The Department of War Crimes | The Joy Reid Show Live!

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Joy Reid Show – "The Department of War Crimes"

Date: December 6, 2025
Host: Joy-Ann Reid
Notable Guests: Jason Johnson, Latasha Brown (Black Voters Matter Fund), Judge Glenda Hatchett

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into a week packed with alarming headlines centered on growing abuses of power by federal agencies and the erosion of democratic norms in America. The show addresses:

• The violent actions of ICE, including the pepper-spraying of Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva and issues of impunity.
• New developments in the January 6th pipe bomber case and the right-wing conspiracies that surrounded it.
• Political and economic boycotts in the context of historical and current civil rights movements.
• The mounting war crimes controversy over U.S. strikes on alleged Venezuelan drug boats.
• Legal challenges to the regime’s dubious appointments and prosecutions.
• The looming threat to birthright citizenship and broader civil rights.
• A rousing conversation on activism, resilience, and the necessity of organized resistance.

The tone alternates between urgency, critique, wry humor, and moments of levity.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. ICE Targeting Lawmakers & Citizens

[02:14 – 05:22]

• Joy-Ann and Jason highlight the pepper-spraying of Rep. Adelita Grijalva by ICE agents during a public incident (03:59).
• This is the third case in recent months where elected officials have been physically assaulted by federal agents.
• Parallel is drawn to earlier incidents in Newark and California.
• Reflections on how these actions symbolize escalating lawlessness and intimidation by federal agencies.

Notable Quote:
Jason Johnson: "That is a member of the United States Congress being pepper sprayed by federal agents. This is bizarre." [03:59]

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2. Media and Corporate Power – Netflix Buys Warner Bros.

[05:22 – 08:28]

• Netflix is set to absorb Warner Bros. (excluding CNN), a move reminiscent of historical Hollywood monopolies.
• Joy provides background on past antitrust efforts in Hollywood and the potential chilling effect on dissenting media.

Notable Quote:
Jason Johnson: "Netflix is probably the least bad option for the merger, but this will mean Netflix, which produces content and is also the distributor, would then own a huge content library." [05:57]

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3. January 6th Pipe Bomber Controversy and Right-Wing Conspiracies

[08:28 – 27:29]

• New developments and footage in the long-mysterious 2021 pipe bombing at the DNC and RNC.
• Right-wing commentators (notably Dan Bongino) long claimed it was a "Democrat operative" inside job.
• Bongino is now in the FBI leadership, ironically overseeing the case he framed as a left-wing conspiracy.
• The suspect arrested is Brian Cole Jr.—contrary to conspiracy claims, does not fit the narrative.
• Family and reporting describe Cole as nonpolitical, “borderline autistic,” and not capable of sophisticated plotting.
• Skepticism is expressed about how the case was finally solved and whether the evidence truly adds up. Listeners are encouraged to stay vigilant about manipulation of legal processes for political ends.

Notable Quotes:
Jason Johnson: "He is, and I apologize for using this word, a little slow. This is what sources are telling me." [18:03]
Jason Johnson: "It is a curious case. Very curious." [27:29]

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4. Historical & Present Boycotts: Lessons from the Montgomery Bus Boycott

[32:29 – 45:55]
Guest: Latasha Brown

• Commemoration of the Montgomery Bus Boycott’s 70th anniversary.
• Latasha Brown contextualizes the original action, emphasizing the collective, sustained organizing (mostly by Black women) that led to systemic change.
• Links to present campaigns, including boycotts of brands like Target and Home Depot in protest of backsliding on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and complicity in ICE abuses.
• The immense financial power of Black and minority consumers—and need to direct that power toward supporting their own communities rather than exploitative corporations.

Notable Quotes:
Latasha Brown: "Convenience is the enemy to change." [44:39]
Latasha Brown: "If you get to the point that you don't think your actions work, then you have bought into this lie." [41:58]
Jason Johnson: "It was not a one-woman movement ... it was the women that were organizing." [39:44]

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5. Texas and Civil Rights Rollbacks

[48:41 – 56:10]

• U.S. Supreme Court upholds racially discriminatory Texas voting maps.
• Threat to birthright citizenship is discussed as the Court prepares to hear cases that could let the president strip citizenship at will—a direct assault on the 14th Amendment.

Notable Quotes:
Latasha Brown: "You cannot keep continuing to pull from our intellectual property. You cannot continue to pull from our labor. There has to be consequences." [50:29]
Latasha Brown: "We have to see ourselves as founders of a new nation ... If the Court is captured, we must become founders." [53:33]

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6. War Crimes in the Caribbean: U.S. Strikes on 'Narco-Terrorists'

[57:08 – 79:57]

• Senators are divided on the legality and morality of U.S. military strikes on Venezuelan boats.
• Tom Cotton (R-AR) claims the strikes were righteous; Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) question the Pentagon’s narrative, with Paul labeling it illegal.
• Disquieting pattern: Mass killing of suspected but untried “narco-terrorists” far from U.S. shores, with echoes of past regime-change operations.
• Raises the specter of ‘video game’ rules of engagement and disregard for international or U.S. law.

Notable Quotes:
Rep. Adam Smith: "That's patently ridiculous ... Gosh, Admiral Bradley didn't even pretend that that was the case." [61:32]
Sen. Rand Paul: "I'm very, very concerned about an order that would say, kill them all." [64:36]
Jason Johnson: "They're operating as if you just put a bunch of high school students who never go to class in charge of the government." [76:43]

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7. Legal Panel: DOJ Shenanigans and the Rule of Law

[81:01 – 98:36]
Guest: Judge Glenda Hatchett

• Discussion on serial illegal and politically-motivated prosecutions by improperly appointed U.S. attorneys—including attempts to prosecute NY AG Letitia James and Lamonica McIver.
• The failure of checks and balances; "if there are no checks, then there can be no accountability." [82:19]
• What constitutes a war crime and who is responsible for illegal orders (the President, SECDEF, commanders).
• The chilling possibility that the birthright citizenship case could lead to presidentially-determined citizenship.
• Comparison to historical breakdowns of democracy and civil rights in the U.S.

Notable Quotes:
Judge Hatchett: "Congress really is the only entity that can approve war. To do things unilaterally is problematic." [86:09]
Joy Reid: "If he is then not covered by that [blanket] pardon, then the question is: Why was he the exception?" [94:18]

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8. Broader Legal/Ethical Implications

[95:32 – 105:59]

• The implications for mass ICE detentions, especially as Supreme Court allows detentions based simply on language and appearance—Judge Hatchett expresses deep alarm.
• Post-Roe abortion rollback and the rise of maternal mortality, particularly for Black women.

Judge Hatchett:
"How did we get to a place in this country where you could be detained based on your language and your color?" [96:30]

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9. Final Reflections & Moment of Joy

[107:22 – End]

• Amid the heaviness, the show closes on a humorous note: a viral story about a raccoon breaking into a liquor store, raiding the top shelf, and passing out by the toilet.
• Also features community shout-outs and cocktail tips from Joy and Jason as a lighthearted send-off.

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• ICE Attacks on Lawmakers: 02:14–05:22
• Netflix Buys Warner Bros.: 05:22–08:28
• January 6th Pipe Bomber Segment: 08:28–27:29
• Montgomery Boycott & Boycotts Today: 32:29–45:55
• War Crimes Exposé: 57:08–79:57
• Legal Segment w/ Judge Hatchett: 81:01–105:59
• Moment of Joy (Drunk Raccoon): 107:22–end

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

• On Lawlessness:

  • "That is a member of the United States Congress being pepper sprayed by federal agents. This is bizarre." – Jason Johnson [03:59]

• On Activism:

  • "Convenience is the enemy to change" – Latasha Brown [44:39]
  • "Don't believe the lie" – Latasha Brown [41:58]
  • "Actions work" – Latasha Brown [41:58]

• On War Crimes & Impunity:

  • "I'm very, very concerned about an order that would say, kill them all ... This is a completely made-up and false sense that we're at war." – Sen. Rand Paul [64:36]
  • "They're operating as if you just put a bunch of high school students ... in charge of the government." – Jason Johnson [76:43]

• On Citizenship & Rights:

  • "I said several months ago that historians will look back on this period in history ... and it will start with the Supreme Court's decision about the presidential immunity." – Judge Hatchett [98:36]

• Comic Relief:

  • “He got lit. Being a raccoon is tough. It's tough out here in raccoon world, okay?” – Jason Johnson, on the drunk raccoon [110:00]

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Conclusion

This episode is a powerful and sobering portrait of America at a crossroads—marked equally by government overreach, threats to civil rights, and the enduring power of collective action. The hosts and guests balance investigation, personal insight, and historical perspective, urging listeners not just to observe but to act. Also, sometimes, to pour a strong drink and share a laugh, even in dark times.

"Vote like our lives depend on it. Because clearly they do." – Judge Hatchett [81:39]

Transcript

[Joy Reid]

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[Jason Johnson]

Your list deserves something special. Luckily, Marshall's buyers travel far and wide, hustling for great deals and amazing gifts so you don't have to.

[Joy Reid]

That means your mom gets that cashmere sweater, your best friend that Italian leather.

[Jason Johnson]

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[Joy Reid]

Marshalls, we get the deals.

[Jason Johnson]

You gift the good stuff.

[Joy Reid]

Shop [e-mail] or find a store near you.

[Pete Hegseth]

Okay.

[Jason Johnson]

Unlike regular.

We love that you guys are chatty. Happy Friday. It's a big tgif. It's been a long week, right? It's been a long newsy week. So we appreciate being able to be with you guys. It's always great to see you and thank you all for tuning in and taking some time. You could have been anywhere right now. But you are right here with us and we appreciate it. And we also want to thank everyone who has been very kind to to shop in the store. The Joy Reid shop. You know, we made it simple. The Joy Reach shop. We thank everybody who did that. And just make sure that before you leave here tonight that you hit like subscribe and share. Please don't be a lurker. 70% of people who watch YouTube shows tend to lurk and not subscribe, which is an interesting thing. And also hit that like button. Even if you are enjoying yourself in the chat and you're busy talking to your friends there in the chat and we see a lot of frequent folks, people that we see all the time, people that we're used to. There's Lorena Taylor. Thank you very much. We got Kerosene Cara with a big heart. We appreciate all of that. If you see people that you know in there, including our Super Chatters, Nubian Queen 6391, a big time super chatter. Thank you very much for being here.

[Jason]

That everybody out there knows that you should check your subscriptions because sometimes you think you've already pressed subscribe and you haven't done it yet. So as Joyce would like to announce, please check your subscriptions everybody and if you are not subscribed, come on home.

[Jason Johnson]

It's a great point. Thank you, Jason. Gloria Robinson, 16 with a cute little, she got a little, little, little cartoon me on her thing because she's a super chatter. So thank you all very much. So we appreciate everybody. Let's get to a few headlines right away starting with the breaking news from about an hour ago. Big ups to our producer Nida, who alerted me to this one, that friend of the show, Adelita Grijalva, we just call her Adelita, who waited 50 days to be sworn in as a congresswoman from her beloved state of Arizona, has become the latest lawmaker to be roughed up by ice. She released a video about an hour ago announcing that she had been pepper sprayed in front of a restaurant that she frequents all the time for lunch, where ICE agents had showed up to begin kidnapping people. I'm going to show you guys some video. Jason's going to put up a post. Watch out, Watch out.

[Latasha Brown]

Hey, put it down.

Put it down.

[Pete Hegseth]

Party.

[Jason Johnson]

Get out of the way. You guys need to clear now.

That is a member of the United States Congress being pepper sprayed by federal agents. This is bizarre. We're going to keep an eye on it. We're going to reach out to Grijalva's team to make sure that she's okay. You'll recall that when a similar incident happened In Newark, New Jersey, back in June, Congresswoman Lamonica McIver, who was shoved around by ice while she was trying to protect an elder member of Congress. She was then targeted by Trump's illegally appointed U.S. attorney out of New Jersey, Alina Haba, who's since been ruled unlawfully in her position. And Adelita is at least the third lawmaker to be roughed up by federal agents. You'll recall that California Senator Alex Padilla in California was forcibly removed from a Kristi Noem press conference in July and forced onto the ground and put in handcuffs simply for asking a question. So it does seem that Representative Grahava is okay, such that we've seen there because she did post a subsequent video explaining what happened. But of course, again, we'll stay on top of this and give you guys any updates as they come in. Now, by the way, I will note that Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the house, took about 48 hours to swear in a guy named Matt Van Epps. He's the new Republican congressman from Tennessee after his election in that special election this week, Tuesday, in which he narrowly defeated our friend Afton Ben. So no waiting for him. Just saying he got right in.

I can't wrap my mind around it either. Lorena Taylor. It is very hard to wrap our minds around what this is in America when lawmakers are not even safe from ice. Here's some somewhat lighter news Net Netflix, if you. You guys are Netflix subscribers. They're buying Warner Brothers. They're going to buy the assets of Warner Brothers that are the non CNN assets. So they're going to get the motion picture assets, they're going to get the studio assets. They've agreed to this merger. Now, I don't know if you guys have noticed and been paying attention to the story that.

Skydance has been trying to buy Warner Brothers. And their repeated attempts to purchase Warner Brothers prompted Warner Brothers to go ahead and start accepting offers. They got an offer from Comcast, they got an offer from Netflix. They clearly don't want to be bought by Skydance because they've been pretty clear about not wanting Skydance to buy them. It appears they've now accepted an offer from Netflix which would, it's interesting because if you go back and look at the history of Hollywood, one of the reasons these big studios were broken up was that at the time they were a whole monopoly. So, you know, if Marilyn Monroe signed to Warner Brothers, she not only worked for Warner Brothers and made pictures for them as these called movies, they made pictures for them. Warner Brothers actually then distributed and they owned the movie theaters. They owned everything. They owned the, the distribution, the production, the distribution and the production. That was the thing that was supposedly broken up, that we didn't want that kind of monopoly. Well, we're back to that. You know, Netflix is probably the least bad option for the merger. But this will mean Netflix, which produces content and is also the distributor, would then own a huge content library that they could then distribute to themselves. There were a lot of worries that they would no longer put Warner Brothers films, you know, like Batman and everything else that they've got in theaters. They would only put them on Netflix. But they have vowed that they will continue to release films in movie theaters. Now this isn't a done deal because of course the Ellison who are the Skydance people are already whining about this and threatening to go to dad, they're going to go to Diaper Daddy Trump to see if they can still do the purchase that nobody wants. Nobody wants Skydance. I mean, and if they were to buy it and also acquire the CNN assets, which are going to be split off into a separate company, I, I, the nightmare is Skydance buying CNN and having seen CBS and CNN and putting Barry Weiss in charge of all of them, and then nobody could criticize Israel. It would be like an Israel criticism free world, at least on a big chunk of tv. But anyway, that's that story. But definitely the weirdest story today is the apparent identity of the man who left a pipe bomb that outside the Democratic National Committee and The Republican National Committee headquarters back on January 5, 2021. I want to play you guys just the start. Not the whole like 12 minutes, but just the start of the FBI. January 5, 2021, between 7:30 and 8:30pm when they were.

Getting up the case. Here it is. You can, you can turn it up. On January 5, 2021, between 7:30 and 8:30pm an unidentified individual placed pipe bombs near the offices of the Democratic National Committee and the Republican national committee in Washington, D.C. the FBI and our partners are renewing our call for tips from the public to help us identify the suspect. A reward of up to $500,000 is available for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the individual responsible for this attempted attack. If you have any information, please call the FBI at 1-800- call FBI. You can also submit tips online at tips.FBI.gov the FBI's estimate is the suspect's height is approximately 5 foot 7 inches tall. The suspect wore a face mask, a gray hooded sweatshirt and black gloves. They used a backpack to transport each of the devices. They were wearing distinctive Nike Air Max Speed turf shoes, which are black and gray with the yellow Nike logo. Fewer than 25,000 of these shoes were sold between August 2018 and January 2021. The first time the suspect is seen is at approximately 7:34pm at the intersection of First street and North Carolina Avenue Southeast. The person walks southwest on North Carolina Avenue, turns north on New Jersey Avenue.

West on D Street.

And then south on South Capitol Street.

This footage of the suspect on South Capitol street shows the person setting down their backpack, which is believed to contain one of the bombs at this time Now, a lot of people in the chat saying they never saw the video. Neither did I. There are literally only three videos like that on the FBI's YouTube page. You know the FBI has a YouTube page now. Two of those videos are dated in January pre the inauguration, like January 5th to the the 10th, something like that. Which is weird, right? Because that video you'd think would have been everywhere. And one of the videos that I found on there when I went and found that video on their YouTube channel for the FBI was that there was one video that said there's new video, that there's new footage. And I've never really seen this footage anywhere. We used to ask when I was at Miz now, why haven't there been press conferences about this pipe bomber? Why is this case just sort of vanished and disappeared from the consciousness of the world, right? Because it's been an obsession among Right wing podcast world, for them, it's been an obsession, but in the mainstream media, it's a case. Chris Hayes would talk about it a lot, I would ask about it, but it really just wasn't talked about. But in right wing podcast world, it was an obsession. Including Dan Bongino. Dan Bongino, who's currently the Deputy Director of the FBI, but back when he was a podcaster, right before he was tasked with basically solving all of maga's conspiracy theories, he was making content like this.

[Pete Hegseth]

You were a sixth bomber case where a pipe bomb was planted at the DNC where Kamala Harris was on January 6th and nobody in the media wants to talk about it. I told you, when Donald Trump won, did I not go back and find the videos yourself? That there are going to be people in the FBI who are trying to protect their jobs and they're going to start releasing information now about the bomber, which was an inside job. No question in my mind. It was clearly some Democrat operative trying to stop Republicans from questioning the January 6, 2020 election. I told you insiders were going to start releasing information because they wanted to cozy up to the Trump team and they were going to say, it's new video. How is it new video?

Then you guys know when January 6, 2020 happened?

Not a trick question.

These guys are confused. I'll give you a hint. It was on January 6, 2020.

But that's, that's, that's, that's, that's. But years have gone by said it's January 6th, now 2025. I mean, that was four years ago. So how is this headline ACCURATE? ABC News FBI releases new video information in the hunt for January 6th pipe bomber. How is it new video? How is it new video?

[Jason Johnson]

That was in January of 2025. That's when that other piece of video came out. Right? This is before Dan Bongino was named Deputy FBI Director. He was actually named Deputy FBI Director in February. And again, his job was to, like, solve all of maga's conspiracy theories. Jason, can you put up a two again? Because I just want to put up his picture one more time. January 5th. I'm sorry. A two, a two. Oh, no, we don't have to. Oh, right, we don't have a two. Do we have a still? No, you don't. Okay, never mind, never mind, never mind. There it is.

They're like, that's the guy, right? That's supposedly him now when he was named Deputy FBI director on February 24th. Dan Bongino, we're gonna play a four real quick. He got right to his work.

[Pete Hegseth]

Here it is meeting, my first meeting I swore in, and I kid you not, probably 15 minutes later and the people who are in the meeting know, I said when I get in there I want a full brief on this pipe bomber case on day one. And I looked at the case agent after getting a full brief on what they'd done and they had done some, a pretty extensive amount of work. They had chased down I think thousands of leads, 6,000 plus interviews had been conducted, hundreds of tips and it still was relatively stale, the case. And I grabbed the case agent on the, on the way out and I said, you're going to get me this guy. You're going to track this guy down and you're going to find him. You're going to get me this guy. I want him. And that started what's been almost a nine month operation right now to make sure that we could get full accountability and transparency to the American public and find this guy. And today, today we did.

[Jason Johnson]

Okay, so Bongino is a podcaster who's obsessed with two things, the Epstein files and this bomber. And he's saying when he was a podcaster that he sure the bomber is a Democrat operative, it's some sort of Democrat who's trying to undermine the Stop the Steal moment, the Stop the Steal movement by placing these bombs at the DNC and the rnc. But he's quite, this person is a Democrat operative. As he says, it's Democratic, but you know what I'm saying. And it wasn't just him. I want you now to listen to Trump's D.C. u.S. Attorney Ed Martin move.

[Pete Hegseth]

Fast enough for me too. Like I, I, I wanted things to move faster, right? We open an investigation, it seems to take forever. You know, one of the investigations we've reopened and put energy into is the pipe bomber. You know, pipe bomber. It's insane. It's insane that in the greatest country in the world we have two pipe bombs at our two largest political parties. We don't know who it is. It's, it's, it's insane. And I will say Bongino and I have hyper put focus and resources on this and they got a bunch going on now.

[Jason Johnson]

I don't disagree with him on that, honestly. Ed Martin is a looney Tune in a lot of ways. He's threatened he's going to deport many Hassan, he said a lot of crazy things. But that he's actually right about because I've agreed with him on that, that it is wild to me that the FBI figured out who the 9 11.

You know, hijackers were within, like weeks. It was. It wasn't long before they had all their names, photos, their history.

Correct. They managed to get them all. But here in this case, five years later, it's like the case went dead and no one cared about it. Till all of a sudden, after the election, you suddenly see new video that emerges, right. Five years later. And then nine months later, now they're saying that they got the person, and here he is. This is who they're saying it is. And when we saw. I think when everyone saw this total, people went, wait a minute, wait a minute. This is the suspect, a black guy. This guy. I'm sorry. When I first saw it, I went, what?

I said, yeah, right. At first when I thought, I'm telling you, I was like, you got to be kidding me. Now, here's what we know about, about this young man. His name is Brian Cole Jr. He's 30 years old, and he worked for the family bail bonds company and sometimes drove doordash. But I can tell you just from doing some reporting before we got on air for some sources close to the situation.

And this has also been told to the New York Post, some other people have reported it, but I can also do my. Have tell you I've done my own reporting on this, that he allegedly works in a clerical capacity for his family's bail bonds company. And this bail bonds company deals almost exclusively with cases regarding immigration. And he does like data input for them. And according to sources close to the situation, he is allegedly.

I'm trying to think of the right word for it, sort of borderline autistic. He has been described by people close to the situation as naive, as gentle as. As somebody who is, and I apologize for using this word, a little slow. This is what sources are telling me.

And that the family is not political. They are a bail bonds company. They are a company that deals with law enforcement, specifically immigration. Right. That's literally kind of ironic, right?

So I've been going through. The government has released its criminal complaint. Here it is. I've been going through claims to have tracked him down through cell phone records and also through the very distinctive sneakers they're saying that the suspect had on.

The New York Post reports that he lives in a single family house with his mother and other family members, in addition to working in that office in Northern Virginia. The complaint alleges that authorities pieced together forensic evidence in the case, including, as I said, cell phone records allegedly putting this Young man in the area of the attack and material purchases similar to materials used in the pipe bombs, which they describe very specifically and in detail in this indictment. And a license plate reader on his car.

A lot of it is very odd. This is somebody who the family describes as not political, has not talking about politics as not being political, and also just not really being as a sort of computer nerd. Think kind of like a version of like what Elon Musk is, like just sort of a disconnect, you know, but not on ketamine. You know, sort of a computer nerd who's just very much a loner, who just works in the family business, sticks to himself, walks his dog, and is in no way violent and not political.

I have heard from other sources that the father might be.

More Trump aligned or pro Trump. But I want you guys to listen to what Cash Patel said, which I found remarkable during his press conference about the. The arrest.

Thank you, General.

When you attack American citizens, when you attack our institutions of legislation, when you attack our nation's capital, you attack the very being of our way of life. And this FBI and this Department of Justice stand here to tell you that we will always refute it and combat it. We will provide the safest country the nation has ever seen under President Trump's leadership here. And that's what we did here today with great resolve.

When you attack the country, you attack our very existence. Excuse me, House way. Ashkay, what are you talking about? Because last time I checked, y' all thought that these people who we're going to show you right now were patriots.

Yeah. Multiple capital injuries. Multiple capital injuries.

Has said those people are patriots. So now you're saying.

The guy that you're alleging planted two unexploded pipe bombs attacked the very heart of our democracy. But those people were patriots. Trump pardoned all the people that you just saw in that frame that were actually arrested for actual violence, including some sex offenders. So I'm trying to figure out how MAGA is gonna deal with the disconnect and the cognitive dissonance and the new information that CNN has discovered about this suspect.

Here's a nine.

Oh.

Oh. Accused D.C. pipe bomber told the FBI he believed the 2020 election was stolen.

Oh, what a. What a. What a complex web we've woven.

To review.

Dan Bongino, as a podcaster, vowed, said that there was a cover up in. That there was a cover up in this pipe bomb case because there was a Democrat operative who really did it, and it was an inside job to try to stop Trump and try to stop his rightful attempts to overturn the election. And that there was a Democrat operative. That's what they said. Then he gets in and gets named Deputy Director of the FBI, supposedly because he and Cash, who was also a podcaster obsessed with the same things, were going to uncover all the conspiracies that MAGA people believe. They believe that there was a conspiracy surrounding the Epstein files that they were going to uncover that they believed that there was a Democratic conspiracy to suppress the identity of the pipe bomber, and that they were going to uncover the Democrat who was responsible for leaving those devices, which could have killed a lot of people had they exploded. But it turns out the man that they're now saying did it.

Allegedly did it, not because he was a Democratic operative, but because he, like all the rioters and insurrectionists, thought the election was stolen.

Inconvenient for the Right, inconvenient for Cash Patel, very inconvenient for Dan Bongino and company, because that's what they bought. But also not just inconvenient and odd. The whole thing is weird because, again, they're describing in this indictment a very sophisticated plot.

Involving manufacturing these pipe bombs, procuring an entire long list of components used to create these pipe bombs. And then if you watch the entire FBI video circumnavigating the district to place these pipe bombs in these very specific locations, the DNC and the RNC doing this entire sophisticated plot. When the family says that this young man is anything but sophisticated, what did he buy these things with?

I'm just saying that the sources all around this, all around it, those who have spoken with the New York Post as they spoke with a family member. I'm doing my own reporting, speaking to people close to this case. No one that anyone has spoken with has said anything other than that this young man is borderline autistic and is not a sophisticated player and is not a political person.

Yet this is an allegation of a pretty sophisticated plot. Now, I'm not saying that this is not. It's not possible that this person put together this plot. I'm not saying it isn't possible. I'm just saying it's odd. And it's worth doing more questioning because everyone involved, everyone involved is suspect, very suspect. Does anybody else see it as suspect? Jason, do you? Do you. Does this make sense to you?

[Jason]

I don't know. Nine months to somehow figure it out. We didn't see his face. We don't see his mask. I mean, what do they use to Identify him. People saying that, you know, I don't know. They got to give us more information. I'm not buying it.

[Jason Johnson]

It's very difficult. So this. So one of the things that I would love to ask and some of the questions I'd love to, you know, I'm going to ask it, and I'd love other journalists to ask it is, you know, did this person. These were supposedly. These were supposedly products to create this pipe bomb that were procured from various Home Depots in Northern Virginia on or about the following dates. October 22, 2019, and March 10, June 20, July 8, and November 16, 2020. That's five years ago. Are you telling me the FBI in five years never tracked down those purchases? They had the actual pipe bombs. They were unexploded. These components have existed and have been in the hands of the FBI for five years.

[Jason]

I'm not buying that.

[Jason Johnson]

Why did no one go through and do this kind of tracking years ago? Why did it take five years?

[Jason]

Because Biden's administration, as they're going to say, was sleeping on the job.

[Jason Johnson]

Maybe they were, because I also question them. I don't have a great deal of faith in the previous, and I damn.

[Jason]

Sure don't believe the Trump administration in nine months found this out. This is another distraction. I personally think it's enough distraction from Epstein.

[Jason Johnson]

It's really curious to me that they. And as people are pointing out, that means he was 25 years old at the time.

But it seems to me that this wouldn't have been a very difficult case to solve. So I don't understand why it took five years to come to these conclusions. What I'm reading here is a pretty sophisticated plot, but also components that were all findable. This was found because of very specific sneakers that they said only about 22,000 pairs were sold in that year. So you can sort of cross tab who purchased those sneakers, and then cross tab that they seem to have a credit card that they can track to the purchases. It is. It's just. That's all I'm saying. I'm going to. We're going to stay on this. And it is a. It is a curious case. Very curious. I'll read just the end of this indictment. The FBI has analyzed Kohl's purchase history associated with the accounts between January 2018 and January 2021, Cole made a total of five purchases within Washington, D.C. on or about then. They give the dates. Approximately three weeks before the pipe bombs were placed. On or about December 14, 2020, Cole made a purchase at a restaurant located near 1st and D Street Southeast. The restaurant is located across the street from the entrance to Ramsey Court.

I don't know.

It says he has a car, a Nissan Sentra. It's just very interesting. I'm just going to leave it at that. Let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. The Joy Reacho is brought to you by the Freedom from Religion Foundation. Now just listen. If there is one thing that this year has made abundantly clear, it's that we are literally in a battle for the soul of this country and our democracy. And as we approach Bill of Rights Day, which is on December 15, I just want you to think about something. What is the very first right that's listed, the one that kicks off the entire Bill of Rights? It would be the right to freedom from government imposed religion. But right now, Christian nationalism is making a serious power play, a play for control of the country. They're making this play in the courts and our classrooms and yes, in our capital. It's trying to drag us backwards, rewrite the Constitution and silence voices of reason. That is why I am proud to tell you about the Freedom from Religion Foundation. An organization that's been fortifying the wall between church and State since 1978, since the Disco era. They will defend your right in the courtroom, on Capitol Hill and in communities across the country, especially for those who are non religious free thinkers or just who are people of faith but want to keep our faith out of the out of our politics. And right now, between now and December 9th, which is literally the six month birthday of this show, the Freedom from Religion foundation is offering 20% off secular merch. Yes, you can wear your values and raise your voice. And a bold offer two new memberships for the price of one. Become a member and give the gift of membership to a fellow free thinker. It is the perfect way to bring someone you love into the fight for freedom. These are not holiday stocking stuffers. These are tools for resistance. So if you want to get involved, visit FFRF US/shop or just text my name. Joy to 511-511- buy our show's birthday December 9th. So claim the offer. Join the movement. Just text JOY to 511-511 or go to FFRF US slash shop or text JOY to 511511. Super simple. Because protecting the Constitution is not seasonal. It is essential message and data rates may apply. All right, I want you guys to check out this video from the Union of Southern Service Workers.

[Latasha Brown]

Southern Labor History December 5th. We remember the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The story of Rosa Parks is familiar to many. She refused to give up her seat on a racially segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. But Ms. Park's actions and arrest were just the beginning. In the days following Ms. Park's arrest, the Montgomery Bus Boycott kicked off in full force. Of the city's 50,000 black residents, around 30 to 40,000 participated in this collective action. For the following 382 days, activists, workers and community members formed the Montgomery improvement association, or MIA, to organize alternative transportation for Montgomery's Black community. The MIA organized a detailed carpool system that had 40 pickup locations across Montgomery where people could access free rides instead of using the racially segregated public bus systems. But police repression allied with white terrorism attempted to break the MIA's boycott. The city even attempted to use an outdated law banning boycotts, sending 89 people to jail. Rising tensions nationwide and the outcome of Browder versus Gale, a Supreme Court case finding that Alabama segregation laws were illegal, eventually brought the boycott to an end one year later. We often love to remember heroes like Rosa Parks, but it takes more than one person to make change. Change comes from sustained and organized movements that stick together and exercise collective power. And we still have that power to win the changes necessary in our communities, workplaces and beyond.

[Jason Johnson]

It is indeed the 70th anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, what I would argue is the most successful boycott in history other than the international boycott against apartheid South Africa. It was a boycott that literally shut down the bus system in Montgomery, Alabama to the point where the Alabama government threatened lawsuits because they literally were being shut down financially and economically. It was an incredible boycott that actually taught us something about the use of power. And I think, I think it is a lesson that can be reapplied to today. And joining me now to talk about our present day boycott movements is our friend Latasha Brown of Black Voters Matter Fund. Thank you for being. I just always am getting Latasha to come back and hang out with me. I just. We don't live in a city so I'm like, you know what, I'm just gonna put her on TV every week.

[Latasha Brown]

That's cause we have fun and I like it better on the Joy Reese show.

[Jason Johnson]

Thank you. We don't need Ms. Now. Let Ms.

Let them do them talk about this anniversary, what it means and what can we take from it, from what they, what, what the, the activists did in, in Montgomery, you know, in.

[Latasha Brown]

The Montgomery Bus boycott. A couple of things. One, I don't know if people understand, you know, when they were well, let me say with the we ain't buying it campaign, people were asking us, why are you only doing five days? That you're only doing five days? So shouldn't that. That's not enough time. Well, let me tell people how what the Montgomery Bus boycott actually was only supposed to be one day, right? It was only a one day. And if you know the history and you read the history, it wasn't to ask for the desegregation of buses. That's not what happened. Y' all really what they were asking for. They were asking for black people to be treated with dignity and respect. They'd gotten tired. And then what had happened to Ms. Parks that they, Mrs. Parks, they, they felt like that was around attack on you, on. On her humanity, right at the end of that, she was disrespected and disregarded. And so part of what happened is that this one day that was. Quite frankly, there's some other facts that people may or may not know. We see the men as the face of the movement, but it was the women, y'.

[Jason Johnson]

All.

[Latasha Brown]

It was the women that were organizing. The women had started organizing. They had been organizing for over 10 months, not necessarily for this action, but they had been organizing, organizing community. They went over to Alabama State University, ran the flyers off one of those old school mimeograph machines, right? And then went and passed them out. It was the women who were organizing. One, it was a one day action. Two, it was young folk who may or may not have done that work, people who may or may not have done that work before. And then it was a community coming together. I'm saying that because I want us to understand. What have we learned in 70 years, Joy? You know, part of what we have learned in, I think in the 70 years is that collective actions work. We've got to stop saying, oh, boycotts don't work. They will work if people participate in them. Target has had a hit that for all intents and purposes of what have been said, this boycott that has been led since the beginning of this year has driven the prices down for Target, where they've had to replace their CEO, where he went to the board, but they'd replace their CEO. Their stock value has gone down. Now they're coming out with some kind of gimmick, saying that they're going to spend, I think. Was it a billion dollars, Joy? A billion dollars to remodel the face of. To remodel the stores so that the stores are look better. In addition to that, they had this. The first hundred people that were going to be in line on Black Friday, right? I don't want to, I don't even want to say I told you so. I only want to wish bad for nobody. But if y' all went in line and stood in line after you knew your community was standing and support, you deserve them Uno cards.

[Jason Johnson]

I mean, for Jason, just put a B4 review if you would please. Because, yeah, Target has become desperate. This is, you know, Target just unleashed its most desperate plan yet to win back boycotting customer. Like they're doing anything and everything to try to get people back. And I think that is actually one of the lessons of Montgomery, right, Is that in the end the bus companies wanted the black people back.

[Latasha Brown]

At the end, the bus companies wanted the black people back. But they also did. And I think that this is important to even see with Target. Target has done everything to do except get right with the very people who are boycotting. Right? There's a list of demands. It's not like that they don't know what is needed. There's a list of demands that if they actually followed that and all of those things are, it's not like they're unreasonable. Just like in the Montgomery bus boycott. To say that just treat us with dignity and respect, that wasn't unreasonable. But what happened because people participated, they were able to have more power, build more power and then really what wound up happening, it led to the desegregation of not only that bus, but desegregation around the country. And that's because people started and they built onto this movement. A one day movement turned into 381 days. And so I'm saying that, that if we, if these are folks who needed to go to work, they use those buses to get to work, to get their, get to their families. They needed this transportation. But a couple of other things happened in this bus workout too that the cat. What folks don't talk about are the black cab drivers. The black cab drivers, like you know, they were saying today at the church, you know, black folks were Uber before there was an Uber.

[Jason Johnson]

Right.

[Latasha Brown]

That we actually had created and took an opportunity, right, to really be able to support each other and build the infrastructure to support each other so that we wouldn't have to participate. So it's the same thing right now when we're talking about the Target boycott. It's not just about and say Target. Target is not the only one. But Target has to be an example. At the end of the day, you cannot exploit and extract. Exploit. Black folks say that you are oh, yeah, we are down. We're diverse. I don't know if you remember, Joy. They're putting up all the little T shirts and they had the little posters and. Oh, they were down with diversity. No, you weren't. You use that as a market employee because had it been a principal, you would have stood on that. So part of what has happened just in this time, we've seen their stocks go down, they've had to change leadership. They're doing everything they can to keep from doing the right thing. And what we have to do is make an example of that company. So we sent a message throughout. Black folks have 1.7. Some say is 1.9, but I'm gonna get the conservative number. $1.7 trillion in consumer spending. I'm not even talking about the other. I'm just saying the consumer spending. We have $1.7 trillion. That's a lot of power. Why are you not leveraging that power to put pressure and make these companies be accountable to not just only our communities, but the very same commitment that they claim that they supported in the first place.

[Jason Johnson]

Absolutely. And just to go back just for one moment, because, you know, just even throw a B2 and B3. So, you know, people all talk about Rosa Parks. That is the famous picture of her being fingerprinted. But, you know, I think you made an excellent point that it is. It was not a one woman movement. And even before she refused to get up, which I will note.

Emmett Till's assassination is what inspired her to, you know, she was an activist. She wasn't just like a random lady who didn't want to get up. She was already a trained civil rights activist in the naacp, but she was thinking about Emmett Till when she, when she stood. But there was also Claudette Colvin, who does not get a lot of credit, but who was a darker complexion. She, I believe, had been pregnant. And so they, the men in the movement didn't see her as the perfect.

She wasn't the perfect victim. So they decided against using her as the case they would take to court. They chose Rosa Parks instead.

[Latasha Brown]

And you know, the irony around that is, and I knew.

Ms. Colvins, her sister was like a mentor of mine with 21st century youth leadership movement. And so part of what I think is important, though, I think there's a lesson in that as well, that mighty rivers are filled drop by drop. There has to be a start. The truth of the matter is what Claudette Colvin did, right, laid the foundation and put seeds in the ground. So when that Mrs. Parks came along and the community was more organized and they could act and they respond to it, that it build upon each other. Sometimes it is these small acts of defiance, right, that actually will plant seeds in the ground. So a lot of times when we're looking at movements, we're looking for this big bang. That's not how movements happen, y'.

[Jason Johnson]

All.

[Latasha Brown]

Even in Selma, in the, in the civil rights movement, the Voting Rights act didn't pass till in the 60s. But if you know the story about Amelia Boynton, she was organizing in 1954 for a decade before that. So I'm saying that because I want people to really understand that when we are collectively doing work, just like we did with the campaign, where we ain't buying it, that part of it, laying those seeds, it works. Don't believe the lie. Listen, I ain't buying these numbers they talking about. It is no way. I ain't buying these numbers. Y' all know they lying. At the end of the day, what they've said, this is what we know for sure. What we know for sure is foot traffic was down tremendously. What we know for sure is on Black Friday that they've lost $500 million. That ain't no small pocket change. And that was just as one of the mass boy blackout says, and I love this phrase. This was just a warning shot, y'.

[Jason Johnson]

All.

[Latasha Brown]

This wasn't even with everybody on board to really, really. But we did touch 40 million engaged. We had 40 million engagements all across the media, all across everywhere. There were 1600 stories, including thanking you, sister Joy. You were one of the first to actually lift up this campaign. And so that we could get the word out, people were doing actions all over the nation. They were up on overpasses, they were in front of stores. My point is actions work don't ever make. When you get to the point that you don't think that your actions work, then you have bought into this lie that in somehow what you do doesn't matter if it didn't matter, right. Why is there such this effort to actually paint a different story? These people are liars. They mad. This is our money. You got absolute power of choice is with your money. So we're saying hold your money and redirect your money. What we. One of the good things that came out of campaign I do want to lift up is that part of the campaign was really about how do we redirect our resources to blacks and small owned, small local businesses, minority owned and women owned businesses. So one business I just Want to do a shout out? I think you gave them a shout out to the little blue cart, little blue car on Black Friday. But that weekend had a 400 increase, y', all, in online sales. That's significant for a small organization. When you look at, I know that you highlighted Blackjoy and he actually said that he had a 25 increase in downloads. There are other businesses I can go in. This is a moment for us to be far more disciplined with our resources. We've got to stop supporting these platforms, these media platforms that they're allowing people to lie and send us and feed us information that is not only hurtful and harmful, but to make us feel powerless. We've got to support platforms like yours. Joy, I am telling you, I like people need to. You ain't asking. I'm asking. People need to be supporting this show. Sign up and spend money. Support this show. Your money, where you invest your money. Right. Really sends a message not only to those folks, but to you that that is how institutions were built. Black institutions were built because black folks invested in those institutions. And somehow now we got more money, more resources, more education, more time. We're investing less in black institutions. And so I am hoping that this is a wake up call that this 70th anniversary, that we understand that convenience is the enemy to change. Part of what the folks did in the Montgomery bus boycott is that I'm quite sure it was way more convenient to jump on a bus than it was miles of work. Right?

[Jason Johnson]

Right.

[Latasha Brown]

But our folks literally made that sacrifice because what they wanted is systemic structural change. And so we've got to move beyond this idea of getting what is convenient and ordering online or with companies that we know have not stood with us or have backed away from dei. Because I hope anybody got an ATT.

[Jason Johnson]

Decided they are dropping dei.

[Latasha Brown]

Everyone listen, let's give them a big old Christmas gift. Counsel them today. Their Christmas gift is you need to cancel them today. So in the spirit of that boycott, if those folks could walk seven miles, right, you just cancel. And it's not like you don't have options. You got all kind of options. Now, some of them ain't as good. May not about the same devil, but you know, at the end of the day, I think it's important for us to send messages. If you come to our community, they're going to be consequences and they're going to be economic and financial consequences. And beyond that, how do we direct our resources to small black owned, women owned, minority businesses? For this Christmas season, I'm hoping that People at least. I'm calling it the 5050 pledge that you at least commit to spend 50%. I'm not even asking you all your money. Right. But 50% of your spending that you spend with local black owned and women owned businesses.

[Jason Johnson]

Yeah. Amen. And minority owned in general because I mean a Home Depot is catching hell right now as well because folks targeted them because they have become the hotspot for ICE and they are now desperate. They have. This is the largest boycott action and our friend Nalini Stamp was a big part of that that they've ever seen. And Home Depot has felt very destabilized and they're really not sure what to do about it because these arrests, these ICE arrests are so egregious, it's almost like hard to imagine that it's happening in America. Jason, if you could play B6 please, just so we could see one of the latest ones.

You know when I see that.

Is if you ever wonder what slave catchers looked like in action. That's what it looked like.

[Latasha Brown]

That's what it was. That's what. And they're doing the same thing. And if we don't think that once that becomes normalized, they won't come for you or your children or your family members, you are sadly mistaken. There's nothing that's gonna say that woman actually was a US citizen and she actually looks white. Right. They came up to her and asked her for her ID and she didn't have that. Her id. And that's how they treated her, indiscriminately. They treated her that way. So you think.

And so. So what we got to do is we've got to send a message. We ain't buying it. And I don't mean just about consumer stuff. We're not. All that is inhumane what is happening right now. And as our response, we're going to just continue to operate like it's not.

[Jason Johnson]

Like it's okay, like it's normal as. No. I would love for there to be a small. Let's. Let's bring back mom and pop hardware store. Remember back in the day, used to go in like the little. Look, there was a great little hardware store in Brooklyn that shut down because of companies like Home Depot that drove them out of business because they have scale. Let's start to patronize these little small local. There's got to be little hardware stores. You can go. You don't have to go in Home Depot. You can get plants, Christmas stuff somewhere else, please. Y' all don't shop in there if they're allowing that. And that didn't even happen at Home Depot. But until they change their behavior, this.

[Joy Reid]

Is going to continue.

[Jason Johnson]

It's repulsive. I want to also ask you, while I have you here, I'm going to take full advantage of your presence. The Supreme Court has now upheld those egregious, racist Texas maps. You are in the business. Black Voters Matter is in the business of getting folks to vote and empowering people in terms of elections. What would you advise people in Texas because they've specifically targeted black representation, cut it in half with these new maps and they've also targeted Latino representation. But really it's mainly an anti black move.

[Latasha Brown]

Right. We're going to have to strategize on ways. There needs to be a mass meeting in Texas every day. And there are have some phenomenal leaders. When I think of Sister Jasmine Crockett, when I think of Reverend Freddie Haynes, like y' all got some kick behind folks that in that you've got to organize your power in such a way that we've got to resist this. We cannot accept that Abbott has to go the Senate seat that's coming up next year. There has to be consequences. So one of the things that has to happen, I think there are a couple of things. One, we've got to really make sure that we're continuing and there are, there are groups that are continuing to fight on the ground and organize on the ground. We've got to be ungovernable. Right. Two, we've got to make sure that the next elections, that there are consequences in every single election, that we send a message loud and clear. So next year in all the elections. And what's interesting is in Texas, when you look under the age of 18, the state of Texas is actually majority of black and brown children like young people. That's part of why you're seeing this power grab because they know that they can't hold onto that. The second thing though, there are businesses that are located in the. That's where the economic part comes. Businesses that are located and based in Texas, they gotta feel it too. Sometimes folks don't understand any kind of talk but green. They don't understand anything about anything about justice. But you start messing with their money, they pay attention differently. We've got to actually go nuclear on, on politically, economically, culturally. I'm, I'm hoping that those athletes in Texas, since it's a big athlete state, why y' all playing with white schools and these that are supported by boosters that are doing this egregious thing and supporting against your disenfranchisement. Take walk off some of those bas, those basketball and football fields, go play for HBCU and see how much it changes. We've got to actually do something very different. We can't continue and act like it is okay while our power is being taken from us. You cannot keep continuing to pull from our intellectual property. You cannot continue to pull from our labor. There has to be consequences. And I'm a part of groups that are really organizing right now. You ain't seen. This is not the last word. This is not a final, final word. We've got to. If you are not a member of an organization, please join the organization. When I think about the Texas Organizing Project, when I think of some of the groups that are in Texas, they are fighting. Aclu, they are fighting. We have to fund and support. There's something that you can do because this fight isn't just about Texas, it's about you as well. We have got to support the fight that's happening in Texas because what we're going to is we want to see that same kind of piece manufacture itself and try to replicate all across this nation.

[Jason Johnson]

Yeah. And by the way, shouts out to Representative Al Green. That is one of the seats that they're targeting.

[Latasha Brown]

Yes.

[Jason Johnson]

Representative Al Green shouts out to our friend Yolanda Jones, who let us know what was happening in advance and warned us about it. And the worst case scenario that she warned us about has actually happened. All right, last question to you, my friend. This birthright citizenship case that's about to go before the Supreme Court, you know, there's been a lot of people who I tend to catastrophize, I think the worst so that I can be pleasantly surprised. So I just assume that they're going to accept Donald Trump's case against birthright citizenship. I'm very pessimistic about it. I don't trust the right wing majority on the court. Are you as pessimistic as I am? And if in fact they rule that essentially the President of the United States can determine whether you're a citizen, because again, birthright citizenship was about enslaved people. It was about saying that enslaved people, formerly enslaved people, are now citizens. If they overturn that, what does that mean?

[Latasha Brown]

You know, a couple of things. It's interesting because I wonder what it, what does that mean for his wife? But that's a whole other story.

[Jason Johnson]

Well, you know, she has a genius visa. Don't you know she has a genius visa?

[Latasha Brown]

That's right.

[Jason Johnson]

Yeah.

[Latasha Brown]

I think that at some point we are seeing the Supreme Court. You cannot continue to see institutions as legitimate. That legitimate try to delegitimize your humanity and your rights. If the Supreme Court, and I'm like you, I don't think that is about being pessimistic. I think it's about being realistic around what we're seeing. We are seeing the court has been captured and corrupted. It has literally found itself shifting to the right. You know, I know Eli talks about this all the time, that on some level, as we're going to have to regardless of the outcome or we've got to have court reform and we're going to have to really think differently around the Supreme Court. It is going to have to be expanded. We're not going to be able to continue under this guys when it's being captured and corrupted by this president. And so we've got to see it also as an extension of that. One of the things that I say, instead of us continuing just to see ourselves as citizens, we're going to have to start seeing ourselves as founders of a new nation. Like what do founders think about, like when the founders, when they give the story, the nice little story about the founders of this nation, it was precisely from these same set of circumstances. Right. So if that is the case, then how are we seeing ourselves as founders? What systems do we want to see people have power. It's just a matter of us organizing ourselves. And we're going to have to organize ourselves multi generational, multiracially. But at the end of the day, these institutions, we are seeing how they're capitulating the Trump. So I am would not be surprised at all. But we're going to have to do something. I saw one of your reviewers say, like we're going to have to do extreme measures. Like we're going to have to do a general strike. We're going to have to really move our money. We're going to have to pass out the pain. We're not going to just expect experience the pain ourselves. We got to spread out the pain. We start shutting down these companies, we start disrupting folks money, things are going to be different. That is really what Dr. King, if anybody listens to Dr. King and his last speech, we know that I've gone to the mountain top and I've seen. We know that part. We know the last two minutes, it was over 40 minutes long, y', all. What he talks about really in the cross, most of the speech was really around. It was an economic protest that Part of the reason why he was in Memphis, it was really around an economic protest, around the sanitation workers and that he talked about how we were going to have to really deal with the. The capitalism in this country. We can no longer continue to act like it's going to be okay, because it's not going to be okay. It will be okay when we really step up, shift the way that we are operating and understand that convenience will kill change. So we got to move away from convenience and start thinking about what is the kind of change that I want, what's the vision that I want for America, what are the systems that are going to give me, what it is that we need, and build coalitions so that we can do that. But one, we've got to stop this authoritarianism every single election, because we don't know how long we're going to have elections that we can even have access to. We're going to have to shut them down politically by voting, and we're going to have to shut them down with our dollars, and we're going to have to shut them down eventually with our labor and our intellectual property.

[Jason Johnson]

And that is a mic drop. Latasha Brown. She will drop a mic now. Y' all, listen. I appreciate and I love you. Thank you so much, my good sister. Thank you for being in the fight always. Black Voters Matter fund.org you all, if you want to do some giving and give something great in the holiday season. Thank you, Latasha.

[Latasha Brown]

Thank you, my sister.

[Jason Johnson]

I appreciate you. All right, there it is. Y' all have your charge. Give love this Christmas Day. You don't have to give a whole bunch of stuff. You don't really have to. People don't need. They need. They need love. Maybe give them that. So this is where we are. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case on whether or not the President of the United States can rescind people citizenship based on when they were born. When it is very clear in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments that if you were born here, you're a citizen. But they're going to upend the 14th amendment, and I do believe they will, and limit birthright citizenship such that the president of the United States can determine who's a citizen and who's not. Perfect.

Let's get some good news in. I think we need some kind of good news. A federal grand jury in Norfolk, Virginia, has refused to indict New York Attorney General Letitia James for alleged mortgage fraud. That ruling came in on Thursday. Yesterday, they rejected the Department of Justice's attempt to refile the case. Just 10 days after a federal judge dismissed an earlier case based on the unlawful appointment of the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, federal prosecutors failed to convince a majority of grand jurors to approve charges that Letitia James, Attorney General James misled a bank to obtain favorable terms on a home mortgage. According to sources, the grand jury's return of a no true bill in the case marked an extraordinary rebuke by average citizens of the Department of Justice's attempt to bring charges against the sitting Attorney general of New York simply because Donald Trump hates her because she prosecuted him successfully in a civil fashion for his fraud against her state. So far, the regime is 0 for 0. There's 0 for multiple attempts at political retribution prosecution against people who Donald Trump doesn't like. Now in the not so good news, I want to take a second to just review a timeline for if I could of the boat strike war crimes. A select group of senators have now gotten the opportunity to be briefed by Admiral Frank Mitch Bradley, who met with the leaders of the Armed Services and Intelligence committees in the House and the Senate to discuss the September 2nd attack in which the Navy SEAL officer with decades of experience who now leads the U.S. special Operations Command reportedly approved a second strike against a Venezuelan vessel that allegedly, they're saying, carried drugs and cartel members after a pair of survivors survived the first missile strike on the ship. Now, as you can imagine, how the senators absorbed what they heard from the admiral largely depended on their political party. And with that, here is Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton.

[Pete Hegseth]

I want to thank Admiral Bradley and General Kaine for coming to brief about the strikes on September 2nd, which were righteous strikes. These are narco terrorists who are trafficking drugs that are destined for the United States to kill thousands of Arkansans and millions of Americans. The first strike, the second strike, and the third and the fourth strike on September 2nd were entirely lawful and needful and they were exactly what we'd expect our military commanders to do.

[Jason Johnson]

What exactly did you see in terms.

[Joy Reid]

Of the video of the second strike?

[Jason Johnson]

Were there survivors?

[Pete Hegseth]

I saw two survivors trying to flip a boat loaded with drugs down for the United States States back over so they could stay in the fight. And potentially, given all the context, we heard of other narco terrorist boats in the area coming to their aid to recover their cargo and recover those narco terrorists. And just like you would blow up a boat off of the Somali coast or the Yemeni coast and you'd come back and strike it again if it still had terrorists and it still had explosives or missiles. Admiral Bradley and Secretary had said exactly what we would expect them to do.

[Jason Johnson]

That was Senator Tom Cotton stay in the fight. There was no fight. What fight? It was a one way fight. They were having missiles dropped on their heads while they're in a boat. There's no fight. But Tom Cotton who is a military veteran is pretending that there's some kind of war taking place in the Caribbean and they were in the fight. That is a complete lie that he told in front of members of the media who did not say. What war are you talking about Senator? Stay in what fight? How are you in a fight when you're having missiles dropped on you? There was no fight. Anyway, here's the reaction of Adam, of Adam Smith who is a member of the United States House and he is on the Armed Services Committee. Here's Adam Smith responding the strike.

[Pete Hegseth]

You could clearly see the two people.

[Jason Johnson]

On the boat and they weren't calling, radioing in anything like that.

[Pete Hegseth]

I mean if they had a radio device on them it must have been really small cuz it sure wasn't apparent from looking at the video. And they certain did not appear to be signaling to anybody.

[Jason Johnson]

Can you square that with Senator Tom Cotton saying that they were trying to flip a boat that was loaded with drugs over that was bound for the United States? Is that what you saw?

[Pete Hegseth]

That's patently ridiculous. I mean that's not true in your view. Gosh, Admiral Bradley didn't even pretend that that was the case.

There was no way they would turn this boat back over. The boat was completely disabled and Admiral Bradley admitted that it was drifting with the current. It was going to go wherever the current was going to take them. And I don't know, I didn't see all 48 minutes between the first and second strike, maybe for the first 10. But it appears that the boat was split at least in half. I mean there was this tiny little bit of the bow that was still, you know, capsized. They weren't trying to flip anything over, first of all. Second of all there is the claim that the drugs still could have been there. There's no real evidence of that. You see the first strike, boats on fire, flips over maybe in that tiny portion of the boat. But that's speculation and it certainly wasn't, wasn't clear from the video.

[Jason Johnson]

So we've gotten some really interesting nuggets of information from these interviews. Information nugget number one, 40 minutes between the first strike and the second strike, meaning they dropped a Hellfire missile on this boat. And then 40 minutes later, as two people were clinging to the boat, they dropped a second missile on the boat to kill the two members. But Tom Cotton didn't say there were two strikes. He said there were four. He said the first strike, the second strike, the third strike, and the fourth strike. So now we're finding out they were bombing the hell out of this boat. At least that's what these two senators, if you combine what they're saying, are discussing, then you've got Congressman Smith, Adam Smith, saying it didn't look like they were radioing. Because the new excuse that the Hegseth team is trying to use is that, well, well, they were going to radio for help, and there was going to be another boat that was going to come along that would then be like a fighting boat. And so we had to stop them from doing that. And that's why we had to strike again, because they were radioing for help. Help from who? Who was going to come? Someone from the Venezuelan military. Because.

Another fishing boat coming up wouldn't make it any more legal in order to do that. And if they were radioing, yeah, I'm sure they would have been radioing for help if they had radios. But it doesn't sound like they did. It sounds like they were just clinging to the hull of half a ship after we bombed it. The whole thing is extremely sketchy. I now want you to listen to a senator who is not invited to those briefings, namely Republican Senator Rand Paul. The great state of Kentucky, who honestly, despite our very different politics, has kept it the most real on this issue of anyone else. Here's what he said yesterday. Seen any evidence that there were survivors on these boats?

[Latasha Brown]

On this particular boat?

[Jason Johnson]

Have you seen any evidence that there were survivors? What intelligence have you seen?

[Pete Hegseth]

I've been offered no briefings, and I think that's purposeful because I've been skeptical of this. So no briefings have been offered to me. We are asking for them. We are supportive of the Armed Services Committee looking into this. But this has been very selective in briefing that have been given to people, primarily given to people who are already apologists for the administration.

[Joy Reid]

And do you have confidence in the.

[Jason Johnson]

Defense Secretary at this point?

[Pete Hegseth]

I'm very, very concerned about an order that would say, kill them all. Kill them, you know, after they've already been wounded, after they're drifting apart. But for some people, this is distinctly different. The second strike, I think both strikes are actually illegally. I don't think you can just name people and say, well, they've got drugs. Well, where's the proof? That's an allegation. And these people are 2000 miles away. People don't realize these outboard boats have no capability of reaching America. Take them like 20 stops to refuel or get up here. In all likelihood, none of these boats are coming to America. It's a completely made up and false sense that we're at war. We can do whatever we want. But if Congress wants to vote on it, oh no, no, we're not at war. So they're at war. If they can do whatever they want with no oversight. But if Congress were to get involved, it was not a real war. It's just a war where we name people who we don't like, we call them terrorists, and then we kill them, and then if we see them floating around in the ocean, we then re rebomb them.

[Jason Johnson]

It's a, it's a crazy amen, Rand Paul. He is absolutely not wrong. We're not at war. I mean, I did a TikTok on this. I was just so incensed about I just sitting in my car, I was like, I had to. We are not at war with Venezuela yet. I mean, Donald Trump is planning, I guess, to go to war and wag the dog. So we will ignore the Epstein files and go to war to dethrone Maduro. Oh, we're doing regime change again. Great. And he plans to do that apparently to hand Venezuela's oil over to his friends in the oil companies. But we're not there yet. There is no war against Venezuela, declared or undeclared. Congress has not declared war against them. And you know what? This isn't even Venezuela. This is actually in international waters, not close to the United States. Have you seen a map? Venezuela's not close to us. As he said. It's thousands of miles away. It's like 2,000 miles from here. It's in. It's like on the hub of South America. This is not right off the coast of Miami. These people were so far from the United States in that little boat, as he said, they would have had to stop like 10 times before they could get anywhere close to the United States. And number three, we're not at war with fishing boats. Have you ever heard of being at war with fishing boats? So we're at war. Let's say they were drug boats. Let's say they were chock full of drugs. Let's say they were chock full of enough drugs to give an ounce of fentanyl to every man, woman and child in America, we're still not at war with that. We're not at war. The war on drugs doesn't mean you actually bomb people who are bringing drugs to the United States. And number four, what Rand Paul has said before, and I think he would have said it again if he'd been asked, fentanyl doesn't come from Venezuela. It's not where that comes from. If you want to do a war on fentanyl, you might want to look at the US Drug companies.

[Jason]

The funny thing is they should just use a U.S. coast Guard. If it was a regular time U.S. coast Guards, they'll be their job to get the drugs correct. Our military, it's literally their job.

[Jason Johnson]

Just saying they interdict those drug boats, the coast guard does it. You're absolutely right. And they would do that close to the United States. This wasn't close to the United States. This was close to Guyana, where my people are from. It's not close to here. They're much closer to Guyana than they are anywhere near the United States. And even if they were carrying drugs, even if they were literally the captain and co captain of the cartel, it's illegal to kill them extrajudicially. You can't just kill people. I know Bibi Netanyahu has set the example that you can bomb whoever you want in any country you want, blow up their pagers, do whatever you want, murder people in Iran and then go murder some people in Yemen and do whatever you want. And it's YOLO for Bibi, but it's actually illegal. And it's also not only against international, it's against US law. So Rand Paul is 100% right. You can't just say, I don't like this group of people, therefore I declare them to be a terrorist. Therefore I'm going to say we're at war with them without Congress declaring war. And now I'm going to kill them. And if they survive my attempt to kill them, I'm going to bomb the crap out of them so that I know that they're dead. And the way that we know that this is bullshit. The real evidence that it's bullshit is that when they have bombed these ships, we have like a little timeline. Let me go back. I'm going to get to that in a second. Let me go back. Let me just go back.

Because the fact is we're not at war, okay?

And the timeline on everything that Trump and Hegseth are doing for that reason is really off key. It does make you wonder if when on September 30 when Haigs has demanded that every single general, admiral, and commander, and their chiefs of staff, they had to come to Quantico to hear him and Trump give a speech. It makes you wonder why they did that, Right? Let's recall what he said during that speech. This is C4.

[Pete Hegseth]

Fight to win. We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy. We also don't fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our war fighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement. Just common sense. Maximum lethality and authority for warfighters. That's all I ever wanted as a platoon leader, and it's all my E6 squad leaders ever wanted. Back to that E6 rule. We let our leaders fight their formations and then we have their back. It's very simple, yet incredibly powerful.

[Jason Johnson]

That's not even what he's done, right? The admiral, the Navy SEAL who.

Committed this alleged and likely war crime is getting dragged under the bus. He doesn't have it. They're saying verbally they have his back. But who went and testified before those selected members of the United States House and Senate, the admiral and General Raisin Cain, not Hegseth.

And yet he is the one who released the rules of engagement from any contact with the Geneva Conventions. Now, that speech was 30 days after. About 30 days after the first strike on September 2nd, I made a little timeline. I just did a screen grab of all of the strikes. This is C5. If Jason could load that up. So here it is. Insight Crime. Thank you very much. Inside Crime. If you just look at the timeline of it, right? The very first strike, as this thing is going to start to scroll, is on September 2, there were 20. There have been 22 strikes so far, 87 killed. So September 2, then we do another on September 15, then we do another on September 16, killing another person. September 19, we kill three more. October 3, we kill four more. October 14, we kill six more. 16th, we kill two more. October 17, we kill three more. October 21, we kill two more. October 22, three more. October 24, six more. October 27, 15 more. October 29, four more. November 1, three more. November 4, two more. November 6, three more. November 9, six more. November 10, four more. November 15, three more. Then December 4, the last strike that we know of, four more killed. So there's. The killing is serial in nature.

And it happens before and after. That speech in which Pete Hegseth specifically, in addition to ranting about Beardos and saying every woman has to meet male standards. And, you know, no more political correctness, no more toxic masculinity issues. Everybody toxic can stay. But he also, I think the most important thing he said in that speech is we're changing the rules of engagement to take the lawyers out. Said that on September and then on September 2, he had already, on September 2, they had already done it. Now, September 2 was the first strike, right? On September 5, three days after that first strike, Hagseth and Trump gather in the Oval Office to make that announcement that they're renaming the Department of Defense back to being the Pre World War II Department of War, which is when Hegseth does his now infamous, you know, 16 bars about lethality, not legality. That was three days after the first strike. They suddenly want to go back to the Pre World War II era. Then fast forward to October 16th. In the middle of all these strikes, we learned that Admiral Halsey, the black Navy admiral, announced that he's going to resign as the head of the Southern Command, which we now have new reporting was not voluntary, and that allegedly he was actually forced out.

Forced out. Reading a little bit of the independence reporting. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asked a top Navy admiral to step down after the military chief expressed concern about the murky legality of the lethal strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, according to a report. The shock departure of Admiral Alvin Holsey one year into his tenure as head of the US Southern Command, which oversees military operations in the Caribbean, was announced by Hegseth on October 16. It followed months of discord between the pair that intensified in the summer when the Trump administration began bombing the alleged drug boats. They really meant the fall, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing two Pentagon officials and former officials. You're either on the team or you're not, hegseth reportedly told the 60 year old Halsey during a meeting this year, when you get an order, you move out fast and don't ask questions. Lawmakers and experts told the newspaper that asking the four star military chief to stand aside during an escalating military operation was an extraordinary move. The Independent has contacted the Pentagon for comment. It comes as Hegseth has been accused of war crimes over his handling of the deadly strikes, which have so far killed more than 80 people as tensions between the US and Venezuela rise.

The Pentagon is of course, calling that report fake news. But you really got to wonder with Hegseth saying on September 2 that he watched the strikes and then claiming he didn't Watch the strikes and the initial reporting that Hegseth gave a kill order, kill them all order, which Admiral Bradley apparently told lawmakers was untrue. There's a lot to. There's a lot to unpack here. And then, as folks in the chat have pointed out, there's also the fact that if we're in this war on drugs, why did they then pardon the former president of Honduras, who's a major drug dealer? He and his brother were running a major drug operation out of their version of the White House. And Donald Trump just released him from prison and let him go and said it's because it was a fake prosecution by the Biden administration. So it's not about drugs. And even if it was about drugs, it's illegal to kill these people. And where's the evidence that any of these people were drug dealers in the first place? No one has released names of the people who were on these ships. No one has released any evidence of what these people were doing. And again, even if they were drug dealers, it is illegal to kill them. You're supposed to interdict them and then arrest them and then try them for drug dealing, if that's what you believe they're doing, even though they're not even in the United States. I'm not sure how you would do that either. But leaving all of that aside, let's just get back to these legal issues that this regime is facing. And they are many. In addition to this, this seemingly wholly illegal operation that they're running out of the Pentagon, you then go over to the Department of Justice, and they also seem to be running an entirely illegal operation in which they are naming people to be prosecutors without going through the proper channels, going through Congress, going through the real process. And then those people are indicting people even though they themselves are illegally appointed. So they're running this shoestring operation where Donald Trump says, indict this person. They appoint some weirdo into the position who's not even qualified and has no business and is not even legally appointed. And then they impanel a grand jury and do a quickie indictment that then gets undone as soon as the person challenges the indictment. And then a real judge and a real grand jury are in place. This is a mess.

This administration is a mess. Everything they're doing seems to be completely on the wrong side of legality.

But for Pete, Hex says it's on the right side of lethality, and he cares much more about lethality than legality. They're operating as if you just Put a bunch of, like, high school students who never go to class in charge of the government. Nothing makes sense. Nothing they're doing is according to the rules of the law. And they don't seem to care about the Constitution. They just feel completely liberated and free to do whatever they want. But here's the problem. They're not actually free to do whatever they want. And the reason that conservatives and right wingers and Fox are so angry at those seven House and Senate members for doing their don't give up the ship psa, which now seems like really prescient. Don't give up the ship. They're literally talking about. They're literally like, talking to Navy men, which is who did the strikes. Like, they knew that they were doing illegal shit.

What people need to understand is as powerful as the Nazis were in Germany, they got prosecuted eventually. And as powerful as those ICE goons seem to think they are, they are not out of the reach of the law. And the law has a long memory. And if you are kidnapping US Citizens on the streets and abusing them or disappearing children, separating families and making the kids disappear or the mom disappear, you are not forever out of the reach of the law. Either you're acting with impunity. You think you have impunity, but you may or may not have impunity.

And the same thing goes for this United States military.

Any member of the United States military who is violating the law on the assumption that you are completely out of the realm of consequences because Donald Trump will take care of you. You don't understand the law, nor do you understand Donald Trump.

It is going to be very interesting to see, to circle back to the case that we started with, whether now that, well, once MAGA gets the sense that this alleged pipe bomb guy was one of their, was on their side and believed the election was stolen, is he subject to the blanket pardon? Michael Smarkanish asked this question on his radio show this morning. Donald Trump pardoned everybody that had any association with the insurrection that was a believer in the election being stolen.

[Jason]

They'll pass on a brother, alleged brother.

[Jason Johnson]

But could his attorneys go into court and say.

He pardoned everybody? That had to do with January 6th.

And what people, as somebody in the chat has said, people are acting like Trump is going to live forever and be in power forever. His cankles and bruised hands say otherwise. His sundowning says otherwise. And I think what Republicans need to understand across the board, whether you're in the Pentagon or the DOJ or you're an ICE agent Running around in your far too small flak jacket and your little mask over your face if you honestly think that you're going to get away with it forever, you don't understand karma either.

And eventually, I know it doesn't seem like it, but Washington will change hands. Washington will change hands. The Department of Justice will change hands.

And there will be someone else in charge of the adjudication of the law. And the only people who will be completely immune to consequences will be Donald Trump and any other previous president. Donald Trump is styling himself that he wants to have Barack Obama arrested. Good luck with that, buddy. You did the case that said presidents are completely immune.

[Jason]

Barack Obama's finally a king.

[Jason Johnson]

Barack Obama's a king, too. He's your fellow king. You can't prosecute the black guy. Not that one. And so all of the people who are doing crime for Donald Trump need to understand he won't go to prison for these crimes. He's likely going to get away with everything and go right into the hands of the devil. A free man when he finally descends to get his just reward. But you.

You might not.

Join me now to discuss all things legal is somebody that you all might love and remember from, From. From. From broadcast TV and cable and streaming, Judge Glenda Hatchet.

[Jason]

She's not at her desk right now. Oh.

[Jason Johnson]

Oh, okay. It said that she is. That she is ready.

[Jason]

She set it up.

[Jason Johnson]

Hold on. Oh, there she is. Oh, okay. She is. There she is. We're gonna make sure that she's seated before we. Before we invite an empty chair on. Okay, Here we go. And boom, there she is. Hey, how are you? It is so good to see you, Judge Hatton. She's celebrating. Glad to see you in television.

[Joy Reid]

I have to show you my shirt, though. Please, can I just show you my shirt?

[Jason Johnson]

Yes.

I love it. Vote like our lives depend on it. Because clearly they do.

Clearly they do.

Can you, can we talk about this just for a moment? Because you're saying you know people and I, I didn't get to hail up the Emmy nominated show the verdict with Judge Hatchet. I want to make sure I let everyone know that 25 years, you've been in this business. A long time. But you're also practicing attorney, women's health advocate. You've done all the things. But as an attorney, what do you make of the seeming freewheeling way that people involved in the Trump regime in all facets, seem to be at least skirting right up to the idea of committing crimes, thinking they'll never pay for.

[Joy Reid]

It I think that there's a lack of check and balances anymore, quite frankly, Joy. And until we get back to that which is the fundamental basis of the Constitution, democracy, because if there are no checks, then there can be no accountability. And that is the bottom line on this. I mean, I just really believe in that firmly. And I'm concerned, I really am concerned about where we are, particularly because I pride myself on being a student of civil rights history in this country, having grown up in the Deep south and being old enough to remember certain things and to see what is happening not just on that front, but on so many levels that we talk about the rule of law, that there has to be some guardrail here. There has to be or we will not know a country that we thought would never change.

[Jason Johnson]

Well, you know, let's go through, I want to go through some of these things sort of one by one by one. The boat strike thing strikes me as a combination of like the lead up to the Iraq war combined with just straight up sort of, you know, Bibi Netanyahu style war crimes. It's so horrific. But there's been so many. They're doing this almost two and three times a month. And I want to play for you some journalists inside of the Oval Office attempting to clarify this situation. Jason, this is C7 about who was responsible for it.

[Pete Hegseth]

Clarify something that you had said on Sunday regarding the boats near Venezuela. You had said that you didn't know if the second strike on that one boat had happened, but you wouldn't have wanted it. Now that your administration has acknowledged that it happened, do you support that second strike? And Mr. Secretary, I want to clarify something you had said in an interview back in September, I believe on Fox News. You said that you had watched that strike live on television in real time. Did you know that there were survivors after the initial strike? Well, look, all I know is this. Every boat that you see get blown up, we save 25,000 on average lives. 25,000 lives. They've been sending enough of this horrible fentanyl and other things like cocaine and other things. But fentanyl right now is the least leader of the pack to kill our entire nation because a little speck on the head of a pin can kill somebody. It's very dangerous stuff. I know so many people where their sons were drug addicts. They had one little sample and they died. They died. They were they couldn't believe it. As far as the attack is concerned. I didn't, you know, I still haven't gotten a lot of information Because I rely on. But to me, it was an attack. It wasn't one strike, two strikes, three strikes. Somebody asked me a question about the second strike. I didn't know about the second strike. I didn'T know anything about people. I wasn't involved in it. I knew they took out a boat. But I would say this, they had a strike. I hear the gentleman that was in charge of that is extraordinary, extraordinary person. I'll let Pete speak about him.

[Jason Johnson]

Donald Trump, on the day of.

The strike that he claims he knows nothing about, tweeted, on my orders this morning, US Military forces conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified Trende Aragua narco terrorists in the southcom area of responsibility. He goes on to talk about how many people were killed. He goes on to give specific details about it. Now he's claiming that he's barely heard of it and didn't even know about people. People just to boat who is responsible ultimately if war crimes were committed?

[Joy Reid]

The people who are giving the orders. And definitely the president is commander, chief, commander in chief. This is secretary who had said, I am Secretary of War as opposed to Secretary of Defense. But I think that the Congress has a responsibility to further investigate. And the other thing, too, we always have to remember, Joy, is that Congress really is the only entity that can then approve war. And so to do things unilaterally, I think really problematic. But until there is this accountability again, I'm going to say it again, of these separate branches of government and their checks and balances, then this will go unchecked. It will go unchecked.

[Jason Johnson]

Can I just ask you a theoretical question? Let's just say the Medellin drug cartel, they get in a plane in Colombia and they take off from Colombia, and they're not in our airspace, they're still over Colombia. And the US Gets intel that on that plane are people from the Medellin cartel, and they've probably got drugs on them. Could the United States send a Hellfire missile up and blow up that plane and kill everyone on board?

[Joy Reid]

I don't think so. I don't think so. Because even if the intelligence says that, and we've seen some parallel situations, but I would think that there has to be more proof of that. And also that plane is still over airspace of a.

[Jason]

Of a.

[Joy Reid]

Of a sovereign nation, not in international waters, certainly not over our airspace. And so I would think no. I would think no.

[Jason Johnson]

And I would think you couldn't blow it up even if it was over our airspace. You can't just blow people up because you think they're committing a crime. You have to arrest people and try them. Unless this is complete savagery, it's not a video game. But I think Pete Hexa thinks it might be. Let's talk about one instance in which the rule of law does seem to be working. This is ca, Jason, it appears that Letitia James, sort of nightmare, at least for now with this administration, this regime is over. A grand jury, a proper grand jury that sat down, that got all the information and was allowed to hear, hear this case that the DOJ was trying to make against her has said they will not indict. What are your thoughts?

[Joy Reid]

Well, I think it's, it was the right decision. Can we back up just a couple of steps, Joy? Because I think it's important to talk about the history of how this happened because there was an acting.

U.S. attorney in that district because he refused to indict her. Then he was forced to resign. Then we get Halligan appointed. Then she was there for 120 days and she could not have done it. I mean could not have indicted her. And so the federal court said no, these indictments have to be dismissed because she was not there properly. Why is that? 120 days. Then you have to have either Senate confirmation or the federal judges in that district get to a point. She was not there properly. The indictments were thrown out. But the problem is, and this is what I'm concerned about, Joy, is that this may still not be over, that this may be another attempt. Another attempt. Another attempt which is seems, well, not seems. It is at this point an abuse of the legal system. There's just no other way to describe that it is an abuse of the legal system. The courts got it right. They, they said that it, she wasn't supposed to be there. She was there illegally and therefore that indictment should not stood. Now what's interesting though, let me just also say to you that she continues to be noted as the acting attorney general in that area. And I'm telling you these federal judges aren't having it. They have come out and said, I mean they have blasted the DOJ on this and saying that they have not been there properly, they have circumvented the whole process of the Senate confirmation and that this should not happen. So that's going to have all kinds of ramifications. I don't know if we have time to talk about it tonight in terms of the indictments, the charges that have been brought under their watch. Not just Letitia James, not just James Comey, but what else is happening in this district under their watch. And are those going to get thrown out as well?

[Jason Johnson]

Well, that is. Please, we do have time to talk about it, because you've got. Yeah, shift. They want to add more people to the list. But you're absolutely right. Had the John Bolton case filed. You've had the James Comey case filed. I would add Lamonica McIver, who, for whatever reason, the judge has allowed that case to go forward. We're talking about a sitting member of Congress who was, you know, shoved around by ice, and now she's getting charged with a crime. But that's also coming out of what was supposedly an unlawful or at least an illegitimate placement of a prosecutor where they had not been confirmed. Right.

[Joy Reid]

And there have been a couple of drug, major drug cases that they are challenging it along with the congresswoman. And they're saying, well, wait a minute, these charges should not be brought because the person who was a prosecutor in that district was sitting there improperly. She should have never been there. And I mean, we've had two cases, Joy, look at this. We've had two cases. We've had one in New Jersey. We've had the one we just talked about in Virginia, back to back. We're talking about within a week. But yet. And still, if you go on the DOJ's website right now, they are both still listed as the U.S. attorneys in those districts. And the judges are saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, this cannot happen. So I think we're going to see a showdown fairly soon on this issue. Now, going back to the. The District of the U.S. attorney in New Jersey, three panel, three judge panel made that ruling on Monday.

[Jason Johnson]

All right.

[Joy Reid]

They can still go and ask for that to be heard by a full panel. Ultimately, this is going to end up at the Supreme Court because these are not the only two U.S. attorneys that are having issues. They're not the only two.

[Jason Johnson]

I mean, and the thing is, as you said, this could affect not just the political prosecutions, but any prosecutions that were brought into them. Right. Anybody who's got a good enough lawyer to say, hey, I'm going to challenge the case against my client, too, because the indicting of the authority is illegitimate.

[Joy Reid]

And that's what MCAV has done, as well as these two other cases that involve drug charges have done, they've said, listen, you know, this shouldn't happen. This was done. It wasn't done properly, and the person acting as the prosecutor was not there legally. So it should go.

[Jason Johnson]

Let me ask you to go Back to the case that we started with, and this is a very, very strange case. And this is a young man who sources close to the situation say is, you know, borderline autistic, is a loner, is a sort of computer nerd, was not a violent person, has now been indicted and said to have been the person who left pipe bombs in front of the DNC in the rnc. Excuse me. Donald Trump issued a blanket pardon for everyone who was involved in the January 6th insurrection. Michael Smerconis on his radio show this morning raised a very interesting question, which is could this young man's attorney say that if he did indeed tell the FBI, if in fact that is what he said, we do not have any proof of it. But, but that happened and he told the FBI that he believed that the election was stolen, could his attorney say that he falls under the scope of that pardon and that he can't be indicted?

[Joy Reid]

I think so. I mean, that was such a broad based pardon with no specificity. If you were involved in January 6th and you fell under that purview, I would think that the lawyer could certainly argue that. Joy, it'll be interesting to see if they raise it that. Because if he is then not covered by that, then the question is why was he the exception? Why was he the exception?

[Jason Johnson]

Exactly. Very interesting. Let's talk a little bit about ICE because this is the thing that we're seeing a lot more, these really egregious, violent arrests. But one of the arrests is interesting and it's actually, frankly, a case I could see on your, on your show. I literally could see it. This is the arrest of the White House spokeswoman's in law.

[Joy Reid]

Relative.

[Jason Johnson]

Relative. Her relative and it is her brother's partner. They are not in laws really because they weren't married. But this is somebody that's got a fam. A familial relationship with a member of the White House. What a mess. And could Catherine Levitt, Caroline Lennon, sorry, Caroline Lennet end up in some way a witness in a case like this? Like it's a strange situation.

[Joy Reid]

I don't know that she could end up as a witness in this case, but it's going to be very interesting to see the maneuvering and to see what happens when there are connections to people in high places as opposed to people ordinarily going about their business and being caught up in these ICE arrests. So this is going to be interesting to see how they're going to work this out because but for that familiar connection, we wouldn't even know about her. I mean, let's just call it like it is. We wouldn't even know about this case.

[Jason Johnson]

Indeed. But the people who are being arrested, who are actually citizens, if you are. If you are effectively kidnapped, I mean, these are people screaming in the streets. It looks like a kidnapping. Someone with a mask comes up to them, grabs them, throws them in the back of a car. They're screaming for help. People are honking their horns. These look like kidnappings. It looks like slave catchers, to be honest with you. That's what it looks like to me. If you then turn out to be a citizen, they release you. Can you sue?

[Joy Reid]

You can sue, but then there's going to be the whole thing about immunity and government immunity and all of this and that they had. They thought that they were correct. But let me tell you, the underlying piece of this goes back to the Supreme Court decision that then said, based on your language and your color, that they could then do that. And I'm like, how did we get to a place in this country where you could be detained based on your language and your color? Joe, that means you. That means me. Color.

[Latasha Brown]

Color, yeah.

[Joy Reid]

Right. And so to have. I'm getting a little emotional about this. To have that kind of Supreme Court decision that would use that language, this is not something, I'm paraphrasing that language as justification to do these sweeps, I think goes beyond the pale of what the Constitution requires. And so we can do these broad sweeps. We can do it based on the fact that you look different, that your color is different, your language is different. Even if I have been a citizen of this country, where does the line stop? Where does it stop? But when you have a Supreme Court to make that kind of decision, then where are the rights? Where do people go to be able to then be safe? So maybe after three weeks in detention, you're able to prove that you're a U.S. citizen. Right? Now, I, I wouldn't be able to prove that I'm a U.S. citizen. I mean, I don't carry my birthday birth certificate around. I don't even know what my birth certificate is. Quite frankly. I didn't need to go find it. But my point is that how do you, how do you then are able to prove. How then can you serve this country in the military and then be involved in an ice suite? How then can you then ever be able to prove it? Particularly if you've moved? What if your parents are dead? What if your records aren't fairly available? It's. It's not okay. It's just not okay.

[Jason Johnson]

Oh, wait till they get rid of birthright citizenship and make that subject to the president's whim. It's going to be a wild, wild west of people having to kneel to Trump to maintain their citizenship. He'll be able to deport anyone, whether you're born here or not, because it'll be up to him whether you're a birth, whether you're a citizen or not. Like, that's a wild world. And I'm very pessimistic about the Supreme Court. Are you? As they take this case, I am.

[Joy Reid]

Very pessimistic about it because I've been watching the patterns of what's been happening in the rulings that come out. I said, and people will disagree with me, but that's nothing new. Is I said several months ago that historians will look back on this period in history, Joy, if the democracy doesn't survive, they will look back at this time in the history of this country and it will start with the Supreme Court's decision about the presidential immunity. And I believe that because once that door was opened and there were no checks on that, then the erosion just continues. And what's happening now is that we're drinking out of a fire hose, frankly, because there's so much going on that we're like, what? What's happening today? What is happening today? And I think that people always assumed, as probably I did as a young lawyer in law school, that democracy would always hold. But they have to be safeguards. They have to be guard rails and the guardrail wheels of the checks and balances, the three branches of government. That is by design. And once that doesn't function, then I think that that begins the erosion of the rights that we've understood to be ours.

I have to talk about this for a second, Joy, please, that this is.

We talked about the states holding back on these voter. Voter rolls information, right? So now we have six more. But the irony, and irony is not strong enough a word, but I can't think of a better word. The irony to the 10th degree is that they are now using the Civil Rights act of 1960 to justify that they need this information. So we had two states originally at Oregon and Maine, and then they added six more. California, New York.

New Hampshire, Minnesota, Pennsylvania. Oh, I have my list. Where is it? Pennsylvania. And.

I guess I said New York and California. So now they've added six more in the last couple of days and those dates added. My understanding is there were 26 that were requested. Now, the DOJ is suing the original two plus six, eight plus another six. And they're using title three of the civil Rights act to justify getting this information. And they've gone on to say, we don't have to tell you why, you don't have to tell your justification. You just have to give us this information. So One of the AGs I was reading today from Rhode island pushed back and he was saying, but elections are state governed.

[Jason Johnson]

Right.

[Joy Reid]

And so we're not going to give you the information. This is what they want. They want your full name. You with me? Five things. Full name, your date of birth, where you live, your residence, your address of where you live, your driver's license information, and the last digits of your Social Security number.

[Jason Johnson]

It's a national registry, basically.

[Joy Reid]

So these I. These eight. Original eight, Original two plus six, eight and now six more. But they're all being sued. The government is suing all of these states because they've refused to release information.

[Jason Johnson]

And you know what?

[Joy Reid]

The irony of calling it back to the Civil Rights act, of course.

[Jason Johnson]

Yeah. I mean, they're using the 14th amendment to argue that it is white Americans who are the victims of discrimination and that the equal protection clause is being violated by anyone who does diversity, equity and inclusion, that that is actually a violation and that the real victims of discrimination are white Christians. And they've been that very clear that they're going to use all of the civil rights victories of the late 19th and 20th centuries, but they're gonna reverse them and make the.

Previous beneficiaries a favor in the country, the actual victims. It's pretty clear. One quick exit question before I let you go, because I know you're a big advocate of women's health and black maternity health. You've seen all of these cases of Black women in ERs where they are about to give birth, where they're having to wait, where they're being very shoddily handled, very curtly handled, and then in some cases having to give birth in the, you know, in the, in the hallway in their cars. It's been really horrific. And there have been a couple cases where women have actually died. Yes. Post Roe world, how concerned are you that we are just going to re enter an age where women, particularly women of color, particularly black women, just regularly die from childbirth?

[Joy Reid]

I'm very concerned. And the numbers spell the story. We know as black women and brown women, we are three to four times more likely. We may well see that number go up because there are also women who are covered by Medicaid. And so when you start talking about the health insurance, Joy, and you talk about rural hospitals closing and access and, and where are these women going to have. And the attacks on Planned Parenthood, because people think the Planned Parenthood is about abortions. No, it's about health care. It's about health care for women. And so you have these deserts, literally these health deserts in this country that I'm particularly concerned about. And I think the numbers are going to get worse. But what is damning about this is that 80% of the women who are dying, it was preventable, as was the case in my daughter's case. And so the nation that has all of these resources, we are letting women die unnecessarily and these children are going without mothers. And it's got to stop. But the discrepancy between. I don't want any women to die, let's be very clear about this. But the discrepancy between white women, which is not good, really, and black women is horrific. And so the whole issue of us then and what that means for us and for our communities is a very big challenge. So I thank you for, for bringing that up.

[Jason Johnson]

Absolutely. Please let us know. Judge Hatchett, where can we watch. Watch the verdict with Judge Heck.

[Joy Reid]

Yes.

[Jason Johnson]

You.

[Joy Reid]

It's, it's, it's syndicated, so you kind of, kind of have to go and, and, you know, go to the local listings and see it and runs all the time on Justice Central on the 24 hour network. But yes, thank you. And I am going to be taking on death maternal cases, Joy, as I'm practicing law, because I do believe that until we have accountability, we will continue to see these horrific numbers.

[Jason Johnson]

Judge Glenda Hatchett, it's so wonderful to see you. Thank you.

[Joy Reid]

Glad to see you. I'd love to see you again. And thank you for your producers. I know Adrienne, I know Nida. They're all been wonderful. And thank you. Thank you so much. You'll have to come at a time and see my wall.

[Jason Johnson]

Oh, I'm coming. I love it.

[Joy Reid]

Civil rights, real quick. This is Thurgood Marshall in that light suit right there. Yeah, the briefs they're working on. This is a wear photo. Brown vs. Board of Education.

[Jason Johnson]

Wow, that's dope. I love that. All right, I'm gonna come see it in person. Thank you. Take care. We love Judge Hatchet. She's super nice. Well, that was, you know, scary. Is caring. Nice seeing the judge. People in the chat are loving it. Right? Judge Hatchet, one of the favorite favorites. People love her, she's fantastic. And she's such a. Not only just a great jurist, a great attorney, but actually a really great and incredible person. So there you go.

Somebody said we need another one on one interview. Okay, we're gonna. We're gonna. We're gonna do another one on one interview. We got one on one interviews coming up, y'. All. We. Would you guys like to see Judge Hatchett in a one on one interview? Let me know in the chat. You guys seem to love her very much, so we're happy to do that. It's been a quite a show, and I think we've done so much scaring and so much caring that I think we're ready for a moment of joy. What do you think, Jason? You think we're ready?

[Jason]

Let's do it.

[Jason Johnson]

Let's do it. So our moment of joy tonight, because we really need it, I think is actually a cautionary tale for both man and beast. Now, for man, the cautionary tale on the note is never leave your liquor stalks at the height where the raccoons can reach them.

[Pete Hegseth]

Burglar that broke into a Virginia store was caught by police asleep in the bathroom. It gets even better. That burglar was a raccoon. Now you're probably wondering how it ended up passed out on the bathroom floor. Here's how. This was a liquor store, and from the looks of things, that raccoon went on a serious bender. According to the police report, the drunk raccoon was taken to a shelter to sober up and get a talking to about its poor life choices before being released on its own cognizance.

[Jason Johnson]

Gin and tequila.

[Pete Hegseth]

Right by the toilet.

[Jason Johnson]

Right by the toilet. Like he was partying. The. The raccoon said. He said. He said, we ain't buying it. He said, we ain't buying it. I'm just gonna drink for free. And just so you guys know, the little guy was fine, okay? He was fine, and he was quite healthy. They took him away and they sobered him up. Up. He probably had to have, like, one of them, like, Z. What is it? Z pack or something. They probably gave him a Z pack and they said, you got to sober up. He had a Z biotic. We gotta ask Don Lemon about it. He had to have a zebiotic because just to show you guys that how much fun he had, I have to show you this. This is actually the video, the surveillance video. This is my true moment of joy because they were funny. I like that. Anchorman. Here's the drunk raccoon in action.

D. The Next one.

Sam.

[Latasha Brown]

All right, you can stop it there.

[Jason Johnson]

The little guy.

He ramped through the store.

Selecting all the beverages of his choosing. And then he just got lit.

He got lit. He said, look. He said, look, I've had a hard week. Being a raccoon is tough. It's tough out here in raccoon world, okay? He said, I ain't had enough to eat, so I was a little light, you know, I was.

[Jason]

A little lights are hurting the raccoons, too. He's like, them terrorists. We ain't got free food in the docks. You know, them tariffs, man.

[Jason Johnson]

He said, I can't afford this thing with the tariffs, man.

[Latasha Brown]

I can't drink my Heineken like I.

[Jason Johnson]

Really, really want to, so I gotta go ahead and take what I need. He said, I gotta take. I gotta take what I need. They owe me all in this piece. I work hard. I don't have extra money. I don't have extra money. I worked. I worked 10 shifts. Being a raccoon. I'm gonna go ahead and take what I need. And then he drank so much that he literally passed out by the toilet like a proper drunk. He did it old school style.

[Jason]

He's like, I'm surprised he didn't bring his homies with him.

[Jason Johnson]

Nah. He said.

[Jason]

He said, I need all this, though, don't they?

[Jason Johnson]

Look. He said, I. They ain't enough to go around. He said, I need all of this liquor. He said he had the brown liquor, too. He said, I need this brown liquor. Nobody else can't have none. He wasn't trying to share. If he had a marsupial pouch, maybe he would have took some with him. It's. You know. He said, I don't. I don't feel like. He said he feel like doing this every time he watched the news. Oh, dang, the way you said that. I love that. Lorena said, I don't. I don't blame him. I feel like doing that every time I watch the news. You and me both, my. My friend. You and me both. Every time the news happens, I feel like I need to run through a liquor store and just start taking.

And the liquor store was probably insured, so I'm sure they were fine financially. I'm sure it didn't hurt them financially at all.

[Jason]

I'm sure they're going to laugh about it.

[Jason Johnson]

Oh, everyone's laughing about it. It was our moment of joy, because it makes me feel joyful. I love knowing that that raccoon got what he needed, that he's happy and Gleeful and joyful and that he's a happy guy. Let's make a couple of announcements. We are going to do another members only chat coming up. I think we're going to do it next Friday. We want to have another members only chat. And that would be for the folks on YouTube and substack. We're going to do another members only chat. I got a hey, soror from Karina Stoops. Hey. So roar. How are you? 199 in the tail. We appreciate that. So we're gonna do. He said he likes top shelf.

[Latasha Brown]

Who said he liked top shelf?

[Jason Johnson]

Denise Brown said he likes top shelf. And clearly he does. He has good taste. Raccoon was like security. Ah. That's a person who really knows. He really. They really know their stuff. If you guys don't know the story of security, that is my signature drink, which I actually invented. It is a delicious drink. When you order it, you have to put one finger up and say, security.

[Jason]

It's a knockoff from Rachel Maddow that you ordered wrong.

[Jason Johnson]

I did it wrong.

[Jason]

And you now you took the drink.

[Jason Johnson]

I'll tell you guys a story.

[Jason]

You added the ingredients yourself.

[Jason Johnson]

I did. This is the story when we were on the set at Miz now, when it was called msnbc, the Artist Formerly Known as msnbc. So when I'm sitting on set next to Rachel, they always station me to the right of Rachel. So I'm sitting there, and during the break, we got into a con. My kind of drunk says, this is our next person. We're sitting next to each other, and we were just chatting in the break about what we like to drink. She asked me, what kind of drinks do you like? And I said, you know, I like a Prosecco in Saint Germain. It's something I really enjoy. She said, oh, if you like a Prosecco in Saint Germain, let me tell you what. What this great drink is. And she called it like a captain's father or something. I can't remember the name of it. It. She told me the ingredients. But of course, you know, my mind is like a sieve if I don't write things down. So I didn't write it down. I just remembered it. And so I was out to drinks with a couple friends, including Adrian, who's part of this show. And we're out. Interestingly enough, Jason, we were at the Park Hyatt, which is where Diddy got arrested. Where Puffy got arrested. Are y' all watching the Diddy documentary?

[Jason]

I'll Leave it alone.

[Jason Johnson]

The 50 cent one we were in that hotel. Okay. We were in that hotel. Love all. Love you. Love you right back. Loving all the readers. Thank you very much to Brit brat get to know. So we're sitting there at the Park High and I ordered, I tried to order the drink that Rachel recommended. I put the ingredients together. I was so proud of myself because she's an actual mixologist. Like she actually is a real mixologist. So I text her the picture of the drink and I'm like, ha, look at that major drink. And she said, what are the ingredients? And I told her, she said that's not it. That's actually wrong. It was wrong. But I had invented in that, in my error in my erroneous attempts to create the drink, I had invented something myself. So I decided to name it Security. And that is the name of the drink. And what it is, it is Cognac.

Champagne.

Saint Germain and a maraschino cherry. It's cognac. So it's a champagne based drinks. You start with champagne, you add your cognac. So you add what I, what would you call it? Like a shot of cognac.

[Jason]

Maybe half an ounce.

[Jason Johnson]

Give me a half an ounce of cognac. Don't do too much cognac. You have to add the good cognac. If you put the cheap stuff in there, you're going to be falling off because I've, you know, Wangi from the team has had the bad version of it because we use the wrong cognac. Use a cheapy cognac. It's not gonna be the same. So you put your cognac in, then you add to it your Saint Germain. One shot of Saint Germain. Don't do too much, it's going to be too sweet. And then you throw in your maraschino cherry and the original drink that the matter drink had like grenadine in it. So you can throw a little grenadine if you want to have a, have a little splash. It's very delicious. It's called security. So try it. He said some, he said some yak. It's really good. Those of you in the chat, I'm getting some eyeballs from somebody but most.

[Jason]

People are saying, I mean it's Friday, you can probably go make one right now.

[Jason Johnson]

I.

[Jason]

After, after the show. We got about five, 10 minutes.

[Jason Johnson]

Absolutely. Somebody said Rachel must come for fries. She, you know, Rachel used to do a cocktail hour back in the good old days before where the world was going on.

[Jason]

Rachel's a boss bartender.

[Jason Johnson]

Oh, she's a really good bartender. And she used to do a cocktail moment on her show. The, the Rachel Maddow show used to have a Friday cocktail moment on Friday. She would actually make a drink. So we'll see if we can convince her. Let's see if, if she can come. Come over from Miz now. Come over and talk to us about alcohol and drinking and things. Because everybody needs to have an aperitif to get you through the hard times. It's tough out here, you guys. It's rough out here. And I, I, I relate to that marsupial fellow. Our, our little guy who decided that he needed, he needed, he needed a shot.

[Jason]

The funny thing about it, I think I know the President does a drink, but maybe take a shot every once in a while.

[Jason Johnson]

That might be the problem, that maybe.

[Jason]

He needs to get lit, take the edge off.

[Jason Johnson]

Yeah, he might actually need. Oh, we got Jason. You're getting a shout out. He might need to drink. Maybe that's the problem. Donald Trump is apparently, he never Dr. He's never drunk. He doesn't drink and he never drunk. So when you see him falling asleep like that, it's not because he's inebriated. It's because he's sundowning. It's not, it's not because he's ineviated. No, no. He's just old and decrepit. That's why he's falling asleep. We're gonna do our members only chat next week, Friday. It's gonna be great. It's gonna be members only. So if you're not a member yet, then please join. Make sure that you guys sign up. We're trying to also keep our chats. That's as troll free as possible. So we really want to make sure that we're putting. Oh, thank you very much. We got $5 in the till. Angela Porter saying, I appreciate your teaching, Joy and Jason, blessings to you and your family. Blessings to you. Right back. Blessings to everybody in the chat. And yes, Rachel is an excellent mixologist. We'll see if we can, one of these days, get her to come on the show and talk about all things mixology and beverages. Somebody said it's the Kanks. It is the Kanks. Those are showing you the. He ain't well. He ain't doing well. No, he's not doing well. He's not doing as well. Even as that cute little monster, the little, the little animal is doing better than him. I think the raccoon is doing better than Trump. And actually the raccoon would probably be a better president. I Think I'd rather have the president be the raccoon than Trump even drunk. Even the raccoon drunk off his ass. Give me that guy to be the president.

[Jason]

Well, at least he made it to the toilet, though.

[Jason Johnson]

He said, time to raccoon a liquor store. He said, somebody says taught a raccoon liquor store. I agree. You might want to head over to the liquor store and get you some brown liquor like he did.

[Jason]

He made it to the toilet.

[Jason Johnson]

He made it right to the toilet, right? No, he didn't make it to. He made it next to the toilet. That's when you know you had a bender.

[Jason]

How many times have you ended up right there? I've ended up, baby. Back in the young days.

[Jason Johnson]

Let me tell you something. Those are those days when you pray, you say, lord, if you just let me get through this, I promise I'll never drink again. And the next weekend, you're right back drinking. That's that college. That's that college throw up. He had that college moment where he ended up near the toilet. He didn't even make it to the toilet. He made it next to it flat out. His arms were straight out, legs were splayed out. He was done. He drank it all. He went through, and you see he was knocking bottles over. He was just taking whatever he wanted. Just. He just drinking and not. Not even eating chips. He should have went to the chips section and ate some food to try to hold it down. But nope, he was just pure liquor.

[Jason]

You should have hit the dumpster before he came in.

[Jason Johnson]

He said, you know how to get in. You gotta get some money. You gotta put little ch. Chips and something in there. You just can't drink on the empty stuff. He was like, nope. I'm feeling like I need to get lit. And he did. But he was fine. He was fine. We're not going to worry about him. That's it. I think that's all we've got. Please make sure that you like. Like, subscribe and share. Somebody said the raccoon might have saw Bubba. You might be on to something.

[Latasha Brown]

Who said that?

[Jason Johnson]

Wendy Dupree said the raccoon might have saw Bubba. I promise, y', all, this is the investigative journalism that I truly want to do. I want to know who Bubba is. I need to know right now. I need to know what the relationship was. I need to know if. Look, does a raccoon know who Bubba is? I'll talk to him. I'll buy you a drink, Raccoon, if you know who and who. Where Bubba is. Promise you I will buy you the whole liquor store. I need information.

[Jason]

We're not talking about Bubba, remember? We're talking about a bomber.

[Jason Johnson]

Thank you. Nihar 6643. $50. Supporting independent media. Thank you so much. Much. We so appreciate you. That is a superstar. Jason. Please give a round of applause to Nihar 6643. That was very kind. Thank you very much. Supporting independent media. Yes to the raccoons. The raccoon got a yes. Yeah, that's how I feel about the raccoon, too. I love the raccoon. The raccoon is my friend. The raccoon is my good friend. We appreciate my drinking buddy. All right, guys, thanks for watching the show. We will see you guys next month on Monday. Have a great weekend. Be safe out there. Stay sane out there. Don't get too drunk like the raccoon.

[Jason]

I was about to say the same thing.

[Jason Johnson]

Don't drink too much like the raccoon. You're gonna end up flat like him. You see, he ended up in the hopsicle.

[Jason]

And guys, don't forget to subscribe. Please, like people. Subscribe. We're trying to get to Our magic number, 400,000 by the end of the year. Let's try and do it, people. Help us do it.

[Jason Johnson]

Please do help us do it. And our show is going to turn six months old on December 9th. We're so excited. Thank you all for rocking with us for the last six months. Months. It seems like it's been longer, but it's only been six months that this show has existed. We are a baby. We're an infant. We are a tiny, tiny baby. And we are starting to get toward toddlerhood. And that is only because of you guys. So we appreciate y'. All. Thank you. We love you. And there's nothing you can do about it. Thanks for watching. We'll see you on the next the Joy Reach show. Happy weekend.

Okay.

[Pete Hegseth]

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[Jason Johnson]

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[Pete Hegseth]

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