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- [00:03]
Joy Reid
Hey. Okay. Happy Monday. Happy Monday, everybody. Thank you for being patient in the chat. I know we're a tiny, tiny, tiny bit late getting started, but welcome to the Joy Reach show. Thank you all for tuning in. This is our last show of the year. This is it. We are not going to be doing a show on New Year's Eve. But I will make a note now that I will be making an appearance, a surprise, not so much surprise appearance on Don Lemons New Year's Eve extravaganza. He's gonna be doing a New Year's Eve special from New Orleans. No, I'm not gonna be in New Orleans. I'm not gonna be there. I would be here in the studio.
- [00:42]
Jason
We're gonna do right here from home.
- [00:43]
Joy Reid
We'll be right here from the basement. And so you guys are gonna get to see a little peek at the fun that we're going to be having on the Joy Reed show on our end, where we're going to be house partying and having a good time. So that's what's going to happen. So that's what we will be on Wednesday, which of course is New Year's Eve, the big Wednesday, New Year's Eve. Then as the year turns over, we've got a lot of really special programming coming up early next year in January. We've got a lot coming, including. Drum roll. We're going to show you our brief but really fun meetup with Zorhan Mamdani. Zorhan Mamdani, who is going to be inaugurated on the 1st of January. January 1st is the traditional date when the New York Mayor. Sorry, I gotta turn on my fan, y'. All. When the New York mayor is inaugurated. That's happening on the 1st of January. Team TJRS will be in the house. Not moi, but we are going to send a couple members of our team to the inauguration to bring it to you so that you guys will be able. Those of you who are members and who are signed up for this channel, you're going to get to see everything we see, everything that we are seeing from the historic inauguration of Zorhan Mamdani, the first Muslim mayor of New York, the first Democratic mayor. Well, not the first Democratic mayor. He's been. There's been Democratic mayors, but the largest volume elected mayor since 1960 or something like. He had the largest margin of victory for a really long time. For a generation, an immigrant, a young mayor. He might be the youngest mayor that New York City has ever had, but is a really important mayoralty, probably the most important mayoralty in the country other than Los Angeles. So it's really exciting. So that's going to be we're going to bring you our brief meetup. We had a cool meetup with him, was a lot of fun. We're going to show you that. We're also going to be interviewing Reverend Bernice Dr. Dr. Bernice King. We've got that coming up because, of course, King Day in Trump America, where they don't celebrate it anymore. But we're going to talk about that in a moment. But we've got lots of other great stuff coming up. We've got a lot of really great interviews that are in the bag that we're going to be bringing to you early next year. So that's my little preview. Thanks to everybody who's listening on YouTube, also on Substack, also wherever you get your podcast. Yes, I'm wearing my Culture Creators hat. Thank you to the Culture Creators for this very cute gear that they served me up with. When I got an award at Culture Creators, they sent me some really cool stuff from Carl Kanai. That's who designs this. So you're, you're your reminder to shop with people who actually like you. And so thank you to the folks over at Culture Creators for the cap. We're rocking it today, but what we want to do today is because it's our last show of the year. Somebody's asked me what time is that show going to be. So the inaugural starts, I want to believe, at 11 o' clock we're going to go live. Here's what I would suggest that you do. You see the little bell thing? If you're on YouTube, you can hit a little bell thing that will allow you to know when we go live, you want to hit that notification. It's a notification button, right? Not just the subscribe button, but also hit the notification so you know when we go live.
- [03:49]
Jason
And while you're at it, guys, please hit that like button that thumbs up on the screen.
- [03:52]
Joy Reid
Please, please do as Jason's apps, please hit that like button as well. The, the, the algorithm likes it when you hit like and subscribe. Also hit share to let a friend know, maybe let a phone know, maybe somebody you don't particularly like but you know is egged by me, you might want to share with them too. But if you hit the notification button, then you'll know when we go live. But regardless of the start time for the inaugural and all of the fun ceremonies that our team will be at and we'll be grabbing Lots of great video that will then live on this channel and then we will have our normal live show. So. So you don't worry about that. You're still going to get all the updates on the normal 6pm to 8pm Monday, Wednesday, Friday show. So you're still going to get all of that. But if you hit notification when we go live, if you want to be there, you don't want to be square, hit that notification button and there you go. Happy third day of Kwanzaa. You've got all the people wishing folks, happy Kwanzaa. Thank you very much for that. If you celebrate Kwanzaa, shout it out in the chat, because when people do Happy Holidays, they normally just do Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah. They will often forget Kwanzaa. But lots of people, particularly black Americans, celebrate Kwanzaa, which celebrates independence, independent living and and community solidarity. So happy holidays to everybody who is celebrating. So we're going to go through. Because we've broken down about 25. Initially we thought we were going to do 10. Habari Ghani. People are saying we celebrate Kwanzaa. Thank you very much. We decided we were going to do the top 10 stories of the of the year, but there were so many stories that we couldn't. We couldn't choose. We couldn't pick them all. So we decided to go big and just go through a lot of the stories that we've been paying attention to, that you've been paying attention to throughout this really insane year of 2025. And I'll say that one of the things that I think has happened in the year of our Lord 2025 is that we have discovered that many of the myths that make America were shattered. Because a lot of the things that we thought were laws were just norms and agreements. And even the presidency, which we thought was constrained by all these checks and balances, it turns out. Oh, look, Gay doctor. What is this? Gay Dr. Joe as a YouTube member. Hey, gay Dr. Joe, thank you very much for joining. Welcome to Team tjrs. Sorry, I'm sweating a little bit. It's a menopause time. What we learned is that a lot of the things that we believed were, you know, laws and were rules that constrained the president's power were really just norms, Right? They were just agreements that most presidents made. Even bad presidents like Nixon still will agree to some of the norms. Well, Donald Trump has blown those all away. And what we've discovered is that the United States is just one bad president away from having a dictator or a king that it was really constructed by men who really revered, in some ways, the king of England. And they constructed a way for the American president to basically mimic the king of England, Mad King George, at the time, if he just wanted to. And the only thing stopping any American president from behaving like Mad King George were their agreement with the notions in the Constitution that constrained them, and were the strength of the executive or the legislative branch, the Congress, the House, and the Senate, and how vigorous they were at enforcing the constraints on the White House. And when they stopped doing that, it's clear that a president can just act like a king, particularly if he has that third branch of government, the Supreme Court, in his pocket. And in this case, he does. We have a 6, 3 court with six monarchists on it. People who don't necessarily believe in a constrained constitutional presidency. They believe in having a king as long as it's a king from their preferred political party, a Republican, that will do the things they like, which is advance corporate power, advance the power of the super rich, allow the super rich to essentially run the country the way the super rich did at the founding people like Thomas Jefferson and Madison. Those people were super rich, and they ran the country basically like an oligarchy, which they called a democracy, because technically there were elections. But remember, initially, American citizens didn't even elect the Senate. That was also, you know, there wasn't an election by the people either. And the presidents were chosen by the parties nominating someone without asking anybody. And there was no popular referendum on who the president would be. And so we really have an oligarchy that has been disguised as a democracy for a long time. And. And we had one century in which it emerged as the closest thing to a multiracial democracy as you're gonna get, which is the 20th century. Then we now have people between Project 2025, Donald Trump, who's an idiot, but he's willing to go along with it for money, the Supreme Court, and a weak, weak Republican party that they're willing to allow us to have a king. And the king who decided that he wants to rule us is named Donald Trump. So. So there's where we are. And one of the ways that that has manifested is that Donald Trump, who has a lot of hatreds. I don't know if you guys have seen this viral interview with the guy who played Archie Bunker. I don't know if you guys have seen this. It's actually a really, really good interview. But he talks about the fact that Archie Bunker really was actually a miserable man. He wasn't like a happy person. He was a miserable person who was not functioning well in the real world. And that his misery and his unhappiness is what other people were enjoying and laughing at. And his name is Carol o'. Connor, and he was actually a really great sort of Shakespeare trained, brilliant actor and a liberal who played Archie Bunker. And Carol o' Connor did this interview in which he explained that Archie was actually this miserable man who couldn't function in a modern world that was becoming more multiracial. He just couldn't function. And so you're watching him struggle with his. His dedicated wife Edith, who tries to sort of talk sense into him and his liberal son in law and his daughter, who try to sort of get him to be a modern man, but he just can't do it. And so we're laughing at him. But as Carol o' Connor says, it's really kind of not funny if you think about it. He's really just sort of a failure at life. This is an old crotchety man from Queens. And if that sounds like Donald Trump, it's because it is Donald Trump. Except Donald Trump is Archie Bunker without the charm. And he's also somebody whose hatreds and whose prejudices aren't funny and who surrounded himself with people who are even more prejudiced than he is and who are even more eager to turn the country not just into an oligarchy again, but who are also looking to do really horrible things like ethnic cleansing, who are angry about the multiracial part of the multiracial democracy and want to reduce that as much as possible to return the country to roughly what it was in the 19th century. So in the 19th century, right, women had no rights, blacks had no rights, indigenous people had no rights, Latinos had no one any rights except for white rich men. And there are people who want that back. And one of the first steps to doing that is to reverse the aggressively more brown immigration that has taken place since Lyndon Baines Johnson signed this landmark act. Not just the Civil Rights act and the Voting Rights act, but also a landmark immigration act that actually made immigration browner. It made immigration more open for people to come from Central and South America, which really changed the complexion, literally, of our immigration system. And there are a lot of people like Stephen Miller, clearly like Tom Holman, maybe Christy Noem, but she seems like she just goes along with whatever because she just wants to ride horses and wear a cowboy hat, whatever, and maybe shoot dogs in her off time. These people are eager to try to reverse what LBJ created And what's happened really since that and since Ronald Reagan, ironically enough, did a giant amnesty for lots of immigrants, a lot of them from Mexico. So the country's become browner and browner and browner. And as it's become browner, a lot of conservative white Americans are panicking and saying, well, we don't want to be a minority because we've seen how we treat minorities. Thank you very much, Kate. For 1999 in the till. We appreciate that. So this attempt to try to reverse the browning of America, which has really accelerated since Barack Obama showed conservative white Christian America that brown people and black people could get a black president, the president of their choice, over the objections of a majority of white Americans who have voted 60, 40 Republican since God can remember, and because the white majority did not anymore have the numbers to stop Barack Obama from getting elected, despite the fact that 6 in 10 white Americans voted against him, the fact that 80% of non white Americans voted for Obama, plus 40% of our spicy whites, as we like to call our white liberal folks, voted for Obama. That was enough to get Obama elected not once, but twice. And then that panicked a lot of people. And so there's been this drive before then, but really worse since then, to try to reverse all of that, all the progress, all. All of the push toward talking about not just white history, but black history and brown history and Aapi history and indigenous history, telling American history in a way that is more authentic and that's more true for most people, including people who are not rich white men in the story, including gay people in the story, letting trans people be in the story, letting women be in the story in a different way. And so there's a lot. There are people who just hate that they're not a majority, but they are a large number of Americans and they are winning right now because they got a president that agrees with them and that at least again, is willing to go along with it because they're just willing to pay him, right? If you give him enough bitcoin, they'll do whatever you want. And he's also racist. So he's like, it's cool with him. He's surrounded by a bunch of people aren't that smart, but they're really mean. And he's got a Supreme Court that wants a king, and he's got an incredibly weak Republican Party that goes along with it out of a combination of fear, cowardice, fear and cowardice. Fear, cowardice, and also self interest. You know, the things they want to do. You really can't do your popular referendum. So with Trump there, they can get away with, you know, cutting taxes to almost zero on the rich and deregulating companies and all that crap. And then a Democratic Party that, you know, they're generally nice people, but they're not built for this moment. Thank you for the $99, Karen Stooks. The Democrats aren't built for the moment. Right. Because Democrats are still goo goo people, good government. People who think if we just do good government, everything will be fine. And our. Our friends on the other side of the aisle are our friends, which they're not. So that's the perfect setup for the things that we're going to show you now. So these are the top stories that, as we see them, of the year of our Lord 2025. If the polygraph was a part of the process, Trump wouldn't have passed it. That is true. Well, actually, I don't know about that because I think Trump would have passed a polygraph because Donald Trump doesn't. Donald Trump is not smart enough or clever enough to hide the things he's doing. He actually just says what he's going to do. He said he was going to deport, have the largest deportation in history. And let's play A one. Here's how that has played out. Fascist. That's what you are, dude. You're a fascist. You're proud of yourself. Hope your mom. How do you get rid of. Sir, what's your name? What's your name? Debbie Brockman. I work for wgn. He's let them know I got you. Yep. Wait, you guys came to the school and to do this, you have a warrant? They have an accurate warrant. My name is Jocelyn from Cicero. They don't have a warrant. They didn't ask for one. They forcefully opened the door of the trap. It was locked. It was locked.
- [16:11]
Guest or Interviewee
That guy was an ass.
- [16:13]
Joy Reid
Oh, that's a up move. That's the copy. And so that is the way it has played out, because if you're trying to do mass deportation and you're looking for the largest numbers of immigrants, you wind up going for brown people. I'm looking at a chart here that says the largest immigrant groups going back to since the 1960s, since, as I mentioned, Lyndon Baines Johnson changed from the Asian Exclusion act era, 1920s immigration, which the goal of that immigration back then, those immigration laws back in the 1920s was to return the country to the roughly the demographics that existed in 1890. They used 1890 as their sort of sweet spot for immigration when immigration was overwhelmingly from western Europe. And they wanted that back. So they excluded all Asians, excluded even a lot of southern Europeans, Italians and others who they thought of as lower whites and really tried to go for like sort of the whitest of the white Scandinavians who weren't really trying to come here. You know, Scandinavians, they did come, you know, Germans, things like that. The largest single group of immigrants to this country right now come from Mexico. And that's mainly because a lot of people from Mexico have family here, because half this country used to be Mexico. But for the Haitian revolution, which then prompted Thomas Jefferson to sell a lot of land that the Americans had conquered, or, sorry, prompted France to sell a lot of lands that the French had conquered to Thomas Jefferson in a giant fire sale. And also sort of triggered the end of Mexico's sort of presence on the continent. I mean, this was. A lot of. This was Mexico, right? To be clear, Mexico's largest, India, is the second largest, then Guatemala, then El Salvador, then Dominican Republic, then Cuba, Colombia, China, Vietnam, Philippines, and then other. And so if you really want to do mass deportation, that's who you go after, right? You go after Latinos. And also the group that is the youngest and has the largest birth rate, the highest birth rate is Latinos. And so if you want to do ethnic cleansing and you want to return the country to roughly the 19th century, Latinos are who you go for. So we've seen Latinos absolutely tormented to the point where we are seeing school systems where Latino kids aren't going to school. Churches are silent on Sundays because a lot of Latino communities are terrified. They're afraid to leave their homes. A lot of businesses run by Latinos are closing. It's really been horrible. But the attempt to ethnically cleanse the United States and return it to some sort of idyllic white path that doesn't even exist because there was no idyllic white past in the 19th century. Most white people were dirt poor and lived only to be in their 50s, if that. They didn't have Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. They didn't retire. Most of them never owned anything and were mostly broke and poor. But they want. They think this is an idyllic past because most people were white. The other thing they've been doing is trying to erase black history and just try to make it so that black people effectively don't exist. You guys remember the Bureau of Labor Statistics ad campaign where it was all these very, very white, sort of idyllic looking white people made with AI and they are Saying that is America now. It is just white families, white people, no non white people. So no brown people are allowed to immigrate. Going after Somalis, going after Cubans, deporting Cubans, Venezuelans really going hard for Venezuelans. Venezuelans and Cubans, two of the largest groups of people who had temporary protected status in asylum, getting rid of them. But also this thing here, the national parks no longer allowing people to come in free on Juneteenth at King Day. So if you're planning on going to a national park on King Day, you're going to have to pay. They're also putting all these fees in for international visitors to come and visit our national parks. Tourism is in the toilet right now because they're making it really hard for people to come. There are now 39 countries on the band list. A couple of those countries, including Chad, have reversed it. I think Niger and Chad have reversed it and said no American visas. No one can come there either. So Trump is essentially not just getting rid of black history in the Pentagon, in national federal agencies, in the official story of America, there are no black people, there are no indigenous people, there are no brown people, no Asians, and really no women. It's just white men did it all by themselves. So that's happening. And really aggressively attempting to ethnically cleanse the country again, to make it comfortable for very conservative white Christians to feel. To feel that they are the owners of the country and that no one else gets to be here other than with their permission. And they're doing all of that because that keeps your white Christian, average person on side for the real project, which I keep on telling you is the real project, which is returning the country to its original founding status. An oligarchy where you have a handful of really, really, really rich people who are untaxed and unregulated, their businesses operate regulation free and they don't pay taxes. That's all this is all about. But getting the white folks on side and getting them not to be spicy, it's very important to do that because they're still the majority. They're still 60% of the country. So you got to do things to rent, to hype them up. And so what they're doing to hype them up. But that has not stopped people from resisting all that they've been inflicting on mainly brown, but also black immigrants and, and even some white immigrants. There's some Irish folk have been caught up in it. But the anti. And also, by the way, not just, not just deporting People, because let me be clear, they're really not deporting a lot of people. They're rounding them up and they're putting them in private prisons. And you know, once you're in a private prison, you are outside of adjudication, you have no legal status. And then the private prison can put you to work for free. And that is called.
- [21:44]
Jason
This whole thing's a racket to make money.
- [21:46]
Joy Reid
Oh, 100%. Because they're the convict leasing that is.
- [21:50]
Jason
Just you wait, basically slavery in another term.
- [21:53]
Joy Reid
Just you wait, Henry Higgins. Because what's going to happen is when geogroup and Cor Civic and all these private prison companies have a mass of people, what do you think they're going to do with those people? They're not going to deport them. That costs money. Not going to put them on planes and send them. They're going to send them to some countries who are buying them, right? They're paying certain countries to take them. So some of them are going to get shipped out of the country and sent off, you know, to some place they've never been before. Some other country, some gulag. But the rest of it, the Department of Agriculture made it clear they're going to put them to work. This is about restoring the whole status quo. Anti slavery. They're going to be able to take those people in court in, you know, GEO Group been sued over this. There's been lawsuits about this of forcing these detainees, you can't even call them prisoners because they haven't been charged with a crime, let alone convicted of one. They're just being rounded up on the street, shipped around the country, including some U.S. citizens who just happen to be brown, including some who've shown their birth certificates. But if they're the wrong last name than a Z at the last name at the end of their last name, they don't care if your birth certificate has a Z at the end, they're still gonna take you. And so what we're doing is we're trying to whiten the country, make the country safe for just white Christian men and everyone else to the back of the bus, right? So that's happening. But the resistance to me has been not just really, really heartening and really positive. In June, when Donald Trump declared his own birthday to be a national holiday, which he matched onto onto a real, not normally celebrated holiday. On June 14, it was the 250th birthday of the Navy or the army or whatever, but he made it his birthday and he wanted a huge parade. The parade was A flop, because the brilliant United States military leadership said, okay, you want tanks? We're going to will out the old ones from the 30s. And all these old squeaks were just squeaking down the road. And so that was the first King's Day. And the protests were massive all over the country. All over the country. And then there was a second King's Day, a second, no, Kings Day in September, which was even just as exciting. But what emerged from it was one of my favorite aspects of the resistance. The big crowds were amazing. We were live for both of the two King days, thanks to our friends Dom, Don Lemon, and Jim Acosta. But, Jason, please play a three, my favorite. See something cool?
- [24:13]
Guest or Interviewee
No.
- [24:14]
Joy Reid
Well, I'm gonna do it anyway. Hey, yo, you want to see something cool?
- [24:19]
Guest or Interviewee
No.
- [24:19]
Joy Reid
Well, I'm gonna do it anyway. One of my favorite stories of the year is the way that particularly Portland, Oregon, has taken the resistance and made it fun. They've made resistance fun because they wiggle, wiggle, wiggle their way into resistance. And I love it so much. So the frogs are one of the big stories of the year. We appreciate that. But it's not just resistance from froggy places and froggy people and people in frog costumes and other costumes. It's also resistance from one of the highest points of Christianity itself. Now, the Catholic Church, Their official doctrine is that they believe in the red letters of Jesus Christ, meaning that you're to love and care for the immigrant and be kind to the immigrant and the poor. And in some ways, they do live that out. When it comes to immigration, the church has been pretty consistent, at least the last two Popes. Now, of course, Pope Francis, who, I don't know, J.D. vance might have. Might have caused him to leave this world. He was the last person to see him alive, J.D. vance. But he was replaced when Pope Francis went to meet his maker after literally an hour or less with JD Vancouver like, oh, I'm going home, baby. He said, I can't be here no more. Oh, no. He left. But his successor is an American and one of my favorite Popes because I did like Pope Francis a lot. But this Pope is cool. He's not only American, he's actually low key, a black guy. He's a Creole. His family are Creoles who convert who basically transitioned into whiteness when they left New Orleans and moved to Chicago. Their family were well known Creole people who were both his grandparents were known as Creole people. But then, yeah, and then they passed. But he has never denied his Creole roots. And he is a Creole who is an American, the first American pope in a really long time. And here he is, Zay for talking about immigration.
- [26:22]
Jason
There are a lot of problems in the system. No one has said that the United States should have open borders. I think every country has a right to determine who and how and when people enter. But when people are living good lives, and many of them for 10, 15, 20 years, to treat them in a way that is extremely disrespectful, to say the least. And there's been some violence, unfortunately. I think we have to look for ways of treating people humanely, treating people with the dignity that they have. If people are in the United States illegally, there are ways to treat that. There are courts. There's a system of justice.
- [27:03]
Joy Reid
I love this guy. He's an interesting person. He lived in South America for many, many, many decades. He left Chicago, went down there. So he speaks like an accent, but you can hear the Chicago in his accent as well. And somebody said, who? Who's that? So, Wiggler, whoever posted that, you get an A for the comment. But yes, it, it, it is wonderful that we're getting the resistance to the regime and their attempts to ethnically cleanse the United States that are coming not just from the frogular, not just coming from the creative folks in Portland, but also from mayors in Chicago. The mayor of Chicago, the mayor of Los Angeles. Mayors all over the country are really standing up. The governors of the country, Westmore and other governors also standing up. And. But two governors, I think, have really stood up. I will say, by the way, I'm disappointed that the mayor of D.C. hasn't really stood up as strong. She's in a really more awkward position, obviously, because the Congress kind of runs DC but you've seen a lot of other mayors really stand up. You know, the governor of Chicago, I mean, the mayor of Chicago is awesome. Brandon Johnson, who we interviewed on the show, he's fantastic. The mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, has been terrific. The mayor of Oakland, Barbara Lee, who we also interviewed on the show, also excellent. You're seeing the mayor of Baltimore is incredible as well. The other Brandon. So you've seen a lot of mayors really stand up and say, absolutely, hell no. Mayors all over the country and governors really standing up and being a big part of the resistance. So we're talking about resistance from the ecclesiastical set, resistance from the streets. And let's listen to two of the governors who may be setting themselves up or something big they might want to do in 2028. Here are Gavin Newsom and Jamie Pritzker.
- [28:40]
Guest or Interviewee
Up.
- [28:40]
America, wake up. You will not have a country if.
- [28:44]
Joy Reid
He rigs this election.
- [28:45]
Guest or Interviewee
You will have a president will be.
- [28:47]
Joy Reid
Running for a third term.
- [28:48]
Guest or Interviewee
Mark my word. I wasn't exaggerating when I said that I received in the mail a Trump 2028 hat from one of his biggest supporters.
- [28:56]
These guys are not screwing around.
- [28:59]
The rules do not apply to him. The most corrupt president in history. He doesn't believe in free enterprise, crony capitalism. He is wrecking this country, wrecking the economy. He's a lawless president. Wake up, America. Wake up to what's going on. The people who serve for the president, including all the way down to ICE agents, can be held accountable when there's a change of administration. Who's willing to hold them accountable when they break the law? Now, Stephen Miller is clearly ordering people to break the law. So, you know, he should know that, yeah, it may be three years from now that he is held accountable, but make sure. I think it's important for them to know that whatever they do now, it's not like we're going to forget and it's not like we don't have a record of what they're doing. So that is why I mentioned Stephen Miller. That's why I mentioned other people. Tom Homan and Gregory Bovin Vino, who's the CPB CBP leader on the ground, the one who executed their orders in Los Angeles, which was, I mean, they did an awful job in Los Angeles and created all kinds of mayhem on the ground. Now he's doing it in Chicago. And so all these people need to recognize that, you know, you may have immunity because Donald Trump's willing to pardon anybody that's carrying him out out his unlawful orders, but you're not going to have it under another administration.
- [30:29]
Joy Reid
I like Governor Pritzker. Now, listen, right now, I would say that if I had to guess, I would say if we are really doing 20, 28 sweepstakes, Gavin has got it. I mean, he's got the hair. He does look like Count Chocula, which, you know, is one of my favorite breakfast cereals as a kid. So he's reminiscent of Count Chocula. And this is not my original thought. I stole the thought. A good friend of mine said it to me and I can't un see it. He definitely looks like Count Chocula. But I think that's good. He's got the hair, he's got the look, he's got the trolling down pat. He knows how to get in Trump's head. He knows how to win the attention, economy. He's really good. But don't sleep on Pritzker. Pritzker may not have the look right, but Pritzker is a billionaire. He's got a lot of money, the Hyatt Hotel fortune. But he also has the chat. Right. He has the confidence of somebody who knows. You know, they used to say that Trump was who you want because he can't be bought because he's rich. But he wasn't a billionaire at the time. He wasn't. And he was supposed to be a billionaire off of real estate. He never made it that way in real estate. He became rich because he got a really good job where I used to work at NBC. He got a job on the Apprentice because he wasn't really that good at real estate. And he kept failing and he kept getting bank loans because it's dad's last name, right? But he really made it when he became a celebrity. And he's only become a billionaire since he's become president the second time because people are feeding him crypto money. He's a crypto billionaire. And they've done that in order to keep him happy. Happy in his poopy pants. So that he will let all of the other people, the truly sort of pernicious people who actually have plans, do their plans.
- [32:10]
Jason
They got a job to be grifters. So get his.
- [32:13]
Joy Reid
Yeah. And he's the ultimate grifter. They're all grifters, but he's the ultimate grifter. But here's the reality. Pritzker actually is rich, actually from the thing his family is good at. He actually is like a really wealthy successful businessman. Like he is what Trump says he is. So I would say the two of them, you know, I, you know, I think if, if you're just going on just aesthetics and just the, the, the game of, of winning the attention economy, you got to give it to Gavin. Gavin is expert at trolling and he's expert at communicating. He runs a state that is basically a country, California, what is the seventh largest economy on earth. It's actually a country. If you took it away from the United States, it would be fine. The United States would go bankrupt, but California would actually could be its own country. It has everything, Agriculture, oil, a, the Hollywood and Silicon Valley economies. It's got its own. It's got everything. And it's also facing the sea. It doesn't need us. California stays at their leisure. They stay with us.
- [33:19]
Jason
Seasons has all four seasons.
- [33:22]
Joy Reid
It has all four seasons. It goes coast to coast north to south, right? It goes all the way to Mexico. It's got a border with Mexico. It's got a board. It's up there. It's, it's. It's a huge country that's stuck on us. And if they decided they didn't want us anymore, we would be the ones who would suffer. Let me make it clear. If they seceded, we would be screwed. And Gavin really knows how to play this game and he's termed out, so he's got to do something. But Pritzker, though, don't sleep on Pritzker because Pritzker talks that talk. He talks his shit. So I like them both. So one of the things we're going to be talking about next year, which is an election year, it's a big midterm year. It's a huge midterm year. We're going to be talking about that. Put in the chat, friends from the team tjrs, let's put a poll in the chat. Let's try to see if we had. If you had to vote today and let's say the primaries were global, they were all across the country. You weren't confined to just being in Illinois, California. Who would you pick? Who would you pick? Pritzker or Newsom? Gavin or Pritzker or somebody else.
- [34:26]
Jason
Let's see if they can.
- [34:26]
Joy Reid
Okay. Or. Or somebody.
- [34:28]
Jason
Yeah, somebody.
- [34:28]
Joy Reid
Because it could be somebody. We don't know. There could be other people out there. But before, while you guys vote, I want to let you guys know that the show tonight is being brought to you by our friends at the Freedom from Religion foundation as we say bye bye to 2025 and don't hit you where the door could have missed you. I want to tell you guys something we all know, and I think it's clear after this year of madness that the fight for democracy, it's not going to end with this year's headlines and it's not going to wait for 2026 either. Across this country, we are watching an incredibly dangerous movement gain ground. Christian nationalism, which is pushing to erode voting rights, censor classrooms, and write religious ideology into our laws. This is not just culture war politics of the usual sort. It's a literal attack on our Constitution. That's why I want to once again highlight the Freedom from religion foundation. Since 1978, FFRF has been fortifying the wall that exists and should exist between church and state, defending our public schools, reproductive rights, LGBTQ equality, and the very idea that government should serve all of us, not just one religious group. So now is the time to act. You still have time before the end of this year to make a tax deductible donation to FFRF. You can do that before December 31st. You can become a member and help build a coalition of voters, advocates, and free thinkers who are ready for whatever is coming in 2026. Because if we want a country where the First Amendment actually means something, we cannot sit this out. Go to FFRF US Winter 25 or just text my name joy to 511511 before the year ends, just text joy to 511511 to support the fight, protect the future, and make sure that freedom of and from religion stays right where it belongs in the Constitution, not in the Capitol. So go to FFRF US Winter 25 or text JOY to 511-511 and know that message and data rates may apply. Okay, so as we've seen, this group of mostly men, but also some very strange women run roughshod over our Constitution in order to try to turn the country back into the oligarchy it started as, which again, meant that no one had any rights except wealthy white men. And I mean wealthy, because regular white men didn't have shit either. And then they were like, come and fight this civil war for us. They're like, huh? They're like, yeah, you got to protect your whiteness. They're like, but I don't have anything. They're like, well, so what? You're on our team. So what's happened throughout this country's history is that really, really rich people who do not want, again, who the thing, the worst thing that ever happened to them was 1913. Woodrow Wilson, who was the worst thing that happened to the rest of us because he was a freaking racist and a psychopath. And he tried to create the UN but failed. Then eventually they had, you know, after the League of Nations debacle, then they made a UN and even that doesn't even work. Wilson, I don't know why He's a top 10 president. He shouldn't be. Sucks. But the one good thing he did, the one decent thing that Woodrow Wilson did with his time in office was create the income tax in 1913. And the right has never gotten over it. They hate it. The only other time we've ever tried to have an income tax was when Abraham Lincoln briefly did an income tax to pay for the Civil War, and they rescinded it as soon as the war was over, along with very quickly rescinding the newly won rights of Black people after 12 years of Reconstruction because Lincoln was an idiot and picked the wrong VP instead of traded in Hannibal Hamlin. I'm obsessed with this. Don't get me started. Traded in the great Hannibal Hamlin for Andrew Johnson because he was like, I need. I need somebody. The south will act. Bipartisanship. Never going to do. But when. When the. When the income tax finally stuck. Right. Because the first time, again, it was temporary. But when the permanent income tax was put in place in 1913, the wealthy men of the Gilded Age. Because this was the close end of the closing of the Gilded Age, by the way. Sidebar. I just watched the Downton Abbey film. Have you guys watched the Downton Abbey movie? And I'm sort of fascinated by the fact that Downton Abbey takes place from about 1910 to about 1925, 26, 27, 2029, in, like, the 1920s. Right. It goes through the 1920s, but the. The. The matron of the family has this epic love affair that sort of is. Is important to the movie that happens in 1865. 1865. So the lifespan of the people in Downton Abbey go from, like, the 1860s, but they're in England, of course, all the way through, like, 1920s. Right. Then you go to the Color Purple. The Color Purple takes place in the 1930s in. I think it's the 1930s in Mississippi. And then you go to Sinners, which takes place shortly after World War I. Like, all these things are happening. If you do the timelines of all these different. It's interesting if you sit there and think about what timeline all these things happened and where all these people were kind of at the same time. Because all these things exist in the same theoretical universe. Isn't that wild that Downton Abbey is happening? And while it's happening, some of the things that are happening in both the Color Purple and Sinners are also happening.
- [39:52]
Jason
It's interesting. It makes you see how different creators present the times that they were in. Yeah, obviously these are all movies and everything like that. So they just create different times of what it's like.
- [40:01]
Joy Reid
Right. It's so interesting. Right. Because they're creating it. But the bottom line being all of these shows take place other than the ones in the third. I mean, obviously by the 30s, you had an income tax. But the fight over whether or not the wealthy owe the country anything, whether rich people should have to give something back to the community in exchange for all that they receive from workers who make them rich. They can't be rich without workers. Right. All the big industrialists of the Gilded Age. They made their money because a lot of mainly white men, but also black men broke their backs in their factories and worked 12 hour shifts with no weekends. There were no unions emerging. There were no weekends. You just worked. You lived in company housing and you just basically work till you die. And most, even white men didn't live past their 30s or 40s. Nobody lived long. There was no Social Security, no man. There was nothing until the first sort of change in the United States being an oligarchy, where again, rich men, these industrialists during the yield age were so rich, at one point, they lent money to the federal government. They were richer than the federal government. They lent money to the federal government. Right during the Gilded Age. The Gilded Age was an insane period of wealth that again, the current regime wants us to get back to, because according to Donald Trump, McKinley, who was a Gilded Age era president, he said that's when America was great. He finally answered the question. So this question of whether we should go back to that sort of late 19th century immigration scheme, which means you only let white people in, and anyone who isn't white, like the Asians who they brought in to build the railroads, they could stay here, but they didn't. They weren't supposed to have children and have families here and create lives here. They're just supposed to work and go home. So whether we want that kind of racial balance, whether we want that kind of social balance, the gender balance, where women had no rights, where they couldn't vote, where all of their rights came through their husbands or their brothers or fathers, and where the men in their lives made all the decisions and they were passed from a father to a husband, and then that husband was the only one who could own property. Another sidebar. You know, a lot of the witches who were burned during the 17th century were independent women who refused to marry and were trying to own property. That was one reason that you could be declared a witch, because women were supposed to not even want to be independent women of property. Independent people of property. And if you did and you tried to not marry, let's say your husband died and you didn't have a pair of black leather pants and a vice president to hug. Just kidding. I. I kid. I kid because I love you. Still want to hug me, lady? Probably not. If you didn't want to do those things, if you just didn't want to remarry so that your new husband could own your property, you. You were just out of luck. They would declare you a witch at one point. And if you watch the Gilded Age, another fantastic series you all should be watching. If you haven't watched it, you can watch. The first two seasons are in. They're fantastic. And there's gonna be another season. I think the women in that, remember, the women owned nothing unless they became a widow. Right. And unless you re. If you remarried, your husband owned everything, and if you were divorced, you were a nobody. You literally had no place in society. And that's the era that this certain group of people want to return us to. This era of extravagant wealth where everyone else was extravagantly poor, where there was no income tax and where businesses ran without regulation. There was no government agency that regulated the railroads. So a lot of men died on those railroads. A lot of men died building the fabulous buildings that we see throughout the country. A lot of men just fell into their deaths and died. There was no health insurance, no health care, no access. If you could, if you needed a doctor, you had to literally remember the lady who said, you should trade a chicken for your health care. Like, you literally had to do stuff like that, barter with your doctor to treat you, you know, to put leeches on you to help you survive whatever you were, you know, the croup or whatever you had. So this attempt to return us to that has been very aggressive. And Donald Trump, because He is a 19th century guy, has always been obsessed with this idea that before the income tax existed, the way the country raised money was tariffs. That is actually true. When there was no income tax, the way that money came into the federal coffers, which that were that things were tariffed. So anything that came into our seaports, the importer paid a tax on that imported good, and the tariffs were how you funded the government. And so attempting to return to that kind of economy is part of what Trump really wants, because he thinks that's how America will be great. Then there'll be no income tax on rich people like himself. Now that he's a billionaire, he certainly doesn't want to be taxed. You know, Elon doesn't want to be taxed. Peter Thiel has said taxing him is the Antichrist. That's. The Antichrist is taxing Peter Thiel and regulating his businesses. So the greedy people are like, we don't want to be taxed. Just do tariffs, which of course are attacks on you. It's a tax on the American people, on the importer who then passes that tax on to the person who's buying the end product. But that is what Trump wants. He thinks we can get Rid of the income tax and just do tariffs. That has not worked out well. The economy's in the shitter. Corp. Companies are closing, businesses are closing. The import, the imports into the United States have dwindled. Our exports have dwindled because retaliatory tariffs are making our exports very expensive. It's messed with the dollar. Other countries are re sort of negotiating the way they feel about the United States totally. They're saying, you know what? Maybe we don't need you. Brics which is one of the biggest stories of the decade no one liked to cover. They're organizing themselves to have their own thing, do their own currency. Trump has threatened them, don't do your own currency or else the eu, they see us for what we are. It's not like if Trump leaves and Gavin Newsom or J.B. pritzker is president, we're going to go back to being the leader of the free world and trusted by most people. Most other countries have said no, we don't trust you anymore. We've seen that you have the capability as Americans of electing a demon to be your president. And because you have these demonic tendencies and you keep on wildly swinging from a Barack Obama who fixes the economy to a Donald Trump who screws it up to a Joe Biden who fixes it again to back to another Trump, Trump again, to fuck it up again, excuse my language. The fact that the American people are so sometimey when it comes to democracy and so willing to elect someone like Trump again after he left a million people dead from COVID The fact that the American people keep doing that is mean. Means that most countries don't trust us anymore. NATO certainly doesn't. You're seeing the EU and other countries start to shift away from us and make their do their own thing and figure out their own way to survive without us. They don't really. They're not going to just shift back. And these supply chains that we've lost as a because of these tariffs are just aren't just going to shift back. It's not like people are going to suddenly start buying Montana beef again. You know, there are certain industries that are really in the crapper and it's kind of permanent. Canada has gone off us. They don't want our liquor anymore. They don't want our bourbon. The bourbon business is horrible right now. Nubian queen says, I don't trust us. Neither do I, friend. We don't trust ourselves. There's a record number of Americans expatting, moving to other countries, attempting to get Citizenship in other countries. There's never been more of that. This is a huge sort of expat movement. The people were deporting. A lot of them owned businesses that are then closing. A lot of them were employees to businesses that are then struggling to replace them. You're seeing farms, you're seeing everything Trump has done, from mass deportation to these tariffs, really hurting the country. And as a result, one of his core promises that he made when he ran, which is that he was gonna make America affordable again, it's something he promised and vowed to do, that has not happened. What has happened is that while the rest of us are struggling, while the American people are really suffering, you know.
- [47:59]
Jason
He'S also encouraged Europe to build up their military.
- [48:02]
Joy Reid
Absolutely.
- [48:02]
Jason
Their military. Everybody's building up their military.
- [48:05]
Joy Reid
Absolutely. It's going to be a new world order, 100%. And as Jess just said, this is what. What Putin want. If. If I didn't know any better, and maybe I don't, you would think that Putin orchestrated all of this because he's getting everything he wants. A divided country, right? Yeah. An America that is completely divided against itself, which cannot stand. A country full of constant racial disharmony and hatred. A country where the President of the United States is a straight up grifter who's stealing directly, who's using the presidency to profit. His kids are grifters. They're getting tens, $100 million plus loans from the Pentagon is what Don Jr got. They're grifting up and walking up crypto wealth. And then the guy who did the crypto wealth, you know, gets out, gets a pardon from Trump, and then helps with the crypto scheme. They're plotting to use Gaza as, you know, a new investment for Jared Kushner. Like, it's all theft. They're just stealing. They're just stealing because, again, the project is enormous, untaxed, unregulated wealth. That's all that all this is about. All the stuff they're doing to get you to hate trans kids and hate trans people, and black people hate white people, white people hate black people, and black people hate Latinos, and getting everybody to fight each other. This is not just useful to the super rich because it keeps us not fighting them, but it's also exactly what Russia wants and has been trying to create forever. They've been trying to make this happen for a really long time. So if you didn't know any better, you'd think Donald Trump came in, destroyed the American presidency, destroyed people's faith in government, destroyed the Republican Party weakened the Democratic Party, weakened Congress's authority, poisoned the Supreme Court against the American people, turned industry into a giant grift and crashed the economy. Made Europe abandon us to build its own defenses. Right. Turned the US Against Europe and made Europe his friend. Made the United States his friend. The people who say that Trump was turned in the 80s, there's a lot of evidence for it. But I want to play you guys one little clip here that shows the sort of insanity of just the part about screwing the economy and what it's done and Trump's lack of self awareness as he ruins people economically and grifts and lives his best life like never before.
- [50:43]
Guest or Interviewee
On day one, we will end inflation and make America affordable again. But the word affordability is a Democrat scam. One of my top priorities will be to quickly defeat inflation and make America affordable again. I don't want to hear about the affordability. We will make America affordable again. We're going to make it affordable again. You know, this is fake narrative that the Democrats talk about affordability. Affordability is a con job. We will target everything from car affordability to housing affordability. You know, this whole thing is. They use the word affordability. It's a Democrat hoax.
- [51:22]
Joy Reid
Mm. The Gilded Age is back. The super rich profiting and eating while everyone else starves. You know who else was a billionaire? Jeffrey Epstein. And we're now really understanding because of the ways in which the Epstein files have finally come out, that he wasn't just trafficking children, that he and his friends weren't just abusing girls and also young men. By the way, the Abercrombie and Fitch scandal is a part of this story. Epstein and his friends, all these modeling agents, were abusing women, men and girls. They were invest they not just children, but adults too. But the abuse was coming as part of when people get a certain level of rich, nothing excites them anymore. They get bored and they need even more exaggerated and outre entertainments. And for Epstein, abusing children was both entertainment, but also it was a strategy to keep his clients on side because what could they do? They were powerful men who were abusing children. And it was probably on tape, or at least there were records of it, that Jeffrey Epstein had this year. One of the other big stories is that the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein were finally came forward and showed their faces and stood up and were incredibly strong. Here's a clip of a group of them doing an interview with NBC News. And this is B2, show of hands.
- [52:54]
Guest or Interviewee
Who here is satisfied with the level of contact they've had from Congress? Nobody. Let me do. Let me ask this. How about the Justice Department? I want to ask a couple of things about what you knew about things that were happening with this case that you're obviously involved with. Show of hands. Did any of you hear from the Justice Department before they released that memo, that two page memo earlier this summer? No. Hands. Were any of you told that Todd Blanche would be speaking with Ghislaine Maxwell prior to that interview over the course of two days?
- [53:25]
Joy Reid
No. No.
- [53:26]
Guest or Interviewee
Were any of you told about the prison transfer that Ghislaine Maxxo.
- [53:30]
Joy Reid
No. No.
- [53:31]
Guest or Interviewee
Were any of you? Do any of you feel that the DOJ has communicated with you enough this year?
- [53:36]
Joy Reid
No.
- [53:37]
Guest or Interviewee
No. Have any of you had any communication with the doj? No. Nobody in this room has heard at all from the Department of Justice? No.
- [53:45]
Joy Reid
No.
- [53:47]
Guest or Interviewee
Is that surprising to you?
- [53:48]
Joy Reid
No. No. It should be.
- [53:51]
Guest or Interviewee
It should.
- [53:51]
Joy Reid
Yeah. Right. Caligula has entered the chat. Absolutely. These were rich men who, again, this is gilded age thinking they're allowed to abuse women and girls and there's nothing these women and girls will ever be able to do about it. There's nothing anyone can do about it. And Donald Trump, who a lot of QAnon people voted for because he and Cash Patel and Dan Bongino promised to release the Epstein files. J.D. vance said they should release the Epstein files. They lied. They came in and their goal is to protect the abusers, to protect the rich, pampered, lascivious men who were doing what rich, pampered, lascivious men always do, abuse the people around them, including children, and do as they like while they roll around in their billions and don't give a shit if everyone else is starving and miserable and hurt. I'm going to read one thing that I was going to read on another show and I didn't do it. And we're going to get into this more as the new year comes around. One of the things that was released in these Jeffrey Epstein files, which they had to be dragged out of Donald Trump, he signed the law. And then they released a lot of stuff, redacted, a lot of partial stuff, a lot of stuff with Bill Clinton in it, Michael Jackson and Diana Ross trying to make it look like they were the ones who were Jeffrey Epstein's real friends. No, Jeffrey Epstein, buddy said you were his best friend for 10 years. That's on tape. And there were like thousands of references to Trump in these, even though they didn't mean to. They also failed to do the redactions. Right. So if you pick, if you pick, you know, bring up one of the redacted files and just copy and paste it into, into an image, into a, you know, like a notes pad. You can just see it without the redactions because they're idiots. They just put black squares. That's how they did the redaction. They just put black squares like from like paint.com or something. One of the things that has come out in these releases of the Epstein files, thanks to Rokhanna and you know, I have to give some Democrats, I mean some Republicans some credit too. What's my man from? From Kentucky. Massey. Massey's actually been, he's been a Dan on this. He's been a G. And so we're going to give Massey credit. I don't agree with him on a lot of political things like guns and stuff, but on this Massie has been a G. Like he's really been great and he's been the big partner, the real partner to Roana. Jane Doe versus Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. This is a lawsuit that was filed in June of 2016. What was going on in 2016? Think about it for a moment. This case was filed in June of 2016. Jury trial demanded and it was filed in the United States District Court, the Southern District of New York. The alleged, the, the well known Southern District complaint for rape, sexual misconduct, criminal sexual acts, sexual abuse, forcible touching assault, battery, intentional and reckless infliction of emotional distress, duress, false imprisonment and defamation. Plaintiff Jane Doe, proceeding under a pseudonym brings this action against Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey E. Epstein. She was a citizen of the state of California, alleges that both of them who reside in the state of New York abused her. I have a copy of this complaint. I can tell you that I was supposed to interview, I believe it was this woman because her attorney and I knew one another and we were. And Lisa Bloom was her attorney at the time and Lisa was supposed to have her on my show but she canceled the interview at the last minute out of terror, being terrified and afraid. We don't know her real name. I don't. Anyway, I think her real name has been circulating. I'm not going to say it on here, the name that's sort of out there. But she's not just alleging Jeffrey Epstein abused her. She says Trump too. Now we don't know. Again, this never was adjudicated but then again neither were the people being deported. They haven't had trials either. And Trump and Kristi Noem and Tom Holman and Stephen Miller are calling them criminals, abusers, you know, cannibals, call them everything but a child of God. They haven't been tried for anything. None of those people, they're not getting trials according to the administration. They don't even, they're not even allowed due process. Well, there hadn't been a trial for this either, but this lady filed a lawsuit. I'd like to see this go forward. I'd like to know more about her, so I'm going to put it out there right now. I would really love to interview this young lady. I would love to know who she is and I would love to know why she didn't just accuse Jeffrey Epstein, she also accused Trump. So something about this Epstein situation has made strange bedfellows. One of the strangest being Marjorie Taylor Greene, who attempted to shift her character arc in the year of our Lord 2025. One of the other big stories of the year. I don't know that she really shifted it. She got $25 million apparently allegedly betting on some stuff and she left saying she was getting death threats, etc. But she was also causing people to get death threats. I don't know if her character arc has changed, but I know she don't like Trump no more. Here's one of the clips of Marjorie Taylor Greene this year.
- [59:02]
Guest or Interviewee
This is B3 called a traitor by a man that I fought for five, no, actually six years for, and I.
- [59:11]
Gave him my loyalty for free.
- [59:14]
I won my first election without his endorsement, beating eight men in a primary. And I've never owed him anything, but I fought for him for the policies and for America first. And he called me a traitor for standing with these women and refusing to take my name on off the discharge petition. Let me tell you what a traitor is. A traitor is a. Is an American that serves foreign countries and themselves.
- [59:45]
A patriot is an American that serves.
- [59:48]
The United States of America and Americans like the women standing behind me.
- [59:55]
Joy Reid
Now, one of the reasons, one of the things she said, foreign country, she means Israel, because the two things that seem to have broken Marjorie Taylor Greene from Trump are the issue of the Epstein survivors and getting those files at something she, As a formerly QAnon curious person, really wanted and believed in and to the very end thought Trump could be a quote unquote hero and meet with the women and put out the files when he wouldn't do it and called her a traitor, as she said, for signing that discharge petition. Only four Republicans signed it. Nancy Mace, Lauren Bobert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Thomas Massie, who I think is the most sincere out of the four because I don't know, Lauren Boebert, kind of dumb Massie, I think is sincere, but she signed it too. And I think she actually is sincere on this. I'm gonna say I think Marjorie Taylor Greene on this issue. I actually believe that she does care about this issue because she was QAnon curious. She said she wasn't fully QAnon, but she was curious about QAnon. And QAnon is all about a supposed global sort of ring of pedophiles. And Jeffrey Epstein was running a global ring of pedophiles. So I think she's sincere on this particular issue. But the part about Israel is that the one of the conspiracy theories is that one of the things Epstein was doing was collecting komat on these nasty men for Israel and that he was you. And one of his clients was one of the former prime ministers of Israel who's in the Epstein files. He Brock, who was also very friendly with Bill Clinton. I'm just saying that is one of the. And she's very much not in the give Israel all the money camp. And so because of those two issues, she's not with him anymore. But the other issue that Donald Trump has with Marjorie Taylor Greene is that she's defying him while being a woman and she's finding out. Hold on a second. I have to go to the chat for a minute. Lauren A. Taylor said Marjorie Taylor Greene gets no spicy white credit. I love my team TJR as people so much because you're exactly you all without me even having to explain it. You all understand spicy whiteness. To be spicy white, you have to have a specific set of skills. Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn't have them. She is not spicy. She's not. She is still unseasoned. She is not spicy at all. I keep her in the unseasoned category. And unseasoned can be right a couple times a day like a broken clock. It's possible for her to be right on a couple of things here and there and still not be spicy white. You have to be. You have to be very special, very special to get in the spicy team. To be on Team Spicy, you got to do more than that. But being a woman and she's also one of the interesting thing is that she has said that she suddenly discovered after being a Republican her whole life and she's almost my age, I mean, she's not young. She discovered that there's a lot of misogyny here. Really? No shit. Marjorie you just discovered that, did you? Because you were the one who was, like, attacking AOC and other women. Attacking trans women like you. You suddenly. You've discovered. Yeah, we. Oh, no. Jennifer Welch, 100% spicy, right? And pumps, too. Pumps is spicy as well. She discovered that. So here's Donald Trump behaving toward women, which is another big story this year. The way he always has wanted to, but now has too much dementia to hold himself back.
- [63:25]
Guest or Interviewee
Will you let me finish my statement? You are the worst. You're with Bloomberg, right? You are the worst. I don't know what. Why they even have you.
- [63:38]
Joy Reid
Say that.
- [63:38]
Guest or Interviewee
Darling, that's fake news.
- [63:40]
Joy Reid
Department of Defense. Listen. Be quiet. Listen.
- [63:43]
Guest or Interviewee
You don't listen. You never listen. That's why you're second grade. It's not the question that I mind. It's your attitude. I think you are a terrible reporter. It's the way you ask these questions. You start off with a man who's highly respected, asking him a horrible, insubordinate and just a terrible question.
- [64:05]
I'm not thinking.
- [64:05]
That's okay. I know you're not thinking. You never do.
- [64:08]
I'm sorry.
- [64:08]
No, go ahead. Because they let him in. Are you stupid? Are you a stupid person?
- [64:16]
Joy Reid
If one of them said, you know, Mr. President, fuck off, I think I might. That person I would hug now that. That a person I would hook. But Donald Trump didn't just. And here's the other thing. I think that the press corps, by absorbing that abuse without ever doing anything about it, and, you know, no kudos to the White House Correspondents Association. I promise you I'll never go back to that White House correspondence dinner again. The White House Correspondents association has completely failed its members. How dare they not say anything? They don't do anything. Don't they want to stand up for their profession? Such as. It remains that that which hasn't been bought up by billionaires. So they could use the media also to lock in their untaxed wealth and unregulated wealth. The media has just sort of. They've allowed this. But Donald Trump hasn't just sort of destroyed the normal relationship between a president and the media. He also has physically destroyed the White House itself. Again, Russia could not have written it better. We've got some video of it. It is so heartbreaking to watch. I hate it so much. This physically done to our White House. One of the other big stories this year, one of the biggest stories has been the physical destruction of the White House. Donald Trump has said he wants to build a $300 million and counting giant ballroom that would eclipse the size of the actual White House itself. He claims that it's going to be all paid for by himself and also by rich donors who are giving $25 million a piece in order to build it. He has violated every rule, if not every law, in terms of knocking down the White House without going to the historical society that is responsible for the White House itself. He did not release a plan to the public and now he's not paying the people who did that or the architect he's now refusing to pay because he and the architect are having a falling out over the design style of this monstrosity that he wants to build. I am almost a one issue voter for whoever's running in 2028. So Pritzker and Gavin, whichever of you promises to take a wrecking ball or dynamite and knock down whatever monstrosity he manages to build somehow, I guess without the the brown labor that builds every damn thing in this country, I don't know how he's going to find construction workers who don't speak Espanol because that's all that's the good ones. So if you can try to find some that you won't also deport mid build, if you can find enough construction workers who have the design skills to build whatever piece of crap you're going to stick on the White House that you filled with gilded gold and made into one of the ugliest buildings in the country. If you manage to build your Arc de Trump to try to blot out the Lincoln Memorial with a monument to yourself you've already destroyed the Kennedy center bookings are down substantially. There's no audiences there anymore. No one goes anymore. And he slapped his name on it like he's done with most of the properties that people think are Trump Tower or Trump owned. It's mostly just building someone else built and he sticks his name on it. Now he's done that to the Kennedy Center. So the physical destruction of the monuments to this country, while his administration, his regime is also destroying the history of the country, the comity in the country. C O M I T Y not comedy, because comedy's doing pretty well. While he's destroyed our social cohesion, while he's made the country more hateful, more rageful, more angry, and tried to do literal ethnic cleansing, he also did that. And he was encouraged to do it by the evangelical right, white evangelicals, as our friend Robbie Jones points out frequently on this show. And we'll be doing so once a month starting in January again. Every once a month we're going to be decoding and deconstructing and attempting to fight back against white Christian nationalism with the help of our friend Robbie Jones. And he points out that it is only white evangelicals, white Christians of all sorts, including Mormons, white Catholics, it's white Christians, but particularly white Protestants who have pushed this and they've pushed it while also pushing a particular brand of white nationalism. One of the people whose job it has been on behalf of the billionaire class to push that kind of white Christian nationalism on young white people on college campuses was Charlie Kirk. And one of the other big stories of the year was Charlie Kirk being killed. People decided to call it assassinated like he was Dr. King just killed. He was murdered by a young white man in Utah while he was doing one of his prove me wrong debate, which aren't really debates. When a 30 something year old is yelling at 18 year old freshmen and it's kind of a rigged game, that's not a debate, but whatever. When he was killed, a lot of interesting things happened. The reason I put it as one of our top stories is that a bunch of people got fired for just pointing out the words. Charlie Kirk actually said that. He said that a set of black people that he named, including myself, and including Ketanji Brown Jackson, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, including Michelle Obama, including the late Sheila Jackson Lee, don't have the brain power to have gotten into Ivy League school, something he never did. He dropped out of junior college to start Turning Points USA at the behest of a multi, multimillionaire junior college, which is nothing wrong with junior college. Junior college is great, but he maybe if he wanted to go to Harvard, he sure as hell didn't get in. He also said that if he got into an airplane and saw a black pilot, he would question whether they were qualified. He made a lot of really nasty comments about black people, women, LGBTQ people. He said gay marriage shouldn't be legitimate. He said if his own daughter was raped. His daughter's a toddler, but if his daughter grew up and was raped, she would be forced to give birth to the child. He said a lot of really crappy crazy things, but when he was killed, it essentially became illegal to criticize him or to quote him. People that I used to work with were punished or prohibited from even quoting him. Matthew Dowd, a conservative commentator from msnbc, was let go for simply saying he said a lot of hateful things. And it's not surprising that hate followed. You saw ordinary people lose Their jobs for posting on Facebook. Negative things about Charlie Kirk. As if the first amendment was deleted. Flags were floated. Half staff. Trump did a whole televised remembrance that most of the networks covered live. That's crazy. Most people didn't even know. Most Americans didn't even know who Charlie Kirk was. A lot of people are probably wondering, why is the flags at half staff? Who the hell is this guy? That is a thing that happened. That happened at the same time that you started to see Charlie Kirk's fans and friends taking over the country. Culturally, right wingers have demanded that not only Charlie Kirk be revered in death, but that also the entire right wing culture be imposed everywhere. Not just at the Kennedy center, but also in Hollywood and on TV and even in the news. The Ellisons, David Ellison, who is the son of the, the, the leader of Oracle, the guy who owns Oracle, who's a very plastic faced, weird looking dude. But they're all billionaires who want to take over the culture. They took over Paramount, which is another one of the big stories of this year. And in doing so, they set out to, and I think have destroyed CBS News. Oh, wait, hold on a second. We're positive for just one second. I'll put her on in a second. Barry Weiss, who used to run a substack, she was pushed out of the New York Times or left. The New York Times volunteer. She wasn't pushed out because nobody liked her over there. She was a sort of middling writer. She used to write op EDS that nobody liked. Then she went and formed a substack called the Free Press, where she basically battled against DEI and diversity, even though she is a gay woman with a child. But she's, you know, I hate diversity. She's, you know, she's, she's gay and Jewish, but she's like diversity me. So because she is anti diversity and anti dei and that's her thing, the Ellisons hired her to run CBS News for some reason. And what she's done with her new leadership, her editorial leadership, though she's never run a newsroom, has zero experience, but you know, yolo, in this world of maga, mediocrity is actually an asset. Not being qualified is how you become qualified. If you're too qualified and a person of color, you're out. If you're unqualified, mediocre, but you're white and conservative, you get the job. And she fits the bill. So she comes in and decides, you know, which star I think I should elevate. You know, who the perfect celebrity star journalist to Elevate at CBS News would be me, me, myself. I myself will start. Will star in a special in which I shall interview Charlie Kirk's widow. No, it's not an infomercial. It's just a commercial. Lerschel here, here she is doing that.
- [73:06]
Guest or Interviewee
Podcaster Candace Owens, okay? At one time a friend of Charlie's, at one time an employee of Turning Point. She has been one of the main peddlers of these conspiracies, and she is making a huge amount of money on it. She is building her business off of these lies. What do you want to say to her and the other people that are putting these lies out into the world right now?
- [73:32]
Joy Reid
Stop, stop, stop.
- [73:35]
Guest or Interviewee
That's it.
- [73:36]
Joy Reid
That's it. That's all. Just stop, Stop. She's scary. She's giving Tam. She gives me Tammy Faye a little bit. So this is the former beauty queen, five years older than Charlie Kirk, who used to be in so. So Donald Trump's. One of Donald Trump's things he used to own were beauty pageants, and she was in them. She knew. She knew Donald Trump before she knew Charlie Kirk. And so she's also apparently a big fan of JD Vance. Here she is giving him a little. A little head. A little head tuggy little head rubby. And she gave him a really sort of loving sort of head back of the rub you thing when he showed up at Turning Points USA to try to help also remember her husband. Remember your husband, hot pants. People grieve differently. But a lot of the story that she told in that interview with Bari Weiss, for whatever reason, thinks she's the new star of CBS News. By the way, they've messed up 60 Minutes. You see, they canceled that 60 Minute story because it was too. It made Trump mad because it was talking about him renditioning people to El Salvador and they didn't like it, so they stopped that. And what she was talking about with the Candace Owens thing is that Candace Owens is saying Israel had. Might have played some role in the killing of Charlie Kirk. And, you know, with Barry Weiss in charge, there'll be no criticizing Israel. You gonna be pro Israel. Tony De Copple called Ta Nehisi Coates a terrorist. He's about to be the new anchor of CBS Evening News in the Walter Cronkite seat because, hey, look, you're gonna love Israel if you're gonna be a cvs. Okay? We don't. We don't do no criticizing Israel over here. We don't allow that. Not with Barry in charge. So that's what she's saying, just stop. Shabbat Shalom. She even said Shabbat shalom in one interview. So she's like, make it real clear. Keep that grifty money coming in. Keep that money coming in. If AIPAC wants to pony up, pony up. Because don't worry. TP USA Pro Israel all the way. So the weirdness about the JD Vance Erica thing was another sort of big story. But another piece of it is the current sort of dismantling of even as people are just getting to know Erica Kirk, of all the stories she's told about herself. We know she was a beauty queen in the Trump beauty pageants. We know she was introduced to Charlie Kirk when she went on a job interview for Turning Point usa. And then suddenly the job interview turned into a relationship. And then she ended up marrying him very shortly after they met. They had two very young children at the time of his death. And we know that she grieves differently. But there is apparently more to the story, and what we've now seen are people on social media illuminating more of the story. Let's look at some of that.
- [76:22]
Guest or Interviewee
What about the guys you dated before Charlie?
- [76:24]
I was here for five years. I never dated here because I saw vicariously through my roommate how terrible it was.
- [76:30]
You were proposed to by Charlie in 2020. You started dating him in 2018. And three years before that, we're dating this guy, Tyler Massey. I mean, you guys would do couples photo shoots. This is still online. And this is only three years before you started dating Charlie.
- [76:44]
He's in heaven.
- [76:47]
Joy Reid
Yeah.
- [76:47]
Guest or Interviewee
And two years later, you were dating this guy, Cabot Phillips. And here he is posting you guys on his public page saying, yes, we're that couple who gets painting lessons together. Again, this is a year before you started dating Charlie, and well within the five years your period, you claim to have never dated anyone, but you were out here dissing your roommate for dating.
- [77:04]
I always thought it was very strange how she would go to drinks with one guy and then go to dinner with another. Somehow getting drinks was the replacement of having coffee and breakfast. I personally would rather have coffee or brunch with someone than go, I just.
- [77:18]
Joy Reid
I don't drink.
- [77:19]
Guest or Interviewee
I find it unproductive.
- [77:20]
Why are you here drinking and dating on a reality show that actually was filmed the year you met Charlie? So you obviously were dating. So I'm not understanding your timeline. I mean, you're talking to a guy here. He's asking you out on a date and you're taking his number. And here you are in Your date.
- [77:38]
Joy Reid
I've honestly spent the majority of my.
- [77:40]
Guest or Interviewee
Life being one of the most sought after bachelors.
- [77:46]
Joy Reid
Great.
- [77:48]
Guest or Interviewee
But I'm just really excited to spend.
- [77:49]
Joy Reid
Some one on one time with Erica.
- [77:51]
Guest or Interviewee
I really do like her.
- [77:52]
And.
- [77:53]
Joy Reid
And I'm excited to get to know her a little bit more.
- [77:56]
Guest or Interviewee
Erica, Hello. Just want to understand how you so confidently lie to our faces when this footage was on national television. And you know the footage is out there. The pictures of your boyfriends that you dated are still public online. And you know that, but you still lie like this. Stop.
- [78:13]
Joy Reid
Wait.
- [78:13]
Guest or Interviewee
Isn't Cabot Phillips your ex boyfriend? Why is he now the speaker of Turning Point usa leading speeches of how to lead like Charlie?
- [78:21]
Joy Reid
What?
- [78:21]
Guest or Interviewee
What's going on? Erica, stop. He's also the senior editor for the Daily Wire, the one outlet that your husband was having active beef with at the time connected to Netanyahu. So stop. Right, so what else are you lying about? Because you're a liar. Point blank, period. You are a liar. And we just proved that. So this is still publicly accessible on social media. And you lied about that. You also lied about dating. But you were on a reality show dating the same year you met Jesse.
- [78:48]
Joy Reid
I don't.
- [78:49]
Guest or Interviewee
You know what I mean? What else are you lying about? Like bigger things. Are you lying about bigger things? Because this is small and you'd really easily. With like a straight face, you're like, so like what? You know, because.
- [79:00]
Joy Reid
Sure.
- [79:01]
Guest or Interviewee
Stop.
- [79:03]
Joy Reid
Sarah Malcolm, comedy Sarah Malcolm doing the work that used to be done at places like CBS News. What'd you say there, Jason? I think, I think, yeah, maybe they should hire at CBS News. Maybe they'll actually get some more credibility and respect. Back again.
- [79:19]
Jason
I said a common. Said heiferific.
- [79:21]
Joy Reid
Heiferific. The heiferation. Yes. If you are a heiferologist. There's a lot to study here. So we need to get Mrs. Maddie J. We are still trying to track down Mrs. Maddie J. We want to get her on next year because she might be the best expert in the heiferology and the heiferations that seem to be going on. There's something going on there because she said a lot of stuff that really turned out to not really be true. Literally the video of her being on that former reality show. It's literally available online. You can find her clips, her reality show clips online and also the pictures of her with her former boyfriends. So yeah, you were dating before. So a lot of your story, why isn't it real? She did say at one point she let the word grift come out of her mouth. I'm just going to say on stage at Turning Point usa, she did let the word grift come out of her mouth. I'm just going to leave it there. I want to note now that this show, the Joy Reid show, is also brought to you by Quints. 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That's Q U I n c e.com joyread to get free shipping and 365 day returns. So go to quince.com joyread all right, speaking of Barry, that diddy doc which to me signifies puffy as well as Bari Weiss. Can we play C1 this is one of our favorite clips of the year, all in the Video. That's Barry White. She's. She's on cbs, but all in the video. But, baby. The other big story this year and for quite a while, the number one download on Netflix was this Puffy doc, this Diddy doc where all the tea came out. Fascinating stories, terrifying stories, but some of them have since been debunked a little bit by our friend Ture, who says that some of the things and the allegations in the doc may not be true. One of the things that he disputes is this question of when Biggie is saying. I'm sorry. When Tupac is saying that he. That somebody was calling him and telling him to come to the studio at the time that PAC was shot. The allegation, if you just don't know any better, they don't say it outright, but they sort of imply that the He Pac is talking about is Puffy. Therese says, no, no, no, no. It's a totally different guy. He's not talking about Puffy. And that this interview has been out before, and then that is clear. There's also the piece when Biggie is talking about being paranoid and being fearful. But at least according to Ture, Biggie and Puffy were in Los Angeles at the time he was killed because they wanted to be. Because they thought that the whole beef was kind of done and that they weren't. You know, it wasn't that Biggie was there sort of under duress. So there's some of the things. We're definitely going to have terrain to sort of debunk some of things. But he says one of the things that he does agree with is that Puffy is a sociopath. So that happened. And so sociopath, you know, it's a thing. But he's. We know this. He definitely benefited from Biggie's demise because he was doing this after Biggie died, and suddenly he got to be the star. He got to be on the magazine covers. He got to be all in the video. The other big story this year was the final. Apparently we finally found out who the D.C. pipe bomber was, allegedly, and we were shocked to find out that it was a black man, a young black man. And you will recall that I did speak with a family member of his who very much denied that this is. Is something that he really did. However, what we're also learning is that at least according to the FBI, which has not really shown itself to be too good at their job in the Cash Patel era, they call him Keystone Cash he loves to ride in fancy planes and fancy jets. There's a really great story about Cash Patel. On the day of Charlie Kirk's murder, he shows up to the press conference and refuses to get out of the car, according to this story, until one of the other agents brings him one of those cool FBI jackets with the patches. And he gets upset if his FBI jacket doesn't have enough patches and he demands to get to wear the cool FBI jacket with the patches. And if he doesn't get it, then he gets all upset and he won't get out of his car. And he also likes to ride around in luxury cars and luxury planes, but he's not really good at being an FBI director. But supposedly this young man who they're saying was the alleged pipe bomber, that he's told the FBI that the reason that he did it, at least this is what the allegation is, that he supposedly told the FBI that the reason that he left the pipe bombs at the DNC and the RNC on January 5, 2021. This is actually before the insurrection, the day before. They're claiming that Brian Cole Jr. Who is this 30 year old, who according to the family, is very autistic, he's in jail right now awaiting trial. He has not given a plea yet. He allegedly told the FBI that he did it because he believed Trump's allegation that the election was stolen and that he wanted the Democrats and Republicans to do something about it, and that he didn't wanna hurt anyone, but that he left the pipe bombs as a message because he believed that the election had been stolen from Donald Trump. So while I'm sure Keystone Cash would like to make it seem.
- [86:49]
Jason
Now this is all allegedly.
- [86:51]
Joy Reid
This is all allegedly. They would like to make it seem that this was some liberal because they always try to make it sound like it's liberal. They tried to say Charlie Kirk was killed by a liberal because the person may have had a trans roommate. There's no, there's no evidence of that. I mean, all of the people involved in these, including the alleged attempt on Trump, these turn out to be Republicans, conservatives, but anyway, conservatives at least. But in this case, this person says this young man, Mr. Cole allegedly has told the FBI he's not political in any way, he's not partisan, he dislikes both political parties, and he alleges that he left the pipe bombs because he believed the election was stolen and he wanted something to be done. So there you go. Donald Trump's lie about the election being stolen is what caused the Pipe bombs to be left in D.C. so Donald Trump, we chalked that one up to him as well. One of the other big stories of the year is the huge wins by Democrats in November. It was actually a huge year. All of the bad stuff I've been talking about really resulted in this year being a big year for Democrats. Somebody says gloves and a mask cannot see skin. No, not true. We don't know. I mean, I think people were surprised it was a young black man because, you know, whatever. Yes, Bongino is also gone, by the way, and that is in the chat. But I suspect, and this is my sort of somewhat informed speculation, that he's out because he was continuing to insist on releasing the Epstein files. And this is a thing he made his podcast name on and that he actually, as much as he's a weirdo, actually wanted to do it. And the two who were phony baloney, meaning Pam Bondi and Keystone Kash Patel, we're like, no, we're not gonna do it. And so he apparently got into screaming matches with Bondi over this. And that is why Dan Bongino was out. So Bongino may be very interesting interview after he fully leaves the plantation, but we just don't know if he's ever going to talk, at least talk to someone like me. But I would, I would be very interested in talking with Dan Bontino. I also want to ask him about his racial background. I'm sorry, but to me he just looks like a black person. There are a lot of people who are doing a lot of memes saying, did you leave because it became difficult for you to operate inside the regime as a black man? He just looks black to me. I'm sorry. He's Italian, supposedly. But the biggest win I got off track. Democrats had a big. Had a big November. November 5th was election day. You saw Democrats went up and down all across the board. It was a big night in Virginia. All the statewide offices in Virginia, including a Muslim woman elected to lieutenant governor. Democrats elected Mikey Sherrill also being elected in New Jersey as the governor there. And big wins in New Jersey, big wins in Virginia. And really, you know, the sort of spiraling out of control of the right wing narratives, that didn't work. Winsome Sears, who was attempting to become governor of Virginia, really flamed out on it. Almost all trans message. Her whole, a lot of her message was about, you know, trans girls in sports. And it didn't work. I mean, it just fell flat. It just fell completely flat. And she lost, like, didn't lose By a little. She lost by a lot. And so what you did see is this real sort of what felt like a sea change among voters who maybe are getting exhausted and tired by the cruelty and the chaos. So Democrats won big, but there is no bigger win that you can point to than the, the win in New York. It was just, it was, it was just kind of next level. It was a next level victory because in this case, you had somebody who had all of the qualities that you're not supposed to have in order to get elected. It's Abigail. And Abigail Spanberger, by the way, is the new governor of Virginia. I should mention her name. If I'm going to mention Winsome Sears, I should mention Abigail. Abigail. Abigail, I am speaking. I am spe. Abigail. Abigail. I am speaking. That's my favorite line from the election. But one of the biggest stories of the year and one of the biggest elections of the year definitely took place in the. In the greatest city. Sorry. In the United States. Sorry, everybody else. New York City elected its first Muslim mayor, perhaps its youngest mayor and a Democrat who won by the largest margin in modern history. Here's C3. Here's Zorham.
- [91:22]
Guest or Interviewee
After all, the conventional wisdom would tell.
- [91:25]
Joy Reid
You that I am far from the perfect candidate.
- [91:28]
Guest or Interviewee
I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older.
- [91:33]
Joy Reid
I am Muslim. I am a democratic socialist.
- [91:45]
Guest or Interviewee
And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this.
- [91:54]
Joy Reid
And he's only 34 years old. And I will note again, let me do another tease that we got a very brief sit down. He was running to another meeting, but we got a chance to chill with Zorhan Mamdani briefly. And we're going to air that on January 6th.
- [92:12]
Jason
But we fed them. Everybody wants some food.
- [92:14]
Joy Reid
What happened?
- [92:15]
Jason
I said we fed him. You know, we did some food.
- [92:18]
Joy Reid
Everybody love. Everyone wants to eat. We figured we were going to hang out. We wanted food. We wanted there to be food. So this is. This was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. People are saying what? Not old Namdohi remain. What is this? What are they saying here? Maybe he'll run the Russian spies out of Trump Tower. I'm interested to see what happens the next time Bibi Netanyahu tries to come to the UN when the mayor. Now, when we interviewed him, he wasn't yet mayor, but it'll be very interesting to have a conversation with him once he's in office, because a lot of things are going to happen. New York City is one of the most important cities in the country. It is the financial capital of the United States. And it will now be run by a democratic socialist, a 34 year old, a person with city council experience who is an activist, former hip hop artist and an interesting guy. A very interesting guy. And we're really excited Team TJRS will be at the inauguration. So we'll be bringing you that as I mentioned at the top of the show. So you're going to want to hit that notification button, the little bell thing, so that you will know when we go live because that happens during the day and then we will have a full report including from our fabulous Team TJRS members the afterwards at night. So you, you're going to want to definitely tune in for that. That is on the 1st, January 1st is Inauguration Day day. And he inspired a lot of other people to run. We know that there are going to be at least four African American statewide candidates running for office in 2026. A Senate candidate in the state of Mississippi, a Senate candidate in the great state of Kentucky. We're going to see, I believe there's a lieutenant, I might, I might admit three, three candidates because the third person who is also apparently running statewide, not apparently, but is running statewide, is in the great state of Texas, which found a huge gerrymandering, had a huge gerrymandering loss this year. One of the other big stories of the year was the, the attempt by a group of Democrats, including the great Jolanda Jones, our friend of the show, to leave the state to prevent a quorum from happening to so that the gerrymander wouldn't happen. Eventually, enough of the Democrats decided to fold and come back that they were able to vote through those hideous maps, which now means that Texas, at least in theory, will add five new Republican seats and eliminate a group of Democratic seats, including African American Democratic seats. But you've seen a lot of retaliation for that. So in the state of California, you saw Gavin Newsom push through and get passed and then sign a bill that matched that number of lost Democratic seats with pickups of Democratic seats in the state of California. It will eliminate a bunch of Northern California Republican seats in California, which is a lot more certain is California just, it just seems a lot more certain. So it might have backfired a little bit on Donald Trump and Republicans. Also in the great state of Indiana, Republicans there switched sides and refused to go along with it. And so the attempt to do the same thing in Indiana actually failed. This after a number of Republican states actually went in and attempted to rig their states so that Donald Trump can keep the House and the Senate and.
- [95:32]
Jason
Understand, because the Trump used the R word and you know, the speaker of the House in that state has a, you know, special needs child.
- [95:40]
Joy Reid
So that's true. That, that is true. And you had a couple of other Democrat Republicans in addition to Donald Trump using that R word and which has become very popular among the right wing with the word Hitler. They love Hitler. They like saying the R word. It's, it's not helpful. And it's causing a lot of, of sort of reluctant Trumpers. People who voted for Trump because they want tax cuts or they voted for Trump because they were Republican and they always vote Republican and it's their tradition are starting to be a little bit skeeved out by Donald Trump. There's an interesting story I will throw away. We didn't put it in our top stories. There are a group of Republicans who have left the Heritage foundation to go over to Mike Pence's think tank. And you're seeing Mitt Romney start to slowly sort of raise his head. The sort of traditional OG Republicans seem to be trying to use Mike Pence as a shield to sort of create their own, like Republican wing against the MAGA wing. And you're starting to see fewer Republicans identify themselves as maga. NBC News has a poll which shows the number of Republicans who identify themselves as MAGA is going down. I think it's mainly because the economy is ain't shit and Donald Trump has ruined the economy. The tariffs have turned a lot of people off, but also his sort of flaunting his own accumulated wealth, which he's accumulated because he's president, while cutting snap, while causing people to lose their, their SNAP benefits, while shutting down the government for a record, what, 40 something days making federal workers unemployed, wrecking things like USAID in the State Department. Marco Rubio has embarrassed himself doing that. A lot of the things that he's done have sort of rubbed a lot of people the wr way who weren't hardcore MAGA in the first place. So one of the people who's decided to put her head up and say, you know, we'll put her hand up and say, you know what? I think I'm going to run to Jasmine Crockett.
- [97:26]
Guest or Interviewee
How about this new one? They have their new star, Crockett.
- [97:29]
Joy Reid
How about her?
- [97:30]
Guest or Interviewee
She's the new star of the Democrat Party, Jasmine Crockett. They're in big trouble. But you have this woman, Crockett. She's a very low IQ person. I watched her speak the other day. Day. She's definitely A low IQ person. Crockett. Oh, man. Oh, man. Okay, she's a very low IQ person.
- [97:53]
Joy Reid
Right? So that is what's happening in the great state of Texas. Jasmine Crockett is running, but it is not going to be an easy race. James Talarico, who has become a rising star on the left for the way that he's able to do Christian talk. He is a. I think he's a youth pastor, but he's able to speak that language of Christianity in a way that is forceful and very compelling. And so you've got now this sort of, you know, clash of the titans that is about to take place in the great state of Texas in which Jasmine Crockett's case is that she can excite the base of people who don't normally come out and vote. Young black and brown people, younger people who tend to stay home and who sit out elections, particularly statewide elections, who just don't vote. Whereas Talarico's case is that he can start to pull people over who are dissatisfied that maybe are on the other side and want to come back onto the side of sort of true Christianity. I think it's. I'll be honest with you, as much as the sort of conventional wisdom is that she's got the harder case to make, I actually think he's got the harder case to make because I think there's a lot of cynicism and I share it, about the idea that you can convert Republicans to Democrats. I honestly believe James Talarico is a really talented person. I wish he was running for governor because I think if the two of them were on the same ticket, it would be powerful to have a Talarico for governor and Crockett for Senate would be really powerful and could really bring out millions and millions of voters who don't normally vote. I think the case he has to make, which I think is harder, to be honest, is that he can convert Republicans and Republican leaning independents to vote Democratic. Unfortunately, Republicanism is a religion too. And so he's fighting another religion. He is a religious, Bible believing Christian who actually believes the red letters of Jesus. He actually believes in real Christianity. And I really like him. I think he seems like a bright guy. But if he. If his goal is to bring over Republicans, then he's gonna lose. Because what will happen is when John Cornyn is on the ballot, who's a real Republican, and James Talarico is on the ballot, who's a very nice young man, but a Democrat, is on the ballot, even Republicans who are being destroyed Economically, by Trump, will still vote Republican because it's what they do. It is a religion. And when. Until people come out of the religion, right? It's like when you're in a cult, you have to come out of the cult before there are people who are out there who are like, I'm no longer maga. Those people are available. It's a small number of people who say, I'm out, right? Even a lot of the Latinos who are seeing their own family members deported, they're still maga. Because if you're in the cult, you're in the culture. You either got to get jumped out. Like Marjorie Taylor Greene. She got jumped out of the gang, okay? She's one of the people got jumped out of the gang. But I don't know if a ballot was put in front of her with Trump and somebody else on it that's a Democrat, I'm not sure she wouldn't still vote for Trump. I just don't believe it. I don't believe people who say they're going to switch parties, they don't do it. And I think we ran that experiment with Kamala Harris, who was supposed to be able to get Liz Cheney's people to vote with her. You know how many people Liz Cheney had with her? One, Liz Cheney. Oh, no. Two, Dick Cheney. The late Dick Cheney. That's it. Liz Cheney's team included two people, herself and her daddy. Converting doesn't work. You have to get your base out. So weirdly enough, as much as I think Talarico is a formidable campaigner and a formidable candidate, I think Jasmine has that advantage. And the second advantage I would have is that she's already federal. So she's making the case to up her. Up her current federal status to the other federal legislative body. The case he's making is up him from a state legislative body all the way to the Senate. Now, I'm not saying it's impossible he could still win. I don't know. I don't know who. I do know that whichever one of them wins that primary is going to have a hell of a time winning the general because Texas is still a very deeply read state. And even the Latinos who are functionally the majority, like, you know, this is a majority minority state. It's a majority. It's a state where there's slightly more brown people than white people. But the brown people, number one, vote at very low rates, very low rates. They just don't vote. And until you can start to convert some of those very young Latinos into voters, you're gonna have a hard time because the ones who do vote tend to vote on guns and religion and they are Republicans. And so that's tough. And this is one of the only places where Mexican Americans tilt right, because typically Mexican Americans are like two thirds Democrats and they tend to vote Democrat Democratic because they, they, they, they recognize their place in kind of the racial hierarchy and they realize they need to vote more like black people. That's generally, and Latinas still generally do that. But Latinos are very much compelled by the manosphere stuff, by the machismo stuff that Trump puts forward, all that. So I don't know, I think I, I still would say it's probably advantage, Jasmine, but it'll be an interesting race. One of the other stories, I mean, we're getting to the end here, so I want to make sure I get let rest of these stories in. And one of the other big stories of the year is the complete clear cutting of Gaza. And this is going to be an issue, by the way, in this race too, because Jasmine Crockett has never taken APAC money. But there is a, there's sort of a world of people out there in the ether trying to accuse her of being pro apac. But she has been to Israel on a, on a codel. And so there's a, there's a, there's a thing where people are trying to sort of pull her into the sort of, but she's never taken APAC money. Neither has Talarico, but Talarico might have taken money from, you know, other people who are like pro apac. So it's like, it's kind of tough, but it's going to be interesting to see where it goes. But anyway, Gaza is another one of the big stories. Jason, if you could play C5, please. This is the first drone footage CNN has taken in Gaza since November 5, 2023. It was filmed for CNN on the first day of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas after 15 months of war. In a recent report, the United nations estimates that 60% of buildings in Gaza have been either damaged or destroyed by Israeli airstrikes and military operations, which has displaced about 90% of the population. It's horrific. And what you've now seen is Donald Trump's regime, particularly Jared Kushner and Donald Trump's Middle east envoy, talking about turning Gaza into a high tech sort of paradise, which essentially means that it's all gone. They're going to clear cut the rest of the rubble, deport out the Palestinians and steal the Rest. One of the big stories of the year is the effectiveness of Bibi Netanyahu's ethnic cleansing plan. He's been called out as a war criminal and a genocidal maniac. Officially, he and his regime have committed genocide in Gaza. And it's been successful in the fact that they've displaced 2 million people who are from Gaza. They are rapidly displacing the Palestinians who live in the occupied west bank, stealing their farms, stealing their homes, kicking them out, claiming God said they could have the land, and they're taking it all. And Donald Trump promised he would end that war. All he's done is open the door to the completion of what Joe Biden allowed to start. It's horrific. And the genocide in Gaza will go down in history as one of the most heinous and evil crimes of the 21st century. And unfortunately, it will be a bipartisan crime, which we are all implicated in because it was done with our tax dollars. It's so repulsive. And Bibi Netanyahu, Bibi the Butcher, as I call him, Bibi the Butcher, is such a heinous and evil individual that he even attempted to take the tragic mass shooting of Jewish Australians and blame it on Australia recognizing Palestine as a state, which Palestine was. Australia and a bunch of other countries did this year. This year was the year when more European countries than ever in history recognize Palestine as a state. And I. I've said this before, but I will say it again. Every single colonizer, every time says God said they could have the land. It is not compelling to me for you to say God said that the Israelites are supposed to have land. Well, first of all, you're not the Israelites. You're not the Israelites. This is not like the Nez Perce coming back to take Utah. This is not the Cherokee coming back to take the Dakotas, or, I'm sorry, I'm getting people's tribes in the wrong state. This is not people who were indigenous people of the. Of the Americas claiming land on which their families lived. These are European Jewish people who are very much Jewish, authentically Jewish people. But they have absolutely no right to just go into a Palestinian's farm and just take it. But they are, and they've decided. And Bibi Netanyahu and I strongly believe that he failed either deliberately or on accident. A year's notice of what Hamas was planning to do. Let it happen, or at least took full advantage of it, the way that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney did to us after 911 took full advantage of it to do something they want to do anyway. He took full advantage of what hamas did, killing 1200 people, including 300 soldiers and hundreds of civilians. Took advantage of that and used it as an excuse to commit massive ethnic cleansing and a genocide, a whole ass genocide. And the stain on Joe Biden's reputation. The other big story of the year, by the way, was Hunter Biden. I'm obsessed with Hunter Biden. Okay, he came out, he came out swinging and I never heard Hunter Biden talk, but he is basically young Joe Biden. He sounds just like Joe Biden and he got that moxie. I'm like, maybe he should run for president. I like him. But Joe Biden would have been, I think, seen as a good president, especially a, as a one term president would have gone down in history as an exceptional one term president. But for Gaza, it's the stain on his legacy. It, I believe, is what caused Kamala Harris the presidency and the White House. It is an absolute stain on the Democratic Party. Every Democrat that keeps voting for this, that keeps allowing this, that looked the other way, they are as guilty as Trump. Sorry.
- [108:16]
Jason
Let's move on, girls.
- [108:17]
Joy Reid
Let's move on. The other big mess that Donald Trump promised to solve was Ukraine. Surprise, surprise. He hasn't solved it within 24 hours.
- [108:26]
Guest or Interviewee
And if I win before I get into the office, I will have that war settled 100% sure, before I even arrive at the Oval Office. Shortly after I win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled and we'll do it quickly or even arrive at the, the Oval Office. Shortly after I win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled at a settle with Ukraine and Russia. I will get them to settle that war very quickly, even before I become president.
- [108:54]
Joy Reid
Will you stop killing civilians, President Putin?
- [109:05]
Guest or Interviewee
How can the US Pressure and a lot of very brave people, a lot of people that dead right now. Now, unfortunately, because I've said.
- [109:12]
Joy Reid
And nobody's just, yeah, there's the end of that video is him saying, we're going to build a tunnel between Alaska and Russia. What do you think about that, Zelinsky? And he's like, I don't like it. Okay, so that's one of the other big stories of this year as well. Moving on to some of the other big stories as we begin to close out this hour. The deaths that we saw this year that were really shocking and really sad, obviously Rob Reiner and his lovely wife Michelle were killed allegedly and apparently by their own son. One of the Most horrific stories of the year. Equally horrific. Donald Trump's sick reaction. Just sick and sadistic reaction. He loved himself of Putin, but apparently he hates him. Hated himself from Rob Reiner and tried to blame the murder on Trump. Derangement syndrome. The only thing deranged Donald Trump is you. That was gross and disgusting. But the death of Rob Reiner was one of many sort of deaths. Very sad this year. Ozzy Osbourne also died this year. Let me pull up. I had my. I had my little list of all of the. The people who passed this year. This was a. This was a rough year for losing a lot of celebs. Let me find it.
- [110:23]
Jason
Malcolm. Jamal Warner.
- [110:25]
Joy Reid
Malcolm. Jamal Warner. Was that this year? Yeah. Was that this year? Yeah. That was a rough one as well. Hold on, I'm gonna pull. See, I had it. Wow, that was a big one, Malcolm. Joe Warner was actually shocking. He drowned while on vacation, so that happened as well. Robert Redford died this year. That was really sad. Diane Keaton, the great Diane Keaton with them cool glasses, died this year. Yep. Rob Reiner and his wife Ozzy. Sharon, he died this year. Gene Hackman, Val Kilmer. That was kind of shocking. Of course, the beautiful and wonderful d'. Angelo. Ugh. And this was not long. Sharon Stone died like six months before, but d' Angelo died this year as well. Do we have that picture of him? D2. I think we have the air. He goes, oh, he was so fine, so fine, so fine. She. He also died. David lynch died this year. Jane Goodall. And Jane Goodall, she left a video to be aired after her death, which was smoking hot. It was so amazing. She dissed the heck out of Trump and all of his people. The beautiful Brigitte Bardot. The, the. The. The. The. The sex kitten of the world. She was 91 years old. And I apologize. I didn't realize that she was still alive, but Brigitte Bardot just recently died. Anne Burrell. This one hurt a lot. The great Anne Burrell, the chef, good friend of our dear friend Melba, passed away this year at only the age of 55. That was super, super, super sad. Brian Wilson also died. So a lot of deaths this year. Oh, yeah. Hulk Hogan died, so Pope Francis also died. Francis died. Giorgio Armani also passed away. Jimmy Cliff. Jimmy Cliff died. And of course, Darth Vader himself. Dick Cheney passed away. Dick Cheney is gone for this world. He is. He is no longer among us. Ace Fraley from Kiss also died. Call it any. Also, oh, George Foreman. George Foreman just died. Wait a minute. Roberta Flack. Just died. Are you lying to me there, buzzfeed? I don't know. It was a rough year. It was a rough year. A lot of the people look, it's on the screen.
- [112:45]
Jason
The last survival of Tulsa.
- [112:46]
Joy Reid
Yeah, well, one of the last apparently. So Diane Ladd died. Wow. The in memoriam this year is going to be. Is going to be a lot. Yeah. And I did mention, of course, Charlie. Why is Charlie Kirk and him like a celebrity? He's not really a celebrity, but anyway, I guess he's a celebrity to some people. If you liked him, I guess he was a celebrity to you. Moving on. Another thing that happened this year, big story that didn't really get a lot of coverage. Measles. Measles is back. Measles made a huge comeback this year. So there'll be more deaths to talk about in 2026. Thanks to RFK Jr and the Make America Maha. Make America healthy again instead of he's making America sicker. Lots of measles spreading throughout the country. Another big story this year. Fafo. Here's D3. Oh yes, Angie Stone is going because they were heartbroken.
- [113:36]
Guest or Interviewee
They don't want to go anywhere. This is their home.
- [113:39]
The Tyson plant gave us notice of a layoff procedure warrant notice over a week ago. They'll be closing their facility as of January 20, impacting 3,200 individuals for the community of Lexington. The general mood of the individuals coming in for our services, of course, is anxiety. What do I do next? When will I have a job? When, where do I go and what do I do from here? Tyson workers make up about 3,200 of the population of 11,000 of Lexington. And so they have a great impact. The culture, schools and everything that a.
- [114:11]
Community is comprised of, we just hard working people. What we do is go to work, come to church.
- [114:17]
That's all we do here.
- [114:19]
These plants have been underutilized and we have a shortage of cattle out there in the US and because of that, very vulnerable that somebody might shut down. We have a very strong community in Lexington that really as close knit and very accepting of the packing industry as well as all industries.
- [114:41]
Joy Reid
Yep, a lot of people effed around and found out. I will note that the county that contains that lovely town of Lexington voted about 70, 30 for Trump. Unfortunately, a lot of people got exactly what they voted for and it was not good. And we did mention Angie Stone is also one of the people who passed it. Sad thing about the Angie Stone story is that she and d' Angelo died like what, like six months Apart, Something like that. Very sad. And they have a son together who is now without any parents at all. That was very, very sad. She died in a tragic car accident. He died an unnamed illness. Very, very sad. But yeah, fo this was the year of fafo. Lots of people who voted for Trump finding out the tariffs aren't helping them, that they are broke and that they are not really living their best life. It is very sad to see people unemployed. A lot of people who voted for Trump also among those seeing their family members deported and seeing their businesses close. He promised he was going to make America the hottest country in the world. Instead, it's just hot like hell. And also climate change. Also hot. Let's do a couple more. We're going a little bit over time. One of the other things that happened this year, one of the big stories toward the end of the year, more MAGA hip hoppers.
- [115:54]
Guest or Interviewee
You have amazing role models like our.
- [116:02]
Joy Reid
Handsome, dashing president. And you have amazing. I will note that Nicki Minaj might not be the best chooser of role models given that her husband is a registered sex offender and her brother is doing 25 plus years for sexual assault of a child. So the pedophilia connection, let's just say, is in the house. She also came to this country at about five years old as an undocumented immigrant from Trinidad and who despite that, and who used to be a critic of Donald Trump's immigration policies during his first term, suddenly thinks that Donald Trump is the best role model for young American men.
- [117:03]
Jason
She also handsome also, don't forget he's.
- [117:05]
Joy Reid
Handsome and handsome and dashing. She also had high praise for JD Vance, but unfortunately called him an assassin. She was sitting there with Erica Kirk, who wasn't sad about it, weirdly enough. You know, everybody grieves differently. It didn't even seem offended. I will note that as someone who is an immigrant, formerly undocumented, who I'm not sure is not still a citizen of Trinidad, though she's not had a lot to say about one of the other big stories of the year, the murder at sea of fishermen, including Trinidadian fishermen. Jen had a lot to say about that. She hasn't had a lot to say about the killing of her own people in the Caribbean. She hasn't a lot to say about really the treatment of any immigrants at all in this term. She just had a lot to say about how much she loves Trump. She went to the United nations and did this weird testimony in favor and thanked Donald Trump for attacking Nigeria, where we are apparently also bombing to save Christians. As if Trump cares about Christians. She's very Trumpy all of a sudden. It's probably quite coincidental with the fact that she might need a reprieve from deportation and she might want pardons for her male family members. You never know. It could be for the pardon. Just leaving it out there. Our final top story of the year. It's just a picture because unfortunately, due to copyright, we can't actually play you a clip. The emergence of south park as the most important show to watch. Every week. Every week, they are skewering the regime, skewering them. They've made them all into hilarious characters. The little tattoo character is, of course, J.D. vance. Donald Trump is. Hey, guy. It's okay, guys. It's really hilarious. This year, this season of south park has been the best ever. It actually is not just our tops or isn't our top store of the year. It's the last store we're going to talk about of the year. It's actually giving us our moment of joy. Thank you all for tuning in. We appreciate each and every one of you. Hope you had a wonderful. Even though crazy 2025, hopefully 2026 will be calmer and more reasonable. But don't count on it, because as long as these weirdos are still in charge, we know it's still going to be wild and cuckoo. So everybody, please have a safe and happy new Year. Wherever you're partying on New Year's Eve, make sure that you are safe and that you get yourself a ride home. Don't be driving drunk and make sure that you look out for a friend. Look out for your family, look out for your loved ones. And let us also thank our sponsors. We appreciate all of our sponsors this year who have been riding with us throughout. Thank you very much tonight. It is quintessential and the Freedom From Religion foundation, please patronize our wonderful sponsors. If you want to do some shopping, you can go to shop.joyread.com or shop joann reid.com and you can buy your wonderful merch. And we appreciate everyone who has supported the shop. We've appreciate everyone who has supported the show. We appreciate each and every one of our subscribers. More to come in 2026. Thanks for watching, everybody. Happy New Year. Thank you. Be safe and happy. Don't forget, I'm gonna be popping up on Don Lemon's live show on Wednesday. So that's where you're gonna see me. We're not gonna have a show until Friday. That's when you'll see us again on the show. In the meantime, have a wonderful new year. Happy New Year. We love y' all and good night. Okay.
- [120:31]
Guest or Interviewee
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