Jason, why are we at war in Iran? We finally have an answer. C8.
Donald Trump
We don't need it at all. We don't need it at all.
Jason Reed
Fair enough.
Donald Trump
So, I mean, you could make the case, you know, like, why are we even. We're doing it to help Israel and to help Saudi Arabia and to help Qatar and UAE and, you know, Kuwait and other countries.
Joy Reid
Okay, that's enough. Thank you. Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia. Last word. Very brief last word for you. Watch, we're we now. We know it's for the Gulf states and Israel.
Wajahat Ali
They're taking everything. They're going for everything. Your honey, your milk, your cookies, your milkshake. They're doing it in front of your face. Are you going to rise up and stop them? Are you going to rise up and stop Trump and the boligarchy? And if the Democrats aren't, then I need someone to replace them. And I have faith in the people, Joy. I have faith that the people have become radicalized and we have the numbers. And I'll be damned if the world's most incompetent criminals take my kids milk, honey, and cookies.
Joy Reid
Amen. Amen. Wajahat Ali. Thank you, my friend. I appreciate you. You're the only person that matches my rage this moment. So I needed you tonight. Thank you for being available. Appreciate you. Thank you. Before we get to our next break, let me very quickly let you all know that this show could not be possible without our wonderful sponsors. And this show is brought to you by. The Joy beach show is brought to you by Shopify Found. No. Let's talk about the fact that we started this incredible business doing podcasting. You have to have the setup, you have to have the back of. You have to have all of the infrastructure that you just can't make yourself. And Shopify has made that possible for us. If you're starting off a new business, starting something new, growing your business, Shopify is there for you. What I love about the Shopify tools, it's simple, it's accessible, great customer service for millions of businesses. The tool that makes our businesses possible is, in fact, Shopify. Get started with your own design studio. Hundreds of ready to use templates. Best yet, Shopify is your commerce expert with world class expertise. So start your business today with the country's best business partner, Shopify, and start hearing Shopify. Yes, absolutely. You can go to shopify.com joyread. That's shopify.com joyread. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today. All right, so on January 5, 1965 to seven weeks before he was assassinated in Harlem, New York, Malcolm X, then Al Hajj Malik Al Shabazz traveled to Toronto, Canada to appear on the Canadian broadcast channel show called Front Page Challenge. And on that show, he discussed his split from the Nation of Islam and his evolving views on race and whether black Americans could actually separate from white America.
Malcolm X (archival audio)
Muslims have sometimes, whether you have or not, and I think probably you have, have sometimes, it seemed to me, been preaching hate to meet hate. I don't advocate any kind of hate. There's a lot of talk that sounds very much like it. No, I think that the guilt complex of the American white man is so profound until when you begin to analyze the real condition of the black man in America, instead of the American white man eliminating the causes that create that condition, he tries to cover it up by accusing his accusers of teaching hate, but actually they're just exposing him for being responsible for what exists. Well, that's something of an argument, but I've heard speeches made by some of the people of your group. I think I've heard you make speeches. It seemed to me that you were advocating what I would have to describe, I think, as violence to meet the serious injuries that have been done your people, with which I totally agree. I don't call that violence. I don't in any way encourage black people to go out and initiate acts of aggression indiscriminately against whites. But I do believe that the black man in the United States and any human being anywhere is well within his right to do whatever is necessary, by any means necessary to protect his life and property, especially in a. In a country where the federal government itself has proven that it is either unable or unwilling to protect the lives and property of those human beings. Just before Pierre takes it, you've got a pretty good fighter and the world's heavyweight champion lined up with you to help out. Yes, Mr. X. If I guess I call you that, is that proper affirmation?
Wajahat Ali
Mr. X, I'm wondering if you still
Malcolm X (archival audio)
believe, as I think you certainly did at the time, you're allied to the
Joy Reid
black Muslim movement in a segregated black
Malcolm X (archival audio)
nation in North America. I don't believe in any form of segregation or any form of racism. I'm against any form of segregation and against racism. Is it.
Wajahat Ali
Am I right in saying that the
Malcolm X (archival audio)
black Muslim movement, which you have left
Joy Reid
did believe in that.
Malcolm X (archival audio)
Well, Elijah Muhammad taught his followers that the only solution was a separate state for black people. And as long as I thought he genuinely believed that himself, I believed in him and believed in his solution. But when I began to doubt that he himself believed that that was feasible, and I saw no kind of action designed to bring it into existence or bring it about, then I turned in a different direction.
Joy Reid
Are you still a Muslim?
Malcolm X (archival audio)
Oh, yes, I'm a Muslim. I believe in the religion of Islam, which believes in brotherhood, complete brotherhood of all people. But at the same time that I believe in this brotherhood, I don't believe in forcing my desire for brotherhood upon those who aren't willing to accept it. I think the Christians would say that they also believed in brotherhood. What did you say to that? I'd say they believe in it but don't practice it. That'd be a pretty good answer.
Joy Reid
Pretty good answer. A new book explores the spiritual transformation of Malcolm X from his days as an emerging leader of the Nation of Islam to a Muslim activist and leader in his own right. The book is by one of his five beloved daughters, Ilyasa Shabazz, and she joins me now. Her book is called Malcolm in the Desert. Here it is. I have my copy here. Ilyasa, thank you so much for being here.
Ilyasa Shabazz
Joy, it is an honor. First of all, I want to salute you because when. When someone said your time was up, you said, oh, no, it's not. Okay. So, you know, we love you. We follow you wherever you're going. So, you know, we salute you. Thank you. Yes, of course. So, you know, I'm one of six daughters.
Joy Reid
Six daughters, yes. Sorry.
Ilyasa Shabazz
Yes.
Joy Reid
Yes. My.
Ilyasa Shabazz
My parents. My mother was pregnant with twins when her husband was gunned down in front of her and in front of her daughters. So, yeah. And of course, wherever I go, I always acknowledge my five sisters.
Joy Reid
Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. Talk about this book and why it was important to write Malcolm in the Desert and what will people learn and take from the book?
Ilyasa Shabazz
Well, you know, I think all of my books address the mischaracterization of Malcolm. Right. The mischaracterization of us. And at the same time, it is an opportunity for self acceptance. You know, this book in particular is about my father's journey. It was a very difficult time of his life. He was only 39. You know, when the world first learned of him, he was in his 20s. People say, oh, you know, he went to Mecca and he became.
David K. Johnston
He.
Ilyasa Shabazz
He changed to a whole new person. And the fact is that when the world learned of him, he was in his 20s. And when he was in his 20s and people were marching, protesting, demonstrating for basic respect, human, you know, human life, human dignity, my father came along and said, we are not asking. We demand our human rights as your brother. We demand our human rights as ordained by God. He was in his 20s when he left the Nation of Islam. He was in his late 30s when he was gunned down. He was 39. He was a brilliant young man because his parents provided a solid foundation for him. But society told him that he could not be the things his parents said. When they lynched his father, who was the president of Garvey Movement, they took his mother, put her in an institution against her will, and separated her children. So I always say Malcolm was running from his identity against the backdrop of Jim Crow until he went to jail. Then he had to confront all from which he was running. Fast forward, 39 years old. 39. I'm old enough to be his mother. I am so proud of this young man who, you know, hoisted us up on his shoulders and, you know, he went to make his pilgrimage. I think he was so fortunate, so blessed to receive this invitation to go to the land of the Torah, the Koran, the Bible, and be alone with himself. And we get to see Malcolm in a very quiet space. And I think it's really important for all of us, especially now, we have an opportunity to see all the things that Malcolm was telling us, all of the things that he wanted to address. And by him going not only to make his hajj, but then staying further to find a solution to this human problem that just wants to annihilate people, you know, because they want more land, they want, you know, more gold. You know, it's something that I think the majority of us don't understand. And so this book is an opportunity for people to also sit alone with themselves. Follow my father on his Hajj, me or my Hajj, and take your own Hajj, which is basically a metaphor to go deep inside yourself.
Joy Reid
And I feel like Malcolm is getting a fresh look and life in this moment because I think people, they want his energy, the energy that we need in this moment. And as you said, it's a quiet energy. I think people are so accustomed to seeing the clips where Malcolm is going hard at the white man and things like that, but he had such a quiet brilliance. And I sat and watched those interviews. I watched his interview from 1960 before he left the nation, and then this one in 1965, which again, seven weeks before he was assassinated. What people forget is he had that quiet brilliance and that he was such a good communicator and such a good interlocutor and a great debater, you know, and so this man was, you know, I think, a thoughtful, quiet person. And people. Don't people underestimate that?
Ilyasa Shabazz
They do. You're right, they do underestimate it. And, you know, I usually share with my students that when we see Malcolm so passionate, it's usually because he's having a profound reaction to church bombings, children being killed, people being lynched, you know, all of the horrendous, you know, trauma, all of the things that was happening. He had a profound reaction to it. He was a man of great compassion and result oriented individual.
Joy Reid
One of the things that, you know, Malcolm, you know, confronted, including in this 65 interview. Watch the whole thing, 24 minutes long. Definitely worth a watch. Maybe I'll put the link in so people can watch it is he's wrestling with this question of whether the, that Dr. King's vision is actually functional for black people. And even at the end of his life, Dr. King was even questioning whether that vision was functional. And now we're in this moment where everything that Dr. King fought for is being dismantled. And so I wonder if you sometimes sort of reflect on that question that I think both of those men were struggling with at the end of their very young lives. They were both 39 years. They were both, I think King was maybe 40. They were very young that they were struggling with whether or not this movement was actually taking African Americans and taking America in a direction that was sustained, sustainable. Do you ever struggle with that?
Ilyasa Shabazz
Well, my book is about going and being alone with yourself and asking, what is my responsibility back to society? The first question is, who am I? What is my responsibility? What. What is it that I'm supposed to do as a human being? Because I think that there are so many distractions, there are so many intentional distractions so that we cannot focus on who we are as individuals. I'm grateful that my parents made sure that their six daughters had an opportunity to know first and foremost that they were worthy of self love, right? That we loved ourselves. Learning about the significant contributions that women made to the world, Islam made to the world, and the African diaspora as a first world nation, not as a minority, not as a third world, anything. But that we were very solid within who we are. So that when I see you as my sister, right then we are a reflection of one another. If you are having challenges, I'M going to help. And so I think the focus is always to divide us. We are the majority of great people in the world, so if we could simply focus on the best part of ourselves and see one another as a reflection of each other, they will. They're going to lose quicker.
Joy Reid
Yeah, we're faster that. Amen to that African proverb.
Ilyasa Shabazz
You go, you want to go fast, go alone, you want to go far,
Joy Reid
go together, go together. Amen. Ilyasa Shabazz, one of six beautiful daughters of the great Malcolm X and your amazing mom, Betty Shabazz, two of the greatest in our absolute history. I love. There's a chapter called A Practice of Deep Listening. This is a book that is not just a book. It is a practice. It is available at the shop. You can go to shop.joyread.com or shop.joannreid.com or even shop.thejoyreadshow.com, go in the shop, pick up a copy of this book. It's important to really sit with and meditate on Malcolm, I think in this moment more than ever. Ilyasa Shabazz, thank you so much for being here.
Ilyasa Shabazz
Thank you so much, my dear.
Joy Reid
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. We now, I think, desperately need a moment of joy. And tonight we're going to do it a slightly different way. We're going to actually do the moment of joy live. Live, rather than the way that we normally do it by playing you a video. And it was going to be a surprise to Jason, but he knows about it. So let me introduce our live moment of joy. It's someone you all know and love, and it is the great Maddie J. Hey, John.
Maddie J
Hey, hey. Hey, girl. How you doing?
Joy Reid
I'm wonderful. Wonderful, wonderful. Maddie J, I appreciate you being here because, you know, we are celebrating a very special and important day today. The conductor of the Joy Reed show train, Jason Reed, is having a birthday. There he is. And. And I thought you might have some advice, some birthday advice and wisdom to share.
Maddie J
Absolutely.
Joy Reid
Please.
Maddie J
Absolutely. First of all, happy birthday, Jason. I'm sorry I'm the one that's part of surprise, okay? Because I can't keep nothing. I can't. But listen, I heard you. You was one of Mad J's publics. Did you watch me a frequence?
Jason Reed
Yes, ma'.
David K. Johnston
Am.
Maddie J
That. That blessed my heart. That blesses my heart. So let me tell you because I know we ain't got that much time. I've been on Joy show and I
Jason Reed
know we have as much time as you need, Mr. Maddie.
Joy Reid
You have as much opportunity.
Jason Reed
You go right, you.
Joy Reid
You try to run.
Ilyasa Shabazz
Fine.
Wajahat Ali
You.
Jason Reed
You go right ahead. I don't want to upset Herman, but you go ahead and take as much time as you want.
Maddie J
He gonna be okay, honey? It's Friday night. I'll play him some Bobby Blueberry. He'll be all right. Listen. Okay, listen. First of all, happy birthday, beautiful. I met you a beautiful man of God. I can tell. I just saw the pictures of you. And I can see the ambiance and the aura that surround your energy.
Jason Reed
Thank you.
Maddie J
And I can tell I got a spirit of discernment. Let me tell you. I'm gonna follow my instruction that was given to me by Joy. And Joy said to give you some advice. I'm telling you this. The word of the Lord thy God over ecclesiasticals. 12th chapter. Some around now close to the Philippines when they was crossing over. It says, Solomon is speaking to the men's. And he's saying that your body will grow feeble and your teeth will decay and your eyesight will fail. And this all comes with aging. But let me tell you something. That ain't got to always be true. And I know you know that. And so with that, with that knowledge of that, I want you to do this.
Jason Reed
Yes, ma'.
Maddie J
Am. Continue to take your exercise classes, Lifting weights and anything else that can be lifted. Continue to brush your teeth. Whatever toothpaste you use, use it coagulantly. Just using in circular motion, brushing your gum and your tongue.
Jason Reed
Yes, ma'.
Joy Reid
Am.
Maddie J
Okay.
Jason Reed
We do that one.
Maddie J
Okay. And then, you know, when it. It speaks of your eyesight feel. Continue to go to the eye doctor, get your eye drops. Use them as you should. Okay? You hear me?
Jason Reed
I heard you.
Joy Reid
I got it.
David K. Johnston
Right.
Maddie J
Okay. Okay. Now, Joy, you got a party.
Joy Reid
Yes, ma'. Am. Yes, ma'. Am.
Maddie J
You to pay special focus to Jason's back and his knees, Right? These are two things that are of importance of a wife and that we want to keep worked and keep it. The blood flowing in those areas.
Jason Reed
That's right.
Maddie J
So you make sure that you massage this man of God. Keep his blood flowing in every area of this physique. You hear what I'm saying? Joy, you laugh too much.
Joy Reid
I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
Maddie J
You make sure you lay hands on that man. What he looked like he need laying on the hands or not. You specifically lay hands on when he walked by in his cologne. Breed go by you. And then it gives you reconnaissance of man. This is my man, boy. Let me touch you. Come here, let me touch you. He gonna say, excuse me, what is that? Let me touch you. And then you start from the top of his head and just circle of motion. But you, you do your hands, your fingers like this because they become little modules that, you know, stimulate you.
David K. Johnston
Taking.
Wajahat Ali
No, straight.
Joy Reid
I'm taking.
Maddie J
Okay, all right. Okay. And. And just make sure you do. Don't do like this. Not. Not no flat hand rule. You do like this. Got to be a cuff because that applied pressure.
Joy Reid
Okay?
Maddie J
And I want you to do that thirdly. Listen to this. Okay, Jason, I want you to pay attention to heifers who gonna be around you. They already around you particularly. I'm gonna tell you why. Thank you, Holy Ghost. Because of Joy. Of who she is. See, they wants to. I'm gonna make Joy. I'm gonna make sure she see this or whatever. And so they gonna flock around you. Three kind of helpers I want you to pay close attention to. Is Bible study helpers.
Jason Reed
Oh, yeah.
Maddie J
They Bible in the book of the Lord thy God. Act like they studying. Come on, you. You understand me, Joy?
Joy Reid
I know exactly what you're talking about. Maddie. J. Come on.
Maddie J
Come on. Plate fixing helpers.
Joy Reid
Oh, listen. Come on.
Maddie J
If you don't fix his plate, I'm the plate fixer in it. And if he. His plate ain't fixed, he gonna starve until I get to.
Joy Reid
I think. Come on, say more. Miss, that is the plate. Fixing heifers is something else. They come to your man with a plate fix fixed.
Maddie J
Ain't no heifer for nothing. Coming around heiferizing. Things like that don't fix this place. Get your hands off the plate. Keep your clothes to yourself.
Joy Reid
That's right.
Maddie J
Okay, okay. And so then the damsel in distress. Help. You gonna come around. Open this jelly jar for me. I just ain't got the strength.
Joy Reid
I.
Maddie J
Open this for me. Help me, Jason. I just. I just don't know.
Joy Reid
We see you.
Maddie J
Okay. You got to do like Joseph in the word of the Lord thy God. You got to flee from them helpers because they gonna try you every time. Jake, you hear me?
Jason Reed
Yes, ma'. Am. I heard everything you got to say. I would have to turn this away, but I hear everything you have to say.
Maddie J
You understand what I'm saying?
David K. Johnston
Hold on, hold on.
Jason Reed
I just want to say. Ms. Maddie, you see that little utensil you have in your hand over there? Yeah. Wife, you may need one of those.
Maddie J
This is my regulator. The women's all need regulators. Got good husband, good looking husbands. You need this regular. It's my. Say hello to my little friend. That would you say to them when she walk up? Excuse me. Say hello to my little friend.
Joy Reid
I have a question.
Maddie J
Come on.
Joy Reid
Because what do you do about the Bible study and plate fixing helper? Because you know there's some double dippers.
Maddie J
Yes, they do both, dumbo. Them combo heifers, they serve. They serve more than one purpose. They multiplicity efforts. This is what you do. They have Bible study. You know, most of them be by themselves. They ain't got nobody. And so they have Bible study and everything and stuff. And like reading the Lord thy God and then just kind of look up. I noticed. And that you ain't got no vittles or nothing like that. You ain't got no snacks from a snack bar. Can I get you one? And then all you got to do. Jason.
Jason Reed
Yes, ma'.
Joy Reid
Am.
Maddie J
You are gonna slide in there like this. Fix my crazy helper. I'm hungry. Fix my plate. Won't you please? I beg you to fix my plate. That's what you do. Plop that heifer on site. I don't care your ears at church.
Joy Reid
That's right. Because that person is trying to steal. And thou shalt not steal.
Maddie J
You can't steal. You can't spirit the spirit of Eve on you. You a helpful. You ain't gonna bite this apple, baby.
Jason Reed
Well, I'm gonna say that I'm gonna behave myself out there because you know I might get cut with that knife if I. If I even say hello to another lady. So, you know, I'm gonna leave it alone. Because Joy don't play about that.
Maddie J
I love it. That's what I love about that. I embarrass you. Don't play.
Jason Reed
I'm not gonna embarrass her in public.
Joy Reid
I can't.
Jason Reed
I can't embarrass her in public. She will get me.
Joy Reid
Listen. I follow the heiferologist on the Instagram, so I am trained and taught by the best. I follow you, Ms. Maddie J. To make sure I know what I'm doing out here in this world. It's tough out here.
Jason Reed
Hey, Ms. Madison, when I. When I first seen you, I said, droid, take a listen to this lady. This is a lady of knowledge. We need to find.
David K. Johnston
Oh, my God.
Jason Reed
The name of wisdom and Nautilus. She has it locked down.
Maddie J
Oh, my go.
Jason Reed
Not only these women in shape. I had to keep Herman scared. I was like, okay.
Maddie J
The word of the Lord thy God said Titus 2 and 3 said, Let the older women teach the younger women that's my. That's my plight. That's my purpose. And if I try to teach it, they don't listen. Okay, you go on help.
Joy Reid
You go.
Maddie J
You don't have. Because you ain't listening.
Joy Reid
That's right. Before we let. Before we let you go, Ms. Maddie J. We want to know where to get this Miss Maddie J merch. Because we are loving the merch church.
Maddie J
Jay on the back. I got all the help of derivatives right there. All the help stuff here for real. School, helping baby, all that. Okay, just go to my page. Okay. Www.MaddieJ.net that's it. Go in there.
Ilyasa Shabazz
Scroll.
Maddie J
You can book. Do whatever you want to do, but you can get Maddie Merch on there too.
Joy Reid
We are going to get some Maddie merch. I think I'm gonna get me a regulator. That's going to be my birthday present to Jason.
Jason Reed
Yes.
Joy Reid
So that he would know that I like Herman like, like he like Herman has to stay regulated. I will be a good Christian woman.
Maddie J
Come on.
Joy Reid
Properly trained.
Maddie J
Come on. Because let me tell you, these men, I. I perceive that Jason kind of like Herman stuff go over their head, you know, they be innocent. They ain't gonna try to do that. But if I tell you, if I said, baby, watch that ever. You better watch him. Don't, don't come. Don't say, hey, she okay. She humbles now. Hey, man, help her. Harmless.
Joy Reid
They never harmed.
Jason Reed
I got the lesson today and I will behave myself and Ms. J, I do not listen. I'm gonna just sit back and just let you let Troy finish this show. But I really appreciate you coming on and. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Maddie J
Happy birthday, sweetheart.
David K. Johnston
You enjoy yourself.
Maddie J
Joy, take care of that man in all areas.
Joy Reid
Okay? I'm gonna get the massage right. I'm gonna work on it. Ms. Maddie J. Ma'.
Maddie J
Am. It's the clock. It's the clock.
Wajahat Ali
Put them.
Maddie J
Yeah. Down in all the prospective areas.
Joy Reid
Thank you, Ms. Maddy J. We love Ms. Maddy J. I love you.
Maddie J
I love you, Babylon.
Joy Reid
Love you right back. Thank you, Ms. Maddie J, everybody. Oh, my goodness. That is the perfect way to celebrate Jason's big day. Ms. Maddie J in the house teaching all other folks how to avoid a heifer because she is the heterologist. Jason, did you enjoy that birthday advice?
Jason Reed
I did enjoy that birthday advice a lot. But let me ask you a question. You know, sometimes when we're out together, people like coming up to me and they like talking stuff like that. That's okay, right? I could still be cord drawing you'll be caught.
Joy Reid
But if they try to offer you a plate, right Then that's when I got to take out my regulator.
Jason Reed
Okay. I've seen enough shows and. Okay. But I can have a confidence plate.
Joy Reid
I got you.
Jason Reed
Okay.
Joy Reid
I got you. I got your plate. Yeah. And if they got a Bible in their hand, you got to be. You got to be suspicious because, you know, like you said, the Bible, ristical heifers, you know, you got to worry about. Because they have an ulterior motive. Why you got your Bible in public? Shouldn't you have that at church? Why are you. Why are you out with the Bible? I don't understand what's happening.
Jason Reed
Well, it's been too long. You know, Jason ain't going nowhere, but I ain't gonna be no punk and sit there like, oh, baby, I can't talk to you because my. I'm gonna speak.
Joy Reid
You could say to that plate. You can be like, you know what?
Jason Reed
No, no, I know about the plate. I ain't gonna play the plate, but I'm gonna have a conversation.
Joy Reid
Open your own jar. She'd be like, you know, don't you have a man open that jar for you? I got. You know it. Well, we got it.
Jason Reed
All right.
Joy Reid
We've been properly instructed. Thank you all for.
Jason Reed
Thank you for wishing me all the very. Thank you for the birthday wishes, everybody. Appreciate y'. All.
Joy Reid
If you guys are interested in gifting yourself some of the great books from the show, this one I just started, it is so good. Malcolm in the Desert. It's actually really great, instructive, soothing to listen to the words of Malcolm X. Of course. Love Me. Tiffany Cross's exceptional book. She's on a fabulous book tour. I will be a part of it on Saturday. Sunday. We are doing Sunday brunch. Unfortunately, it is sold out. So we're not going to put up a QR code because that thing sold out in, like 33 seconds. And I believe we are also sold out now on the live show in New York. But. But we want to hear from you on where we should take our live in person shows next. We definitely want to try to do that and stay tuned for more ways that we can gather our team, TJRS family, all of our wonderful people from all the different places that you watch and enjoy the show. We're going to try to find ways to bring you all together so that we can gather because we need each other more than ever. It is time to fight. When somebody declares war on you, you are at war. And clearly we are at war with the Epstein class who have decided to rob the bank, thinking that we won't notice that they're taking everything out of the vault. But we notice it's Jason's birthday, so we are going to leave it there. But from now for now, I thank you all. I hope you guys will have a wonderful weekend. Please tune in on this channel to watch the Montgomery march from 1 to 5pm right here on this very channel. We got some folks already saying come to Atlanta. There. We got some folks saying come to Texas. We're going to bring it. Just leave it in the chat there. We're going to make sure that we write down all of your ideas. We love you guys. Have a great weekend. Be good, be safe and be prepared to fight. See you all on Monday on the Joy Reid Show. Peace.
Marshawn Kamisa
Getting back to the basics, grassroots level. Let me dig a little deeper with the shovel Plenty can't tell the forest from the trees that I'm hard to detect Like a black hole in the 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.
Date: May 16, 2026
Host: Joy-Ann Reid
Featuring: Jason Reed, David K. Johnston, Charles Booker, Wajahat Ali, Maddie J, Ilyasa Shabazz, and various callers
This fiery episode centers on the persistent political, economic, and cultural crises facing America, with a focus on how MAGA grifters—particularly the Trump family and their allies—continue exploiting nationalist rhetoric for personal gain. Through the lens of recent events, including Trump’s China trip, the erosion of voting rights, rampant political corruption, and gerrymandering, Joy Reid and her guests dissect how American institutions—and the Democratic response—are failing to halt an orchestrated movement threatening democracy and enabling grand-scale grift. The show is also peppered with moments of levity, community shout-outs, and spirited birthday celebrations.
America’s Economic Mismanagement & Trump’s Priorities
Grifter Family: The Trump Phone and Chinese Manufacturing
Trump’s 180° Turn on Immigration and China
Supreme Court, Gerrymandering, and Voting Rights Erosion
Listener & Voter Anger
Wajahat Ali Segment: Democratic Inaction and the Need to Fight
| Timestamp | Segment/Discussion | |:-------------:|:--------------------------------------------------------------:| | 00:06–03:00 | Show intro, community shout-outs, protest coverage announcement | | 06:19–09:07 | Trump dismisses economic concerns, GOP gaslighting | | 11:02–17:03 | Trump’s China trip, US humiliation, CEO entourage | | 17:03–22:03 | “Trump phone” scam and MAGA grift exposed | | 33:31–38:21 | Supreme Court and Voting Rights dismantling | | 44:24–55:16 | Interview with Charles Booker (KY Senate candidate) | | 70:59–80:55 | Supreme Court’s latest gerrymandering decision, voter outrage | | 82:09–103:43 | Wajahat Ali’s rant on Democratic complicity and call to action | | 105:30–117:02 | Ilyasah Shabazz on Malcolm X’s spiritual legacy | | 117:31–128:26 | Moment of Joy with Ms. Maddie J—birthday celebration, advice |
This episode is essential listening for anyone wanting the unvarnished truth on America’s political crises, with expert insights, inside perspectives, and a healthy dose of joy and humor. If you care about democracy—and want to know how the “old and confused” keep grifting—you’ll find this episode equal parts infuriating and empowering.