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A
Hey, friends, it's Karamo.
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Talk show host, life coach, and your next best friend. You just don't know it yet. I'm hosting a new podcast called Started on Brotherhoods. We're going around the world to explore male friendships and all the wins, challenges, and bonds that are made in WhatsApp group chats. And that's exactly where you can listen to it, right in the app. It's streaming on the official WhatsApp channel. Just open the app and go to the updates tab to start listening. While you're at it, message your best friend and make sure they listen, too.
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I'll see you there.
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C
Hey.
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A
Okay. When you hear the music, you know what time it is. Welcome to the Joy Reid show. Big ups, everybody in the chat. I can see you all there. And y' all are already mad at Chuck Schumer. I haven't even started talking yet. You guys are already yelling at Chuck Schumer. Big ups to everybody that is watching on YouTube, who's listening and watching on the stack on Substack on. Also those of you who are checking this out on Spotify and itunes and all the places where you get your podcasts, I want to pick up our team TJRS members. You guys are always so great. You are one of our most effective ambassadors to the world. But we want to make sure that everybody who is in the chat helps us to become ambassadors for this show. So please hit that like and share. It's good for the algorithm. It's good for your soul to share this show with a friend. Hit the like button, hit the share button. And also subscribe. If you are just a lurker, subscribe. 70% of people who watch YouTube programming don't subscribe. They just lurk. We don't want you to be a lurker. We want you to be a member of the family. So welcome to everybody. Yeah. So as you guys have heard, I'm sure by now I'm not giving you any news that you don't already know. The shutdown has been voted down. Do we get applause for that, Jason? For the shutdown? No, don't applaud for that. We don't want that applause because it's actually bullshit. It is actually some bullshit political reporting that Chucky Chuck Schumer has enraged congressional Democrats. After a handful of the Senate colleagues voted Sunday to advance the House pass stopgap to end the government shutdown, Senator Chris Murphy called it a mistake. Senator Bernie Sanders called it a very bad night. Ro Khanna Seth Moulton accused Senate minority Leader Chuck Schumer of being ineffective, called for his removal. Ro Khanna said Senator Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced. If you can't lead the fight to stop health care premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, we what will you fight for? The shutdown gets voted down on day 40 of, on day 40 of the shutdown and 40 Democrats voted no. Eight Democrats voted yes. We're going to show you guys the turncoats who decided that it was more important to have order than to have justice. Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia being one of them. I'm a little bit surprised because Senator Tim Kaine is generally been pretty good when it comes to kind of matters of importance when it comes to sort of Justice Tim Kaine of Virginia, Senator Jean Shaheen of New Hampshire, Senator Katherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Angus King, the non Bernie Sanders, independent from Vermont, Senator John Fetterman, the MAGA Democrat in name only from Pennsylvania, who's pretty much been against the shutdown the whole time. He's been anything. He's just for whatever Trump is for. So he's not a surprise at all. Senator Maggie Hassan, Democrat of New Hampshire, Senator Dick Durbin, retiring senator from Illinois, Senator Jackie Rosen of the state of Nevada. And what we're hearing behind the scenes, I can give you guys some reporting that essentially these eight were already here. They didn't flip on the shutdown. They didn't change their minds about the the, about reversing the shutdown. They never were for the shutdown. What we're hearing behind the scenes and some reporting I can give you is that none of these people were ever for the shutdown. They were always against it. They always thought it was just a partisan exercise for the base. And they were always going to get here. They were always going to betray the people who've been marching in no Kings marches, who've been really suffering. I mean, there are people have been really suffering out here. Federal workers who've been out of work, two paychecks they've missed, air traffic controllers who've been working for free, TSA agents who've been working for free. And a lot of these people have been running into their senators and United States Congress, people in the supermarket and in the airport and saying keep fighting, even though they were suffering. And so 40 days of suffering thrown aside by these eight. Interestingly enough, Chuck Schumer actually voted no on the shutdown ending bill. But a lot of people believe behind the scenes, if you read my substack today, you should check it out. It's on joyanreid.com, i go through all of this. A lot of the belief is behind the scenes that this is the outcome Chuck Schumer wanted.
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C
What do you think?
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A
I believe he did. I think this is the outcome. Chuck Schumer doesn't believe in shutdowns. These are people who believe in government. These are government oriented Democrats and one independent and one maga who is Fetterman. And this is what we're hearing behind the scenes is this is the outcome they wanted anyway, they went along with the shutdown for 40 days. We're not willing to go forward. I will tell you what's in the deal and is that they are going to extend some programs, some departments like the Department of Agriculture, for a full year. But the actual shutdown is just another continuing resolution that goes till January 30. And then as part of the deal, supposedly John Thune, the Republican Senate majority leader who's been losing the shutdown, all the polls show Democrats were winning on this issue because Democrats had tied giving Republicans enough votes to end the shutdown to the extension of the formerly temporary Obamacare subsidies. And I have said to you guys many, many times before, Republicans don't believe in that and they're never going to do it. But Jeanne Shaheen & Co. All said, you know what, we're going to give them a chance and then they're going to give us a vote in December and then we're going to get the opportunity. Let me just let you hear herself. Here's Jean Shaheen, one of the people who end of the shutdown on CNN trying to justify vote. If this vote comes, I mean as you say, it's guaranteed in December. This vote comes and fails and the subsidies then expire. Does this effort that you just went through, this vote that you have just taken, will it have been still worth it or will this feel like a failure? No, because we are not going to give up. We're going to continue to fight on making sure that health care costs are affordable for Americans and they are going to know who's on their side and who is not. And we are going to take this fight into the next elections in 2026 and make sure again that Americans know who's fighting for them. Okay, many problems with that. That is the kind of standard Democratic government speak that has cost them election after election after election. Jeanne Shaheen, sounding like your typical moderate middle of the road democr Americans are going to know we fought for them. So it was Basically a symbolic shutdown in which real people suffered. People were standing in breadlines and food lines, having to get free food from churches and stuff. And you're saying if this was all just about letting people know who's fighting for them. I think people know Republicans don't give a shit about them. I don't think this is news to them, Gene, that Republicans don't care if you starve. I don't think it's news to folks. I think people do that. And that Trump doesn't care if you starve. That was what you were trying to accomplish and you felt you've now accomplished that. Now that people have actually missed, like, mortgage payments, Gene, you think now people suffering for that, it's all fine because now people know who's fighting for them. And then we're going to, we're not going to stop fighting because, you know, Gene, you should know if you're halfway intelligent, that the Republicans are never going to vote through to extend the subsidies. If they wouldn't do it under the threat of people in their own districts losing food stamps, why are they going to do it in December, right before Christmas? You think they're going to suddenly, right before the Christmas holidays, suddenly change their minds and give you the votes to extend these subsidies that they don't believe in? The same people who've tried to overturn Obamacare 60 times? They're going to do that, Gene. Why are they going to do that? I'm sorry, my voice is getting high pitched. I'm getting upset. You know, who doesn't see the logic? And then we're going to, we're going to fight it in the next election, Gene. We might not have free and Fair elections in 26. Gene, 2026 is too late. You really think that you're just gonna wait it out and then after next year, we're gonna do some bipartisan talking. We're gonna do some bipartisan, John. And when we're finished jawing with our Republican friends, everyone's gonna see where they. And then we're gonna fight it in the next wrong. Jean Shaheen's own daughter is like Jean Shaheed's own daughter. Stephanie Shahid, who is currently running to represent New Hampshire's 1st congressional district, came out against the shutdown deal that her own mother, Senator Jean Shaheen, negotiated, helped negotiate and passed through the Senate yesterday alongside seven Democratic colleagues. This is from the Huffington Post. Critics, including the younger Shaheen, say the deal does nothing to guarantee that health care subsidies for millions of Americans will not expire. Causing health costs to skyrocket. It stipulates that the Senate must hold a vote on extending the health care benefits. Sure. But it does nothing to ensure the House will act and surrenders. The leverage that Democrats had, Quote, improving health care has been the cause of my life. It is why I am running for Congress, Ms. Shaheen said in a statement. So I cannot support this deal when Speaker Johnson refuses to even allow a vote to extend health care tax credits. We need to both end the shutdown and extend ACA tax credits. Otherwise, no deal. It's essential to ensure people have access to health care. And it's past time to put paychecks back into people's pockets and food back on family's tables. The daughter seems to get it more than the mom. Because the reality is, let's just say in some wild and crazy world, you could get enough Republicans. So supposedly this is going to be guaranteed to get to the floor in the Senate, but they still have to pass it. And there's no reason that John Thune won't be ordered by Donald Trump to still filibuster it. This is just a handshake deal. So let's just say he does it. Let's just say he's good. Good on his word, which I don't believe, but let's just say he lets it go on the floor. Okay, fine. Any Republicans gonna vote for these subsidies that they diametrically oppose? Gene? Not one will vote for it. Not one. And then let's just say they do. Let's just say somehow you get Senate Republicans to vote this through. Do you think that Mike Johnson, who won't even swear in Adelita Grijalva, even though he's by law supposed to, is gonna let that go to the floor in the House? He's not. And then let's just say somehow, in some crazy world, he let it go on the floor in the House. When this is sometime in December, this thing that you think is gonna happen, happens. You think Donald Trump, who hates Barack Obama with every core of his being, is gonna sign that? Gene. And it wasn't just the younger Ms. Shaheen. Angry Democrats from, like, among the 40 who voted no alongside Rand Paul, by the way, which is less surprising than you might expect because he's against continuing resolutions, period. They were sounding the alarm left, right and center. Bernie Sanders. I mentioned Liz Warren. Liz Warren. This is what she said. This is her tweet. She said we're in a health care emergency and just a one year extension of the tax credits would cost less than Trump's $40 billion gift to Argentina, which, by the way, Viktor Orban came to the White House the other day and tried to get one for himself and he probably will. Even centrist slammed the deal, saying the Democrats were fools to walk away from the table with literally nothing on health care besides a promise, just a promise that John Thune would get to this in December and Trump would never sign. As I said, this is a non starter. And yet, yet this, and by the way, one more thing. This now has to go back to the House. Mike Johnson is now going to be forced to reconvene the House. He's going to be forced to swear at Adelita Grijava and then somehow avoid that discharge petition on the Epstein files. And then because this deal is not exactly the same language that was in the continuing resolution that the House passed, he now has to pass the Senate version for it to become law. So he now has to find the 218 votes in the House to pass this version that has a different date, end date on it. His end date is January 30th. Now this end date already passed this continuing resolution. So they got it. That's one change. Another change is that they fund the Department of Agriculture for a year. That's different. And they also fund military construction projects for a year. I wonder what military construction projects? What military construction project? Oh, that's right, the Fuhrer Bunker. Bunker gets a one year lease on life. And they've now got to sign that. They've got to now pass a different bill than what they passed. So he's got to now pass this bill. So this now puts it right back in Hakeem Jeffrey's lap. Because now Hakeem Jeffries, who opposed this, he backed Schumer today because he's loyal, but he now has this hot potato stuck in his lap. Does he give votes for it? Does he get his caucus to vote for this crap sandwich? These would be important questions to ask him. How you know, what is his caucus's thought? Well, here's the stupid question rather than that one that Hakeem Jeffries, one of them that he was forced to answer when he did a press conference today about this message, third row. So Dr. Oz said that million who millions of phantoms under the aca. Is that being looked at as it makes it so that people that are.
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On the ACA are more.
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That's like the most random way to start a question on a serious topic. Nobody who's serious in this country takes Dr. Oz seriously. No one. And I mean, it's shocking that the guy even was confirmed. But this is part of the reality of Republicans here in the House and over in the Senate. They're nothing more than a rubber stamp for Donald Trump's cruelty and extreme agenda. Are the phantom enrollees being addressed, though? I have no idea what Dr. Oz is talking about, and neither do the American people. Now, with respect to the Affordable Care act, here's what I do know. That Republicans have tried to repeal the Affordable Care act more than 70 different times in the last 15 years. They don't operate in good faith when it comes to the health care of the American people. And of course, as Democrats have repeatedly indicated, we're open to sitting down and having a bipartisan conversation about how to fix our broken health care system overall. But I'm not going to respond to any comments from randos like Dr. Oz, who is woefully unqualified to be in whatever position he holds in the administration. He's a joke. These people are jokes. But the issue of the health care of the American people is very serious, and that's what we'll continue to focus on.
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A
Imagine being a journalist on Capitol Hill and starting what you consider to be a serious question with Dr. Oz says, what are we doing here? What are we doing? What kind of a stupid question was? I mean, he's right. It was a dumb question. So the Republicans are now framing, just so that you understand, their opposition to extending the subsidies is threefold. Point one, they claim that Obamacare is being farmed out to the illegals, which is their name for the brown N word. The illegals are getting Obamacare. First of all, that's idiotic because in order to sign up for Obamacare, you have to give your documents. And if you're undocumented, kind of hard to give your documents in order to get a thing that requires you to have documents. So undocumented people don't get Obamacare. They're not eligible for it. They're not going to present themselves and like, hey, here I am. Come and get me. I'm applying for Obamacare. That's stupid. So they're not getting it, but they're claiming they're getting it. Objection. Number two, this question I've never heard. This is a new one. There are ghost people on Obamacare. So fake people, like the fake people who are voting when y' all lose elections. But there's also fake people that are on a thing that you have to document your existence to to the federal government. Well, how are they doing that. It's an interesting thing, right? How are they, how are these fake people getting Obamacare? Oh, you mean like some of you Republicans got those no payback. No, look loans during COVID that a bunch of you millionaire Republican members of Congress used to boost your businesses that you don't have to pay back. That sounds like the kind of thing we might want to look at waste, fraud and abuse on. So those are their two objections. And the third objection is the black guy. The black guy passed it. We can't have Obamacare. We have to get rid of it. Because this is a block and it's named Obamacare. And they named it Obamacare. They thought it would make people hate it. People like it. They're like, yeah, we don't want that. So we're going to have more of this tomfoolery. Tomfoolery. But, you know, and I, the other fourth. Objection. I've played you this audio before, and I can assure you, I promise you this is true, that Republicans actually don't believe that Obamacare should have been created at all. Nor do they believe that the federal government should be in the business of, of providing subsidies to ordinary individual Americans and small businesses for their health care. They believe the only subsidies which should exist should go to very, very wealthy people to basically pay for their tax cuts. And you have to remember, and I've said this a billion times, I'm just going to keep saying it, the big ugly bill, the purpose of it was to extend the temporary Trump tax cuts forever. And they paid for it by gutting Medicaid. They scooped $800 billion out of Medicaid and now they're not going to turn around and put $300 billion back in Medicaid by doing the subsidies for Obamacare. And by the way, Donald Trump, who's always hated Barack Obama, has said like a million times he wants to terminate Obamacare. He is no more likely to negotiate the extension of these subsidies in December than he was last week when he said the following. This is a 7. Given these modifications that are being made.
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To air travel, the other disruptions with.
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The government shutdown, do you think it's time for Republicans in Congress to change.
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Their negotiating position at all? In what way? To start making concessions to Democrats.
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Well, I think it's time for them to end the filibuster and just put everybody back to work. Vote in voter id, vote in no mail in voting except for military, faraway military and people that are very sick. No, I'd like to see one day Voting, I'd like to see not 65 days of voting from all over the place. No, I'd like to clean up the election.
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There it is. Do you hear that? So that is not just Donald Trump saying, no, I don't want to negotiate with them. He also has an additional wish list of other things that he wants. He wants to end early voting. He wants to get rid of the filibuster. PolyKey's 8089 inside of the chat on YouTube saying the Republicans have given Dems so much material starting that they're fighting SNAP benefits. What the hell, do better Dems just damn. Also with a $10 tip. Thank you very much, Paula. But you're absolutely right. This is a president who appealed a decision ordering him to pay people SNAP benefits. He appealed it all the way to the Supreme Court. He doesn't even believe in his own base eating. And he has an additional wish list. And if you don't think that John Thune and the other human blob of Trump tomfoolery in the Senate who just do whatever he says, if you don't think they're gonna follow that wish list and do that, you know, they're so afraid of Donald Trump and his crazy culty base that they'll just do whatever he says. Although you know what? They might be a little weaker once he starved them for a few months since he doesn't care about them getting SNAP benefits and a lot of them are on food stamps. This is a guy who was just today threatening air traffic controllers, ordering them. This is a 8 to go back to work or else. Or he's going to make sure they never get paid. He says, I am not happy with you. He says to Republicans and he still says, if you don't go back to work, I'm going to make sure you don't get no back pay. He's literally threatening and ordering unpaid air traffic controllers to go back to work. Literally a day after Sean Duffy, the guy from the real world Boston who for whatever reason is in charge of all air safety as well as NASA was saying people are quitting because they can't afford to work for free. You know what else he cares about? I'll tell you what Donald Trump really cares about. This is a nine. They were eating good. This guy got on stage with his Javier Malay, who is the leader of Argentina. This is first of all. And you know, there were some people with that Florida, you remember, some people had that Florida style. This is some tacky. This is what Trump cares about. Guys I think he cares about his faith and whether they have food parties and eating good while the poorest go hungry and stand in food lines, which we should call the food lines. Trumpville's like, like they used to do Hoovervilles. Just saying. Let me show you him not caring about the cost explosion that he himself created with his tariff. This is a 10, so I don't.
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Want to hear about the affordability because now we're much less. If you look at energy, we're getting close to $2 a gallon gasoline. With Biden it was $4.50 $5. Another thing inflation we had.
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He didn't give shit. He really doesn't care. He cares about pardoning his friends. Trump has now pardoned his buddy Rudy Giuliani here's the AP story. President Donald Trump has pardoned his former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, his one time chief of staff Mark Meadows and others accused of backing the Republicans efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The full completed unconditional pardons for dozens of Trump allies are largely symbolic. They apply only to federal crimes. None of the people named in the proclamation or were ever charged federally over the bid to subvert the election that Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden. It also doesn't affect the state, charges those state prosecutors stemming from the 2020 election have hit a dead end or are just limping along. The move, however, underscores Trump's continued efforts to promote the idea that the 2020 election was stolen from him, even though courts around the country and Trump's own attorney general at the time, Bill Barr, who's the guy, you know, the son of the guy who hired Jeffrey Epstein, said no, didn't happen. Nothing affected the outcome. Reviews, recounts, audits, nothing has shown that anything other than Biden winning outcome. Trump's recent action follows the sweeping pardons of the hundreds of Trump supporters charged in the January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol, including those convicted of attacking law enforcement. Ed Martin, the Department of Justice's point man on pardons and a former lawyer for January 6th defendants, linked his announcement of the pardons to a post on X Twitter that read no MAGA left behind. Among those also pardoned were Sidney Powell, the cuckoo lady who thought that there was a dead Venezuelan dictator running the election. She's one of the people who is Upshawn Eastman, who we've talked about a lot on this show, who's been trying to steal elections since the year 2000. You've got Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who pretended to be Attorney general for a hot minute also named Republicans who acted as fake electors for Trump and who were charged in state crimes, accusing them of submitting false election certificates, confirming they were legitimate electors. Despite that not being true, the proclamation explicitly says the pardon does not apply to Trump himself for now. It is an absolute insanity. That's what he cares about, though. He wants to rewrite history to make himself the victim in 2021 rather than the perpetrator of a potential coup. Caroline Levitt said in an emailed statement that she said these great Americans were persecuted and put through hell by the Biden administration for challenging the election, which is the cornerstone of democracy. Yeah, no, they were charged by state prosecutors who operate separately from the Justice Department. So basically, he cares about rewriting the past in order to make himself the victim. He also cares about hanging out with people like his friend Viktor Orban, who again showed up, got to be feted in the White House, and they met and he actually asked him could he get out of those sanctions that we imposed on Russia so he could continue to buy Russian oil. And apparently he also would like a bailout like Argentina got, which he'll probably get. He also cares about naming things after himself. Apparently Trump, per an ESPN story, wants the NFL Commander Stadium to be named after himself because, you know, that's what's important and meaningful to the country. They'll probably be bullying him, you know, probably bully people to get that he cares about, like wiping the memory of Barack Obama out of existence, like he's wiping out the memory of the East Wing of the White House and physically removing it and building an Arc du Triomphe bigger than the Lincoln Memorial in the White House itself. He can't stand the fact that Barack Obama exists, was president, and signed the now popular Obamacare. Trump actually wants to make that vanish and disappear, just like he wants the Kennedy center to disappear so he can steal it and rename it after himself so he can erase jfk. Trump is a needy, jealous, fat bastard, no offense to people, or big boned it. He cannot stand that Obamacare exists, so he just wants to get rid of it. He hates that anybody was ever president besides himself, but especially Obama, because you know, the black guy, the blacks are supposed to play football and be boxers, not be president in Trump's Trump brain. And Republicans actually agree. They hate that Obamacare ever happened, which is why they have tried to repeal it over 60 times, as Hakeem Jeffries said. And some states still that are run by Republicans still will not provide the coverage to their own Populations. I mean, I'm surprised that Trump has not ordered his idiot minions, including Education secretary, world wrestling, rapey atmosphere lady from the Education Department and his minion Republicans in the House and Senate, to enact mandatory national education standards that say we've never had any prior presidents to Trump that Trump has always been president. The President is Trump and he's always been president. The Kennedy center's down, like 50% in ticket revenue. That'll probably be named the Trump center soon. But one thing you do have to say about Trump and one thing I'm going to give him, he is consistent and he does tell you what he is and what he is and who he is has been known since anyone in New York has known he's existed. And when 80 million people voted for him, they knew what they were getting, even if they were dumb enough to open the door like the dumb people and sinners. Here's Donald Trump telling you who he is.
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Knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in.
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Join me now. Do we have Maurice joining me now? I believe, I believe, I believe is the leader of the Working Families Party, Maurice Mitchell. Maurice, are you there? There he is. Yes.
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Good to be with you, Joy.
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You're like a genie. I said, is Maurice there? And I went, and you disappeared.
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There we are.
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Let's talk about this, because from your point of view as a Working Families Party that, like, works alongside in some cases the Democrats, but holds them accountable in New York, how big of a failure is this on the scale of failure to. Oh, my fucking God.
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Sorry, Joy. This is. Oh, my mother fucking God. Complete abject failure on multiple levels. This is political malpractice. Like, let me just frame this for you, okay? So the Democrats, against All Hope, actually unified at a time when everyday working people, including people who voted for Donald Trump, including people who live in red states and red counties, are facing this crisis of affordability and an even more acute crisis crisis around health care. Right. The Democrats were able to unify in order to provide some relief. And the American people put their trust in the Democrats and believed in the Democrats and understood the logic of what this shutdown fight was about. The polling was on the side of the Democrats. The politics were on the side of the Democrats. After Tuesday's wave election, it was undeniable that the people rebuked Trump and Trumpism and handed the Democrats a electoral mandate to use that to leverage their power to negotiate the best possible deal on the ACA with the Republicans. Right. You couldn't have scripted it better.
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Yeah.
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Right. Poll after poll after poll shows that most Americans believe it's the Republicans fault, and it is because they have trifecta control of the government. Right. And then basically stealing victory from the, from the mouth of defeat. We have these eight corporate Democrats that folded, that caved, that collapsed when they had the most negotiating leverage, not the least the best position possible in order to secure a good deal for the American people. And what did they decide to do? They decided to fold. And what is the consequence? Well, I mean, they decided to fold based on a pinky square promise.
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A
Right, Right. That's right. Right.
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Based on a pinky square promise from the party of Trump.
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Can I just tell you how somebody described it to me, which I think is the best description, the best description I've heard of what the Democrats got was, I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.
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C
And they're trying to frame it as some sort of a win. Now, think about the alignment of good news for the coalition that is trying to apply pressure during the shutdown. We had the largest mobilization of people on the streets in American history and a wave election. And the polling was suggesting that people, even people in Trump's own party, recognize that fundamentally this was about the aca and people were deathly afraid of this, of this fiscal and health cliff that they're going to fall off of.
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Marjorie Taylor Greene. Agreed.
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Yeah.
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Literally.
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Marjorie Taylor Greene. Right. So you couldn't have created better conditions for the entire Democratic caucus to apply the pressure that they needed to secure a victory for working people everywhere. And they figured out some way to fuck this up. They somehow figured out a way to do that. And I could tell you, Joy, over the past few hours, just between Sunday and Monday, just organically, the outpouring of people that are like, look, there has to be a better way. Yeah, let's go and talk to the Working Families Party, see if they know what they're talking about over there, because people are tired of. And it's not even about the distinctions between, like, left and right and this fashion or that, but it's the difference between fight and flight.
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A
That's correct. That's right. And here's the thing is, you know, you can't build a movement around no healthcare, no vote, and then be like, no healthcare vote. That's the problem. Like your brand that you had. People know Kingston, 7 million people were out there saying, no health care, no vote, thinking that was the plan. But I have two critiques of the Democrats here. Number one, clearly Schumer's trying to Fake like he was on the no side because he voted no. Nobody believes that he didn't want this outcome. All of a sudden, magically enough, seven Democrats and one Independent, none of whom are up for reelection anytime soon. They are the ones who lead on this and they push. Dick Durbin's retiring. So it's like you have the shield of these people with no risk attached to them. They vote for it. He gets to vote no. I'm like, no. It was. It's so transparently right. That falls so it makes him look. But they had no plan of how to win, because they didn't seem to want to win. But they also had no plan of how to ameliorate the suffering, the genuine suffering. People were literally on the brink of losing their homes, losing having to drive Uber and do an air traffic controller job. They had no plan for that either.
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C
It's, it's, it's baffling. It's baffling. But I think what it exposes is, you know, why I wake up every day and build a working families party. Right. Like, we can't continue to give the ball to people who have failed us again and again and again, to people who don't understand the actual meaning of fight and expect different outcomes. There are fighters, actually are fighters.
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A
Absolutely.
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C
And we need to put them in position and give them the ball.
- [35:00]
A
I have two proposals, and I want to see if you. If you can join me in this, because I, I'm going to help you. Sometimes you can't help people who won't help themselves, but I'm going to try anyway. I believe that you're, you're, you're a better person than me. So I think you'll agree that we should try to give them some advice. Here's my free advice. The Cato Institute has a piece up right now in which they talk about and expose the very true fact that the subsidies that we are all fighting to get restored, which were temporary when they were passed, just like the tax cut, that was made permanent, and they're much cheaper to go ahead and make those permanent. But putting that aside, those subsidies go directly to the insurance companies. That is what the Cato Institute has said, and I have no reason to dispute what they're saying. So why don't Democrats and whatever Republicans want to get on board propose. Okay, you guys said we get to have a vote in December. Here's the bill we want to put on the floor. Every penny of the subsidies that would normally go to an insurance company will now go in a Stimulus check to Americans or will go into an account that own that the Americans individually can access and they can then use that to defray their insurance costs. Nothing, bypass the insurance. Take what Trump and Trump is already kind of saying that. So why don't they say let's put the Trump plan on the freaking table and let's give the money not to UnitedHealthcare or Blue Cross Blue Shield with their cause. They have record profits, Maurice, this year, record profits. Their CEOs are getting tens of millions of dollars in compensation while people can't get their cancer treatments because they're saying no. But what, what about that, Joy?
- [36:32]
C
I have one better. Okay, Trump, you hate Obamacare because the name Obama is attached to it. Great. We hate Obamacare too. Let's start Trump Care. This is what it will be. The government will take all of its money and let's forego those, those corporate insurance companies and let's treat the government as, I don't know, maybe we'll call it a single payer. Right? This is how we'll create Trump Care. And then the government will just directly pay the hospitals and the nurses and the doctors, and Americans will just go to the doctor without having to ever exchange any money. We'll call it Trumpcare. We'll forget about Obamacare, the black man in the tan suit, Trumpcare, this magical new Trump MAGA Care. I think that that could sell.
- [37:32]
A
You know what's so interesting about that? It seems so familiar because it feels kind of like that's what was in Obamacare before. I'm trying to think of them. Oh, right. Joe Lieberman.
- [37:41]
C
That's correct.
- [37:43]
A
Said you can't have that. That's called single payer health care, which every European nation, Switzerland, Sweden, France, England, every normal country, Canada, that's the care that Americans are running down to Mexico to access because they can afford it in Mexico. Every civilized country has it, we don't. I mean, every other country does it that way. It's weird, right?
- [38:04]
C
Listen, I mean, you know, like, look, if, if it's good for Mexico, if it's good for the uk, if it's good for Cuba, if it's good for Canada, maybe it might be good for us. And look, they could call it MAGA Care, Trumpcare, whatever they want to call it. And if he wants to do a victory lap, I think they might find some, some, some of our folks that might be willing to make a deal with them.
- [38:27]
A
Exit question to you, Maurice. How much has your phone been ringing off the hook for people racing the working Families.
- [38:35]
C
Joy, Joy. Besides, listen, listen. And I want to make a direct appeal to your listening audience. Right? You know, it doesn't need to be this way, right? This is a time for an opposition party. And the little Working Families Party has been figuring some stuff out. Like Tuesday's election is a proof in the pudding. You know, more people voted for Zoram Hamdani on the Working Families Party line than for Curtis Lewa, the Republican altogether. There is a hunger in this country for a different type of politics. And I invite everybody who's listening and everybody who I have to text back that we could build it together, but we got to take this trust fall, right? The leadership that we require is in us. It's in the American people. It's not going to come from elected leaders with official titles in the Democratic Party. They've had their chance. And the whole hard reality is we have a crazy fascist party and we have a status quo party. And unfortunately, both of them are funded by way too many of the same people. AIPAC and AI and crypto and pharma and big tech and the real estate lobby. And we need that something else. And we're building that something else, which is why my phone is ringing. And you know, I'm getting all these texts that I have to get back to. And we're going to run a number of people in primaries to challenge both MAGA Republicans as well as corporate Democrats all over this country. So folks, stay tuned. If we feel this energy, then we need to stand on business and elect fighters in these primaries. And WFP will be sharing a lot more on that.
- [40:21]
A
Maurice Mitchell, leader of the Working Families Party and somebody who I text way too much. And if you get one of those, get me the hell out of your text. Call me back. Maurice, thank you.
- [40:32]
C
Absolutely, my friend. Talk soon.
- [40:35]
A
Thank you. Thank you very much. Well, a lot of people in the chats are excited maybe about the Working Families Party, but I mean, I will remind you, and I've always been against open primary voting. I've been a Democrat my whole life. But I'm starting to think maybe open primaries are not a great idea because it does promote kind of people to run to the extreme on the Republican side, to the whole fascist kind of Nazi, curious extreme. And on the Democratic side, though, they don't run to the extreme. They still avoid the progressives. They don't want anything to do with them. They run to this weird freakish corporate middle. And I will tell you, and I'm working on this for the substack. I'M going to go through each and of the open secrets files of every single one of those eight people, and I've already seen that some of them get a lot of money from the healthcare industry and the healthcare lobby. This is why they vote the way they do. They're much more concerned with offending their corporate donors than with you having health care. Let's take a. Let's take a moment and pay some bills. Let's get a couple ads running. Mr. Jason Hey, y'. All. So despite the deal to end the shutdown, thousands of federal workers have gone without pay for two pay cycles now. And that means families are still struggling to put food on the table. That's why the labor force is stepping up. They've been distributing grocery cards to help federal employees and their families buy the basics things like peanut butter and jelly, lunch for the kids, and dinners for the week. But demand is overwhelming. Over a million federal workers have been affected by the longest shutdown in U.S. history. And the labor force has had to pause new requests until more donations come in. So they still need your help. You can make a real difference today. A $10 gift helps buy essentials. $50 covers lunches for two kids for a week, and $250 fills a family's grocery cart. Go to thelaborforce.org crooked to donate and help reopen the program for families who are still waiting. That's thelaborforce.org crooked. Let's make sure no family goes hungry. The Joy Reid show is brought to you by One20Life. Now, Jason and I are truly enjoying our 120Life experience. It has truly become part of our morning routine. But more importantly, 120Life is addressing something that is super serious and that we all need to pay attention to. One in two adults have high blood pressure, and high blood pressure is the number one risk factor or mortality. Taking control of your blood pressure, it's critical for your health and for your longevity. You want to be around here a long time. You need to take care of that blood pressure. And 120life is not just for high blood pressure. It's also beneficial for folks with diabetes. 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They offer a money back guarantee if your blood pressure does not improve or if you're not satisfied. 120Life is formulated with ingredients shown to help control your blood pressure naturally. And it's endorsed by thousands of healthcare professionals. Thousands of people have benefited from this. It's a trusted choice for managing blood pressure and also just for overall good health. So for a limited time, we want you to go ahead and try 120Life and you can get 20% off right now just by using the Code Joy or the code read at checkout@120life.com. That's it. Risk free trial. You don't like it, you return it and get your money back. Great two week trial. So head over to 120life.com and use the Code Joy for the ladies or read for the gents to save 20% today. There's nothing to lose except your high blood pressure numbers. Go to 120life.com and use the code joy or read to save 20% today. Now, I will note that these statements have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and this product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. And now back to the show. All right, guys, let me note a couple people in the chat. Thank you so much. First of all, to Gail Lewis, 1765, for the $5 tip. We appreciate it. We've got MC Sema saying I'm not going to be able to enroll in health care. My premium went up. Check this out. From $234 to $706. Smh. Shaking my head. I'm also putting starving people versus people who will have no insurance is evil. Absolutely. Mike Johnson's mantra was essentially, we're going to starve you until you let us raise your health care costs through the roof. It is super cruel. And the reality is if when you're fighting evil, because that is evil and you can't recognize it as evil and you think it's politics, you can't win. All right, let's go through this. I want you guys to remember this bit from last week. Check out this bit from last week. This is Donald trump. This is B1.
- [45:59]
G
But can you imagine when they vote almost unanimously against voter id? All we want is voter id. You go to a grocery store, you have to give id. You go to a gas station, you give id. But for voting, they want no voter id. It's only for one reason, because they cheat. We would pass that in 15 minutes.
- [46:18]
A
First of all, we're supposed to trust a guy who thinks you have to show ID to get groceries at the grocery store and at the gas station, just pumping your gas. We expect that guy to do the right thing by our health care. Come on now, let's not be silly. Join me now is journalist and Trump biographer David K. Johnston. David, thank you so much for being here.
- [46:37]
E
Well, thank you for having me. Joy. It's always a joy to be with you.
- [46:41]
A
Thank you. Diagnose for me what we're looking at here, because Donald Trump, he didn't even pretend to care about the people on snap. He literally went to the Supreme Court and was like, f those poor people, I don't want to give them their SNAP benefits. He didn't pretend to care about air traffic controllers. He told them if they don't go back to work, they're going to get fired. I mean, they're going to get fired, they're never going to get paid. He never pretended to care about this, but somehow he still ends up winning and getting what he wants. How?
- [47:07]
E
Well, I'm not sure he won here, and my view on that's a little unconventional, but Donald doesn't care about anyone but himself, and that includes his family. It is the tragedy of Donald Trump that he's never known love, affection. He has no empathy. You just had to watch what he did when the fellow collapsed in the Oval Office.
- [47:28]
A
Yes, and oddly enough, it was Dr. Oz, who knows nothing about anything. But he did at least try to help him.
- [47:34]
E
He's a TV doctor. I mean, he does have a medical license. But I'm not sure Donald won here. Donald has now established to people who are paying attention that he has no regard for people who are not wealthy. Holding his. His gaudy, garish party at Mar a Lago with the woman in the fake champagne glass and the dancers is further evidence of that. And since the Democrats in the Senate were never going to vote for the ACA tax subsidies, at what point do you say we got that? They agreed to bring it up for a vote. And they may not, by the way. Thune may break his word. Senator Thune, the majority leader. But if they bring it up Then there's a clear vote that the Republicans in the Senate and in the House are actively against the poor. And in addition, remember, Donald went after Governor Tony Evers in Wisconsin for using state funds to make sure people got their food and said, I'm going to go after you. So posing him as, as the Sun King says, lestat c' est moi, I am the state. Pardon my bad French. I am the state is actually going to be quite easy. And that's not going to sit well. The other reason I think the Democrats came to an agreement was when they did two unexpected things. Shutting off food, which had never happened, but cutting back the air traffic control situation. Trump could have sent military air traffic controllers and said, all flights are going to go. He didn't do that. He didn't do it on purpose. So once the business of America was being disrupted and people with political influence and money were upset, they don't care much about the poor either. It made sense to shift the ball game here. I'm surprised, though, that Chuck Schumer and the others didn't say, well, tell you what, we're going to vote for this. I'm going to have all senators who are Democrats, plus the independents who caucus with us. We're going to vote to reopen the government. We're going to make a big deal out of the condition that you're going to hold a vote on health care for the poor for those 17 million people. And by the way, the reason that they want to kill the tax credits is they know they can't outright kill Obamacare. They tried, they failed, thanks to John McCain. But if you can withdraw 17 million people from the Affordable Care Market, you drive up the cost for everyone else. My wife and I are. Health insurance from Rochester Institute of technology went up 17%. Nowhere near as bad as a lot of people facing hundreds of percent in increases. But if you can drive it up, then you can get people to say, gee, Obamacare doesn't work. It's a backdoor way for Russell Vogt and his other toadies for the billionaire class to ensure that we have government of, by and for the billionaires against the poor and the working poor.
- [50:33]
A
Well, and the reality is, you know, as the Cato Institute has pointed out, I mean, the compromises that had to be done in order to get Obamacare in the first place, I mean, they were talking about Medicare for all. At one point. There was talk about single payer, or at least having a public option that was single payer, which would have driven down the overall cost because you would have been competing with this single payer option. All of that was killed by corporate former Democrats like Joe Lieberman who were like, no, the health care lobby doesn't want it. I mean, the other thing I think that's been highlighted here, to your very good point, it is now clear, I think, to everyone that Republicans do not care if people don't get health care and die. Like that's clear, right? And that Trump conservatism, none of them, they don't care about the poor. They don't care if people eat. They are literally on the side of evil when it comes to the poor and sick. They don't care about them. So everyone knows that. And Trump doing the parties made that super clear. But the other piece of it is that the health care industry doesn't care, that the insurance companies don't care. They're paying tens of millions of dollars in bonuses and CEO stock options to these CEOs as they are denying people coverage, even when they do have Obamacare or regular health care. So this is something Democrats should be highlighting.
- [51:42]
E
When, when I was the age of my students, American corporate executives, a number of them, including Lee Iacocca, said we want to have national universal health care because it will cost less. And people forget that, that national health care, providing everybody with coverage as you have in every other modern country, you even have it in Mexico. You have universal health care. It's not great, but you have universal health care. It lowers cost. Punishing the poor is an expensive business, just like racism is an expensive business. And we have to break through these myths about this that are so deeply ingrained in our culture if we're going to break this. But I think there's an opportunity here for the Democrats, who of course have a long history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, to use what Trump and what the Republicans on Capitol Hill have done, the Quizzling Republicans, I call them, because they're collaborators like the Norwegian prime minister with the Nazis. And that's to emphasize they don't care about you. Even if you're just a prosperous American, they don't care about you. This is government of, by and for the billionaires, by a man who is giving pardons to major drug traffickers, sexual predators, and people helped him try to overthrow the government. This is a man who is profiteering off the government in the most astonishing ways. And you know, I can't say anymore that Donald is a fake billionaire. He's a real billionaire now because of his corruption. And yet poor people were going to punish the governor of Wisconsin and his state because they wanted to get food to the poor. If the Democrats can't turn that into a positive message in the 2026 elections, then you know they're never going to be successful.
- [53:32]
A
And the other thing is that Donald Trump sort of made his name pretending to be the every man's billionaire. The person who was, you know, was rich. He wasn't a billionaire at the time, but he could supposedly relate to the poor. Nobody who's a normal person thinks that you have to use ID to get groceries at the grocery store. A regular person would never say that you have to show ID to pump gas. That just shows you. Donald Trump has never been to a grocery store. He's never pumped gas, and he is the one who gave that evidence. That clip should be on every Democrat in an ad in every Democratic district in every state, because it's clear he has no idea what regular people live like because he has women sitting in a fake wine glass at Mar a Lago.
- [54:13]
E
Right? And Donald is so disconnected. He's never ridden the subway or a bus. He goes everywhere in a limo. Now, with police authorities who clear the streets for him, there's this complete disconnection from society. And, you know, I don't know if you've seen it. He now is proposing we issue a new coin with his image on both sides of it and in all caps with an exclamation. Fight, fight, fight. He is. He's power drunk. He believes he has the right to murder people, and he's murdered, according to my reading of the law. As someone who teaches law and a whole lot of retired military lawyers, he is murdering people, including what appear to be poor fishermen. I actually listened to a radio broadcast where somebody said, well, they were out at night, you know, why would they be out at night fishing? Gee, I don't know. Because the fish in the Caribbean go to the dark part in the day so they don't get eaten by the predators, and they go to the top at night to eat the jellyfish and other food. This is really dangerous. We are in a period here where he's drunk with power. And the New York Times on Saturday ran one of the most important stories about Trump. It's about something I've warned about on your show for years. When Trump starts firing military officers who uphold the Constitution, that is the single most dangerous sign of his coup, his dictatorship. He isn't fully consolidated his dictatorship. We can still get out of this, but every day it gets harder.
- [55:39]
A
It does. And I Think the latest murder of fishermen was just in the last 24 to 48 hours. They're literally, as you said, now routinely doing what Bibi Netanyahu does in whatever country is near him to fishermen in our own region. And it is. If this isn't war crimes, I don't know what is. But what you're seeing is things like FIFA deciding to suddenly create a peace prize because they're going to give it to Trump. Right. I mean, you're seeing the BBC fire the head of the BBC because Trump was displeased with a documentary and now he's going to sue the BBC. You see CBS capitulating. Every single ABC capitulating. All you see is people taking, bending the knee. You really don't. And even I have to say as much as you're saying it wasn't a defeat. The eight, one independent and seven Democrats, they show every signs of also bending the knee and capitulating to the idea that Trump is going to always win.
- [56:33]
E
Yeah, and I understand that you, I think the Democrats can turn this into lemonade instead of lemons, but, you know, are they going to be able to do it? Can they communicate with people? We have to end this business. And Hakeem Jeffries does this just as Hillary Clinton did. We have this plan. And if you'll turn to page four and fit 11, you know, no talk like Donald does. Talk to people where they are. You know, the new national literacy data just came out and it shows that among adults 26 and older now, more than one in four of us is functionally illiterate. That's who Donald relies on, people who don't have reasoning skills and who can't understand what he's doing. And we've got to find ways to reach them on a visceral level and say, hey, he is after you. It's your child who needs health care, who's going to die, or your grandchild, since older people are more likely to vote. It's your next door neighbor. And food and health go hand in hand. And nobody uses food as a weapon against their opponents. Except Donald Trump.
- [57:38]
A
Except Donald Trump. Exit question to you. You've covered this man for so long. Do you see evidence of cognitive decline in him?
- [57:45]
E
Yeah, Donald is. Watch how he walks. Run some more of those videos of where he X's back and forth, which is both physical and neurological. His falling asleep suggests to me that he may be diabetic. If you look at the times when he falls asleep, they're like an hour and a half after he's had a meal. His. He. His inability to understand things. He's signing. He says, what did we sign? And of course, on top of all that is Donald's appalling ignorance. He doesn't know anything. You know, he claims to be the world's greatest expert on 22 subjects. He's not the world's greatest expert on anything except how to hurt the American people for his glory.
- [58:26]
A
Yeah. He is not an American president in the traditional sense. He's, as you said, he thinks he's Nero or Putin or Orban. And I don't even think that he is even intelligent enough to be either of them. But he really would love to be David K. Johnson, one of the best experts on this. Always a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you, my friend.
- [58:44]
E
Thank you.
- [58:45]
A
Thank you very much. And that is what it is, y'. All. We're talking about a man who is neurologically impaired. He's sundowning, but in his sundown, on his way down, he is enriching himself in a way we've never seen a president do ever. And he is torturing the American people in the process destroying our White House so that he can build a monument to himself, a gold ballroom, a Arc du Trump, which is probably going to be bigger than the Lincoln Memorial. He's on a building spree. And note that they made sure that the military construction projects are still funded for a year, which is probably going to be for his bunker. I mean, this is an insane world that we're living in. But, you know, and also, of course, they're going to keep on having ice freely maraud through the country. The country has to put a stop to this. I had one elected officials say to me today, and I've never heard an election official say this, we may need a national strike to stop this. We may need to go old South Africa when white South Africans were in charge. We may need to literally economically cripple the country to stop him, because Republicans aren't going to stop him. Republicans have no interest in stopping him. They are simply willing to capitulate to anything he wants. John Thune is a dupe like all the rest. He's just no different than the speaker of the House who is simply living on his knees. Whatever. Yes about. Yes about. What do you need, boss? What do you want us to pass, boss? Where do you want us to go, boss? What do you want us to do? But they've given away their constitutional authority to this person because they're either afraid of him, afraid of his crazy ass armed base or they're just complicit in the crimes. You know, are they also dealing in crypto on the, on the back end? Are they getting money for themselves? We don't know. We'll never find out. I mean, and Marjorie Taylor Greene sounds sane because she probably, she wants to be governor of Georgia, let's just be honest. So she's trying to make herself palatable to a statewide audience in Georgia. That's clearly what she's doing. But now the Trump people are kind of trying to go after her and say, well, she's got some sort of a back end. Yeah, she has a back end plan. She wants to be governor of Georgia. But the reason people feel so betrayed about what the Democrats went along with here is that they got, they didn't get the one thing they were demanding. They said no health care, no vote. They got no healthcare, not anything. Nothing, Nothing. A couple of things in the news. Cybersecurity. There was a cybersecurity breach at the Congressional Budget Office that, that should worry any of us. No end declared to FAA flight cuts. Those are going to keep going. Again, as I mentioned earlier, Viktor Orban would like an Argentina style bailout for himself, which he's probably going to get. Donald Trump planning a 50 year or proposing a 50 year mortgage. Jason, did you hear about this? Donald Trump is proposing. No, I didn't have this one. So Donald Trump has proposed that we create a 50 year mortgage to address the growing housing affordability crisis. Who in the heck will take a 50 year mortgage? Correct. Meaning you will never own the home. You will effectively be renting from the bank. If you have a $400,000 mortgage, you're going to pay back double that in 50 years. And you will never, if you buy that house at 30, you will not have ownership of the house till you're 80. Which means your first home as a 30 year old will be the only home you ever own. And you also will never own it because you'll probably be dead by the time you pay it off. If you can pay it off, and I'm sorry, you won't even save that much money per month. If you go from a 30 year to a 50 year mortgage, you're talking about a couple hundred dollars a month. But what you'll pay on the back end in interest, this is a gift to the banks. So let's just now review. Donald Trump has given a gift to the oil company saying they can drill in Alaska, our national parks, wherever the hell they want. They have completely deregulated them. They've unleashed Wall street to abuse the system. They're now saying they can get 50 year mortgages on top of everything else. They've unleashed the crypto scammers because they gave Trump crypto billions. They could do whatever they want. He's enriched them, the health care companies. Donald Trump wants to go back to the old health care system where they could deny you if you had a preexisting condition where you didn't get those free screenings. All even though right wingers are enjoying those free mammograms and stuff. That's Obamacare, baby. Your kid being on your health care to their 26 Obamacare. That's why Marjorie Taylor Greene is freaking out because her kids are in their 20s and they're like about to age out of Obamacare and they can't afford to buy health care. They've enriched Wall street scammers. Big tech, let them unleash on us. Doge probably has all of our data. They've allowed the AI billionaires to run amok. We're getting mass surveillance. So every rich person in industry has gotten paid. Corporate media wet dream. They get every media they want. Correct. And what do you get? And I think this is what people need to ask your MAGA relatives and friends and welcome to hour two of the Joy Reacho. What did you get? What did you get? The reason farmers and rural people lose. What did you lose? Rural people tend to vote Republican because if you own a farm, farm, even if you have one cow on your ranch, you're probably, your farm is probably worth a million dollars. So you probably got a tax cut. But other than that, they've taken your markets away and given them to argent, they've given them to China. So you don't have your markets anymore. You really don't have anything. What do you have? Like, what did you actually get? And this is the question I feel like people need to start asking themselves. If you voted for Donald Trump, what did you get? Now he wants to let banks abuse you further by effectively having you rent a home for 50 years that you will never own. You cannot leave that to your kids in the will because you will be still paying it back when you die. Most people, their first home, they don't stay in it. Most people who buy a first home eventually move out of that home. You'll never be able to do that. You won't have any equity even in 20 years. You'll have only paid interest. What are they talking about? This is Trump's new plan. A 50 year mortgage that you will never pay back. Most Americans also die younger than most Europeans and people in Asia because Americans are eating so much garbage food. Where's JFK, RFK Jr. To get on that? Has he gotten on getting us off all these chemicals and you know, red number five and all that, has he gotten that out of our food? I thought that was what he was supposed to do with make America healthy again. He hasn't done that. They've unleashed Israel. They're still bombing Gaza. We're going to get to this topic in a little bit shortly. They've unleashed all of the bad guys in the world. They've strengthened China. I thought we were worried about China. China is now the most powerful nation arguably on earth because everywhere that we've gone away, there are estimates that six figures, numbers of people have died because we got rid of usaid. People have literally died. And you know who's coming in and saying, hey, we can help you when the Americans fail you? China. They've empowered China. The idea that you're going to now abuse Americans who are already struggling further by saying that you can only now get a mortgage if you're willing to sign a 50 year note, that is insane. It's insane. But that is Donald Trump's answer because he does not understand how regular people live. Donald Trump has never had to worry about paying his mortgages back. He just doesn't pay them back. Jasmine Clark saying, get your champagne or adult beverage ready. This is a, this is a shite show. It's a, it's a shite show. This is the worst president. I thought Donald Trump 1.0 was the worst president in US history. Donald Trump 2.0 is making Donald Trump 1.0 look like a saint. He's now going to be ranked the worst and the second worst president in his, in U.S. history because he's going to be second to last and last if we ever rank presidents again, if we ever have presidents again. But rich as hell, he's a billionaire. I mean, David K. Johnson has been covering Donald Trump for more than 20 years. He was never a billionaire when he was claiming it, but he is now. He absolutely is now. Let's do a few headlines here. In international news, A court in Turkey has issued an arrest warrant against Bibi Netanyahu for war crimes. Something that would actually never, ever happen in the United States. And he well deserves it because he is committing war crimes. This, Let me read through, hold on, let me try to find the story actually here. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Hold on. I'm going to actually try to look for the actual story. Hold on. I'll find it in a second. There it is. Turkey's Istanbul Chief public Prosecutor's office issued arrest warrants Friday for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and 36 other suspects on charges of genocide related to Israel's military operation in Gaza. The warrants target multiple high ranking Israeli officials, including Defense Minister Israel Katz, National Security Minister Itamar Ben gvir. That's the one who says a lot of the genocidal language border and Security Minister Eyal Zamir, an Israeli Naval forces commander David Sa' Ar Salama, according to a press statement from a Prosecutor's office dated November 7, 2025. That means that Donald, that Bibi Netanyahu can't travel to Turkey without maybe getting arrested. Buffington Post also has a really, really fascinating story and the headline is pretty interesting. Biden Discussed Israel War Crimes. Let me read you guys a little bit of this story. In the final weeks of his administration, President Joe Biden personally considered new American intelligence about Israel's devastating offensive in Gaza that prompted concerns that American and Israeli officials were violating U.S. and international law, then rejected suggestions from advisors to reduce American involvement in the war. Three former US Intelligence officials told the Huffington Post, this is at the end of the Biden administration. The intelligence reporting described Israeli officials own view of whether their treatment of Palestinians through large scale attacks and severe limits on humanitarian aid, including food, was illegal. By the way, the only two regimes in our recent history. This isn't from Huffington Post. I'm just telling you this that have been known to use food as a weapon against people inside their own borders, Israel and the United States. Israel forcibly starving people in Gaza and Donald Trump refusing to release food aid to the American people and taking that fight all the way to the Supreme Court, defying a literal judge's ruling that he had to let people eat and his thing was nah, I'm throwing a party at Mar a Lago for my hoes and my friends and you don't need no food. Let me get back to the story. Two former officials, U.S. officials identified the information as so serious and sensitive that it prompted an urgent interagency meeting including the president, per one former official. Biden, members of his cabinet and senior aides discussed dramatic potential responses, particularly limiting American intelligence sharing with Israel to reduce possible U.S. liability, the official said. One said a high ranking intelligence official advocated for that move. HuffPost spoke with eight former officials who requested anonymity so they could describe sensitive conversations. They did not share any intelligence or classified information. This reporting probably called Israel's legal compliance with US Law more into question with anything that we've seen previously since the war began In October of 2023, a former senior official said. Another said the material showed how aware the government of Israel was about the illegality. Lawmakers, government experts and humanitarian groups had by then repeatedly argued to the Biden administration that Israel was violating Section 620i of the Foreign Assistance act, which bars U.S. weapons for countries blocking U.S. funded aid. Washington is the chief source of military support for Tel Aviv. But a strong motivation for urgency in addressing the new material was the suspicion it meant the Biden administration's own members get this could be in legal jeopardy for being aware of it and continuing to aid the Israeli campaign. Two of the former officials said that's pretty frightening and disturbing. Our guest isn't here.
- [71:00]
E
Yeah.
- [71:01]
A
Because what it means effectively, is that the Biden administration was fully aware that Israel was committing war crimes. They were fully aware that Israel was violating US Law because US Law actually prohibits providing military aid that is used in crimes against humanity or war crimes. But apparently, apparently the Biden administration was aware that that was happening. And joining me now is the journalist whose byline is on that really frightening blockbuster story, Akbar Shahid Ahmed. Welcome. It's good to see you again.
- [71:40]
F
Thanks for having me back, Troy.
- [71:42]
A
I feel like I, in my, let me put it this way, I feel like I kind of knew this in my heart when this was happening, that the administration, because I would listen to the State Department's press conferences in which their State Department officials from the Biden administration just wouldn't answer direct questions about war crimes. You're now effectively reporting that they knew. And even they were asked whether or not the aid that we were providing was violating U.S. law. And they wouldn't say. So talk a little bit more about what they knew and when they knew it.
- [72:18]
F
So what's remarkable joy is they had been having these conversations about US Liability, potential complicity in international war crimes going back to a month into the war. And what I've heard from a lot of officials is that the sense was that senior leadership, and here we're talking about President Biden. But remember that he was, of course, he was maybe not at the height of his abilities. And a lot of these decisions were being controlled by Secretary of State Tony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. These are people who want to be wielding power for a long time. The sense was Blinken and Sullivan don't want to know because In a way, not having that knowledge pushed up the chain, not having a formal assessment up. There was an easy way to say, well, as you're describing at the State Department press briefings, what they would say when we would ask them is, well, we haven't confirmed it. We can't confirm or deny it. It's still, we're still investigating, we're still waiting to see what's happening. And what my new reporting found was that by late 2024, when they had the ability, they were going out the door, they had seen a year of this war, they got this new intelligence and they got these new findings that was so much stronger, that essentially said, this is pretty hard to deny now. Right. And what was striking too was one of the officials described it as a hot potato. The fact was no one wanted to put this up there or have their name on it. By the time it did get up there, Biden himself was called in and you had this intense, urgent, high level discussion where people said, we've got to cut off US Support. We are complicit and liable.
- [73:53]
A
Were you able to determine just through your reporting, whether this was ideological? Because Biden himself called himself a Zionist. He was a very religious Catholic and a lot of Christians are Zionists. Was it, was it ideological? Was Blinken and Sullivan, were they just ideologues in favor of Israel?
- [74:15]
F
So a lot of it is, a lot of it. It's hard to know what's in someone's heart. Right. But a lot of the, the evidence points to kind of just, just cowardice along the way. Right. A kind of sense of, we know, we have a sense of what's happening, but we'll manage it. And I think people gave them the benefit of the doubt for several months into the war. But what became really clear is Blinken, Sullivan were not being listened to by Netanyahu. If anything, the Biden administration was being publicly humiliated by Netanyahu on a daily basis. Right. When Netanyahu was saying, I'm going to improve autogony of civilians and then a US bomb would kill 120 people, 67 of them children. Right. That was happening on a kind of weekly basis. So I don't think there was a strong ideological bent. Based on my deep reporting, I've talked to a lot of these officials. Yes, a pro Israel bent from Biden was clear. Was there a preference? I'd say it's even a little more unconscious is my sense. So for instance, something that an official said to me was, in the U.S. government, you have maybe four or five people who talk to Palestinians on any kind of regular basis. Israeli officials are talking to everyone up and down the chain. Pentagon, State Department, CIA, White House politicals. There's just a familiarity, right? There's a sense of, you're like class, you're the good guys here. We're supporting you. And that kind of environment made it really easy for people to make these ethical compromises. And don't forget, you know, you were describing how Trump has ceded a lot of space for the US on the world stage. The Biden administration was doing that, too. Right? They were being told, your position on Gaza is hurting your position vis a vis China, vis a vis Russia. Other countries are saying, well, the US Is part of this catastrophe.
- [76:01]
A
Yeah.
- [76:02]
F
Why? Why would we be aligned with them?
- [76:06]
A
You're talking about the final days of the Biden administration. And what obviously was going on at that time was an election in which, you know, at a certain point, Kamala Harris was the nominee, and she was being protested everywhere she went. She could not have even the most joyful event without being protested over the genocide. Do you have any reporting that the people inside the administration understood that they were probably dooming her campaign and ensuring the outcome Bibi Netanyahu very clearly wanted, which was Trump.
- [76:45]
F
They certainly had a sense that Netanyahu wanted a Trump presidency. They had a sense this is a political liability. But there was such a stubbornness, and this is what's the consistent theme of this entire policy, is stubbornness, obstinacy, and willful blindness to the facts. There was a sense of the electorate is still going to hurt us more for looking, potentially even slightly questioning of Israel. The electorate doesn't care about Palestinians. That was a lot of the judgment that was made inside the White House, inside the highest ranks of the Democratic Party. And it's really important to remember, even after Vice President Harris took over, a lot of her campaign managers, her campaign personnel, were Biden's people. They weren't Harris's people who were brought in. So it was the same calculus of the losing campaign. They had been running for a year was just pushed onto Harris. But, Joy, what's so chilling to me about the new reporting I came out with is that a lot of people had been willing to an extent, to give the administration a benefit of the doubt with a looming election and say, don't take a risk here in November, December, looking at Donald Trump, who's coming in saying, I don't care about international law, human rights, humanitarian aid at all. They said, we're not even going to symbolically try to show for a brief period that the US Will not be complicit in acts like this. We're not even going to call it what it is. Some officials were saying, look, even if Biden will never cut off military support to Israel, at least acknowledge that Israel is violating the law, give them a waiver and continue it, let's be honest, for the record, and officials at the highest levels were not even willing to do that. And that's what I think really demands a reckoning for the Democratic Party moving forward for any kind of foreign policy.
- [78:29]
A
That decision making, what you're, what you seem to be saying is something that I think a lot of us suspected in covering this. And these sort of obstinacy. I mean, I couldn't get a Biden person to come on and even answer these questions on my old show on what is now in Miz now. They wouldn't even come on. They wouldn't even. And these are people, some, in some cases I had interviewed, you know, for years on my weekend show. They wouldn't even step foot on, on my show. But I suspected that what was happening in Israel was not just something they found unfortunate, it was what they wanted, that they were in favor of what, Bibi Netanyahu? That's the frightening kind of realization that I think a lot of Democrats don't want to face. But it's starting to look like that.
- [79:09]
F
I think there's a lot of concern that people, as a one person in the Biden team, but it's me this way, right? Is as they got so attached to that policy, the cost, the embarrassment of changing got so high they couldn't even begin to confront that. So they started to tell themselves, well, look, this is a great campaign. And you saw them publicly say this. You see them still publicly say this, right? Blinken has repeatedly come out and said, well, look at Donald Trump's great handling of Israel, look at his bombing of Iran. We laid the groundwork for that. So there's a sense of taking credit that's really striking given the huge loss. I mean, that's in reporting on this. I'm working on a book about the Biden administration in Gaza. And I've been talking to a lot of them, very few willing to go on the record, very few. But they'll try to downplay the death. They'll say, well, was it really that high? When what we know from every estimate is it was actually much higher than what's being reported. It was at least 40% higher than what the Ministry of Gaza has said, there's not a recognition. Did they want it? I think there are officials who got really enthusiastic about the Israeli campaign. And you see this, right? You see it in the broader dehumanization of the sense of. Nothing exemplifies this for me more than that silver data, if you remember. So the pager attack in Lebanon, a second war the Biden administration allowed was a horrifying, likely violation of international law. Netanyahu was handing out silver plated features to people like John Fetterman, right, who is was in the party, someone talking to the White House. This became something where people were saying, look at the Israelis prowess, their success, their spycraft, when really they were being implicated in some of the most, the gravest crimes possible in this century.
- [81:01]
A
And by the way, what you now see is that with the Trump administration taking over, they're now simply emulating Bibi Netanyahu doing in the Caribbean Sea what Bibi Netanyahu feels free to do to Iran, to Yemen, wherever he wants. He just bombs wherever he feels like it blows up pages wherever he feels like it kills whoever he wants. And now Donald Trump is simply just emulating him. It feels like there's really almost no difference between the two men. And they both seem to want to clear cut Gaza in order to put very pricey developments there. You do have Jared Kushner in the region, I guess, measuring space for a new condo or whatever it is he thinks he's going to do on top of the dead bodies there.
- [81:45]
F
And link to that joy is the domestic culture of Palestine, the way that Palestine, the way that the Biden administration kind of helped enable the sense of a campus crisis. And anti Semitism. There were real cases of anti Semitism, but the Biden administration cheered on Columbia's crackdown, right? They cheered on the arrest of students, the violence towards students. They did not come out and condemn it. They said, well, the order must be restored was Biden's phrase. Now you're seeing that same argument of pro Palestinian protests went too far, being used for deportations of journalists. You're seeing deportations of students for rounding up people campuses around the country. So it's that foreign policy, but also domestic policy is being hurt by these tendencies.
- [82:28]
A
Donald Trump used to be a Democrat, so I don't know that there's that much of a change in his belief system when he switched parties. Exit question to you, this is not your reporting, but it's in the Huffington Post. Would love to get your comment on just, you know, just from Journalist to journalist here, there's some really fascinating reporting about the former executive producer of 60 Minutes. Bill Owens is a legendary producer in our business, saying he faced intense internal pressure from his corporate bosses to avoid certain stories that had the potential to generate backlash for parent company Paramount in his first public remark since his sudden resignation in late April. And in January, 60 Minutes ran a segment featuring former State Department employees who had quit over how Joe Biden's administration handled the war on Gaza. The segment drew backlash from pro Israel organizations and unnerved Paramount's controlling shareholder Sherry Redstone, who, according to other reporting, was upset set when Tanahisi Coates was effectively called a terrorist by Tony De on that morning show. And there was internal sort of meetings to try to ameliorate the absolute horror people felt about it. She was mad about that quote, unquote. She didn't like the story. Owens told an audience at Colby College in Maine on Friday evening, where he accepted an award for courage and journalism. Afterwards, Owen says he was basically told, well, you're not going to do another Gaza story, are you? While Sher Redstone didn't call him directly. That message was relayed to me by people with authority over me, he said. It feels like during the Biden administration and this genocide was unfolding across the media, there was essentially a blackout of Gaza coverage, or at least a sense that they didn't want negative coverage about Israel. I definitely felt it. What do you make of the fact that it did feel like a full spectrum effort to make sure that Israel was allowed to do this genocide without criticism?
- [84:12]
F
I mean, Joy, I was called a liar by the White House. And White House experienced White House correspondents said they had never seen the White House be so vicious to a reporter. They claimed. I made up quotes, which is the biggest accusation you can make against the journalists. But they were out there pushing back so hard against questioning of their policy. I've heard this from colleagues here in D.C. at other outlets where White House officials would be calling people on the Hill, they'd be calling their bosses, they'd be calling their editors and saying, we're not happy with this or don't have them do this right. Or maybe this person is suspect in some ways. So there's a kind of multifaceted approach. It's character assassination, it's denial, it's deflection. And the playbook is look away, don't acknowledge the basic reality, which is all we're asking people to do is US weapons are helping kill people en masse every day. That's all it is. There's nothing else to it. Right. But these layers were being added often. I was very grateful to be at a place where my management really strongly pushed back against the White House. But I know that a lot of colleagues felt silenced in other newsrooms. And I think now with that shy Redstone sale, what you've seen is, is the Trump administration again is picking up on that groundwork leading the Biden era.
- [85:25]
A
For journalists, it's an interesting thing where things that Democrats do end up reverberating in Republican Party picks. And Barr is not that original. Right. I mean, the idea of, you know, birtherism was originally born inside of the Clinton campaign, and then it sort of ends up on the other side. And, you know, you have these things that metastasize. And in this case, it feels like the sort of pro genocide policy just. It just shifted parties, but it didn't really materially change. Akbar Shahid Ahmed, one of the best reporters out there, a very excellent reporter. Hopefully we can have you on again. Thank you very much.
- [85:54]
F
Thanks so much, Joy.
- [85:55]
A
Thank you so much. This is one of the more distressing things because everything that you just heard Akbar saying, if he had said it about the Trump administration, we would all been like, yeah, he was talking about the Biden administration, the Biden Harris administration. And I know that people that are in that world don't want to admit that this is why she lost, but this is why she lost. A lot of people were just so disgusted by the Biden policy that unless she completely cut herself from that policy, completely. And this is my message to Democrats right now. Even MAGA base people are off the Israel thing. They're like, we're not going to support that government. We're not going to support a genocide. Even the farthest right, far right people in that party, they're not down with this. And neither are base Democrats. And I'm just going to tell y' all Democrats, you're going to have to cut off AIPAC if you want to be elected President of the United States. This goes for every single Democrat you want to be president, you got to let that go. Because everyone can see what Benjamin Netanyahu is. And if you do a little Googling, it's what he's always been. He's always been this guy. He's never changed. He's Donald Trump's age and they're the same person. Felonies, getting out of prison, want to be president for life. Grifter, liar, genocidal ideas. He's just doing the same thing Trump is doing, he's just doing it in a different region. Trump is literally doing the same thing in the Caribbean, killing Trinidadian fishermen just because he can. Bibi, same thing. Bibi wants that land. He and his people, they want the land just like the European colonizers wanted the indigenous land, and they just want it. And they're using a religious justification to take it. And they don't care how many people they kill. They'll starve them, bomb them, kill them with our weapons and using our money. And if the American people want to stop it, unfortunately, you got to fight it in both parties because the Democrats on this one there, I don't believe in this dime, no dimes worth of difference between the party stuff generally. But on this, the elected party, you better get with the progressives because the Democrats writ large, normally they really ain't that different. It's a shame. But anyway, let's pay some bills before we get to our last guest. We're going to turn the corner and do some good news, but here's another opportunity for us to pay for this joint. The Joy Reid show is brought to you by MSI Reproductive Choices. They are a nonprofit that provides reproductive health care in 36 countries. Now, I've been learning a lot about their work, and you know what really hit me? In sub Saharan Africa, 4 million teenage girls drop out of school every year because they get pregnant. Now, let's just keep it real. Teens everywhere are going to have sex. It's human nature. But in too many places, these young girls do not have access to birth control. No options, no information once they get pregnant. Most never go back to school. Only 5% do. In fact, a lot of them risk their lives trying to end a pregnancy. And a tragic number of young women and girls die as a result. But there is hope. MSI Reproductive Choices is out there doing the work, traveling to remote places to bring young women and girls contraception, healthcare, and control over their futures. And this group, they're the real deal. Charity navigator and candid. Both rate MSI highly for quality, efficiency and impact. So here's how you can help. For just $26, you can give one girl contraception for four whole years. That is four years to stay in school, follow her dreams, and build her Future in the U.S. go to MSIUnitedStates.org for tax deductible giving. That's M for modern, S for safe, I for informed. MSI United States.org you can also text my last name. Read that's R E I D to 511-511. Just text Reed to 5 11, 511. Go to MSI United States.org today. Let's give these young girls a chance. Text fees may apply. And by the way, let me just say that if you suspect that there is a global network of very, very wealthy people who are amoral and who line up on the side of genocide and who line up on the side of theft and mass surveillance and they all seem to always kind of line up together and they're all really, really, really rich and they're all with Donald Trump and they're all giving money to the Epstein Ballroom and they all might have been like hanging with Jeffrey Epstein at some point in their life. If you suspect, like, it's a weird thing. We did an episode on this show about how QAnon kind of got that one right, that there's a whole global like scheme of people and they're not all pedos, but, you know, they all are friends. And they all seem to be connected through a web of financial and, you know, sort of economic ties and crypto seems to bind them. There is a global conspiracy of the super rich to control the world and reduce everyone else to serfdom. That is a thing that's actually happening. And some of them are lascivious, you know, and have disgusting sort of sexual predilections and some of them are just greedy and just want money. But they're all like tied together. And there's a weird thing where Trump seems to be like, cool with all of them. It's just a weird thing. You just should notice it. They're all buying up the media. They're buying up the social media, they're buying up the newspapers. It's just a weird thing that you should notice. It's just a weird thing that you should notice. I have a story really quick. I don't have it to put on screen, but I'm just going to read this to you. One of the people that was granted clemency by Trump, a drug dealer, the Guardian reporting, who was granted clemency by Trump. He's been sent back to prison for violating the terms of his release. Jason, I don't have this for screen. A convicted drug dealer who has been granted clemency by Donald Trump was sent back to federal prison on Monday for violating the terms of his release. After being charged with several new crimes. Jonathan Brown was sentenced to 27 months behind bars. The Long island man had been accused of swinging a, a 1 an i4 pole or some kind of pole at a hospital nurse and threatening to kill her, screaming at a member of his synagogue, groping his family's nanny and evading bridge tolls. Brooklyn Federal Judge Kayo Matsumoto said he hoped that Brown's expressions of remorse and promise to lead a law abiding life were in good faith, noting that many of the people who had been harmed had since forgiven him. Don't squander it, he said to Brown. But he already squandered being pardoned by Trump. So, so that's the thing that happened. It's just a weird thing to notice that you just see a lot of the people, even those who are pardoned by Donald Trump, they sometimes they're reoffending. There's a lot of stuff that's happening. Let's do a quick poll in the chat. Let's, we're going to look in the I'm sorry, I can't see the substack chat, but let's look at the YouTube chat. Let us know what you want to see the Democrats do in the United States Senate. Throw Chuck Schumer overboard or give him a second chance. Those are your two choices. Throw Chucky Schumer overboard. Who, by the way, I don't think he ever endorsed Mamdani. Did he ever endorse Madani? Jason, are you aware of whether he ever drove. I heard anything. But why should we give him a lifeline about let him come back. That man needs to go home with his grandkids. Time to go, right? I mean, I think we need a full change of leadership. And let us know in the chat if there's somebody that you think would be a better leader. I know a lot of people like Chris Murphy. I think he's good. I like Elizabeth Warren. You know, I don't think there's any support for him there, but he's overboard, overboard, overboard. Because the reality is if he was against to go back to the shutdown for a moment, if Chuck Schumer was against ending the shutdown, then he was defied by not one, not two, but eight of his own members. Because the Vermont independent caucuses. Both the Vermont independents caucus with the Democrats. So either he cannot control his caucus because he couldn't stop eight people from defying him, or he secretly was plotting for the outcome that happened, which is what I think, and got what he wanted but hid behind them, which is cowardly. If you're gonna do it, as David Cay Johnson said, just lead it and say the reason we're ending the shutdown now is that we wanna force Republicans to show themselves in December and we wanna put it on the floor of whether you're going to ensure people can afford their healthcare. And by the way, right now people are renewing their healthcare plans and the costs are going through the roof. So this would be the time for Democrats to pick up their lip off the ground and start blaming Republicans for every single cost increase. By the way, you can quote Marjorie Taylor Greene to do that. Go get you a clip of Marjorie Taylor Greene. She's saying it. Food prices are higher, gas prices are higher, energy prices are higher, the cost to heat your house is higher and healthcare costs are through the roof. She said none of her kids can even afford it. How is it that Marjorie Taylor Greene.
- [94:59]
C
Is saying something that Democrats should have been saying since Trump kinds of including.
- [95:02]
A
On Epstein Files, like she's talking more because she wants to be governor of Georgia. And even a Q tuber crazy person who thinks she can fight Jas Jasmine Crockett and got got wasted in that. But she, she's not even smart enough to avoid fighting with AOC and Jasmine Crockett, but she's smart enough to see where this wind is going. She's on the right side on Gaza. All of a sudden she sounds saner than Chuck Schumer. Chuck is going to have to retire just based on the chat. Just based on chat. And people are also saying no Cory Booker. Cory Booker also gets money from apac. I'm. Look, I like Cory Booker, but we played the ad that's run against him on the show. No one is going to be present. Any of y' all who think you're going to be president and you think you're going to take APAC money to be president, go ask President Harris how that worked out. You cannot win anymore being lockstep with Israel. If that is done, that ship has sailed. You have to abandon ship on that because that country is being led by an autocrat who believes in fascism, who believes in land theft and he wants to make it a religious ethnostate, just like Project 2025 wants to do here. Note that these are two countries where they're trying to make a religious ethno state. Israel was supposed to be a secular democracy where you could live there, whether you were an Arab Muslim, an Arab Christian, a non aligned person, a Jewish person or a person who's secular. It's supposed to be a secular country just like this is supposed to be a secular country. It's not. They have apartheid in the West Bank. That's occupied. They will not give the land to the Palestinians, who are supposed to have a state, who were already there when the European refugees showed up. There were people there. Those people are supposed to have rights. They're supposed to have a state. They don't have it, and they're not going to give it to them ever. They're going to keep the land because they want the land just the way the pilgrims wanted the land here. Like, this isn't that complicated. And people always say, God said I could have it. I'm not moved by that argument because everyone says that. The whites said it in South Africa. Everyone always says. But the Bible, they. Everyone who wants people's land always says that. They said it to the Nez Perce and the Cherokee. And God said, we could have this. This is always so. This is not. This does not move me. Everyone says that you're either doing genocide in apartheid or you're not. I mean, it's that simple. This is Ta Nehisi Coates. I love him because he's super simple about it. You're either doing wrong or you're not. And we in the US can't even afford to feed our own people. This country has something like 42% of our children live in poverty. We don't have universal health care, but we're paying Israel's universal health care. We're paying for them to all have health care. We're paying Argentina 40 billion. Why do they get $40 billion? We can't even afford to make sure SNAP is fully funded. How are we. I mean, this is one of those things where I'm like, the right wingers who are like, why are we taking care of the whole world? We can't even take care of our bridges. If you've driven around most of the US Go to China and look at their infrastructure. Go to India and look at their super trains and then look at our rickety Amtrak. Go to, like, countries that we think of as, quote, Third World. They have better infrastructure and better roads than we do. Go to Ghana. Go to Ghana. The roads here in the. Jason, when I tell you we've driven through Accra and you bump and rumble, rumple, bumple, bumple. I rumble, bumple in New York, too. It's no different, our infrastructure. Building new trades, you know, I mean, we don't have any new trades. Trash. We don't have good infrastructure. Our stuff is old. Half our airports are old. But we're funding. We can afford to fund a genocide, but we can't afford SNAP. We can't afford the 0.3 trillion to make the Obamacare subsidies permanent. But we can afford a $4 trillion tax cut for the super rich to be made permanent. We can somehow afford that and ICE to be funded like an army, but we can't afford SNAP for poor people. Seriously, we need some good news. Let's do some good news. I think we should do some good news, right? I'm going to do some good news. Per the New York Times, this is actually some good news. And it's good news from someplace we don't normally, normally have good things to say, and that is the United States Supreme Court, which is usually trash, except for our three liberal women. The United States Supreme Court on Monday turned down a request that it consider overturning its landmark, its own landmark decision to legalize same sex marriage a decade ago. That's a decade ago, by the way. Gavin Newsom, you know, the first time he showed up and people noticed him when he was San Francisco mayor and he started doing same sex marriages without any legal backup on the federal side. And he was like, I'm just going to do the marriages. And people were like, you're going to destroy your career. And he was like, I'm doing it anyway. And this is how he sort of came to be noticed by a lot of Americans because people are like, oh, his career is over. But instead he flourished and then became governor. Do you guys remember that? That he was the one who did that? He was like, I'm just going to do these marriages. Well, now then the Supreme Court followed him, affirmed the Obergefell decision, which built on a Texas decision years ago which said that people can't kick in your door to see if you are having a same sex relationship. And that that was illegal at the time. They could do that and arrest you. But now that you know, that privacy decision held, and then Obergefell built on that and said, people have a right to marry whoever they want. Well, the court was presented with an opportunity which Uncle Clarence had said, bring me this case. They said, bring me this. He said in his decision on getting rid, when he did a concurrence on getting rid of the right to abortion, he wrote a concurrent saying, I've got some other things I'd like to destroy. Let's get rid of the prohibition on the police kicking in your door, which is Texas. I'm gonna forget the case. Texas. Somebody has to tell me the case in Texas. He said, let's get rid of that. And he said, let's get rid of same Sex marriage, too. Bring me those cases and I'll get rid of them for you. But they brought. So a case was brought to him, to the court, but it didn't work. The court, without comment, interestingly enough, declined the petition filed by Kim Davis, a former Kentucky county clerk who gained national attention. I remember covering this case in 2015 when she defied a court order and refused to issue same sex licenses because of her religious beliefs. This is like the people in CVS who are like, I'm not giving you birth control because I am against birth control. But it's like, but you're not the one that would have to get pregnant. Give me that damn birth control. She asked the court, Ms. Davis, she asked the Supreme Court to reverse an order that required her to pay more than $300,000 in a settlement to a couple that was denied a marriage license and to overturn the same sex marriage ruling from 2015. At least four of the nine justices would have needed to vote to hear Ms. Davis's case and revisit the marriage precedent, a major step that many legal experts have said they were not expecting the court to take. So it's interesting she needed four justices, so it needed to be a 54 ruling, right? That means she couldn't get four. We know she probably got Alito. We know she got Uncle Clarence. Who would have been the third person, I wonder. It doesn't seem like she got the four. Very interesting, because this is one where I'm actually surprised that they didn't do the wrong thing. Join me now to discuss is my friend, Brandon Wolf, nationally recognized LGBTQ civil rights and gun safety advocate and best selling author. His book is really good. You should read it. He's also the national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign. So, Brandon, were you as surprised as I was that they. That the Supreme Court actually didn't do the wrong thing?
- [102:15]
D
I. Well, first of all, thank you for putting some good news on the show. I love to come and see you when we're celebrating good news. I'll be honest with you, I was not that surprised. And I'll say why. I think on its face, the. The case that Kim Davis was bringing was already very weak. She was essentially coming to the Supreme Court with her hat out, asking for pennies, saying, I don't want to pay people the money that I owe them. The lower courts have said I owe them this money. And by the way, the lower courts didn't say anything about the Obergefell ruling. They did not say we should revisit marriage Equality more broadly. So her case around damages was already very weak. And then her lawyers, and I'm going to get into the like, kind of behind the scenesy things here. Her lawyers are from the Liberty Council. The Liberty Council, as you may know, are among the project 20, 25 architects. And they actually slipped a line in. That said, while you're considering whether she owes people this money, why don't you toss in Obergefell and reconsider that while you're at it? Was her case very weak on its face? I think the addition of this. You should revisit marriage equality more broadly was also very, very weak week. And I think the Supreme Court recognized that and ultimately just decided not to take it up.
- [103:29]
A
It's Lawrence v. Texas. I had, I think my, I had a hot flash earlier, Brandon, and the hot flash, I think took part. Piece my memory away for a moment. Yeah, it was Lawrence v. Texas, the other case, that was like, ooh, hot flash. Took my memory away. But, yeah. And if people don't know who the Liberty Council is, I first, you're probably an infant when this happened. But I first remember noticing them in the, in the, the early aughts when they were the entity that kept bringing these cases where they wanted to have public displays of the Ten Commandments. They were the Ten Commandments people. So now they've moved on to like, let's take away everybody's happiness and everybody's rights. Does this is not. It wasn't like a ruling in favor of Obergefell. It was more just, we don't want the case. Does that mean that in your mind they're just waiting for a better case, or do you think this is over?
- [104:18]
D
It's a great question. I think, you know, one, I'm going to celebrate the win because it is a win. And two, I think we can't be naive about where this, where this court is and also where, you know, the attorneys are. I mean, the Liberty Council came out right away this afternoon and said, we're not done. We're going to come back over and over again trying to come for Obergefell, trying to roll back marriage equality, because the right wing has been very clear from the beginning that they are coming for all of our rights and freedoms.
- [104:45]
A
Right.
- [104:45]
D
It was never just about abortion. It was never just about, you know, marriage. It was never just about trans kids getting access to health care. They believe that there's only one right way to live your life. And if you live outside the lines that they've drawn for you, they're Going to use the power of government to put you back into your place. And so that means they're going to keep coming back to the court, trying to peel away all of our rights and freedoms. I think we should stay vigilant. We have to stay vigilant. We know that the right wing is going to continue to come for marriage equality. I will say, you know, one, we can't cede the court to them. We have to continue to show up in those spaces. We also have to get out of this unsustainable place as a country where millions and millions of people are sitting on pins and needles every few months wondering whether or not a gaggle of lifetime appointees are going to strip away their basic rights and freedoms. That is not a sustainable model in this country. And the way to get outside of it is to build the kind of political majority, build the kind of political power we need to not have to sit around waiting for them on pins and needles.
- [105:49]
A
By the way, and this is why I'm not in politics, because for me, I would say if I was going to be president of the United States, I would insist upon having a United States super majority in the United States Senate and a majority in the House that would not just bulldoze Donald Trump's Epstein Ballroom, like level it to the ground. I would also take his Arc du Tromp and put dynamite on it and blow it up and get rid of it, make it go away. Poof, gone. But in addition to that, I would say let's stack the Supreme Court. Let's make it 13 members, let's make DC Estate, let's make Puerto Rico a state, and then we'll have our new super majority, give them term limits, 25 year term limits. Therefore, when you hit 60, 67, you have to retire, which means all the right wingers got to go. Clarence would be gone, Alita would be gone. I don't know how old John Roberts is, but we're going to make sure that they often retire. And then I would just pack the court. I mean, this is why I'm not in politics.
- [106:46]
D
Well, I don't. I think where you are is where a lot of people are, which is completely frustrated with not just the Supreme Court, but, you know, the way that our government is not functioning and they want wholesale change. And so I'll say a couple of things. You know, first of all, I think it is true that we have to do something different than, you know, the way that we're currently doing things. And I think that's going to look Like a whole lot of things, you're not alone in saying, you know, maybe the structure of the Supreme Court is not working for the United States. I would say Donald Trump already stacked the Supreme Court and that's why we're in this position, that he loaded it with a right wing majority that he plucked from the Project 2025 author table. And that's why we're in this position in the first place. And I think the other reason we're in this position is because the Supreme Court consistently does things that are wildly unpopular. Right. When you think about, for instance, rolling back protections for reproductive freedom, that's wildly unpopular in this country. The reason people were up in arms about the potential that they would revisit Obergefell this time around is because over 65% of the American people support marriage equality. And when the Supreme Court is so wildly out of touch with what people believe in our country, with what they believe to be true about our rights and freedoms, it makes sense that people don't think the system is working. So again, I would say one, we have to keep showing up in that space. We can't cede it to the right wing. But two, we have to build political power so that we don't have to rely on a court ruling here and there to know if someone like me gets to marry the person they love in the next year.
- [108:22]
A
And the thing is, let's just. I actually want to do some real good news because here's the reality. Look at how we're just. Gay marriage is such or same sex marriage. It's so not a thing anymore. It's not an issue. It's just like having a black president was something that seemed unthinkable until we had one. And I was just like a thing that you don't even think twice about it. Right. Is, I mean, I think it actually is. You know, it feels sometimes like the United States only goes backwards. But if you think about it, when Obama first ran for president, he wasn't for same sex marriage.
- [108:48]
D
Right.
- [108:49]
A
And had to literally like, like out him as really secretly being for it on the backside. In 04, this was the issue that wanted for George W. Bush in multiple states. But now it is not even a second thought. Right. Even conservative people are for most of them are for same sex marriage they don't even think about anymore.
- [109:07]
D
Yeah, I'm so glad you said that. And I, I'm going to tell people how old I am in this moment. So I don't normally do that, but for the sake of telling the story and putting it all in context. You mentioned 2004. I was a sophomore in high school that year. And I remember people, not just in my school, but across my community, debating whether allowing someone like me to marry the person I love would lead to people marrying their dogs and their house plants and thus the demise of society. And I remember what it felt like as a young queer person to have people debating whether or not my love should be as valued as someone else's love. And I watched politicians build their careers on that hate. If you had told me at that time that in 2022, I would be freezing my butt off on the White House lawn watching Joe Biden sign the Respect for Marriage act into law, guaranteeing federal protections for marriages like the one I may have someday, I would have told you it's not possible. But it is possible. And it was made possible because people dared to tell their story. So, you know, even when things are really hard, and they are really hard right now, I do think that the right wing, the opposition, gives us an opportunity to put a human face to the things that they are trying to dehumanize and demoralize in this country. And that gives us an opportunity to tell a different kind of story in this country. So I'm hopeful that this is the little dip and the pendulum, when it swings the next way, goes far beyond what I imagined possible.
- [110:33]
A
Oh, no, it totally. I mean, we were talking about it before you got on. I mean, Gavin Newsom, who. People thought his career was over when he started performing same sex marriage. He was like, I don't care. I'm just gonna do it and give us a love. You're such a good communicator. People need to learn. Democrats, I think, need to learn how to communicate in just plain language about things. They have completely dropped the ball. You know, I've talked about this on trans people. They just don't know what to do. They sort of glitch. They don't know what to say. But, I mean, what Gavin Newsom did was he just said, this isn't a big deal, and I'm just gonna do it. What's your problem? And people finally went, oh, I guess you're right. And you know what? How come it seems so hard for other Democrats to in his career is now flourishing. He could be the next presidential nominee, people. It didn't hurt him at all.
- [111:12]
D
Yeah, I think for me personally, the difference is people who don't want to lose and people who want to win. And when you want to win and you know exactly what you stand for and who you are. You are unafraid to say the hard things in, in plain language. And I think you really saw that play out last week in the election cycle, right? You saw, for instance, Winsome Earl Sears tried to play Donald Trump's they them trans fear mongering campaign in Virginia. She read, she ran over $10 million worth of anti trans ads. Every time somebody said, what about federal workers who've been fired? What about people who can't put food on the table? She said, yeah, but what about a trans person? And she thought that would work. But I think what was so successful about Abigail Spanberger and helped her wipe the floor with Winsome Earl Sears was that she took it head on. And she was unafraid to say, you know what I believe? I believe that nobody, no matter who you are or who you love, should be treated disrespectfully in this country. And I'm going to fight for every single person to have the freedom and equality and dignity and respect that they deserve. That resonates with people. People don't want their neighbors to suffer. People when they, when they can't put food on the table and they're worried they're going to get fired tomorrow. They're not wondering if their neighbor's kid is getting access to hormone therapy or playing at soccer camp next week. They're worried about putting food on the table and they want their neighbors to do well just as they are. And I think when you want to win and you know that that is a solid value in who you are, that you believe in freedom and dignity and respect for all people, it comes across to people. It's easy to communicate.
- [112:45]
A
Indeed. People got a lot more things on their mind than one of the poor little 70,000, you know, trans kids that play sports and probably 50,000 are even good as well. I mean, it's such a small number of people. People have so much bigger fish to fry right now. That's just not going to work when some are Mrs. I am speaking. That was just not it.
- [113:01]
D
And thankfully, more good news is we will never have to hear I am speaking again from her, except in my nightmares.
- [113:09]
A
Brandon, I can't unhear it. I can't unhear it, my friend. Make it go away. Brandon Wolf, thank you very much. Come back anytime, my friend.
- [113:18]
D
Thank you. Appreciate you.
- [113:19]
A
Thank you very much. Well, there it is. The way to win is just to keep it simple, keep it plain and keep it on message and relevant to what people care about right now. People care about eating, paying their bills, being able to afford gas in their car and, and, you know, not losing their job and being summarily fired by Doge. Like, that's actually kind of more important to people right now. But yeah, the Supreme Court actually, for once, was not terrible. We got to give them. We got to give it to them. All right, so our moment of joy. We're going to get to our moment of joy now because we need it and we're going to keep the happy going. One of the funniest comedians in dubiziness, and he is the great Godfrey with his perfection. Spot on imitation of a certain orange personage here.
- [113:59]
G
I'm farther from being racist. Look at my black soldiers, all three of them. Out of the thousands of white soldiers I have, I found three black ones.
- [114:07]
E
Isn't that great?
- [114:08]
G
Three of them. Isn't that beautiful? I mean, I should get like the Jackson 5. I only got three of them. They're great. Look at them. I got a short one. Look at that one. I got a medium. I got a bigger one. They're all, all great. Protecting D.C. we have to protect them. And I guarantee you I'm going to hire more black soldiers very soon. Very soon. You guys are great. Hey, thank you for your service. Okay. Thank you for your service. Thank God. They should be cleaning my floors, but it's okay. Everything is just fine. This is great.
- [114:37]
A
U.
- [114:37]
G
S Army, black soldiers, black ones. I love them so. Well, they look very good. The green looks good on your skin. Isn't that fantastic?
- [114:48]
A
Can you imagine being in Union Station and Godfrey comes up and starts doing his Trump for you? It is. It is the best thing ever. God bless Godfrey. He keeps us laughing all the time. Now, before we, before we go, a quick show announcement. Tomorrow we have a special episode. You know, we do special episodes where we feature our interview. My interview on the Joy Reid show in the basement with CNN anchor Abby Phillip. We talked about her great, excellent new book on Jesse Jackson and the pursuit of black power, which is quite good. And also her sometimes super rowdy show. And we talked about some of the people on that show, you know who I mean. So that is tomorrow night. You can tune in at 6pm Eastern. You can see that episode. So, yes, and people in the, in the chat saying they needed the laugh, they needed the funny. Sometimes we got to bring the funny. Jason, we gotta, we gotta, we gotta give people a little light heartedness. You can't just be negative and downhearted all the time. Up and down, up and down. You gotta break the tension.
- [115:41]
C
With some comments.
- [115:42]
A
You gotta have some comedy, and Godfrey's gonna give it to you. We should let us know in the chat if you'd like us to try to invite Godfrey to come on the show. He would be a fun interview in the basement, right? We love a comedian. We do. We have a lot of other stuff. We have Roy Wood Jr. Coming up. That interview is gonna be dropping soon. That was a lot of fun. It was really great. His book is also really terrific. Lots of people have books out. So we Got Roy Wood Jr. Coming up as well. Lots of good little treats. And what we try to do is we give you the main show, the show in chief. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 6 to 8pm but we also throw in some cool stuff on off days, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, because, you know, we want to give you more. We'd love to give you guys more and make sure that we are filling out your life with great content, both informative content, but also fun content as well. We're going to make you laugh, make you cry, but we're going to try to make sure that you stay informed. If there's anybody that you guys would like to see us interview, especially an interview in the basement, please let us know. Throw it into the comments. We'd love to hear from you guys. We enjoy your comments so much. We do read them and we go back through and we make sure that we're. We're keeping everybody satisfied with the things that you want. We got like, four minutes to go. Jason, any thoughts that you have on. On Chuck Schumer or any of the other things that are happening today? Yeah, like I said earlier, go retire and hang out with your grandkids. Hang out with your grandkids. He does have grandkids. He's from Brooklyn. The one time that I had, like, an off the record with Chuck Schumer, he spent most of the time talking about the fact that we were both from Brooklyn. I'm like, how is this helping me? How does this help me? I don't even understand why we're having this conversation.
- [117:07]
C
He's out of touch.
- [117:07]
D
It's been too long.
- [117:08]
A
He's out of touch. And if you can't bring yourself as the Democratic leader in the United States Senate to endorse the Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York. And by the way, we are looking to interview Zorhan Momdani. If you're out there, if you're a Zorhan Momdani staffer, holler. Because we are trying to get an interview with him. I think that would be a really fun interview as well.
- [117:26]
C
We had him in like, you know.
- [117:28]
A
We had him early on. We had him early on. We were one of the earliest shows. Thank you to the mom Donnie team. He was, we were one of the earliest shows that he came on and we, we did have a quick interview with him. But we want to do a sit down. I want to do an exciting, extensive, extensive sit down.
- [117:39]
C
Somebody has Tiffany D. Cross's name.
- [117:41]
A
We. Oh, trust me. And I can tell you the only reason that we have not yet gotten my dear friend sister, people do think we're related. She, she's my play sister because she is working on a book that I'm, I'm give you guys that little inside tea and I wanted to give her the space to finish that book. That book is going to be fire, let me tell you. I've been letting her, letting her cook and let her do her thing. But as soon as that, as she hits the send and gets that to her publisher. Because what I'll tell you, when you're writing a book, you do not have time to go do TV stuff. She's done some stuff on cnn, but that's like she's traveling back and forth to New York anyway, so that's kind of easy for her to get it out and do that. But I'm telling you to come all the way out here, you know, is, is, is a little bit more of a, of a thing. But as soon as that book is done, trust me, we're going to have Tiffany on and we're going to make sure that we give you guys all the things you want because, you know, we, we're here to serve. We are here to serve. I want to make sure you guys tune in again 6pm tomorrow night, 6pm eastern to watch Abby, Phillip. We will let you know when The Roy Wood Jr. Show is going to run. And I think that's it. If you guys are shopping. Thank you all for everybody who supported the Joy Reads store, which you can find at shop.joyread.com or shop.joy and re.com we have a lot of fun merch in there and please let us know if you're enjoying it. Please post on your social media tag me, Joanne Reid. Tag the show Joy Reid show on Instagram. You can also tag us on Tick Tock. My Tick Tock name is Joy Read Official on there and also Joy Read Official on Facebook. And hello to everybody that's watching on Facebook. I keep forgetting to beat y' all up. Stacey Abrams is another person that people want to see. We will absolutely. We're working on Stacey Abrams as well. And yes, ma'. Am. Who put Michelle Obama in there? Gail. Gail, girlfriend. We are working on that. 100 people talking to Daniel Moody, Danielle Moody. We got a Michael Eric Dyson vote. We've got Keisha Lance Bottoms who's running for governor in Georgia. She's an interesting choice as well. Somebody says Theo Ellison, candidate for San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Oh, that's interesting. All right. We're going to write all these down and we will consider all because we always consider anything that you guys want. Thanks for tuning in to the Joy Reid show. We will see you same bat time, same bat channel right here on Wednesday evening. Don't be late because it's gonna be great. Bye. Bye. Play the music, guys and see you on the next RV show. Bye. Okay.