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They’re Back! Racist Southern Governors & Pandemics | The Joy Reid Show LIVE!
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- [00:03]
Joy Reid
Hey. Okay. All right, everyone. Happy Monday and welcome to the Joy Reid show. Big ups to everybody in the chats. We see you out here. Oh, why is that talking? Oh, my computer decided to make extra noises. But still, big up to everyone in the chats. We appreciate everybody. Thank you all for watching. We can see all the early birdies, including the lemon heads from Michigan. Please shout out where you're from. North Carolina. Also in the house, we've got hello, beautiful people from Nati C. We appreciate that. And we say yes. Hit the like button and hit the like button. For joy, for democracy. We appreciate that. Yes, for democracy. We want y' all to do that. Welcome to the joy re show. Definitely keep shouting out where you're watching from. I want to let you all know that even as we speak right now, the Webby Awards are happening. Yes, Jason, can we get a round of applause? The Webby Awards, where we are a awardee. Webby Awards are taking place right now in New York City. Now, clearly we're not there because we're here with you, but I want to congratulate the whole gang. Jason, Winnie, Wange, Adrian, Sean, Ron, Niva, Cameron, Miles, Angela, the whole TJRS crew for the win. The the speech that we asked you, our wonderful readers, to help us write and that you voted on. Yes, N speech won the day, but each of you had great ideas. Will be part of the compiled speech. They're going to compile all the speeches. Just want to really quickly remind you what our speech says. Here it is. I am still here. I'm still here. That's our speech on tonight. So that's going to be compiled with all the other video. So congrats to everybody who helped us build this small but mighty TJR ship. It is speeding along to victory. We are well on our way to 500,000 subscribers on the YouTubes, 225,000 on Substack. We are going like crazy on Facebook, Twitch, LinkedIn, all the social media platforms, as well as on audio podcast platforms like Apple, Spotify, everywhere we are, we are growing. Be sure, as the chats have said, do hit that like and share button. Please subscribe. If you're not a subscriber, don't be a lurker. Subscribe. No one likes a lurker.
- [02:16]
Jason
Leave a comment.
- [02:17]
Joy Reid
While you're at it, please leave a comment. The more engagement, the better. We want everyone to hit that thumbs up. Do that just because you like us, just because we're friendly and fun. Do that. But also please comment, engage with us, because we want to hear what you have to say. You guys are hearing what I have to say and what Jason has to say, but we want to hear what you have to say, too. Quick announcements. The church announcements will begin now. For those of you who are in the overflow, it is because you have a loud, screaming child that is on your parenting, not on this pastoret. So here's some quick church announcements. Testimonies will be later in the show if you guys want to attend the Joy Read show live on June 11th. I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is going to be great. It's going to be hilarious. Godfrey is absolutely hilarious. We're going to have a good time. We've got more surprises. Going to be really, really fun. The bad news is we're basically fresh out of tickets. It's. It's almost sold out. There's very few tickets left. But if you want to get some of the small, tiny number of ticket seats that are left, try to have your face in the place. There's a meet and greet option. For those of you who want to meet me and see me in person, please do that. Somebody said I'm shy, but look, don't be shy. We love all of you guys, so if you did want to go, please let us know. Did you guys know, by the way, Jason, did you know that the guy who runs our department of Transportation, Sean Duffy, who was on the Real World Boston, has a reality show?
- [03:40]
Jason
Yeah. Yeah, he does.
- [03:41]
Joy Reid
Dude has a reality show. Okay. And the sponsors for the show, he drives with. He has, like, nine kids with his wife who he met on the Real World Boston. So rather than like, be embarrassed that he's from the Real World and he's running the Department of Transportation, meaning all the airlines and the trains and everything, he's in charge of it. He's leaning into it. Did his own reality show. Spent seven months while he was supposed to be making planes, not crashing. Filming the reality show on the road while gas is going up into, like, $5 a gallon. He's out there telling people no gas is actually affordable while he's spending corporate dollars to go on the road and do a reality show.
- [04:18]
Jason
I wonder if he has any sponsors, like, you know, airline sponsors.
- [04:21]
Joy Reid
Oh, oh, but he does hotel.
- [04:23]
Jason
Oh, he has hotel sponsors.
- [04:24]
Joy Reid
Oh, yes, he does. Airline sponsors. American Airlines and a bunch of other transportation companies that just happen. Drumroll. To be regulated by the Department of Transportation.
- [04:32]
Jason
Isn't that interesting? The whole thing is agreeing.
- [04:34]
Joy Reid
It's a grift. We're Going to talk more about this today. Not just this particular store, but the grift is everything. This entire scam of an administration. Everybody's grifting. This dude is doing. He got himself a reality show while he's supposed to be doing his job. Absolutely insane. Let's thank one of our incredible sponsors, because we have sponsors, too, but we're not, like, in charge of the government. Our sponsors are helping keep independent media alive so that you guys don't have to hear lies about Israel and pretend like Israel is the most peaceful country on earth. We're just trying to give you the real news, baby. Anyway, let's thank one of our incredible sponsors. I want you guys to ask yourself these five questions to see if it is time to switch jobs. Number one, am I growing or just repeating the same experience over and over? Do I feel energized by my work? Or am I constantly drained and counting the hours till it's over? Am I learning skills that will be valuable three to five years from today? Do I know what my next career move should be? Or am I just hoping something better shows up? And if I stay here another year, will I be proud of my progress or regret staying comfortable? Now, if those questions made you realize that it might be time for a change, you should talk to a career coach and you should do that through Strawberry Me. Their coaches work with you one on one to understand your strengths, identify your gaps, and build a clear roadmap toward a career that you'll actually be excited about. Because the biggest risk isn't making the wrong move. It is staying stuck without a plan. Take control of your Future at Strawberry Me. Flash Joy today and get 50% off your first coaching session. That is Strawberry Me slash Joy. Really important to have a good career because you can't count on getting hired by this regime and him letting you do a reality show. Okay, that's just for Sean Duffy. Okay? Two things that we need to face as a country, all right, as we start off on this TJRS Monday. Number one, we have to face that the Voting Rights act is dead now. I don't care if it is still in the books. It is a zombie. John Crow Roberts, his designated hitman, Sam the Scam Alito killed it. Okay? And Uncle Clarence said that we should even like, kill the zombie ghost. He's like, kill the ghost. The corpse is not nearly dead enough. But just know the Voting Rights act is dead, dead. And so the old school Southern governors are out and proud, doing their best Dixiecrat cosplay. They are Acting like it is Halloween and they are all dressed up as Orville Faubus. They're like, each of us can be an old Alabama governor from the 1950s. Each of them is trying to doing their best to cosplay as that era of governor. All of them deleting congressional districts like they are resetting a broken laptop, even literally in the middle of elections. I also want to show you guys the primary calendar just in May. You know, the blue are where there are primaries just in May alone. Nebraska, North Carolina and West Virginia have state and federal primaries tomorrow. Louisiana state primary is scheduled for this coming Saturday. And Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Idaho, Oregon and Pennsylvania all have primaries next Tuesday. The Texas runoff is May 26, followed by California, Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota on June 2. Now, half of those states are going to get to have elections where everybody can participate. The ones in the south, the ones in the south are going to take place without the Voting Rights act because not only did the Supreme Court, Sam the Scam Alito, along with his boss man, John Roberts, John Crow, we call it John Crow Kill the Voting Rights Act. And then immediately, the old time southern Dixiecrat governors immediately jumped on and said, good, let's change our maps. Even in the middle of elections, literally, Louisiana was already voting in their early vote process when their governor literally tossed out the federal primary election. Tossed it out. So here's Jeff Landry, the governor of Louisiana. He literally, you could pluck him out of the 1950s. He was on 60 Minutes this weekend explaining himself, oh, Dixiecrat style.
- [08:28]
Olivia Troy
Here he is, declared a state of emergency. What exactly is the emergency?
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Demario Solomon Simmons
We've got the highest court of the land says the map that you have is unconstitutional. So we don't have a map under which our voters can vote on.
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Olivia Troy
This country has held elections during the Civil War, during two world wars, elections still went on.
- [08:50]
Demario Solomon Simmons
We're gonna have an election and we're actually gonna have an election on election day.
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Olivia Troy
But voting was already happening. As we sit here right now, more than 45,000 ballots have been returned. What happens to those?
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Demario Solomon Simmons
Oh, those ballots are discarded and those voters will vote again in November.
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Olivia Troy
You say that like it's not a big deal.
- [09:10]
Demario Solomon Simmons
Well, it's. It's not a big deal. It's not my fault. If anybody has a grievance, take it to the United States Supreme Court.
- [09:16]
Joy Reid
Well, ma', am, I have to tell you that the Supreme Court said that Mr. Plesser is not a citizen and therefore I do not owe him the respect the white man need not respect any of the black man's rights. Because I tell you, the Supreme Court said that Mr. Plesser is not a citizen. Ma'. Am. Segregation now. Segregation forever. Do you know that man wants to be president? I just want to let y' all know that man wants to be President of the United States, but only the white part. Jeff Landry, Everybody. And Alabama's 300 year old Governor Kay Ivey. She said, excuse me, sir, hold my bell.
- [09:49]
News Reporter
Alabama Republicans have just filed an emergency request with the US Supreme Court asking the justices to lift a lower court ruling that stands in the way of their redistricting plans. Now if Republicans succeed in all the proposals currently underway and the new map past legal muster, they can actually stand to net anywhere from three, actually four to 13 new seats before the midterms.
- [10:12]
Demario Solomon Simmons
Brett, that's significant.
- [10:14]
Joy Reid
Now what you should not think at any moment as you watch this whole thing play out is that black voters in The south where 52% of black voters live, 52% of black people live, still live in the South. If you think they're just going to take it laying down when people like Landry and Kiv, who wants to be President, and Ron DeSantis and Lee, Governor Lee, all of these people. Robert E. Lee. Good. Might as well be. If you think that black folks are just laying down for this, you just don't know black people, okay? They are not co signing the idea of every single African American south of the Mason Dixon line being solely represented not just in the House of Representatives, but in their state house and Senate only by right wing MAGA conservatives. Think about that. Think about that. That is the goal. To have every black person south of the Mason Dixon line only have representation by MAGA conservatives, mainly white MAGA conservatives. That's it. You would not have the opportunity to elect your own person that represents you. Every single black person south of the Mason Nixon line will be represented by a white conservative from the school board all the way to the Governor's mansion if they get their way. That's the plan. But the response for more than 60 national and local civil rights and voter mobilization groups is summed up, I think pretty succinctly in this Instagram clip that was posted by black Voters Matter Fund. Take a look is enough. I have had it with these mother snakes on this mother plane. Everybody strap in about to open some windows. I'm just telling you, Samuel L. Jackson speaks for all black black Americans. He is all of us. Because that's the response is. It's a. It's It's a hails no, not going to do it. There is going to be a march and collective action taking place in Montgomery, Alabama this Saturday. Now the action is all day but the main march will be from 1 to 5pm Eastern Standard Time. And yes, we will be live streaming it on this channel along with lots of your other favorite channels. We're going to be live streaming this thing simultaneously. You need to get involved. It's on. The stakes are high and the south still matters. Let's just look at some of the stakes here. The critical battleground states. You can see them there for both congressional and state house and state senate districts. We are talking about Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Florida, South Carolina and North Carolina. And North Carolina is on the list even though they do have a mixed government with Democrats in it is because Democrats are trying to not get stuck in a veto proof minority and in a minority that can't override a veto if they need to. And so that's why North Carolina's on this. These are the critical states but you can see on this chart the number of congressional seats that African American members of Congress the CBC plan stands to lose. Let's look at this other map, excuse me, from where black power is most at risk of being deleted. And you can see that that map looks a whole lot like the map of the old Confederacy. That is non coincidental that the map of where black Americans stand to lose the most power is literally an identical map to the map that we were used to seeing of the old Confederate States of America. Because it's basically the same map. They are attempting to effectively lock African American voters in to a situation where the decision of what books you can read, what books can be assigned in your schools, what your school history textbooks look like, whether you get garbage picked up in your community, whether you have the same kind of sanitation services as an affluent or white community. Where those decisions, the decisions based on whether your kids can get reduced price school lunch, if your family is struggling financially, everything from school board to Congress and everything in between, you would have your only choice. Because they would sink African Americans so much into the minority in every district, surround them with rural voters who they can count on to vote Republican. And meaning that no matter how much you vote, you go at 100% turnout, you would never be able to elect a person of your choice. You would always be stuck with whoever the MAGA Republican majority in your district wants. Because now your district would be shared not just by fellow African Americans or fellow Latinos or people of color. Or people who are of your single mindset, which is the way it is now. At least in the south you can get one black, one black representative or even a white representative that actually cares about non white people right now you can have that, but the way they want is you can't have that. Every African American would be sunk in a district at which they are no more than 20% of the population. Meaning they would never win. The website if you would like to get in on this major protest that is going to be happening in Montgomery, Alabama is all roads. All roads. What is it all wait. Oh I'm sorry. All roads lead to the south dot com. All roads lead to thesouth.com sorry about that. All roads lead to thesouth dot com that is where you can sign up if you want to be a part of what's happening in Montgomery. There are buses going to Montgomery from all over the south and all over the mid south and all over the all over the east there are buses going to that state to Montgomery, Alabama this Saturday. We're talking about 19 congressional seats, 191 state legislative seats across the South. 30% of the congressional Black Caucus will be wiped off the map under these Alito maps. That is why we call it John Crow. This was not created by Donald Trump. Donald Trump ordered it, but it was like he ordered a pizza and the Supreme Court delivered It was like he ordered up a pizza. But is this didn't start with him. This started with John Roberts in the 80s and John Roberts finished the job and his hitman is Sam the Scam Alito. They want to keep grifting and a lot of members of Congress want to keep grifting. I'm gonna get into some of them shortly. A lot of these people are getting rich off of this and their easy peasy constant sort of scheme to get over on this is to keep white conservatives looking at the shiny keys of non white immigrants are taking your jobs and blacks are lazy and blacks are bad and they just keep them look so they keep voting for their own economic destruction. And soon if you're black you won't even be able to get potholes filled in your community because you won't be able to vote for anyone of your choice. Everybody. If there's gonna be an AI data center in your community that's gonna poison your water, foul your air, you won't even be able to vote no. Cause there won't be enough of you cause they're gonna sink you in a district surrounded by white maga. Republicans, rural Republicans, who even when they lose their farms, still vote for Republicans. They vote Republicans no matter what. It could be a devil, literally, my name is Satan, B, devil. They gonna vote for them because they just vote culturally Republican. And they're saying, no, we're gonna take. We're gonna carve up the blacks, put like 20% of y' all in a district with like 80% MAGA. Republicans. Good luck. That's the plan. That is what gerrymandering is. Remember the Franklin table? That's what it is. Okay? So the second thing that we have to focus and on and face, in addition to that, which is bad enough, is that we may be on the brink of another pandemic. Yes. Check out this headline. Two cruise passengers, what they're calling the rat virus, this is the hint of virus, evacuated off of that ship, which I don't know why they let anybody off that ship. God bless those people. I know three people died. They should have quarantined them on that ship. They said, we're gonna let everybody go on home and we'll figure it out later. These people got off in Tenerife. There are more cases feared. There's cases in France, and there are lots of cases in the United States. Let's put a little map. This is 87 days. This is the map of where we now know that the hantavirus pathogen has at least touched six states, including New Jersey, Texas, California, and Georgia. And this is places where people have been in contact with or people that were on that cruise ship or have been somewhere in physical contact with them. So if you're not scared enough already about that, please note that Miles Taylor, who served in the Homeland Security Department in the first Trump regime, but resigned and sounded the alarm as an anonymous whistleblower. Remember, he did the New York Times, New York Times anonymous story saying, hey, this guy's dangerous. During the first Trump administration, he wrote this on his substack in which he talks about the World Health Organization Director General insisting that hentavirus is not the new Covid, but that the fear that it is is not irrational. Here's the quote. When Covid arrived, the United States had a sophisticated planning system for confronting pandemics. Homeland security Presidential Directive 5, issued after 911 and refined after Hurricane Katrina, designated the Secretary of Homeland Security as the principal federal official for domestic incident management and laid out a vast nationwide response network to manage such situations. FEMA was supposed to be the lead agency underneath the DHS secretary, with the Department of Health and Human Services leading the public health Response. Decades of planning exercises and statutory authorities sat behind this plan. Then Trump threw it all out. He stood up a hastily assembled White House task force, made the HHS secretary chair of it, then handed it to the Vice President, then handed shadow control to his son in law, Jared Kushner, the DHS secretary at the time, an acting secretary who I used to work with. This is Miles Taylor writing named Chad Wolf, seemed to shy away from leading the effort while FEMA waited on the sidelines. Subsequent congressional investigations found that the result was chaos and structural collapse as agencies scrambled to reinvent pandemic response on the fly. I remember the phone calls at the time. My friend Olivia Troy, who was helping Vice President Mike Pence run the task force from the inside, would call with a tone of contained terror. It's so broken, Miles, you have no idea. He's getting people killed. He quit eventually and said it publicly because the alternative was staying silent. While. While the body count climbed, Trump aides partly blamed her for the President's 2020 loss because her accusations were so damning amidst the crisis. Nothing has changed, at least not with the interagency structure. It's still broken. Trump would still likely put together an ad hoc, freewheeling, personality driven task force to handle the response. Only next time, Trump will be doing it inside an echo chamber. And the aforementioned Olivia Troy joins me now. She was Homeland Security and counterterrorism advisor to Vice President Mike Pence and served as an aide to the White House Coronavirus task Force. She was also running. She also maybe run for Congress. We're going to get to that later whether she's still doing that, but. Hey, friend, it is good to see you.
- [21:18]
Olivia Troy
Hi.
- [21:19]
Joy Reid
Here we are, here we are. Go on.
- [21:22]
Olivia Troy
I mean, I'm kind of, you know, I'm just trying not to get the nightmares back from that era.
- [21:27]
Joy Reid
And yet I'm going to bring them to you, my friend. This is what friends do. Scaring is caring, as they say. All right, so let's do a little scaring and caring here. That piece that I read first thing this morning from Miles Taylor, I went, oh, and immediately asked my producer, can you get Olivia on the phone? Because you were mentioning you were part of it. We know that Donald Trump immediately, one of the first things he did was, was slash the funding for pandemics, period, including the little task force that made sure the cruise ships weren't bringing back Norovirus and things. And he did that. And that's ahs if you throw that up, what else should we be worried about?
- [22:01]
Olivia Troy
Yeah, you know, that's the first thing I thought about, actually, when I was seeing what was happening on this cruise ship. I was like, well, I do know the unit that was gutted that used to do the inspections on the cruise ships, which, by the way, the whole DOGE thing, and cutting funds or whatever. They didn't even pay for that. The crews were liners, were the ones that would pay for this unit. So that's why it was so ridiculous. I was like, this isn't even costing taxpayer money. This is just stupid that they went in and gutted it. And I know these people because I used to work very closely with them. And so I have to say, like, my stomach was like, in not swatching this cruise ship this time around, because I kept thinking about all the cruise ships I worked on. During the COVID pandemic, I had a spreadsheet, Joy.
- [22:48]
Joy Reid
I mean, I am terrified just to think about it. But what should have happened? Like, in a normal administration, you were advising Mike Pence, who. Yeah, I didn't agree with him politically, but he was a relatively normal Republican. Like, what normal things would have happened if we were living in the normal world?
- [23:03]
Olivia Troy
Well, in a normal world, I mean, we would have been communicating and the National Security Council would have been coordinating and actually playing in their roles. Right. I mean, and we have, like Miles said in his post, we have exercise for pandemics, we've exercised for outbreaks, we have war game this, so to speak, where every agency comes to the table and you practice. That's what you do. And then when it happens, then you instill that plan. What happened during the COVID pandemic and then just during this task force was exactly what you said was a task force was enacted, and then a shadow task force was enacted, and then the stocks plummeted when the CDC person went on the news and said, americans should prepare. This is real. This is coming. Remember that when Nancy Manzner got out there and she said it, and the next thing you know, Mike Pence was handed the task force and I was there for that meeting when they turned to him and they said, we've. We've got to control the message. We've got to control the message internally. And then he looks at Pence and says, I think this is you. You're going to have to run the task force now because we've got to control the messaging on this. Basically saying, we've basically got to start lying to the American people. Translation, that's what happened. And so I remember that day, because I was the person that was going to the task force meetings from day one. And I was solely there as an advisor for my pimps, Just listening to what was going on and briefing him on, this is what we're seeing overseas. This is what we're seeing in terms of what was happening in Wuhan. Like, I'm just giving them facts. And so that day when it got handed to him, I remember freaking out and being like, oh, gosh, we own this. And now we are going to navigate this in the best way we can, fully knowing what the hidden agenda is behind here on how we're going to navigate the messaging in the Trump team. And I just remember, like I was saying, when I saw this cruise ship, I had a spreadsheet of cruise ships, Joy, where they were all out on the water. There were thousands of people on these cruise ships around the world. Around the world. And I just remember, remember the one outside of Oakland, California, where people were hanging signs saying, please let us dock. There were other cruise ships that were turned away at ports, just like this one was at one of the ports. Like, I literally started to get those feelings of anxiety and nightmares because I was one of the people with a team that were trying to figure out how we were going to navigate the situation. We knew that the crews were going to be bad. We knew that the people on the cruise ships were at risk. We knew that the longer they were on those ships, the likelihood that this outbreak was going to happen. Now, I will tell you this, I share this because I feel like we've got the unit now at the cdc. We have no trust in what the leadership is telling us because we don't know. I mean, you know, Trump was like, oh, it's going to be fine. I was like, yeah, I remember when you said that the first time. And we all knew behind the scenes that this was not going to be fine. And I do remember thinking of the cruise ships at the time, like, what are we going to do to figure out how we're going to quarantine these people, how we're going to keep people safe. Now, granted, this doesn't spread like Covet. I understand that, but, you know, there's a norovirus outbreak. And I'm thinking to myself, I've had conversations with the CEOs of the cruise lines back then, and we knew that we had a problem and they asked for help. They asked for help from the federal government because, like, we don't even know where to start. We want to do the right thing. We want to save People, but we need help. We need to be talking to the CDC experts. I was talking to the evacuations head of the unit.
- [26:51]
Joy Reid
Yeah.
- [26:52]
Olivia Troy
And we were trying to figure out how to navigate this. None of those people are there. None of that exists.
- [26:56]
Joy Reid
Now, that is what I was just gonna get to, is that at that time, what you're describing are relatively normal people who are not political in terms of their focus on keeping people safe and alive. Now it's RFK Jr Dr. Oz, a bunch of sycophants. If Donald Trump told Pete Hegseth blow the cruise ship out of the water and kill all the people, he'd do it like there's no one there. And we're in a. We're in an atmosphere where MAGA has now won the White House. And their ethic is no masks, no mandates. Even if there was a vaccine, there isn't one. The first time Trump did Operation Warp Speed to speed up the production of the vaccine, there's no way they would do that. Now. There's. Because his. His base is so anti vax, anti mask, anti. Anything to mitigate. We would now be doing the experiment they wanted to do with COVID which is let everybody catch it. Everybody get hint of virus, get the rat virus, and then develop natural immunity. That's what they would do, right?
- [27:55]
Olivia Troy
Yeah. I mean, that was the herd immunity that Scott Atlas kept pushing. Remember him? That's a blast from the past doctor. I'll put that in quotes. Atlas who showed up. And I mean, I remember this because he suddenly becomes sort of the shadow doctor who's calling Donald Trump on the side, outside of Dr. Fauci and the actual task force doctors that are trying to figure out how to navigate this. So, I mean, when I think of this and I see what's happening, I can't even imagine what the internal discussions must be with no actual order, no expertise. I mean. And then also keep in mind that I was there when Trump was like, trying to say, well, you know, I don't want my numbers to go up.
- [28:39]
Joy Reid
Right.
- [28:41]
Olivia Troy
Like, these are Americans, because.
- [28:42]
Joy Reid
Right. There's an election, and again, there's an election coming up. And this is where we get to. They're doing everything in their power to fix this coming election because they do not want to be removed from power. They don't want the grip to stop. And we're in the same exact situation we were in in 2020 when there was a big election. Donald Trump didn't want his numbers to go up because he wanted to get reelected. Now he wants to flip the House and Senate or keep the House and Senate so they have the same incentive structure. Downplay this thing that has a 40% kill rate. Downplay if it's a pandemic, pretend nothing's happening. No masks, no mandates, no nothing. One of the ways that they're trying to hang on to the House and Senate by cheating is by gerrymandering and gerrymandering outside of the realm of a census. You at one point were running for Congress in the state of Virginia. You put this out, this post that is raising the question of whether you're going to continue to do that. We know a lot's going on in Virginia. There is this fight over whether the Supreme Court is going to let the 3 million Virginians who voted to redistrict the state have their way. Tell me where this stands for you.
- [29:58]
Olivia Troy
Well, that's the thing that was enraging on Friday when this ruling hit is it was like, okay, we voted. We the people in Virginia, the voters showed up. There was a huge get out the vote effort. There was a lot of work done on this and the voters showed up and they voted. And then we get this ruling. And as you can imagine, it was shocking. I mean, we were, you know, I think a lot of us as candidates especially are personally impacted by this because we are like, well, basically I'm running for a district that they have now said is not happening, doesn't exist. And so we are in limbo right now. Joy, to be honest with you, I had to take a pause. I, you know, I had to assess over the weekend and I had some other efforts that I was doing because life doesn't stop, you know, bad things still are going on in our country every single day. And I was at a nice detention facility and that's where I was on Friday evening. And so I got the news that morning. It was a little bit of chaos because nobody knew what that would mean. It seemed like, okay, is it on, is it off? I think all of us are assessing. Are you running, are you going to run in another district? I mean, what does this mean? And then as you, I don't know if you saw this yet, like this afternoon, they're now appealing to the Supreme Court. And like I'm of the opinion fight, because Republicans fight. They fight every round. They don't let their foot off the gas. Whatever wreckage they're going to cause along the way, they don't care. And so I think, I think the right thing is to fight and go to the Supreme Court. But we just saw what they did to the Voting Rights Act.
- [31:35]
Joy Reid
Yeah.
- [31:35]
Olivia Troy
I mean, so I am under no illusions that they are going to side and do the right thing here or even take the case. We have no idea what is going to happen. So I'm in a little bit of a holding pattern trying to assess, like, what does this look like? What does it look like for me? What are the other candidates like? I mean, we're all kind of like, looking around.
- [31:56]
Joy Reid
Yeah.
- [31:57]
Olivia Troy
And how do you run a campaign with people now where people are like, well, is it real? Is it not? And I'm like, that's one. That's a great question.
- [32:03]
Joy Reid
Yeah, it's a. It's a maddening situation made worse, as you said, by John Roberts, who I would not be surprised if he completely reverses himself. I says, oh, no, you can't do political gerrymandering. Are you kidding me? No, no, no, Virginia. You can't do political gerrymandering. The only gerrymandering that's legitimate is racial gerrymandering. They'll just switch it. Like, he'll just flip it. Right. Because they don't have any principles. Their only principle is ensuring that Republicans continue to control the government because they're all stealing, they're all grifting. J.D. vance, we can put this up. Jason has said we're going to lean in. He said, we're going to take to your point. They fight hard. They're going to take very decisive action to that. Republicans need to do that in every single state. He said that on Sunday so that after a new census that will make the congressional apportionment fair to them. Fair means they get all the power and Democrats get to be ruled by them.
- [32:55]
Olivia Troy
Yeah. And that is what is so angry about this Joy, that I sometimes I want to be like, no, that doesn't mean we give up. We double down and we fight. I mean, that's what the Democrats need to do. I mean, I'm of the opinion that, like, you gotta meet them where they are, and this is what they're doing, and every opportunity we have to counter it. And it may be uncomfortable. Right. When I was on the campaign trail and I was out there you know, supporting the redistricting, asking people to come out and vote, vote yes on it. And some people, I would talk to them and they would be like, well, it feels a little uncomfortable. Like, I don't know, I'm a little bit, you know, it's Jerry, man, Ray and Street. I'm like, no, take a step back and like, Meet the moment. What are we up against here?
- [33:37]
Joy Reid
I agree. And part of me, part of me wants someone like you, who was on the inside of the Republican Party to start running in Republican primaries too. Like I think we have to not limit ourselves, we have to not limit our imagination. We're going to need some folks to go in those primaries and get rid of some of those people as well. So we need to have these bigger conversations. Some people should run as Democrats. Some, some people just need to go in and run and beat those Republicans at their own game in their own party and throw those people out into unemployment. It's a bigger question. But even in the Democratic Party. Now put up this one, Jason811. Some of our so called Democrats are not even honest, right? So there's this piece that came out over the weekend. This is the keystone out of Pennsylvania. Don Fetterman, who on paper is a Democrat, he sits on the committee that oversees the CHIPS act, which is something that Joe Biden pushed for and got signed into law under the Democrats. And the CHiPs act puts a lot of money into chips production, microchip production. Around the country. There's a company called Micron. John Fetterman purchased Micron Tech stocks and he's now up 68%. He oversees the, his committee oversees Micron. And so he's, this looks like insider trading to me and outright corruption. And so when people ask why does John Fetterman seem to be so disloyal to the Democratic Party? This is why he's in on it. He's getting, he's making money being a senator. Being senator is the best gig he ever had when it comes to getting rich. So that's how we can't trust half of these politicians.
- [35:07]
Olivia Troy
I agree. I actually think, I mean the corruption runs deep and it is really, they are beholden to one, their own pocket and bank accounts and special interest and a lot of these other special interests. Very major corporate scenarios that basically paralyze these people from ever doing the right thing. Meanwhile, when I was out and talking to voters, I mean people are hurting. Like people are like, they're looking at their health care, they're looking at hospitals being closed, they're looking at what is happening in higher education, which I care about. I was a first generation college student. I had to really work hard to get my way through Penn and figure out how I was going to pay for it. And I'm sitting here looking at this and I'm like, they've gutted the Department of Education. They're gutting grants, the parent plus loans that I hear about in Virginia. The window for where you qualify income wise is extremely challenging. I mean, it is, you know, and plus, never mind that we are in an unjustified worthy wrong which we can get into another time, because I have. I mean, I. That's one of the reasons that I decided to run was because I'm so angry when I saw what they did that we are in. It's never a never ending situation that is impacting all of us. But yet you have people like Fetterman who are like, well, you know, I'm gonna kind of side on certain things because that's okay because I just saw my stock go up and my pocketbook got bigger. I mean, you know, and I have to tell you, Joy, some people were like, is she going to be a Fetterman? Is she gonna switch? I was like, do not insult me like this because hell has no fury like a woman's Ford. And tell me I am.
- [36:39]
Joy Reid
No, Olivia is the. She's the opposite of John Fetman. I'm just telling you, I know this is. No, she the opposite. So, no, you don't have to worry about that.
- [36:46]
Olivia Troy
Do not even. I was like, that is the biggest insult to me. Do not even compare me.
- [36:50]
Joy Reid
And here's the thing that you want, Olivia. You were a better Democrat when you were a Republican in the Trump administration than Fetterman is now. That is how much better you are. You were better. You. I would rather took you then on team. Well, you were with them because even there you were. I'm telling you, you are an honest person, even working for Mike Pence. So I don't agree with him because at least you were always honest. We used to have you on from back in the day. I've known you since you were in that side. And when I tell you this lady is honest, before I let you go, I do want to talk about what you touched on a little bit. There was a story that I posted on Mother's Day about this sweet 18 year old boy who was dying of cancer. His family were detained. They tried to cross into the United States undocumented, just because they wanted to see their baby before he died. The story had a sad and happy ending. They did get to see him. He died hours later. This is what ICE is doing to our country. This child had to go public in his dying months just so he could see his mom and dad before he died of cancer. You were in an ICE detention facility. We have a photo that you shared with us. Talk about what you saw. And there's the name above your head. Core Civic, one of the companies that is profiting. Speaking of grifting off of Donald Trump's home. Horrible. Stephen Miller led policies.
- [38:07]
Olivia Troy
Yeah, it was. I mean I followed that story about the cancer patient and that was so heartbreaking. And the fact, I mean I was, it was just at moments like I'm so glad that he got to see his family one last time. But the horrificness of everything that families are facing on a daily basis. And like on Friday I found out about the Virginia ruling that I was on the way up to New Jersey and you know, it was, it is my best friend, it was my college roommate and we went to Penn together. She was Puerto Rican. We were first generation college students together. And when she called, we had been fighting this thing. Her husband was detained by ICE last Memorial Day and we had been fighting this thing for a year. I went out, we got the lawyers. He was picked up in front of his house. It's one of the stories where he runs his landscaping pendant company, pays taxes. They have filed because they are married. He's married to a US citizen. They have a four year old little boy. I am the godmother. And we won that in August, Joy. We won round one. They never released him. He remained in detention. He was in detention till this weekend almost a year because we're coming up on Memorial Day again and we got the notice that I said appealed. They never released him. And I swam the appeal and we got notified that he was being deported imminently. Of course, you know, everybody goes into panic mode when you hear that. I'm like, you got to show up in person. We got to figure out where he's going. Like I, you know, he's Mexican. I hope he's going back to Mexico. But going, going in, you know, you, I, I took some pictures there. We were there with a four year old. You know, he's playing in the, in the parking lot. Like this is not a playground. Like these are the memories that he is going to have for a very long time. They went there twice a week to see his dad who was detained and then leaving there. I showed that photo. We had already been sobbing inside, like puffy eyes. Like we said our goodbyes and then we were kind of like, I'm looking at baby A is what I call them and trying to figure out like how we're going to tell them. How do we explain this that you're not going to see your dad in person and you've been Going to this weird facility and you don't understand it at your age, but when you ask to go see him next Friday because it's, you know, now become the family tradition of. This is what you do. We're not going to go because you're not going to see him because he's gone. And the conditions, though, like when I was talking to him, there were no windows. They have no windows in those cells. They're in this group, group of people in this rooms that they're held in, and they don't get, they don't go outside. You know, we've got murders and criminals. They're allowed. At least they go outside. They're out in the fresh air. He did not see the fresh air at all. I mean, we got, we got notified, we were told, you know, I didn't talk about this publicly because I was like, I just want to make sure he gets on that plane. I want to make sure he gets to Mexico because we at least know where he is.
- [41:06]
Joy Reid
And he lands there.
- [41:07]
Olivia Troy
And I mean, he called my friend and he said, you know, wow, at least I get to see the sky again. Because he hadn't, he hadn't seen the outdoors. And I'm like, what are we doing here across the country? I mean, I'm looking around the room. I was seeing, like, young families coming in. You're all in one room together. When you're talking to people, you can see the tears because the young people looking at the little boy and thinking about, what does the future look like? And, you know, he's playing with building blocks while we're having conversations about, how are you going to rebuild your life? I mean, he'd been in this country
- [41:46]
Joy Reid
over 20 years, and that is what we're doing. And by the way, it is harming the US Economy. We're losing business owners like your friend's husband. We are basically, the World cup is going to be a disaster. The bookings are down, hotel rooms are light. We're not seeing the kind of tourism coming in. People are scared to come here. They don't want to be here in Trump's MAGA America. So they're harming the economy. It's not making the economy better. It's not making America great again, making America broke. Olivia Troy, I appreciate you. Please keep us posted. If you do decide you're going to go ahead and run, please come back and we can talk about your campaign. But keep us posted on your decision. I appreciate you.
- [42:24]
Olivia Troy
I will. Thanks for having me. Nice to see you.
- [42:27]
Joy Reid
Great to See you too. Olivia Troy, everybody. She is really one of the good ones. Before we jump even further into this, this is what the stuff you got to keep in mind, guys, because this is what they're doing to the country and hurting, hurting, hurting the country. But there are still a few companies that are trying to do the do the right thing. Let me thank one of our wonderful sponsors that keeping us here in front of you is where each show is brought to you by our friends at Quince. Now, look, you know me, I've been trying to be super intentional about what I wear day to day. You see, I've been making choices about what to wear based on what's comfortable, what's affordable, what works for my lifestyle. This is the thing I do. And one of the ways that I really help myself do that is quince. Quince makes it easy to refresh your wardrobe every day. And they could do that this spring with pieces that feel as great as they look. They use premium materials like 100 European, 100% European linen, beautiful organic cotton and ultra soft denim. They're lightweight linen pants, dresses and tops. They started just $30 each and they're effortless, breathable, and so easy to wear on repeat. Everything at Quint's is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut straight to the middleman. It's cut straight out of the middleman. They keep the middleman out that you are paying for quality and craftsmanship, not brand markup. And if that doesn't matter to you in these really tough economic times, I don't know what to tell you because this is the way to go. If you want to dress well, look chic, but be comfortable and also keep your wallet reasonably, reasonably used. Right? Because it's so important to be able to afford what you're buying. If you want to refresh your wardrobe every day with luxury that you can actually use and afford, head to quince.com joyread for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in our favorite country, Canada. That's Q U I n c e.com joyread for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com joyread I especially love their fabulous linen stuff and their cotton soft sweaters. Fabulous. Love them. All right, so your reminder that black voters have never strictly followed party loyalty in the voting booth. As I told you on this show before, we can put the chart up again. For most of the early 20th century, black voters called themselves Republicans but voted at the presidential level for Democrats because those Democrats seemed relatively better for black Americans economic prospects and their prospects for achieving at least some level of civil rights and voting rights. But disenfranchising black voters and stripping them of both their voting rights and their humanity and basic rights as citizens has been a standard part of American history, literally from the inception of this country. Whether it's the utter destruction of the prosperous black communities like Tulsa's black Wall Street Greenwood or Florida's Rosewood, or the constant creativity of the southern right wing governors who used to call themselves Democrats and now call themselves Republicans to stop black people from exercising voting power or from serving in state houses or in Congress. It literally just never seems to stop. And if you think that they're doing that because they want to stop with black people, you just really don't understand conservatives. Whether they call themselves Democrats or Republicans, the goal is to stop every working class person by focusing on stopping black people first. It's always the way it rolls. A new book by Demario Solomon Simmons examines this never ending fight. And the book is called Redeeming Nation, the Century Long Battle to Restore the Soul of America. And you may recall Di Mario as the attorney for the survivors of the Greenwood Tulsa race massacre of 1921. And DeMario joins us now. I have my book here in my hot little hand. Demario, good to see you.
- [45:58]
Demario Solomon Simmons
Good to see you. Joy, how you been?
- [46:00]
Joy Reid
I am. I am doing well. And for those who have forgotten, let's take a very quick look one more time at the wonderful late Viola Fletcher and her testimony before Congress.
- [46:09]
Viola Ford Fletcher
My name is Viola Ford Fletcher. I'm the daughter of Lucinda Ellis and John Wesley Ford of Tulsa, Oklahoma. I'm the sister of Hughes Van Ellis who is also here today. I'm a survivor of the Tulsa race massacre. Two weeks ago, I celebrated my 107th birthday. Today I'm visiting Washington D.C. for the first time in my life. I'm here seeking justice and I'm asking my country to acknowledge what happened in Tulsa in 1920. On May 31, in 21, I went to bed at my family's home in Greenwood, neighbors of Tulsa. The neighborhood I felt asleep in that night was rich, not just in terms of wealth, but in culture, community, heritage. And my family had a beautiful home. We had great neighbors and I had friends to play with. I felt safe. I had everything a child could need. I had a bright future ahead of me. The night of the massacre, I was awakened by my family. My parents and five siblings were there. I was told we had to leave. And that was it. I will never forget the violence of the white mob when we left our home. I still see black men sin being shot, black bodies lying in the street. I still smell smoke and seafar. I still see black businesses being burned. I still hear airplanes flying overhead. I hear the screams. I have lived through the massacre every day.
- [48:11]
Joy Reid
And in this book, redeem a nation, chapter four, you titled they kill you in this town. You talk about being born in north Tulsa. Why did you write this book? And what will people learn about what Viola Fletcher went through and how that relates to what this country has done to its soul?
- [48:30]
Demario Solomon Simmons
Well, Joy, I wrote this book for a couple reasons. Number one, I didn't want anybody else to be like I was. I grew up in Greenwood. I went to middle school at George Washington Carver Middle School on Greenwood Avenue. And I knew nothing about the massacre. I knew nothing about the greatness of Greenwood until I went off to college. And I had a college professor talking about this great place in north Tulsa. I raised my hand and said, hey, that's not true. I'm from this place. And obviously, I was wrong. I was humiliated. And ever since that time, I have had a fire in me to educate myself and others about Greenwood and then search and try to find justice and reparations. And in this book, it chronicles the Greenwood story, how it was created. It chronicles the massacre, chronicles the legal fight for justice ever since 1921. But it's more than that. It's more than a legal thriller. It's something that is relatable, down to earth, personable people going to learn a backstory of how green was created. Some of the people in the book, like Mother Fletcher, Mother Randall, our one living survivor who's 111 years old, but it's also a blueprint of what black communities can do out throughout this country. This book right now is so timely, and I kind of hate that, because what we're dealing with right now in today's world is what this book is talking about. And what does it take for us as a community to get back to building Greenwoods all over this country? Because Greenwood was just as much a physical location as it was a state of mind. And I take people through that very specifically in this book.
- [49:53]
Joy Reid
Yeah, I mean, and one of the things that I think people don't realize about Greenwood is that after the 1921 massacre, Greenwood actually rebuilt. But then the Eisenhower era highways came along and just destroyed it all over again. And through the 1970s is when the final sort of permanent destruction took place. It wasn't even just the, you know, the massacre. It stalled those incredible people, but their resilience said, no, we're going to rebuild. They just couldn't survive the federal government.
- [50:20]
Demario Solomon Simmons
Right. And this is why this book is so important, because Greenwood story is the story of black America. As you stated, there are black places all over this country that had wealth, that had organization, have prosperity. Greenwood just happened to be the most organized and most profits in the history of this country. But it's not unique what happened to Greenwood. Either the massacre or urban renewal, which we call Negro removal in our neighborhoods. And so I talk about that in the book and make sure we gotta stop telling ourselves these, these, these falsehoods about ourselves. Like we're on our. We're our own worst enemy. We're not our own worst enemy. When we have a federal government and we have white supremacists and people that call themselves conservatives, which, you know, what are they trying to conserve? They're trying to conserve power for themselves going back to the 1700s. These are the type of things I'm talking about in the book. For us to be able to come together, learn the lessons of Greenwood, learn the lessons of how was our ancestors able to build HBCUs, able to build fraternities and sororities, able to build cities like Greenwood during a time like this. They call it an adir. This is a time where it was rampant violence, rampant Jim Crow sharecropping, pennage farming. My grandmother was a sharecropper. I'm really trying to bring these stories to light as a way to motivate us, inspire us, how we can redeem this nation. When I say redeem this nation, I'm not just talking about the United States of America. I'm talking about black nation. The black folks in this country also.
- [51:39]
Joy Reid
We are living in a time when. Jason, if you can put up before, I mean, I want to show you all the four black Congress members of Louisiana. And that doesn't mean the four who are currently there. It means the four there ever were ever in history. That is the entire group of the number of the black members of Congress from the state of Louisiana. PBS pinchback was from ever in history. Let's go to the next one. This is B5. This is Justin Pearson. Justin J. Pearson, who is running for Congress in a seat that has been eliminated. His. The seat he was literally running for has been wiped off the map in the state of Tennessee. That's his brother who was detained, arrested for simply saying, we deserve to have a seat. They have one seat in the state of Tennessee. You're talking about rebuilding a nation. The nation that this black nation exists in doesn't even believe that black people should have a single seat in the states where we have huge numbers of people living.
- [52:42]
Demario Solomon Simmons
Look, this nation doesn't believe we deserve anything, period. Not a single seat. Not even to be outside looking in. And that has been what started this country. As I stated in the book, this country was started and built upon the enslavement of our people and the genocide of Native Americans. And this is what this, this is the animating DNA of this country. And we have to accept that. That's one of the things. Enjoy. You know, you gave me some great quotes for this book, and I want to thank you for that. And one of the things that we talked about is that before this era, this Trump era. Right. People could say, oh, I don't know if racism is that bad. I don't know what it is. You know, your grandmother. Oh, she's. She's making it worse than what it was. We had a black president. You can't say that anymore. Right, right. It's very, very clear. The scales off our eyes. It's very, very clear what is going on. And we don't get our act together and come together as a community. And I don't mean everybody has to come together because it's never going to be everybody. But as long as you're not anti black, we should be able to come together and make sure, because these people have a plan. A guy in Alabama said he wants to get rid of the 14th Amendment.
- [53:43]
Joy Reid
He did.
- [53:44]
Demario Solomon Simmons
14th Amendment, which is specifically for our citizenship. The thing that's supposed to protect us. They're not playing this game. They're not playing a game. They. They seek to wipe us out like they try to do in Tulsa. The reason I think this book, Redeemination is so timely, you're going to hear these stories of people that was almost wiped off the earth. Their goal was to run the Negro out of Tulsa. While I still live in Tulsa, last time I look, I'm still. Someone called me a Negro. Right. The point is we must be willful, resilient. We have to understand we have tremendous odds, obstacles, and opposition, but we've always had that and we've always had to fight. And guess what? Just like the men in Greenwood who eventually lost the war because the battle was 36 hours. I laid it out in the book.
- [54:22]
Joy Reid
Yeah.
- [54:22]
Demario Solomon Simmons
For 12 hours, they fought and held off. We have to fight. We may not even Win all the fights. That doesn't even matter. We must fight for everything. One of the survivors of the massacre, Hal Singer, he passed away right before we filed our litigation in September of 2023, 2020. He wrote me a letter. His wife sent me a letter. He said, we must, we may, we may lose, but we must fight for our rights and our dignity. And so I hope people that's listening to this interview and read this book, Redeeming Nation, regardless of what, fight for your rights and your dignity.
- [54:53]
Joy Reid
Yeah, and, and I want you to amplify just a little bit more and you say more about that because this is one of the things I think people, when they think about the Tulsa race massacre, they think of these black people in this, you know, beautiful community being victimized. No, there was like a firefight where the black men of the community went and holed up in a hotel, a posh hotel in the town that a black man owned and literally held off this white mob to the point where the federal government sent in military planes. Like what Pete Hegseth would literally do if he was in the same situation, to bomb the town with military jets. Like, the story is so wild that when Watchmen came out and, and they portrayed that in the opening, people thought they made that up. No, that is literally what happened. They left out the firefight though. Please talk more about that.
- [55:40]
Demario Solomon Simmons
Oh, absolutely. One of the things I'm so, so proud to be from Greenwood, because these black men, some of the richest, most powerful, wealthiest black men in America, people like J.B. stratford, owned the Stratford Hotel, which is the largest African American owned hotel in America at the time. They went across the train tracks to protect the life of 19 year old shoe shiner Dick Rowland. Not a very, not a wealthy person, not a property owner, but someone that the community said, we love him and we're going to go prot him. And when they went across those train tracks, about 100 of these black men, many of them World War I veterans, dressed in their suits with their guns. They encountered a mob, about 2,000 whites. And you could imagine this scene. And one of the white guys tried to take the guns from one of the brothers, OB man, and a shot rang off. About 12 people were killed at that point. Then the black man retreated back over the train tracks into Greenwood and they set up defensive perimeters and they fought them for 12 hours, 12 hours, until the National Guard, as you stated, National Guard came in. They came in with their machine guns and they were able, finally able to break through the actual defenses of the Black men and women, some women fighting too. Let's be clear and break through. And then they poured into Greenwood and then they stole and loot and killed over 1550 homes and businesses, destroyed over 3000 people. Joy was disappeared. We don't know what happened to them. We don't know if they were burnt up, put in a mass grave, put in the river, but we never heard from them again. And do you know when the. The adjutant general from the Oak from the Oklahoma National Guard came to town, he wrote his after action report. These are not my words. This is Adjunct General Barrett. He said that when he got on scene, it was 20 to 25,000 whites going berserk in Greenwood. But we got to remember, we fought. It was 36 hours. We fought for 12 hours. We were just outnumbered and outgunned. But the point is, you gotta fight regardless if we outnumbered and outgunned, because that's how you fight for your rights and fight for your dignity. And that's what redeemination is about.
- [57:29]
Joy Reid
Yeah, it's such a. You said it reads like a thriller. Because that's the thing is that people don't know those parts of the story. They just know the victimization and people forget about the heroism. And it really is an important point to make. I learned this in doing the research for Mega and Merly. I got my Mega and Merly cup here. It's book days. We're going to book up. Is that World War I and World War II were such key parts of the civil rights movement, because that and the Civil War, those are the three times when armed black men used their war heroism to the advantage of the larger community. Those black men who fought in the Civil War took those guns home with them and they were prepared to fight Jim Crow just like we're have to now fight John Crow. And those World War I veterans fought in Greenwood. And then those World War II veterans are the one who said, oh, if there's an exemption from the poll tax for World War II veterans, we want that and we want to vote. And people leave out the piece about war, you know, our war veterans and how important they were to civil rights.
- [58:28]
Demario Solomon Simmons
Oh, absolutely. Completely important. You know, as we talk, it made me think about a story I put in the book of this mother thinking about the black women and the power of black women. There's a story about this black mother who is there literally as a plane is going over there, they're raining down bullets, buildings are burning around her, and her daughter gets scared and runs away from her and she Runs after her daughter, and a couple of people say, what are you doing? You cannot chase her. You're going to be killed. And that mother said, if I have to be killed, I gotta get my daughter. And she ran into that gunfire. She somehow survived. She got her daughter. And it's just a beautiful story of what we have to do. Sometimes you have to sacrifice. Sometimes you have to go into the danger that is the plight of black people. That is the black tact. It's not fair. It's not fun, but. But it's just what it has to be. And we have to be. You know, we have to be able to stand up like our ancestors did, like Medgar Everest did. None of us want to be mowed down going into our home in front of our family. None of us wants that. But it's going to take us standing strong for our rights and our dignity and redeemination is going to give you a blueprint. One of the things I'm talking about@redeemernation.com is joining our Greenwood 11,000 campaign. You know, it's about 11,000 black people in Greenwood at the time of the massacre. We're looking for 11,000 Black folks to join with us by May 31, 2026, which will be the 105th anniversary, not just to read the book, but to sign the pledge, to download the worksheets, host a community discussion in your home, your business, your fraternity, your church, and then get with us at justice for greenwood so we can deploy you with tangible action and organized fashion to fight against this fascism and racism that's coming our way.
- [60:06]
Joy Reid
The book is redeem a Nation. And you can go to redeem the Nation.com to get involved, as demari is discussing. And he doesn't just say that. He is somebody who has done that and lived his life fighting for the people of Greenwood and for those survivors. The book redeem a Nation is on sale at the shop. You know how we do? We make bestsellers on the Joy Reid show. And we want to do this with this book, too. It's a thriller. It's important history. It's the history even demario didn't get growing up in Tulsa in Greenwood himself. And so he wants to make sure there's not another generation that doesn't know the story. Go to the shop and@shop.thejoyreachow.com get your book, and then go to redeemthenation.com so that you guys can. You can get involved. Thank you, Demario. Thank you for bringing this book to us. We appreciate you and this incredible, important story.
- [60:52]
Demario Solomon Simmons
Thank you so much, Joe. I appreciate all you do for us in Greenwood and for our whole community.
- [60:56]
Joy Reid
Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And the blurbs on the book include one from Joanne Reed. So you're gonna wanna look. I. I look. So you. You're gonna want to go and get this book. I liked it so much, I went ahead and blurbed it. So that is another thing we do. We do love books on the show. That's why we call ourselves readers. One of the reasons we call ourselves readers is, well, my last name is Reed. Jason and my last name is Reed. So it's like a pun. Is it a pun? But it also is because we like to read books. The little nerd face glasses is kind of our little theme. It's our theme emoji. It's our themoji, as you would say. So we always like to bring you guys great books. So thank you all for listening. And please take a. Take a. Take a peek at that book. You can get it at the shop. And then please go on and support Demario's work. You represented those survivors literally until the day they died. And These survivors were six and seven years old. They were the last three survivors. And there's only one left. And she's like 107. No, no, she's only about 107. She's not 111 yet. She'll get to 111, though. They're strong. These are strong people. Can you imagine being a six year old and having to live, oh, she might be 100, Jason. Is she 111? No. Well, she was 107 at the time, so she might actually be 111. That's possible. That's possible. All right, welcome to hour two of the Joy Reed show. Please sure to hit that like and subscribe button. If you have. If you bought merch, please, you know, go ahead and tag us. Tag us in. Tag me at Joy Ann Reed or at Joy Reed show on Instagram or at Joy Reid official on Tick Tock, if you're still over there with the. With that. With that evil family that owns Tick Tock. Unfortunately, they bought it. But all the apps are bad. Like, at this point, they're all bad. Hashtag green. Joy, if you got some merch, the Webbies are going on right now. Look at the Webby cookie. I completely forgot to give these out. It's my bad. I owe all of my team the Webby cookies. We picked up some when Jason and I went to the photo Shoot. There's going to be cute pictures of Jason and myself posing with the Webby award, which is actually very fetching. It's a very fetching, beautiful silver what's actually quite heavy. It looks like a paperclip, but it's like a heavy paperclip. And we'll hopefully try to get a copy of one. You know, when you win an award, you have to pay for the actual statue, so you have to actually buy it. Any award you have to give to put a little coin in to get statue. But we're very proud of our team. Won our Webby. That's the Webby cookie. Not gonna eat it. Like, this isn't gonna be like the mosh bars where if this disappears, I don't know how you're gonna guess who bought who ate it if the. If this disappears on me, guys.
- [63:11]
Jason
There we go again with the mosh bars.
- [63:13]
Joy Reid
This goes like the mosh bars. I don't know what to. I don't even know. I don't know what I'll even do because no one's tasting. It's in plastic wrap. But anyway, we're proud of our Webby. This hour of the Joy Reid show, by the way, is brought to you by another thing that is delicious to consume, and that is 120 live. Here it is. I keep it with me. This is my powdery one. You know, be on a diet. Now, listen, the thing we have to talk about is high blood pressure, because, look, this era will give you high blood pressure if you didn't have it already. But honestly, especially if you are prone to it because it runs in your family, it's a huge deal. High blood pressure is actually the number one leading cause of mortality in the country. Many people don't even know they have it, and they're not checking to make sure that they have it. So if you have high blood pressure, you need to start making lifestyle changes, you know, before you even do the medical changes. And even as I should say you're doing medical changes, you should start with lifestyle change. It's really important. And the people who can really benefit from 120 life are the people who check their numbers, who know their blood pressure is high, and who want to do something about it. So if you try 120Life, it is a once a day functional drink that's made with ingredients that help support healthy blood pressure. Tastes great. It's refreshing. It's made from a blend of superfruit juices. It fits into your regular life. And the powdered version Which I just showed you has only one gram of sugar, making it a smart option for people watching their blood sugar. The liquid version is good too, because you can actually put it in the fridge and make it super ice cold. So when you finish doing your Tai chi, which is my new favorite thing, you can drink it. You get yourself a blood pressure boost and also something delicious and healthy. Just try for 14 days. Measure before and after. If your numbers do not improve, you will get a full refund. Over a thousand health professionals have supported or endorsed its use. It's increasingly become a go to natural tool in clinical settings, not just in wellness circles. So if you want to try it, go to 120life.com, that is 120-life.com, use my code joy or the code reed. R E I D for 20% off. They'll try it risk free. Two weeks, no blood pressure. I'm bringing down, coming down. They'll give you a full refund. Go to 120life.com, use the code joy or read for 20% off. Don't wait till next month. You have nothing to lose other than your high blood pressure numbers. 120life.com code joy or read 20% off and these statements have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Okay, so we are on hour two.
- [65:29]
Jason
Yeah. And now we got the comments going in about me eating these cookies.
- [65:33]
Joy Reid
Now you see, why do y' all blame Jason? This is. We have to get to the bottom of this. Why does Jason catch all the straits there are. I, I told y'. All, the number of people on our
- [65:42]
Jason
show happens all the time is that, you know, whenever it comes to these cookies, I.
- [65:47]
Joy Reid
Well, we know Cam didn't do it because he's literally in another country. Cam is in another country. We know Sean didn't do it because she's in another state. Right, but the, the, the suspects, there's
- [65:56]
Jason
about three of them.
- [65:58]
Joy Reid
I would say about four suspects. There's several suspects that.
- [66:01]
Jason
Including yourself.
- [66:03]
Joy Reid
I didn't eat them. Uhhuh. I ate the two that y' all know I ate. I ate that chocolate fudgy one I ate.
- [66:08]
Jason
That means you ate some of them.
- [66:10]
Joy Reid
So you did two of them.
- [66:11]
Jason
Okay, but the point is I've eaten,
- [66:13]
Joy Reid
but there were all these other flavors that I didn't get to try cuz
- [66:16]
Jason
y' all ate Bar blame your daughter one and then blame your. I should say blame.
- [66:22]
Joy Reid
Yeah, she my producer. We gonna give her her honorific anyway. We're gonna. We think it's. Never could have done it.
- [66:30]
Jason
You know, I don't know about that. I do think you basically, you know when we know those midnight when nobody.
- [66:36]
Joy Reid
I don't think Ron did it, too, because Ron don't seem like he. I don't think. And Ron usually traveling, so I don't think he did it. But it's a few people, I think. And, Jason, you on the list.
- [66:43]
Jason
Listen, one of these days, I'm gonna try one. But the thing is, one of these days, I'm gonna try you next.
- [66:48]
Joy Reid
You right here. You're closer. You're physically close to where the old. Where the MOs are. So that's a. That's a reality we have to deal with, is your. Your proximity to the bars and those
- [66:58]
Jason
webby cookies right there. I haven't. I haven't.
- [67:01]
Joy Reid
Listen, I don't have my name.
- [67:03]
Jason
Give that to the team. I don't want any of them. No, I'm saying. Well, give the others to the team. I don't want any.
- [67:08]
Joy Reid
I'll give the other ones to the team. But this one, right? I'll put my name. Because you have the plastic in the back. It's going to say Joy.
- [67:12]
Jason
All right, that's fine. Let's get back to our show. Lady.
- [67:15]
Joy Reid
People in the chat, they know what it is. Y' all know what it's like.
- [67:17]
Jason
It's not.
- [67:18]
Joy Reid
When you have people around me.
- [67:21]
Jason
It is. Anyway, it's not me.
- [67:22]
Joy Reid
The investigation. I'm a journalist, and so I'm gonna figure it out.
- [67:25]
Jason
Yeah, okay.
- [67:26]
Joy Reid
We're gonna figure that out. And also the attacks, the attempts on Trump. We're gonna figure all of this out. All this investigative journalism is happening. The dude running and being like, I'm texting my family while I'm running with eight guns and knives, texting my family, running through the max, through the mags. I'm a black guy that doesn't get shot by 18 cops through the mags.
- [67:52]
Jason
The sad thing is, right, since Marsh is one of our sponsors, I should at least have to try. But see, I could give an honest opinion. There you go. So thank you. So y' all stop eating them so I can get one. Okay? Then I can actually say to the good people that I actually tasted one, but up to this day, I haven't had any.
- [68:09]
Joy Reid
I'll tell you that. Also, when I. When we first got the 120 life, and I know who drank my 120 live, because I was, like, doing my 120 life routine, and I came out, I did my little. My little morning tai chi, went in to get my 120 light, and that was gone, too, because people just be eating and drinking my stuff. They. They didn't even respect my need to keep my blood pressure down, and I need to keep my blood pressure down. So I went to get my 120 life because I like it cold. I have it in the cold. I have it in the cold fridge.
- [68:32]
Jason
Well, I could wine. I. I did. I did take it.
- [68:35]
Joy Reid
I wouldn't open it up to get my little cold fridge. I'd have done my Thai chi, I' whole my poses and everything. Went to get it. There was nothing in there. And this one, you got to work for it. You got to put this one in the. In the blender. And I was ready to just go ahead and pop it down and gone. I can't keep nothing I don't get.
- [68:50]
Jason
I may have been responsible for a few of those.
- [68:52]
Joy Reid
Okay, so now you've admitted we are
- [68:55]
Jason
talking about 120 life at this point.
- [68:58]
Joy Reid
Give attendance.
- [68:59]
Jason
Well, the next time the marsh bars come through, I'm gonna talk. I'm gonna tell the truth. If I get a mosh bar, we'll
- [69:05]
Joy Reid
let everybody know who drank it. Who.
- [69:07]
Jason
I did have some of those. And especially some of those. When I see one or two of them left, I just grabbed one. I did do that.
- [69:12]
Joy Reid
You did drink.
- [69:13]
Jason
I drank one or two of the cold ones, but.
- [69:16]
Joy Reid
Okay, at least you admitted it. Let's thank Megan Underwood. 49.99 in the till. Thank you so much. We appreciate you. Someone gifted a bunch of membership today. I appreciate you. We got the super stickers going. We love our members and our team. Tjrs folks, if you are going to be at the New York show, shout out yourself. Let us know so we can know that you're going to be there. So we will shout you out when we see you guys. I. I have somebody in here. FP Knox. And you're confessing? He's confessing a pattern.
- [69:46]
Jason
I am confessing.
- [69:49]
Joy Reid
Wonder doggy said it's a pattern. I'm right. I'm with you, Wonder Doggy. Jason confessing to all the things.
- [69:53]
Jason
The sad thing is he can only come. I confess to this.
- [69:56]
Joy Reid
I did say as long as they ain't blaming me that she. We are. How do you know we're not blamed.
- [70:02]
Jason
Exactly.
- [70:02]
Joy Reid
How do you know we're not blaming you? We don't know that. You don't have any evidence that we're not. Yup. Denise said Jason Confessing.
- [70:09]
Jason
I confess to 120 life again. I will let everybody know what a marsh bar tastes like before Joy Winsome Wanjira, Everybody eats it.
- [70:18]
Joy Reid
Okay, I don't know why y' all acting like nigga not a suspect.
- [70:20]
Jason
She don't live here sometimes. Well, she's never around. Well, actually, you know, maybe she's had a few and we don't know about.
- [70:26]
Joy Reid
Nida was with us for the Halloween for her New Year's, so nigga was here.
- [70:34]
Jason
She probably grabbed like, four boxes, put in her bag.
- [70:38]
Joy Reid
It could be any of these people except Cam, who lives in another country, or Sean, who lives in another state. If you. If you live. If you've been in this proximity to this studio, we. You. You're. You're on the list. You're a suspect. I'm just saying we gonna figure it out. They said thank you, professor. Up, Jason.
- [70:54]
Jason
I have done so. I've said that the 120 life. I am responsible for leaving maybe one in the fridge, but yeah, Bar snatcher.
- [71:01]
Joy Reid
We watching you.
- [71:02]
Jason
Definitely.
- [71:02]
Joy Reid
It's a bar snatch.
- [71:04]
Jason
I will let y' how those marsh bars taste when I get to taste them. All right, let's move on with our show.
- [71:11]
Joy Reid
This is. This is what you call a hard turn. This is a tough story, and I'm glad we got our laps in just to chat about it, because, listen, they said the sidebars give me life. They do. They do. D. We love. We love the sidebars, and we. We love Jason, even if he ate the mosh bars. But let's do a hard turn because this is a really serious story, and I'm glad that you guys are stuck around for it, because this is important. We need to do some activism. For real? For real, for real. I want to show you guys a picture. This is a picture of Tony Carruthers. So this is Mr. Carruthers. And you'll see his happy smile there. And he was convicted and sentenced to die. Let me see if I can get over here. For the alleged kidnapping and murder of a man named Marcelos Anderson. And he has made a claim of actual innocence in this case. I don't know why my little computer's not working here. Hold on just one second. And so this is a case where you good? No, Because I'm not able to get my little mouse to go over where I needed to go. Sometimes the computer just doesn't do what it wants. Sometimes it says, I just don't want to.
- [72:12]
Jason
Well, we can look at a smile for a little while. So you get your computer together.
- [72:16]
Joy Reid
Yeah. And sometimes the computer just decides it does not want to do what I want it to do, and then it doesn't have an interest in cooperating with me.
- [72:26]
Jason
This is one of those correct information. So I will make sure you.
- [72:30]
Joy Reid
Yeah. So laundry. I'm open this because my computer just decided it doesn't want to. But I want to make sure we're doing that live.
- [72:34]
Jason
We're doing it live.
- [72:35]
Joy Reid
We're doing it live. My silly computer decided they do not. It does not want to cooperate. So let's go because I want to read this information accurately. So. Tony Carruthers was convicted. Okay. And sentenced to death for his alleged involvement in the kidnapping and murder of a man named Marcellus Anderson. Delois Anderson, that's a woman. And a guy named Frederick tucker. Back in 1994, he was given a death sentence for each of those three convictions. His execution is scheduled for May 21, literally a week from today. There's no physical evidence in the case. There's never been any physical evidence linking Mr. Carruthers to this crime. The case against him was built entirely on testimony from jailhouse informants who are widely known to be one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions. Let's talk about the paid informant. For 30 years, prosecutors said that they never gave their main witness anything in exchange for his testimony. But In August of 2024, after years of requests from the defense, the state finally revealed that their key witness had actually been a paid confidential informant. And there are lots of other problems with this case, including unmatched fingerprints and DNA from the crime scene that do not match Mr. Carruthers. And those prints and DNA have never been compared to the fingerprints and DNA of the alternate suspect. Mr. Carruthers, co defendant, meanwhile, actually came forward in a signed statement affirming that Mr. Carruthers was not involved in the crime and instead pointed to another individual. Now, Tony Carruthers is in fact executed. He would be the first person in nearly a century to be put to death. After being forced to represent himself at trial. James Montgomery was granted a new trial because the self representation had deprived him of a fair trial. And he was later released from prison in 2016. So I want to play you a video that's going to show you some of the latest news. In the cases of C2.
- [74:38]
Demario Solomon Simmons
Know that there is no physical evidence that matches Tony.
- [74:42]
Yasmin Kader
The fight to prove a Tennessee man's
- [74:44]
Joy Reid
innocence and keep him from being executed. Executed continues.
- [74:48]
Yasmin Kader
Tony Carruthers was convicted 30 years ago
- [74:51]
Joy Reid
of murdering three people in Memphis back in 1994.
- [74:54]
Yasmin Kader
Representatives from several civil rights group gathered downtown for a news conference this afternoon
- [74:59]
Joy Reid
to try to update their efforts.
- [75:01]
Yasmin Kader
FOX 13's Troyce Grant joins us live
- [75:03]
Joy Reid
at the National Civil Rights Museum.
- [75:05]
Yasmin Kader
Troyce, they want another look at a forensic test.
- [75:12]
News Reporter
Darcy they say a simple fingerprint test could be what proves that Carruthers is innocent. But they're running out of time as he's scheduled to be executed in two weeks from tomorrow. Now that's why members of the ACLU and other nonprofit organizations got together to not only ask for help, but call to action and ask Governor Bill Lee to take Carruthers off of death row. They say based on the lack of Carruthers DNA at the scene, there's no way he could have committed the murders. Carruthers sister Tanya speaker spoke this afternoon. She recalled one of the first conversations she had with her brother when all of this came out. She says she knows her brother is innocent, not only based on lack of evidence because, but because of who he is as a person.
- [75:52]
Olivia Troy
He said, tanya, I didn't do this. I was nowhere around.
- [75:57]
Joy Reid
He said, I didn't even know it
- [75:58]
Olivia Troy
was going to happen. And he said if he knew it was going to happen, he would have done everything he could to try to stop it. That is the brother I know. That is the brother who stood up
- [76:09]
Kenny Lattimore
for me when we were in the
- [76:10]
Olivia Troy
rough neighborhoods, who fought the neighborhood bullies on my behalf, of my little brother's behalf.
- [76:16]
Joy Reid
So
- [76:19]
News Reporter
now at this time, Carruthers is said to be executed on May 21st. Coming up at 6. I'll be back with more details from this today's event and you'll hear from his attorney.
- [76:28]
Joy Reid
So this case is beyond dirty. There, there, there's so much about the case that does not feel right, that just doesn't seem right. And the idea that this man is going to be sentenced to death despite all of the problems in the case, then I don't know what it is. Let me tell you what the prosecutor in the case then, prosecutor Bobby Carter said. You told the jury. If these murders don't qualify for the death penalty, then none ever will. And this of course is in the state of Tennessee, which is probably not a state that you should look for much mercy in. A couple of other elements to this crime. Now there was allegedly false testimony about the victims in the case. Prosecutors at sentencing argued that the victims had been buried alive, which was central to the death sentences that were handed out to Mr. Carruthers. But at a post conviction hearing in 2005. A medical examiner testified that he had reviewed the evidence in 1996 and had convicted that the victims were dead before they were buried. Another issue. Carruthers attorney argued that his documented history of psychiatric disorders makes his execution unconstitutional. A judge denied the competency motion and his counsel is appealing that decision. So the ACLU has filed a lawsuit challenging the state's denial of fingerprint testing. They're also challenging the court's refusal to consider new evidence. The prosecutors hid their main witnesses status as a paid informant. And his lawyers from the aclu. He now has lawyers. They also asked Governor Bill Lee of Tennessee to stop the execution, saying it will be deeply unfair to execute him under these circumstances. But again, we're talking about the same guy that is stripping the only black Congress majority black congressional district out of his state. So do we think that this same guy who is literally deleting the only black majority district, who he and the legislature have conspired to delete the only black majority district in Tennessee in Memphis and hand that over to three MAGA Republicans? Let's talk with our guests. Joining me now is Yasmin Kader. She's the deputy legal director of the ACLU and the director of its Trone center for justice and Equality. And the center advocates for the constitutional and civil rights of those impacted by things like the death penalty. Ms. Cater, first of all, is it Cater or Cotter?
- [79:12]
Yasmin Kader
Cater. You said it right. Yasmin Kader. So it's great to be here. Joy, thank you so much for having me.
- [79:17]
Joy Reid
Thank you. Yasmin, what is the status of the attempt to appeal to the governor of Tennessee?
- [79:23]
Yasmin Kader
Well, we're waiting. We're waiting to hear what the courts are going to do. We have filed actions both in state and federal court, and what we are seeking is for them to test the evidence. We're seeking that they test the physical evidence because it could do two things. It could exonerate Mr. Tony Carruthers, which is really important. And it can also potentially lead to who the actual person is that committed these crimes. But, you know, Mr. Carruthers is facing the death penalty on the words of unreliable informants. There's not one piece of physical evidence connecting him with this crime. And instead, really, the only reason he's here is because the state is relying on words of unreliable informants that we cannot trust. This is not justice.
- [80:11]
Joy Reid
Does the original prosecutor know all of these issues? I read through them. The lack of DNA evidence, a lack of physical evidence, the. The person who was part of the crime actually coming forward and saying Mr. Carruthers was not a part of the crime. Does the original prosecutor know that and does the. The current district attorney of the state of Tennessee know that?
- [80:30]
Yasmin Kader
They absolutely do. I mean, this has been highly publicized. One can't not know this. You know, if you are at all following what's going on in your own state. And even the jurors from Mr. Carruthers original trial, they themselves later said they would not have voted for death if they had known that the key witness was a paid informant and that the de DNA evidence there wasn't a hit for Mr. Carruthers. So they themselves said if had they known that they wouldn't have voted for death. So I can't imagine the scenario where somebody who is paying at all attention to the news of what's going on in their own state would not be
- [81:10]
Joy Reid
aware of this in the aclu. As you look at these similar cases, is it not true that black men are disproportionately given the death penalty, particularly in conservative states like Tennessee?
- [81:24]
Yasmin Kader
Listen, it is abundantly true that the death penalty and its administration is a biased system that impacts black people and particularly and especially black men in an exorbitantly disproportionate rate. This is across this country. Okay? So I don't want to limit it to one place. This system of mass incarceration generally is one which has extraordinary racial disparities impacting black people, impacting other people of color. So it's important. But yes, including, and especially in this instance, that's what we're facing here, and it's what we face systemically across this country.
- [82:02]
Joy Reid
The James Montgomery precedent. This was a man who was granted a new trial because he had represented himself as Mr. Carruthers had, and that according to the ruling, he was deprived of a fair trial because of that. And he did get a new trial. He was actually released in 2016. Does that precedent help Mr. Carruthers?
- [82:18]
Yasmin Kader
It should. We hope it does. I mean, what. What's so important that this court do is that it look not just at precedent of justice that has happened in the past, but also look carefully at the facts of this case and apply the law to the facts. And if that's done, what we see is that justice has not occurred here, that there is evidence that needs to be tested, that if the state is going to have a death penalty in the first place, okay, if we are going to do that, if we're going to allow that system to exist, wouldn't you think they'd want to get It.
- [82:53]
Joy Reid
Right.
- [82:54]
Yasmin Kader
I mean, here we haven't even tested. The state itself hasn't tested this evidence which could exonerate Mr. Carruthers. I just don't understand how that can stand.
- [83:04]
Joy Reid
I don't think they care about that. I mean, the problem is, I think that in this country there is a. There is a desire for prosecutors to have a high win rate that I think matters more to prosecutors than making sure that they're killing the right person. And I hate to be that cynical, but I think, you know, once a prosecutor is able to notch off a win, they just want it. And, you know, we've seen it with the Central Park Five, where those young men were goaded into confessions that were illegal. They were children who were goaded into confessing to a crime they did not commit. And somebody like Donald Trump wanted them all to be executed, and they would be dead if Donald Trump had his way.
- [83:39]
Yasmin Kader
Well, what we have seen, though, across this country, in states, throughout this union, is we have seen a. A real movement of prosecutors, not just in cases with the death penalty, but in cases more broadly where they go back and they say, we don't want to stand by a wrongful conviction. So I understand exactly what you're saying, but I have tremendous faith and hope that the right thing can happen here if the people's eyes are open and if the pressure is put upon the decision makers, and there are ways that that can happen. There is not there. I. I'm not of the same belief that, that. That we. That things are hopeless. And I'm not saying that's what you're saying, but I know there are many people who are feeling that, you know what? It's over. Why do we even try? There is an opportunity for justice. There is a structure for justice. There is a system that enables justice to happen. And we, the people and the public need to pull the levers so that that is what happens.
- [84:39]
Joy Reid
Oh, I. I am not hopeless about it at all. And the reason I do these stories, and we used to do them at the Artist from the known as msnbc, is that there is always hope and sometimes the light of day and, and people knowing about it and more people knowing about it, not just in your state, can force people into action. And you guys are appealing to the governor, Governor Billy, who is a bad guy when it comes to black voting rights, but here's an opportunity for him to do the right thing and to do the right thing at a time when he is under a huge spotlight. And so I think pressuring the governor and if we can have the producers really quickly drum up what the phone number is for people to call the governor, Governor Bill Lee and Wanjira, if you can quickly scramble that, I think that would be good. But also, is there any possibility, given that this is a state case, can the Supreme Court intervene? Not that, you know, at least three of them are decent human beings. Is there any chance that, that the Supreme Court can intervene for him?
- [85:34]
Yasmin Kader
Well, we have. We are pushing both in state court and in federal court. And so, you know, anything that is in federal court is something that is, you know, throughout the entire system. So, yes, that's absolutely something that, you know, if it is, if a case is teed up the right way and the procedures fall into the right place, that's absolutely something that can happen. But one more thing I want to note about the people's power. In addition to calling the governor, and the number is 6412-3133, in addition to calling the governor's office and making one's voices heard, people can sign the ACLU petition, which is on aclu.org calling for Governor Lee to stop the execution and to test the evidence. And remember this, we all have a platform that we can use. We have the people that we know that we speak to, the folks that we can call, we can get online and post about it. We can go and talk about it at our churches and in our synagogues and in all of our places of worship. And we can demand that the courts deliver justice instead of dodging the truth. You know, one thing that I appreciate so much about your conversation here is what you're talking about is really a call to the people to hold their, their lawmakers accountable. And that's the power that we have. We have that in our Constitution itself. It is what it really demands is that the people arm ourselves with it. And that's what needs to happen here.
- [87:04]
Joy Reid
I 100% agree. Thank you for fighting for him. How is Mr. Carruthers spirit? How is his family?
- [87:11]
Yasmin Kader
Well, I have to tell you, I, I can't imagine what it must be like to face an execution date that is less than two weeks away or to spend 30 years on death row while continuing to proclaim one's innocence. But I can tell you that he and his family are holding on and they know that there are many people who are fighting for him in these final moments. He was very, very close to his mother, who has since passed away. And he told one of the lawyers on the team today that he believes her angels are watching over him and that he still has all the faith he needs.
- [87:44]
Joy Reid
Tell us something about Mr. Carruthers as a person. He has such a happy smile. What a lovely smile. Smile. But tell us something about him that we should know.
- [87:53]
Yasmin Kader
Well, I think what we should know is the thing that's so important for us to know about anytime you have a person who's not just liberty, but life is on the line, is that they were somebody's child, they're somebody's, somebody's, you know, brother, somebody's member of their community. Mr. Tony Cars is someone who deserves to have his humanity as much a part of the equation as anything else. And that is something that we are asking for people to. To care about on its face alone. He is a person in this world who deserves justice. He is a person in our country who deserves justice.
- [88:31]
Joy Reid
Yes, indeed. And last question to you. Is there any support from the family of the victims for at least more a second trial or at least an opportunity? Has the family weighed in at all?
- [88:45]
Yasmin Kader
Well, you know, there were multiple victims and there's multiple family members. And we know that it is a very complex and challenging thing for anyone to be able to, to reckon with. But when you look across this movement for Mr. Carruthers and you look at just all of the people who have been victims of other crimes in other contexts who have said, not on my name, not on this time, I think that what we can say is as trauma, tremendous support for Mr. Carruthers and for justice.
- [89:14]
Joy Reid
Yasmine Cater, thank you for all that you do. We put the number up on again. You can call Governor Billy at 615-412-3133. Give the ACLU website again. I think the ACLU deserves so much support. Look, if there's one thing y' all are looking there, you should be donating to a lot of these organizations. The ACLU does God's work when it comes to defending immigrants, defending people who are on death row, defending people for free speech. ACL just does such God's work. Please tell us how we can support.
- [89:42]
Yasmin Kader
Well, again, at ACLU.org there's plenty of opportunities for you to support. And we also have affiliates in every state. So we, you know, join up and link arms and let's go and bring this country forward together.
- [89:57]
Joy Reid
Thank you so much. We appreciate you. Yasmin Kreciate you.
- [90:01]
Yasmin Kader
Thank you so much.
- [90:02]
Joy Reid
We're going to stay updated on this case. We're going to keep you guys posted because we're not letting this go. And the governor of Tennessee is at this moment doing absolutely nil for black people in his state. He does not seem to care whether they can vote, whether they can choose the representatives of their choice. He is joining with his political party to strip them of their one sole lone district. But here's an opportunity for Bill Lee, who I believe claims to be a Christian, to do one good thing and to save a life of an innocent man. This is not a man who is known to be guilty. I'm very anti death penalty anyway. But the reality is in this case, there is actual evidence of innocence. Actual evidence of innocence. And why would the state of Tennessee want to have the blood of Tony Carruthers on their hands? Why would the governor putting through this execution, why would he want the blood of Tony Carruthers on his hands? Why would he want that? Why would he want the pain of these, of this family on his hands? In addition to the three people who were killed, it would just be a fourth person murdered effectively in the same crime.
- [91:12]
Jason
At least retry the evidence and make sure at least, you know, retry the evidence. Give him at least. I mean, why can't it take. It could take about a month, right?
- [91:19]
Joy Reid
Give him his day in court. And with the full scientific evidence on the table, not giving the prosecutor the unfortunately needed advantage of a confession by a paid informant, which is questionable. No DNA evidence, no actual evidence that the man did it. They're going all of this on the word of a paid informant. That's getting something for saying that he did it. Even when one of the co conspirators in the actual crime says he didn't do it. He was. He had nothing to do with it. So this is a challenge to Governor Lee. This is a big challenge to him that this is something that he ought to do and that he can do, because this man, there is evidence that he is actually factually innocent. And prosecutors lied to the jury and claimed that these three innocent victims, these poor men, were buried alive. That's not even true. And they said that in order to get the jury, many of whom now regret their decision to vote to kill Tony Carruthers. And now all of this information comes out as it always does. The Innocence Project does a lot of this great work as well, where you find out that not only was the case flawed, but the person probably didn't do it at all. And now it is up to the governor of the state of Tennessee, which is the bad news, because that is not a state that exactly values black lives. But he can be made to do it. In public. Whatever Governor Lee is going to do, he needs to do it in the light of day. He should not be able to scurry off into the background and put this man to death because it will be on your hands. His blood will be on your hands, Governor.
- [92:59]
Jason
Well, I think the least everybody can do that's listening is at least, you know, go to the ALCU's website and put something. I mean, yeah, I mean, if his DNA is not. Wasn't there, I mean, he. Doesn't he deserve at least a chance?
- [93:13]
Joy Reid
Yeah. People are talking about Troy Davis. We covered the Troy Davis execution that when he was in it, he was. He was innocent. This was a very likely innocent man. And this country, this country kills innocent people all the time. Unfortunately, it is a thing that we do. We're one of the last western nations, the developed nations, to use the death penalty at all. You know, we're. We're there with Iran and other countries that we consider to be not first world that do the death penalty. And the United States is in that ignominious group of countries that kill people, that have the state murder people. That is something we do here. Uniquely in the west, most Western countries have put aside that barbaric tradition. We have not. And the fact that we're not even sure some of these people did it. I will never forget the Stinney case. This little boy who was executed, he was just a little kid, Joseph Stinney, who was. I think he was 12. And the state of South Carolina, North Carolina, killed him, claiming that he killed a little girl. And he hadn't done it at all. But he was up, he had to be sat on books because George Stinney.
- [94:23]
Jason
I'm sorry.
- [94:23]
Joy Reid
George Stinney, a little black boy who was executed, was 14 years old. He was convicted during an unfair trial of the murders of two white girls. And it was in South Carolina in 1929, the year my mother was born. 1929. And back when I was managing editor of the Griot. We interviewed his brother, who survived him, who was his older brother, who was deeply depressed from then on as a little kid, not being able to do anything about his brother. The whole family had to flee South Carolina because they were being threatened with lynching.
- [94:55]
Jason
Remember, the electron couldn't fit on the little boy's head.
- [94:58]
Joy Reid
I mean, he was so small that he had to be sat on books. And they. I had nightmares about this case for a year. You see his sweet little face and he's a little boy. And they executed him in the state of South Carolina. And so you can't always stop the horrible things. Okay? But, but, but we can try to stop this one. I believe that we. Let's see that we have some breaking news. Let me get to that quick. Breaking news Before I get to our guest, the Supreme Court has lifted the mandate for Alabama to use a U.S. house map with two majority black districts. Meaning the Supreme Court has said that. Let me just read the AP story. The Supreme Court is basically allowing the state of Alabama to rewrite its districts to deprive African Americans in that state of a second district. The United States AP on Monday set the stage for Alabama to get rid of one of two black congressional districts before this year's midterm elections, creating an opening for Republicans to gain an additional U.S. house seat in a partisan battle for control of the closely divided chamber. The decision follows a Supreme Court ruling in April that struck down a majority black U.S. house district in Louisiana as unconstitutional racial gerrymander, significantly weakening a provision of the federal Voting Rights Act. No, not significantly weakening, killing the Voting Rights Act. They cut the guts out of it. The skin is hanging limp on the in a tree, but they they lynch. The Voting Rights act is gone. Alabama officials had pointed to the Louisiana case as a reason for the Supreme Court to end the judicial order to use a court in court imposed House map until after the 2030 census. The high court overturned that order and directed a lower court to reconsider the case in light of the Louisiana decision that could free the state to instead use a map approved in 2023 by the Republican led legislature that includes only one district where black residents constitute a majority. Anticipating a court reversal, Alabama officials we told you about this at the top of the show, so we're coming full circle. Anticipating a court reversal, Alabama officials recently enacted a law allowing it to void the result of a May 3rd a May 19th primary for some congressional district and instead hold a new primary under revised district boundaries is up to Republican Governor Kay Ivey, who's 177 years old and apparently participated in the Civil War, set a date for a special primary election, though it must occur by August. So if you voted in the state of Alabama, your votes were just wiped off the map by the Supreme Court. In a dissent to Monday's brief ruling, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the Louisiana case had reserved only one of the grounds upon which the Alabama case has been decided. Although the Voting Rights act violation is gone, Sotomayor said a lower court could still find that Alabama had intentionally discriminated against Black voters in violation of the 14th Amendment. The decision was a setback for black residents and group that had waged a legal fight for several years to get a second Alabama congressional district where black voters had an opportunity to elect a person of their choosing. I will note that Alabama is 27%. 27% black, nearly a third black. But all 27% of the state, which live in what you call the black belt, it's very concentrated. And they only had one Congress member, like Mississippi, which is 33% black. And so what Alabama had done is they said, all y' all Negroes get one Congressman, all the Negroes get one. And the people in that state said, no, we should have two. If we just go by the math, we should have two. And they actually won that case. And the Supreme Court said, no, you didn't. The Supreme Court said, you thought you won. But we know better. John Crow fully in effect, in the great state of Alabama in addition to everywhere else. So they are boom and boom and boom. Yes, Georgia. Well, we don't know if Georgia is next to go to the chat here. What is this? The Golden Lion 08 says Georgia is next. Maybe not, because maybe Brian Kemp will do it. But Brian Kemp knows there is literally a primary election coming up within, what, the next two weeks? I showed you guys the map earlier. If he does it, if Georgia, if Brian Camp decides to do this in Georgia, I promise you the next governor of Georgia will be a Democrat. Because you're going to make those black people so 38 hot that you're going to trigger voter turnout in a state where black people actually do turn out. That's not. This isn't Louisiana where black folks, for whatever reason, don't vote. They don't come out. They come out in Georgia. They come out in Georgia in full force. So go ahead and make Keisha Lance Bottoms the next governor of Georgia. Brian, we welcome you. Welcome to the party. You want Keisha Lance Bottoms to be your governor? Go ahead and play with them districts, because you can't gerrymander a statewide race. You can't gerrymander a statewide race. And I will also say this to K. Ivey, there are some good candidates running for governor of Alabama. Doug Jones used to be the senator from Alabama. That means Democrats can win statewide in that state if they're mad enough. You can win statewide in Alabama if you're mad enough, because they did it before Doug Jones won statewide in Alabama. So go ahead, play with Alabama, because what you're going to do is rouse the anger and the rage of that 27%, then if they decide they're going to come out at 70 or 80% turnout. Now you got a problem holding onto the state. You can't gerrymander a whole state. You can only gerrymander a district, not a state. But y' all let them gerrymander that state and don't come out and vote, this is what they're going to do to you. They want MAGA to control even your school board. You can't even choose what books you read. You have no control of your lives. So if you're mad about it, get mad. I will note that Alabama is the state where on Saturday there's going to be a major activation. Go to all roads lead to the south. Calm. All roads lead to the south. Dot com. Go on there and you can register to be in Montgomery. Now you have a real reason to go. You have a triple, double, quadruple reason to go. You know, Clarence Thomas was just sitting back there like, I'm not black. I'm Clarence. All right, let's turn. We didn't take a hard turn we needed. We had to uplift ourselves over on this weekend. This past Mother's Day weekend, Jason and I had the pleasure of being in Atlantic City, New Jersey, one of the good blue states that lets black people vote and have and have members of Congress, along with our producer Nidda Khan, who was also with us for an epic 90s concert featuring super groups Jodeci, Escape and this brother right here. Play the team. Y' all know the song. Y' all know the song. I can't play it because, you know, YouTube don't let us play music. We had to play just a teeny tutty, teeny bitty bit so that you have to say yes. That is the Kenny Lanimore, Grammy Award nominated artist with a career spanning two decades and include and, and an inductee of the National R B Hall of Fame. You can look for behind the scenes pics on my social media. I'm gonna post them there where I'm actually allowed to put music on. He's got some, I mean, on my terrible camera work there. Don't, don't blame me for that. It's my iPhone. And he's got some wonderful news to share and he joins me now. Hey, Kenny.
- [102:07]
Kenny Lattimore
Hey, how are you doing? Oh my gosh, it is so fantastic to just be in your presence. Number one, I thank you so much for being you, for how you represent our community and our world because, oh gosh, it's so important you know, just letting you know that I'm tuning in. I'm listening to the things that you're talking about that are affecting our world and particularly our. Our what was democracy and. But. But thank you. I know this is a lighter moment that we're going to get into.
- [102:40]
Joy Reid
You need it. We need. Not all the way light. Because I do have to. Before we get to the good news, you have some wonderful news to share, and it was wonderful to get a chance to actually meet you. You know, this is. Favor ain't fair. Like they say, favor ain't fair. We were going to go to the concert anyway, but I got a chance to meet you, to chat with you a little bit, and so you shared your news with me. But before we get to that, I want to show this. This. This clip. It's not a clip, but it's a still of the fact that you, not not long ago, were performing at the Kennedy center for the Performing Arts.
- [103:09]
Kenny Lattimore
Oh, my gosh.
- [103:11]
Demario Solomon Simmons
And how about.
- [103:12]
Kenny Lattimore
We were tributing Marvin Gaye, Duke Ellington, some of the great African American performers from the D.C. area, and everything flipped. Like, it felt like weeks later, the Kennedy center was no longer a desirable place to perform. A lot of people were so disappointed. And I could see people making that exit. They were like, we are out of here. But the memorial, what the Kennedy center had done through the years, I think was so important, and it was very unifying. So. And I'm from Washington, D.C. so, you know, being a native Washingtonian, and to see some of the changes that are taking place, it is like we're in a Twilight Zone movie or television show. I mean, it really is.
- [104:06]
Joy Reid
Yeah, it's hard. And, you know, the arts, they feel even more important in a moment like this. Right. I mean, some of us. But it's subversive to be an artist. And, you know, you see. But you. Yet you see a lot of musical artists, you know, at the Met Gala, as if nothing's happening. Chilling with Jeff Bezos, like nothing's happening. Is there a divide among artists about whether. But not even about being political, but whether you should be outspoken?
- [104:33]
Kenny Lattimore
I think. I think there is, for various reasons. I think some people feel like their career has reached a certain plateau where they're not held with the same responsibility as others. In particular, one of them, in the R B world, one of the tragedies that we saw. And this is a good conversation because I've been thinking about this. Chrisette Michelle, who is a wonderful R and B singer, was a part of. She literally Sang one song as a part of the inauguration of Donald Trump, the first time with a guy named Travis Green, who's in the gospel industry. She wasn't the star, the head, the whatever. Like, we see Snoop Dogg or Nelly or, you know, some of the others that have been like, hey, no problem. Maybe they feel. Maybe it's because they're so mainstream that they feel like we can't be touched in this particular time in our career. But then you have a Chrisette who was blackballed, and I hate it because it's a beautiful black woman, an amazing talent. Her counterparts, the person that she went on stage with went on to win the Grammy. They went on. Everybody survived whatever or went on like nothing happened. But this black woman was left to bear everything, to bear the weight of. You sang at that inauguration, and she was made an example of. Okay, fine. Okay. All of that happened. And time has. Has gone on. But the inequities that take place in the entertainment industry, I think are about, you know, is my brand big enough to survive it? And she was still in an up and coming and vulnerable place, and it really tarnished her brand. So you have some people that are going to feel a fear about that. Oh, if I say something political, I don't know if I'm on the right side of it. Whether it's the Republican side or the Democratic side. We know that black America, we're forgiving, though, as. I mean, as a culture, as. We're very forgiving. But I think there's still. And through time, like, because I listened to her story and I was like, wow, her story?
- [106:46]
Joy Reid
She didn't.
- [106:46]
Kenny Lattimore
She wasn't a Trump supporter necessarily. That wasn't the issue for her. She was just trying to sing, and she thought that her gift would be unifying. So we as artists are thinking, hey, we're the ones that can come in and sing and bring people together and all of that. So we're kind of hoping that our gifts reach beyond the political barriers. But then there are times when you got to pick a side.
- [107:12]
Joy Reid
You got to pick a side. I mean, the reality is, like, Snoop and those guys, you know, he. He's, you know, lost a lot of followers or whatever, but he's still got TV deals and all sorts of things. To your point, the wealthier ones, they can sort of survive it, even the consequences.
- [107:25]
Kenny Lattimore
Not the same.
- [107:26]
Joy Reid
Yeah. And Nicki Minaj, look, I mean, I don't know what she's doing, but she's getting rewarded so much by Trump that I think she doesn't care. You're right. People are just deciding, I think that
- [107:35]
Kenny Lattimore
later on something's going to happen where they're going to feel the understanding that because you have money and all of that, sometimes there are people who say, oh, you're not black. I'll just say it that way. Oh, you're or you're not like them. And. But that still is not the end all. I think that there's. At some point you have to deal with the reality that when you walk in the room, you are allowed in for just a transaction. And if you were allowed in for a transaction, that's a. That's a tough place to be and to be. So have so much bravado and shout out for something because you think it's about money. But gosh, money is so like small and many. It's just nothing. We can always make money, people. We are the creators of this culture. We are the creators of this music and the fashion and all of that. We can always make money. And then we're the. We're the greatest consumers according to research. So the. So money's out there. We've got to start thinking about the dignity of us as a people and who we are. We really, really do.
- [108:47]
Joy Reid
Yeah. As one of our commenters just said, all money ain't good money. Well, I can tell you what is
- [108:51]
Kenny Lattimore
good money ain't good money money.
- [108:52]
Joy Reid
Right. Well, going to see you is good money, my brother. You are always.
- [108:55]
Kenny Lattimore
Thank you.
- [108:56]
Joy Reid
Your voice is perfection. It was a fun concert. But you shared that, you know your lovely wife there. There she is. Oh, look at that beautiful picture. You asked some news you and breaking news.
- [109:11]
Kenny Lattimore
This is my. My first podcast live interview, television interview, whatever you in in any consideration that we are having our baby number two and we are so excited and we waited. There was so much going on in the world too, that you know, it it. We wanted to celebrate like and with our first baby child. Our daughter. We celebrated from the moment we knew that she was coming and it was all the way through. But you know, we're finding out also that the Internet and social media is not always kind. Even when you have children, even when you have great things that happen to you. So many people are unhappy and triggered by other people's happiness. That's a whole different story that's led us down a road where we have a lawsuit against YouTube right now and we have a very major publication newspaper that's going to be interviewing us probably by July. You're going to see some things because we're Fighting for legislation in that whole social media world, particularly at YouTube, where people that are foreign, perpetrators of information can be held accountable. Because we have been investigating this phenomenon of black slander, particularly of our pastors and public figures who are positive in our community. And I guess it's shocking. People click, click, click, click, click.
- [110:43]
Joy Reid
If.
- [110:43]
Kenny Lattimore
If you say that somebody that we know is a tremendously reputable person has something, smear something negative on them, we click, click, click. Which we've got. We have to stop doing that.
- [110:55]
Joy Reid
That's right.
- [110:55]
Kenny Lattimore
But we had a situation where YouTube, there were so many reports that she and I were divorcing. Okay, this is in the middle of us having this baby and everything, that we were divorcing and that we were having these arguments, all kinds of things being fabricated online. And all of a sudden Google started report that it was true, citing these. These sites. So it was a very interesting time for us where we were like, you know what? Let's just be quiet and. And live in our own happiness and. And the goodness of what is really happening. And this baby is coming, like, any day now. So we. I didn't think we could keep it a secret
- [111:40]
Joy Reid
from your fans, but I
- [111:41]
Kenny Lattimore
mean, like, yes, we can do it.
- [111:43]
Joy Reid
We love. And we love Judge Faith, by the way. And look, the reality is, is that you're. You're. You're hitting on something that. You know, Jason and I go through this too. There are whole doc. Many documentaries about us that are like 90% untrue. And people like sending it to me that know me and are like, oh, my God, They. They did a tour of your house. It's like, that's not my house, baby. They say in all kinds of lies. And that is the thing is it's so unregulated, right, that people can make up anything, make. And then they earn money from the clickbait of it.
- [112:13]
Jason
That is it.
- [112:14]
Kenny Lattimore
And we want to regulate that some kind of way where at least, at the very least, if it could be labeled AI we have these men who are using women's voices and AI to tell these. It's. It's really like the wild, wild. Not even the wild west, the wild, wild world out there. The whole thing is absolutely ridiculous. But. But I want people to remember and Faith and I have just really, tremendously become advocates for this because people don't think of us as real. They don't think of us as human that are celebrated. Rather. Let me. Let me make that clear. When people are celebrated, sometimes there are people that have not chosen to Be celebrated that become celebrated and you rise to the occasion to be whatever the best you can in that particular space. I speak at Howard University's There's a psychology and fine arts class, wonderful professor James Ballard, who allows me to come in and give perspective to what it's like being a celebrity. And I try to teach and talk about these things with the kids now because so many of them still desire fame and they just they what they think it is. And I try to go in and speak to them about what it truly is, the good, the bad and the ugly, so that they can make a decision, a better decision. And then I focus on passion and making sure that what they do is they don't forget why they fell in love with certain aspects of the arts, certain aspects of, you know, whether it's dance or what, or music or what have you. And know that it's broader than you just becoming a big star because you become a target for so many different things that if you're not mentally prepared for. We've seen people take their lives. We've seen beauty queens who are smart, beautiful, gorgeous and take their lives because people are trolling them. I mean, it's like really an insane atmosphere.
- [114:11]
Joy Reid
Well, you have explained one more reason why we have to vote. Because in order to get good legislation through, we have to have decent people elected who actually care about the people. So this is just yet another reason why we all need to register and vote and make sure that we're putting not grifters, but decent human beings into Congress and in our state houses to pass these laws that we need. Before I let you go, good brother, when did we get some more music that we need? You know, we need. You got a baby coming out. You got a lot going on, but I know you might have some music coming out that might be of the baby friendly variety. Please tell us more, say more.
- [114:45]
Kenny Lattimore
Thank you. I have a. You know, Faith and I, when we were thinking, oh gosh, we're about to announce this baby. And a couple of weeks prior to us doing that, Faith was saying, you know what? You should do a lullaby album like some of the songs that you sing to Skyler. And I'm. I'm always making up a song around the house. House. I don't care what is. If we're going to the store, I get Skylar togetherness. We're going to the store now. We're going to. I mean, it doesn't matter. I just make up something for her and she gets a kick out of it. So there is A for you.
- [115:17]
Joy Reid
The.
- [115:17]
Kenny Lattimore
The lullaby albums. There's a version of my song for you. There's a version of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, which I'm singing in English, Chinese and in Spanish. There's. I mean, just stuff that. Because that's another thing that's. That's authentic to our house. Our daughter is in a language. A bilingual school, so that teaches her languages. And then we started with Somewhere over the Rainbow, which I thought was beautiful and appropriate. Just something that is soothing again, bringing some positivity. But when you think about your child and the peace that you want them to have and home and all the things that are just good, sometimes you need that music soundtrack to go along with it. And so the lullaby album is available for pre save now. And if you want to hear Somewhere over the rainbow, go to kennyladimore.com or go to ennylattimore, my Instagram page and all that. You'll see links and things about it. We just felt that we wanted to give something during this time of us sharing and experiencing this great news.
- [116:24]
Joy Reid
I love it. Well, I, you know, look, I. I would ask you for two or three bars, but I want people to go to the website. You want to give us? Well, give us a bar. Give us one.
- [116:32]
Kenny Lattimore
Do that, and you'll hear Somewhere over
- [116:38]
Joy Reid
the rainbow
- [116:42]
Kenny Lattimore
Way up high There's a land that I've heard of when once
- [116:48]
Joy Reid
in a la la
- [116:52]
Kenny Lattimore
I get to sing nice and soft to the. Oh, it's. It's so incredible for me.
- [116:58]
Joy Reid
Kenny Lattimore, can I just keep it real with you? That baby not doing this thing. The baby gonna stay awake. The baby's gonna be like, my dad is singing a hit, and I want to hear it to the very end. The baby gonna be awake all night, and so will you. You're never getting.
- [117:14]
Kenny Lattimore
Okay, okay. That's so funny that you say that. Okay, then that gives me an opening. There are. Then we have the instrumental that goes on and on, because when you think of lullabies, you don't want it to just be the song and the song off and the atmosphere changes and all that. So the song goes on. And then we have the instrumentals and things too, that go on.
- [117:33]
Joy Reid
So that's what I like. I appreciate that the comment. If the story was too good. I'm awake. I'm like, I got to hear the end of this. And then I'm.
- [117:41]
Demario Solomon Simmons
All right.
- [117:42]
Joy Reid
You're gonna have to have like 18 minutes of song. After you sing, the baby will actually be like, all right, fine. I Give up. I go to sleep. I give up. Kenny Lattimore, you're terrific. Please tell judge Faith, you know we love you. She's getting so much love in the chat. We love you both. You guys are both fantastic, awesome, fabulous, gorgeous, and we just know that baby is gonna be too. God bless you and your family. Good, good friends.
- [118:04]
Kenny Lattimore
Until next time, and thank you again
- [118:06]
Joy Reid
for all that you do.
- [118:07]
Kenny Lattimore
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You in our voice and educating us.
- [118:12]
Joy Reid
I appreciate you, brother. Thank you. Oh, that was so much fun. Kenny Lattimore, everybody, Please, a round of applause. Jason around? I don't think he was going to give us any song. He gave us a little song I'm like for clamp. That was bad. Oh, his voice is butter. It's like butter.
- [118:27]
Jason
I kind of figured he was gonna go there, you know?
- [118:30]
Joy Reid
I just need a title of the song. Just a little bit like butter. I'm telling you, that voice is something else, man. All right, Y' all see how we lifted you up? We see now you want to do scaring is caring. We're going to terrify you about the new pandemic. We gonna get you angry about the voting rights being snatched away and Alabama becoming back to Jim Crow. But now it's John Crow. Y' all know that's the new lingo is John Crow, because John Crow Roberts created it. Then we're gonna just really make you feel sad and also outraged about them attempting to put to death this innocent man in the state of Tennessee. But then we're going to bring you back at the end. We're always going to bring you back. Saw where Karen Stoop said, we appreciate you keeping us informed. All caps. We're going to bring you back at the end, lift you back up. And not only are we going to give you the great Kenny Lattimore, who's such a great guy, such a nice guy. He was just so warm and friendly to us when we met with him backstage at the concert. But now we're going to end with our moment of joy because the joy has to continue. And our moment of joy on tonight is by GLOW plus Emmy. Roll them the quick message.
- [119:32]
Demario Solomon Simmons
If you want to fight me, you gotta go through my dog.
- [119:55]
Joy Reid
I'm sorry. I meant Gio plus Emmy. I can't read. Reading is fundamental. Geo plus Emmy. Emmy said, no, you don't. Geo said, if you want to fight me, you got to go to my dog first. And Emmy said, who am I fighting? Oh, you think I'm gonna fight somebody for you? No, I'm not the dog looked at him like, you see these bones?
- [120:17]
Jason
Do you see any muscles on his body?
- [120:20]
Joy Reid
I'm a leisure dog. I'm a leisure dog. I'm a lover, right? Look, what are you talking about? First of all, with my snacks. Exactly.
- [120:27]
Jason
Go get my food.
- [120:28]
Joy Reid
Human, he said, the dog said, how
- [120:31]
Jason
dare you put me on.
- [120:31]
Joy Reid
I looked around like, which dog gonna fight for you? Is there another dog in here? You didn't tell me back without a dog yet. Because I know you ain't talking about me.
- [120:41]
Jason
You're gonna take me out this comfortable bed to start some crap. I'll go out in the streets. They're gonna be thinking I'm saying no hard.
- [120:46]
Joy Reid
Who? Excuse me?
- [120:47]
Kenny Lattimore
What?
- [120:48]
Joy Reid
Oh, you thought I was a guard dog. I'm a leisure dog, darling. I don't. I don't fight. I fight hunger by having a snack. I fight boredom by barking on the occasion. That's it. I'm a lizardly dog. I don't bite. Biting is for birds. Do I look like a bird? No. Oh, no. Absolutely not. All right, once again, the webbing. I want you all to see be the witnesses to the existence of this cookie. Fully in plastic, completely whole and unbitten, so that if you see it again and somebody ate it, you know what kind of games are afoot.
- [121:31]
Jason
That would be the person that is holding the webby in her hand. Yeah. No, that would be down. You like, see right there.
- [121:39]
Joy Reid
There. That person right there, it goes missing.
- [121:42]
Jason
That one right there.
- [121:44]
Joy Reid
The person that consumed it is on your screen. It's gonna be Joy.
- [121:50]
Jason
Should we play real quickly before we go? Our acceptance speech, please?
- [121:53]
Joy Reid
Yeah. In case you all missed the acceptance speech at the front. The Emmys. The Emmys. The Webbies happened without us tonight. There was a red carpet, you know, but I said, you know what? We got to do the show. We had to come and do and do our work. We weren't gonna skip being with you guys in order to be at the Emmys, but we appreciate the Evies, the Webbies. We love being a Webby winner. A Webby award winning podcast. Best new podcast in the news and information category. Very proud of it. The best new podcast category, very meaningful. Because it means that the people who are looking at all the new podcasts that are out that came out last year looked at ours and said, when it comes to informing you, giving you news, information, and being a community resource for information, history and all the rest, we're the best. We the best. We the best.
- [122:36]
Jason
I tell you what, June 11th is our one year anniversary. Yeah, I'll eat one of those cookies then. Once we get to the year anniversary.
- [122:44]
Joy Reid
Yeah, if they last that long, they're.
- [122:45]
Jason
Well, I will be taking one and putting it aside so you can look.
- [122:48]
Joy Reid
Look, Somebody already reaching. You see it? Do you see the hand?
- [122:51]
Jason
And there goes a person who eats the marsh bars, y'.
- [122:54]
Joy Reid
All.
- [122:54]
Jason
At least one of them.
- [122:55]
Joy Reid
Look at the hand. Or a ghostly hand already came in. Now I live. All right, y'. All, thanks for tuning in. I ain't never gonna taste no Webby cookie. See y' all tomorrow. I mean, on Wednesday. Dang it. Bye.
- [123:10]
Jason
Bye, fam.
- [123:13]
Joy Reid
Getting back to the basics Grassroot level Let me dig a little deeper with the shovel Plenty can't tell the forest from the trees and I'm hard to detect Like a black hole in the dark Injustice anywhere it's a threat to justice everywhere Let me make this clear I got a bone to pick and
- [123:28]
Kenny Lattimore
I'll never fear the threat of poverty
- [123:30]
Joy Reid
they don't want to talk about it
- [123:32]
Kenny Lattimore
they rap the party so I'm a
- [123:33]
Joy Reid
real talk about it for sure.