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Unidentified Speaker 1
Okay.
Joy Reid
As I sip my tea. Good evening, everyone. Happy Friday. Happy actual Friday. Because, you know, I call Thursday Friday Junior, but happy actual Friday, everyone, and welcome to the Joy Reid show. Being up to the chats. The chats. Y' all get there so early. It's so adorable. I love the way you guys get there so early and you guys are already having your own conversation. So big up to everybody that are in the chats on YouTube. Also, our substackies, whether you're listening on the Twitch. Twitchies, we appreciate all of y'. All. Hello, Twitchies. You guys are up to, like, almost 700 strong. You guys are growing, like. What was the thing when you pour water on them, Jason? It was the show movie where you pour water on. Then they multiply.
Jason
Gizmo.
Joy Reid
What they call gizmo.
Jason
No, no, no.
Joy Reid
Not.
Jason
That's not them. Oh, my gosh. This is Brain Fart.
Joy Reid
Not the Tribbles, but what are the ones where you don't. Don't feed them and don't pour water on them.
Jason
Gizmo was our main one.
Joy Reid
Gremlins. Gremlins, Harry. And the DMV said, oh, my God. Gremlins. Yes, Gremlins is what they're called. They're like. It's like everybody. They just multiply. We love the Twitchies. The Twitchies are like, you just pour one little drop of water, and there's like 40 of them. I love it. Also, if you're on LinkedIn. Hello, LinkedIn friends. We appreciate y'. All. Everybody where you're listening, we're. If you're listening on an audio platform, we love you, too. We just don't see you. It's just a little bit different. We don't see your little avatars and things, but we appreciate all of our readers. Make sure that you hit like and subscribe. Don't wait. Do it now. Hit like and subscribe. Also, make sure you hit the little notification thingy, Bob. That's the cute little bell. When you hit the bell, make sure you hit all. Because otherwise the YouTube algorithm will not remember to serve you our live feeds. You will not know when we're live. If you want to absolutely be sure you know when we're live. That's what you should also do. If you're not a subscriber yet on substack, please consider supporting the program by supporting the substack, whether you do the free or the premium. For the premium, you get the cute little conversations. I'm going to consolidate a bunch of them and send them out in a thread so people can see what they're missing. Because we're having these amazing conversations. We just did one with our friend Fernande Amandi and Marlon Hill, and we talked Florida, like, in depth. We did like a whole hour on the hot, smoking, disastrous mess that is Florida. If you want to see that, just go to Joanne Reid.com, which is the substack, and just hit a little subscribe. You can cancel anytime. But if you want to do that and throw a little eight bucks in the till every month, it's helpful to support our independent media organization. And also you get to be in the chat. There's a real fun chat over there. They have their own little world. They do their own little group chat. And so you can do that as well. So that is the business for the day. Hello, Jason.
Jason
No, I was just saying there are a lot of people. There's one gentleman there. Wayne. Was that Wayne Hickens?
Joy Reid
Yes.
Jason
D East from Sydney, Australia. Not later. That's in Australia.
Joy Reid
All right. We love an Aussie.
Jason
No, Joy. That's English. British.
Joy Reid
No. What are the. Good day. Good day, mate.
Jason
They don't say cheerio.
Joy Reid
They say, good day, mate. Good day, mate. Good day, mate. I used to have a. I used to have a. An stage manager who. Oh, no, one of our directors at work was from Australia. I love Australia. It's a great. It's a great play. The people there are just fun. They say oi when they start talking. Okay. That's also people saying, crikey, the threat.
Jason
So British, whatever.
Joy Reid
We love you. If you're from Australia, if you're from England, if you're from Canada. We love Canada, people. Wherever you're from, we know we have a little South Africa contingent. So big up to our South African, massive. Our Ghana, massive. Wherever you're from, if you're in the good old usa, I'm so sorry. I. I'm so sorry about your country. I know it's a mess. Let's note some of. What. Is that what I was going to say?
Jason
Let's not forget about a QR code for our.
Joy Reid
Let's. Yes, please do hit that little QR code and sign up for Runme my slushmoney dot com. Because if they're giving out reparations, I mean, hello, we all need to get it. First of all, all of the black folks, you need reparations. Slavery, hello. If you're an indigenous person. I mean, clearly you need reparations if you're Aapi. Look, the Chinese built the freaking railroads. Did you get Paid for it. Did your ancestors get paid for it? No. If you are from Vietnam or Hmong, they're going to turn you back. All y' all helped out during the Vietnam War. Now they're trying to shoot Chivia and send you back. You know where your ancestors came from. They're going after everybody. If you're Irish, they're after you, too. There's like an Irish guy that's sitting in detention for like six months. So run us our reparations. We want our reparations, especially the slave reparations. Get those out first. So runmemy reparations.com if you sign up for RunMe my slush money.com when you sign up for Run run to me my slush money dot com. There's a thing in there, in all seriousness, where you can send a letter to your senator or your members of Congress or both, preferably demanding that they give full transparency on this stupid slush fund, the 1776 slush fund, which is designed for Trump to pay off his disgusting insurrectionist, violent goons. And we're saying this is our money. We want transparency from our members of Congress. That's really the purpose of runmemyflushmoney.com it's to demand transparency. So it gives you a letter which allows you to politely but firmly demand accountability from your members of Congress. That is the purpose of it. So if you sign up, that is how you do it. And also we can keep you updated on the process to apply. If they decide they're going to give the money out and they, and you know, John Roberts lets it, lets it live, then we're all going to apply. So we're going to make sure that you know that. Let me big up one of our sponsors. This wonderful show is brought to you by Wild Alaskan Company. Now, y', all, if y' all know me, if you follow me on all the things, you know that I've largely given up on eating meat. Hey, Jackie. Except fish start to the little fishies. But they do make up a good portion of my diet these days, be it with pasta, rice or just a tasty salad. Which is why I'm happy to be partnered with Wild Alaskan Company. Now, Wild Alaskan Company offers the best way to get wild caught. High quality seafood delivered right to your door on your schedule. Each Wild Alaskan box comes with individually portioned filets, vacuum sealed, easy to prep and great for any meal, no matter how quick or elevated. All fish is quick frozen fresh from the Alaskan waters, which are still Clean Trump hasn't killed them off yet, which helps lock in the freshness, texture, the flavor and all the wonderful key nutrients like omega 3s. It's fish you can trust with zero GMLs, no GMOs. This is important. No antibiotics and no other additives. Every single order supports sustainable harvesting practices. An Alaskan fisherman whose history is tied to the region and practice. The other night, our wonderful Winnie, she prepared by pan searing. Okay. She pan seared some of their Pacific cod with roasted potatoes and asparagus. Baby. It was fabulous. Fabulous. It's wonderful to have a kidalt at
Bevy Smith
home who can cook.
Joy Reid
All right. Wild Alaskan is so confident that their fish is the best that they offer a 100% satisfaction and money back guarantee that you can try your first box risk free. So just go to wildalaskin.com joy for $35 off your first order of premium wild caught seafood. That is wildalaskin.com joy For 35 bucks off your first order. Thanks wild alaskan company for sponsoring this episode. All right, let's get to the headlines. I want you guys to take a look at this headline containing probably the single most embarrassing image ever of a U.S. treasury Secretary. Can we show this? Jason? The hel is that that is Scott Besant, the sycophant Trump fan that Donald Trump put in charge of the Treasury Department because he is an ever obedient beta, smiling as he proposes to ask Congress to break the law. Break the law by putting a non dead person on a new $250 bill. That is right. It is highly illegal. You should know. I'm not a lawyer, but I can tell you this because I definitely looked it up and did the research. It is highly illegal to put a living person on our currency on account of the fact that we are not North Korea or a monarchy. In fact, I mean the irony. Live with this irony. Sit with it for a moment because it's apparently lost on Scott and his boss that he wants to put our sundowning make a wish president on the money before he dies to commemorate. Let me just check here, check my notes here.
Bevy Smith
Right.
Joy Reid
To commemorate our separation from the King of England in 1776. So you want to do a king like thing to commemorate our separation from the actual king of England. Here he is trying to make it make sense. Bill for tax guidance. That so we have to prepare in advance. You can't draw something up the day before. Politically, do you think it's a good idea that when people are struggling to afford gas and groceries. Look, I think it has. I think that it's bifurcated that. Do you think we should have a 250th anniversary anniversary, the celebration? Well, that's happening anyway. No, but Caitlin, it's not happening anyway. It's happening because it's being funded by private citizens, by the federal government, by state governments, by municipal governments to celebrate our country. And I don't think that there's anything untoward about having the President of the United States that the person who was President of the United states on the 250th anniversary anniversary bill. Okay, mean eyes lady from CNN, you asked an excellent question. As people cannot afford groceries, number one, the idea that you're going to put out a $250 bill, who can. Who's going to get used? Jeff Bezos. Is that going to be what he puts in his pocket change when he tips, like the waiter, which he won't. I'm sure he doesn't tip. What are you talking about? At a time when people are economically struggling. The Grinch, as somebody called him, he does look a little bit like the Grinch decided that he thinks it's perfectly fine. Well, here's the problem. Even Republicans say that's stupid and they have to approve it. The Congress would have to pass a bill, meaning Republicans on the Hill would have to vote to change the law and overcome a filibuster of said law by winning over 10 Democrats. Well, nine, including John Fetterman, who would totally vote for it, you know, in exchange for like a bunch of cash crypto in Israel. I mean, he would totally vote for it. He's just completely like bought and sold. But all the rest of them will be like, oh, no. And even. Most Republicans are like, no, they're even. They're no. They would have to pass that Stubo also not going well, the Kennedy. Before we get to this. Oh, let's go to this. The slush fund. The slush fund has been blockade. Here's the headline. A federal judge has put a pause on the Trump 1776 slush fund to pay off his insurrectionist hoard and bribed armed MAGA into not overthrowing him. Please, I know you're super armed and mean. This as a federal court has been served three separate lawsuits on the case, including one by dozens of former judges, including Republican appointees who are alleging, and this is interesting, that the whole Trump $10 billion lawsuit in the first place might have itself been a ploy to try to create this slush fund. Meaning that Donald Trump sued himself, sued his own employees at the IRS in order to settle with himself to create the slush fund for a fraction of the $10 billion original asking price. You think, you think it was a scheme, guys? I agree. I think it is. And that is in addition to of course, the officers by Our Friends Hero January 6, Officers Harry Dunn and Danny Hodges, plus a third one, I think it's by crew, the Citizen for Responsibility and ethics in Washington. So there are a bunch of these lawsuits that are taking place now, all of which are completely legit because my God, what are we saying here? We're just going to start handing out money at a time again when people are economically struggling. You're just going to give Insurrectionist cash, maybe a million dollars a piece? Okay, so that's not going well. Another thing, this is some breaking new news. Donald Trump has now lost his bid to keep his name, which it shouldn't be, on the Kennedy Center. The New York Times reporting that a judge ordered the Kennedy center to remove Trump's name, ruling that it had been added unlawfully. So despite John Roberts best attempts to subordinate the judiciary to Donald Trump, the judiciary is still working on the other side, Louisiana. More breaking news also from the New York Times. Louisiana has erased a majority black congressional district, becoming the second state to do so. After the Supreme Court voted in Calais, Louisiana removed, and they've now removed the second seat. But on the other hand, on the one hand, the judiciary is still functioning. They said you cannot put your name on something that doesn't belong to you. The Kennedy center is in commemoration of John F. Kennedy. It's a public private partnership. Only Congress can take the name off. You cannot leave your name on it. Take your stupid name off of the Kennedy Center. It's not the Kennedy Trump center. It's just the Kennedy Center. And I hope that the media will take note of this and start calling it the Kennedy center because too many people in mainstream media are taking the knee, bending knee and saying things like Gulf of America and Kennedy, Trump, it's not. Or the Department of War, all bullshit. None of that is legal. Congress is still in charge of these things. This says Donald Trump is literally, literally trying really, really hard to be America's Palpatine. Look at all the things. This is just something, this isn't even a, this is a non delimited list of the things that Donald Trump has slapped his stupid name on. He's trying to build an ark, somewhat similar to the ark that Hitler wanted to build in Germany that would dwarf. You see that in comparison? Can you see it There, in the upper left hand corner of your screen, in comparison to the size of the White House and the Lincoln and the, and the, the obelisk that's in dc it dwarfs all of it. It's so big. I was listening to a radio show this morning which was describing it as so enormous, this arc Trump wants to build without any authorization from Congress that it would dwarf seeing everything. You could barely see Arlington National Cemetery if that arc goes up where Donald Trump is trying to put it, which is currently open field, as he's already also trying to paint the reflecting pool base a tacky blue, even though it's literally gray on purpose so that it can reflect the Washington Monument. It's a reflecting pool, not a swimming pool, you techie beast. Also building a giant UFC cage on the front lawn of the busted White House. Look at this hideousness. At the top of your screen is the beautiful White House complex. It's a museum. It's America's property. Look how beautiful it was before Donald Trump turned it into a cheap Marriott. No offense to Marriott, but come on. He's destroyed the edifice of our White House. Look at it before on the top and after, he's put a big concrete pavilion there where he's going to have UFC fights, where apparently Donald Trump's, you know, at this, his fugazi UFC fight, he's planning to commemorate his own birthday. His buddies can pay $1.5 million a piece for prime seats. Never forget, by the way, that Trump is a major investor, financial investor in the ufc. And Dana White, the beater who runs ufc, is a big Trump donor. In return, it's all exchanging money among themselves. And so to celebrate himself. Sorry, I mean, America, Donald Trump is also planning to throw a June fun fair, like a big Fun Fair from January 25 through July 10 called Freedom 250 in front of the destroyed Capitol, featuring the only kinds of black people that he cares to have around. Performers. You know, you have to sing and dance or run on the field or Trump to not try to jail or deport you. And also everyone who had a one hit in the 1980s and early 90s, like, he's like, who are all the one hit wonders from the late 80s, early 90s. Here they are. So here are the some people. And also a totally different lineup of the Commodores. Like literally the Commodores, but no Lionel Richie. But the problem is people keep dropping out. Okay, let's leave this on the screen for a moment. These are just some of the artists who were initially on the brochure that they literally sent out who have now dropped out Morris Day of Morris Day in the time because Morris Day would never. He better not. He knew better. He said he will not be performing, contrary to him being on the advertisement. And he posted on his official Facebook account, it's a no for me. So he said, nope, he will not be there. Morris Day will not be doing Jungle Love for Donald Trump. Young MC issued a statement on Facebook saying in all caps, they all do this on Facebook because, you know, they're Gen Xers. So they're still on the Facebook. I have informed my agents that I will not be performing at the Freedom250 event in all caps. And then he added, the artists were never told about any political involvement with the event. And despite the claims by the organizers that the event is nonpartisan, Spin magazine describes it as Trump backed I hope to perform in D.C. in the near future at an event that is not so politically charged. A spokesman for the Commodores, again, including just one original Commodore and the three who are not Lionel Richie, said on social media yesterday that the group will not be performing at the Great American State Fair, which is what the event is called. And here's their quote. Our music has always been our voice and we choose not to publicly affiliate with any single political party. Rocker Brett Michaels of Poison, who in the CBS story, they were still saying he was going to perform. He issued a like, I can't even reprint it, it's so long. A lengthy, lengthy, lengthy statement on his social media explaining why he would not be there. I'll boil it down too political. So he's like, no, but here's who's still in here. They are. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Vanilla Ice, of course. I mean, he has just the one hit. He's just going to do the hit that he actually nicked from the Divine Nine. He literally stole Ice Ice Baby from a black fraternity and just remixed it as his own thing. Got sued for it. So he'll do the one song, which I guess is a tribute to Ice. Now I have no idea what's happening. Flo Rida, once again, Florida embarrassing itself before the world. Flo Rida. I hope Apple Bottom Jeans and boots with the spurs doesn't offend the fake Christians. When he sings Apple Bottom Jeans, he's going to be there. And of course, you know Millie, Millie Vanilli. Oh, I forgot. Cnc Munic Factory gonna make you sweat, baby. We didn't even list them because I literally forgot about them. Literally. CNC Music Factory. And he was, like, unhinged. Yeah, absolutely. Ray Ray is saying he was unhinged. Like, absolutely unhinged. Saying, F y', all, if you don't like it, I'm a go. Just because they're telling me not to go. You can't cancel CNC Music Factory. You're already canceled. You haven't had a hit in 30 years. Thank you, CNC Music Factory. You haven't had a hit in 30 years. You're gonna just do the one song. They're gonna make you sweat. You're gonna. You're gonna make them sweat. See, it's Music Factory. And of course, Milli Vanilli, but not Millie and Vanilli. Fab Morvon. Unfortunately, the other half of the duo, I mean, I know Fab is the one who's still. Who's still alive. The one half of the lip sync duo, Rob Pilatus, took his own life in 1998. So God bless his spirit, he is not there anymore. But Fab, the other half of the lip syncing duo, is still with us. But here's the problem. Since neither of them actually sang or actually rapped, like, who's going to make the noises that come out of their mouths? Jodi Rocco, who's one of the women recruited to be the actual voices behind the lip sync dance duo who won a Grammy and then had to be, like, shamed for not actually singing this. This young woman, Ms. Rocco, whose sister is also in the group, she says they were never asked to perform. And here's her quote, Jody Rocco's quote. She says, my sister and I were shocked to see our name, Milli Vanilli, as one of the performers. So I guess just Millie. Not Vanilli. No, no Vanilli. Just Millie. Here's an idea for Trump. What about here? Let's do this. Jason. Rick Astley. This is some of the funny responses from social media. I love social media for this. Their initial response was, rick Astley is pulled out of the concert because he gave up. He could also just have Marco Rubio do it.
Bevy Smith
All right?
Joy Reid
You know, he can do all of it. He can do anything. He can stop, collaborate, and listen. He could do all the UFC fighting, or he could just be Vanilli. He could do it all. I showed my mom an updated pic of the White House, the UFC fight. I feel horrible. I gave my mom today a literal. It gave my mom a literal anxiety attack, says Bonita. No, you don't. You shouldn't feel like an idiot. You just have to show it's it's what America is doing right now. It's a shame. Joining me now, I do believe is a new and I'm very excited, excited addition to the family, Scott McFarlane, anchor of Scott McFarland Reports and chief Washington correspondent for Midas Touch Network. He is who I was listening to yesterday morning as he was recounting all the news that's fit to print and all the horror that's going on right now. Scott, welcome to the show.
Bevy Smith
Joy.
Scott McFarland
If they took the politics out of it, I would be in the freaking front row for Young mc, for cnc Music Factory and for whatever has become of Milli Vanilli and, and Morris Day, a protege of Prince who. Yeah, this is, this is, this is, this is. I hate that Trump's stealing this joy, too, because this could have been a good thing. I like the campy, fun stuff of 1989.
Joy Reid
He's stealing the 80s, Scott. Like what he's doing is because he's so his best era was the 80s. It's when he all had more of his hair. I think he was on Wife number One and, you know, he was failing at business. But he was still really popular across the board. Like, you know, people liked him that weren't me that didn't grow up in New York or didn't live in New York and know that he was trying to kill the Central Park Five. They liked him and so he was likable. And yeah, I think he misses that era. And he keeps on like YMCA is his favorite song. Like, he loves the late 70s, early 80s, 80s era when he was best friends with Jeffrey Epstein. And he's ruining it, though. It's weird.
Scott McFarland
That's why there's, that's one of the reasons why there's such Trump fatigue. He steals the joy from otherwise innocuous, easy day in, day out things like, like, you know, the quarterback of the New York Giants shows up at a Trump rally. Now that's a political contagion. We're just, we're just trying to listen to bust a Move. And there are two Vanilla Ice songs. There's two, I listen to those, play that funky music. White boy which was lifted and stolen as ice, ice baby, all stolen. Just want to have a good time. And he just, he takes all the joy out of everything.
Joy Reid
He truly does. No, he really does. He's made America less fun. As a matter of fact, there was a study that showed that Americans are having less fun now than at any time since this particular poll was done. Like, America is losing its, its personal sense of fun. Americans are not enjoying life. Even like when Republicans win, they just get angrier and anger and angrier. Like the more they win, the more they scream and they're more, they're pissed off. No one's having fun.
Scott McFarland
His, his incivility, his mean spiritedness, his name calling. It's a contagion. It brings out the worst in people and it takes people's fun, it takes people's joy. You know, you're driving down the street and somebody's flipping you off because of the bumper sticker you have on your car. You're your teacher and your parents are arguing over how to teach social studies. Now. Just, it's a contagion that metastasizes joy and it takes away people's happiness.
Joy Reid
No, you're absolutely right. And as a, as somebody who, you know, even though I lived in Denver, my NFC team was always the Giants. As soon as I heard that Jackson character, I was like, yeah, well, I hate the Giants now. I'm not a fan. It literally, it even is with me. I'm like, I can't. If you're a maga, I can't. But let's talk about the other thing because it's not just the joylessness, it's the corruption. So, so I want to talk about Scott Besson, but before I ask you, how the Hill, because you're such a great reporter reporting how people are responding to all of this madness. I know they're out this week, but let me play you this because this I thought was very interesting. This is a reporter asking Scott Bessant about a very interesting employee of his. Take a listen. Jason. A9, thank you for taking my question. There was a report this morning that Justice Alito's son is working in your department. Can you confirm that that's the case?
Scott McFarland
And if so, do you believe that
Joy Reid
that means that he should be, that the justice should recuse himself from cases that involve your department? I am sure that Mr. Alito follows all legal and ethical guidelines. And I can assure you that at treasury, we follow all the legal and ethical guidelines. No one believes that assurance. But doesn't that mean that if a case For Donald Trump's 1.776 1776 slush fund goes to the Supreme Court, Alita won't recuse himself and he would be able to vote for money that could potentially go to his wife or Clarence Thomas wife?
Scott McFarland
I think that's right. I don't think people had a whole lot of faith in him being the firewall against that $1.7 billion in the first place. But I think that's right. The district court judges are going to get first crack at this thing. And the early read, Joy, is that this ain't going well for the slush fund. Every challenge that's been mustered in, only a few in the embryonic stages. And the courts have responded favorably to the plaintiffs. Saw it twice, just in a one afternoon on Friday in Virginia. You've got a judge who says, hold off. No giving anybody money out of this fund until I get to a look at this thing first. There's a hearing June 12. She'll take a look at this thing between now and then. Then Florida. Really interesting. In Florida, Joy, you got 35 retired former federal judges asking the court to investigate what happened with that Trump lawsuit against the IRS and how this slush fund was born. It really is provocative to have 35 retired federal judges file any court filing on anything. It was well received. The court down there said, yeah, I want to hear arguments about this. I want to reopen this matter and look into it. This thing is clearly cancerous, legally and politically.
Joy Reid
And those 35 judges, we're not talking about, like Obama judges and Clinton judges, like some of the most conservative judges that we've ever had are on that list of 35, right?
Lawrence Winterman
Yeah.
Scott McFarland
Judge Ludig, of course, famously was known as a conservative jurist is one of them. There are George W. Bush appointees. There's appointees from the 90s, the 2000s. It's a mix. I mean, they're smart. They're wicked smart people. They have a group that they've formed that has judges appointed by presidents of both parties to avoid the optics issue of this being somehow partisan. It's not. They think the court was deceived by Trump, and they say as much. They alleged there's a possible fraud and collusion executed by the President of the United States against the court system. It's hard to find a more fiery and striking court filing than what those 35 judges submitted to the court yesterday. And they've gotten the court's attention.
Joy Reid
And not only that, but politically, it's not as if the usual sort of sycophant behavior is kicking in for Republicans on the Hill. Like, I mean, I think you might have been. You reported there was exactly one member of Congress who's spoken positively about. I think Ted Cruz said some positive things about it on his, on his podcast. But it's not as if Republicans are rushing to get this through because they know this is poison for them.
Scott McFarland
It is just one declarative statement of support from any member of Congress. Ted Cruz was somewhat mushy. Ralph Norman, the Republican from South Carolina, said he supports it. And in defending it, Joy, he unspooled some batshit crazy conspiracy theory stuff. He said that it was a setup, it was staged. I mean, this type of stuff that's in the dark corners of the Internet usually. But in Trump 2.0 has come out on Main street, just detached from reality. And reporters were pushing back, trying to challenge him, but he just stuck to his guns. That's the guy that's in the camp of the slush fund. What was most telling to me is what happened midweek when it wasn't one of those moderate purple district Republicans. It was Nebraska's Mike Flood. Not believed to be in any danger of losing his election. He said in front of the cameras, in front of constituents at a town hall, he doesn't want a penny of that money going to any, in his words, insurrectionists. And you know this as well as I do, that's a term Republicans don't use. They don't call it an insurrection. Mike Flood did. That's how bad this thing is politically. Nobody likes it.
Joy Reid
And if it goes to the Supreme Court, that quote would obviously come before the court, where again, two members are arguably, maybe at least insurrectionist. Curious. It's just the whole thing is so corrupt that I think that this is what's causing people to lose so much faith, is that even though Republican lawmakers don't like it, your average American does not like it. This is our tax dollars that would go to people who beat up Capitol Police on camera and livestream themselves doing it, and no one seems to like it. And yet I personally have no faith that it won't happen because I just. I have this horrible feeling that it'll get in front of John Roberts and suddenly they'll be cutting checks.
Scott McFarland
I like the comment. I just saw that this is a smash and grab robbery. It really is.
Joy Reid
Yes.
Scott McFarland
It's the governmental executive branch version of stealing from taxpayers and giving it to the president's violent supporters. There's no ambiguity here. That's what this is. It's not a political statement. It's a statement of the facts. Here's what I find most.
Joy Reid
I don't know.
Scott McFarland
Curious politically. Just politically. Joy. In 2025, Trump, newly empowered, new to office, was fighting all these controversial fights on the issues of immigration and the border and ICE and funding ICE and detention centers and warehouses. Obviously, people have some concerns about those things. But at least that was political ground he wanted to be standing on. He wanted to fight on issues of the border. He thought it was advantageous. These fights over slush funds, ballrooms, the Kennedy Center, a monumental arch and a freaking reflecting pool. That's not good political ground to be fighting on because it shows a myopia joy about the moment we're in. We're in a moment where people can't afford a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk the way they did last year. You think they want anybody of their money going towards a ballroom or a blue pool next to the Lincoln Memorial? This is stupid politically, which is why I'm so surprised he's so dug in on it.
Joy Reid
Well, and the thing is. And it's all he cares about, right? That and prosecuting this war in Iran that is destroying even him among his base. He doesn't seem to care. He's very focused on building monuments to himself in passing it off as being about America's 250th birthday, putting himself on a $250 bill, minting a coin for himself, building this enormous, just horrific looking arch that would make it hard to see Arlington National Cemetery from the road. It's all about monumentalizing himself, which is why I've started to call him a make a wish president. It's as if he's trying to, to kind of write his obituary on the streets of Washington.
Scott McFarland
Make a wish is a good way of characterizing it. I think it's a fair way of characterizing it. The one that's most preposterous, the one that's most bonkers, is any political capital being exacted for this $250bill. It's not even possible. Congress would have to order the minting of a $250bill. There's a better chance of young MC being on US currency. MC Lite, MC Hammer.
Joy Reid
Listen.
Scott McFarland
That all these people, then Donald Trump getting on a Democratic votes to get on a piece of US currency. It's a waste of political capital for nothing.
Joy Reid
It's, it's, it's bizarre. The other thing Donald Trump is very focused on is revenge. And he's very focused on trying to reverse the history not only of January 6th, they're literally erasing at the DOJ the history of insurrectionists crimes, which is crazy. But now there's also the proactive attacks on anyone Donald Trump deems an enemy. E. Jean Carroll. Let's talk about that. You now have Todd Blanche, who was his former criminal attorney. And I did get to chance to see him at work during the penultimate day of his criminal trial. And Todd Blanche is now acting as if he's still essentially his personal attorney. And the doj, which he's the acting attorney general going after Eugene Carroll, trying to investigate who helped pay for her defense. This seems insane. She's already won a civil case that's already been adjudicated, appealed. She wins the appeals. Donald Trump hasn't paid her penny of the $83 million he owes her for defaming her. What is this about?
Scott McFarland
The reports are somewhat conflicting as to whether the Department of Justice is investigating Carol or some outside entities who they allege may have helped fund either Carol's book or some of her legal bills. That's not so much the point, though, because of course, it's, it's nonsense to be investigating Eugene Carol for a crime. But the process and the pain is the point. That's what people who've been subjected to weaponized prosecution say is you got to buy, you got to pay for a lawyer. You have the tarnish to your name. You have the heartache, the lost jobs that come with being the subject of a criminal investigation or the target of a criminal probe. The process is what they're trying to use here. They don't expect, I think, to convict James Comey for seashells by the seashore. They don't expect that Letitia James case was going to go anywhere. But making people go through the pain of it, that seems to be the purpose. And it's not inconsequential. You know, Lev Parnas said with criminal investigations, you lose even when you win. And so E. Jean Carroll is already immediately and automatically losing.
Joy Reid
Yeah. And by the way, that will note that Todd Blanche used to be Lev Parnas lawyer. So Lev knows him very well because when he was going through his case with the Justice Department, his attorney happened to have been Todd Blanche. And the thing about this case against Eugene Carroll, and I'm going to play this A11, we're going to play the whole thing, Jason. But going after Eugene, the problem for that is that Donald Trump is in the Epstein files a lot. He has about 23 sexual abuse or harassment accusers. And if you go after this woman yet again, having lost so many times, it just tease someone like me up to remind people that this is Donald Trump's attitude toward women. And for sexual abuse victims, here it is. A11 said I did to her. She fainted with great emotion. She actually indicated that she loved it. Okay. She loved it until commercial break. In fact, I Think she said it was sexy, didn't she? It was very sexy to be raped. Didn't you say that? So, sir, I just want to confirm it's your testimony that Eugene Carroll said that she loved being sexually assaulted by you. Well, based on her interest interview with Anderson Cooper, I believe that's what took place. We can, we can define that. Okay. We can leave it there. Sure. You. Yeah. I mean, and it's just a reminder of who he is. And this is not a place he wants to be when the Epstein files have not been fully adjudicated.
Scott McFarland
It's such a short sighted way of approaching things. That's Trump's M.O. he's always been, you know, trying to win the next five minutes versus the next five months of battles. He's not on the ballot, but he really does need Republicans to preserve the Senate and the House if he wants to do anything monumental in the rest of his time. And there are an awful lot of endangered Republicans running who need the support of women, the women who switched over to support Trump in 2024 and 2016. And how are they going to fight any of this? Inviting the deliberate, if not negligent mishandling of the Epstein files? Criminally investigating a woman who is adjudicated to be righteous in a civil suit against Trump? I don't know where this goes, but it seems stupid by design. And that, to me is what's going to cripple Republicans. They can't gerrymander their way out of this type of wave with this stuff happening at all.
Joy Reid
And Pam Bondi testifying, do you have any read on that or any reporting about it? Because she was not put under oath, unlike the Clintons, which makes no sense. She seems to have thrown Todd Blanche under the bus for the most part.
Scott McFarland
I would bet $5,000 and five concert tickets to Milli Vanilli that she's going to be back there in January. This satisfied nobody. First of all, the Republicans didn't show. And they scheduled it for a date where Republicans would have an excuse not to show. They saw this as a no win situation, trying to grill Pam Bondi or grill the Trump administration. Democrats in the room were pissed off. There was no video recording. Pissed off. She wasn't under oath. Pissed off this happened behind closed doors. They think she ducked all their questions or used Todd Blanche as a human shield. When they get the gavels back in January, this is a priority because they say they're going to do it early,
Joy Reid
if not often, before I let you go. It's been such a Pleasure finally getting to talk to you. I just used to enjoy your work from afar when you were working for corporate media, but. But a rival corporate media entity from mine. What is it like being independent? And do you have any thoughts on what has happened to CBS News?
Scott McFarland
It's incredibly liberating. And mind you, some of this, I'm just stealing your path. I'm watching how you did this. I'm like, I like how Joy's doing this. Let me try to do it the way she did. So pardon me for appropriating a lot of your tools and techniques.
Joy Reid
Feel free.
Scott McFarland
Yeah. Mentored me back in our corporate days together on cable. And so thank you for doing this again. What's happening at 60 Minutes feels like an arson fire media version because you're deliberately destroying something that's so valuable and I don't know what becomes of it next. Maybe it gets better. It's hard for me to imagine 60 Minutes getting better. It was always appointment TV for me. Maybe it does. But you're, you're, you're burning something. I hope you can rebuild in a way that makes it better. Or else it's just an arts and fire. But here's what I know. I know this from experience over the last few months. Independent media is not the future. It is the present. And I'm shocked, Joy. I'm shocked by how much more credibility I have with many sources and with people who watch. More so than when I used to be affixed to corporate media. No matter who the owner is, no matter which the company it is. It's really striking how cynical people are. Rightfully so. Perhaps of corporate owned news.
Joy Reid
I have found the exact same thing, Scott, that people say. I'm so glad that I feel like I can hear everything you're saying without the filter of corporate media. They believe more even though they're like, we trusted you before, but we always wondered if there was something you had to hold back because of them. And it's sad that that's where our media is. I was a CBS baby growing up, watched it. That was what we watched in our households. And 60 Minutes is one of my favorite shows ever. It's so good and I'm so sad to see it in the hands of people who clearly don't care about it and don't want it to be better. I think they just wanted to serve prom. Yeah.
Scott McFarland
One thing I wanted to know before I give you your show back, but please be aware you have welcomed on an Encyclopedia of Eighties and Nineties R&B. So when you want to have that broader conversation on a different. Call me back.
Joy Reid
It's a date we're going to come on and we're just going to talk 80s and 90s music because it really was a golden era for music and we're just.
Scott McFarland
Music was right. Yeah, thanks for having me.
Joy Reid
Music was right. Scott McFarland, everybody. Please follow him on YouTube at Scott McFarland News. You must do it. I promise you. This is one of my favorite listens. He's great on substack. He's great on YouTube. He's just a brilliant journalist. Thank you. My friend Scott McFarland. That is one of the ones I have. I do. I've been a huge fan of his for many, many, many years. We've gotten a chance to talk, but never gotten a chance to have him on the show. So I'm very excited about that. All right. So last week, Pope Leo the 14th, my favorite pope, officially made history, offering an official apology for slavery. But he also went in on a subject that's not necessarily religious. The dangers of AI. Official intelligence needs to be disarmed. The word is strong, I know, but deliberately chosen because this moment needs words capable of attracting attention, awakening consciences and indicating paths forward for humanity. The image of walls does not legitimize closures or divisions. Let's not fear artificial intelligence, but constantly keep the question of the human in play. We cannot be careless with our most powerful technical instruments. The Pope's address came as he published a 245 paragraph insisted encyclical called Magnifica Humanitas, which is Latin for magnificent humanity. And a. An encyclical is basically an official papal document calling for autonomous weapons, AI based autonomous weapons to be permanently banned. He compared Silicon Valley's global ambitions to the Tower of Babel and called the exploitation behind AI development a new form of slavery. And he was backed up in what he said by the co founder of one of the most advanced companies, the behind the AI boom, namely anthropic.
Christopher Ola
I wish to name three questions where I think the Church's voice is especially needed. The first is our duty to the global core. There is a real possibility that AI will displace human labor at a very large scale. If that happens, supporting those displaced will be a moral imperative of historic proportions. This task will be difficult enough, but I worry most dialogue misses an even harder challenge. AI development is concentrated in a handful of wealthy nations. How will we ensure that the gains of AI are shared globally? We do not have a mechanism for this. It is an unsolved problem. And it is the kind of problem the Church has historically refused to let the world ignore. The second is the need for moral imagination and ambition regarding human flourishing. If AI models are going to be widespread, what does it look like for humans, families and the world to flourish today? Parents are already worried about their children's minds, individuals about the future of their work. These are not questions a lab can answer, but they are questions traditions like yours have carried for millennia. And we need you to keep carrying them into this new moment in history. The third is the need for discernment on the nature of AI models. I am a scientist. I lead a research team that studies the internal structure of these models, what is actually happening inside them. And I will be honest, we keep finding things that are mysterious, even unsettling. We find structures that mirror results from human neuroscience. We find evidence of introspection. We find internal states that functionally mirror joy, satisfaction, fear, grief and unease. I don't know what that means, but I think it worries on warrants ongoing discernment. I'd like to close with a request. We need more of the world, religious communities, civil society, scholars, governments, and indeed all people of good will to do what His Holiness has done here. To take seriously, to look closely and to push events in a better direction. We need informed critics who will tell the labs when we are failing. We need moral voices that the incentives cannot bend. Today is just the beginning, the start of a long collaboration between those of us who are building this and those who can see what we from the inside cannot. Today is a powerful illustration of the form this global project of goodwill might take. Let it also be a decisive step towards a hopeful future for magnificent humanity.
Joy Reid
That was 33 year old Christopher Ola, the apparently atheist co founder of Anthropic, who was invited to personally present to the cardinals. Note that Anthropic was blacklisted by the Pentagon just back in February and labeled as a supply chain risk to national security after the company refused to allow the military to use their AI to to create the fully autonomous weapons that the Pope wants banned and for mass surveillance of U.S. citizens. That designation, by the way, is normally reserved for companies linked to foreign adversaries like Russia or China. But Anthropic got labeled as such simply for saying no to Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump. And AI is not just a subject of papal speeches and encyclicals and of Anthropic fears. It's also, it happens to be currently the entire US economy. You heard me right. If you take the AI build out that's been stealing water and poisoning the air and causing sound pollution all over the country. If you take that out, the US economy had zero growth last year. None. That is just one of many terrifying things that I read in a recent piece on Substack by a guy named Lawrence Winterman who warns that we are in something worse than a recession. And joining me now is our friend Chris Farley, author of who knows you by heart? A book the New York Times has called an era defining novel, as well as the aforementioned Lawrence Winterman, founder of Peptiding, COO of blueamp Media and an essayist and novelist on Substack. Thank you both for being here. I want to start with the threats of AI. Chris, I'm going to start with you on this first. What do you make of the Pope and the leader of anthropic warning that effectively humans are going to be displaced on a massive global level and that there's no plan for that.
Chris Farley
Well, thank you for having me. You know, one thing I think it's important for people to realize. I think there's a lot of trust people give in our business leaders figuring, okay, this is going to happen, it's inevitable, let's just see where things go. But, but it is the case that these very rich and powerful people don't necessarily know where all this is heading. They don't necessarily have a coherent plan for how to get to wherever we're going. One example of that is what happened with Sora OpenAI's video generation platform, which they launched with much fanfare in 2024. Oh, this is going to change Hollywood. And then shelved very recently because they decide was going to be profitable. It didn't make business sense and didn't actually really give their reasons, but it's gone. So they can spend a lot of money on things and then pull back suddenly and we never know what area they may do that to next. I think it's great for the, the Pope to weigh in on this because this isn't just a technological issue, this is a spiritual issue, it's an economic issue, it's a social issue. And we really need to talk about all the different facets of this problem and not just see it as, oh, this is only for business people to take care of.
Joy Reid
Yeah, I think, and I'm going to post the link to his encyclical and he called it Magnifica Humanities, I think for a reason, because he's trying to defend the importance of humanity versus machines and AI, which I'm not so sure that these AI CEOs agree with. Let me go to you, Mr. Winterman. I read your piece yesterday. First of all, it's beautifully written. It's written with a gorgeous prose and I love a good writer. As a former editor, I enjoyed reading it. And also I was terrified. I was actually horrified by what you said because you agreed with part of what Chris just said about the AI people really not having a plan for this post human world they're they're producing. But you also wrote, you quoted that. I can assure you, you quoted Andrew was Sorkin from cnbc. I can assure you, unfortunately, I wish I wasn't saying this. We will have the crash, but you said that you take AI out, there's no economy and therefore we're going to have a crash. Please explain more.
Lawrence Winterman
Yeah, absolutely. So as I was researching this article and you know, let me be clear, I'm just a guy, right? Like I'm a Gen X dude who is kind of wondering why his tech job of 25 years mysteriously went away two years. And as I have dug deeper into AI, I have begun to realize it's because the models that they are building now in these AI frontier labs, the big labs that are doing the most advanced work on AI, those jobs are knowledge worker jobs. Basically. The models are essentially mirrors of American tech knowledge workers. And so as I've been digging in and learning more, I've become simultaneously more excited about AI. I've been using AI to do some incredible things with a website I'm building and more and more terrified that nobody has a plan. And I think Christopher's point is really well taken, that these tech oligarchs, they just know that they want to be first. They know that they want the biggest and best model that, you know, the kind of holy grail they're all searching after is artificial general intelligence, which is the moment when an AI model becomes better as good or better than humans at everything. We should all be scared of that moment because we will ultimately be replaceable. And we currently are. As many people are finding out in the tech sector and beyond middle management, middle class careers can be eliminated by AI.
Joy Reid
The thing that you write about, and I want to get both of you to comment on this, and I do want to start with Chris first because Lawrence writes about the fact you have these historic changes in the world that have taken place throughout history, but each time there has been a sort of industrial change, the American Revolution and the writing of the Constitution. The colonial order broke 18 6. That was 1773 to 1791, 1860 to 1865, the Civil War and the start of Reconstruction. The slave holding order broke. A new free labor order, however incomplete, replaced it. 1929 and 1946, the Great Depression, the New Deal in the Second World War. The Gilded Age order broke a new social contract order, the eight hour day Social Security, the GI Bill, the sec, the fdic, Federally insured mortgages replaced it. The long American middle class replaced it. But this order, I want both of you to comment on that. What we're seeing is AI to you guys point, not making workers more productive, such that you need more workers so that the workers are better at doing their jobs and create more productivity. It's essentially saying it's replacing the workers productivity that is a different thing from these previous revolutions. And Chris, if you could start. That means that people who are doing jobs that touch AI at all are not having their productivity improved, they're just being kicked out.
Chris Farley
Yeah, that's exactly right. But there are a couple of things we need to think about as we talk about this problem. I want to start with a sort of pop culture reference. First, what's going on in AI sort of reminds me of what happened in the movie Jurassic Park. We all remember that famous scene where Dr. Ian Malcolm says your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should. And it's a pop culture movie. But it's really kind of disturbing how resonant those words are to where we are today, where people pushing ahead on something because they can and not really thinking about whether this makes sense for human beings. Also I think, and this sort of speaks to what you said before about the Pope. We need to consider, we need to also realize that the kind of thinking that AI does isn't necessarily something that's analogous to what humans do. And we can get caught up in the hype and caught up in all the taglines and the marketing hype around AI comparing to humans, when really all it's doing is pattern matching. And that's far from being something that's human, far from human thinking. I also thought the Turing Test, that's supposed to be a benchmark for whether computers are like humans or not, really is something that doesn't measure anything that we really should think about in terms of how, how close humans, computers have come to humans. So. So again, a lot of that is hype. That said, I think we also need to consider seriously, maybe there will be a breakthrough and we will get something that's deserving of, of more attention and respect from, in terms of terms of rights. And that's something we need to consider because I think back to this great book that, that Henry Louis Gates did about the life of Phillis Wheatley. She was an enslaved woman back in the 18th century. Thomas Jefferson and a lot of his racist pals didn't believe she could actually write poetry. And they had this kind of Turing test of its time, testing to see whether she could actually write poetry, whether she actually deserved, you know, the kind of respect that poet should get. And I think that we, especially as people of color, should think about, although computers aren't there yet, they might someday be, and we have to hold out that possibility that maybe it's wrong to force them to do all those kinds of works and do all these kinds of things. So there's a lot of sort of moral and ethical considerations we have to sort of keep in mind as we push forward into this new AI age.
Joy Reid
Yeah, I mean, the thing that people love about the robots replacing us is they can't strike. They don't need a bathroom break. They don't need to. They don't have to, you know, have, have a child and take months off. But also, that means you could work them 24 hours a day. And is that moral? Lawrence, the other thing you write about that I think is actually truly terrifying, there are two things I want to let you introduce them both. One of them is this idea that if work is no longer your purpose because AI has replaced your work, and it's not any longer the way that you get income in order to participate in the economy, no one has answered the question, then what is, what is your purpose and what is the way that you live? And you've had people like Elon throw around, oh, we'll just do high universal basic income. Well, who funds that? He doesn't want to be taxed to fund it. Right, Talk about that.
Lawrence Winterman
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, there, there's been this concept of universal basic income out kind of in the political discussion for years. Andrew Yang campaigned on it a couple years ago, but his proposal for universal basic income was $1,000 a month. And, you know, I'm sorry, where I'm living right now, $1,000 a month, 12,000 DOL dollars a year is not going to pay my rent, much less everything else that goes along with modern life. There's this weird thing that we're experiencing where we are about to have productivity decoupled from work. And what that means is that These AI technologies that are essentially a technology that's good enough to replace a human worker, but not so good, as Christopher mentioned, that it inspires whole other categories of work means that we're about to enter a place where humans are essentially not getting paid, where human workers are not necessary. And the question of how then do people contribute to society is a giant question mark. There isn't really any politician currently who's talking about universal basic income. Elon says universal high income and that it'll be this grand utopia, but it's a utopia of starvation. If it's 12 grand a year that we're living off of, it is not a utopia at all. You know, even leaving behind, do people need work to lead meaningful lives? Which I would argue, yes, we do. We don't have any concept of what an economy looks like when there are millions of people who require huge amounts of assistance because the jobs. You know, Joy, you made a great point earlier. The spending that's happening on AI data centers right now is about $650 billion. If you take that out of the math, we are in a recession at the moment. So the thing that is keeping our economy afloat is the build out of these data centers. And it's a double whammy, right? Because not only is that the thing keeping us out of recession at the moment, it's also the thing that is going to replace possibly hundreds of thousands or millions of human jobs. And if we look at, we have words like recession, which everyone knows what a recession looks like. It gets bad, then it gets a little bit better, and then it's kind of okay and then it's good and you could wait it out potentially. Well, what if there are no jobs to go back to? What if in the push of there being a recession, everything has been offloaded to AI because all the companies want to save money and do it the most efficient way and then there isn't a job to go back to for potentially tens of millions of middle class workers. What does that economy look like? We don't have a word for that.
Chris Farley
I want to jump in for a second because I think it's really worth sort of following up on the whole idea of universal basic income. Gavin Newsom recently signed an executive order that spoke to the issue of something called universal basic capital, arguing that maybe workers should get some sort of share stocks in some of these AI and tech companies that might be replacing human jobs in the future. So that's something people may begin to debate in the future about giving more of the Population a share in the success of these companies. We're talking about the fact that a lot of these job layoffs we're seeing in the press that are being linked to AI may not be linked to AI at all. It's unclear in some situations whether AI is actually adding to efficiency or whether some of these tech giants are using the idea of AI efficiency as cover to lay off people, to get efficiencies elsewhere to cover up for their own mistakes, misappropriations in their companies. And it's sort of like the dog ate my homework. Well, AI is adding efficiency. Got to lay you off. So that's something we should bear in mind whenever we hear about layoffs. Is it due to AI or really due to mismanagement and using AI as cover to make yourself look like you're
Joy Reid
forward leaning or just greed?
Unidentified Speaker 1
Right.
Joy Reid
I mean, or you think about it very quickly before we end. We end. I mean, the end of the Great Depression, what actually brought Americans back economically and financially effectively was the war.
Lawrence Winterman
That's right.
Joy Reid
A lot of government intervention, FDR throwing the book at it, you know, throwing the New Deal at it, and government money sustaining people, but also a wartime industry that gave people something to do and gave industries something to make. And if you think about, you know, Covid, you know, just where I worked, when Covid happened, they laid off a lot of people who were stage managers and stagehands and sound men. And, you know, we used to have a dozen people on the set of my dayside show. When we came back after Covid, they were expecting two people to do the job of 12. And they didn't have any interest in bringing back the people that they laid off without pay during COVID So sometimes companies just say, hey, we can make just as much money without. With your people. Before we go, one last word to you, Lawrence Winterman, because the start of your piece was not about AI, it was about the supply chain and the fact that effectively we're living in the past, we are living in six months ago, what happens when the Iran war catches up with us.
Lawrence Winterman
Yeah, so this is the piece that I thought was kind of most impactful was thinking about the current situation and how this all connects together. Because it's not one disaster, right? Like it's a series of chained disasters in a way, where we are living in sort of this inventory cushion that, you know, ships that got loaded before the war started are finally docking here and offloading their oil or the sulfur that goes into sulfuric acid, which makes phosphoric acid which makes phosphate fertilizers. There's this calendar that crosses the next 6, 9, 12 months where things start to run out and things start to actually hit our shelves at the real prices. The current prices, which is what sulfur costs now, what ethylene, which makes plastic, plastic wrap, plastic bottles. All of the, you know, accoutrement of daily life. All of that starts hitting us at the actual real price that it is now, not the price that it was bought for four months ago before the war started. So prices are going to continue to rise. Inflation is going to continue to go up. And that was where I started to segue into an AI. Spending is the thing that's keeping the economy afloat at the moment. The build out of all these data centers. We haven't even talked about how communities are pushing back against these data centers. How data centers have been found to have stolen water in a rural Georgia community.
Jason
Right.
Lawrence Winterman
And how they are the equivalent of multiple nuclear detonations in terms of the heat that they release on a daily basis just because of the. The operations of all of those computer chips at such high power. So this is a big chain of events that we are about to enter into. We're in the last moments of the illusion, and we all need to brace ourselves for what's coming next, because I don't know that I'm as optimistic as the Pope about what's going to come after.
Joy Reid
Yeah. The last thing before two questions. I know I'm going a tiny bit over. I mean, wealthy. This piece here that talks about the wealthiest investors are actually pulling their money out of the United States. You're seeing people like Berkshire Hathaway, a guy who runs Berkshire Hathaway, like, going into cash, being like, maybe we don't need to be invested in stock. Jeff Bezos selling a whole lot of Amazon stock. Like, it feels like the very wealthiest people see this coming. Lawrence. That they know something is really wrong and that they're basically. They're threatening to sort of eat our lunch and their own. Right. They're saying we're going to build out AI centers to prop up the economy long enough so that. But that when it crashes, we'll have already pulled our money out of the United States. That's what it feels like.
Lawrence Winterman
Yeah. Haven't you always wondered why every billionaire seems to have a secret layer that they are building a bunker that they're building someplace? Bezos sold $5.7 billion of Amazon stock. The silence that we're hearing from the CEOs. They're not out There talking about the big thing that's coming. They're all quietly moving their money around and getting ready for what is coming next because they have access to data that we haven't seen yet. And I think what that data tells them is the recession of all recessions is coming our way. And when you chain it together with the stuff that's happening in AI and the replaceability of middle class jobs, I think we're in for a really transformational time in this country and not in a good way.
Joy Reid
Marjorie Taylor Greene, moving to Costa Rica. Wonder why didn't she get like $25 million in investments? Chris Farley, your book is amazing. The New York Times is like cannot stop praising you enough. It is a novel and it is. But it's a novel that is really seeded by the fact of what's happening in this sort of tech world. So I hope you guys will jump into the shop and pick a copy of that book who knows you by heart up. And I would suggest, Lawrence Winterman, that you write a novel because you're a really good writer and I hope you will consider.
Lawrence Winterman
But I already am, Joy.
Joy Reid
We write a novel. Well, there you go. When you have the novel, come back and also come back more because I want to talk to the two of you. You guys are now you've become one of my favorite panels. I would love to have you guys come back and let's talk about more stuff. Thank you all both.
Lawrence Winterman
Thank you so much.
Joy Reid
Thank you. This is real stuff, you guys. And scary is caring is what we say on this show. We scare you, but it's because we care. And the reality is Covid was very instructive. A lot of companies realized that they could do a lot with a lot fewer humans. And when you teach a company that they can do that, they learn it. And then they don't go back to hiring. They let a lot of those crew guys that lost jobs at the Artist Formerly Known as msnbc, maybe they moved them around or something. They sure weren't 12 people on my set. And stage managers, every time I wanted to move a cup of coffee, running out and moving it. Those union jobs, a lot of them were just gone. And they were expecting my stage manager to mic me up. And he's not a sound guy. That's what they did. Because corporations want efficiency. That means they may not want people. Lord Jesus. Anyway, let's talk about one of our wonderful sponsors, our sponsor, MSI Reproductive Choices. Speaking of things that we're threatening to lose around the world, MSI Reproductive Choices wants you to know that every year across Sub Saharan Africa, roughly 4 million girls are pushed out of school because of unplanned pregnancies. Not because they aren't smart enough, not because they don't want an education, but because the government refused to make their birth control available. 4 million girls with a future that they didn't choose for lack of something that cost less than a cup of coffee or tea. This isn't an accident. This is either misogyny or complete indifference. MSI works with governments to change that. They advocate for changes to laws and policies. Policies. They train public health providers on different birth control methods like IUDs and arm implants. They climb mountains and wade through rivers to get to women who do not have any other way to get contraception. Birth control is one of the most powerful equality tools in the world and for just $30 you can provide six girls with contraception for a full year. Make that $30 every month and you will help 72 girls over the course of a year. To learn more or to support MSI's work, simply go to MSI United States.org that is M for Modern, S for safe, I for informed MSI United States.org or just text my name Reid that is Reid to 511-511, text Reid read to 511-511 go to MSI United States.org to start changing lives. Or text read to 51 1. You can also learn about them and see the impact report@msiunitedstates.org do check them out. It's an impressive organization doing very good work. So one more time, text read to 511 or visit msiunitedstates.org today. Text fees may apply. So welcome to hour two of the Joy Reid Show. We did some scaring as caring, but we also gave you some pop culture. And Scott McFarland promised to come back and just talk about CNC Music Factory and all their hits. I actually really liked them back in the day. I don't know what's happened to them now, but the late 80s and early 90s was a golden era in American music. I see why Donald Trump loves it, but I mean come on man, you couldn't get anybody moderately, not one. What happened to like Nicki Minaj? Was she trying to charge you too much like you don't want? Like Kanye?
Jason
The only thing was Chris, what's his name? Was Kid Rock not available because I didn't see his name on there?
Joy Reid
Kid Rock does all the things.
Jason
Like all the things Right, I get it. But we busted him. He's a lip syncer.
Joy Reid
Remember when he. Oh, he's a lip synchro. I remember when he tried to a hip hop artist and then he switched and became like a racist country artist. But for a hot minute. Like he was trying to be hip hop for a minute.
Jason
Yeah, he has too much money at home. I don't know why he's trying to do all that.
Joy Reid
Well, he was like a rich pop guy who pretended to be hood. Like it was fake. It was always fake. Let me remind you guys to please hit like and subscribe if you have not done so already. I gotta even out my shirt like and subscribe. If you've not done so already. Please also hit the little notification bell because we want you all to know to. To be able to train the algorithm to make sure that they tell you when we're live. We go live on a pretty regular basis, but sometimes we do extra lives. We want to make sure that you're in on it. Let me thank one of our other sponsors and this is one of our faves 120 life. I got it right Here it is brought to you by 120 live. So why does the dwindling month of May matter? May, which we got like two more days of, is blood pressure awareness month. But awareness without action does nothing. It changes nothing. Half of all adults have high blood pressure. Many don't even know it. 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So go to 120life.life that is 120-Life. Use my code JOY or the code REED R E I D to get 20% off. Just try it risk free for two weeks. If your blood pressure does not come down, you get a full refund. 120 l I f e.com use the code joy or read to save 20%. Don't wait until next month is Black Music Month. It's also Pride Month. You could also do that, but don't wait because your blood pressure really can't wait. There's nothing to lose except your higher blood pressure. Numbers go to 120life.com use the code joy or read for 20% off today. These statements have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Okay, so the Cook Report. I want to talk Texas for a minute if y' all don't mind. I'm going to do about. I need some time to talk about Texas. So normally Texas is, it is seen as a very deeply read state and it would be a firm R state because it's considered, you know, it's usually like R 20, R more than that. Not this year. The Cook Political Report, which is the, the, the, the entity that rates these, these races, it's kind of what they do. It's kind of their shtick. They have now moved this race from likely R to lean R, likely R to lean R. Now that sounds like what's the big deal about that? If you look on the right side of your screen, just so you guys can understand this, I love to give you guys the insight, Tea, about the way that campaigns think about these things, not just about the way that the corporate media explains them. I'm going to explain to you the way campaigns look at it. The way campaigns look at it is they look at a district or state and they give it, they usually go to Cook and they look at the rating A state that is hardcore blue. They rate it as D plus 50, meaning it's hardcore. It is certain to go blue. A state that is R +50 is certain to go red. It is not just lean R. It's not just likely R. It's for certain R. R +50 means it is so far red that there's no point. Right now the Cook Report is rating Texas, Texas red ass Texas that has all statewide Republican elected officials as R plus 6. R Plus 6 is the range in which a flip could happen. It doesn't mean it's likely. Doesn't mean it's certain. It would still take good campaigning and a real GOTV effort. I will note that they're also, I believe technically in Texas, more Democrats than Republicans. It's just they don't vote. It's very low voting state. It's a very low turnout voting state when it comes to Latinos and African Americans. But there are a lot of them. It's actually majority Latino. And there was some bleeding to the right in 2024 and Republicans redistricted counting on that being permanent. But there's nothing permanent about that shift among Republican men. And it was not like a shift like 70, 30 Republican. It was like 56% of Latinos voted Republican. And the ones who voted the most Republican were not Mexican Americans, which is the majority of what's in Texas. It was much more Cuban Americans than Venezuelan Americans who are now catching hell. But you know, they're very, very anti communist and they're very pro Republican, but in Texas and they actually don't vote at high numbers at all. And so Republicans are just assuming that if you just gerrymander a bunch of Latinos into a district, they're going to all vote for Republicans. I don't know if that's true. And then on top of it, the person that was nominated for the Senate campaign is not John Cornyn, who is an ordinary sort of, you know, middle of the roadie, old school Reagan Republican. It's Ken Paxton, the Attorney General. And let me just let you hear how two Texas Republicans, including John Cornyn and Louie Gohmert, who's a far right wing maga, what they think about Ken Paxton. Here it is Ken Paxton's flaws and
Lawrence Winterman
the baggage she brings to the general
Joy Reid
election is going to be exploited to the fullest by James Talarico and by Democrats. James Talarico raised $27 million in just the first quarter of this year. He told a lot of lies as
Bevy Smith
his wife now knows.
Joy Reid
He lied a lot. He's quite corrupt, quite corrupt. From all the things I know, I think he's the most corrupt Attorney General we've had in my lifetime. And that is the Republicans. Those are two MAGA Trump ass kissing Republicans. That's what they think about Ken Paxton. So given that that is who won the primary. Because of course maga, you know, is obedient. They, you know, they are a religious cult that just says, oh Mr. Trump, how would you want me to vote? Yes, Mr. Trump, yes. Some they're just, they're just a bunch of beta, you know, pick me that just do whatever Trump says. So they, they went for Paxton and they really, he blew out corn and he by very firmly got the nomination. But he is a flawed candidate. And Talarico is a nice guy who isn't offensive in any way and who is very religious. And that may tempt some independents who I think are actually the largest in number between the Democrats, Republicans and independents in Texas. He may tempt some of them, he may tempt some folks to vote the other way. So the riot has decided to respond to that by going full with Fox, particularly Jesse Waters and others attacking Talarico as a soy boy. And Lou's got smooth skin and questioning does he really have a girlfriend? Does she live in Canada stuff. I'm not going to even bother to play it. You can imagine how they sound. They're being just total. And oh, by the way, hello, Tim Scott married a whole woman. Quiet. The rumors about him and Lindsay grand wave the bubble on bing. They all don't talk about them allegedly. I'm just saying they will for a long time. People question why don't they have wives or girlfriends? So Tim Scott said, let me go and get married and see if I can get them to stop bothering me. And you know, Lindsey Graham is just out there free and clear with his bubble wand, proud, you know, just being like, I have a bubble wand. I don't need a girlfriend, I don't need a wife. So they're playing unmarried Republicans. I mean, okay, you know, yeah, but you cannot beat the most. You really shouldn't be talking. How the hell did you get a human woman to procreate with you attacker? You can't get worse than this creature called Stephen Miller. Here he is.
Unidentified Speaker 1
When Talarico goes in for a blood test, when he gets a physical, blood doesn't come out. Instead soy milk comes out. This man has less testosterone than Jasmine Crockett. It is mind boggling choice. They would choose a person to run for that office who looks like he doesn't belong in the Senate but in a cabaret show. Look, at the end of the day, at the end of the day, I have a hard time believing that the people of Texas, some of the toughest, roughest, strongest men and women, the pioneer heritage, the frontier history from the, from the Mexican American in war through the aloe and everything else, are going to choose somebody with that much soy to be a US Senator compared to, compared to a real conservative, patriotic, God fearing and truly beloved statewide figure in Campaxa. They should have nominated Crockett. I can't believe I'm saying that, but
Joy Reid
should have nominated Crockett.
Unidentified Speaker 1
That's how bad it is.
Joy Reid
Well, we'll be following okay. To which the official Democratic account hit back on the Twitters as follows. Shut up you ugly F U C K. Shut up you ugly F U C K. And of course Maga started crying.
Bevy Smith
Oh my God.
Joy Reid
Oh my God. They called him an ugly fusige. And of course they all just lost their freaking minds. Paulina Mangubot, who actually runs that official the Democrats account, she had the following explanation for her retort in an interview with our friends at Midas and Paulina
Scott McFarland
Magabut, content and creative director at the dnc. So Katie Miller has been posting about you. She went on Fox and she's been talking about you and she's made it very personal about you, Paulina. So I want to give you the opportunity right now to respond to Katie Miller. If she's watching this, what do you want Katie Miller to know?
Joy Reid
I want Katie Miller to know that
Christopher Ola
her husband is an ugly fuck. Stephen Miller is one of the most
Joy Reid
powerful men in the country right now.
Christopher Ola
He is a White House official who is taking to Twitter to hurl these
Joy Reid
absolutely false and transphobic attacks against an
Christopher Ola
amazing candidate in Texas, James Talarico.
Joy Reid
We simply called him ugly. And I think that what he has been doing is ugly.
Christopher Ola
He is celebrating when ICE shoots down
Joy Reid
Americans in the street. He thinks that it's cool when families
Christopher Ola
are separated and it's just absolutely disgusting. And so, yeah, I stand by calling
Joy Reid
him an ugly fucking. I mean, I'm looking for the lies. I'm looking and I don't see any. I think, I think Paulina told the truth and I apologize for the Pope of the cussing far saints, but I mean, when you're right, you're right. And look, normally I would not go after somebody for their looks. Unless of course, they're mean and ugly on the inside and then they can. Or they're like a soft chin, colonial cosplay, a little bills. But just like as a journalist, okay, just, let's just take it back to just be objective as a journalist. This is what Stephen Miller looks like and also what he's into, what he thinks, his sort of affinity for white nationalism, both those things are ugly. His physical appearance that gives Nosferatu. I mean, he just looks like Nosferatu if we're just being objective. Right. And his beliefs are also ugly. That's just real. I mean, this is a guy who basically recently said that the only immigrants worth bringing into the United States are South African white South Africans. Only white South Africans. Seeing Trump agree on that. And apparently he's who Trump got that Policy for. He's the one who apparently got, you know, turned down by every Latina in high school and decided to wage war against brown people forever. And Stephen didn't just become ugly when his hair escaped him and he morphed into a dead ringer for Nosferatu. He was ugly even when he had hair back in high school. You know, back again when he first probably got ghosted by a Latina girl, triggering our collective national nightmare. Here he is.
Unidentified Speaker 1
Am I the only one who is sick?
Joy Reid
Yes.
Unidentified Speaker 1
And tired of being told to pick up my trash. We have plenty of janitors working to respond.
Joy Reid
Next up. Thank you, Steven.
Unidentified Speaker 1
To the issue of the Iraqi civilians. I think that as many of them should survive as possible because the goal of any military conflict is to kill as few people as possible. But as to Saddam Hussein and his henchmen, I think the ideal solution would be to cut off their fingers. I don't think it's necessary to kill them entirely. We're not a barbaric people. We respect life. Therefore, torture is the way to go because tortured people can live. Torture is a celebration of life and human dignity. And I only hope that many of my peers and people who will be leaving this country will appreciate the value and respect the torture show towards other cultures. I was talking to my doctor the other day and I said to him, well, you know, I'm 17, I'm pretty sexy. Everything's going the way I want it to. I play good tennis, but something's just not going right. My hair is just receding. I look like I'm 35 and a balding 35 year old at that. Thank you, Jonas.
Joy Reid
I.
Unidentified Speaker 1
And he said, well, how much sleep are you getting? And I said, excuse me, what sleep? Apparently you're supposed to go to bed at nighttime. Usually I sit in my room like this. I find a judge, I find a prosecutor, says he over the border to help him win re election to get
Joy Reid
three legal aliens to vote.
Unidentified Speaker 1
And he fought election integrity at dhs and DOJ is part of his conspiracy. So that's a RICO violation.
Joy Reid
It's a civil rights violation.
Unidentified Speaker 1
But we need to reassure a couple points to all ICE officers. You have federal immunity in the country, conduct of your duties.
Joy Reid
What was that like scream thing he did as a kid? You know, I mean, he's a scary looking dude. Whoever in the comments said he looks like he drinks his own pee. Like he drinks his own pee. You said for somebody to make fun of the way other people looked. Other people. Look, I'm just going to Pull this up. I'm going to do it just on my phone. I don't know if you guys are going to be able to see this. This is Nosferatu. Put him closer to you so you can enjoy him. I'm just saying. Stephen, Stephen, Stephen. It's giving Nosferatu. So for you to try to mock a perfectly nice looking young man who happens to be putting himself forward to serve the people of Texas, you might want to start with the man in the mirror, Bobby Tullo. And also your boss man that you all are saying is the epitome of masculinity. Most of you all, including Byron, Donald and Lindsey Graham, have literally been on tape calling him daddy. Remember the whole daddy's home thing? You are supposedly Alpha men, but you refer to Donald Trump who dances with only his arms because apparently the rest of him can't move. You call him Daddy, but you want to talk about who's an alpha man. So you're saying James Talarico, who's never called another man daddy, that we've ever seen in public, y' all have done it on tape. You all call Donald Trump daddy. That is by definition beta behavior. Okay? By definition. And Donald Trump wears cakey makeup and his favorite group is the Village People. So I don't even think Donald Trump is particularly anti lgbt. At least in his presentation. He compliments other men's junk size, their beautiful appearance. If they're an athlete. He spends a lot of time complimenting other men. Maybe you should talk to him before you try the, you know, so the transphobic attacks because it doesn't seem like he's even on that, on that side. And again, you call him your daddy. And I just want to just. Since this is the new thing and FOX is getting into this, they are really leaning in to going after the physical appearance of James Talarico. So let's just roll C9. I hope we have seen that. Let's just take a look at that brother. What's that? What's that, brother? Kudos to Winsome for that. I mean, come on, y' all don't got no place to talk about this young man. He's a good looking guy. Give him a break. And to go back to Ken Pax, Ken Paxton, to go back to your, your candidate who you're saying is beloved by the people of Texas. Let me just give you a non delimited list of the things that even other Republicans find problematic about your boy. To start with, he was charged in 2015 with securities fraud for allegedly tricking investors while promoting a tech company stock. The fraud case lasted almost 10 years before getting dismissed through a political deal. He was accused by his own top employees of helping a wealthy donor, Nate Paul, in inappropriate ways. Allegedly used his power as Attorney General to do favors for Mr. Paul. Several staff members who reported him were later fired or pushed out. Texas taxpayers had to pay millions of dollars in settlements connected to the whistleblower scandal about Nate Paul he was impeached by the Texas House, meaning the Republican controlled Texas House in 2023 over corruption and abuse of power allegations. He was removed from office for a short time during the impeachment trial but later found not guilty by the Senate because of course no one ever convicts somebody who is impeached. Never in American history. Very rarely, particularly when it's a Republican, they just get to crime. He was accused of cheating on his wife during the Nate Paul controversy. She has since left him very publicly announcing it on Twitter. He tried to help overturn the 2020 presidential election, resulting was sued by news organizations and watchdog groups seeking to force the release of his personal and official communications from his trip to Washington D.C. when he spoke at the January 6 rally before the riot at the Capitol in which the Insurrectionist tried to hang Mike Pence and lynch Nancy Pelosi as well, he faced criticism over money disclosures and ethics issues as part of his ongoing corruption problems. He's known for controversial lawsuits on abortion, transgender rights and fights with the Biden administration. He was investigated by the FBI over claims of corruption but never federally charged. And of course, of course there was the one day sentence he secured for an actual whole ass pedophile. Literally worked out a deal so a guy who had admitted to to sexually abusing a child could serve not two days but one day in prison. Just one day in prison for a pedo. So he's a pedo protector twice because he apparently doesn't mind what's in the Epstein files because he's a whole ass supporter of Donald Trump who again was accused by a woman of sexually abusing her when she was 13 or 14 years old. And the FBI interviewed that lady four times. So that's not a problem for Ken Paxton. The state of Texas has a real problem and a real challenge if you're more concerned over whether the nominee for the United States Senate has a girlfriend. Something even South Carolina got passed twice because both of their United States Senators were unmarried at the time of their election. But in Texas, I'm sorry, if James Tallarica was married, that would be better for you He's a whole ass Christian that talks about the scripture, that you have a problem with him because he's not flashing his girlfriend. Again, if South Carolina could deal with it. And again, this is a state. Did you see this thing that's up here now that Jason put up? This is a state where a man who I cannot believe I'm telling you, is 56, he looks 76, was caught by his wife on their home camera, which they had installed for security, sexually abusing their dog, their pet. That's the kind of state. And Ken Paxton is probably the kind of guy that would give that guy a day in jail. That's the kind of guy that Ken Paxton would say, you know, a day in jail is probably enough for abusing old Sparky. He's just a dog. Let me play for you. And I assume that that guy's, if he. If he still has his right to vote, if he survives his trial, is going to be Team Paxton. I can almost guarantee you that that guy who abused his pet is a Paxton guy. He's going to vote for Paxton. I have no doubt about that. He's definitely maga. I want to play for you guys. The ad that was now taken down by the Texas Republican Party, but they originally put up online about Ken Paxton. Here it is. This is the sound of Texas, and this is how it sounds under Ken Paxton.
Unidentified Speaker 1
Shots fired.
Joy Reid
Shots fired. So which Texas do you want to hear? So here's my advice to Democrats in Texas. And again, the primary is over. And I know that there are a lot of black Texans who are very, very unhappy that Jasmine Crockett is not the nominee. And I think, and I said my political analysis is that she probably would have been a stronger nominee only because I think she could match the energy of the other side. Because what they're about to throw at James Talarico is going to be so hideous and so ugly, it's going to make the anti trans fusillade that was hurled at Kamala Harris look like peanuts. They've decided that this is their campaign strategy. They're going to try to undercut the masculinity of James Talarico. But if Texas Democrats do not hit back in kind, if they do not go after Ken Paxton as a wife cheating on corruption piece of absolute dog shit, if they don't go full Def Con one on Ken Paxton's morality, his looks, his being a single man by virtue of not being able to keep his poo poo in his panties, if they don't hit him with A two by four, then they don't deserve to win. And I know James Talarico is a nice guy. He's a very nice guy and he wants to run a nice guy campaign that appeals to Republicans who. But it's still just, it's an R+6. It's not an unwinnable state, but it's a state where you're going to have to get a low voter turnout state to become at least a medium voter turnout state in a non presidential election year. Not an easy task. You're going to have to get younger voters again. This is why I initially thought, you know, Jasmine Crockett would be a stronger candidate to get younger voters who are non traditional voters out. But you're not going to get to those voters by playing nice with Ken Paxton. Fox is not going to play nice with James Talarico. They're going to get gutter, they're going to get gully, they're going to get ugly. And the reason that I went through this exercise of being super mean to Stephen Miller is both because he's actually quite ugly, but also because their tactics are going to be hideous. Republicans are not your Reagan era Republican Party. And even they were nasty, making up lies about welfare queens that were not even about black women, but trying to tag all black women as welfare queens. The Republican Party has never played nice. Democrats try to play nice. Democrats try to be nice. I think Democrats for the most part are nice, except for on genocide. But it isn't going to work. And I think that what Democrats have got to do is they've got to reach inside and find your inner asshole. You're going to have to find your inner asshole. This is Texas. If you want to take that R +6 state and turn it into even a D +1, if you want to beat Ken Paxton, then you've got to beat up on Ken Paxton. You cannot do it by being nice. You cannot do it by being staying out of the gutter and trying to be above it all and trying to just talk about Christianity and just try to talk about affordability. You have to talk about those things you do. But you also have to remind people of how unacceptable that man is, of how gross, nasty, cruel, mean he is, how disloyal he is to his family, how disloyal he has been to the Texas Constitution, how disloyal he has been to American democracy. And that the only person that Ken Paxton has ever been loyal to is Daddy, Daddy Donald Trump, which is what every so called alpha male MAGA calls the President of the United States. The guy who spends all of his time on interior decorating and building monuments to himself in Washington. The guy who cares more about a ballroom than about the troops potentially dying in Iran. The guy who thinks that it's better to get the Presidential Medal than the Congressional Medal because the people who got the Congressional Medal are dead. That's a better looking Nosferatu. I think you got to get the ugliest one. You're talking about people who have no problem questioning the manhood of James Talarico while their guy praises the ball and penis size of a dead golfer who speaks in a Marilyn Monroe voice. And they think that that's perfectly fine. And so you need to treat the Republicans the way that they're going to treat James Tallaric. It's your only shot. It's a flip. It's not a way. It's very hard to win. Jalanda Jones was on with us the other night. It's highly unlikely, very difficult, but you've got to at least play to win. Democrats playing nice is not playing to win. They're not going to play nice. You've seen already. And I think they're trying to sell a T shirt off of one of the insults that they've made at Talarico. Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't ask your supporters to put on a T shirt containing the insult against you. It's not like the Obamacare situation where saying Obamacare was actually a compliment. You got, you got, you got the nose for aunt, too. I want to see Democrats reach inside of their sweet little hearts and find the inner mean girl. Ah, that's it. That is literally him. If I told you that was Stephen Miller, would you. Wouldn't you believe me? If I said that's Stephen Miller, who could argue with me, who could argue just like him? And he's going to keep attacking James Talco and any other Democrat that steps forward to try to win office. So speak about his record. Yes, absolutely. It's not all he has to do is speak on Paxton's record. Commenter, I disagree with you. I don't think that's all he has to do. But I definitely think playing that ad, I think making an ad like that, I think you have to go hard. I will very quickly, just to end this. I will say that I think it was, I think it was a mistake of the Kamala Harris campaign to not. I mean, I think you had to level Donald Trump. I think that it wasn't enough to just oppose Donald Trump, I think you had to level him. I think you had to go deep into the Epstein stuff. You know, I think you had to go deep into the cheating of his own employees and his contractors, the thieving, the stealing. You have to go hard because Republicans, they're not your father's Republican Party, and even your father's Republican Party was mean. They're literally trying to steal black people's right to vote. They're willing to do anything. I highly doubt that the speaker of the House is going to be willing to certify the victories of Democrats who win elections in November. They're gonna. They're playing for keeps. I'm sorry, Jason, were you about to say something? They're playing for keeps.
Jason
What I was gonna say is if Kama was unshackled by Biden, she probably could have settled on that.
Joy Reid
Absolutely. And somebody said, when they go low, go lower. I agree with you, Moody. When they go low, go to the earth's core. When they go low, go to the earth's inner core.
Scott McFarland
You have to.
Joy Reid
Because most people aren't paying attention to politics. Most people are not going to pay attention. They're just going to hear the little headlines. They're just going to hear the little insults. And the people on Fox, you can forget them. They're all going to vote Republican because they're part of the cult. You're not playing to Fox viewers. That's not the idea. You're not going to convert them. If you're watching Fox in 2026, you are going to vote for a pile of doo doo. If it says it's a Republican, you're going to vote for it. You're going to vote for Satan. Hi, my name is Satan. B. Devil. And they're going to vote for that. That you're not going to be able to convert them. That's just not going to happen. You've got to get out base voters, non traditional voters, young voters who are broke and who can't afford their lives. You need to lean in on that. The stuff that's really hurting people. But also you got to be prepared to mix it up. If they're going to mix it up, you got to mix it up, too. All right, that's it. I'm going to leave it there. When they go low to the earth's core. That's just my personal advice. One more sponsor to thank on something much, much nicer. The Doughy Reid show is brought to you by our friends at Blissey. Okay, this one I'm Upset with. Okay, so I got my hair done today. I don't know if you guys can tell, then I get my hair done and I actually got praised by Coco and Joy who normally tell me off if I don't do all the proper hair care. And one of the things they always tell me is you if you don't. If you want to keep your little twist from frizzing, you got to make sure you wrap in your hair. And listen, I have been being sure to keep my hair properly wrapped in soft gorgeous silk, baby. Which is the best thing to keep your hair soft and healthy. And you know what else? It's actually great also for your, your skin. A natural way to heal your health. Have your hair and your skin be at their very best. And I am doing that thanks to Blissey. I'm obsessed with it. My Blissy sink pillow, silk pillowcases and eye covers. They make the room dark and silky, baby. And they help with healthier skin in weeks. They reduce fine lines, wrinkles and sleep creases. They help prevent breakouts. Literally better hair in days and, and again reducing that breakage. The frizz, keeping your style, your color. Those of you who sleep in a silk wrap, you know, you know what it is. It's better than satin. It's natural, it's cooling, it's gentler on your skin and hair. And Blissey uses the highest quality silk. It's something called 22 mum M O M M E. Look that up. Six A grade and 100% pure mulberry silk. Mum is the sort of grade of silk and sort of the softness and the silkiness of it, the added benefits. Again, it's breathing, it's hydrating, it's hypoallergenic. These Blissey products are dermatologically tested and recommended. The they're easy to care for. You can drop them in the machine, no problem. They come in over a hundred colors. I have silver because I like a silver fabulousness. There is also a new Wicked and Harry Potter design collection. There's a Zodiac collection. They are social proof. Over 3 million sold. They're featured in Vogue, Oprah daily, Good Morning America, 13 times award winning. All the good things. It's a great gift, a practical, wonderful gift for birthdays, bridal showers, anniversaries and more. And you can get like matching ones. You can get like a matching bonnet and a sleep mask and the little crease preventing scrunchies. All the things, all the things. I'm absolutely obsessed. If you want to try them and because you're a listener and a reader. Blissy is offering 60 nights risk free plus an additional 30% off when you shop@blissey.com joypod that's B L I S S Y.com joypod and just use the code joypod to get an additional 30% off your skin in here will. Thank you. Okay, y'.
Jason
All.
Joy Reid
And now that we've done my be mean election retorts, I want to move on to something much more positive. Because last week, about a week ago, I had the opportunity to be in bed with Bevy. I get a call from a boss. We are not continuing your show, effective immediately. And it's such a strange call because I can tell that my boss is reading from a script and I'm like, any reason why? Nothing. There was just nothing. It was just a cold call with this sort of scripted exit and never gotten more than that.
Bevy Smith
Contrary to popular rumor that it was a ratings conversation, which it was not.
Joy Reid
We actually had just had a meeting with the ratings guy touting our ratings boost because what happened was all of cable news collapsed after Kamala Harris. Everyone's ratings dropped significantly. Altogether. Our ratings decline was less than almost any other show on MSNBC because we had a very loyal audience. So it wasn't ratings. And by the way, now I know that it wasn't ratings because Donald Trump has come out and admitted that he got me fired. He bragged one of his truth social posts was, haha, you know, we got rid of Joy Reid and he named all the people that were on his list. It was so much fun. And you. And joining me now is TV radio host, bestselling author, public speaker and actress and also my friend and host of In Bed with Bevy and also the author of Bevelations. Let's show Revelations, the one and the only and the ooh, a new fabulous do. Bevy Smith, everybody. Hey, girl.
Bevy Smith
I love. I'm a part of the Joy pilot. I just ordered my Blissy pillowcases.
Joy Reid
Girl, let me tell you something. Game changing. And first of all, I take my little Blissy mask. I take it on the train, I take it on the plane. I'm flying. We're going to be heading out of the country and I'm going to be putting my little mask on because it is so soft, so silky. And what's great, it doesn't crease your face. You need to put a mask on. You don't want that crease. Yeah, it needs to be soft and gentle and keep the room dark and silky.
Bevy Smith
There you go. Thanks for Putting me on joy. But you put us all on to everything, so this is par for the course.
Joy Reid
Well, I appreciate you so much. It was so much fun. First of all, I need you to explain to the world, how did you come up with In Bed with Bevy? It's such a unique way to have a conversation and. And you have champagne with the bed, with the being in bed. Talk about it.
Bevy Smith
Yes. Well, you know, I. Back in the day, I was a corporate executive. And then one day I decided I wanted to quit my job. And I started thinking about when I quit my job, what I want to do. And then I decided that I wanted to have a talk show called In Bed with Bevy. But back then, before I ever did anything in entertainment, I thought I was going to entertain. I mean, I was going to interview celebrities, like singers and actors in bed. But now that I've been interviewing celebrities that are singers and actors for 10 years on my radio show Bevelations, I said, well, no, I would much rather speak with people who are public facing, that are notables, that are people that we respect, people that we look up to, but people that have a story to tell and are willing to tell the story. Because as much as I love celebrities, you know, a lot of times they're not always the most forthcoming.
Joy Reid
Yeah, well, they can't in a lot of cases, right? Because their public are like, oh, don't say that, don't say that, don't say that, don't say that.
Bevy Smith
Publicist doesn't run you. Everybody's got a publicist. You got a publicist, I got a publicist. And we tell them to shut up. I'm gonna do what I want to do. You understand what I mean?
Joy Reid
Okay, wait. We were learning this, okay? One of the things we were doing, we were, like, finding out from all the little youngins that were in there with us that there's a difference between this and this and this.
Bevy Smith
Yes. The middle is like the applause, and this is the clocking the T. Clocking
Joy Reid
the T. It was such an education. It was so much fun doing the interview. And how do you pick who you want to talk about? Because let me show you. I have my look, y'. All. Let me tell you, you don't walk out of a Bevy situation without merch. I got my. It's greater later. Yes. Okay. You know, I have to have it with me. And that is kind of like they
Bevy Smith
can go and get themselves. It gets greater later told on babysmith.com if they want one.
Joy Reid
Go on babysmith.com and get you. It's greater later. It's great. And it's actually a really great quality bag. You can take it everywhere and put all your stuff in it and throw
Bevy Smith
all your things in it, hold six bottles of wine, and then it will not break. I tested it.
Joy Reid
Not break, rust. And believe, you know, I'm gonna put. I will put six bottles of wine in a bag. I have no problem with that. Listen, wait.
Bevy Smith
So wait, why. Why y' all sister Joy Reid sat up in the. In bed with Bevy, ate the food. I did drink the champagne. I did, and I loved it. And that's the other thing, too, right? Like, you're not. You don't have this facade. You're not faking it. You're not trying to be something other than who you are. And you gave us such amazing advice. I don't know if you've been seeing the comments, but people are like, oh, my God, these. This is so great. This is so much information about building a brand, about being an entrepreneur. And that's how I pick people. I want to select people that, you know, but you really don't know all sides of them. People know you as this incredibly astute and, you know, intelligent and also very feisty. Politico. Right. Political journalist. But they don't know how much fun you are. They don't know how savvy you are when it comes to business. And so that's the side of Joy Reid that I won the show, and I think we did a good job at it.
Joy Reid
You did an excellent job. And it's what I love about the experience is, like you said, it's just like a girlfriend conversation, but the cameras are in the room. But it's literally because you are, yourself such an incredible entrepreneur. You are a renaissance woman, as you said. You went from corporate to entertainment, you know, fashion. But by the way, Bevy is the person that I used to text back in the day when I would be sitting on the set of msnbc, and I need to know who. Who was wearing what when Michelle Obama had on that beautiful purple. Remember that? And I texted you me. I'm like, debbie, I need to know the designer.
Bevy Smith
Yes. It was Sergio Hudson. And the color is aubergine. When it's high luxury fashion. Yeah. But you know, Joy, one of the things I really loved about doing that with you was that people now in the comments are like, joy is so cool. Like, Joy is Samart. Yes. Joy is very astute. Yes. Joy is going to tell you everything you want to know about political Issues. But Joy is also a kiki good time. And Joy is also one heck of a businesswoman. And so for me, I. My job was, you know, my mission was accomplished, and that's how I select people. I want people who are in the middle of transitioning. You know, it's got to be folks that have already been successful, and then they're moving on to a new dream. Like, I'm so excited for you to come back to In Bed With Bevy once you direct your first feature film, because that's something that we talked about. In Bed with Bevy. Because that's one of your dreams. You said, you know, you hope the world will be a better place and that then you can move on and you don't have to be like the watchdog of the world trying to corral these damn crazy politicians anymore. One day you'll be able to rest on your laurels and say, I want to just direct a feature film, a horror film, and do something that's just pleasurable, because right now you're in the thick of it, and that's taxing on you.
Joy Reid
It's taxing. It is. And that's what I love about the conversation is because. Right. And I think that people will see folks as, like, one dimensional and think this is the thing they do. But what you bring out in these embed conversations is all the facets of the person. And so I'm fascinated to know who else is on the list. Who else is in bed with Bevy?
Bevy Smith
Well, although I just said that we're not doing actors. I'm in Miami right now. I just got up out of bed with an amazing actor, an actress who is hilarious and funny. She has a Netflix show. She's pretty phenomenal. I can't tell you who it is, but that's gonna drop at the end of June. And I'm super excited about having her on. And she's someone who's a friend. And that's also too how I gauge. Right. Because when you're friends with someone, you know, you know their temperature, you know, where they're. Where they're at with it, you know, and. And she's in a really great place in a really good space. And so we just had a really great, riveting conversation. But, you know, my first guest was. Was Scott Evans of. Of House Guests, but originally of Access Hollywood. And he laid up in bed with Bevy on the day that Access Hollywood was canceled. And he had been on that show for like 14 years or something insane. And the day it Got canceled. The announcement was done. He came and he laid in bed with Bevy, and we talked about it all.
Joy Reid
It's amazing because, right, you have amazing timing, you have amazing friends, and I think it's your relationships. And I feel like that is kind of one of the lessons, right? Is that the way you've been able to pivot to so many amazing things is your relationship building?
Bevy Smith
Yes, it really is. Right. And it's not networking. Networking is transactional, and it's predatory. It is literally really connecting with people as a human. I won't even work with clients, Joy, that I don't enjoy if there's someone that I just get, like, they're the X from all money and good money. And because we are personal brands, which, by the way, if you guys have not seen the episode, Joy Reid breaks down what it takes to be a personal brand. And it is truly a masterclass, my love. But as personal brands, so much of what people are buying into is us, so. And so much of what clients are buying into, it's us. So when we go out or when our people go out and sell something on our behalf, those folks are still going to want to see, have some quality time with us, Right? And if they. If they give me the X, I'm like, child, I don't need to check that bad.
Joy Reid
Amen. And I want to. I'm so curious what you make of this moment, because there are so many people that you and I both know that are transitioning, some willingly and some unwillingly, out of many media. It's like media is just expelling some of their most talented members.
Bevy Smith
It's scary and in some regard, but I think it could be liberating. As we talked about on embed with Bevy, it can be very liberating. You know, here's the thing. You cannot fight against the tides. The writing is on the wall, baby. And if you think for a minute that you have job security, I don't care what it is that you do, you are sadly mistaken. And we talked about this. I didn't even know that federal employees could be terminated unless they did something egregious. I just didn't think that that was a thing. I thought that the federal employees were much like people that had strong unions, like Teamsters or the teachers union. You can't fire those folks easily, baby. And I thought that federal employees were kind of like that. But then Trump came along and he showed us. He said, oh, no, baby, I can find them real easy. I can force all these people to take packages, subpar packages, and I can make them leave a job that they've been on for 25 years, 30 years before retirement age. So now they've got this. This gap in between. You know, they're like 62, but they got to wait until 65 to really have the. The real benefits, you know, really kind of kick in. So if you think you have job security, you are delusional. So as you said, you better be working your plan B because it might have to turn to your plan A.
Joy Reid
That's what I'm saying. I mean, and it's a thing that I tell. You know, I was so excited to have that conversation with you because that is a message that I definitely, definitely want, particularly young people who are just getting into these industries to understand, because I think they go in with the idea this is going to be like a lifetime trajectory that you're just going to keep moving up in the organization. Businesses don't work like that anymore. It's now sometimes you come in, pop in, pop out. They don't have any loyalty to you. So you need to have loyalty to your brand first.
Bevy Smith
Yes. And be building your personal brand, their huge corporate brand, utilizing all of the things that, that you have access to. Right. And. And that doesn't mean that, you know, you're. You're still in the toilet paper and the staplers and such. I don't even know if they still use staplers, but, you know, but this is literally about. If they're paying you to go and get an advanced degree, do so. If they're paying for you to go to a conference that's a part of your industry. Oh, please go take advantage of every single thing that you can. Because when they let you go, it will be unceremoniously.
Joy Reid
Yes, it was. It'll feel sudden. And you shouldn't feel sudden. You should just always do. If you get what they say, if you.
Bevy Smith
If you stay ready, I get ready.
Joy Reid
That's it.
Bevy Smith
And you cannot fall in love with these jobs. You also said something that was really profound when you, when you talked about the fact that, you know your job is not your dream. You remember that? That was really. You said your job is not your dream. Your dream is being able to do the thing that you love. And the job is just the vehicle for that. But that. That you can change out the vehicle. It's fine. So don't ever be so connected to the job.
Joy Reid
That's right.
Bevy Smith
The job comes and goes. The job lessons that we learned from Joy Reid on the In Bed with Bevy show. So, I mean, girl, you was dropping the gems.
Joy Reid
Listen, I was dropping the gems because I was with the right person and the, you know, the person who can really bring out the best in you is the best interviewer in the world, and that is you, my dear, wonderful sister. In Bed with Bevy is one of my favorite interviews that I've ever done because it was just me and my homegirl just talking stuff and also being able to drop some gems for the sisters and brothers and young people and even the seniors that need a little bit of a second.
Bevy Smith
Yes, indeed.
Joy Reid
Because you know what? It gets greater later.
Bevy Smith
It gets greater later.
Joy Reid
It gets greater later. Bevy Smith let everybody know where they can find In Bed with Bevy.
Bevy Smith
In Bed with bevy is on YouTube. The Bevy Smith is the channel. Then you can also listen to it on Spotify, Iheart and Apple.
Joy Reid
Fabulous. Bevy Smith, I love you and there's nothing you can do about it. Thank you for letting me be in bed with you, Bevy.
Bevy Smith
Thank you, my love.
Joy Reid
Love you. Thank you, thank you.
Bevy Smith
And thanks for my Blissy products. They better give you your credit for
Joy Reid
that because, listen, text me and tell me how much you love it because when I tell you, they are everything. And that pillowcase, baby, I'm telling you right now, you wake up. Your hair soft and fabulous. It is amazing.
Bevy Smith
Perfect. I love you, baby.
Joy Reid
Love you, girl. Bye bye. Yes, because, you know, listen, I'm telling you, we use the products that we push on here and like, we literally. We ain't gonna tell you something that we ain't really using in our sales. It's fabulous. Bevy Smith is awesome. It was so much fun. One of the most unique experiences ever. In Bed with Bevy. Nobody does it like Bevy Smith. So thank you to baby for having me on. We actually linked and we. You can see the episode on this channel. You can also see it on Bevy Smith's channel. In Bed with Bevy. Please follow her. Blow this thing up. It is incredible. And I. I have guessed my personal guesses of who her next guest is. She didn't tell me because it's a secret.
Scott McFarland
Secret.
Joy Reid
But I think we can kind of guess it's not Nosferatu. Jason, how dare you. Now you're upset.
Jason
Are you sure it's not Nosferatu?
Joy Reid
I don't know.
Jason
I don't know.
Joy Reid
I don't know.
Jason
Will Bevy have me in bed? Will Bevy invite me over to bed? I would love to be in bed with baby.
Joy Reid
Jason went and found that was not an original element of the show. Can I just tell y', all, he went and scared up a picture of Nosferatu. First he had a too handsome looking vampire. Then he said, let me get the real one. Nosferatu is definitely Miller. Put him back up again. Put it back again.
Jason
Are you sure? Are you sure? Hello, everybody. My name. Hi, baby. Move over, Bevy. Let me bite you.
Joy Reid
But you know what? 50 Stephen Miller, he would say in the fall, I'm voting for Daddy Daddy.
Jason
He would say, black woman, move out of the bed. Out of the bed. Bring me skinny white girl
Joy Reid
Daddy. He'll say, everyone must vote for Daddy Daddy. Because you know, they all betas. They're like, but Trump is my dad for Daddy Daddy. I wait for Paxton to make a video about about Daddy. I cannot wait for his clip about that. Trump is his daddy. I'm just. I'm just saying they're all supposed to be the alphas, but they're all like, daddy, Trump is Daddy. Daddy's home. Y' all better go hard on them Republicans. I promise you. Take. I. I know we want James Tyree to come on. You're welcome upon the show. You're very. He's clearly a very nice man. He may be too nice for this job because he's got to beat the crap out of Ken Paxton, who is insane. I don't think it's gonna work by being nice. I don't think so. I know Jasmine wouldn't have been nice. Jasmine would have come up with a name like bleach bomb. Bad built butchbody. I had him crying. They sit over here crying. Jason, you have people crying. Ebony Noel said, I'm over here crying. Put it back up one more time.
Jason
Are you sure you would like to see one more time?
Joy Reid
One more time.
Jason
One more time. Okay. Hi everybody. Steven Miller, My name is Stephen Midler, AKA and down deep secretly I love big black women.
Joy Reid
They just don't love me.
Jason
Joy, what are you doing?
Joy Reid
Running. Run, running. I'm running away from you. Nosferatu. Stay. AKA Stephen Miller.
Jason
I am going now.
Joy Reid
Goodbye. No spirit. Okay.
Jason
I think I'm gonna keep this up as I still. Every time I come on, I'd be saying Karen is scared to scary. There we go.
Joy Reid
It'll be Stephen Miller again. We have the. I want to do it. I'm gonna do a side by side. I'll post it on my social media of that picture. So it'll be the text me that picture dates and of Nosferatu and Stephen Miller because I Promise you they're the same person. I'm just saying they're the same person. I can't help that. All right, our moment of joy is an update on the racial delegation negotiations hosted by the hilarious George Brett Olson. Let's see how the negotiations are going, Jason, please. All delegates, it has come to my
Chris Farley
attention that some words with the word
Joy Reid
holy in it need jurisdictional discussion.
Chris Farley
Like, for example, who owns Holy Macaroni?
Joy Reid
Oh, telling delegation here, Holy Macaroni is ours.
Bevy Smith
But we can see joint custody to
Lawrence Winterman
our Bisons, the black delegation, for their
Bevy Smith
contribution to Mac and cheese, because they
Joy Reid
make it fresh, not that little box. Now, who owns Holy Smokes?
Bevy Smith
All right, Jamaican delegation on the check. Keen. And according to my documents here, Holy Smokes is a Rasta product, so it is indeed Jamaican intellectual property, but we are happy to license it out to the. To the Caucasian delegation. We don't utilize Holy Smokes very often, so instead of it just gathering dust, we'll gladly lend it to you guys. In exchange for that, though, if you could point us in the direction of who owns Holy Guacamole?
Joy Reid
This is a sound question. If anyone from any of the other racial delegations knows who owns Holy Guacamole. I think we should get back to George, because he is hosting the negotiations of all of the word things that we are trading between all of our various racial delegations. Because those of us who are on the non maga side. You think Mexico owns Holy Guacamole? See, I'm not sure I've ever heard a Mexican person say Holy Guacamole. That's why I'm not sure that they actually own that, even though.
Jason
Holy Guacamole. I did it. I did eat.
Joy Reid
I've unleashed the monster. Literally.
Jason
Holy Guacamole is mine. Weep, everybody. My delegation wins. Oh, yay.
Joy Reid
I've unleashed a monster. Now I have to live with no sp. Oh, God. Well, there you go. Nosferatu, AKA Stephen Miller owns Holy Guacamole. Jason is a mess. Absolutely. Oh, Jesus. I think that's it. Jason is amazed. He's lost it. He has found something, and he is not gonna let it go, y'. All. He is not gonna let it go. Let me remind you all that we will not have shows next week. We are going to take a little bit of a break. But on Monday, you know why? Tell me why. Why, mister?
Jason
Because we are traveling to Transylvania.
Joy Reid
Okay, okay, okay. Well, there you go. But we will on Monday, taking it seriously, we on Monday will have a live stream at the same time. As this show. 6:00pm There was an incredible documentary about black Voters Matter. It was brilliant. It was made a few years ago. It shows all of the things, the ups, the downs, the death threats, all that black Voters Matter has gone through in order to make sure that African Americans retain their right to vote. We're going to live stream co livestream that documentary on Monday at 6pm Eastern Standard Time, same time as this show. And then after the livestream at 8pm There is going to be a live conversation with myself, Latasha Brown, and Cliff Albright from Black Voters Matter and Roland Martin, who is also live streaming the show. So this is the way it's going to go. We're going to live stream the show on this network on the Joy Reid show channel at 6pm Please take a look at it. It's a really great documentary. It's very instructive about the fights in the modern era to retain the right to vote for African Americans. And then afterwards is going to be a live conversation between myself, Latasha Brown, Cliff Albright and Roland Martin. Uncle Ro, we're going to have that conversation and then Roland is going to replay the documentary on the Roland Martin network. So this is going to be fantastic. We're going to give our team a little bit of a break. I want to thank everybody on our amazing, amazing team. Ron and Nida and Cam Winsome Wang,
Jason
you.
Joy Reid
Am I missing any? Who am I? Oh, Miles.
Jason
Miles.
Joy Reid
And of course, Jason, myself, John Holdridge, and of course. Oh, you know, you had to say the best, the wonderful and incredible Sean, without whom nothing happens. Nothing can be done without the amazing Sean.
Jason
Would you like me to bite your neck?
Joy Reid
You do not bite her. Do not bite Sean's name.
Jason
We need Sean.
Joy Reid
She from the scissor. She might bite you back. She might bite you back.
Jason
Okay, okay. Sean has scared me away.
Joy Reid
Don't play with Nosferatu. Get down. Back in your back in your coffin, Stephen. All right, y'. All, thank you all for tuning in. Please, if you want to go to runme my slushmoney.com so that you two can send in respectfully stern letter to your member of Congress. All you have to do is just. It's. It's a plug and play. You grab the letter, you can shoot it off in an email to your member of Congress. They walk you through how to do it. And it's a way that we're going to try to make sure that we push back. We want to have a see a flood of letters going to Congress demanding accountability and that they cut off this fund or pay us all. That is it. It's one or the other. You either cut this fund off, kill the fund, or we all get a check. Right?
Bevy Smith
Right.
Joy Reid
There you go. We're giving reparations out, and we want to start with the descendants of Africa of African enslaved people. Get the reparations first. Do not spend our money on this bullshit. All right, y'. All, thank you very much for watching. We appreciate everyone. Have a wonderful weekend. Enjoy yourselves. Please come back on Monday to watch the documentary. God bless you and good night.
Jason
Good night.
Joy Reid
Bye.
Bevy Smith
Getting back to the basics Grassroot level Let me dig a little deeper with the shovel Plenty can't tell the force from the trees and I'm hard to detect Like a black hole in a jaw Injustice anywhere it's a threat to justice everywhere Let me make this clear I got a bone to pick and I'll never fear the threat of poverty they don't want to talk about it they rap the party so I'm a real talk about it for sure.
Date: May 30, 2026
Host: Joy-Ann Reid
Guests: Scott McFarland, Chris Farley, Lawrence Winterman, Bevy Smith
This episode of The Joy Reid Show dives into the chaos surrounding Trump’s proposed "Trump 250" celebrations for the U.S.’s 250th anniversary, covering unprecedented monuments, the controversial $250 Trump bill, legal challenges over a "slush fund" for January 6th insurrectionists, and the broader atmosphere of American and global political anxiety. The episode also features an in-depth discussion about the societal impact of AI, looming economic instability, a candid political segment on the Texas Senate race, and a lively talk with media personality Bevy Smith on resilience and transitioning in media careers.
(06:41 - 14:00)
(14:00 - 20:00)
(16:00 - 21:00)
(18:00 - 22:00)
Key Segment (20:40 - 31:12)
(31:12 - 35:31)
(36:42 - 38:49)
(42:57 - 53:23)
(47:03 - 60:55)
(66:05 - 95:38)
(98:53 - 113:48)
For listeners who didn't tune in, this episode is a rollicking, urgent tour through the circus of American politics in 2026—equal parts warning, strategy seminar, and group therapy, delivered with Joy Reid's trademark humor, passion, and clarity.