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- [00:05]
Joy Reid
Okay, Everybody. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to the Joy Reach show. It is Wednesday. The chat is already cooking. I love the comment here that says, I tried to go a day without news, but I couldn't do it. I just couldn't do it. Somebody else saying there are more criminals in ICE than they're actually kidnapping and torturing. I mean, facts on facts on facts. Good evening, everybody. Thank you all for tuning in. If you have not hit like and subscribe, I mean, those of you who are in the chat, you're already liked and subscribed, like, clearly. But you know what you could do? You could hit share. So you can share it with a friend, maybe share it with a foe. I got some hate mail today that was pretty funny. The person called me the N word in all caps with a hard R and then felt they needed to point out in the hate mail that they voted for Obama twice. They needed me to know that and said that I'm the racist. It was funny that. And I just let them know that, you know, if you send an email that's disparaging like that with your name and all that in it, it's not. You know, I do have the right to publish it. So I don't really know what we're going to do with that as of yet. But, yeah, that was my hate mail on today. It was very funny, but he really wanted to make let me know then he voted for Obama twice. But I'm the N word. Okay. Yeah, gotcha. Also, want to remind you guys that we are nominated for the NAACP Image Awards, and we want to make sure that you guys make sure to vote. We're going to give you a prompt at the end. Oh, there it is. Now, you guys can hit the little QR code. You can put your phone up. You can vote. You can actually vote every day. I think it's through early February. You're allowed to vote. Vote for me. I'll set you free. We're going to definitely be heading out to the NAACP Image Awards ceremony. It is super. It's a great honor to be nominated. Our category is packed with incredible people. Native land, pod, Don Lemon. It's a packed category. Vote for everybody. Vote for each of us, but vote for us for sure. Vote for the. The Joy Reid show. We appreciate that, and thank you so much to the nominating committee for that. You got a lot of housekeeping announcements at the end of the show. So we will get to those at the end of the show. Our last block, including, yes, people are asking and texting me Am I going to have more to say about Stephen A. Smith? Because he came back to and clapped back last night at me, Don and Jasmine Crockett. I have a wee bit to say, but that's going to be at the end of the show. You have to wait for that. He's not important enough to put at the top. We're going to do that at the end of the show. We'll push that back. But we begin tonight with the state of Minnesota under occupation. Minnesota, of course, is our latest state to be inundated by the Trump regime's armed secret police. And I want you guys to understand, I use that language very intentionally because if these scenes were playing out in any other country, particularly in a global south country, if they were in the Middle east somewhere or in Africa somewhere, we in the media would absolutely describe what you're about to see as the invasion of a city by regime secret police or by armed regime paramilitaries.
- [03:14]
Jason
Sam, they need me to show us this stupid ass thing. This is what they gave me. This is. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.
- [03:58]
Joy Reid
Clear it out.
- [03:58]
Jason
You're not a traffic cop. Clear it out. You're not a traffic cop.
- [04:04]
Joy Reid
Random, They said. Have you not learned this is why we killed that lesbian?
- [04:22]
Trita Parsi
Can you tell us what happened to you?
- [04:25]
Joy Reid
So, first off, I'm a United States Marine veteran. They. We were following them from a safe distance.
- [04:32]
Leah Littman
Following ICE agents?
- [04:33]
Joy Reid
Yep, following ICE agents. They tried. They stopped in the middle of the road and reversed on 62. They tried to ram our car. They broke my window. They yanked me out by my neck. They threw me to the ground. They stomped on me. They pushed my face into the ground. They put the cuffs on as tight as possible to the point where it took six agents to try to get them off.
- [05:31]
Jason
Hey, back up.
- [05:32]
Leah Littman
Go that way.
- [05:33]
Jason
Hey, back the.
- [06:17]
Joy Reid
Now, I want you all to notice that everyone who was accosted in that set of videos and big ups to Live from Occupied. No Turtle Soup and the Associated Press. So mainstream media and independent media and independent journalists capturing that video just in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Those were all from Minneapolis, Minnesota. But you'll notice that when ICE started out, they were targeting Latino men very intentionally. Most of the people they were running up to on the street were brown men. And that was very intentional because they were trying to put forward a narrative that what they were doing was hunting down the worst of the worst. And the worst of the worst were trend and other gang members, Venezuelan gang members. So they were trying to catch people who looked like that narrative. Most of whom they would release. They weren't they. There are almost no reports here of actual gang members being charged with gang activity or prosecuted. But now, particularly in the wake of Renee Good's murder, but even just before that, the complexion and gender of the targets is shifting. Have you noticed that you're seeing more and more women and as you see in that video, more and more people who are black. We were always getting here. And you heard Lev Parnas reporting from inside the administration that the narrative that's being built by the shooting in the face three times of Christian white mom of three, Renee Good, isn't working for the regime. Except that now they've decided to lean into the idea of targeting women. Because, remember, the quota is being set by Stephen Miller and he wanted 3,500 people a day. But originally they seemed to want men, especially brown men. You saw a black pregnant woman being thrown to the ground and kidnapped and thrown into a van. You saw a brown woman who was just on her way to a doctor's appointment who's being given conflicting directions. Go, don't go. Go. Get out of the car. She has no idea what to do. Then she gets dragged out of the car. She's not being accused of a crime. She's just in their way. And you saw a black woman whose husband is dragged off from their home, and you see her out there crying. This is where the regime is going. Yes. I have to say we shouldn't fall for the Okie Doke.
- [08:51]
Dr. Vin Gupta
We know what they're trying to do.
- [08:52]
Joy Reid
They're trying to excite black folk. Correct.
- [08:54]
Dr. Vin Gupta
And everybody else to get angry so.
- [08:57]
Joy Reid
They can go ahead and have the authority to pass this stupid state law where they can basically just take over the country and do what they want to do. So black folk do not fall for the Okie do. Correct. Insurrection act and what they've wanted, per Lev Parnas, in order to get the Insurrection act going. And since they are failing again, if you just look at the data, they are still not out deporting the Biden administration. The Trump regime is not deporting more people than President Biden or Barack Obama deported. They're also not indicting as many people because most of the people, something like seven in 10, have no criminal record and aren't even accused of anything. They're getting people who have a removal order, which is not a felony, or just random people who are brown. They're racially profiling people. They're demanding that anyone they roll up on, on the street who's brown produce proof of citizenship, or they arrest them. Or if they're in the way of them kidnapping someone else, they arrest them. But they're increasingly targeting women, and they're increasingly targeting black people because they want to trigger black men who see black women getting harassed and hurt in the street to go in the street. And they want to trigger even white men who see white women getting harassed in the street. They're targeting LGBTQ people using lots of anti LGBTQ language. You saw that young woman who is a Marine veteran targeted and spoken to in a disparaging way about her gender identity. Know what they're doing and see what they're doing. They're trying to instigate riots so that Donald Trump and Stephen Miller and Tom Holman and Kristi Noem and Pamela Jo can have the reasoning to do the Insurrection Act. Just as Lev Parnas told us, Jason is correct. Martial law is the plan. And this is also a rehearsal for November, y'. All. These look like occupied cities. This does not look like an American suburb. But that exactly is what I'm showing you. Suburbs. Now, I will note that the Minneapolis Attorney General, Keith Ellison has announced that his state will now sue the Trump regime over the occupation of his state. Take a listen. That's all right. We're going to grab that. It's A two.
- [11:23]
Jason
Here to announce a lawsuit we're filing against the United States Department of Homeland Security to end the unlawful unprecedented surge of the federal law enforcement agents into Minnesota. Because this has to stop. It just has to stop. We allege that the obvious targeting of Minnesota for our diversity, for our democracy, and our differences of opinion with the federal government is a violation of the Constitution and of federal law. We allege that the surge. Reckless impact on our schools, on our local law enforcement, is a violation of the 10th Amendment and the sovereign laws and powers of the Constitution grants to states. We allege that DHS's use of excessive and lethal force, their warrantless racist arrests, their targeting of our courts, our churches, houses of worship and schools are a violation of the Administrative Procedures act on arbitrary and capricious federal actions. And we ask that the courts will end the surge of thousands of DHS agents into Minnesota.
- [12:37]
Joy Reid
You can see Mayor Jacob Fry there. And I said Minneapolis. I meant Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. You saw Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fry, and by the way, the woman who was doing the sign language interpretation, she's fabulous. And you saw that multiracial democracy in full effect in the state of Minnesota. So that is that announcement. Now, of course, it's not just mini Minnesota. Which is why Illinois Congressman Robin Kelly has announced that she will, in her capacity as a member of the United States Congress, seek the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noemi.
- [13:13]
Representative Robin Kelly
Speaker, I rise today to announce I will be impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Secretary Noem has violated the Constitution and she needs to be held accountable for terrorizing our communities. Operation Midway Blitz has torn apart the Chicagoland area. President Trump declared war on Chicago and then he brought violence and destruction to our city and our suburbs in the form of immigration enforcement. In my district, federal agents repelled down from Black Hawk helicopters and burst into an apartment building in the South Shore area. They dragged US citizens and non citizens alike out of their beds in the middle of the night. They claim the apartment was infiltrated by members of a Venezuelan gang. I don't understand this President's obsession with Venezuela. But they did not arrest a single member from that gang. I visited that apartment building and saw firsthand the destruction those agents left. Doors to people's homes or apartments were kicked down. Belongings, including little kids toys were strewn about in the hallway. That raid and so many others shook our community. Not just immigrants, but everyone. Now Secretary Noem has brought her reign of terror to Minneapolis. After she left Charlotte and Raleigh. We have all seen what happened. An ICE officer shot and killed Rene Nicole Good in cold blood. Without knowing any of the facts or an investigation, Secretary Noem lied about what happened. She called a beloved 37 year old mom a domestic terrorist. Secretary Noem and her rogue agents are the ones terrorizing our communities. And she is breaking the law to do so. I will hold her accountable. And I'm filing three articles of impeachment against Secretary Noem. Number one, obstruction of Congress. Secretary Noem has denied me and other members of Congress oversight of ice, the detention facilities. It is our constitutional duty to find out what's happening in these centers where people are reportedly being treated like less than animals. Two, violation of public trust. Secretary Noem directed ICE agents to arrest people without warrants, used tear gas against citizens and ignored due process. She claims she's taken murderers and rapists off our streets. But none of the 614 people arrested during Operation Midway Blitz has been charged or convicted of murder or rape. Three, self dealing. Secretary Noem has abused her power for personal benefit. She steered a federal contract to a new firm run by a friend. Her friend. Her propaganda campaign to recruit ICE agents cost taxpayers $200 million. She made a video that turned the South Shore raid into something that that look more like A movie trailer. But make no mistake, this is not a movie. This is real life and real people are being hurt and killed. I really have to wonder who are the people behind the mask. These DHS agents have no identifying factor from all their botched raids and officer involved shootings. I have to ask, what is their training like? What is the vetting? Is Secretary Noem recruiting 1-6- insurrectionists? I was one of the last members of Congress to escape the house gallery on January 6th. I remember hiding on my hands and knees and running through the hallways to a safe room. Insurrectionists are not fit to serve as law enforcement. I realize that impeachment of Secretary Noem does not bring Renee back. True justice would be Renee alive today at home with her family. Impeachment doesn't bring back the four other people killed by immigration officers this year year, including a man in Chicago. We cannot bring them back to their loved ones. What we can do though is impeach Secretary Noem. Hold her accountable, let her know the public is watching. In this country, we do not kill people in cold blood without consequences. These are not policy disagreements. These are violations of her oath of office and she must answer for her impeachable actions.
- [17:29]
Joy Reid
Amen to Representative Robin Kelly. We are trying to get her on the show, hopefully soon. It is in that environment that the Joy Reach show recently sat down with former Georgia House minority leader, two time gubernatorial candidate and civil activist Stacey Abrams, who has broken down what's happening in our democracy in our anti democracy autocratic moment. Now we started off by asking the question many have wondered about and that is whether she's planning to run for governor. Take a listen. And joining me now is civic strategist, author, recovering politician and former Georgia House minority leader and also two time candidate for governor of Georgia and now the host of the Assembly Required podcast, the great and glorious Stacey Abrams. Happy New Year, my sister. How are you?
- [18:11]
Stacey Abrams
I am well, thank you. Happy New Year to you as well.
- [18:14]
Joy Reid
Thank you so much and welcome. I want to start with obviously the big breaking news that is all in my text Messages because about 18 people have texted me, you have elected not to make another run for governor of Georgia. Let's get that out of the way. Tell me how you came to that decision and why.
- [18:35]
Stacey Abrams
I ran for governor in 18 and in 2022 because the role of governor is an extraordinary platform to serve people to solve the problems that they have. We talk about affordability often in the abstract, but particularly in the south, as you know well, access to affordable health care in Georgia. We don't have it because the governor won't expand Medicaid access to affordable housing. We don't have it because the governor will not invest in affordable housing options making certain that women have bodily autonomy. We don't have it because the governor won't do it. And so each time I've applied for the job, it's because I've wanted to do the work. And the best way, or I would say the most expansive way to do the work, was to hold that job. But I also recognize that in 2025, we saw a brand new specter emerge on the horizon that threatens not only the very real issues I want to tackle in Georgia, but a larger national threat to all of us. And for me, the decision was, where am I best utilized? Where can I serve America, serve Georgia, and serve the people that I care about so deeply? And as someone who has always believed there are multiple tools in the toolbox, this is a tool that I think I don't need to use right now because we have a set of issues, voting rights, voter protection, but more importantly, just connecting people back to what we should expect of our government. And that is work that I can do, and that is the work that I want to undertake right now.
- [20:11]
Joy Reid
All right. And we then got into the meat of the matter. And These are the 10 stages that a nation goes through when it's falling into an autocracy and where we fall on that spectrum. But before Jason, before you play that, I want to bring in our guest so that she can listen with us. Joining us now to break down where we are from a legal perspective and also to discuss the goings on today in the Supreme Court is our friend Leah Littman, professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School, where she teaches and writes on constitutional law, federal courts, and federal post conviction review. She's also the author of Lawless how the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories and Bad Vibes. Leah, welcome back. Oh, can you hear me, Leah? Uh oh, is she frozen? We got it. Oh, I think we got you. Do we have you, Leah? Oh, she's muted. You're on mute. You're on mute. Leah, unmute yourself. Uh oh. Well, while you unmute yourself, we're going to work on unmuting you. And while we do that, we're going to go ahead and play the next section of this interview while we figure out how to unmute. Leah. Here is Stacey Abrams describing the 10 steps to autocracy. Take a listen. So walk us through the 10 steps to autocracy as you walk us through them, we're going to put them on the screen. But please tell us, what are the 10 steps and what do they mean?
- [21:29]
Stacey Abrams
Absolutely. So the 10 steps to autocracy and Authoritarianism are really a compilation. And I want to give credit to Princeton Professor Kim Shekel, who I was doing an event with her and saw her give a version of this, and with her permission, I've editorialized a bit and did some remixing. But if you look at authoritarian regimes across the world, this is always the playbook. So, one, they win an election. It's usually they run on a populist platform. They convince folks that they can solve problems that no one solves, and they get elected. But it's the last free and fair election you're going to have. Step two, they expand executive power, and heretofore it's been almost exclusively men. But you see this expansion of executive power often unchecked, because they are going to do as much as they can for as long as they can. Step three, you see the weakening of competing powers. We have seen that with Congress in Venezuela basically giving up the authority to determine whether we are at war or not. We have seen the Supreme Court suborn and in fact say we, why bother trying to stop him? You saw the Kavanaugh stops where he said it's fine to do racial profiling. So step three is you weaken competing powers because in a nation that has a judiciary, an executive and a legislative, the executive needs the other two to either be complicit or to be impotent. Step four, you break government so it doesn't work. Democracy is not just about who votes. Democracy is about what government does. Well, if you can make certain government doesn't do anything, in fact, if it's hard, no reason to defend the underlying system raised through. That's why we have the end of the ACA subsidies. They are breaking government so we no longer trust that government can work. And that's why they fired thousands and thousands of people, especially black women, because we were doing the work of getting things done. For step five, you then have to install loyalists because it's not enough to get rid of the people who know how to do things. In step four, you got to put people in place who do what the power wants. That's why we have a Kristi Noem who should not be in charge of anything. That's why we have a cosplayer as the Secretary of Defense. That's why we have a snake oil salesman in charge of health and Human services. That's why we have a podcaster in charge of the FBI. You want loyalists who are loyal not to the people, but to the power. Step six, you attack the truth. We saw that happen with you. We saw that happen with Karen Atia. We saw that happen with Jimmy Kimmel. We are watching the decimation of truth because you cannot push propaganda if the truth holds. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting dismantled itself because the truth became too painful and they gutted public media. But we're also watching with the growth of Skydance and Paramount and the fight over CNN and who's going to control the truth with Tik Tok. They don't only want to attack the truth by destroying who delivers it. They want to make certain they fill the gap with propaganda. Step seven, you scapegoat communities because you got to blame someone for everything you've done, everything you broke in. That is why they attack dei. Dei, let's think about it. Diversity, equity and inclusion. Diversity means all people. Equity means fair access to opportunity. Inclusion means respect for belonging. These are foundational American values, but they're also the core of a pluralistic democracy. If you want to create a white supremacist, Christian nationalist nation, DEI is your enemy. And so you go after the transgender community, you go after black people, you go after immigrants, you go after any marginalized community, because if you can scapegoat them but also diminish them, then you have removed threats to you. But you've also created someone to blame for all the things you're breaking. Step eight, you break and go after the support systems. You go after civil society. You sue universities, you sue philanthropies, you threaten organizations, you go after lawyers, so you make certain that there's no one to help fight back. That's why you dismantle civil society. Step nine, we talked about it. You normalize state violence because you want people to be afraid to fight back. Because when you get to step 10, that is when you dismantle democracy, you end democracy forever. And the thing is, we're going to still have elections. Venezuela had elections. Russia has elections. Turkey has elections. India has elections. The issue is, if they already know the outcome before the first vote is cast, those elections don't matter. And how do you do that? Well, you gerrymander and you take away the right of the people to elect folks who represent them. You purge voters like they did in Georgia, 478,000 voters purge. You go after the rules. You sue states to get and seize their voting information. And if the Supreme Court has its way. The Calais decision will dismantle forever the Voting Rights act so that there are no more protections for communities of color in this country. You break democracy and then you have permanent power.
- [26:33]
Joy Reid
Leah Littman, as a law professor and somebody who understands the Constitution, what is your reaction to that? Because it feels like we're at step 10 first.
- [26:43]
Leah Littman
Thanks for having me. Can you hear me now?
- [26:44]
Joy Reid
I can hear you now.
- [26:46]
Leah Littman
Excellent. Okay, so I only heard points 3 through 10. And what was striking to me in listening to them is hearing these descriptions and then thinking about all of the ways that the Supreme Court is really part of all of the projects and the steps that Stacey laid out. I'll just start at step three again, which is where I came back in capturing the other branches. Think about how Donald Trump has really weaponized the supreme court. First, Mitch McConnell and the Republican Party prevented Barack Obama from filling a Supreme Court vacancy that arose in February before an election in November. You know, they said, we're not going to allow you to fill that seat because we don't allow presidents to fill Supreme Court vacancies during election years. Fast forward to 2020, when Justice Ginsburg passes away while the presidential election is underway and votes are being cast, they confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court has allowed Donald Trump to really capture the other branches. Think about, you know, the administrative state. They are poised to give him sweeping powers to fire. You know, people who head agencies like the Federal Trade Commission or the National Labor Relations Board, these agencies that are supposed to act in the public interest. And they are about to hand Donald Trump, you know, control over so he can basically neuter them and ensure they don't act in the public interest. You want to talk about, you know, breaking government so it doesn't work. I mean, think about the initiatives that Joe Biden attempted to pass during his administration. Student debt relief, you know, the clean power plan, a test and vaccination requirement during COVID What do all three of those policies have in common? The Supreme Court blocked them all. Those were instances where government was working and trying to solve people's needs, and the Supreme Court stopped government from actually being effective. You know, if you read some of the post election retrospectives and interviews with people, something people faulted Joe Biden for was not doing student debt relief like he promised. He tried, but the Supreme Court stopped him. So those are just, you know, two of the steps. But, you know, I could go on through the entire list and talk about all of the different ways that the Supreme Court has been part of this steady march to, you know, the final step of dismantling our democracy, as Stacey described it.
- [29:07]
Joy Reid
And the thing is, just this week, we've seen an unprecedented statement from Jerome Powell, the Fed chair. You never actually hear them talk like you always want. Like, what did Paul Volcker sound like? I don't know. They never really would speak. Right. You suddenly had him coming out and doing like a four minute video defending himself against being investigated, supposedly over renovations to the Fed chairman of the building. But it's really about him refusing to lower interest rates as Donald Trump commanded him to, when he commanded him to. And it's this Russell vote idea that the chair, the Federal Reserve, is not independent of the federal government. And then today we get the reporting that a Washington Post reporter's home was raided as part of a leak investigation. Unprecedented. It is very unusual for the FBI to go in and search a journalist's home because they're trying to find out her sources. This seems to me something that could be litigated before the Supreme Court, but I'm not confident that John Roberts at all would find any problem with it. That, to me, is why we're in so much trouble.
- [30:10]
Leah Littman
It is very much part of the story. I mean, start with the Jerome Powell example. You know, next week, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in the case where Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook is challenging Donald Trump's attempt to remove her from her position. And so we will see whether the Supreme Court is basically willing to say Donald Trump is lying. You know, the reason he is firing these governors of the Federal Reserve is not because, you know, they said something or another to Congress about the scope of renovations to the Fed. No one cares about that. There's no there, there. You know, as Jerome Powell said, the reason why he's being targeted is because he refuses to make economic policy based on what is in the President's political interests rather than in the public's interest. And we've seen, you know, in other countries that have descended into autocracy, what happens when you make monetary policy no longer independent. You know, when Erdogan in Turkey, you know, took, you know, the country's central bank, what happened? Sure, like in the short term, you know, inflation got better, but then, you know, inflation takes off and their economy absolutely craters. You know, part of the reason why our economy has been, you know, relatively stable notwithstanding, you know, the real pain and recessions, you know, that have happened is because there has been independent monetary policy, you know, for the last near century, ever since, you know, The Great Depression. And that is what Donald Trump is jeopardizing. And in many ways, you know, the Supreme Court basically invited him to do that. You know, he is launching these baseless investigations against, again, Governor Cook and now Chair Powell and also apparently, you know, breaking into and, you know, throwing down the doors of Washington Post journalists in order to execute these searches. Well, think back to the immunity opinion that says the Supreme Court issued, you know, a year and a half ago. What did they say in that case? They said the president's powers over investigative and prosecutorial functions were exclusive and plenary and that it didn't matter if those investigations were shams or being carried out for improper purposes. Congress could not restrain the president's power to order the Justice Department to undertake investigations and initiate prosecutions that were shams. So, again, we come back to this problem where courts could and should be an independent check, you know, that ensures government is functioning in some minimal way. And instead, this court has enabled and facilitated, you know, Donald Trump's, you know, foray into authoritarianism at every single step.
- [32:57]
Joy Reid
The thing is, in a rational country and in what we used to think of as the United States democracy, the idea of armed, masked troops in our streets racially profiling anyone with an accent or who is brown, which apparently Kavanaugh has said you can do, and demanding that citizens. I just saw another video today. I didn't have time to cut every video I saw today of these ice. We assume they're ICE agents. We don't know. Just these masked men walk up to a man, demand to see his papers. The video picks up. After he refuses to give them any proof of his citizenship. They arrest him, threaten to tase him, throw him into the back of a van, while another man is saying, you can't do that to him. He's a citizen. He's telling them, I'm a citizen. They're like, you can't prove it, therefore, they have. You have no rights, effectively. And there seems to be nowhere to go. We're seeing AG Keith Ellison is going to sue over this civilly. But how can it possibly be legal for the regime to send armed mask troops with no warrants? And they can just harass, tackle, kidnap, steal, take the car of anyone they want.
- [34:12]
Leah Littman
It's not legal. I mean, for all intents and purposes, the regime has basically suspended the Constitution in the state of Minnesota. You know, you have agents going into homes, you know, demanding that people identify who are your brown and black neighbors, you know, identify, you know, any people of Somali descent in your Neighbor. We have seen the videos of violence. You know, there was the high schooler, you know, whose phone was taken and then located, you know, in some sort of used item resale. It was just absolute insanity. You know, and this is, of course, all happening in the wake of, you know, the videotape, you know, showing an ICE masked officer killing Renee Nicole Goode. You know, when her final words are, I'm not mad, and she smiles and drives away from him. It is stunning. You know, I grew up in Minnesota, seeing these videos, you know, from my home state of, you know, what the federal government is doing there is appalling. I mean, people can't go to school, they can't go to work, they can't go to their doctor's offices. You know, I'm not sure if you saw this video, but a woman is trying to drive through Minneapolis. She stopped by ICE agents and says, you know, I have a doctor's appointment. They basically throw her out of her car. You know, people can't go about their daily lives. And this is happening in the United States. You know, in your remarks, you said, you know, there's nowhere to go. And I think what we have seen is the place to go is your community, because what people are doing is patrolling their schools, you know, patrolling their churches, you know, meeting in churches, meeting in homes to actually organize to ensure their communities are safe and that they can walk their neighbor's children to school. And that has been, I have to say, like the only positive sign or light in all of this I have seen. You know, I am glad that AG Ellison is bringing a lawsuit. I think one thing that lawsuits can do is uncover facts, and I'm hopeful that they will introduce evidence and we will get an important district court opinion, like, frankly, the one we got in Chicago, where the district court report, you know, posted on the Internet for everyone to see. Here's all the videos, you know, of ICE doing these awful things. Here are the examples of ICE lying. It is important to uncover those facts, get them out to people. And so, you know, how do we get through this? We get through this through community and by standing together. Because at the end of the day, you know, they have deployed. I read somewhere that it's something like more ICE officers than, you know, the Minneapolis Police Department. But still, you know, there are more Minnesotans in Minnesota than there are ICE agents. And, you know, if we all stand together, we will get through this.
- [36:55]
Joy Reid
And I will note that Robin Kelly, in her impeachment resolutions, points out that it appears that that massed Dramatic land on the roof raid on a Chicago apartment building was done primarily to film it, to effectively make a commercial. They were filming a movie because they did not arrest Trend Aragua members. There are no prosecutions. If there were prosecutions of Trend Aragua gang leaders, we haven't heard about it, and Cash Patel like to get on TV and talk all the time about what they're supposedly doing. We haven't seen the press conference about the fruits of that labor. Where are the prosecutions of Trend? There aren't any, because they were pulling naked children and children in their pajamas and adults who were in their PJs, throwing them out into the cold and throwing them into box, into giant sort of box trucks and separating them men from women, as if this was 1930s Germany. I want to also note that a lot of the anger that they're trading on in order to get people on the MAGA side to be on their side is this continued lie about the election in 2020 because a majority of white Americans voted for Trump, but Trump still lost to Joe Biden. There is this rage among MAGA people that the election was stolen, and Trump has encouraged that and traded on it. There is a Supreme Court decision on today that I would love for you to weigh in on, because the Supreme Court majority has now sided with a conservative Illinois congressman who wanted to challenge the idea that people could turn in their absentee ballots 14 days after the official election day. And they have said they haven't ruled on the merits of his challenge, but have said that a politician like him can challenge those election rules. What's the meaning of that?
- [38:42]
Leah Littman
I mean, there's no question that that decision is going to open up a new front for litigation for Republican politicians to challenge state rules that make it easier for people to vote and that make it easier to count people's ballots. You know, the big decision that we're waiting on is the one later this term, which is in Watson versus Republican, you know, Senate National Committee. And in that case, the court is going to decide whether states can count ballots that are received after election. So that is part of the claim that this congressman wanted to raise. And the Supreme Court is going to hear a case that actually presents that question later on this term. If they say no, that's going to nullify the voting laws in 15 plus states and dramatically reshape the law governing elections in the lead up to the very important midterm elections.
- [39:37]
Joy Reid
So.
- [39:37]
Leah Littman
So, you know, this particular decision, not that surprising. I think its, you know, effect will be allowing more Lawsuits by Republican politicians to challenge the state rules that make it easier, you know, for people to vote. Think about, you know, during COVID when some state courts or some state executives were saying, oh, you have some additional time to request an absentee ballot or to, you know, send back your absentee ballot, given the mail delays, given more people, you know, needing to vote absentee. And it's those kinds of rules that the Supreme Court is basically now allowing, you know, individual Republican politicians to potentially challenge in addition to, you know, institutions and entities and organizations to do so.
- [40:24]
Joy Reid
It feels like we are outside the rule of law and we can come back to that. But I do feel like the goal here is to essentially create an apartheid state where people in the majority, which is the, you know, beyond the 60% of white Americans who tend to vote Republican, everyone else has less of a right to vote and so they can maintain power. That's just my theory. I won't put that on you. But I want to talk about the idea of international law because people feel like we're not constrained anymore by the law because the Supreme Court majority, six of them, want this. They want a, basically a monarch. They're monarchists. And as long as the monarch is a conservative Republican, they're good with it, right? He can commit crimes, they've said. He can use Seal Team 6 to kill anyone that he wants. He is above the law. They have decided that. John Roberts has said that is the case. But international law, one would think, still applies. Yet we have Pete Hegseth, the man who is in charge of the murders at sea of Trinidadian fishermen, of Venezuelan fishermen, again, none of whom have been arrested and charged with narco terrorism. I want to remind y' all again, there has been not one attempt to show us a prosecution for narco terrorism resulting from the murder at sea of more than 80 people. They just went ahead and killed them. It now turns out, per the New York Times, that the Pentagon I'm reading for the New York Times here used a secret aircraft painted to look like a civilian plane in its first attack on a boat that the Trump administration said was smuggling drugs. And it should be claimed, by the way, New York Times not said was smuggling drugs, killing 11 people last September, according to officials briefed on the matter. The aircraft also carried its munitions inside the fuselage rather than visibly under its wings. The non military appearance is significant, according to legal specialists, because the administration has argued that its lethal boat attacks are lawful, not murders. Because President Trump determined the United States is in an armed conflict with drug cartels however, the laws of armed conflict prohibit combatants from feigning civilian status to fool adversaries into dropping their guardians than attacking and killing them. This is a war crime called perfidy. Is there any international body that can hold Pete Hegseth and whoever aided him accountable for committing a war crime?
- [42:41]
Leah Littman
Sure, you know, there are international tribunals, you know, like the International Criminal Court and whatnot. You know, the reality is, however, that international law is usually enforced, you know, by other states and by other states condemning actions and then, you know, imposing some sanction or penalty on the country that is in violation of international law. You know, on that Hegseth example in particular, in some ways, it just underscores, you know, the complete insanity and brazenness of what the administration is doing, because of course, we're talking about the laws of war, and in the laws of war, you're not supposed to be able to conceal yourself, you know, as non military or civilian. But this isn't a war. They are literally summarily executing civilians, you know, and fishermen. And so, you know, trying to transpose all of this onto what they are doing, you know, is all the more bizarre. And also today, you know, we saw released, or I guess it was yesterday, you know, the Trump Office of Legal Counsel's memo attempted to justify, you know, their invasion of Venezuela and their capturing, you know, of Nicolas Maduro. And in that, you know, memo, which is largely redacted, they take the utterly bizarre position that there is no international law or treaty that prohibits the invasion of another country and use of force. This is literally a provision in the UN Charter. You know, why they think that is not governing or applicable, who knows? But, you know, we are seeing, you know, their disdain not just for constitutional law, for statutes, for norms, you know, but the entire international order and international law as well.
- [44:19]
Joy Reid
And also on the domestic front, we've seen the newly elected mayor of New York, Zorhan Mamdani, one of his staffers, a city staffer who has a work permit, detained by ice. The mayor is calling for his immediate release. So we're now talking about people who work for local and city government being snatched up despite having the legal right to work here. ICE has gone far beyond the original policy notion of them after the 2001 terrorist attacks to essentially operate far from the border. I mean, as does the border patrol, apparently. They can operate anywhere in the country and they can even arrest people who in a sense, are part of the government.
- [45:03]
Leah Littman
Yes. I mean, in addition to, you know, arresting, you know, government workers, there are reports out of Minnesota that the Hennepin County Medical center is actually concerned about their ability to provide medical care because people are scared about coming to work, you know, and working in hospitals. So this, you know, getting back to Stacey Abrams list, this is a way of making government and civic society ineffective and scared. You know, people can't go to their jobs where they provide essential services. What does that mean? It means government can't actually do what it is supposed to do, you know, help people, provide medical care, you know, provide social services, offer public benefits. And they're accomplishing this by unleashing this, you know, mass paramilitary force that is just committing human rights violations, you know, willy nilly and feels emboldened to do so. I mean, you know, among the videos are like ice, you know, circling people who are monitoring them and protesting them, you know, just mocking those individuals. You know, the sight of these federal officers just mocking people for exercising their constitutional rights, I mean, should be yet another sign of how far we have fallen.
- [46:15]
Joy Reid
And it feels, I think to a lot of people like the first amendment is kind of been set aside. Right. Just to be clear, people have the right to film federal agents who are arresting people, right? Yes.
- [46:29]
Leah Littman
I mean, you can't interfere with them actually carrying out their duties, but filming them on your phone does not remotely come close to impeding or obstructing a federal investigation or federal law enforcement. So, you know, the courts that have considered this, you know, have I think pretty uniformly said, of course, individuals have a constitutional right to their own speech. And that speech sometimes includes, you know, filming an officer who is carrying out their law enforcement responsibilities.
- [47:03]
Joy Reid
There's also the question of whether or not if someone accosts you in the street, just from a legal matter, you have to go with them. Because again, these ICE agents, assuming they are ICE agents, they're dressed in federal looking uniforms. But in some cases, we know there have been cases of people portraying and pretending to be ICE agents. We know of at least one case of a Latina, a woman who was grabbed by someone, and it turned out this person was not law enforcement at all. And given the threat of that, which members of Congress have also pointed out could happen, you can order these uniforms on online. Do people have to go with someone who is saying, I'm ice, you're not. You can't prove you're a citizen. You have to get in this van.
- [47:47]
Leah Littman
I mean, I think we are really dealing with a situation we haven't seen before. Because what courts have said said is, you know, when someone identifies themself as an officer, you know, that is, you know, an indication that you right. Need to kind of follow their, you know, lawful orders and whatnot. But, you know, what happens in these situations where they look like civilians, where they are wearing masks, where we have seen reports of individuals impersonating ICE officers in order to commit crimes. So, you know, I think it is, frankly, a novel question, you know, whether courts will say, you know, an individual's obligation to respond in that instance, where you might not know whether the person who says they're a law enforcement officer is a law enforcement officer, whether you have the same obligation to respond in the same way as you would, you know, under different circumstances, under normal circumstances.
- [48:42]
Joy Reid
Let's play. Jason this is A11, Stacey Abrams, response to the question of what we do, because I think it's important. Scaring is caring, as we do like to say. But it's also important to give people some sort of hope that there's something you can do. And, and Stacy did have a list of things of 5 responses that we can have to this moment. And no, we're going to skip 10 and we're going to go right to a 11, please. Oh, 10. Go ahead. I think it's go ahead. It seems to me that that all of those things are already a fait accompli. STACEY this is, I think, what scares so many people who pay attention to this or who have read How Democracy Dies or, you know, what fascism is. All of the books that we've all read and tried to understand what's happening in advance, it's all done other than step 10. So then the question is, what do we do about it?
- [49:34]
Stacey Abrams
So if there are 10 steps to authoritarianism and autocracy and they have hit all 10 steps, and let's be clear, they're all they're deep into step 10. We just haven't had the big election. We're waiting for the midterms. But let's be clear, they've been practicing throughout the country for years with this. So this is the denouement. This is the moment where we're seeing it all come together. But let's be clear, they've been doing it. But if there are 10 steps to autocrossing authoritarianism, Joy there are 10 steps to freedom and power. And so I talk about the first 10 steps because we got to recognize what we face. And for those of us who've read On Tyranny and read Erika Chenoweth's book, those of us who've read it, great. But we got to talk to the people who haven't read it because they're at their second or third job. We got to talk to the gig workers who just want to get home and take a break for a moment. So we got to make sure all of us recognize what we face. But then the next thing is, we got 10 steps to freedom and power. We have to commit to understanding what we face. Step two, we have to share what we know. Step three, we have to organize ourselves. Step four, we've got to mobilize and do something about it. Step six, we have to litigate. We got to get in there and get into the fight. We have to do the work of making sure that we are disrupted. What we saw happen with this young woman in Minneapolis is a tragedy, but she was being disruptive. And disruption is how we break the back of authoritarianism. They cannot be allowed to let it stand. And we've got to be the way to get rid of it. We've got to then make certain that we deny them the right to change our language. That's why I talk about DEI all the time. It's why your show is so important, because we have to deny them the ability to tell us our own truths. We then have to do the work of making sure that once we've done all of that, we've got to engage. It hurts, and it's going to fail again and again and again. We saw this with the shutdown. We were this close, we thought, to really having a breakthrough, and then they gave up. And people like, well, I'm done. No, that's what they want. Our friends sometimes make mistakes, too. We have to stay engaged. We got to keep pushing back. Because if we stay engaged, where we get to are the elections that we need so that we can hire the people that we have to have. Because ultimately, the end game is not the fair complete. It's the demanding, the democracy we deserve, demanding the country we should have had. Because the reason we're in this place right now is that we didn't have what we needed before. And if they've done anything for us, they have revealed the broken places, the weak places. And our job is to step into those places and demand the country we need.
- [52:14]
Joy Reid
Leah Lippman, your thoughts on those 10 steps that we can take to push back on this very rapid movement toward autocracy?
- [52:22]
Leah Littman
I think those are all really important steps. And I guess one additional gloss on all of them, I would add, is concern, consistency. You know, these aren't things that we can just do, you know, for a few days or a week and expect that things are going to get better. I think, realistically, we have to find sustainable ways to do this consistently, you know, from now through the midterms and through the 2028 presidential election. I also want to underscore, you know, what Stacy said about Renee Nicole Goode, which is she was doing the things that are necessary, you know, to fight back against autocracy and to save democracy and acting within her rights in doing so. And I think one reason why the administration is doing what they are doing in Minneapolis and Minnesota is to scare people. You know, that's why the administration has launched this investigation into Jerome Powell. They are trying to coerce and bully people to be too scared to stand up, act in the public interest, to exercise their rights in order to protect their neighbors and community. And so we should remember that there's a reason why they are lashing out so harshly when they see a community get together, protect their own, and stand up to what the administration is doing, because those are the things that will stop them that we are able to do in order to prevent this from getting worse and to turn the ship around.
- [53:56]
Joy Reid
Yeah, I think they were shortsighted right in. They looked at the demographics of Trump's supporters, and they thought, oh, Jerome Powell is down with this. He's gonna want to have a booming economy under Trump. He's gotta be one of us. He's gonna lower interest rates because we want him to. And they were shocked when he was like, yeah, no, I'm not gonna do that. Just as they were shocked when a lot of Republicans during the 2020 election were like, yeah, I'm not gonna break the law. Even Brian Camp, who's a villain in many ways in Georgia, was like, yeah, I'm not gonna break the law for you. They were shocked. And I think that they've been shocked that in Minneapolis and in other places in Minnesota and in Chicago and other places, the people they just assume are with them, white Americans, a lot of them are like, yeah, no, you can't arrest my neighbor. Yeah, no, no, I'm not down with you grabbing the guy who works with me at the restaurant and out of the kitchen and dragging him out or dragging him out of Home Depot. I think they've been surprised at the pushback they're getting from people they presume should be with them, should be also fearful of Somali immigrants and fearful of brown people. And they're like, yeah, no, I'm not down with it. And now they have turned the eye of Sauron even on White women. Because these white women are like, I'm gonna use my privilege to speak back to the police like Renee Nicole Goode did. And they're like, okay, we'll shoot you in the face in order to shut white America down. That's what it feels like to me. They want white America to know, if you side with these brown and black immigrants, we're coming for you too. Right?
- [55:26]
Leah Littman
I mean, I think this is partially what Stacey was talking about when she talked about normalizing state violence. Because we saw, you know, in the early days of the Trump administration, they were primarily, you know, targeting, for example, you know, Venezuelans and sending them, you know, to that notorious torture, torture prison. They were targeting, you know, foreign nationals and shipping them off to third countries where they were at risk of abuse and torture. And they were summarily executing, you know, fishermen, you know, in the Caribbean and the Pacific. And then, you know, when they eventually turn, you know, their state violence, you know, on a white woman, she gets swept, you know, together into that, you know, immigration bucket, right? They are trying to deny that she is a wife, that she is a mother, right? That she is a neighbor. She is instead a domestic terrorists, right? And part of, you know, these immigration groups, you know, and networks and an activist. No, like, she is a person, right? Just like all of the other people, you have turned, you know, the state's violence on. And I think they are hoping and assuming that our tolerance level, right, has just risen where we will write this off and accept it. Like, frankly, too many people did with so many of the things, you know, that the administration did the first time around and that they did, you know, in the first year, you know, of this second Trump term, or like they.
- [56:50]
Joy Reid
Did in 1930s Germany. Exit question to you. Because, I mean. I mean, unfortunately, you know, people are like, well, what would it have looked like, right, if the, you know, SS troops were marching through the streets of Munich and grabbing people's neighbors? It looked like this. You know, what did it look like if slave catchers were coming to New Hampshire to try to drag some, you know, poor carpenter back down south to slavery? It looks like. Like this. Like this is what it always looks like. If you're wondering what you would have done in those horrible times, if somebody was coming for someone to lynch them and they were busting down doors to try to find a lynching. It looked like this. It looked exactly like this. Masks and all. Your exit question to you, Leah. The Justice Department has now seen mass resignations, multiple. I should say mass. I should say multiple resignations in both Washington, D.C. and Minnesota. Reading from a PBS story here, Wave of resignations from top prosecutors. At least four senior leaders of the division that investigates police kill police killings have resigned in protest over the handling of that fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minnesota. Six other federal prosecutors have also left their posts. What do you make of the fact that what sparked these resignations was the attempt by the DOJ to not investigate the the ICE agent but rather to investigate the late Renee Nicole Good and her partner to try to frame them as the criminals?
- [58:20]
Leah Littman
The idea that the DOJ would turn its focus and ire and the eye of Sauron on, you know, the widow, you know, the victim's widow is one of the more galling things I think we have seen. It should shock and horrify us all. I am happy, you know, to see so many individuals, you know, in Minnesota and do DOJ in D.C. resign, you know, instead of carrying out these orders because that underscores, you know, something that the administration is attempting to penalize, you know, Senators Mark Kelly and Alyssa Slotkin for saying and Mark Kelly suing, by.
- [58:58]
Joy Reid
The way, he is over this.
- [59:00]
Leah Littman
You have no obligation to carry out legal order, illegal orders. You should not do so.
- [59:05]
Joy Reid
Right.
- [59:06]
Leah Littman
You should follow the law. And it is encouraging, you know, that some in the federal government still continue to believe that. And it is encouraging, you know, that there is this widespread outrage over, you know, the murder of Renee Nicole Goode and everything that DOJ and ICE have done since then.
- [59:25]
Joy Reid
Leah Littman, thank you as always. Hopefully, hopefully we'll come back often. I know we're waiting for some Supreme Court court decision. So keep your phone handy because we're going to be reaching back out as more of these decisions come down. Kalay is coming. There are a lot of big decisions. So we're going to keep you on our on our quick call list. So thank you very much. And by the way, if you all would like to get a copy of Leah's really great book, how the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories and Bad Vibes, which I need to get signed by you next time I see you in person, Leah, just head over to shop.joannreid.com you can get yourself a copy of the book so you can be all read up when Leah comes back to talk about these SCOTUS decisions. Thank you very much, my friend. I appreciate you.
- [60:04]
Leah Littman
Thank you.
- [60:04]
Joy Reid
Thank you very much. And you can also catch the full Stacey Abrams interview right here on this channel Tomorrow night at 6pm Eastern we're going to set it up to premiere so you can watch it in full. It's a really great, lengthy conversation. You can see that at 6pm Eastern right here on the Joy Reid Show Channel. Okay, Now I want to note that the older I get, and I'm not getting older, I'm getting more seasoned. I'm to say the more I find myself trying to be like more intentional about the way I live, the way I eat, the way I take care of my body. You know, we want to be moisturized and rested and hydrated. But the old adage, you are what you eat actually rings very true. Right. To all of us in this modern day. And I'm always looking for an on the grow, an on the go, like protein snack, something I can pop in that's satisfying, that I can eat. But I know I'm not like eating junk food, so I can live intentionally as well. And that is where Mosh bars come into play. Now, Mosh, which you may have heard about on Oprah's Favorite Things, was founded by Maria Shriver and her son Patrick Schwarzenegger with a simple mission to create a conversation about brain health through food, education and research. And we want to especially big up that family in these times when their whole legacy is being destroyed. One legacy that they actually should not see taken away by one particular member is that they do care about health. So Maria's father suffered from Alzheimer's, and since then she and Patrick have dedicated themselves to finding ways to help other families who are dealing with this debilitating disease. So Mosh joined forces with the world's top scientists and functional nutritionists to go beyond your average protein bar. Every Mosh bar is made with ingredients that support brain health, like Ashwagandha, Lion's mane, collagen, omega 3s, plus a game changing brain boosting ingredient that you will not find in any other bar. Mach is the first and only food brand boosted with Cognizant. That's Cognizant, a premium nootropic that supplies your brain with a patented form of cytoclinine, which is cytoclonine. Mosh bars actually also taste great. They come in nine mouthwatering flavors, including three new plant based flavors. Chocolate chip cookie, hazelnut chocolate chip, as well as peanut chocolate chip. Now here is the best part. To make you feel great, Mosh donates a portion of all the proceeds from your order to fund gender based brain health research through the women's Alzheimer's movement. So why gender based? Because 2/3 of all Alzheimer's patients are women. Mosh is working closely to close the gap between women and men's health research. So please, if you want to find ways to give back to others and also fuel your body and your brain, mosh bars are the perfect choice for you. I'm actually going to show you the ones that I have. Here they are. So this one here is Peanut butter crunch. Now you know the family done already tried to get in my mosh bars and take them all. Here's another one here. This is the peanut butter chocolate crunch which is fabulous looking. This one here is. What's this one? This one is cookie dough crunch. Somebody's already claimed, I think Wangie has claimed this one already. And then we've got the raspberry white chocolate crunch. I think Winnie has claimed that one already. I earlier today had this one. As you can see, it's all eaten already. This is the brownie chocolate chip. It was really good. I moshed it as we say. So if you want to find ways to give back to others and fuel your body and your brain, Mosh bars are the perfect choice for you. If you want to try them yourself, they eat them all up over here, y'. All. If you want to get your own, go to moshlife.com joy to save 20% plus free shipping on the best sellers trial pack or the new plant based trial pack. That's 20% off plus free shipping on either the bestsellers trial pack or the plant based trial pack@moshlife.com that's M O S H L I F E.com Joy There you go. Thank you very much. And I'm sorry but my, my retainers make me say mosh but I meant mosh M o s h and they're really tasty. So let's jump into hour two of the Joy Reid show. Now if you're one of the millions of Americans who have counted on the Affordable Care Act, AKA Obamacare for your health care, you are likely, likely in a whole lot of confusion right now. 10 years old, but she's worried for.
- [64:25]
Leah Littman
Her young relatives and others who need health insurance throughout the tri state.
- [64:31]
Stacey Abrams
When people can't get preventive care that their rates are so high they're going to end up in an emergency and end up with much more expensive care for dead.
- [64:42]
Joy Reid
Is that what we want for a nation? I don't think so. The future of those expired tax subsidies that lowered households monthly plan costs is up in the air after the US House voted last week to approve legislation that could Extend the subsidies for another three years.
- [64:59]
Leah Littman
The Republican led Senate has yet to schedule its vote.
- [65:03]
Joy Reid
According to the Centers for Medicare and.
- [65:05]
Leah Littman
Medicaid Services recent data, about 22.8 million.
- [65:09]
Joy Reid
People nationwide have selected ACA marketplace plans. So far this open enrollment period, though enrollment is down about 3.5% compared to.
- [65:21]
Leah Littman
Last year for those.
- [65:23]
Joy Reid
And so what you're seeing now is the number of Americans who are opting out of the Affordable Care act and basically going insurance free, kind of riding dirty, right, without insurance at all, is now up to about 800,000 people, according to CBS Market Watch. You're seeing the costs for those who are staying in the Obamacare system skyrocket in some cases by 75%. The house, you give the House credit. They passed an extension of those subsidies, but we now have to wait on the Senate to attempt to get the deal done over there. Senator Adam Schiff and others are putting pushing for a vote on extending the ACA tax credits. But here's the problem. When those six Democrats voted to reopen the government without first getting locked in an extension of the subsidies, they essentially left it up to John Thune and Donald Trump whether they were gonna do it. And they got a promise to put it on the floor, which John Thune does not have to obey that promise. He has. There's nothing, no incentive other than people screaming in these senator states that they can't afford their health care. But in many cases, these senators don't care. They can afford health care and they get blue chip health care as United States senators, they don't care. And they really are serving two masters, Donald Trump. And they're big donors. And the biggest donors, the oligarchs in this country, the people who own the country, as they used to say, they don't care about extending health care to you. They love the idea of culling that $300 billion, that extending the health care subsidies would cost, culling that and using it to stop up the gap from their monster tax cuts. As we've talked about many times on this show, the United States Congress and Senate Republican, led by Republicans, chose the tax cut over your health care. They could only pick one or the other. And so we're in this position where average Americans can no longer afford to insure themselves against a catastrophic illness, getting cancer or something else, because the United States House and Senate chose the tax cut over everything else. And so the question is, what do we do now? There's a lot of anger, I think, at those six senators who voted to reopen the government without that promise. It's not that people didn't want the government reopened. It's that they didn't want it reopened unless the subsidies were put back in place. And that would have been a demand that might have worked had they held out. They could have just kept holding up, but they didn't. And so the question is, where do we go from here when we are, as people in the chat are pointing out, we're subsidizing Israel's economy and they get universal health care. They actually get universal health care on you. They're paying for it for you. And while they are still collecting our tax dollars and using it to harass our neighbors, to arrest our neighbors, and to kill our neighbors, we are in a world of hurt when we're in a country where the only people right now truly being protected by the federal government are billionaires. And whoever's in the Epstein files, the people that were in the Epstein files, are being 100% protected because Donald Trump is still violating the law he himself signed that says you're supposed to release all the Epstein files, and they still haven't released them all. They're violating the law and not releasing them. So they're protecting the pedophiles in the Epstein files. They're protecting Elon Musk, whose ex Twitter grok is posting porn based on AI. They can take anybody's image and undress the person and make porn out of it. He's protected. Peter Thiel, who is on the board of Palantir, a company whose CEO was the highest paid CEO in the country last year, they're protected even though they're spying on all of us and giving police these apps in their phones that allow them to take a picture of people and then triangulate an entire neighborhood so they can find more brown people and black people to arrest. All of those are protected. Donald Trump is completely protected because the Supreme Court, as Leah Lippman pointed out, said he has absolute immunity. He could rob a bank tomorrow, and there's nothing anyone could do about it. Even impeachment, which people are calling for, for Donald Trump, no president has ever been convicted. Even Kristi Noem, Even if she's impeached, which I think she should be, the likelihood of finding 67 votes to impeach, to convict her of impeachment is very unlikely. So you're seeing this sense of impunity throughout the country, while at the same time, this regime is allowing measles to run rampant, they're allowing MMR to be taken off of the mandatory or it's still on the list, but they're making it optional to get vaccines so that more whooping cough is happening, more measles are happening, and people are facing all of this without health care. So America first doesn't seem to mean America healthy and first. America first certainly doesn't seem to mean that we're waiting for our guests to get in. But while we're waiting, I think this is important to drill down on just a little bit more because what we're spending our money on, and we're going to get into this hour, what's happening in Iran. Donald Trump has essentially sort of previewed regime change in Iran. We're spending our money on semi light regime change in Venezuela, supposedly to extract their oil for our financial benefit, and yet leaving the regime in place so that they can continue to run what we're calling a narco state, just without the leader and his wife. We're spending money bombing Nigeria, another oil country. We seem to be bombing any country that has oil, while the President of the United States is flipping off people who call him a pedophile protector. Like, this is what we're doing. And all of that is happening while the American people are being terrorized in their neighborhoods, Hunt or black, or if they are white and empathetic people, they're being disparaged by their gender identity, sexual preference identity, and they are attempting to create a situation of chaos and maybe sort of low key civil war so that Donald Trump can implement the Insurrection act before the elections in November. So that all these things they're doing to us, we can't do the one thing we have to do back, which is to vote them out so they cannot be removed because they'll be able to use the Insurrection act to essentially what, shut down the election. Donald Trump has joked we should shut down the election. Maybe. Maybe you'll shut it down. Maybe we won't have an election. I don't know. But the bottom line is, while all of this is happening, Americans are getting sicker and facing more uncertainty when it comes to their health care. This is an abominable situation that doesn't seem to have an answer because the Trump regime has decided that it is less important that you have health care, less than that. Donald Trump's friends who are on the Epstein list not be disclosed. So that's a problem. And we have to figure out what to do about it. And we have until the primary elections and of course till November to figure out what to do about it. Let's skip ahead and get to some of these other things that are happening in the news. Jason, if you can, jump down for just one moment and pull. If you could. Let me go down here and pull. If you could. Where is it? D1. I said I was going to do it later, but I'll just do it now. Let's let, let. Let's go to D1, because we're going to come back to this in just a second because we have a really great guest that's coming up that's going to talk about healthcare. Our good friend Dr. Vin Gupta is going to talk about the Affordable Care act and what we do about it. But I'm going to jump ahead. I'm going to jump ahead real quick while we're waiting for him to jump on. He just started playing it. I didn't set it up. Jason just started playing it. So I'm jumping ahead because I was going to talk about this at the end, but I'm gonna go ahead and talk about it now just to get it out of what. Get it out of the way before we get to Dr. Van Gupta. So last night, Stephen A. Smith decided to fire back at me and Don Lemon and Jasmine Crockett. He did, like a 55 minute monologue. It was very weird. It was on his podcast. It was a lot of sort of whining and complaining about us and saying black people really like him, and why are we trying to imply that they don't? But I'm not going to go into a whole big thing about him because, you know, enough of him already. But I just want to play this one clip just because I thought it was an interesting point. We're not going to. Not going to play a lot of them. But just. Just this one quick thing. I promise. Just this one quick thing.
- [75:02]
Jason
You competing? Somebody wins, somebody loses. You mentioned Colin Kaepernick. I supported Colin Kaepernick from day one. I just said, your strategy's not going.
- [75:12]
Joy Reid
To work.
- [75:15]
Jason
Because if you go the route that you're going, you will never be back in the NFL. You seen him play. Have you seen him in an NFL uniform? Was I not right? I looked at Don Lemon, I looked at Joy Reid and what you bring to the table, and it was valuable and it was important, and we needed you on the air. So why continuously go after Trump to the point where all of your eggs are in one basket? And in the event that he wins the election, somehow, some way, it can get in the way of your progress? I wasn't selling out. I was looking out, trying to point out where the pipe goggles and the minefields. Why? Because I've been there.
- [75:56]
Stacey Abrams
Okay.
- [75:57]
Joy Reid
I wasn't selling out. I was looking at is not the flex you think it is, buddy. I just want to say, I mean, I think what Stephen with the PH was saying was that Don and I should have sold out. We should have sold out so we could keep our jobs. I mean, what. I'm just saying that if I needed to kiss Donald Trump's ample posterior in order to stay employed in mainstream media, I'd much rather be fired. Thanks a lot. He also had some words for Jasmine Crockett. But, you know, we. I think we've seen and heard enough from him, so just wanted to throw that out there while we're waiting for our guests to come on because get it over with. But I just want to get it over with. But it is a weird thing. He's like, you should have been nice to Donald Trump sometimes so that you could keep your job. That was weird. Let's go to D2. Donald Trump flipped off an auto worker who for who called him a pedo enabler. That's D2. Can we show that?
- [76:53]
Stacey Abrams
All right.
- [76:53]
Joy Reid
I want to note this is actually good news. The man who flipped, who Donald Trump flipped off and who called him a pedo enabler has actually raised a ton of money. He's raised a half a million dollars in his GoFundMe. And per the Detroit Free Press, the Detroit Ford motor worker suspended for heckling Donald Trump, who in turn, they said appears to have no he did gave him the employee the middle finger, is getting plenty of support from his friends. Two GoFundMe pages for the suspended Ford employee, identified as TJ Sabula, have raised more than half a million dollars as of the afternoon of January 14th. $684,000. 399. I was going to say that to the end, but we'll give you that little good news right now. All right, let's go ahead and introduce our guest because we want to talk about what's going on with the Affordable Care Act.
- [77:40]
Trita Parsi
Just getting set up.
- [77:41]
Joy Reid
Okay. We're going to get him set up. And just to reiterate what's going on. Affordable Care act so that you guys understand what's happening there is that we are awaiting the United States Senate taking up the bill that was passed by the House to try to extend these Affordable Care act subsidies, which were not gotten together when the United States Senate, during the government shutdown, there was supposed to be a demand that the Affordable Care act subsidies get reinstated, stated it was a cost of just $300 billion versus the trillions of dollars that we're spending on this giant tax cut. It didn't happen. These six senators gave in, reopened the government without a pledge to renew those subsidies. The House has now passed them. And now it's up to John Thune in the United States Senate whether they even take it up at all. And we have no idea whether that is going to happen. All right. Joining us now is Dr. Vin Gupta, our friend, pulmonologist, prominent public health health expert, leader of Midas Health, which is part of the Midas touch network. Okay, Dr. Vin Gupta, let's talk about what happens without the Affordable Care act subsidies and what could happen if they get renewed. Please and welcome again, Joy, thank you so much.
- [78:57]
Dr. Vin Gupta
I love being on back with you, my friend. So really important question. What's going to happen? We suspect that the subsidies will not be extended. As you rightly pointed out, the House has passed a bipartisan framework for a deal that would extend subsidies for these Obamacare, aca, Affordable Care act marketplace exchange insurance products that basically have given 24 million Americans a lifeline to health care. The Senate is not expected to approve that. They are talking about health savings accounts and pretty much a bunch of nonsensical policy options that would give Americans $2,000. Joy. To their health savings account. Maybe outside the scope of our conversation today, but basically that is not a policy. That's not a substitute for actual health insurance. As anybody that's been in a hospital knows, $2,000 does not go very far. So don't be fooled by sending checks to Americans in lieu of actual solutions for health care insurance. So we expect, Joy, to answer your question, that people will between this critical period, January to February, we've already seen about a million and a half people that had insurance on the exchanges not sign up again because they saw the premium hike going from December, January, there's going to be, we suspect, a greater proportion of people that said okay to January, but will feel that it's unsustainable entering February. So you know, at least a few million more Americans off the rolls. And I think what's really concerning and just for your audience to keep a lookout for, especially if they're impacted, going from a silver tiered plan, they sort of there are various shades of metals that are used to describe the different qualities of health insurance plans on these ACA marketplaces. Going from a silver so called silver plan to a bronze plan may is what a lot of people will do but it's not, it's not going to actually. The economics of it are not fantastic. The premiums are lower, going from silver to bronze, but the deductibles are far higher. Joy. So we're talking about say $10,000 for somebody to actually pay out of pocket if they have a pregnancy, tens of thousands of dollars for hospitalization. So it's high deductible health plans. And if you're paying more than 5% of your gross annual income to fund your deductible that's under insurance, that's what we suspect a lot of Americans will pivot to.
- [81:35]
Joy Reid
Let's put up this first graphic here. And this is on the access and affordability and what you can do if higher premiums forced you to drop your coverage. Because to your point, it may feel comforting just to have some insurance, even if it's the sort of bargain basement, but where you save money on the front end. If you, God forbid something happens, you get hit by a bus, you have to go to the ER or you have a baby or you need to go to the hospital for some reason, you're going to pay a whole lot more. So walk us through this on what people can do. If you feel like I can't afford it at all, I think I'm just going to drop my coverage.
- [82:11]
Dr. Vin Gupta
Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, you phrased that beautifully. Really. The summary here is front end. You might pay less with premium, but if you need health care and pretty much all forms of healthcare are expensive, you're going to pay a lot more with that deductible. So what can you do? I hope none of what you and I chat about will ultimately be necessary if Congress gets its ACT together and passes an extension. But in lieu of that, what can you do? So first of all, see if you are newly eligible. Joy For Medicaid. This is a year round enrollment process and I think that gets missed by a lot of folks because we don't talk about this Medicaid, you can enroll at any point in time within the calendar year versus open enrollment for say employer sponsored health insurance. Where as some of us may be familiar with, you know, there's a specific period towards the end of the year that you can actually enroll yourself into a different form of health insurance or for the first time, Medicaid. It's year round. Once there's these premium changes, you can actually you might find yourself newly eligible for Medicaid. So that's something to consider after, let's say for the million people that already decided that they're not going to sign up for an exchange health health plan. Once you say no to re enrollment, Joy, you have 60 days. It's called a special enrollment period where you can say, you know what, I can't do the silver plan, but I can do the bronze plan. So that's that high deductible health plan that we just talked about. At least consider it. Because to your point, some coverage for catastrophic healthcare expenses is better than nothing. I agree with that. You have 60 days to make that pivot after you say no to re enrollment. So keep that in mind. What about if none of that sounds like a great option? What else can you do? Federally qualified health clinics, Joy, across the country, they pretty much exist in every zip code or close to every zip code in the country. FQHCs for short. These are just incredible bastions of primary health care for communities across the country. And they serve largely in underinsured, uninsured Medicaid demographic where basically you pay what you can so care is priced to your ability to pay. It's sort of a utopia that doesn't exist in the broader American healthcare system. But it's amazing health coverage. I provided care of some of these FQHCs. I've seen this up close. These are incredible places and I think a lot of people just don't know about them. But FQHCs for short, look and see if you have one near you. You should, and they again charge you based on your ability to pay. But the quality of care is not in any way compromised. Another thing to keep in mind, if that's not an option, or say you have an alternative, maybe your spouse has employer sponsored health insurance insurance, maybe they're newly eligible for Medicaid or the special enrollment period piece where you go from a bronze to or from a silver to a bronze plan, you know, exhaust all your options. One thing I think often does not get done is how do you make your medications less expensive? So this is where I'm a pulmonologist go from. A bunch of people aren't expensive branded inhalers for their asthma or COPD Asperger generic alternative go from 30 to 90 days. That tends to be cheaper. There are ways to make your medications less expensive, but again, Joy, none of these feel like great solutions because they're not. These are stopgaps and I hope they remain stop gaps.
- [85:39]
Joy Reid
And this is another question because Planned Parenthood, I know when I got out of college and didn't have insurance used to provide some of that Gap care. And, you know, they do everything from mammograms to, you know, you, you just go in there and get a checkup. Those are closing largely. So those are largely gone. Right. What kind. Where would you find these clinics? And are they being attacked in the same way Planned Parenthood was? Because the right wants to make sure that no clinics are providing abortion care.
- [86:13]
Dr. Vin Gupta
That's such a great call out. Thank you for doing that.
- [86:15]
Joy Reid
It's right.
- [86:16]
Dr. Vin Gupta
Planned Parenthood is being basically its entire operations for basic primary care, women's health, not even related to abortion care. All of that is being put at risk because they provide abortion services in when somebody might need them. And what. So what's the substitute? In some cases, it is the federally qualified health clinic in that community. But they, they only have so much bandwidth. In some cases you can look to. You know, I hesitate to do this because I think this looks different outside the bigger cities. But there are now this. I mean, joy, there's this fab where you can just pay out of pocke for episodic healthcare, $25 if you have the flu to get seen by a doc virtually or in person to get Tamiflu. It's not ideal primary care by any means, but it is filling the gap. And there's. But it's not, it's not something that I wouldn't want people to rely on longitudinally over time. But there are ways to get episodic primary care. Again, this is not, not the gold standard really aim for here, but there's ways where you could pay out of pocket and hopefully get the care you need.
- [87:26]
Joy Reid
It's kind of shocking to talk. We talking about the United States of America. And, you know, I don't know if you've seen all the videos of. And I know of people who are going to Mexico get prescriptions. Senior citizens who are taking trips to Mexico just literally to get the pills they need, they can afford there, not here. We really, truly have become. I mean, we used to call other countries the third world. We're the third world. We have a health care system that is dependent on one person. Donald Trump, giving permission to 100 people in the United States Senate, or at least 55 of them, to please allow the citizens he's supposed to be the president of to not die of treatable illnesses. This is. We're going begging at this point. This is embarrassing and pathetic.
- [88:20]
Dr. Vin Gupta
It's well said. It's the whims of, I would add, not only the president, but then obviously as HHS secretary. It's the whims and the ideologies of just a handful of people that are dictating what we should be eating, what vaccines we should be getting. This is not what the American people, when you poll them on health care issues, specifically, 75 to 80% of people do not agree with the direction of the country on most healthcare matters. Everything you just mentioned more broadly. But you're exactly right. And I should also mention in most cases, Joy, California, for example, New Mexico, New York State, Massachusetts, Colorado, blue and or purple states. What are they doing? They're either entirely filling the gap when it comes to federal subsidies that are expiring. In the case of New Mexico, they're entirely filling the federal gap. Or in case California, they're partially doing it. That's not happening in the southeast United States in red so called red states. Their citizens are just left to fend for themselves. And a lot of the 24 million reliant on the ACA exchanges are in, you know, deep red states.
- [89:31]
Stacey Abrams
Yeah.
- [89:31]
Joy Reid
And being forced to have babies without healthcare. Let's talk measles because the right seems very interested. I was reading a piece today, Jeff Bluestein in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, saying that Republicans in Georgia have said they no longer want to fight culture war issues. They want to focus on affordability because they've already won the culture war issues. They have a six week abortion ban, meaning that in the state of Georgia you can die from a forced pregnancy. So they're making women have babies in states like Georgia, in states like Arkansas, states like Florida. They're forcing them to have a kid, but they're not going to cover them. And then when they are born, particularly in a state like Florida, they're like, you know what, that whole measles vaccine is optional. Where are we in terms of measles which is currently killing children? This is the next graphic. If you could throw it up, Jason. It's B3. There it is.
- [90:23]
Dr. Vin Gupta
We're not in a good spot. We just lost our elimination status, Joy. I mean, over 2,000 cases, the most in the United States in 30 years. And you know, there's correlation, causation, whatever word you want to use it. This is happening at a time where rfk, in his first year of his HHS tenure, there is, to me, this is causality. This is not correlation. This is because of him and his leadership and his messaging. It's not a good situation. Right now in South Carolina, we're seeing, you know, the irony here of, of those that criticize some of the initiatives or public health policies During COVID and closing down schools, whatever it was. In the case of measles, you have kids out, in some cases, anywhere from 21 to 42 days based on quarantine periods, if they've been exposed unvaccinated and they're tolerating that. I mean, there is such an inconsistency and irony here when it comes to what we're seeing when it comes to measles and what we had to deal with and all the kerfuffle when it to came came to Covid in schools. So there's a lot of impact on childhood education, much less childhood health. I mean, that's number one. Kids, to your point, are ending up in the hospital. And I think parents, when we see this, you know, when we. We now have gotten a lot of direct reporting from parents who've decided that they didn't want to immunize their child against. Vaccinate their child against measles. You know, what was the root driver of that? Trying to really get down there. And a lot of what is being said is being rehashed from what they're hearing from the very top. So that's one, there's a clear culprit. And two, it's. It's just. It's tragic because there's a lot of misunderstanding of measles where people think it's less severe than it really is. They think it's limited to an upper respiratory infection and maybe a rash. Whereas most kids end up in the hospital, about 20% infected, unvaccinated. Joy. End up in the hospital with measles pneumonia. I think there's just a misunderstanding that your child, if they're not protected, will end up in the hospital with measles pneumonia. And I just because of how our federal leadership is talking about this, of course, a lot of people don't realize measles pneumonia is a real thing.
- [92:37]
Joy Reid
What do you do if you're a parent of vaccinated children who is sending their kids to school in a state like Florida where vaccines are optional and where other kids in the class could have measles, mumps, rubella?
- [92:53]
Dr. Vin Gupta
Well, it's. It is. This is an unprecedented situation because imagine you're a child or a parent of a child, let's say three years old, so they're midway through their vaccine regimen. First you get your first vaccine at say around 12 months of age. The second, between 4 and 6 years of age. So you're partially vaccinated. Exactly to your point, Joy, that is not a good place to be because that child's at risk of still getting infected and perhaps bring that home to a multi generational household where it can spread. This is where I think parents understanding the presentation of, I hate to say it, this is like our insurance conversation just prior. You're dealing with a deeply imperfect situation where that child is potentially at risk. So either you have to move your child out of that school district, if that's even a possibility, in many cases it's not. Or you have to be acutely aware of the presentation of measles, which is. And I'll get medical for a second. Cough coryza conjunctivitis. This is usually how it presents. Cough coryza, runny nose and conjunctivitis pink eye. That constellation is critical to keep in mind if you're a parent. Within a few days later, Joy there's a rash in the face that then spreads down to the trunk and then maybe there's a complication after that. I hate that we're in this place that we have to put the onus, the burden on parents to triage their children's symptoms. But that's part of it being informed and then making sure and this is critical here if you're in a multi generational household because your child, if they have one vaccine in them, is still robustly protected against ending up with measles pneumonia. What I worry about though are multi generational households where people don't know their vaccine status. They assume they're protecting their not. And so that's where I would say everybody in the state of Florida, if they do not know that they have two, if they're an adult and they do not for sure know they've had two shots of the measles vaccine to just get a booster shot, there's no risk of it. It could potentially only help you. And I would say the same applies to South Carolina.
- [94:50]
Trita Parsi
Joy.
- [94:51]
Dr. Vin Gupta
Texas, Oklahoma, we could go on and on.
- [94:54]
Joy Reid
Arkansas, somebody in the chat posted that you know about measles being very dangerous to pregnant women. What should pregnant women, whether they are pregnant by choice or by force of the state saying they have to carry a pregnancy, what should they do if they're in a state where there are lots of unvaccinated people walking around potentially.
- [95:13]
Dr. Vin Gupta
With the measles, if you're vaccinated and exposed, you're okay. So that's good. If you're not vaccinated or so you're within. Maybe you decided to get vaccinated recently because you heard a news sideline, local news, whatever it is. Critical that if you start developing measles like symptoms like we talked about, if you're worried you were just exposed. There is a treatment, Joy, it's called ivig, intravenous immunoglobulin. And it's important, IVIG for short, for you to present to care to your obstetrician. Say that you're concerned about exposure, that you may not be fully vaccinated because that treatment may be appropriate for you, because it might, it will help prevent transmission from mom to baby. So that is an important call out. I'm glad we got that question.
- [95:59]
Joy Reid
Is it possible to get an MMR vaccine as an adult?
- [96:02]
Dr. Vin Gupta
It is, it is. And so it's something that I encourage, frankly. If you have any doubt about your vaccine status or don't have the records, just get it. And you know, there's a lot of the confusion here is, well, if you're born before 1957, maybe you don't need it because it was, you know, measles was widespread, you have natural immunity. And if you were born between 58 and 83, you had a different version of the vaccine and it wasn't as good. So maybe you should get. It's very confusing. My personal advice is if you do not have full proof of two vaccines of any type, get a booster shot and there is no risk to it. And it's only potentially beneficial.
- [96:47]
Joy Reid
This treatment that you just talked about, if in fact you present, how expensive.
- [96:54]
Dr. Vin Gupta
Is it, the ivig it is? Well, it's a great call out if you're for pregnancy related care. And this would be say a complication of pregnancy related care, presuming one has. So in the auspices of having an insurance of any type, this is something that probably is a low four figure bill to your insurance. If you do not have insurance, it can be one to $2,000. And so the, the mechanics of who gets billed and how you get billed for that, there's ways around that through charity care at the state level, Joy. There's ways to defray that payment. If you're worried about your ability to pay or if you're underinsured, insured, if you have a high deductible health plan. I understand, then people will feel like that is going to be a cost that they will bear. But there's ways around that and I would encourage everybody if they're worried about that. First, please do not delay care. Your obstetrician's office will have a social worker and most obstetrician offices have social workers that are very versed in how to navigate complex issues on economic and paying for these expensive medications. This is not the first time I've been asked that question, nor my obstetrician colleagues. There's ways to get that covered so it's not a financial burden. But the fact that we even have to have that conversation, to your earlier point, it shouldn't be the focus.
- [98:19]
Joy Reid
Did you ever think when you were going through medical school and becoming a physician, becoming a pulmonologist, that you would be living at a time in the United States of America where Americans were dying for not being able to afford their inhaler and they had asthma or dying of the measles or their children dying of the measles and the measles being rampant in the United States. Did you ever think that you, that we, that we could possibly recede this far?
- [98:47]
Dr. Vin Gupta
You know, I'll be, I guess, Joy, my take on that would be, I'm in my early 40s, I've been practicing now for, you know, better part about 16 years some form. And I've only known the American healthcare system to be a for profit entity. And, and that's what I've grown up in. And it's gotten worse. But to your point, it's only gotten worse where we're seeing pharmaceutical companies moving away in some cases from innovative cell and gene therapies for cancer chemotherapy because they're working, worried about President Biden's inflation reduction act and the ability to negotiate, you know, through statutory law, not through executive order. And what Trump's doing through statutory law on the government rightfully being able to negotiate down the price of high, high impact but highly utilized drugs.
- [99:41]
Stacey Abrams
Yeah.
- [99:42]
Dr. Vin Gupta
It's a sad situation that now we're seeing pivots away because there isn't the same profit incentive. According to them, this is the world that a lot of us have grown up in. So I, I'm sad to, I'm beyond sad. Tragic. I see the end result as an ICU doc, Joy, and I've had the chance to talk to you about this for last six years. I see, I see viscerally the end impacts of a healthcare system that lets a lot of people down because usually it's delayed care, not enough care, inability to afford care that lands somebody in an intensive care unit in America. That's what I then, you know, myself, my colleagues end up dealing with.
- [100:19]
Joy Reid
Yeah. And because we can't apparently afford universal health care, at least for us, we're paying for it for other countries. Dr. Ven Gupta, I always appreciate you my friend come back anytime. Y' all. Please be sure to follow Dr. Ven Gupta on the Midas Touch network or at Ven Gupta official on YouTube as well as on Midasplus.com thank you, my friend. I appreciate you.
- [100:38]
Trita Parsi
You thank you, Joanne.
- [100:39]
Joy Reid
Thank you very much. All right, let's take a look at what is happening in Iran and what the regime leader in our country has been banging on about regarding it. And that is C1 whenever you've got that ready.
- [100:57]
Stacey Abrams
After more than two weeks of protests.
- [100:59]
Joy Reid
During which human rights groups say thousands.
- [101:02]
Stacey Abrams
Of demonstrators have been killed, killed, President.
- [101:05]
Joy Reid
Trump issued a message Tuesday to Iranian.
- [101:08]
Jason
Protesters, keep protesting, take over your institutions if possible. And all I say to them is help is on its way.
- [101:16]
Joy Reid
Americans woke up this morning and they saw that you said help is on the way.
- [101:20]
Stacey Abrams
Yeah.
- [101:21]
Joy Reid
What do you mean by that?
- [101:22]
Jason
Well, there's a lot of help on the way and in different forms, including economic help from our standpoint and not going to help Iran very much.
- [101:31]
Joy Reid
In an interview with CBS Evening News.
- [101:33]
Stacey Abrams
Anchor Tony decouple, the president said the US Is prepared to take strong action.
- [101:38]
Jason
Against Iran when they start killing thousands of people. And now you're telling me about hanging. We'll see how that works out for them. It's not going to work out. Good.
- [101:49]
Joy Reid
Joining me now is Truda Parsi, author and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute. He's an award winning author and the 2010 recipient of the Groenmaier Award for Ideas Improving World Order. He's also an expert in US Iranian relations, Iranian foreign policy and the geopolitics of the Middle East. Trita, my friend, so Donald Trump apparently is pro protest as long as it's not in Minnesota, Portland, Los Angeles, Chicago, or any other American city. How interesting. That's my editorial comment. What do you make of his comments encouraging the people in the streets of Iran to protest?
- [102:26]
Trita Parsi
I'll be frank. I think what is going on here is that a decision was made sometime between December 30th and 31st when Benjamin Netanyahu came and visited with the president in the White House and then later on in Mar a Lago to do some form of a strike and then the protest actually ended up potentially delaying it. Obviously, Trump is not going to bomb Iran because of any protests. I mean, the fact that we would even have to have that conversation is as pathetic and ridiculous as, you know, are we going into Venezuela because of fentanyl? I mean, governments have this amazing ability to be able to throw Iran off and then 90% of the conversation ends up becoming of things that at the end of the day, when you really take a step back, is laughable. The real reason, of course, is that the Israelis feel that the job was unfinished in June of last year. They failed at their objectives. I think you and I talked about it afterwards, and it was very clear. At some point they would come back to the United States and would demand or request that the United States would support Israel into starting a new war with Iran. And that is, I think, what this is all about now, whether there will be strikes or not. I gotta tell you, three hours ago it looked completely inevitable. Now it's not looking great, but it does look at there may be something changing, something happening. And then when you take a look back at the last days and hours before the strikes in June, but you realize there was a lot of misinformation, a lot of deception going on, a lot of statements about we want to see diplomacy happen. I think it happened three hours before the United States bombed Iran last time. So we gotta be really, really careful about all of this different stuff coming out of the president right now.
- [104:11]
Joy Reid
Do you believe that Bibi Netanyahu is going to be able to induce Donald Trump, who he seems to be able to induce, to do a whole hell of a lot of stuff to put American boots on the ground in Iran to overthrow the regime? Because that's what Bibi Netanyahu wants done.
- [104:27]
Trita Parsi
No, I don't think there will be boots on the ground. In fact, we haven't even seen the type of movement of troops and assets to the region that would suggest a prolonged campaign. I mean, the kind of shock and awe that we saw in Iraq in 2003. What we're most likely going to see are some cruise missiles shot by submarines nearby Iran and then probably a lot of activity from the Israelis. What the Israelis are suggesting or seeming to hint at in their media is that this time around, the roles may be a bit reversed. The United States is going to take the lead and the Israelis are going to play a supportive role rather than what was the case last time when the Israelis started it and the US Played a supportive role on the defensive side and then later on, of course, entered into the war for about a day.
- [105:15]
Joy Reid
How much is Iran's participation and alignment with brics impacting this desire for regime change? I know there is. Obviously the Israelis would love to see regime change in Iran because they would like to remain the dominant force in the region and Iran threatens that. But, you know, originally the eye in brics was India, but Iran has begun to join. And these are very oil rich nations that are aligning together without us.
- [105:46]
Trita Parsi
Yes. So Iran joined brics about two or so years ago, which was a huge victory for the Iranians. Mindful of the fact that they were not part of any major groupings, they've also now joined the sco. I'm not so sure he ended up having that much of an impact. At the end of the day, I think the Iranians may have been a little bit too optimistic and also it may have been to the detriment of the BRICs for them to grow as fast as they did. In many ways, I think brics appear to have been a bigger factor three years ago than it is today. But you're pointing to something that is very, very important, of course, which is that both Venezuela and Iran are very, very oil rich nations. Iran is also a very gas rich nation. And even though the United States may not need it, China and other countries do. And your control over those resources puts you in a position to be able to control lifelines to your potential competitors. Now, whether that is the calculation behind all of these different things remains to be seen. I don't think there's any clear evidence of it in the case of Iran. In the case of Venezuela, it's different. I mean, the President goes out and says it's our oil, we want it. That's not the conversation on Iran. In fact, the push for attacking Iran is coming primarily, if not even exclusively from the Israelis and has much more to do with exactly what you said. The Israelis want to have military hegemony in the region. They do not want to see any states that can challenge Israel's domination. And reality is that after the June war, which was indecisive, the Israelis didn't win it, neither did the Iranians. But bottom line is that mutual deterrence ended up being the result of that war. And that for the Israelis and their security doctrine is unacceptable and that. But as a result of that, it was just a matter of time before the Israelis would start the war again.
- [107:34]
Joy Reid
Let's talk about some of the other things that are sort of being talked about in the world. And I want to make sure that we're debunking if they're not true or giving them more attention if they need it. This idea of Israel recognizing Somaliland. We're going to put up a map for those who are not familiar with the sort of eastern East Africa. You can see on the Emory Djibouti, you see Ethiopia, you see Yemen. That's right. Across that Arabian Peninsula is right across that little strait. You see Egypt at the top, you see Sudan. So you see that area. So then you see Somalia. It's the big bit on the horn there, right in the little horn. It's got the little tip of Africa right in it. It has at least part of it has tried to break away. And the part that is ocean facing at the top to the Arabian Sea or to the Gulf, Gulf of Oman, saying it is now called Somaliland. Israel has recognized it as a sovereign state. They have military bases there. There's a lot of chatter that the reason they want to, one reason they would like to recognize Somaliland as its own country is that they would very much like to deport 2 million Palestinians out of Gaza and maybe even empty out the west bank and forcibly remove those people and send them there. Is there anything to that?
- [108:49]
Trita Parsi
It certainly is. I mean, first of all, there are many different factors that is behind this Israeli decision. The proximity to Yemen where the Houthis are, the larger competition in the region in which the Israelis and the Emiratis now increasing, they're becoming open partners even at the point of creating tensions between the Emirates and the Saudis. And you know, Somaliland at the end of the day would give the Israelis an ability to have a base much closer to Yemen. The moving of the expulsion of the Palestinians, I mean, ethnic cleansing them and putting them there is another thing that the Israelis have openly discussed. And I think it is quite notable that to this point, the only country that has recognized Somaliland is Israel. There's been some speculation that the Emiratis might do so, some other African states may do so, but so far we have not seen the that happening.
- [109:41]
Joy Reid
Do you suspect that the demonization of Somali immigrants in the United States, that part of that is number one, laying the predicate for, for deporting people from Minnesota to their new friend, Somaliland. Right. But also establishing sort of a hatred of these, this group of people as part of a kind of a larger push to make Somalia, I don't know, sort of war worthy in order to advance what Israel wants to do. It seems very complicated way to do it, but demonizing Somali people just seems very particular.
- [110:13]
Trita Parsi
I'm not so sure because at the end of the day, if that was the case, and I'm not ruling it out, but I'm just saying if that was the case, you would probably have seen the United States recognize Somaliland as well. And it hasn't.
- [110:24]
Joy Reid
Let's talk about the. To go back to Iran for a moment. Let's just do C4 before C3. Jason, if you could. Those who remember the history of The United States, CIA and Iran recognized that the United States CIA overthrew Mr. Mossadegh, who was the rightly elected president of Iran, and replaced him with the shah, Shah Reza Pahlavi, who is a dictator, a cruel, venal dictator who served for, I want to say, 24 years from 1953 when we stuck him in there. We've got C4, which just shows some sort of images of himself down. This was what it kind of looked like. I guess his son Reza Pahlavi has been doing a lot of media. He did kind of almost not a full Ginsburg, but he's been doing a lot of media. He was on with CBS's Nora O'. Donnell. This is C3. Let's see if we can listen to a little bit of that.
- [111:18]
Stacey Abrams
Are you communicating directly with President Trump.
- [111:22]
Joy Reid
Or members of the Trump administration?
- [111:26]
Jason
Yes, we are.
- [111:28]
Joy Reid
And what has been your message?
- [111:32]
Jason
I think the president said it best. He said, you know, we'll see what happens. And I think part of the consideration is that they already know what we propose as an alternative, as a transition. Right now the focus is on the immediate issue. I think the world is waiting to see in what way the Iranian people will see that they are not alone in this fight and. And that the regime that has dared a response would probably get an answer fairly soon. And that's important to embolden a nation. Look, any campaigns of liberation has occurred at the time that the world finally took the side of those people vis a vis oppressive regimes that put an end to apartheid in South Africa, it put an end to the Soviet Union and liberated countries that were stuck behind the Iron Curtain. It's not. There's precedents in history, and I think Iran should not be the exception. In fact, the game changer for the whole region is Iran. And Iranians are fighting this fight not just to liberate themselves. They know that as a result of Iran's liberation, the whole world will breathe easier, that the stability that the whole world is looking for will finally achieve. Because unlike this regime that has always hated America and its allies, the Iranian people are supportive and want to be a friend of America and the rest of the world, of course.
- [112:49]
Joy Reid
So I don't think you can argue with the idea that the people of Iran deserve liberation from the regime that is oppressing them, oppressing women. There's nothing I could really say to compliment on that regime. But how ironic that this person styling himself the crown prince, who's the son of their former dictator, being the one to carry that message. I find that weirdly ironic. What are your thoughts?
- [113:12]
Trita Parsi
I do agree with you. I mean, first of all, on your first point, that this is an extremely repressive regime. We have seen at least I would suspect, 2,000 people getting killed in the last couple of days when they clamped down, when they shut down the Internet entirely, what the US government told me two days ago, so that the count was 1600. I personally think it's probably a bit higher. There's some other numbers thrown out there that I'm not sure if it's been validated. But there's also been hundreds of police and basijis militia members that are pro regime killed, which is also something very new because we have not seen that level of violence against police before in these protests. The protests have always been overwhelmingly peaceful. They probably were here as well. But there seems to be an element within the protest movement that is not. And again, whereas the Iranian government always says that Israel is behind things or that the US Is supporting protesters, and oftentimes you can just dismiss that out of hand, this time around, it's a little bit more difficult to dismiss it. Mindful of the fact that the Israelis openly say that they are involved in these protests, that they have armed the protesters, et cetera, et cetera. That may be something the Israelis are saying as part of a psychological warfare, and it may not be true. It may be just something they're saying to further throw off the Iranian regime. But nevertheless, it makes it more difficult to just completely dismiss the idea that some of this stuff, some of it, and I want to really emphasize some of it, may have a foreign component in it, but when it comes to the son of the Shah, he actually seems to have gathered a bit of support inside the country. There have been slogan in his favor. He did call for evening protests that seems to have been responded to, even though he was not the only one. But he's also called for other things, such as oil strikes, in which there's been zero response to. And I think also that we have to ask ourselves, to what extent is this expression in support of him a way to really insult the regime, which the protesters always wants to do, mindful of the repression that they face? And to what extent is just. Or is it really a desire for him to actually come back? And the challenge he has when it comes to getting the support of the Trump administration is that he has so far not been able to show any capacity of being able to say that the security forces in Iran would end up defecting to him, would be loyal to him, so that there actually could be a transition. This is a key test of the case. He wants to be serious. He has spent far more time making sure that he's close to the Israelis than he has been able spend time actually being able to generate defections from the regime.
- [115:50]
Joy Reid
The idea of him essentially putting himself forward, what, to be a puppet regime to the Israelis and the Americans, that doesn't seem like that's a winning strategy.
- [115:58]
Trita Parsi
The strategy that he has chosen has been that, nevertheless, because, for instance, during six or so months after the massive protest, he shows up in Israel, he is received at the airport by the Minister of Intelligence. During the summer war, when the Israelis were bombing Iran and killing civilians, he was on American TV defending the Israelis and also saying that at the end of the day, the Israelis were doing everything they could to avoid civilian casualties, expressing no condolences or anything of that kind for the victims. And at the end of the day, that just made him sound more like an IDF spokesperson than someone that is a serious contender to be a challenge to the regime. There are challenges to the regime. There are real legitimate opposition figures inside the country. They're faced with tremendous challenges, however, both oppression, repression by the regimental regime, but also the MANNER in which U.S. sanctions have absolutely decimated the economy of that country, at least contributed it significantly. Obviously, the Iranian government bears responsibility as well. But nevertheless, under those circumstances, it makes it very difficult for the society to be able to have that type of capacity to push back against the regime when they have to think more about putting food on the table.
- [117:17]
Joy Reid
Yeah. Indeed. Trita Parsi. We have to come back and do it like a whole Iran thing, because it is a fact. Fascinating country. And I'm with you. I'm with the people there. Such brave people that are out in the streets because that regime is wicked. But again, I'm not a fan of regime change, especially not installing a puppet of our government or Bibi Netanyahu. Doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Trina Parsi, thank you very much.
- [117:38]
Trita Parsi
Thank you so much for having me.
- [117:40]
Joy Reid
Appreciate it very much. Cheers. And that brings us to our moment of joy. And our moment of joy. We're going to skip ahead, Jason, to D6. Our moment of joy. Everybody needs a hype woman. Everybody D6. We're going to go ahead and pop that on because everybody needs a hype woman. Even members of Congress who are trying to do their best, they could use a Little hype, too. And here is our moment of joy. Take a look. Complete and utter embarrassment. By the way, every Homeland secretary has come in front of this committee once a Congress. I'd like to know the date she's come.
- [118:15]
Representative Robin Kelly
Coming.
- [118:15]
Joy Reid
When is she coming? When is she coming? When is she coming? By the way, do you know Pam.
- [118:21]
Jason
Bondi has not come in front of this committee?
- [118:23]
Joy Reid
Do you know she's the only secretary to not appear in front of a committee yet? When is she coming? What's the date on the calendar that she's coming? You know what?
- [118:34]
Jason
Let's make it easy.
- [118:35]
Joy Reid
I want to make a motion to subpoena Pam Bondi. Second committee. Third, fourth, fifth. Where is the attorney general the only secretary to not appear? Okay. In front of a committee? The only one. We're into year two of this Congress.
- [118:53]
Jason
And we've not had the attorney general in front of this committee.
- [118:56]
Joy Reid
How much are we going to weaken.
- [118:58]
Jason
Article 1 of the Constitution while you.
- [119:01]
Joy Reid
Guys remain in power? I watch you twist yourself into pretzels.
- [119:06]
Jason
Try trying to defend this, running away.
- [119:08]
Joy Reid
From previous statements, disagreeing with yourself. That was. That was Gerald Moskowitz doing his testimony and his hype woman who everybody needs a sister like this by their side. That is California Representative Sydney Kam Lager Dove. Sydney Kam Lager Dove is that hype woman who everybody needs when they are trying to do their job as members of Congress. She said talk about it like she was. Like she was in church. That was amazing. So our hype woman, Congresswoman Sydney Kamlogger Dove, is our moment of joy. A quick reminder before we go to please vote for us. Vote for me. I'll set you free. Vote for us in the NAACP Image Awards. There is the QR code thingy. You can just go ahead and use your little phone pop on there and then we're right there on the end. Look, we're cute there with Kamala Harris. Our one of our best interviews, our favorite interviews of this last year. We've only really six months old, y', all. Six months old. And we've already gotten an NAACP Image Award nomination. We are a newbie baby show. But we are really appreciative of the nomination. So please do go ahead and vote for us. Please support all of the books by all of the folks who've appeared on the show today. And don't Forget tomorrow night, 6pm right here on the channel. You can watch the full Stacey Abrams interview because you know it's a good interview and you might want to check it out. Thank you all for tuning in. We're gonna look, we're gonna finish on time. We appreciate everybody. Friday, Angela Rye will be here. Another person that you all have requested to come back on the show. Angela Rye will be here. We've got a really great show. And also Sherilyn Eiffel, Sherilyn Ifill will be back on Friday's show. So we've got a lot of stuff to talk about. So two really great guests coming up on Friday. So in the meantime, you all have a blessed evening and thank you all for all of your support. We are creeping up on 400,000 subscribers. Thanks to all of our Team TJRS members. We appreciate everybody in the chat here on YouTube, everybody on the stack, hello, sub stackers, and everybody that's listening on wherever you get your podcast. We appreciate everybody. See you guys on Friday. Thanks for tuning in and see you on the next Detroit beach show. Play the music.
- [121:24]
Jason
Getting back to the basics grassroots level Let me dig a little deeper with the shovel Plenty can't tell the forest from the trees and I'm hard to detect Like a black hole in the dark Injustice anywhere It's a threat to justice everywhere Let me make this clear I got a bone to pick and 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 show.