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The Joy Reid Show
TJRS Fridays: The Clintons, Epstein, & Dems Who Fight | The Joy Reid Show LIVE!
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- [00:01]
Joy Reid
Lifelock. How can I help?
- [00:02]
Crystal Ball
The IRS said I filed my return, but I haven't.
- [00:05]
Joy Reid
One in four tax paying Americans has paid the price of identity fraud. What do I do? My refund though. I'm freaking out. Don't worry, I can fix this. Lifelock fixes identity theft guaranteed and gets your money back with up to $3 million in coverage.
- [00:18]
Crystal Ball
I'm so relieved.
- [00:19]
Joy Reid
No problem.
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Howard Lutnick
I'll be with you every step of the way.
- [00:21]
Joy Reid
One in four was a fraud paying American. Not anymore. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast terms apply. Okay. Hey, hey. I was got to dance a little bit to the song. Everybody. Happy Friday, tgif and welcome to the Joy Reed show. Big up to the chats. I see the chats are already rocking. I see like a little fairy tale creature in the chats. What is that? Marie? Marie Jaboin. I think that is. We love it. We love it. Thank you to everybody that is tuning in on YouTube. Also the stack. We appreciate you guys. If you're on Facebook. Hey, Facebook. And if you are on Twitchy, Twitch, Twitch, Twitch. How y' all doing? It's so good to see everybody. And if you're listening, I just want to say hello before we get started.
- [01:17]
Representative Al Green
Guys, Happy Friday and we'll see you soon.
- [01:20]
Joy Reid
Jason was so happy that I dressed up a little bit today and he's in a T shirt. So I just want to note that. I just want to note that the. For the. Just for the record, I'm back here. Nobody's paying attention to me. But you're on camera. But they came to see you. Okay. So you ready to do this? Let's do it. I'm just letting people know behind the scenes what's going on. We want to thank everybody that has hit like and subscribe and share. But if you haven't done it yet, what are you doing? I mean, come on. Hit like subscribe and share. Help us out with the algorithm. Big up from. To all of our team, everybody that's pitched in, big up to our interns. We're doing an excellent job. Please shout out our interns who are really incredible. Bethany and Jamiah. Let's. Let's also remind everybody that directly after this show we are going to do a TJRS members only chat. That is going to be right after the show. So if you are a member, you are going to get the opportunity to chat with us directly. So we want to make sure that you guys know about that if you want to join real quick. I guess you still have time to join. If you're really fast, you can probably get in and you can join because it's going to be a members only chat right at the end of the show. So let me get to the news right now. I want to give you guys an Update on the First Amendment. The Trump and Justice Department has indicted 30 more people in connection with the anti ice protest at that pro ice Church in St. Paul, Minnesota in January that has led to Don Lemon and Georgia Ford's indictments. That makes a total of 39 people. And Pam Bondi posted on X Twitter that 25 of those people have already been arrested. And I just want to note for you guys, just for the record, for comparison, that it took nearly a year, it took from January, when January 6th insurrection happened to the end of 2021 for them to indict 725 people who were charged with federal crimes. The most violent of them, 1000 people total, were indicted by the second anniversary of the attack. Took two years to get to a thousand. And it took three years to get to 1200 people on the third anniversary. And three quarters of the people who were indicted were actually found guilty. And 1500 people were indicted in the January 6th insurrection by the 4th anniversary. Trump himself was never indicted. He never got indicted because Jack Smith, his case got slowed up and slowed up and slowed up. And ultimately Trump never got indicted for his leadership of the insurrection. I just want to note that. But 39 people who merely either protested at that church or covered it as journalists or in the case of a 21 year old student drove Don Lemon. Those people have now been indicted for using their First Amendment rights. I just want to want to note for the record that the regime has arrested and indicted exactly zero people, none in relation to the global sexual abuse and child sexual abuse ring run by Donald Trump's best friend for a decade, Jeffrey Epstein, and posh prison time recipient Ghislaine Maxwell. 0 which brings us to today. Bill Clinton, former President of the United States, issued a statement slamming Republicans who couldn't be bothered to show up to the Les Wexner deposition, but were there en masse to depose the Clintons. This week he said this. I've called for the full release of the Epstein files. I have provided a sworn statement of what I know. And just this week I've agreed to appear in person before the committee. But it's still not enough for Republicans on the House Oversight Committee. Now, Chairman Comer says he wants cameras, but only behind closed doors. Who benefits from this arrangement. It's not Epstein's victims who deserve justice, not the public who deserve the truth. It serves only partisan interest. This is not fact finding. It's pure politics. I will not sit idly by as they use me as a prop in a closed door kangaroo court by a Republican party running scared. If they want answers, let's stop the games and do this the right way in a punishment public hearing where the American people can see for themselves what this is really about. So the Clintons coming out swinging against the Republicans, who again I will remind you, did not show up to the Les Wexner deposition, but showed up, like ganged up to show up for this today, Clinton's basically daring Republicans to depose him and every other witness in public, including Donald Trump, which is a point that Representative Robert Garcia also made today
- [06:00]
Representative Al Green
because now set a new precedent which
- [06:03]
Joy Reid
is to bring in presidents and former presidents to testify.
- [06:07]
Representative Al Green
So we're once again going to make
- [06:09]
Terrence Woodbury
that call that we did yesterday.
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Joy Reid
We are now asking and demanding that
- [06:14]
Representative Al Green
President Trump officially come in and testify in front of the Oversight Committee. He appears in the Epstein files next to next to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell almost more than anybody else.
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Terrence Woodbury
So it's time for the President to
- [06:29]
Joy Reid
answer questions about why files are missing
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Representative Al Green
from the doj, why there's been a White House cover up, and why we
- [06:36]
Joy Reid
continue in that administration to call this investigation a hoax. Indeed, the three most mentioned names in the Epstein files, Jeffrey Epstein himself, Ghislaine Maxwell and Donald Trump. Now, of course, yesterday it was Hillary Clinton's turn. Let's take a listen to some of what she said after her deposition.
- [06:54]
Hillary Clinton
Now, how many times I had to say I did not know Jeffrey Epstein. I never went to his island, I never went to his homes, I never went to his offices. So it's on the record numerous times. It then got at the end quite unusual because I started being asked about UFOs and a series of questions about Pizzagate, one of the most vile bogus conspiracy theories that was propagated on the Internet that was serving as the basis of a member's questions to me. So I can only say that the best exchange that I had came at the very end, when contrary to every other deposition they have taken, no Republican member asked any question about Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell to anyone else they have deposed. And in fact, the Republican members didn't even show up for the deposition of Les Wexner. And when I said that, I had to point out that the only questions that any Republican member asked of any of the people they deposed was of former Attorney General Bill Barr when Chairman Comer asked him about the allegations, in his view, about Russia's involvement in my election in 2016. So at the very end of this hearing, after I made that point, I want to commend Chairman Comer for raising a series of significant questions that I responded to about the nature of the investigation and the areas that I thought should be explored.
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Joy Reid
As BT Peachy Pie points out. Yeah, Pizzagate is the Epstein files. The people who created it are in the Epstein files talking about creating it. There was more. Hillary Clinton answered the question as to why Ghislaine Maxwell was at her daughter's wedding. And the reason she was at the wedding is she said she was a plus one for someone else. So they didn't even invite Ghislaine Maxwell to the wedding. She was a plus one. But let me play just a little bit more because Hillary Clinton did take a few questions and here's the next part of that.
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Hillary Clinton
You spoke in your opening remarks about
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Crystal Ball
how heartbroken you have been for the Epstein survivors as these miles have come out. Can you talk to us a little bit about how you have processed and reacted to the fact that the former president, your husband Bill Clinton, is referenced in the Epstein files numerous times, including in some photos featuring women. And how have you been personally preparing for the deposition that is coming tomorrow?
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Joy Reid
Are you 100% confident that there isn't
- [10:13]
Crystal Ball
anything that the former president known about Epstein's minds?
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Hillary Clinton
I am. And I think the chronology of the connection that he had with Epstein's ended years, several years before anything about Epstein's criminal activities came to light and that he was charged and sadly given a sweetheart deal which as I said in my statement, had that not happened, perhaps his predatory behavior could have been stopped earlier. But I think it is fair to say that the vast majority of people who had contact with him before his criminal pleas in 08 were like most people, they did not know what he was doing. And I think that that is exactly what my husband will testify to tomorrow.
- [11:11]
Joy Reid
And that is per his opening statement what Bill Clinton did testify to, that he knew him back in the 90s when he was president and he didn't know about what he was doing in from 2008 is when he actually got busted. We don't know about that. But what we do know is that Republicans want you to focus on these visuals. Right? They want you to think about, oh, when you think Clint, when you think Epstein, you need to think Clinton, Clinton, Clinton Clinton, there he is with, you know, Mick Jagger, you know, there he is with Epstein in sort of fancy shirts. And you know, they want you to think about this. They want you to think about Bill Clinton when you think Epstein, there he is with Michael Jackson and Diana Ross, you know, at a, that was actually a campaign event. They want you to think about that and they want you to please, please, please, oh please, oh, please don't think about this. Don't, don't think about this. No, no. Oh, not this one. Where is it? A six? Yeah. They don't want you to think about this because this is the best friend for a decade of Jeffrey Epstein. This guy is the guy who appears more times in the Epstein files than everyone other than Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell and whose name keeps getting redacted out of the Epstein files over and over and over again. They also. Would you like you to please don't think about. Howard Lutnick, their commerce secretary for the regime, whose cover up is of his years long relationship plural with Epstein has reached the absurdist phase. Now, remember when he claimed that he was too disgusted to be around Epstein in an interview with cnn? Well, you know that's gone south as the regime apparently tried to hide evidence that he lied to Congress about his Epstein ties. See this photo? It was apparently briefly released by Pam Bondi's injustice department and then they pulled it down, it just suddenly disappeared. But luckily independent journalists, including our folks, our friends at Midas Touch, caught it before it vanished, verified it and voila. It made everything that Howard Letnick has said about this clearly be revealed as a lie. Neighbor for 10 years.
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Becky Pringle
How well did you know him?
- [13:31]
Neighbor of Epstein
All right, so we are in number 11 and he lives in number nine.
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Joy Reid
Right.
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Neighbor of Epstein
So we renovate, we buy our house. And our house is pigeons and mice.
- [13:44]
Joy Reid
Right?
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Neighbor of Epstein
Okay, that's. It was derelict, right. So we build, we rebuild our house, we move in in 2005. Okay. Jeffrey Epstein is arrested in like 08. I think something like that.
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Joy Reid
Right, Right.
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Neighbor of Epstein
So knock on the door, his assistant on like A Saturday says, Mr. Epstein, your neighbor would like to invite you over for coffee. So my wife and I go next door, you know, we walk the seven steps.
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Representative Al Green
Yes, right.
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Neighbor of Epstein
To the next house for, for coffee. We share a wall. So he gives you towards big living room and then across from it is double doors. I assume it's the dining room.
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Howard Lutnick
Yeah.
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Neighbor of Epstein
And he opens the doors and there's a massage table in the middle of the room and candles all around and stuff. So I ask very insightful cutting questions. I say to him, massage table in the middle of your house.
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Terrence Woodbury
How often you have a massage?
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Neighbor of Epstein
And he says, every day. And then he, like, gets, like, weirdly close to me.
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Jeffrey Epstein
Oh.
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Neighbor of Epstein
And he says, and the right kind of massage. Now my wife is standing here. So she looks at me and I look at her and we say, I'm sorry.
- [15:02]
Joy Reid
No, keep going.
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Neighbor of Epstein
And we left. And in the six or eight steps it takes to get from his house to my house, my wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again. So I was never in the room with him socially for business or even philanthropy. If that guy was there, I wasn't going because he's gross. We'd have lunch with him. As I was on a boat going across on a family vacation, my wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies and people, about your
- [15:44]
Joy Reid
interactions with Epsy, did you have any financial involvement with Jeffrey Epstein? Why did you keep contact with Jeffrey Epstein after he pled guilty to sex crimes? What do you say to the Democrats calling on for you to resign? Give us some space.
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Howard Lutnick
People of your level in the British
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Joy Reid
government, You hear them say, people of your level in the British government have had to. Have had to resign. You give him some space. Give him some space. He's lying and he got caught. Give him some space to lie. Give him some space to lie. You know, I was all, he's so gross and disgusting. And I have to show you guys this because you can actually, you can see this for yourself. He says he met him in. That he met him in 2005, moves in next door three years before he gets charged with those prostitution, quote, unquote charges that were that sweetheart deal that covered up his crimes against children, the Acosta sweetheart deal. But take a look at this. This is a 10. These emails, if you zoom into them, Those are dated 2011. In 2012, they're talking about, can we meet up? Can we go to lunch? When are we meeting? These are in 2012. Howard, you said that you found him disgusting in 2005, but you still keying with him in 2011 and 2012. You and your secretary and your assistant going back and forth with him. And I saw those myself. That's from a screenshot that I did today. It appears the COVID up is extremely broad. NPR and the New York Times and NBC News, however, have caught the regime not just deleting that file, that photo of Howard Lutnick and maybe his sons and some other people who we can speculate on who they were, but also deleting multiple FBI interviews with a woman who. Who claimed that Trump and Epstein both sexually abused her when she was between 13 and 15 years old and that Trump punched her in the face because she bit him during an attempt at oral abuse. So they delete the Lutnick photo. They delete those files. There's evidence that this woman was interviewed four times, but there's only one interview available. It also appears Epstein himself was trying to cover up his crimes by hiding evidence. We'll roll that.
- [17:59]
Howard Lutnick
A11 pornography. The items are inventoried in a previously unseen memo the investigator prepared for Epstein's lawyer, who had given instructions to remove items of potential evidentiary value from Epstein's home. A lawyer who represents scores of Epstein's victims has long believed he was tipped off the police were coming.
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Joy Reid
You see him working hand in hand
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Crystal Ball
with his lawyers and private investigators to make sure that his decades long sex
- [18:24]
Joy Reid
trafficking operation was not uncovered. So it shows you the incredible power, power he had.
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Howard Lutnick
In video taken by Palm beach police on the day of the search, you can see officers zero in on monitors, keyboards and printers. But the computers appeared to be missing. The inventory list says the private eye removed three computers, a three page directory of Florida masseuses, and a photograph of a white female. There were also nude photos, sex manuals, and 29 telephone directories believed to hold Epstein's contacts of the rich and powerful.
- [18:55]
Joy Reid
It's just incredibly frustrating because if we had had this information 10 years ago,
- [19:00]
Crystal Ball
we could have spared a lot of lives.
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Howard Lutnick
Prosecutors went to great lengths in 2007 to obtain the missing computers, believing they contained relevant and potentially critical information. But Epstein's lawyers fought to keep them away from prosecutors and they have never been fully recovered. And this morning the Justice Department says it is reviewing whether materials about an unproven sexual assault accusation against prosecution President Trump were omitted from public release. Documents related to the woman who made the claim, which dates to more than 40 years ago when the accuser was a minor, could not be located in a search by ABC News. Trump has long denied any wrongdoing. And the Justice Department says it will publish any documents found to have been improperly tagged in the review process. Now, what happened? Palm beach computers and all of the
- [19:47]
Joy Reid
so, yeah, so it turns out they were just hiding evidence. And he was hiding evidence. Everybody's hiding evidence. And let us not forget Mr. Epstein birthday boobs book entry in top funder Les Wexner, whose deposition by Democratic House members every single Republican skipped and who happens to have been the largest and most prolific longtime donor to Ohio State University, where House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan used to work as an assistant wrestling coach and who faced his own deposition last year when regarding Ohio State's wrestling practices, wherein a man named Dr. Richard Strauss, also known to Wexner, who was a board member at the time from the 70s through the 1990s, aka the Epstein Trump era, showered allegedly with the wrestlers, most of whom were on scholarship, allegedly gave them genital exams and sexually abused them, and assistant coach Jordan and coach Russ Helixon apparently saw nothing at all. In short, we still don't know the half of what Epstein and Trump did and the extent of the involvement of these other men. All gross in this apparently global sexual abuse ring. What we do know was that Hillary Clinton and UFOs were not involved. Let's thank one of our sponsors this episode of the Joy Read show is brought to you by our friends@bookshop.org Since 2020, bookshop.org has raised more than $40 million for local bookstores. They are unapologetically anti Amazon. We love that they believe local bookstores are essential community hubs and that foster culture and curiosity and a love of reading and they are committed to helping them survive and thrive. They are a certified B Corp and have been named Best for the World by B Labs. When you shop for books, where you shop actually matters. And when you purchase from bookshop.org you are supporting more than 2,500 local independent bookstores across the country. Independent bookstores do more than just sell books. They take care of and pour back into the community. They create safe spaces that foster culture, curiosity and absolutely a love of books. You know we love books. That's why they call us readers. I will note that I just finished the book if I Ruled the World by Amy dubois Barnett for the Read this Read that book Club. If you are members of that Big UPS to all of our cousins, it was a really great book and I'm always looking for a new good book to read. So throw one in the chat if there's something you think I should be reading. I try not to just read about Trump and horrible stuff like fascism, but if you would like to find yourself a new fave, visit bookshop.org and find use their bookstore map to find a local bookstore near you. And if you decide to shop, which I hope you do, just use the code JOY to get 10% off your next order at bookshop.org, that is code joyokshop.org for 10% off. Okay, let's go back to the Democrats. The Democrats have. They've come out swinging for sure and attacking House Republicans for their theatrics and lies regarding the Epstein cover up that they are eagerly engaged in. But there are real questions about how hard Democrats are prepared to fight on issues besides Epstein. Just this week we have learned the extent to which the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate are enmeshed with companies like the surveillance giant Palantir, which apparently gives to leader Hakeem Jeffries leadership pac. That doesn't sound good. And of course there's the continued flow of money into Democratic campaigns from APAC and from APAC related entities which they're now using, including in this DCCC Leaders Circle fundraiser in North Carolina wherein a candidate who was criticized for taking money from AIPAC before now says she won't take that money, Representative Fuchi, but is taking from related AIPAC adjacent organizations as she runs against a Bernie Sanders supported candidate. Democrats continue to play favorites with those kind of candidates over the progressives who actually align with the base. Joining me now is my friend, my homegirl from the Artist formerly known as MSNBC Days, Crystal Ball, co host of Breaking Points and Crypto, Crystal Kyle and friends. Hey girl. Hey.
- [24:04]
Crystal Ball
Hey lady. How's it going?
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Joy Reid
It is going good at this.
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Crystal Ball
I have. I'm loving your monologue. I feel like you are in the pocket, like getting back into your radio roots. I see it all there.
- [24:16]
Joy Reid
Definitely. You know what, I love that you say that because I am a radio girl. I really did enjoy radio. The thing I love most about radio was being able to take calls because we used to take the most batshit right wing calls. And I actually, it feeds my soul.
- [24:28]
Crystal Ball
I can see that for you. I can see that.
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Joy Reid
I love to mess with the troll. So let's talk about this because, you know, there's this thing where back when I was at ms, if I said anything negative about Democrats, I would get like strafed on Twitter. Right. Like the Democrats are very hardcore and Democratic based voters get very angry when you criticize the party. But the thing is this is the only thing we've got left to fight fascism. And if they're getting money from Palantir, I feel like we've already lost. And apac.
- [25:00]
Crystal Ball
Yeah. I mean, here's what I would say though. I think that things have really changed with the Democratic base and you know, you see a tremendous shift in the way that people are viewing this moment in their dissatisfaction with, you know, outlets that they previously trusted, you know, that they saw as like liberal bulwarks. And now they see that these are institutions that are still interested in upholding the status quo or capitulating to the rise of fascism. So you have that. And so I am genuinely the one of the. There aren't a lot of things I'm hopeful about right now. One thing I'm genuinely hopeful about is that there is such a distance between where Democratic leaders like Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer are and where the base of the party is, that it's just not something that can be sustained. You know, if you look at the overwhelming desire to abolish ice, Right. If you look at the overwhelming desire to avoid war with Iran, not just have some process argument, oh, my God, you've got to make the case to us, no, we do not want war with Iran. This is like 2%, literally of the Democratic Party that wants this. And I think they're all elected in D.C. as another issue. You know, if you look at Israel, Palestine, the Gulf there is so incredibly vast. I saw someone come out today and say, you know, the number of Democrats that support Israel over Palestine or feel more sympathy for Israel over Palestine is equivalent to those who are pro life. That's how much of a fringe position has become in the party. And yet that's overwhelmingly what we get from Democratic leadership.
- [26:24]
Joy Reid
So.
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Crystal Ball
So I think there is a sea change coming that they are not going to be able to hold back. And when they take money from Palantir, when they take money from MAGA aligned apac, when they take money from these other sketchy sources, it just makes it much easier to figure out, okay, these are the candidates we need to not support or we need to get out of office. And these are the ones who we actually have a fighting shot at getting in there and doing the right things.
- [26:50]
Joy Reid
Yeah, I mean, you mentioned the Palestine issue. I mean, the I love the secret behind the scenes report that Axios reported on that said, hey, maybe Kamala Harris lost because of Palestine. It's like I told them, they could have just called me. I could have told them that this was clear. There's this Gallup polling that shows what you just said, which is that for the first time in my lifetime in 25 years of Gallup polling, more Americans said they sympathize with Palestinians and Israelis. It's much more so obviously among Democrats, but even among Republicans, I mean, even the MAGA base has come to this conclusion. And when you hear stories like, Jason could put up this next slide, there's now reporting that the majority of Palestinian journalists who were arrested, they're getting arrested there too, folks. And killed, were tortured when they were imprisoned. When people hear about Palestinian journalists being tortured and killed and the genocide against children, it's kind of a no brainer. And I don't understand why Democrats just don't get on board. Well, I mean, Democratic leaders, I should say because the Democratic Party and most of the elected officials, but the leadership is still a no.
- [27:56]
Crystal Ball
It's a mixed bag with the party at large. There has been a shift among Democratic electeds, but the leadership, I mean you still, Chuck Schumer never endorsed or on mom, Donnie for this.
- [28:06]
Joy Reid
For this.
- [28:07]
Crystal Ball
And we all know the reason, right? Yeah, it's completely insane. And again, so disconnected from where just the Democratic base. I mean if you dig into the numbers here on Independence, Independents are overwhelmingly like, yeah, I watched you all commit genocide in my feed for multiple years. No, I don't have sympathy. No, I don't think that we should be shipping you more and more aid and more and more weapons so that you can continue this horror. This is a no brainer. I mean, basically the only demographic group that still has this Israel, no matter what sensibility is like old boomer Republicans. And I do think, you know, just to put this in context, since war with Iran apparently looms, you know, I do think that's a part of the reason why Israel is pushing so hard for this war right now because they recognize come 2028 it's very possible, if not likely that they have someone in the White House who's like, we're not doing this anymore. Like we're taking a very, very different approach. They also have their own sort of demographic out migration issues which we're now suffering from this in this country as well. They have problems with the, you know, being able to support their social safety net and the super ultra orthodox there don't want to serve in the military, etc. So they're sort of reading the writing on the wall of like, we have all this power right now, we have the White House right now, but we're not going to have this position for long. Which is why I think they're pushing so hard and so aggressively in that direction. And also with all the horror that we continue to see in Gaza and in the West Bank.
- [29:30]
Joy Reid
Yeah. And you know, I think the other piece of it is, is that the Epstein files have really signed a spotlight on Israel. I mean, some of the biggest supporters beyond the Christian Zionists were people like Les Wexner, were people like Jeffrey Epstein. And you all played. You know, I do. I do catch my breaking points. I do not miss it. I love listening to you guys. You guys played.
- [29:52]
Crystal Ball
I love hearing that.
- [29:53]
Joy Reid
Oh, no, absolutely. We love what you guys are doing. And you played a piece of this. I have a bit longer clip of it. And this is Ehud Barak, the former Prime Minister of Israel, speaking with Jeffrey Epstein specifically about a couple of people that are in our minds right now because of mass surveillance. Take a listen to this.
- [30:10]
Jeffrey Epstein
IOUs to you. Is that who's the. Out of the people in the past who you think you're close to? He said he really wanted you to make this list of this person owes me a favor. This person owes me his life. This person owes me his job. This person owes me.
- [30:30]
Joy Reid
Yeah.
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Representative Al Green
Okay.
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Jeffrey Epstein
And so you got to work it backwards and say, here is my. Instead of thinking about what the opportunities are first. Because right now you're focused on opportunities, I need you to focus on your personal balance sheet in terms of competences. What's your real strengths? What's the liability? One of the liabilities is you're 71 years old, so you can't be in a business. It takes 20 years to make money. We have to make money in the next one years. So people, competence things. So for. I talked to Ian yesterday. I asked him to come. He flew in from London. He's great for an hour because he's very connected to Samsung. Very Samsung Korean.
- [31:21]
Representative Al Green
Yes, very.
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Jeffrey Epstein
They pay him $3 million a year
- [31:27]
Representative Al Green
just to make PL.
- [31:28]
Jeffrey Epstein
Yes. He has 10 companies like that now.
- [31:31]
Joy Reid
Okay.
- [31:34]
Jeffrey Epstein
So he said there's this company called Lookout. He said he mentioned it to you. L O O K L U T. Yep. He thinks they'll pay you a couple of million dollars to be on the board.
- [31:46]
Representative Al Green
Yeah, that could be good.
- [31:48]
Jeffrey Epstein
I understood he thought there was two cyber companies.
- [31:53]
Joy Reid
Look out.
- [31:53]
Jeffrey Epstein
And even though I know Peter, I've never met Peter Thiel. And everybody says he sort of jumps around and acts strange, like he's on drugs.
- [32:03]
Joy Reid
Smoking.
- [32:03]
Representative Al Green
Yeah, yeah. He looks there under drugs.
- [32:06]
Jeffrey Epstein
However, he has a company called Palantir. P A L L E N T E T I E R Palantir is Peter Thiel's company and Lookout.
- [32:19]
Representative Al Green
P A L A N T I E L yes. How you I tilly T H I
- [32:24]
Jeffrey Epstein
E L L T H I E L yeah. L L Y no P T H I E L L so he thought that Peter would put you on the board of Palantir. Peter Thiel is one of the best. I've never met him. He's going to come here next week. So I wanted to talk to him after I talk to you. He and Andreasen, it's called Andreessen Horowitz. Andreessen Horowitz. That's what they pay Larry, a million dollars a year.
- [32:55]
Joy Reid
Marc Andreessen, who was a big donor to Donald Trump, if you all want to maybe want to Google him. And of course, Peter Thiel, who they said, oh, I don't know him at all. He'll be here next week. And of course, Palantir this, it's clear that Jeffrey Epstein was helping Ehud Barak get rich. You know, saying, hey, you can make a couple million dollars just being on boards. Like this guy who makes like $30 million doing that. So I'll get you onto these boards. I can get you on the board of Palantir. These guys are sharing finance information. But if you listen to the whole long sort of conversation, which was gross to listen to because they're eating and it's like bad, like asmr. At the same time there, he's trying to get Ehud Barack to also tell him about world leaders and give him information. You can see him working this guy to. At the same time, we know he was maybe also supplying him with delights of the completely prurient, disgusting kind.
- [33:48]
Crystal Ball
Well, you know, when I listen to audio like this or when I read the many emails contained in the files, you know what I realized, Joy? I realized the real problem in this country is trans people and immigrants. That's the real issue. It's clearly girls, sports. That's the problem. I mean, and that is, you know, this one relationship, exploring this one relationship in as much depth as we can, given the like little limited hangout that we've been, will give you so much insight into how power actually operates.
- [34:22]
Joy Reid
Yes, right. The way they.
- [34:25]
Crystal Ball
They are connecting with each other, the way that the depraved activities become the social glue because it becomes this, you know, mutually assured destruction. You can see how like with the Bill Gates situation, Jeffrey Epstein, it's not even clear that Epstein gave him the, you know, sent these Russian women to Bill Gates, but he found out about it. And then when Gates tries to pull away and say, listen, my wife is not down with me being with it. Like, I gotta do some other things. Jeffrey Epstein memorializes to himself, oh, well, here's what I know about Bill Gates. I know about these women. I know about this std. I know about these surreptitious antibiotics. And those are the sort of tactics that he keeps to use. People on the inside. But you can also see the way that they think, you know, the. There are multiple emails, some with Ehud Barack, but with others as well, where Epstein looks at countries that are falling apart, you know, that are civil war, they've been bombed by the US and they're just, you know, melting down. And he doesn't see that as human tragedy. He sees that as, this is great for us, this is an opportunity. And so, again, if you want to understand why are we constantly at war, why are we starting all these wars? It's because of the Epstein class types who become wealthier and more powerful and understand that a world with death and chaos and destruction and war, that that is a world that benefits them. So, you know, to. I think it's very important that people sit with what this actually means. They have, you know, they don't care about a nation state, they don't care about our laws, they don't care about, like these, you know, patriotic loyalties. No, you had, you had Jeffrey Epstein colluding with Lord Mandelson in the UK against some of the policy of the UK government, saying, hey, let's get Jamie Dimon in here to threaten them so they don't pass this banker bonus that's going to hurt us and our financier friends.
- [36:13]
Joy Reid
Yep.
- [36:13]
Crystal Ball
That's the way that they. And they're passing each other insider information. So you don't have to be brilliant to make a ton of money when you're getting handed to you from, you know, the Lord Mandelson, the amount of the bailout that's coming for in the UK government, that as. As one example. So, you know, this is to put like a silver lining on it. I think it makes it very hard for the right wing, like, fascist populist narrative of these are the scapegoats, it's the immigrants, it's the trans people, etc. I think it's very hard to hold on to that when you can see these things. When you can look at this and say, that's actually, that's nothing to do with the way the system operates and why people are getting screwed here all the time.
- [36:55]
Joy Reid
Yeah. I mean, these people can barely spell, right. He's on here struggling to spell Palantir, which is literally spelled the way it sounds, and they are struggling to do that. But he's, first of all, you have to sit with. Just for folks that are listening in the chat and are watching this, he's the one taping this. This is not. This is a former Prime Minister of Israel not the Mossad taping it. It's Jeffrey Epstein. So he's having these lengthy conversations, advisory sessions with a former prime minister. They start out by trying to psychoanalyze Barack Obama. This is a conversation taking place during the Obama administration, probably around the same time that Howard Lutnick was pretending not to go to the island and go to the island and emailing with them. And so you're seeing these powerful men trading pran interest, as you said, trading information on how to get rich and stay rich, how to keep each other rich, keep everybody wealthy, keep everybody dirty, and make sure that everybody plays ball. This is like a global mafia.
- [37:54]
Crystal Ball
Yeah. And, you know, as a leftist, like, this was my general sense of how power worked, but I didn't really think it was quite this explicit. And so it's crazy to actually see it in black and white. And then in terms of the intelligence connections, I mean, at this point, it's just completely undeniable. Not only do we have this lengthy and extensive relationship with Ehud Barak, who is former Israeli Prime Minister, who stays at his house all the time, but you've got the Israeli government installing directly security surveillance equipment into his apartment in Manhattan, you know, with his.
- [38:30]
Joy Reid
With his. Go ahead.
- [38:31]
Crystal Ball
And so they're able to pick up on whatever is going on in that department at all times. And, you know, again, to tie back to the war with Iran, because I think this is why this is so extraordinarily important. Obviously, the President, United States name is littered throughout these files. We're getting the little limited glimpse of what they allowed to slip through. God knows what else is in there that we're not seeing. Some journalists have been able to, as you were talking before, identify some interviews that we know are missing. But he has to assume that anything Epstein knew, Israel knows that. He has to assume that, you know, that if he doesn't go along with what his big donors and what the Israel lobby want him to do, they, you know, whatever is in those files that we're not able to see, they have that. And you know, they've used that with Bill Clinton during negotiations, you know, on Palestinian statehood there. Oh, by the way, you know, we know about your affair with Lyns. Of course we're not going to release it, but that is meant to be a threat. Hey, we know, buddy. So you better come over to our side and make sure that we're getting the more favorable end of this deal or else things may not go so well for you. So this is the way they think and this is the way that they operate. And that's all going on right now for Donald Trump as he calculates whether or not to drag us into a horrifying war.
- [39:50]
Joy Reid
Yeah, and let's just never forget that one of the prime ministers that Bill Clinton was negotiating with on the other side of deciding what to do about the Palestinian people was Ehud Barak. Before I let you go, let's talk about, you know, if we are, you know, on the verge of war with Iran, which is an insane thought, but it's. We should prepare ourselves for it. The media is not even what the media was when I quit the media because of the way that they shilled for the Iraq war. It's worse. And now you're seeing the Ellisons, who are also in that same bucket of hyper Zionist, wanting to control the narrative about Palestine, wanting to make sure it, it does not appear on mainstream media or on social media. They're now in impending. It is impending that they will likely now own cnn. They've already got cbs. They are, I guess, in the process of taking over TikTok as well. What do you think are the implications of now CNN potentially going the way of Bari Weiss's cbs?
- [40:51]
Crystal Ball
I mean, it's horrible. And like, you know, I'm not like a stand for cnn. I've got my gripes with them as well. But it can get much worse. It can get much worse. And if you doubt that, just look at what Barry has already done to cbs. You know, just completely neutered it, completely altered their coverage. And when you have so few mainstream outlets out there that even have a liberal bent at this point, it's a, it's a major, major problem. I mean, independent media, at least now there's, you know, there's an ecosystem. Your show, our show, Jennifer Welch, like, there's Midas. There's lots of strong stuff that's out there. But we also can't delude ourselves that we're any sort of fulsome replacement at this point for like HBO which has this gigantic budget, or CNN which has this gigantic budget and which has worldwide coverage. I mean, that's just not something that independent media, each one of us individually, you know, asking people to subscribe, etc. Are going to be able to replicate. It's part and parcel of a playbook that has been rolled out in fascist authoritarian regimes around the country where either neuter critical media, you go after them, you criminalize them, you threaten to sue them, to try to undercut them. You know, the situation with Jimmy Kimmel, etc. Or you consolidate. Get your friends to buy it up. Get your friends to take it over and make sure that they're on the regime propaganda line. So it is, you know, I think it is going to be damaging in ways that are hard to even contemplate right now.
- [42:21]
Joy Reid
Yeah. I'm already hearing from friends in Hollywood that they plan is to start rolling out pro ice propaganda movies and TV to sort of do for them what Cops did for the police. I will also note that the Daily Wire is putting out what they're calling the anti woke sinners, apparently starring Jonathan Majors, who hasn't had a movie in four years because of his troubles in Zachary Levy. That would be Ben Shapiro as the executive producer. So stay tuned for more MAGA movies and TV coming out of Warner Brothers and Paramount. Crystal Ball, you are fantastic. Breaking Points is one of the most successful independent media ventures. Don't sleep on it, y'.
- [43:03]
Representative Al Green
All.
- [43:03]
Joy Reid
Y' all should be subscribing to Breaking Points as well as Crystal, Kyle and friends. And also Kyle's got a really, really, really great solo program as well. We're gonna flip everything. Yes, he is. He's spicy. We're gonna have him come on too. Okay. Thank you so much. I appreciate you. Thanks, lady.
- [43:18]
Crystal Ball
Bye.
- [43:18]
Joy Reid
Thank you.
- [43:19]
Hillary Clinton
Bye.
- [43:19]
Joy Reid
Bye. One of my faves, we were such buddies over there at the Artist formerly known as msnbc. And she's terrific. Let's very quickly thank one of our additional sponsors. The Joy Reid show is brought to you by our friends at 120Life. One of my favorite favorite sponsors because it actually like helps my blood pressure. And you know what, it's stressful out here. You got to keep your blood pressure down. High blood pressure is actually the biggest health problem among everyone that is happening right now. It's the number one risk factor for mortality. Half of all adults have it and we're and most people don't even know it until it becomes a real serious problem. So we've got a couple more days in February and it is American Heart Month. And if you would like to take advantage and try to boost your health in a measurable way before that month is over and marches on out into March120 Life is a great option. It's a once a day functional drink made with ingredients that help support healthy blood pressure. It's not a pill or a stimulant. It's not like some trendy wellness gimmick. It's made from a blend of superfruit juices. It's refreshing, not chalky, not medicinal. It's easy to make part of your daily routine. If you use the powder and mix it up in a smoothie or just drink the cold, which is the one I love to do after working out. It just matters and consistency is everything. You start doing a little thing and it builds and builds and builds and your wellness gets better. There's no guesswork. You grab a home blood pressure monitor, drink 120Life daily and check your numbers after two weeks. Most people do see improvement in as little as two weeks, which is what actually helps motivate you because you see change. If you'd like to try it, go to 120life.com, that's 120life.com and use my code joy or the code read for 20% off. You can try it risk free for two weeks. If your blood pressure does not come down, you get a full refund. So go to 120life.com and use the code joy or reed to save 20%. Nothing to lose except your high blood pressure numbers. So go to 120life.com, use the code joy or read for 20% off and I will note this product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Okay, let's move on to play you some audio. I actually use some audio with video from something called the Black Ops Project. It's a comprehensive polling and research project from our friends at Hit Strategies think it would take to motivate you all or the black community in general to
- [45:36]
Terrence Woodbury
do more to fight back.
- [45:37]
Joy Reid
It's, it's a dangerous game to play for black people.
- [45:41]
Representative Al Green
I feel like to put their face
- [45:44]
Joy Reid
or put, you know, or say certain things. Right now they're looking at any way
- [45:50]
Jeffrey Epstein
to, you know, destroy us.
- [45:52]
Representative Al Green
I don't, I don't know how much
- [45:54]
Joy Reid
I want to put myself in the forefront like that and lose my job in the process. For me, it's a collective. I don't want to do it alone. Like I just need some unity. Like I would need to be in large numbers. I like to see us when we do it in large numbers.
- [46:09]
Representative Al Green
I think often about how I could make an impact on that scale. But I'm also very particular about how
- [46:16]
Terrence Woodbury
I extend my energy.
- [46:18]
Representative Al Green
And if I don't think that that
- [46:19]
Terrence Woodbury
energy is necessarily going to go anywhere or translate to anything, that I'm going to go another way.
- [46:24]
Becky Pringle
You need a little leader with a clear vision.
- [46:26]
Joy Reid
So someone who can then tell us and communicate here's what this or here's what the problem is. How, here's how we can impact it. And here's what you can do to contribute.
- [46:35]
Janae Nelson
And like, that's what we pick.
- [46:37]
Joy Reid
That's why the people picked representatives to kind of do that. But they're not doing that. And joining me now is the person behind that great clip of video and that research, Terrence Woodbury, president and founding partner of HIT Strategies, the leading millennial and minority owned public opinion research firm in D.C. and I would say near the entire United States. Terrence, it's always good to see you.
- [47:01]
Terrence Woodbury
Thank you so much, Joe. You're too kind. Thanks for having me.
- [47:03]
Joy Reid
Oh, no, look, I love a focus group. You have no idea how much focus groups and libraries. It's like two of my favorite things. I love a focus group. It's so fascinating to hear people actually speak their truth and not just respond to a poll. Give us kind of the top lines of what you saw in your research that that collection flip represents.
- [47:21]
Terrence Woodbury
Yeah, sure. Listen, you know, focus grouping is my favorite part of this job. I love sitting in these rooms and getting folks to share with us what's. What's driving their decisions and their attitudes. I tell folks all the time, instead of listening to me talk about what these voters are saying, listen to what these voters are saying. So I appreciate you sharing their words and their feelings and their sentiments and frankly, sharing their fears and anxiety in this moment. What we found in the black ops research is that while black voters are expressing some of the highest concerns, concerns around, around what they're seeing from the federal government, around state sanctioned violence, around economic anxiety, that black voters have also become some of the most likely to withdraw and avoid this political environment. So we hear them in these focus groups telling us why they are afraid or reluctant to engage in some of the resistance movement and activity that we've seen, whether that's no ICE movements or, or no Kings movements, many black voters very different than what we saw in the summer of summer of 2020 during the Black Lives Matter movement, where black folks were on the front lines of leading that resistance. Some black voters have been much more reluctant to engage this time. And that's exactly why we started this black Ops project.
- [48:34]
Joy Reid
Right. That's really fascinating. Let's. Jason, if you could put up C2, because I want you to go over some of the bigger picture, because there is the question of. I'm gonna let you just go through these slides 1, 2, 3, or 5 of our people who are squinting, trying to see it on their phone or on their computer, because there's a sense that black Americans, black folks, have Always been leading leaders when it comes to civil rights and the civil discourse, and people tend to wanna follow us. But you have seen a withdrawal of black faces from these protests. But you also are still hearing black folks say, I want leaders to lead. Jackie Reid tells me this every week on. Read this, Read that. She's like, I need these Democrats to lead, lead. But there's not a lot of confidence necessarily that the leadership is happening. Go through these. Your data.
- [49:16]
Terrence Woodbury
Absolutely, Joy. So we learned a couple of things. First, we learned that while many black voters feel a collective economic harm and pain from what the federal government is doing, too many black voters don't feel the personal impact. Right. And so while the collective impact is important, I understand how what Trump is doing is hurting my community. What we've learned here is that it's the personal impact that actually mobilizes them to take action. And so while 59% of black voters say that Trump's policies have hurt them personally, and that's up from 47%, when we look at some groups, like younger black voters, they're much, much less likely to say that anything that Trump has done has hurt them or help them. And that's a part of what we have to connect the dots. Number two is in contrast to what many have been suspecting or presenting, that black folks have just kind of checked out of this resistance, that's not what we found here at all. We found that black voters are engaging in resistance activities. They're just not engaging evenly, that some folks are much more engaged than others. We have this group of black folks that we call the defenders. Right? They are the most engaged. Well, what we found is that they're also the oldest, much older voters. They are much more educated, much higher income. Again, this is very different, Joy, than what we saw in the summer of 2020, where Black lives Matter protests were being led by those that I call closest to the pain. Lower income, lower education, those that are system impacted by police brutality. They felt personal impact by George Floyd's murder, and that is why they were out there. Well, this is where we need to connect the dots, because the voters that we need to engage, younger voters and those that were leading the previous movement have not engaged in the same way. And number three, when we look at the barriers, what is actually preventing them from engaging the barriers of resistance are things like fear of arrest, fear of violence, even fear of political retaliation at work. And then a barrier that I just did not suspect here, but one that I think we can easily start to start to solve in the movement is that 62% of black voters said that no one has even asked them to participate in these activities.
- [51:32]
Joy Reid
That is, no one asking is. And I think the first one actually sort of is jarring to a lot of people saying people haven't felt the personal impact because it feels like everyone has felt the impact of everything Trump is doing. So I want you to dig in that a little bit more, but I want to play another piece of sound from your focus groups to the point you just made about what makes you feel afraid to join the resistance, to personally resist ON this is C3, Jason, ourselves as black folks in this resisting, because we already know about martial law.
- [52:02]
Becky Pringle
We already know that Trump gives power to the police.
- [52:05]
Joy Reid
We already know that if we go
- [52:06]
Becky Pringle
out there with them people, something bad could pop off, and then we're in trouble.
- [52:11]
Joy Reid
So we do what we do best. We're just going to sit back and watch, you know, things get done, because it's just.
- [52:19]
Janae Nelson
It's. It's too much.
- [52:20]
Crystal Ball
We've.
- [52:21]
Joy Reid
We've done so much already, just, just by show of hands and, and please be honest here. How many of you feel afraid to engage in protest? I know some of you have shared sentiment like this.
- [52:36]
Terrence Woodbury
Okay.
- [52:37]
Joy Reid
Or just afraid to resist in general? Yeah, I think it's more of, like, I can't afford. I feel like I can't afford to resist. I think that's what it is, because it's like, no matter how deep I feel about it and how much of a want of, like, me going out there and doing something or protesting, like, whatever it is, I always have this lingering fear of, is my life in jeopardy? Will someone see me and try to report me? Whether that's to my. My job or, you know, like, is that where my face going viral on the Internet and now am I a target? It's a combination of that, Like I said, just. You know what scares me about that, Terrence, is that that reminds me of kind of the vibe that I saw in Cuba, you know, where people might have whispered resistance, but they were really afraid to publicly do anything because they were constantly being watched. Surveillance is everywhere. The men with the long guns are everywhere, and even the police are afraid of them. And once you sort of develop a habit of people of saying, it's not worth it for me to try to resist, you wind up getting 30, 40 years of, you know, what they're facing or what you're seeing. In Hungary, you see people give in and say, I'm just going to go ahead and live in authoritarianism because it's easier for me to just keep my head down. And that's kind of where I feel we're going to. And I say this on the day that the number of people who've now been arrested in a protest, that was the face of it, were black people in that Minneapolis church, including Don Lemon, a very famous black person in Georgia Ford, a fellow journalist. That was the one time when you really saw sort of black led resistance. And there's 39 people being indicted, including a 21 year old college kid who just drove Don around. And it feels like that's one of the things that the regime wanted. They wanted to, to, they wanted to attack black people in a way that would scare other black people about resisting. And of course, they attacked white people and shot one in the face and shot another who's a nurse and killed them to send the same message to white people.
- [54:43]
Terrence Woodbury
That's exactly right, Joy. And you know, the thing about this research that started back in April of 2025 is that we've been able to measure the impact of all of this over time, right? We were in focus groups after ICE murder to Americans in Minneapolis. And so we're able to hear black folks respond directly to that, you know, and, and, and, and acknowledge the fact that if they, if they're willing to kill white people in the streets, right, and there's no accountability, no, no consequences, then what will they do for us? In fact, a lot of what we heard in some of this research were recalls to January 6th, right. Had that been us, they would have opened fire. In fact, this, this anticipation that in fact the federal government is waiting for us to go out there so that they can open fire. And so the fear that the federal government is trying to instill is beginning to resonate. And that's why the research shows how we have to inoculate from that. Right? We have to inoculate from the fear that these voters are expressing by one, by calls to action for collective impact, that we feel more guard, we feel, we feel more protected when we are all doing this together. Two is by implementing programs like resistance help hotlines, phone numbers you can call to reach pro bono attorneys if you feel like you are being mistreated or facing political retaliation and know your rights trainings and places where we can demonstrate that the movement has our backs. One of the things that I heard when I was conducting these focus groups was, you know, Donald Trump has the January Sixers back, right? He's willing to use the full force of the government, not just to defend them, but to pardon them, who's going to have our backs? And that's what the collective action. When multiple organizations demonstrate that we are willing to do what it takes to fight first, to fight together, but when we fight together, we will also fight for each other.
- [56:39]
Joy Reid
Yeah. I mean, if people feel that they were just waiting for an opportunity to attack black people, that's actually borne out by what we've heard heard from people like Lev Parnas, who talks to people in the administration. They were very frustrated that the no Kings rallies were so white. And they really, really, really wanted to recreate kind of a Black Lives Matter visual because they thought that would get white people on side. What's it's turned out, it turns out white people are still mad anyway, even when there are no black people involved. And when you kill a couple of them, they get really mad, or you try to steal their brown and black neighbors, they get really mad. And so. But I think what you said, I think that last piece is so important, right? So no Kings 3 is coming up next month. And then. And the question becomes, what is that trigger that gets people to say, I'm going to lose the fear. If we're all going to march out there, I'm going to. We shall overcome. We're going to march together. Because that's what it took during the civil rights movement. Right. Black people had the same threat and the same threat of getting killed, the same threat of getting. I mean, those sheriffs were going to shoot you as well, and did. So how. What is the thing you think that moves it? Is it that? Is it political leadership? Is it cultural leadership? What is it?
- [57:42]
Terrence Woodbury
So, you know, I am informed both by this research, but also by the very recent, very successful Black Lives matter movement of 2020. Right. It's not lost on me that this midterm of 2026 is just like in 2020 is taking place on the backdrop of a resistance movement. And that who wins this midterm is likely going to be determined as much by the movement as it is by either party or any candidate. And so we found that just like in 2020, where the leaders of the movement, the spokespeople of the movement were people like us, right? They were not political leaders. It wasn't congressional leaders and mayors and governors that were leading the Black Lives Matter movement. It was young black activists, young queer activists. And so through this research, we actually created AI Personas of people that had shared lived experiences and ran through these kind of five elements of messaging where one was a young Black millennial father that was just talking about how Donald Trump's policy, how the tariffs have hurt him, how Medicaid cuts have hurt him, and that is why he's been moved to action. And him calling his people to act with him increased the likelihood that black folks would protest by 10 points and increase boycott by 7 points and increase the likelihood that young black folks would vote by 10. So we know that this messaging works. We know that we have a path to mobilization, but we have to act now. You know, one thing that is not lost on me is that we can't create the flashpoint that will mobilize. We can't create the George Floyd moment, we can't create the Trayvon Martin moment that mobilizes college kids and mobilizes young people. But we can be prepared when that moment happens. I'm afraid some of those moments are already happening, and that is what this black ops research is intended to do, is to arm the movement, to take it, to harness that energy when it happens.
- [59:38]
Joy Reid
You just reminded me that in the Trayvon Martin case, it was also young Palestinians who. There was this weird, there's interesting solidarity. Black Palestinian solidarity was really very public, starting with Trayvon Martin, because the dream defenders were one young brother black guy and a young Palestinian that were partners. So, I mean, so there's been a lot of sort of cross cultural, you know, sort of connection on that. But let me ask you one last question. Well, two last questions before I let you go. One, have you seen in the data anything that indicates that the deployment of ice, armed, masked agents to the polls, which we are expecting Trump, the regime to do, that they will try to use physical intimidation to stop people from voting. Have people begun to process that? And is there a chance that that keeps people at home?
- [60:26]
Terrence Woodbury
Very good question, Joy. So the first phase of this work focuses mainly on the economic harms of the federal government and what the Trump administration has done to hurt the black committee economically. The second phase of this is digging deeper into the defending democracy and attacks on democracy, including threats of interference in the upcoming election. I can tell you that many of the ICE enforcement and even ICE misconduct that we tested in the first round of this work was not, Was not often mobilizing to some voters, oftentimes for what I detect as missing disinformation. Right. The misinformation of zero sum politics, of those are those guys that were taking our black jobs, or those are those guys that voted for him, or, you know, so there's a lot of deferred referring to the Folks that either voted for him or didn't vote at all, that they should be the ones that are on the front lines of fighting. And so I am interested to know, what does it mean not just for ICE misconduct and ICE sanctioned violence, but when ICE starts to threaten elections and votes in black communities? I am curious to see how that works. And in fact, we have focus groups this week to begin to export that.
- [61:38]
Joy Reid
Last question before I let you go, and this one is this. This just misses me. I'm just curious, do you guys have any data on what's going on in Texas? Because we know that on Tuesday is Election Day in Texas. Everyone wants to know who's going to win this primary. You've got Talarico people. You've got Jasmine Crockett people. Everyone just needs to know the answer. Now just tell us who's going to win.
- [61:53]
Terrence Woodbury
Yes. Do you have any numbers in transparency? I. I do work for the. For the Crockett campaign. And so I do have to reveal that. But. But I will say that just to connect this back to this research that is demanding on. On leaders to fight fire with fire, to take the gloves off, to stop fighting by the old rules. And frankly, what I heard often in these focus groups was that they don't want to go high anymore. Right when Republicans go low. And I will say that, Jasmine Crockett, in all of these focus groups, we would also ask, who is fighting for you? We would ask this country. We'd ask this question in focus groups around the country, and the first answer they would often give is nobody. When I probed them and said, well, if you had to name someone, the names that often came up were names like Bernie Sanders, AOC and Jasmine Crockett. I think what we see in the Texas primary right now, where black folks are surging, where young people are surging, where 20% of people that have voted in the early, that have early voted, have never voted in the primary before, is that when you fight fire with fire, when you take the gloves off, a candidate like Jasmine Crockett really does mobilize. These folks that are otherwise feel like this is not their fight yet.
- [63:01]
Joy Reid
Yeah. And I will say that just as a practitioner of sort of looking at campaigns, people look at states like Texas and they say, what's the point? Well, the point is, Jesse Jackson is that you register millions of voters if you have a candidate that gives you a passionate reason to register, and then that is actually money in the bank for future campaigns, or you can actually win. And look, anybody can win if Enough people vote for them in any state. And so people who say, well, so and so can't win. Anyone can win if enough people vote for them. Donald Trump is a literal moron, and he's president not once, but twice because enough people voted for him, Right. And he's completely unqualified for the job. So never turn off the possibility before it happens. And last thing I'll say is, for those in the chat, yes, I love Michelle Obama. She is my forever first lady. But I don't agree with her. When they go low, we go high. When they go low, I like to go to the earth's core. All the way down to the core.
- [63:56]
Terrence Woodbury
Terrence, we thank you.
- [63:58]
Joy Reid
Thank you very much. I appreciate you, brother. Have a good. But thank you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much. We're going to be doing some deep dives into that data and other data. I told you guys, I'm about to launch a thing on Substack where we're going to get the real geeks, the nerds, the real super nerds. If you really love data and you want to dig into data, we're going to be launching something very soon that's going to let you sit with people like Terence Woodbury and just go in. And we're going to do that once a week because during this campaign season, some folks are just going to want more and more and more data. Welcome to hour two of the Joy Reid Show. We appreciate everyone who is here. We appreciate everybody in all of our chats. If you have not hit like and subscribe yet, what are you doing? Why not go ahead and hit like and subscribe? We appreciate the chats that are flowing both on YouTube. Looking at the substack chat, I got both chats on both sides looking at them. And we see you Twitchies and Facebookies. We appreciate each and every one of you guys. Hit like and subscribe wherever you are. It all helps the algorithm no matter where you're listening. I want to also say that we so appreciate, like this season 20, the year of our Lord, 2026, has been really good to us in terms of attracting some really incredible sponsors, people who actually, you know, are partnering with us and are coming to the table to make sure that this show can stay on, that we can, you know, give a little coins to our staff and, you know, even add a couple interns. It's really been really great. And one of our fantastic sponsors that is bringing the show to you tonight are our friends at Quints now. You know, you know, I love A little fashion. I will wear a sweatshirt a lot because I love to wear merch. I love to wear my merch because I love it and it's soft and fluffy. But when I want a style. 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Quince uses the highest quality materials, like 100% European linen and organic cotton. Everything is built to hold up season after season. You'll love the stitch, you'll love the fit, you'll love the fabrics. And what I love most is you can be stylish, cute and comfortable, but also your wallet is happy. If you're ready to refresh your wardrobe with quints, go to quince.com joyread for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. It's now available also in our favorite country, Canada, and maybe our refuge if things go wild. Canada, we love you. That's Q U I n c e.com joyread to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com joyread so we're going to give a little reset this morning just to remind you guys of our breaking news at the top of the hour. The fact that the injustice department has now indicted 39 people for protesting at a pro ice church. Which I remind you, and we'll just remind you again because we're also trying to fight white Christian nationalism on this show is a hub of the white Christian nationalist movement. It is a church that was founded co founded by the man who wrote the Sin of Empathy, who is the underboss to the guy who is Pete Hegseth's pastor in Both Idaho and D.C. who said that slavery, that period was the most harmonious period in our history when there's really nothing wrong with slavery. You know, there were some bad people, too, but overall, it's what made us more harmonious as a society. So that is the kind of church that has an ICE agent as a lay pastor. And that is why they were protested. And to the point Terrence was just talking about, this was one of the few black led protests that we've seen during this second Trump regime. And as Lev Parnas has reported right on this show, the regime was waiting for a group of black people that they could attack. And now they've gone way over the top, attacking with indictments that, again, they could not get initially because normal prosecutors refused to bring these cases, including against Don Lemon and Georgia for. Because they're journalists. And when prosecutors refused, Pamela Jo and friends went and found themselves a grand jury that would bring these indictments. They've done the same thing again. They've found a grand jury. And having sat in a grand jury, I will tell you a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich because only the prosecutor presents in a grand jury. In a grand jury, you do not hear from the defense, just the prosecutor. So to that point, I want to show you or let you guys take a listen to a clip of a gentleman named Alberto Carvalho. Now, back when Jason I and the kids lived in Florida, he was actually the Miami Dade superintendent. But he now, and he's one of the sort of most popular he's been in a few cities. He now leads the Los Angeles United School District out in California. And here he is denouncing ICE agents for entering school campuses. For those of you who may not know, I would be a hypocrite if I did not fight for those who today are facing conditions that over 40 years I faced as an undocumented migrant to this country. I want to repeat that I would
- [69:39]
Howard Lutnick
be the biggest hypocrite in the world, regardless of my position today, if today
- [69:45]
Joy Reid
I did not fight for the those who find themselves in the same predicament I faced over 40 years ago. When I arrived in this country at the age of 17 as an undocumented immigrant, education made me and saved me. I became a teacher, a principal, a superintendent, leading the nation's largest districts, four times selected as national Superintendent of the year. Do not underestimate the power of the immigrant child who may very well become an adult who does well and good by America. If I come across with a certain degree of contempt and anger, I am. I am. Because Monday, Monday, actions were taken in this community that have no place in our city, in our state, or across America. I'm still mystified as to how a first, second, third, fourth or sixth grader would pose any type of risk to the national security of our nation that would require Homeland Security to deploy its agents to two elementary schools. Now, I will note that that gentleman who you saw, Alberto Carvalho, who came from Portugal, as he said, as an undocumented child and who grew up to be quite successful, he has now had his offices and home raided by the federal government. The Los Angeles Times reports Carvalho had introduced Ed, the AI chatbot, amid fanfare back in March of 2020 24, touting a revolutionary tool that would put the district at the leading edge of school technology. But the multimillion dollar project failed within month and never fully launched. Now, the deal to bring Ed to the nation's second largest school district, of course, Los Angeles and Carvalho's longtime association with Deborah Kerr, the Florida consultant who helped sell the technology to the district, is under scrutiny as part of a sweeping FBI investigation that included early morning raids Wednesday at Carvalho San Pedro home and district office and a home owned by Ms. Kerr. They're alleging that the Boston based AI company defrauded its investors, despite Kerr being one of the people claiming the company owes her money and she filed a claim to that effect in that company's bankruptcy case. Now, the woman who founded the company, whose name is Joanna Smith Griffin, was indicted last year under Merrick Garland's watch on allegations that she did indeed defraud investors. The charges were filed eight months after she and Carvalho stood side by side during the Chatbot unveiling. But neither Carvalho nor Kerr have been charged with a crime. The FBI has not released any information about the nature or scope of the investigation, and the search warrant affidavits are sealed. Sources with knowledge of the probe told the Los Angeles Times that Carvalho is a focus of the investigation. The Donald Trump administration, per the Los Angeles Times and Bill Asai, the first assistant U.S. attorney for Southern California under Trump, is especially focused on fraud, which is ironic since Donald Trump is literally a felon convicted of fraud. The administration has been accused, in addition to being criminal and not indicting people in the Epstein files, they've been accused, including by former federal law enforcement employees, of targeting perceived political enemies. Now, Carvalho would absolutely fall on that list. He's been outspoken in the school system's unflagging defense of immigrant rights and its criticism of Trump's actions, including the administration's opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Now, I'm not going to litigate this case on this show because I just gave you the facts that I know. That is what the Los Angeles Times has reported. That is all I know. I know the New York Post is attacking Carvalho personally, trying to turn him into a supervillain. But what I just read you is all I know. But what I do know is that in this environment, with this president and that DOJ and Pamela Bondi screaming about the Dow 50,000 and ignoring the Epstein victims, nothing this regime does should be taken at face value. And everything they do, at least to me, looks suspicious. But joining me now to talk about the bigger picture of education, including the issues of immigration and the impact that ICE is having on schools, as well as the questions around DEI in our schools, is Becky Pringle, the president of the national education association. Ms. Pringle, thank you so much for being here. I will not make you comment on the Carvalho case. I have not asked you to do that because I know just what I said. You care to comment? You can, but I do want to ask you about this bigger picture of at least what Carvalho said in that clip, which is that at this point, ICE and DHS is being deployed against children in our schools.
- [75:01]
Becky Pringle
So, Joy, you're going to the Earth score, are you?
- [75:05]
Joy Reid
It's where I like to live when they go. When they go low. I'm way, way, way down in that cold.
- [75:10]
Becky Pringle
I love that. I might have to steal that. You know, I taught for over 30 years. So talk. Talking about going someplace where there is intense heat and pressure. Yeah. That's where we all need to be going.
- [75:27]
Joy Reid
Amen.
- [75:28]
Becky Pringle
Because this bigger picture, we have to understand what's going on. So for me, as an educator, Joy, and as a. As a child of a history teacher, my dad always taught me. He said, Rebecca. That's what he called me when he was really mad. Very serious, Rebecca, you need to understand your history, your family's history, where you come from. So he took us regularly to Charlottesville, Virginia, where my. My grandmother and grandfather's parents were enslaved. He wanted us to stand on the ground and remember and know our history. He said, you need to know American history. And by the way, black history is American history.
- [76:11]
Joy Reid
Amen.
- [76:13]
Becky Pringle
Native history is American history. And he said, and you need to know world history. And one of the things he taught us, the three is three girls is you need to understand that because you see patterns. And this is not new in the history of this world where we have people who have decided they want nothing to get in the way of their unfettered march toward absolute power. We have to understand what's really happening here. And what do you do to prevent that? You go after public education. That's what you do. Because public education is the foundation of this or any democracy. And that's why you have seen the Trump administration single handedly try to dismantle public education by putting Linda McMahon in charge of the Department of Education and tearing it apart by decimating the Office of Civil Rights that is there to protect our students and families against discrimination, to making sure to attacking people when they speak up and speak out and mobilize and come together. And so for me, as an educator, when he attack, attacks teachers, right, to lift up their voice, we have to lift it up even more. And that is exactly what we're focused on. Because we, we understand, Joy, we understand that this very democracy is at threat and we are in the midst of an authoritarian reign.
- [77:48]
Joy Reid
And the thing about it is, you know, maybe because, you know, we lived in South Florida so long, so we, you know, we, we knew of and dealt with and you know, I used to do some consulting down there. And so we know Alberto Carvalho and he has always been very child focused, you know, and centered and very pro dei. And you know, it is suspicious to me that he's in the Los Angeles school system, which is the second largest school system in the country. The Miami Dade school system is massive. It's what he used to run. And that this regime seems to be very focused. You know, after Marilyn Mosby, I don't believe anything they say or anything that they do, because the reality is you've got people who want to root DEI out of our schools and they want to attack non white children who happen to have immigrant parents. They've already kidnapped a little boy and taken him and his dad to Texas while using him to lure his mom out of the of her house. How do we protect our students both in terms of their diversity and the fear that kids have to even go to school at this point because of ice.
- [78:54]
Becky Pringle
So, Joy, let's be clear. The attack on diversity, education, equity and inclusion is part of their playbook. We knew that coming in. He laid it out clearly, right? We were surprised a little bit about how fast, you know, the threats, the fear and intimidation and the push for people to be compliant about scrubbing everything of the very core values of this country. Diversity and inclusion and equity. Giving kids what they need when they need it. That's what it's about, right? It's about them seeing themselves in others so they can come together as humans and create that better society. That's why the NEA filed suit last year when the department said all school districts have to sign something in blood in 10 days, that they've scrubbed everything, everything of diversity, equity, inclusion. And Joy, just last Wednesday, we finally. That's been almost a year. We finally won. We shut it down last year. So school districts were not complying with that. That order by Secretary. By the Secretary of Education. But we have to continue to fight that at every turn. It is not okay that they. Armed, masked, unidentified ICE agents are coming into our communities, frightening our students, going on school grounds, using them as bait, as you said, and sending them to a different state. It's not okay. The kids are afraid that they're going to come home and their parents aren't there, or the parents are afraid the kids aren't coming home. Terrorizing communities going into sen. What we. Which the NEA also joined in with a lawsuit around the sensitive locations, right. Where kids learn, where people heal, in hospitals and where people worship. It's not okay. And we are not standing by and just letting this happen. And we are encouraging everyone to join in this righteous fight for our democracy right now.
- [81:06]
Joy Reid
How can people support what you all are doing?
- [81:09]
Becky Pringle
So please go to nea.org protect and what I've asked our members, I've asked them to commit to taking action every single day, every day, Joy. And I say to them, action? What Action? Words. Those are verbs. I got seven verbs. Seven verbs. Educate, communicate, organize, mobilize, legislate, litigate. And the last one you just were talking about with Terrence Elect. We have an election coming up, 2026, where we need to vote every and every level, from school board all the way up to the House of House of Representatives. And Joy, we have to win all the things. We have to win all the things because we are in the process of clawing back our democracy.
- [82:00]
Joy Reid
Amen. Amen. It's not even Sunday and you can get an amen. Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association. You're great. Thank you. Thank you. I so appreciate you. Thank you.
- [82:09]
Becky Pringle
Thanks, Joy.
- [82:10]
Joy Reid
Thank you. All right, y'. All. Now, by now I know you guys have. She's great, right? Can we get a round of applause for Becky Pringle? Jason, please. Because she's fantastic. I like her. By now, you guys we're going to keep it moving. We're keeping it rolling. We got lots of, we have a lot of great stuff to get to. By now, I know you guys have seen the video of Texas Representative Al Green protesting at the Trump State of the Union, holding a sign reading black people are not apes. But have you seen this angle? But there's updates. And this is E1. This is, this is, it's a little fuzzy. This is Mark Wayne Mullen, the Oklahoma United States Senator, attempting to snatch Representative Green's sign out of his hand.
- [82:49]
Representative Al Green
He's too slow.
- [82:50]
Joy Reid
He's too slow. And also, by the way, Mark Wayne Mullen, honestly, if Tommy Tuberville didn't exist, would be the dumbest member of the United States Senate. He's the guy who said we've obliterated all of Iran's nuclear weapons and yet we have to attack Iran because they have nuclear weapons. Anyway, I'm not going to keep disparaging Mark Wayne Mullen. Let me just go ahead and bring in the fighting. Congressman from the soon to be gerrymandered 9th congressional district in the great state of Texas, Representative, Fighting Representative Al Green. Representative Green, it is so good to see you.
- [83:20]
Representative Al Green
Oh, you make my heart so warm. Thank you. It's an honor to be on your program and thank you for doing what you do that others dare not do. Thank you so much.
- [83:28]
Joy Reid
Well, thank you for doing what others dare not do. And that's where I want to start, Representative, because you know, the last time I can't spend the camera around to see it. But when you held up and shook your cane at those demons, those, those men that were on the dais last year at the not State of the Union, the joint address, I purchased the AP photo of it and it is hanging right across from me right now so that I can look upon it and watch you do that. Because it, to me, was so brave. And what really bothered me and I was at the People's State of the Union the other day and I had a couple members admit to me that they were not happy about the fellow Democrats who did not walk out with you. You walked out again. You were thrown out. This time and again, no one was behind you. Can you explain to us why is it that when you, sir, take a stand and walk out of that chamber, other Democrats don't follow.
- [84:26]
Representative Al Green
I wish I could respond and give you an answer that would be acceptable to you. Probably they're best suited to give you the answer that you're seeking. I can tell you that I did what I did out of a moral imperative. I was deeply wounded, not just hurt, but wounded, when the president allowed this. AI generated caricature of President Obama and Michelle Obama, two people who gave grace and dignity to the White House. When he sent this caricature of them out as apes. I made up my mind then that if I had the opportunity to not just protest, but to confront him. The president is never confronted. We can send him messages, emails, we can talk about him, but to be in his face and confront him was my mission. I realized that I had been kicked out of Congress, evicted once before, and I understand that there are consequences associated with doing what I do. But you have to take advantage of these opportunities to let people know that you care about the people you represent and that you won't tolerate this kind of behavior. And let me define it properly, this kind of racism emanating from the highest office in the land. And that is exactly what it is. And those who tolerate this kind of bigotry, this kind of invidious discrimination, this kind of racism, we perpetuate it when we tolerate it. So I want my record to show that when I had the opportunity, I spoke up, I stood up, and I may have been kicked out, I may have been censured, but I'm not silent. I'm a liberated, unbought, unbossed, unafraid Democrat.
- [86:09]
Joy Reid
And by the way, I will note that some of your fellow colleagues, some of your Democratic colleagues joined in censuring you last year, which was an outrage. And this time, to your point, you didn't just stand up and show this sign to Donald Trump. You showed it to him as he was going by to make sure he saw it. Did he say anything to you? There it is. Hold it up a little higher, Congressman. There you go. Did you. Did he say anything to you?
- [86:34]
Representative Al Green
He saw the sign, but judging from his demeanor, he was immediately impacted by it. He turned his head quickly and he walked briskly away. He wanted to get as far away from me as. As we could. But I knew that that would just be part one of the evening's events, because then I already planned to stand up and never sit and hold this sign up so that the world could see, not just the people in this country, but the world could see what we, in simple terms, can express to a person who is causing racism to not only emanate from the presidency, but to germinate from other parts of the country as a result of his behavior. The tone antenna is set by the person at the top, and he's setting A tone and a tenor that is going to harm people that he'll never meet and greet because there will be other people who will do dastardly things, and as a result, they will be harmed. So we have to fight this. And so I stood there, and as I stood there, someone came over. And may I just say this? He did not approach me in an aggressive way. He did ask me to remove my signage.
- [87:46]
Joy Reid
That would be Mark Wayne Mullen, the Senator Mullen.
- [87:48]
Representative Al Green
No, no, no, no. This was someone else. Oh, he rushed over after the escort came over to me. And when the escort came over and asked me if I would take my signage down, and I explained that I would not, and I said, what are going to be the consequences if I don't? And he told me. And so I said, well, I'm just going to stand here. And that's when the senator rushed on over and he made a grab for it. And when he did that, he wanted to take it from me and said, why are you doing this? And I said, because it's mine. Why do you. He said, why are you holding up this sign? I said, because it's mine and I have a right to hold it up. And then he found himself sort of caught at the moment because he. I think he realized he was on camera, so you might notice that he kind of subdued himself. And then after. After that, I was being escorted as we moved out. And as I was going out, Joy. It was a mob like mentality that was displayed by the members of Congress. I was silently and peacefully protesting, doing what John Lewis called trying to get into some good trouble, trying to do what I can to let people know that even if you have to stand alone, it's better to stand alone than not stand at all on some issues. So I'm going out. I'm not jeering. I didn't try to touch anyone. I never reached out to the president. And as I'm going out, there's a man with a mega hat on and he has some language across the front. Now, that's signage, too. You know, There was no effort to evict him. But as I'm moving out of the arena, then other people start reaching. Troy Nails is one of them, who is my neighbor right here in Houston. Houston.
- [89:27]
Joy Reid
He.
- [89:27]
Representative Al Green
He wanted my sign and yelled out at me, people were behaving as though they were. Pardon me for saying it, but a part of a mob that you and I might relate to. Okay, say it, but they were behaving as fast.
- [89:42]
Joy Reid
You mean a mob with 3Ks in it.
- [89:44]
Representative Al Green
Yes, exactly. And by the way, they burned across in my yard. Hey, guys. But here's what happened afterwards. Now we have people who are talking about censuring me again. Now, I did not create the disturbance. They are the ones who decided that for whatever reasons, they could not cope with something that is true.
- [90:06]
Joy Reid
It's just a fact.
- [90:07]
Representative Al Green
There's nothing untrue about this. This is a truthful statement. But they decided that I could not express the truth. My belief is if I just stood there and said nothing, they may have tolerated that. But when confronted with the truth and confronted with racism, defending racism, they chose to defend racism because that was what they were doing. Defending the racism that the President perpetrated and is perpetuating. I refuse to allow it to happen. So if they decide to censure me, I'm going to want to know, are you going to censure all of these people who were creating a disturbance? Are you going to censure them too? Or is it just going to be the guy who was peacefully protesting and
- [90:51]
Joy Reid
saying a true fact? And by the way, to your point of whether or not they would have censured you or have evicted you had you been silent, I think it's answered by Ilhan Omar's guest. Ilhan Omar brought a woman named Alia Rahman with her as her guest. And Ms. Rahman, who, if Jason can play and just turn the sound down of each. If people remember. Ms. Rahman is the disabled woman who had suffered a catastrophic head injury years ago, who was dragged out of her car in Minneapolis when she stopped at an intersection where ICE was kidnapping people and people were protesting. She told Democracy now on Wednesday that she was removed from the House chamber during that address by the Sergeant at Arms because she was standing up silently. No buttons, no facial expressions, no gestures, not one sound. Simply standing, Congressman. They also threw her out. Your thoughts?
- [91:48]
Representative Al Green
I think that is something that is reprehensible. I think is unacceptable. I think that people have every right to peacefully protest. If you're standing silently, you're peacefully protesting. And this country was built on peace. It's as old as the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock, as the farmers coming from their farms and protesting on their tractors in Washington, D.C. Dr. King at the Mall giving his great I have a dream speech. When you make peaceful protest impossible, you're going to make other kinds of protests possible. That's what happens. So we must protect the right to peacefully protest. But John Lewis did inform me, if you do this, you've got to be prepared to suffer the consequences. And I hearken back to the Edmund Pettus Bridge when he told me he thought he was going to die on that bridge. They beat them all the way back to the church where they had the genesis of their protest movement moving across the bridge. And he said, you know, you just have to be prepared, so I'm prepared to suffer the consequences. But he never said that I had to agree with him. I don't agree with what they might do, but I have to be prepared to take whatever measures are necessary to cope with whatever they might do. My hope is that if they're going to punish me, censure me, that they'll censure all of the others that are censured that were there, that were misbehaving, that were behaving like a mob. And if they do that, I won't be happy. But at least they will show that there is some balance in the punishment that is being meted up. But if they don't do that, then they're making an example of me in an invidious way, and that would be unacceptable to me. It really.
- [93:30]
Joy Reid
Well, I can tell you that we take notes and we make lists over here at the Joy Reid show, and we will be noting any Democratic member that votes to censure you. And then our recommendation will be to vote for someone else in the primary when they come up for reelection because there should not be a censorship single Democrat, and really no Republicans either, who care about free speech, who vote to censure you for holding up a fact if they're afraid of that fact. Maybe they don't believe what you wrote on your sign, and maybe that's the problem. I do want to ask you really quickly two questions on the point of protest. First, this indictment now that they've expanded to 39 people, of course, including Don Lemon and Georgia Ford for peacefully protesting at that pro ice church in Minneapolis. What do you make of the fact that Pamela Bondi, Pamela Jo, has now expanded that to 39 people?
- [94:19]
Representative Al Green
Yes, I was with Don just recently on the air with him, and I'm most appreciative that he had me on and I gave some expression of my concern for him. I think that it's pretty obvious, intuitively obvious to even the most casual observer that they were not intimidating any. Anyone. These were people, by the way, in a sanctuary where you would not expect that you would be arrested for simply giving persons notice of something that has happened. And he was there as a news person. Usually news people are given a lot of latitude in terms of reporting what's happening. So I am absolutely appalled by what has happened to him and the other persons who were protesting. Protest has to be allowed or we're going to find ourselves having to accept things that we would think are much more harmful to us and our society than the protest. This is how you cause people to move from peaceful protest to other forms of protest. So I'm hoping that they'll all be, they'll all be cleared. I know there was a supersedeous indictment and with that they brought in all of these other people, but I don't think the courts are going to. I would hope that they will not find any of them guilty of crimes that would cause them to be incarcerated or to be have their records, their stellar records blemished in some way. Especially, especially our friend who has been on the air and who has made a difference in the lives of many people.
- [95:48]
Joy Reid
Indeed. Yeah. NAACP award winning podcaster, Don Lemon as of this week. And the last question I will ask you is about Texas. It's kind of a two part question. Part one, how is it going for you? Because I know your district is being scooped, flipped and swatted around because Trump ordered the governor of your state to essentially negate five Democratic districts. What is the status of your reelection, sir, in that gerrymander district?
- [96:19]
Representative Al Green
Joy Republicans are spending $1.5 million. Defeat me. The paradigm has shifted. At one time they would spend this money when I would run against a Republican in the general election. Now they shifted and they're putting the money in the primary election with someone who's a Democrat against me. Now this is a fact. If you read February 12th New York Times, there's a story about how they say they're going to spend this money to get me out of office. And these are people that associated with cryptocurrency. I want to see it regulated. They don't want any regulations at all. And I serve under the leadership of the Honorable Maxine Waters. And we've been trying to do what we can to protect the consumers. They are trying to do what they can to drive prices up and then have people buy in. They take their profits off the top and leave people holding the bag. Well, we're trying to eliminate this. And crypto is the chief means by which people who are engaging in a slave extortion and blackmail, when they want payment, they say, give it to me in this cryptocurrency because it can't be traced. You send the money from one person to another. If you send it through our normal banking system, it goes through a central bank and you can trace it. Now, if you just want to be able to send money that's not traceable, a is great. But if you want to be able to protect people and protect lives and protect the interest rates that we have to pay when we borrow from Florida, foreign countries, we've got to be careful how we legitimize something that could have an impact on the American dollar. And if I can add one more thing before we leave. You said it was the last. I just want to add this. The problem that we people of color have in this country is we are dependent upon other people to tell us when we can protest, how loudly we can protest, where we can protest, because they don't have what you're giving to us. And that is a platform where we can say the word racism. If I say the word racism on some of these other networks, I will not be invited back. It's just to the point now where our fate is in the hands of other people. It must be awesome to be able to set the timeline for other people to receive the. The help that they need to eliminate their suffering. And until they say bark, we can't bark. Allowing us to bark.
- [98:44]
Joy Reid
Oh, we know we can bark on here. Listen, this is a, this is a bark open zone because we're. We're trying to get the truth out. And when the truth is that something's racist, that's just the fact. And just as that sign is just a fact. And we're not afraid of facts over here. Before I let you go, I do have a favorite in the United States Senate primary in your state.
- [99:04]
Representative Al Green
Well, of course I have a favorite, but I'm going to hedge just a little bit. And there are reasons associated with my hedging that have to do with how my favorite has chosen to address the race that I'm in. And I won't say anything more about that. But I have stayed in my lane. Unfortunately, other people don't always stay in their lane. And what something that's being done can. Can hurt me in my lane, But I have to accept the consequences that John said. You don't have to like it.
- [99:34]
Joy Reid
You just accept it. Well, before I let you go, we made this. I literally made this after your last protest last year. And this is. I'm a liberated Democrat, just like Representative Al Green. We are going to send you this. US Sir. This is yours. We're gonna package it up. We're gonna throw some merch into it because we love what you do. And listen, if you had Some apps, you could put them in there, but you ain't got no Fs left to give, so you can't even put them in here. I appreciate it.
- [100:08]
Representative Al Green
Thank you for being you. Thank you for allowing us to have this opportunity to speak to the masses. You will allow us to address our agenda on our own timeline as opposed to having to accept what others will allow us to do when sometimes it's not beneficial to us, but it's beneficial for them.
- [100:26]
Joy Reid
Well, that is my mission, sir. Thank you so much. And I appreciate it. I'm honored to receive that compliment from you. Thank you. To the fighting Democrat, Representative Al Green. I don't know if you noticed, I tried to do a little song, but about the. With the other Al Green. I did my best, but we love you over here. Thank you, sir.
- [100:41]
Representative Al Green
Love and happiness for the good times. Let's stay together.
- [100:43]
Joy Reid
Amen. Amen. Let's stay together. Thank you so much. All right, Representative Al Green. Can we get a round of applause for Representative Al Green? There we go. There we go. There we go. All right, y'. All. So we. We gonna keep it rolling, y'. All. We are rolling. We have a packed show tonight. The. The Bookers, they did us really, really good on tonight. So just to return one more time, because this is our breaking news from tonight. At the top of the show, the Justice Department again has indicted a total of 39 people, including our friend Don Lemon and our friend Georgia Fort on. And now 39 people in total for that protest, which is simply a First Amendment activity that took place in the state of Minnesota in Minneapolis. It should alarm everyone that that happened. It should frighten everyone that that happened. Because if they can indict people for simply showing up holding signs and chanting inside of a church, or they can throw out a member of Congress, a duly elected member of Congress from the body that he serves in, simply for holding up a factual sign. And that. That and they can arrest and detain a young woman for simply standing silently to protest her own arrest by ice. And by the way, she went to the hospital after that. She was hospitalized after being removed. Aaliyah Rahman, meaning she was victimized again and hopefully had insurance. Otherwise, that's a hospital bill that she's not going to have to pay simply to as the cost of simply protesting. If that's where we're at, then we are not a free society. This is how a free society and a democracy becomes an autocracy. And you're actually seeing our democracy dismantled in real time. And I will add to that that one of the signs of autocracy is that the corrupt, the oligarchs, can literally get away with murder with the Epstein files. And the reason that we talk about it so much on this show, it's not just the prurient sort of paying attention to a horrific and prurient story. It's because what Epstein represented was the impunity of oligarchy. This man was a billionaire who was advising other rich people how to become billionaires and stay billionaires. They were all sharing information amongst themselves that the ordinary American didn't have. How many people out there could get paid millions of dollars a year for simply sitting on a board? And all of these oligarchs share information amongst each other, not just about how to get rich and stay rich or get richer and stay rich. And these elites are sharing that information, but they also, in their boredom, have decided that even simple, normal sexual activity isn't enough for them. They needed to get weirder and weirder. They have these prurient interests and feel that they can not just trade their employees like game pieces. Throw their employees, you know, no, no, no time off, work longer hours, cut your pay, get rid of your benefits, treat your employees like chess pieces. They also, whenever you create an oligarchy, when you have people who are unaccountable, they then begin to trade human beings and even children like chess pieces. They then begin to see even children as nothing more than monopoly board pieces that they can do with whatever they please, no matter how gross and horrific. They begin to believe they can own an island in the Virgin Islands and have people brought there that cannot escape. I don't know if you've heard these stories of girls trying to jump in the ocean to get away from Jeffrey Epstein and then having their passports confiscated so they couldn't escape.
- [104:36]
Representative Al Green
You see why he bought the island.
- [104:37]
Joy Reid
They can't cascade. And eventually on this show, we really have to dig into the Virgin Islands and the corruption there that allowed that to happen. But we'll come to that another day. But the bottom line is when you create an oligarchy, they become so unaccountable and immune to accountability that there's nothing they can't do. You remember Trump, one of Trump's on Jason, One of Trump's favorite sayings is, you can do whatever you want. I can do anything. He says it all the time. He said it on the Access Hollywood tape. When you're a star, that lets you do it. You can do anything. And he says it all. State of the Union. He said at the State of the Union, right in John Roberts face, basically,
- [105:10]
Representative Al Green
that he's going to ignore whatever ruling
- [105:13]
Joy Reid
they come up with. Correct? And he says, john, we can't let this happen. Clearly speaking to John Roberts, speaking directly to the Chief justice of the Supreme Court, who's supposedly able to supervise his decisions for their constitutionality. But what we've got now, right, is that we've got oligarchs. They're oligarchs on the Supreme Court. John Roberts works for oligarchs. Clarence Thomas is bought and paid for and is the house pet of oligarchs. He simply does what oligarchs say, and they give him gifts and they give him trinkets and he is obedient. And this is the society they're creating. And they have, unfortunately, millions of boot licking followers whose only interest is to lick Trump's boots harder no matter what he does to them. They are bootlickers. They are followers. They call it authoritarian followers. John Dean wrote a whole book about it. And so we have. The sad thing, though. Sorry. The sad thing is this is why people need to get out and vote
- [106:18]
Representative Al Green
this November, because if they win everything back again, we're cooked. We're cooked.
- [106:24]
Joy Reid
We're cooked. I mean, yeah, American democracy is over. Done. When we told y', all, if they
- [106:27]
Terrence Woodbury
get permission to do this.
- [106:29]
Joy Reid
Yeah, no, we're done. I mean, we're done. I mean, this is it. I mean, and we keep saying, this is the most important election of your life. 2024 actually was like when they. When. When we said that to you in 2024, when Rachel Maddow and I were saying, hey, guys, 1930s. You want to know why she and I were so obsessed with the 1930s? Because we're like, we're going back to the 1930s if y' all don't vote for her. And we sold y'. All. And now here we are back in the 1930s, including this idea of authoritarianism where you can literally arrest a journalist for being on the scene of a news story. That should frighten everyone. Joining me now is Janee Nelson, president and director, counsel of the Legal Defense Fund, one of the stalwart organizations that is fighting to reverse this nightmare. Janae, it's so good to see you.
- [107:16]
Janae Nelson
It's good to see you, Joy. Happy fireversary Week.
- [107:20]
Joy Reid
Thank you. Yes, that's right. I have to acknowledge one more time my fireversary. It was my fire bursary on Tuesday. I celebrated my fire bursary by being at the alternate state of the Union, the people, State of the Union. But, yes, it is Fireversary Week. Thank you for acknowledging that 100%. And I am thank. I am so thankful, Janae, first of all, that I didn't have to sit through the State of the Union because, you know, if I was still working at the Artist Formerly Known as msnbc, I would have been stuck listening to that crap. Instead, I was able to. Oh, God. And your takeaways were.
- [107:52]
Janae Nelson
Oh, my goodness. My takeaways were that the State of our Union is in utter disrepair. It is in a state of state of chaos and authoritarian dissent, and we have a liar felon in chief who is leading this country backwards and into a place of extraordinary danger. I mean, it was actually deeply alarming. Not to say we haven't been alarmed before, but it is.
- [108:20]
Joy Reid
It was.
- [108:21]
Janae Nelson
It was really disturbing to see so many people standing up like apes, literally, you talking about apes, actual ones, aping his conduct and applauding at lines that are meant to dehumanize and to make people feel fear and to act on emotion and not rationality and not fact. So it was deeply disturbing.
- [108:45]
Joy Reid
I mean, some of the things that I know LDF is in the midst of these fights. You know, in his first version of his regime, Donald Trump wanted to arrest protesters. He wanted to arrest journalists. He wasn't able to do it. He wanted the military to shoot protesters in the legs. So I'm not sure that that wouldn't happen now. He would, you know, I'm not sure he wouldn't order Pete Hegseth to have the military do that. But on the arrest journalist part, and, Jason, if you could just play F1 without the sound. I mean, Don Lemon, when he was arrested for doing this. And I cannot play this video enough because I think it's important for people to actually remind themselves of what Don Lemon did. There he is with his Don Lemon Mike flag, because that's what journalists look like, standing in front of a group of people who are going to go in and do the protest. He's found out where it is. That is part of the job. You do your due diligence. Where's the protest going to be? And then he and Georgia Ford both walked into the protest separately and covered it, interviewed people, talked to people on both sides, including the pastor, the lead pastor for that. He's being indicted. But now 39 other people. Those people presumably behind him, are some of the people who are now indicted. Janae?
- [110:01]
Janae Nelson
Yeah, I mean, what we're seeing is journalism at its best. We're seeing Someone follow a story during a critical moment in this country's history in Minnesota where we were seeing federal encroachment, federal attack, and people were concerned and there was a protest that I think was of interest to all of us. And we have a journalist, a very well trained and popular journalist who understands what is within the bounds of the law and what isn't. And you see him continuing to interview people. He wasn't there as a participant. He was there bearing witness and bringing a perspective for the rest of us to see. And to think that he is now under threat and that anyone with him who supported that effort is under threat is the most blatant violation of the First Amendment that I can imagine. It is a violation of our freedom of speech, a violation of freedom of expression, and importantly, freedom of the press. And it should not be considered as something that is just a one off. It is wholly connected to what we see as a takeover of our media, of traditional media. It is wholly connected. And I'm glad I started with the 5versary. It is wholly connected to what happened to you and what has happened to others in the field of journalism in an attempt to silence those who are willing to challenge this administration and are not fearful of what may be the repercussions to speaking truth to power. And that is exactly what they want to quash. And I'm very glad that Don is continuing to stand up and we all need to stand up, up in support of him and his team.
- [111:43]
Joy Reid
And by the way, as you look at that, those of you who remember January 6th, that I was going back and looking at January 6th footage that don't look like January 6th, those people are quietly walking around. You saw them quietly standing outside. They walked in, there was no, you know, screaming, they were chanting. And they were specifically talking about the fact that there was a pastor at that church who was pro ice and they were asking, how can you be a, you know, a, a person that is a missionary of Christ and speaking for, for, for, for Jesus Word when Jesus loved the immigrant and you don't. And that's all they were saying. And you could see people walking out of there calmly saying, I want to pray for you guys. I don't want to do an interview, but I want to pray for you. I'm trying to figure out where they find a crime. But the problem with authoritarian states is they can always find a crime. Crime. They just make up a crime. And then suddenly you have to spend a lot of money to defend yourself against an alleged crime.
- [112:38]
Janae Nelson
That's Right, that's right. I mean, they're, they're manufacturing violations at this point. And it's wholly inconsistent and entirely hypocritical to what they did in connection with January 6th, to how they're treating the Epstein files, to how they're treating what are very blatant violations of well established laws. And they're trying to manipulate the Constitution and the First Amendment in particular, which is well litigated the contours of the First Amendment. This is not some vague piece of the Constitution that they're resurrecting and we don't know what it protects and what it doesn't. The First Amendment has a whole body of law, a whole doctrine that's been developed that establishes very, very broad boundaries for the press and for reporting on factual instances. It's not as if, you know, Don was, you know, manufacturing anything. He was literally reporting.
- [113:31]
Joy Reid
Yeah, like their side does.
- [113:34]
Janae Nelson
Exactly, exactly. Like, like what. What happened in the State of the Union. Right. And if. And if, and if the person who calls himself the president of this country can stand before us and deliver a constitutionally mandated State of the Union filled with lies, falsehoods and mistruth and then try to prosecute someone for reporting on a factual incident, you know, we are in a upside down world because that absolutely should not be happening. That is a clear indication that this man is manipulating everything to his advantage and thinks we're stupid enough to believe it.
- [114:14]
Joy Reid
Last question, exit question to you, which is, is keeping you up at night more the gerrymandering that John Roberts and friends have allowed to stand, including the state of Texas, where we just spoke with Representative Al Green, who's one of the victims of that gerrymandering. His district has been completely scooped and flipped. Or the potential that the SAVE act will eventually get through, making it really, really hard for people to register to vote unless they go and, you know, scare up their birth certificate or get a passport.
- [114:44]
Janae Nelson
Listen, both things are keeping me up at night. Both things are deeply concerning and they're not disconnected. You know, even if we have no barriers to the right to vote, we all want to write, we all want to be able to vote on fair lines, but I am holding out hope. You know, we have an important case that's before the Supreme Court right now, LA versus Calais. And we're hoping that the Supreme Court will do the right thing in that case. That won't undo the partisan gerrymandering and the mid cycle manipulation that has happened, but it could potentially keep in place a very important protection in the Voting Rights Act. So I'm going to continue to hold out hope for that. But the SAVE act is something that is very much within our control. We are at the mercy of the Supreme Court when it comes to the Voting Rights act and Louisiana vs Calais, but the SAVE act is actually within our hands. We need to be calling the Senate, we need to be blowing up that switchboard, and we need to be vocal. We need to make it very clear that this idea that we have to show our papers in order to cast a ballot, that we somehow have to verify ourselves with paperwork that so few of us have ready access to, is a clear effort to suppress the vote and to make sure that they shrink the electorate only to the few people that they want to vote with them. And that is not a legitimate election. It's not a legitimate, legitimate democracy. And it's something that we can prevent right now if we call 202-224-3121 and tell every single senator that we will not stand for the SAVE act, that the SAVE act saves no one.
- [116:13]
Joy Reid
Amen. You can see the number right there on your screen. 202, 224, 3121. We'll give you a minute. Take a picture of your screen with your phones or do screen share or whatever, screen grabber or whatever, to make sure you write it down. And take this little card with you so that you can explain to a friend who says what's wrong with better id? Just read that to them and they'll understand. Janae Nelson, it is always so good to see you. Who argued the Kalei case, by the way, Brilliantly argued it. And so we, if it's just up to the brilliance of your argument, we going to win on that one. Thank you, thank you so much. I appreciate you have a great weekend. Thank you. And she acknowledged my fire anniversary. Bye. I love it. Okay, Jason, a round of applause please. We have come to the end of the show, but not the end of our night with you. I have beside me the ingredients which I'm preparing to to mix together for my security because we are about to do our members only chat. If you are on substack or you are on YouTube, we're going to be chatting with you guys shortly starting at 800008 o'. Clock. But before we do that, you know, we got to get to our moment of joy. And our, our moment of joy tonight is actually the products of you guys support for one of the authors that we had on this show, Ben Crump, attorney At law, who came on this show to talk about his debut novel, Worse than a Lie. Well, look at God. You all supported his book. You jumped into either bookshop.org which is our sponsor. We appreciate that. Or you jumped on the Joy read store shop on our shop, which also reports sales. And look at God. With our help, and not obviously, not just us, but with our help and the help of independent media, Ben Crump has landed at number 12 on the new York Times bestseller list. So I want you all to give yourselves a round of applause. This is now Jason, like, the third or fourth book that we have supported that's wound up on the list. That's what's up. That's what's up. Because our readers read, baby. That's why we call y' all readers, because y' all be reading. Y' all support, support books. We are book people. So congratulations to Ben. He texted me the other day to thank all of you in team tjrs. I. He appreciates y', all, and I appreciate you. And that's why you all tonight for supporting authors that come on this show, you all are our moment of joy. Thank you all for tuning in. Wishing you guys a great fire anniversary weekend. It's my fire anniversary, and look, they done liberated me to go to the earth's core, which is where I want to go with when they go low. So when they go low, I'm gonna go lower and lower and lower like I'm in a down on the elevator. And I'm gonna keep on going low and lower until I hit the core to earth, like, boop. And then I'm gonna bounce right back up on their head because we don't believe in being nice to mega. We believe that mega gotta lose. And look, when y' all lose, you don't have to worry because at least we're gonna make sure you get health care. We gonna make sure, as much as we detest you, we're gonna make sure that you guys have Medicaid. You taking Medicaid from people on our side. But we're not gonna do that to you, and we're not going to deport you, but we might deport Donna. Have a good night, and we will see you on the next the Joy Reid show. Don't forget, like, subscribe and share. Bye. Bye.
- [119:34]
Neighbor of Epstein
Bye.
- [119:35]
Representative Al Green
Getting back to the basics.
- [119:36]
Joy Reid
Grassroot level. Let me dig a little deeper with the shovel.
- [119:40]
Representative Al Green
Plenty can't tell the force from the trees that I'm hard to detect Like
- [119:43]
Terrence Woodbury
a black hole in a dog Injustice
- [119:46]
Joy Reid
anywhere It's a threat to justice everywhere Let me make this clear I got
- [119:49]
Representative Al Green
a bone to pick and I'll never
- [119:51]
Joy Reid
fear the threat of poverty they don't want to talk about it they rap the party so I'm a real talk
- [119:56]
Terrence Woodbury
about it for show.