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- [00:05]
Joy Reid
Okay.
- [00:16]
Well, well, well. Happy Monday, everyone, and welcome to the Joy Reid show. Big up to everyone in the chats. We already see the early adopters in the YouTube chat. North Carolina is in the house. We have a hello, everyone. We have a Happy Monday. We've got everybody loading up inside. We have Natty C. Let's see Nubian Queen 6391. We've got a bunch of our friends that have already loaded up inside of the YouTube chat. Big up to everybody. Also that is already on site inside the substack chat as well. Thank you all for being here as well. I am looking at my Twitchies. So adorable, so cute, so fun. Thank you all for being here as well. We are growing our little Twitch army. I want to remind everyone and also, let me not leave out the folks who are on Facebook. Let me not leave out the folks that are on LinkedIn.
- [01:09]
Co-host or Guest
Listening on the listening podcast on your.
- [01:12]
Joy Reid
If you're listening on Apple Spotify or Apple Spotify if you're listening on a podcast. And hello to the lemon nation. We see the lemonades already jumped in. Hope you guys had a fabulous Easter. I hope you guys had a great holiday weekend or what we call Resurrection Sunday. If you. It's weird calling it Easter because that's the pagan holiday. And the Christians who are like, happy Easter. I always. Look, it's always a little weird for me that we. That Christians call it Easter when Easter is actually the pagan holiday that the Catholic church adopted when they went ahead and f and like, you know, conquered pagan lands. We're like, what do you celebrate now? You celebrate that with. And there's like a bunny and a rabbit and stuff. Oh, you can keep doing that. Just go ahead and say you're Catholic. Go ahead and do it. It's all good. You can go ahead and incorporate that. We'll just pretend like it's part of it. And then they. I don't know what that has to do with Jesus, but whatever they like, there's a bunny, a bunny that's the size of a human that drops eggs somehow. And also there's Jesus. But we working it out. We just make it work no matter what. We just. We just figure it out. So happy post Easter to everybody. We somehow it all works out. I don't know. We are. We are on the climb to 500,000 followers on YouTube. We're trying to get there by our first birthday, which is June 9th. That is when we turn one here at the Joy Reid show. On the YouTube side, we're at 437,000 and counting. We've been growing really fast, but we want to try to get there. So what we're asking folks to do, if you are a YouTube viewer of the Joy Reach show, we would love it if you would send this link to five friends. Arrive with five, arrive with five. Go ahead and send this YouTube link to five friends. Also hit like and subscribe. Also comment share. The little thumbs up thing, if you do the little thumbs up, the little like and you leave a comment and you hit share and all you do is hit share and then send it to five people. When you do that, the algorithm loves it. It actually helps us. And the way that the weird algorithms work in this social media, independent media space is the algorithms pay attention to how much engagement you have. It's not just the raw number of followers, it's how much engagement. So on the YouTube side, we'd love to get to 500,000. We're on our climb to a million, but you got to get halfway before you can get all the way there. So we're, we're hoping you can send this link to five friends. I still run into people who go, oh my God, we miss you so much on and they still call it MSNBC just to show you brands. You can't change brands that easy. People say, oh, my God, we miss you so much on msnbc. That's still what the people call it, right? No one is calling it. I call it Ms. Now. The way it looked like Ms. Now to me. That's why I call it. But they don't call that. They say, I miss you on msnbc. And then a lot of times I still have to tell people, no, we still have a podcast and people don't generally know like you people. You think everyone would know and this would be sort of universally known, but it's not. That's why we still have to let folks know. So please tell a friend if you are on the Substack Nation, if you're part of our Substack fam, please note that we're going to be back on our Thursday grind, Thursdays at noon. If you are a premium subscriber, we're going to have a mystery guest and we're going to talk about in go in depth on this coming, these coming elections. We're going to be back at that on Thursday. Thank you all for giving us a break last week. We had a lot going on. We're going to do that again this week. But if you are on the substack side, please Also send that link to five friends and let them know that we are at 210,000 and counting on Substack. We would love to get. We always want to go higher. We're ambitious people over here at the Joy Reach show. And if you're on Twitch, that little Twitch army is. I'm very proud of. We are growing our little Twitch Army. We are getting close to 300 subscribers on Twitch. Our Twitch army is growing. Once we take over Twitch, it's over.
- [04:41]
Co-host or Guest
Then you got to get miles involved with that.
- [04:44]
Joy Reid
I got to get Miles to work on it. We got to take over Twitch to
- [04:47]
Co-host or Guest
deal with them twitchy people.
- [04:48]
Joy Reid
Then I'll really be a streamer. Oh my God.
- [04:51]
Co-host or Guest
You're a journalist. You're not a streamer.
- [04:53]
Joy Reid
Our 26 year old will hate it. I'll be a streamer. So, yeah, help us take over Twitch. Let's take over Twitch. What do you guys think? Should we take over Twitch as well and have the Joy Reed show take over? I think we should do that. I think we should do a Twitch Only stream. Let us know in the Twitch stream if you'd like to see a Twitch Only stream at some point. We'd be happy to do it. Just to let you know, get to know our Twitchies and talk to them a little bit. And of course, we love to do our inside only chats on YouTube and Substack. So we just love all our people. Wherever you're listening, we love you and we appreciate you. Okay, so we had a great Easter weekend over on this side. The Pope who I really like, I really like Pope Leo, the black Pope from New Orleans. I just love to remind folks that, you know, according to the rules of the United States, he's. He's a brother from New Orleans. And he went in here was a little bit of his homily, the Light of Easter. Let us allow ourselves to be amazed by Christ. Let us allow our hearts to be transformed by his immense love for us. Let those who have weapons lay them down. Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace. Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue. Not with the desire to dominate others, but to encounter them. And this is the same Pope who previously said, just last week, in response, apparently to the Trump regime trying to invoke God and Jesus in their attacks on Iran, he said, no, no, no. God doesn't hear the prayers of warmongers. If you are shedding blood and starting wars, God doesn't hear you. He said that I love him. He says a Lot of good stuff. It's really interesting. So Trump had a little bit, a slightly different Easter message. Just slightly different. And I quote, with apologies to all the saints. And so we trying to avoid a Trick Daddy moment. So. So just know that I warned you. Although he kind of warned you, too. Those of you who are at the Trick Daddy event because his name is Trick Daddy. That was your. That was your warning that he was going to probably be a little raunchy. The branding is in the name, but we're going to go ahead and warn you in advance. So we don't have a Trick Daddy moment, even though, again, his name is Trick Daddy. But anyway, not to have a Trick dad moment. Let me go ahead and put it up on screen and I'll read it to you. But again, apologize to all the saints, because this is what Donald Trump had. This was his Easter message. Tuesday will be Power Plant Day and Bridge Day all wrapped up in one. And Iran. There will be nothing like it. Open the boop. Open the fucking straight, is what he said, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell. Just watch. And then he ends it. Praise be to Allah. President Donald J. Trump.
- [07:35]
Co-host or Guest
You know, all little kids should go home and repeat that same phrase to their parents.
- [07:39]
Joy Reid
Mr. Satan's cool.
- [07:40]
Co-host or Guest
And say, why can't I say. The President says it?
- [07:42]
Joy Reid
The President, he said, open the fucking straight. I mean, I feel bad when I cuss, because you shouldn't be cussing, but every so often I'll do let. I do use the F bomb, unfortunately, too much. But the idea that this is how the President speaks and this is considered normal. So little kids right now who are growing up in Trump's America think this is a normal utterance from the President of the United States. He demanded. And first of all, open the effing straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell. Really? What you gonna do, Donald Trump? How you gonna put him in hell? The post was so nuts that Marjorie Taylor Greene herself posted a lengthy Twitter diatribe saying, oh, my God, he's insane. Somebody go get Grandpa. Grandpa is crazy. That's my summary. I'm not gonna read her long tweet, but she said on Easter morning, this is what President Trump posted. Everyone in his administration that claims to be a Christian needs to fall on their knees and beg forgiveness from God and stop worshiping the President and intervene in Trump's madness. I know all of you. I know all of you and him, and he has gone insane. And all of you are complicit I'm not defending Iran, but let's be honest about all this. The strait is closed because the US And Israel started an unprovoked war against Iran based on the same nuclear lies they've been telling for decades that any moment Iran would develop a nuclear weapon. You know who has nuclear weapons? Israel. Now, I hate agreeing with Marjorie Taylor Greene. It makes my heart hurt. It makes my soul hurt. Actually, it's physically painful to agree with Marjorie, but when Marjorie Taylor Greene is the voice of reason. So this, this post, which also was read. Jake Tapper read it live on cnn. I don't know if he gave the trick daddy morning like I did, but somebody said, I hate her, but she's agreeing with me. Exactly. She suddenly is the voice of reason. Lady Katrina said, I hate reading with her. But when Marjorie Taylor Greene has figured it out, something's wrong. People are starting to have the 25th Amendment conversation about Trump because of this. By the way, there was other. There was more at the Easter thing where I don't know why a person would take their child to Donald Trump White House Easter Egg Roll, but he was sitting around with the kids, talking to the kids about the auto pin, and the kids were looking at him like, I just wanted an egg full of candy. I don't know what's wrong with you, old man. So that crazy tweet that you see on screen right now, that came one day after this spelling challenged post, which I helpfully corrected the English on. There it is. I had to helpfully correct it because Donald Trump can't spell. Donald Trump can't spell. Remember when I gave Iran 10 days to make a deal or open up the Hormuz Strait? Time is running out. 48 hours before hell will rain R E I G N down on them. Glory to God. President Donald J. Trump. First of all, Donald, R E I G N means to rule. What you meant was R A I n rain, as in rain down. Donald Trump supposedly went to an Ivy League college and claims to be smarter than every nuclear scientist in general. But he can't spell rain. Maybe he just had king things on his mind. But before you think that he might sound more coherent, just explaining his Iran policy with, like, verbal words. Again, apologies. I know y' all don't like listening to him, but I need y' all to listen to him try to explain all of this madness when he spoke with Press at the Easter Egg Roll. Jason, I may pause it at certain points, but let's go ahead and start playing it.
- [11:42]
Pete Hegseth
What's stopping you?
- [11:43]
Joy Reid
From ending the war.
- [11:44]
Donald Trump
Well, it could end very quickly. The war. They do what they have to do. They have to do certain things. Things they know that they've been negotiating, I think, in good faith. We've had total regime change. You know, the people there now are much more reasonable.
- [11:56]
Joy Reid
Can we stop right there?
- [11:57]
Donald Trump
Much more.
- [11:59]
Joy Reid
He said, we've had total regime change. The people there now are much more reasonable. Donald. Donald, which people? The US Killed Ayatollah Khamenei, who was then replaced by Ayatollah Khamenei Jr. So we've had total regime change, he said. And then people now are much more reasonable. Are they now? Because it's the same people. It's the same people, but they're much more reasonable. There also were unsourced reports over the weekend that Ayatollah Khamenei Jr also might have been killed or at least severely injured. So you said, we're negotiating with those people, and they seem reasonable. Well, then, Donald, why are you still bombing them? You're bombing the leadership, and so is Israel. Who are you negotiating with? Okay, play a little bit more, please.
- [12:58]
Donald Trump
Total regime change. You know, the people there now are much more reasonable than the lunatics that you had in phase one and phase two. They were lunatics. The people that we're negotiating with now on behalf of Iran are much more reasonable. You can call it what you want, but I call it regime change. And I think most people are giving us credit for that.
- [13:18]
Joy Reid
No, no. No one's giving you credit for that. No one's giving you credit for anything. What are you talking about? All of Europe is shunning you. NATO is saying, we won't help you reopen the Strait of Hormuz. They're telling you to F off. And the people you're negotiating with are literally the same people. And you're not negotiating with them. You're bombing them. And Israel is bombing them and bombing all their civilian infrastructure. What are you talking about? Iran keeps saying, no, we're not talking to you. Stop bombing us. And then we can talk. Okay, let's keep playing.
- [13:46]
Donald Trump
The first regime was taken out. The second regime was taken out. Now, the third group of people that we're dealing with is not as radicalized, and we think they're actually much smarter.
- [13:58]
Joy Reid
Why did you use such vulgar language
- [14:00]
Sophia Lynn Lakin
in that true social post?
- [14:01]
Donald Trump
Only to make my point.
- [14:03]
Joy Reid
Okay, stop there. He says. Okay, so he says that the. The new people, the third people, are much smarter, and they're more. No, they're far more radical. AYATOLLAH Khamenei and this current group of the same exact regime are even more far right. So they're not more, they're not less right. They're more radical. And number two, you said you use the vulgar tweet only to make your point. What point? What point were you trying to make? Donald Trump, open the effing straight or you'll. Or hell will rain down. Oh, I think they got your point, buddy. I don't think your point is negotiation. Let's keep going a little more.
- [14:36]
Donald Trump
I think you've heard it before.
- [14:41]
Joy Reid
Have you spoken to the families of the airmen that were safe?
- [14:43]
Donald Trump
I'm going to be doing it right now.
- [14:46]
Joy Reid
What do you say to Americans who are not a fan of the war?
- [14:50]
Donald Trump
They're foolish. Because the war is about one thing. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Had we not broken the Barack Hussein Obama agreement. You know that. You know what I'm talking about. The Iran nuclear deal. This is years ago, my first term. You would have had a total. Israel would have been gone, extinguished. Israel would be. Would have been wiped off the face of the Earth and the entire Middle east would have been at a minimum and in big trouble.
- [15:19]
Joy Reid
Okay, stop that. We can stop. That's enough. That's enough. I got you. I got you. We just needed you to say it. I was going to go ahead and play it until he just said what it is. Did you hear what he said? Listen to what he said. Because Donald Trump is not smart enough to lie. He's not smart. He's not clever enough to come up with something clever. He just says what it is he said. Had. Who opposed the deal that was made between the United States, Iran and Europe, that would been the Obama deal, right? That deal. They call it the jcpoa. The most successful negotiation with Iran that we've had in a generation, which got them to say they will not enrich their nuclear material beyond a certain point, and they will certainly not enrich it to the point where it can be made into a nuclear weapon. They essentially agreed to de. Weaponize. To only use nuclear power for energy. Nuclear for energy. That's it. Obama got them to agree to that. You know who opposed that? Bibi Netanyahu. Israel. As a matter of fact, Bibi Netanyahu flew to the United States and in an unprecedented move, spoke in our Congress to try to stop that deal from happening. He came and lobbied against it with our members of Congress who, despite the fact that the President of the United States was negotiating at the presidential level. They listened to Bibi Netanyahu lobby against our bill inside our Congress. That was crazy. And he opposed it all the way through, was mad about it. Trump came in and obeyed Benyahu and ended the deal, scuppered it, and then was going to negotiate his own deal that he said was going to be better. He did negotiate a deal that they said, okay, we'll do that. We'll do Obama plus, we'll do give what Obama ask for. We'll give you that. Plus even more. We'll make it even more explicit that we're not going to get. And then like two days later, we started bombing them. Who benefits? Who wanted us to bomb them? And Trump just said, if we, who's been saying for 30 years at any minute Iran's going to have nukes. So he just admitted that we just went to war because Obama needed, I mean, because Israel needed us to go to war. Israel wanted it because Israel was going to continue lying and saying that any minute Iran was going to have what they definitely have. Marjorie Taylor Greene ain't wrong. They got nukes. So he explained it. Thank you, Trump. Thank you for being honest. We did this war because Israel wanted us to do it, because they were going to keep on lying to American presidents forever until we put our boots on the ground to go to war against Iran for them and put our boots on the ground and let our military members take the risk of dying so that Israel can be the only nuclear power in the Middle East. Got it. Let's hear a more coherent voice. Senator Chris Murphy also explaining why we're in this war.
- [18:10]
Senator Chris Murphy
The strait was open before the war began. We are now seeking to solve a problem that we. This is insanity. $2 billion is a lot of money. That's the minimum amount of money that is being spent every single day on this war. There are over a dozen families who are burying their loved ones in the United States and there may be dozens more if this war continues. Prices are skyrocketing not just in America, but all across the world. Notices just went out from dupont to their customers that the price of plastic is doubling. The price at the pump in many states is at $4, $5 and going higher. Fertilizer soon to be unaffordable for American farmers. The consequences of this war are stunning in their scope. Higher prices for American businesses and American families, a potential global recession, the wasting of billions of dollars of hard earned taxpayer dollars, and new conflicts in the region that didn't exist before the war began. We have created a catastrophe in the Middle East. We are lighting taxpayer dollars on fire. We are causing prices to go up for everyone. And what is our new war aim? Reopening the strait that was open before we started the war. This is basic incompetence. I mean, this is what you get when you put talk show hosts and real estate developers in charge of American national security.
- [20:20]
Joy Reid
Exactly, exactly. And not just that, people who want to make money and by joining the military industrial complex, people who can profit from putting us in a war that we don't need to be in. This is what happens when you put greedy entrepreneurs and stupid talk show hosts who don't know any better than to stop it. Pete Hexa, ambitious self aggrandizing fools like Marco Rubio and a grifter in chief on top of the whole cabal whose family we're going to talk about this later in the show when Eric Swalwell joins us, are directly profiting from him going back on his core promise not to start any dumb wars. He started a dumb war. His family's making a whole shit ton of money. If we're going to do another little cuss moment. Okay, so the other news that we got over the weekend is that the airman who was one of the two members of this $90 million F15 fighter jet that was shot down and shot out of the sky apparently by the non existent Iranian military which has nothing but apparently managed to get that plane down. Although for some reason we do not know this or the other airmen's names. I don't know anything about them. We're getting nothing about them. But we're told they have been rescued and we just have to go with that because that is what we're getting from mainstream media, that they've been rescued. We hope they are fine because they shouldn't have been over there in the first place. And they're actually lucky to have been rescued this second airman because you guys will remember what Donald Trump, you know, had they been captured, just want to remind you what Trump thinks about people who've been captured who are members of our United States military should run against
- [22:04]
Donald Trump
John McCain who has been, you know, in my opinion, not so hot. And I supported him. I supported him for president. I raised $1 million for him. It's a lot of money. I supported him.
- [22:14]
News Reporter
He lost.
- [22:15]
Donald Trump
He let us down. But you know, he lost. So I never liked him as much after that because I don't like losers. But Frank, Frank, let me get to it.
- [22:23]
Joy Reid
He hit me. He's not a war hero.
- [22:26]
Donald Trump
He is a war hero.
- [22:26]
Joy Reid
Five and a half years.
- [22:27]
Donald Trump
He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured, okay?
- [22:31]
Joy Reid
I hate to tell you, he likes people who weren't captured. So if that poor airman had been captured, Trump wouldn't give a crap about him because he does not have respect for the United States military. Never has. Thinks they're suckers and losers for joining in the first place. Doesn't even understand why anybody would join anyway. He's not a patriot. He doesn't have any use to the military. But anyway, he's glad that he doesn't have another 1979 hostage moment. I'm sure about that. So Trump, at his press conference that he did today where he took credit for that capture, he also said that he is looking very hard to find the leaker who revealed the fact that we had one of our servicemen missing. He says that the Iranians didn't even know that there was anyone missing until this so called leaker gave the information to a media outlet. Several US Outlets actually held back reporting about the second airmen at all and about the rescue mission while it was still ongoing, according to the BBC. In order to not get in the way of the rescue happening, Trump told reporters, quote, we have to find that leaker because that is a sick person. Probably didn't realize the extent of how bad it was. They put the mission at great risk. He also threatened to arrest the journalists who broke the story about the attempt to rescue the airmen. He threatened to put them in prison and make them give up their sources, saying, we're going to go to the media company that released it. We're going to say national security. We're going to say, give it up or go to jail. Really? Okay, welcome to authoritarian America. The journalists who released the story, that's their job. And he's saying that he's going to lock them in prison until they give up their sources. The, the ability to have anonymous sources is a core part of journalism, but he's saying we're going to make that illegal like it is in authoritarian countries, like it would be in North Korea or Russia. Got it. Trump again, too dumb to lie and probably also too slightly senile to lie. So he just says the thing. But Trump himself, despite that warning to the media, was actually giving play by plays on the airman situation himself. On his Truth Social app, NBC News reporting that Trump said in a post on Truth Social that the airman was seriously wounded, adding that he is a highly respected colonel, making it a little easier to try to figure out who he is. A senior Trump administration official told NBC News that a second crew member's rescue was made possible with the help of CIA subterfuge. Donald Trump saying that on Truth social media and I won't even read you the statements that the CIA and the Pentagon released to NBC and probably other news outlets because they literally sound like North Korean propaganda. The glorious and grand. I mean, the, the hyperbole and the way they're. I won't even read it to you because it would insult your intelligence and I've already made you listen to Trump sounds. I won't do that to you. In fact, Trump and Hegseth's operations have been releasing propagandistic hot takes all weekend about the downed aircraft and the missing crew. According to Fortune, a regional intelligence official briefed on the mission said the US Military was forced to bring in additional aircraft to complete the rescue due to a technical malfunction. The official said the US had to blow up two transport planes that it was forced to leave behind because of the mishap. Speaking on condition of anonymity to Fortune to discuss the COVID mission. And Iranian state media on Friday also said that a second US plane, an A10 aircraft, also crashed after being hit by Iranian forces. The US Military has not commented on that one. But here you can see some of the wreckage and the, you know, the information is going to start to go on social media. We're starting to see this war play out on social media, including Truth Social, because Trump is giving away details about it. I'm surprised Pete Hegseth isn't yapping about it on signal with his friends and his wife like he did before. We also know the US And Israel are bombing civilian infrastructure in Iran and, and in southern Lebanon, where more than a million people have been displaced as Israel threatens to occupy reoccupy southern Lebanon. You know what that means? Settlers, Let me show you this video. This is a 9. The video on your left is Sharif University of Technology. It's basically the MIT of Iran. It's one of more than a dozen universities that have been targeted by the Israelis in the US military. We are bombing universities with Israel on your right. On your right is a town called Taban in southern Lebanon that is being obliterated by Israel. So they're doing both of the things on the left and the right destroying universities. This is genocide because it is an attempt not just to fight a war, but to eliminate the people, their intellectual history, their books, their research, their professors. They've killed multiple professors. They've also killed a priest who was ministering to people in Lebanon trying to save them. We're killing priests, we're killing professors, we're bombing universities, Israel is bombing civilian bridges, they're bombing apartment buildings. So they're basically treating Iran and Lebanon exactly the way Israel treated Gaza. Only now we're not just funding it, we're doing it with them. We now also know something that Trump blurted out during an interview with his favorite propaganda channel. Take a listen to this from Fox now.
- [27:57]
Interview Host
The president also provided new details on what happened earlier this year as the Iranian regime took to the streets and slaughtered what the president tells me is 45,000 civilians in their own country. After that took place, President Trump told me the United States sent guns to the Iranian protesters. He tells me we sent them a lot of guns. We sent them through the Kurds. And the president says he thinks the Kurds kept them. He went on to say, we sent guns to the protesters, a lot of them. And so a number of headlines here from my conversation with President Trump. All of this taking place more than a month into operation Operation Epic Fury and in the aftermath of that successful US Operation overnight to rescue that stranded US Service member inside Iranian territory. The president himself ordering that operation after the CIA came on Saturday morning and confirmed that they located where this crew member of an F15 that was shot down on Friday was located. Again, the president making that decision to send in hundreds of U.S. special forces deep into Iranian territory and successfully retrieving that U.S. service member.
- [29:05]
Joy Reid
Okay, I want to make sure I got. Why didn't you know? The only thing he didn't add is and the glorious maximum leader of the United States and his genius and brilliance. You know, he didn't add that, so at least we were spared that. But do you hear what he said? Four months. Iranian officials, including in an interview with the foreign minister did with Zatteo. They've been insisting that the United States, that the CIA was arming the protesters in their streets. And the US has been saying, no, we're not. Donald Trump confirmed that we are running the latest version of the Allen Dulles CIA operations to try to destabilize another country by arming their protesters by giving them guns. Donald Trump confirms to Fox that the United States is running a CIA operation to arm Iranian protesters in the hopes that they will rise up and overthrow the government. That is the old school American playbook, including in Iran. You're telling me that the President of the United States, the commander in chief, is so dim that he went ahead and told Fox on the record that the CIA is in Iran, that dozens of CIA officials were in Iran, that the CIA was behind rescuing those airmen, that the airman is a colonel, that the airman was injured, and that we are arming the protesters. The very thing they've been saying is what was fomenting the protest. They've been claiming that the protesters were not a real opera. They weren't, they weren't native, they weren't organic. They've been claiming that the protests were a CIA operation. And now Trump has confirmed it on his favorite propaganda network. You don't even have to have journalists come back in later and write the story of these attempted coups, etc. Donald Trump is saying it in real time on Truth Social. He's giving, he's, he is telling of his crimes like a Scooby Doo villain. And he would have succeeded, too, if it weren't for those stupid kids and their stupid dog. And meanwhile, on the question, Donald Trump also keeps saying, we're winning this war. We're winning, we're winning, we're winning, we're winning, we're winning, we're winning, we're winning. Are we, though? Are we winning? Because my whole thing is I don't listen, I make y' all listen to a little bit of Trump, but I listen to what he says because he's just, he's very blunt, right? But his government, his government, while they don't just blurt out the CIA operations like Trump does, you really have to watch what they actually do. Okay, okay, let me just give you a little history real quick. Donald Trump started this war which was the third time that his regime has attacked Iran. First time was during his first term, right? On January 3, 2020, an election year. Remember, Trump said that Obama would start a war with Iran because he needed to get reelected. This was in January of 2020, an election year. Here he was trying to get reelected. Donald Trump ordered a drone strike on Major General Qasem Suleiman near Baghdad International Airport, where Solomon. I'm sorry, Soleimani is how you pronounce his name. Soleimani. Qasem Soleimani. So Qasem Soleimani was on his way to travel to meet with the Iraqi prime minister. Remember, we went to war in Iran and my little joke was, what do you call Iraq without Saddam Hussein? Iran. Because it's mostly Iraq, Shia, like Iran. And so they're now allies. We turned Iraq from an enemy of Iran into their ally because they're now both Shiite, Shiite run countries. Shiite Muslim countries. Okay, so Soleimani is on his way to go and meet with the Prime Minister of Iraq. He, Soleimani was a commander of what's called the Quds Force. It's one of five branches of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, meaning their military, which is designated by the US and by the eu, the European Parliament, as a terrorist organization. The Quds Force. Soleimani was considered the second most powerful person in Iran. He runs basically their secret police, like their version of ice, subordinate only to the now dead Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. So we killed. So Donald Trump had the US kill him in January of 2020. That was the first thing. That was the first thing that Trump did. Okay. And the second one was the last. The strike last June that the Trump regime swore in public destroyed Iran's nuclear capability. This, what I'm putting you right now, is still on their website. Maybe not after this show tonight, but it's still on their website. And it says Iran's nuclear facilities have been obliterated and suggestions otherwise are fake news. Fake news. He says they've obliterated. And then he says, ask the people who know. That's what it says on the website. This is from the whitehouse.gov website. It then lists the people who will affirm for you that Iran's entire nuclear capability was obliterated when the United States did these strikes on their nuclear facilities last June, after which their Director of National Intelligence also affirmed it's all gone. Tulsi Gabbard, who's in charge of all 18 intelligence agencies. You've also got Marco Rubio saying, all obliterated. General Raisin Cain. Remember Raisin Cain? He said it. They have a quote from him. They have a quote from Rubio. They have a quote from Trump himself. They have a quote from Pete Hep. Even Israel's top nuclear official is quoted in that document. That's still live on their website. So that's last June. So they say, we're done, Iran. We have gotten rid of their nuclear everything. It's all gone. No capability. And then on February 28th of this year, for some reason that no one can understand, US And Israeli forces struck again. And this is after Iran agreed again to give up its nuclear ambitions and cut a deal even better than the one they did with Obama. This time, US and Israel conducted nearly 900 bombing strikes in just the first 12 hours of what the regime, as you heard on Fox, calls Operation Epic Fury, which, again, they shouldn't have needed to do. Why do you need 900 strikes on a country that you've obliterated their entire nuclear capability and then say if you didn't do it, they would have obliterated Israel. With what? They don't have any nukes. The attacks targeted Iranian missiles and air defenses, other military infrastructure, and Iranian leadership, including killing Khamenei. And of course, we struck that girls school, killing about 170 children. But think about that. So we're striking their missiles and their air defenses and their other military infrastructure, the kind of thing that they would use to repel an aerial attack. So we're not striking anything nuclear, we're striking their missiles and air defenses, the kind of things that a normal country would use to repel an aerial attack. Okay, that's what we did in February. That's what we struck. Nothing nuclear, just the things they would use to defend themselves. Using and defend themselves against an aerial bombardment. Put in the back of your mind again, what does Donald Trump's children invest in? What companies do they invest in? Drone companies. Okay, okay. And that's what they did in February. Then In March, on March 24, watch this. Like the pastors say, watch this. Y' all were in church yesterday. Watch this, watch this. On March 24th of this year, the US army did something that you really need to pay attention to. They changed the rules for who could join and be recruited into the military. Let me quote Task and Purpose. This is their online military magazine, Task and Purpose, which military folks read, quote, a major update to army recruiting regulations this week. Raises. Raises the maximum age a recruit can join to 42. And removes a barrier for joining for recruits with a single legal conviction for marijuana or drug paraphernalia possession. The Army's previous limit was 35, though exceptions are occasionally made. The higher age limit brings the army in line with other services limits of 41 in the Navy and 42 in the air Force and Space Force. Space Force. Hmm. So now they Gonna let the 42 year olds get in the Army, Meaning you can be the troops on the ground, the infantry, the people they send into the buzzsaw of wars. Why would they need to do that? If we're winning this war and we're winning it all with massive air power. Overwhelming air power, and we destroyed their missile defenses, so they cannot repel an aerial attack. We don't need ground troops. We just need our powerful air strikes. We got our missiles, our $90 million Tomahawk missiles and our F15. See if we don't need ground troops. If we don't need what they used to call cannon fodder troops. Why would they raise the age and say, and now if you have a weed possession situation, you good, you can join. It used to be I spoke to a military guy over the weekend about this and he said they will be so stressed out you would have to get a drug test. Now it's like you go ahead and smoke weed. So they're saying you can be a weed smoker. There's 42, go on and join. Why would they do that if we're winning? You thought about that? Just think about it. Also, we were told that Israel is impenetrable because of the Iron Dome. Nothing can get through the Iron Dome unless it can. Here's what's happening in Haifa, a major city in Israel.
- [38:42]
News Reporter
We have seen that it could be partly unexploded. The building that they are searching through at the moment is already in danger of coming collapse. The possibility that there could be further unexploded elements within there in the rubble is obviously causing complications. We understand that among the injured, around about 10 people were hurt, four of those more seriously injured. One of them is an elderly man said to be in a very serious condition. And they are looking specifically now for four people who are believed to be from the one apartment who remain on unaccounted for. Israel on Sunday was subjected to four salvos of incoming missiles from Iran. According to the authorities, one of those missiles fell near the southern city of Beersheba on the Neot Khuva Industrial Park. This is a very important industrial area in the south of the country. It landed near a toxic waste dump. There's no talk of of hazard threat from this site, but it is of concern. This site has been hit three times before during this conflict. The last time just over a week ago, which caused a fire at a chemical plant.
- [39:56]
Joy Reid
Okay, so apparently the mayor of defenses ain't impenetrable at all. Meanwhile, Iran is doing something that we don't have the sound on this because we can't play music. But when I tell you they are trolling the hell out of the United States. Have y' all seen this? Have you guys seen these Lego videos? Are you guys seeing this? Iran is using hip hop music and Legos to troll the absolute crap out of. Pete Haig said they have one song just about him calling him an R A P I S T. They have. They're trolling Trump. I would have made this my moment of joy almost. But I'm like, I don't want to put Iranian propaganda on here, but yo, and some of these things are a bop. Some of these hip hop things, some of them are a bop. Are we really winning? Are we? Some people on the right are picking up on the fact that I don't know about this winning thing because it doesn't feel like we're winning, right when we're getting trolled by a lego barrage on TikTok. They're just, they're literally hitting us with the Lego humor, the Lego comedy with hip hop songs under it. That doesn't feel like winning. Do you feel like you're winning when this is happening? And Donald Trump is responding with insane, cussy, weird, crazy posts where he then says one minute he's using a sort of a Muslim greeting, which his Christian followers are like, what is that? Why is he doing that? If we're winning, this doesn't feel like winning. This feels like we're getting played and trolled and we're losing. Let's play it. There's a guy named Tim Dillon. I don't know if you guys are familiar with Tim Dillon. He's a right wing podcaster that was very pro Trump in the 2024 election. Let me let him have the last
- [41:50]
word on this block con in history, by the way. It's the greatest con in history. I mean, truly, it's the greatest.
- [41:56]
Senator Chris Murphy
It's the.
- [41:56]
Joy Reid
And I don't say great in like a good way. It is truly the, the most successful con in history. It makes Enron look like a guy doing Three Card Monty on the street. Anything that you can remember and identify as a complete and utter scam. This is the greatest con in history to run as an America first and you're going to take care of America and then turn around and go, you know, all of these things, daycare, Medicare, Medicaid, we have nothing to do with that. We're fighting wars. That's what we're here to do. We're here to have a defense budget of 1.5 trillion and we're here to fight wars. It is the greatest scam in history. You got to hand it to him. And I mean truly and not, you know, again, not like a, not in a moral way, but like, you got to hand it to him. This is the greatest about face in political history that I have really ever seen.
- [42:53]
And we tried to tell you that's what he was going to do. Let's thank one of our amazing sponsors. We tried to tell y' all that he's just a grifter and a thief. We told Y', all, I don't know how many times we could have told. I wrote a whole book telling you. You could have just read that. Let me let you guys know that this episode of the Joy Reach show is brought to you, our friends at Zbiotics Pre alcohol celebrations don't start with the clinking of glasses. They start with Zbiotics pre alcohol, a probiotic you take before your first drink so you can enjoy the night and wake up. Ready? Zebiotics Free alcohol the science behind your next great morning. Listen, let's face it, fam. After a night with drinks, I don't bounce back the way I used to. No menopause do menopause. And I have to make a choice. I can either have a great night or a great next day. Well, that is until the biotics Free alcohol. Just know that Zebiotics probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. So here's how it works. When you drink, alcohol gets converted inside of your gut into this toxic byproduct, which is the thing, not dehydration, that is to blame for those rough days after drinking. So pre alcohol, what it does is it goes in, it produces an enzyme when you drink it to break that byproduct down. So if you just remember to make pre alcohol your first drink of the night, drink responsibly, you're going to have a great, you're have a great tomorrow and be at your very best. So this past weekend was a perfect example. Went out with the fam, we hit the D.C. harbor, we got on the big wheel, we grabbed a big meal. Now, a night like that normally could have easily made a terrible next morning for me, but no longer. I armed myself with my zebiotics before I headed out the door and the next morning I was good to go. Let's just be real. Too often a Saturday night out means a Sunday morning, oversleeping for church and winding up in the overflow because you're late and you're not feeling right. And who wants to be in the overflow? The kids are in their lab, they're crying. But since I started incorporating free alcohol, my glass of wine, my little security does not disrupt my morning flow. And the Lord knows I need it. Ready to make that shift to have a fuller experience and great mornings in 2026. Just remember to head to zebiotics.com joy and use the code joy at checkout for 15% off at zebiotics.com joy use the code joy at checkout for fifteen percent off because we love you. We want you guys to have a good morning. All right, let's move on to something that did not make the news last week. Last Tuesday, a federal judge ruled in one of the last unresolved legal cases stemming from from the January 6th insurrection. US District Judge Amit Mehta ruled Tuesday that Trump's remarks at his Stop the Steal rally held at the Ellipse near the White House shortly before the siege began, plausibly were inciting words that are not protected by the First Amendment right to free speech. The Republican president is not shielded for liability for much of his January 6 conduct, the ruling said, including that speech and much of his social media that he posted that day on x Twitter, according to the judge. But Meta said that Trump cannot be held liable for his official acts that day, including his Rose Garden remarks during the riot and his interactions with Justice Department officials. The speech, though it says President Trump has not shown that the speech reasonably the speech reasonably could be understood as falling within the outer perimeter of his presidential duties, said Meta. The content of the Ellipse speech confirms that it is not covered by official act immunity. And just about that lawsuit very quickly, it was filed on February 16, 2021 by a Cohen Milstein, which is a law firm in partnership with the NAACP. They filed it in district court in D.C. on behalf of the Honorable Bennie Thompson, who is the very well known Mississippi Senator who's the head of the oversight. Was the oversight. He was head of the January 6th Committee. Sorry, he was the chairman of the January 6th Committee. And so he it was filed by him initially in his personal capacity against the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys and Donald Trump for conspiring to prevent him and other members of Congress from discharging their official duties on January 6, 2021, including their official duty right to approve the counter results of the election. On April 7, he he withdrew, effectually effectively withdrew. Thompson did, and 10 other members of the U.S. house of Representatives joined the lawsuit against the defendants asserting the same claim. So those people are Karen Bass, who's now mayor of la, Barbara Lee, who's now mayor of Oakland, Stephen Cohen, Veronica Escobar, Pramila, Jayapal, Henry Johnson, Marcia Kaptor and Gerald Nadler and Maxine Waters and Bonnie Watson Coleman. So they are the ones who filed who joined the case. So that's one thing that happens and they're now going to get to proceed. The other thing that happened in the courts right now there is a a coalition of voting rights organizations that have filed a lawsuit, and they filed that lawsuit in the US District Court of Massachusetts challenging Donald Trump's March 31 executive order concerning mail in voting. The Constitution explicitly states that only Congress and the state can set the rules for elections, not Donald Trump. Joining me now to discuss this are Sophia Lynn Lakin, who is the director of the ACLU Voting Rights Project, and Anthony Ashton, attorney at the naacp. Anthony, I'm going to start with you, talk about this lawsuit. When do you expect the next. Do you expect us to ever go to trial?
- [48:11]
Anthony Ashton
I think we certainly hope that it's going to go to trial. The right now, we beaten, beaten Trump twice before the same court with regard to his claims of immunity, with us being able to show that he has no immunity for the actions he took that day. He was not acting as a president. He was acting as a regular person who was seeking a job, someone who was campaigning, who didn't understand that the election was over. So it is our hope that we will be able to use this ruling, as well as assuming that he appeals, that we would go back up to the D.C. circuit, where we have won before with regard to his claim of immunity, and then we can. Unless he goes to the Supreme Court, we can go back and actually start trying to vindicate the rights of the people who were trapped in that building on January 6th. A lot of people forget these were human beings who were afraid for their lives while a band of people broke down the doors to come in with the express purpose of stopping them from doing their legal duty and were chanting about literally committing murder.
- [49:31]
Joy Reid
Exactly. And to that point, very point, just to stay with you just for a moment, Jack Smith attempted to prosecute Donald Trump for this. This is something that he tried to hold him criminally liable for. Jason, if you could hit us with B3, please. B3. So did you develop evidence that President Trump
- [49:51]
Eric Swalwell
was responsible for the violence at
- [49:53]
Joy Reid
the Capitol on January 6th?
- [49:55]
Attorney General
So our view of the evidence was that he caused it and that he exploited it and that it was foreseeable to him.
- [50:05]
Joy Reid
But you don't have any evidence that he instructed people to crash and crash the Capitol, do you?
- [50:11]
Attorney General
As I said, our evidence is that he, in the weeks leading up to January 6, created a level of distrust. He used that level of distrust to get people to believe fraud claims that weren't true. He made false statements to state legislators, to his supporters in all sorts of contexts, and was aware in the days leading up to January 6th that his supporters were angry when he invited them. And then he directed them to the Capitol. Having a record that is a hard record about a time in the timeline that afternoon was particularly important because that violence started. The president refused to stop it. He endangered the life of his vice president. And he's getting calls, and not just not calls from Democrats, not calls from people he doesn't know, calls from people he trusts, calls from people he relies on and still refuses to come to the aid of the people at the Capitol. That's very important evidence for criminal intent in our case.
- [51:21]
Joy Reid
So that's evidence for criminal intent according to Jack Smith, who of course the right is trying to go after because he tried to do that and unfortunately Merrick Garland made it take too long so he couldn't get to fruition on that case. How will this case be different, if at all from that from the case Jack Smith would have made?
- [51:36]
Anthony Ashton
ANTHONY well, first of all, we are actually pursuing this case. We as opposed to having to go through and jump through the hoops that that he did, we filed this case and we were the first people to file this file a case related to this literally within three weeks of the insurrection. So we are a lot farther down the road than he was. We gone through some discovery with regard to documents and emails related to the administration and how the program at the Ellipse was put on that day. So we are much farther down that road than he was ever allowed to go. I think that the question about about intent is still there. We have the we have made the claim and it's our position that he conspired with those who attacked the Capitol. And that is the claim that the judge has said will move forward. That is the claim for which the judge said there is no immunity. And that's the claim for which the judge said that the allegations, as we have alleged them, set forth what's called a prima facie case or a case that is legally sound enough to move forward.
- [52:58]
Joy Reid
Got it, Got it. And that was an attempt at voter suppression of the of the most sort of violent and egregious kind. But SOPHIA so is what they're trying to do via this executive order. Donald Trump's March 31 executive order concerning mail in voting tries to make it illegal, essentially despite the fact that he doesn't have the power to do it. The order attempts to displace states mail in voting laws by transforming the U.S. postal Service from a neutral mail carrier to an arbiter of who is allowed to cast a ballot by mail. According to the lawsuit, the ACLU is a part of. Can you Explain. Are you unmuted?
- [53:39]
Sophia Lynn Lakin
Sophia, I apologize. My. My Internet cut out unfortunately in that moment.
- [53:45]
Joy Reid
Oh, that's. That's okay. That's okay. Let me re. Re. Ask the question. So the Donald Trump's march, the order that you all are litigating now, according to your lawsuit, according to ACLU's lawsuit, attempts to displace states mail in voting laws by transforming the Postal Service from a neutral mail carrier to an arbiter of who is allowed to cast the ballot by mail. So if you could please explain that.
- [54:10]
Sophia Lynn Lakin
Yeah, absolutely. You know, at its core, this order puts a federal screening regime between voters and the ballot box. President is essentially trying to determine who gets to vote and that is simply just not his call to make. It directs the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to build citizenship lists from incomplete, inaccurate federal databases and send them to states recently naturalized citizens disproportionately. Voters of color are at particular risk of being left off. But it also directs the Postal Service, as you've mentioned, to create a list of so called approved mail voters and refuse to deliver mail ballots to anyone not on that list. Now the Postal Service delivers mail. It does not get to decide who gets to vote. On top of all of this, the executive order threatens criminal prosecution of election officials and federal funding cutoffs for states that don't comply. This isn't about securing elections. This is an abuse of executive power, part of a coordinated effort to control who votes before ballots are even cast.
- [55:17]
Joy Reid
Yeah, and just so, so for the chat, if you, if you just to reiterate that, I mean, this is wild. We've already seen that the Department of Homeland Security is not trustworthy. These are the people who run ICE and the Border Patrol. You've seen the results there too. At least two people died, about 38 people dead or injured at their hands. And part of what this so called SAVE act would be would be that every state would have to send their voter rolls to the Department of Homeland Security. This executive order is trying to kind of do the SAVE act through an eo. It says the Department of Homeland Security is supposed to build a database of eligible voters and states have to submit information about their citizenship level or the citizens in their state and then they get to decide if this passes. Do you all have an estimate of how many people in theory could be disenfranchised?
- [56:06]
Sophia Lynn Lakin
I mean, in theory, millions of voters who rely on mail voting to cast their ballots. We have seniors, people who live in rural communities, service members stationed overseas, military families, voters with disabilities, voters who, who have limited English proficiency. There are a whole slew of voters who rely very heavily on mail voting to cast their ballot. And it would put all of these voters at risk. On top of that, we're talking about chaos and confusion for election administrators, which, as we're getting closer and closer to the election, will have fallen effects on, you know, how smoothly our elections run at the end of the day. So this executive order, and let me be clear about it, we expect, we have every reason to expect that this executive order will be blocked. It is an unconstitutional power grab and federal courts have shown themselves ready and able to block such a power grab to try to seize control over elections by executive fiat. But were this order to go into effect, we would be really seeing an impact, a very real impact on not just voters, and that's extremely, extraordinarily important, of course, but also on our clients, our clients who represent our organizations that really try very hard to ensure that voters are able to cast ballots, to cast ballots that count. And it's going to have an impact on their ability to do that critical, critical work in the months ahead of the election cycle.
- [57:35]
Joy Reid
I just want to know for everybody that the people that you're talking about, the groups you're talking about, these are the people who filed the suit, the groups, the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, they're great at getting people registered to vote. The League of Women Voters Nationwide organization, the association of Americans Resident Overseas, the US Vote foundation, the Asian Pacific American association, and of course the devastating divas of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated are all on this lawsuit. So I thank you both for being here. And I think both of you have strong cases. I'm not a lawyer, but they seem to be strong cases because there's just no evidence that you have a lot of noncitizens voting. And it's just not a thing that happens. And of course, January 6th was an election grab and a crime. Thank you very much. We appreciate you both. Anthony Ashton of the NAACP and Sophia Lynn Lakin of the aclu, director of the ACLU Voting Rights Project. Thank you both.
- [58:26]
Anthony Ashton
Thank you.
- [58:27]
Joy Reid
Thank you both. I want to also note for you guys that if you are in the state of Virginia, they're coming for your ability to vote too. Because the third thing they're doing, trying to stop mail in balloting because they're scared of mail in balloting because Donald Trump lost the big mail in ballot election in 2020, trying to make January 6th no longer a crime. Because of course, they're probably recruiting all those J6 insurrectionists to be ICE agents and maybe poll watchers or whatever. And then number three, trying to end the gerrymandering on the Democratic side. That's the response to what they did in Texas. If you could put a B4. Jason, the, the right, the Republican organizations are sending out a mailer. If you live in the state of Virginia, you may have gotten this mailer with Barack Obama's face on it. This is nasty work trying to use Barack Obama to convince people in Virginia not to vote for this, what they call the 101 gerrymander. Virginia is one of the response states. So Texas stole five seats from the Democrats. California responded by stealing five seats back. And they passed a law saying, we're going to take five seats from you if you take five seats from the Democrats. There are states that are all matching each other. So red state does it, blue state does it. Red state does it, blue state does it. Virginia is supposed to be. It's a blue state. Right. It's a bluish, purplish blue state. They have a potential law on the books similar to what California did where they would gerrymander the state in response to red states that are doing the same thing. Groups that are trying to stop this are using an old quote from Barack Obama way before, before all of this was happening back in the Obama era, opposing the idea of gerrymandering. And yeah, all Democrats oppose gerrymandering, but if you all play, if you. We don't play the game we're playing. We're going to play on the field. We're on, not on the field, in our dreams. And so Barack Obama does not oppose this law. And so what I need everyone to do is if you have a friend in Virginia, they need to vote yes on this law. They need to vote yes. Do not be fooled by the fake Obama mailer where they're trying to use Obama to convince particularly black people in Virginia to vote no. You should be voting yes. And by the way, you should be calling Governor Abigail Spanberger. Abigail. Abigail, Abigail. Because she been real quiet about this. And Abigail got elected with 90 plus percent of the black vote. I think it was like 92%. She got like the magic 92%. She overwhelmingly won the black vote. So, Abigail, Abigail, Abigail, we're gonna need you to be vocal. Abigail, Abigail, the people who elected you, and not just talking about black people, we're talking about progressives, people for whom you were considered too moderate, they still came out in droves to put you in to that governor's mansion. And we gonna need you to stand up for this law. People need to vote yes. If you got friends in Virginia, don't be fooled. The right is trying to use Obama against you. Obama is for this law, not against it. Don't be fooled. That's a nasty work, trying to use Obama. But. Abigail, Abigail, Abigail, Abigail, I need to hear you. I don't hear you. Abigail, I need to hear you. You need to stand up for this law. I need to get you to get vocal. Governor of Maryland's been very vocal, but he's got a nasty Democratic Senate majority leader who's standing in the way of it happening. Wes Moore is trying to get this law passed in Maryland, but he's got this Senate Democrat standing in the way. Who's the Senate majority leader who's trying to stop it. He need to get a call, too. And when he comes up for reelection, maybe he shouldn't stay in. Let me look up his name. Maryland Senate Majority leader is standing in the way of Maryland attempting to do the same thing. Or is he House? He's either House or Senate. He might be House. We need to get this done. It needs to get done. There has to be tit for tat gerrymandering in Democratic states the same way that Republicans are doing it. Otherwise they're going to lock in their gerrymander for a decade and there'll be never an opportunity for the pro democracy side to regain power. Okay, let's get one more ad in. We love our sponsors. We appreciate them. Let's let you know that this episode of the Joy Reid show is also sponsored by Strawberry Me. Now listen, you do not have to be unhappy at your job to just want something more. Success does not just happen. And the most successful people in the world don't just figure it out alone. They have mentors and coaches, people guiding them every step of the way. And that is where Strawberry Me career coaching comes in. Career coaching can get you unstuck. 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This is a way for you to get that kind of coaching if it's not available to you where you work right now. So if you would like to get yourself some help, get yourself some coaching, move your career to where it needs to be. Just go to Strawberry Me Joy. Find out if career coaching is right for you. If you go to Strawberry Me slash Joy, you will get 50% off your first session. Give it a try and see if coaching can help you get to where you want to be. So I want to welcome everybody to hour two hour of the Joy Reid Show. Do be sure to hit that like and subscribe button. And if you have bought merch, make sure that you tag us tag at Joann Reid. If you're on ig, you can also tag us on Facebook, tag Joy Reed Show Joy Reid Official or at Joy Reid show on Facebook. Just tag us. Or tag me at Joy Ann Reid if you're wearing it and use the hashtag wearing Joy because we always want to know where our friends are. I want to thank everybody that's gone in here and literally put some coins in the tail. We appreciate all of our superstar team TJRS members who are commenting who are throwing little coin in the tail. We really appreciate each and every one of you guys. We love you guys and we want to make sure that you also do your arrive with five. If you have five friends that are not yet subscribers to the Joy Reid show on YouTube or to Joy Ann Reid at Substack, let them know that we're out here. Or if you've got friends that are on Twitch and you want to let them join the TJRS nation, this is how you can do it. Just send it to them, text it to them, text it to five people and tell them we want you to subscribe to help us climb our way to 500,000 subscribers, which is halfway to the million subscribers that we want to be in our gang. We're forming a little gang, but it's a fun game. It's a peaceful and wonderful gang. We're fun. We don't cuss that much unless we're pushed and we know that trick daddy is saucy and we would never book him unless we wanted him to curse and do raunchy things. Sorry, I'm just playing with my friends at AKA we. We know that little chapter, that regional chapter, they didn't know. We appreciate it. Okay, let me give you guys a couple of headlines before we go on to our. We have a really great guest. We have Eric Swalwell coming at the bottom of the hour. But before that, I want to just get to a few headlines. This one hurts my heart. Congo. The Democratic Republic of Congo is saying that they will receive third country deportees. The US Is looking to deport people of African descent who are not necessarily Congolese to the Democratic Republic of Congo. And what this regime has been doing is going to poor countries, countries that have financial need and saying, hey, will you take some of these non white deportees? We want to deport them. We're not necessarily gonna send them back to their home country. We're going to send them to third party countries who are just willing to take them. And we'll just give you a little coin. This is the new entrepreneurship that they are encouraging around the world. If you are a poor country, then you can say, we'll take some of your non white deportees, we'll put them in prison in our country and we'll just get a little cash, cash per head.
- [67:24]
Co-host or Guest
And the irony is the Congo is not a poor country. It's a very, very, very rich in minerals.
- [67:30]
Joy Reid
In minerals. But in actual gdp, it's very poor because Congo is a country where the minerals are stolen. It's a, it's a country that is rife with mineral theft by Europe and by the west and by companies like Amazon and Apple or whatever that take all of the minerals out of their ground to build iPhones. But the people there aren't benefiting from it, right? The people aren't benefiting.
- [67:54]
Co-host or Guest
Not at all. It should be the richest country in the world.
- [67:56]
Joy Reid
It should be. It's Wakanda. It should be Wakanda. But instead it's one of the poorest countries, not only on the continent, but on Earth because they don't have a working government and a working infrastructure. They keep trying to sort of stand up post Mobutu. But now the industry that some of these global south countries are getting into, that Donald Trump is encouraging them to get into, is taking migrants from the United States who are not going to be sent to their home countries. They're going to be sent to someplace they've never been. You speak French. If you don't, good luck. In the Congo, they speak French or Lingala or other languages. If you don't speak those languages, how are you even going to get a job? That's if they don't put you in jail when you get there. This is awful. And I am embarrassed that African countries, more than one. Let me read you guys a little bit of this story. This is from pbs. Congo will receive some migrants as part of a new deal under the Trump administration's Third country program, its government said Sunday. The latest such African nation to receive migrants being deported from the U.S. the deportees will start arriving in Congo this month. This month, the Congolese Ministry of Communication said in a statement without further details on the date or number of deportees expected. It described the arrangement as a temporary one that reflects Congo's, quote, commitment to human dignity and international solidarity. It will come with zero cost to the government, with the US Covering the needed logistics. So the US Is the one paying. They are the payer. The US has struck such third party deportation deals with with at least seven other African nations, many of them among countries hit the most by the Trump administration's policies that have restricted trade and migration. The Trump administration has spent at least $40 million to deport about 300 migrants. $40 million of your money to deport 300 migrants to countries other than their own. Who's a math person? Let me do my calculator real quick. $40 million to deport 300 people. My calculator does. That does not sound like a good use of your money. $40 million. Let me put it in. Let me put it in my calculator. 40 million, 40 divided by 300 people. That's about $133,333 per person. That is more than the average American makes every year in salary. Lawyers and activists have raised questions over the nature of the deals with countries in Africa and elsewhere. Several of the African nations have signed such deals and they have notoriously repressed who have signed such deals, have notoriously repressive governments and poor human rights records, including Eswatini, South Sudan and oh goody, Equatorial guinea, one of the most corrupt nations on earth that's got a little baby Trump in office, whose son thinks he's a rapper. Great shame on those African countries for doing deals. You shouldn't do any deals with Trump. Come on, can we get more people who will stand up to this guy? Donald Trump claimed he ended the war between Congo and its neighboring countries. He didn't, but he's claiming that's one of his nine wars he said he ended, and now he's cut a deal with that government. I'm ashamed about it. That's my father country. I'm sad about it. That's one other story. Another story here. J.D. vance, J.D. vance, he has a new book where he talks about finding his faith. But the church that's on the book cover, it's a beautiful, very pretty church. The people there have no idea who he is. So he put this church on the COVID of his book. And so journalists went to that church to interview the people in the church, and they're like, we've never heard of him. And also, we're not even a Catholic church. We're Methodist. The church that he picked for the book cover is not the church that he says he claims this church is where he found his faith and converted. You know, he's a he's a convert to Catholicism. He became Catholic later in life as an adult. But the church on the COVID is not Catholic. It's Methodist. Having grown up in the Methodist Church, I can tell you they're very different. They both do say the catechism. They do the they do a version of the Catholic, you know, but, but it's not, it's not the same. There's acolytes. I grew up in the Methodist Church. It's got some similarities, but it's not Catholic, it's Protestant. And they are like, we've never heard of him. He's never been here. We've never seen him before. We don't, we don't know they did a we don't know him. They were they said we don't know him because, because, of course, reporters were like, we want to we want to know of this church. They're like, we don't know one more. Donald Trump is has already gotten West Palm beach or Palm beach county to name an airport after him while he's alive. Very unusual to do that while someone is still alive. But he's he's not done. He's already gotten that. And now he wants more things named after him while he's still alive. Roll them.
- [72:57]
Eric Swalwell
Can you explain why President Trump asked
- [72:59]
Joy Reid
Chuck Schumer to help him rename Penn
- [73:02]
Eric Swalwell
Station and Dulles Airport after himself?
- [73:05]
Pete Hegseth
Why is he interested in having his
- [73:07]
Eric Swalwell
name on those two buildings?
- [73:08]
Joy Reid
And why are the Gateway Tunnel funds the proper point of pressure to get that to happen?
- [73:14]
Sophia Lynn Lakin
Ms. To your first question about the renaming, why not?
- [73:17]
Joy Reid
It was something the president floated in his Conversation with, with Chuck Schumer. What? He wants Penn Station named after himself. And he wants Dulles Airport. Not when he's dead. Now he wants to be on the money. They're minting a gold coin. They're going to do that. And he wants his picture on our. He wants his signature on our money. I'm shocked he hasn't asked for the picture too.
- [73:46]
Co-host or Guest
Could you consider the fact that he probably knows his days and numbers so he wants to see it all now before he goes.
- [73:51]
Joy Reid
He's like a make a wish kid. He, I, I promise you I'm gonna start calling him the make a wish president. It's like, he's like a make a wish kid. He's like, before I die, I want to be the king of America and have my name on the money. And then I also want a gold big statue that's got, that's called the Arc de Trump. And I want three airports and a railroad station. It's all be culture. He wants to rename the whole country Trump. What next? And then you'll have stupid Mike Johnson saying, okay, Mr. Trump, we'll rename it America. We'll just call it Trump. And then when people say they're from here, they'll just say they're from Trump. That's what he wants everything to be named Trump. Slap. This is his history, y'. All. I wrote a whole Trump book about he. He puts his name on things. It's what he wants, even if he doesn't own them. Most of the buildings that say Trump, he doesn't own them. He just slaps his name on. He gets half a million dollars a year to get his name on it. He just puts his name on everything. Now he wants his name on airport, two airports and Penn Station. That's already called Moynihan. It's already Daniel Patrick Moynihan got his name on it. Are you crazy? If Chuck Schumer does this, he should be primaried by eight people at once. They wanted, yeah, the United States of Trump. He would. This is his dream. Don't give any ideas. Let's move on. I just wanted to give you guys a couple of that. Do you guys remember this version of Kashyap? His real name is Kashyap. Kashyap Patel. Take a look.
- [75:09]
Kashyap Patel
I'm not saying it's not there. Who are you going to get to get that?
- [75:14]
Joy Reid
For instance, who is currently holding. This is way off the topic. But who has Jeffrey Epstein's black book? Black book FBI. But who that is I mean, there's.
- [75:28]
Kashyap Patel
That's under direct control of the director of the FBI. Just like the manifesto from the Nashville school shooting of the Catholic school. We still haven't seen that.
- [75:39]
Joy Reid
Right?
- [75:40]
Kashyap Patel
It's not the Nashville police or PD saying we don't want this out. The FBI air mailed into that operation and said, this is not getting out. Because they do that, because they. This is another government gangster operation. All these local law enforcement communities get funding from the DOJ and FBI for local programs. And if you don't cooperate, you're not getting your million dollars for this and you're not getting your. And that's a lot of money to these local districts. That's how they play the game. You know, it's the same thing with Epstein's list. It's like, what the hell are these Republicans doing?
- [76:09]
Joy Reid
Oh, I saw you give out.
- [76:11]
Pete Hegseth
I saw you make news this morning about that. I gotta get to that.
- [76:14]
Joy Reid
You say that the FBI has Epstein's list.
- [76:17]
Pete Hegseth
They're sitting on it.
- [76:18]
Joy Reid
That doesn't seem like something you should do.
- [76:19]
Pete Hegseth
You're protecting the world's foremost predator. That seems like an evil thing to
- [76:23]
Joy Reid
do, regardless of who may be embarrassed
- [76:25]
Pete Hegseth
in the release of that list. Why is the FBI protecting the greatest pederist, the largest scale pederast in human history?
- [76:33]
Kashyap Patel
Simple. Because of who's on that list. You don't think that Bill Gates is lobbying Congress night and day to prevent the disclosure of that list? And why is it that the Senate, you know, and good for Senator Blackburn to try to get it out, but then Dick Turbin comes over the top and says, no, we're not going to release the names. I don't care about the list itself. But if you release the names right, what the hell are the House Republicans doing? They have the majority. You can't get the list. You're going to accept Dick Durbin's word or whoever that guy is, as to who is on that list and who isn't and that it can and can't be released. Put on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are. We have an election coming up and we need to adjudicate this matter at the polls. God knows the FBI and DOJ aren't going to do anything. But how are you going to reward the FBI with a new headquarters building after their illegal surveillance on Donald Trump continues? With a reauthorization of fisa and we can't even get basic documents out. This is why America hates Congress. And this is why I'm Tired of the Republican majority saying they're going to get the job done and failing.
- [77:36]
Joy Reid
Yeah, Cash, what are these Republicans doing? Put on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are. We've got an election coming up and we need to know the names. You. You said it. We are saying we agree with you. Kashyap put out the list of the pederast in the files. The only reason Kashyap has changed his mind is that it turns out now that he's the guy who he said has control of the Epstein list. He's the FBI director. He said that when he said the FBI director is who has the files. Is this thing on? The FBI director is who has the files. That's according to you, Cashiap. And now that you are the FBI director, now you're saying, well, you know, it turns out there really actually isn't anybody in the bus. It turns out I actually can't. I actually can't really. It actually turns out that Donald Trump name is in the fil. This is really not Dick Durbin. It's really me. It's really a problem. It's like, o. All the things you said about Dick Durban sound like they true about you, because now you found out that your big daddy, Donald Trump, his name is in the files more than Jesus's name is in the Bible. And now that that's the case, suddenly, suddenly all Cash does is scream at members of Congress who ask him about the Epstein files and, you know, get his email hacked. Like, how did your email get hacked? What's happening? You're the epithet of the FBI. It has just not worked out. None. There have been no repercussions. Zero. For the maybe dozens, maybe hundreds of men in the Epstein files who may have abused women. Maybe more. To say nothing of all the revelations that have made QAnon actually seem like CNN. Even Pizzagate turned out to have some small kernel of truth in it. But Cash app, he's not on the case. In fact, again, he can't even keep his own email secure. What is happening? Meanwhile, poor Savannah Guthrie returned to the Today show this morning with her mom still missing. What does Cassiap actually do with the FBI besides firing experienced agents because they dared to investigate Trump? And. Oh, yeah, and this. He does this here. This is what he does. Let me show you what he does. He does. He does things like. Like this. Oh, hold on. We're gonna show you in a second. Oh, it's coming. Yep. D3. Oh, okay. Well, we're gonna tell you what he does. The bottom line is Cash Patel promised us that he would release the Epstein files. He said the FBI was finally going to run professionally. He said the FBI was spending all of its time chasing Donald Trump and not doing its job. He said the FBI was going to be better under him. He's a. He's a podcaster, but he still said that he would bring the kind of competence and fairness and righteousness to the FBI that it needed so that it would run properly and that he would actually release the files. He said he was going to do it. And then he and Pam Bondi got there and they did the opposite. They did the actual opposite. Do we have B3? No, we don't have it. We may not have it. May have to let it go. Okay, well, we'll let it go. The bottom line is that Cash Patel has done nothing to actually change the FBI to something that seems competent. I promise you, I've said it before. The Internet is going to find Savannah Guthrie, mom, before the FBI does. The only way they found the alleged pipe bomber from January 6th is his own family tournament. The only way they claim that they found the or. Or tipster tiptime in. Sorry, a tipster tiptiment. The only way that they found the person who they say is who killed Charlie Kirk is his own family turned him in. Have they solved any crimes, any major crimes since Cash Patel has taken charge? I don't think so. I can't think of any. If they have, I can't think of any. In fact, it seems to me that mostly what they're doing. Mostly what they're doing. Oh, wait, hold on. I think we got it. Here it is. Yeah, we. Okay. That's what Cash Patel is doing. So Kash Patel, rather than solving crimes, was flying using your tax dollars to go to Italy to go and get blackout drunk with the hockey team or something. What? Maybe he thought it was Valhalla. When he's not doing that, he's, you know, in hearing sniping at members of Congress for daring to ask him questions. Apparently he's against oversight. And now look, he's doing this. Going after we put that back up Cash apps. FBI apparently is looking to go after California representative Eric Swalo. This is what they're doing with their tax dollars over one of the right's favorite means. Let me read this to you from the New York Times. Trump administration officials have ordered FBI agents to gather documents about a decade old investigation into a Democratic congressman and his ties to a suspected Chinese spy. According to people familiar with the matter. The effort has alarmed law enforcement officials, who say they fear that the material could be released publicly to smear the lawmaker, Representative Eric Swalwell, a prominent critic of President Trump, who's now da da, da, da, running for governor of California. The investigation dates back more for more than a decade ago when FBI counterintelligence agents looked into a Chinese woman, Christine Fang, or Fang Fang, who assisted Mr. Swalwell with fundraising. The FBI concluded the investigation concluded it. The previous FBI pre cash and the Justice Department did not bring any criminal charges in recent days. Scores of FBI agents and other personnel in California were instructed to gather the documents on Mr. Swalwell and Ms. Fang with the goal of working through the weekend, this past weekend to finish a review by early next week, the people said supervisors advised the agents to lightly redact the records to obscure some sensitive information and told them the files would be shared with senior administration officials in Washington. Oh, mean, like Cash Patel. Because if you share that, the next thing you know, that's going to be on Fox. And note the running for governor part. Running for governor of California. Right. Because Trump, you know, he already has enough problems with the California governor who continually trolls him and who also, you know, in terms of Swalwell, he doesn't want a repeat of the current situation he has now where he has a governor who trolls him relentlessly, who makes him feel quite sad, who bothers him because he may run against him if he tries to run for third term in 2028. So he doesn't want a repeat. Right? He certainly doesn't want that. And in addition to that, Representative Swalwell sits on one of the many committees that conduct oversight into the FBI. Oversight over the FBI. Here is Representative Swalwell doing that with Cash Patel in the hot seat.
- [84:30]
Eric Swalwell
Thank you, Madam Attorney General, you acknowledged earlier to Mr. Johnson that President Trump was mentioned and the release countless times you said in the Epstein files. I just want to play a video, though, for you that I think speaks to the frustration that many of these victims have. Of times Trump's name appears in the files. So it could at least be a thousand times, is that right?
- [84:55]
Kashyap Patel
The number is a total misleading factor. We have not released. We have not released anyone's files that has not been credible, Director. We have released every piece of legally permissible information.
- [85:09]
Joy Reid
Okay.
- [85:09]
Kashyap Patel
You can characterize the numbers however you want it.
- [85:11]
Eric Swalwell
Claiming my time, Director. It sounds like if you don't know the number, it could at least be a thousand times.
- [85:17]
Joy Reid
It's not.
- [85:18]
Kashyap Patel
It's Not.
- [85:18]
Eric Swalwell
Is it at least 500 times?
- [85:20]
Joy Reid
No.
- [85:20]
Eric Swalwell
Is it at least 100 times?
- [85:21]
Kashyap Patel
No.
- [85:21]
Eric Swalwell
Then what's the number?
- [85:22]
Joy Reid
I don't know the number.
- [85:27]
Eric Swalwell
I understand why the victims are frustrated and the Attorney general acknowledged what Mr. Patel would not acknowledge, that it was way more than a thousand times. But I want to move, Madam Attorney General to weaponization of government. And yesterday it was reported.
- [85:43]
Joy Reid
Okay, I don't know. I don't know how many times. I don't know. I don't know. He went from release the damn files, put your big boy pants on to the guy who now has oversight over the. He literally has access to the files. He has more access to the files than anybody except formerly Pam Bondi before she got fired. And he is saying, I don't know. He has no answers to anything. He doesn't know how many people are in it. He doesn't know how many pedophiles are in it. He has no idea. He has no information. He has nothing. Nada. Nothing. Representative Swalwell is one of about 173 people that are running for California governor, by the way. There's a whole bunch of them running. And the challenge is there are so many Democrats running that two Republicans are actually polling on top out of all the bunch of people running because there's so many Democrats running. Katie Porter, all these people running. The two Republicans that are running are actually polling one and two right now, which is scaring the hell out of Democrats that you literally could have a Republican governor of California out of this. So let's talk about the front runner right now. Okay, There are two that are running one and two. But this is the person who's right now polling first. He's a former advisor to the former Conservative UK Prime Minister David Kennedy Cameron. He's British by birth and his name is Steve Hilton. He's a British transplant. In Fox News, he had to put the news in scare quotes. Contributor. And here he is saying, oh, shucks. Despite that whole resume, I'm not partisan. You represent Californians who are not part of your political party.
- [87:28]
Steve Hilton
Oh, I'm here for every Californian. I mean, I think the most. It takes me back to our very first conversation soon after I entered the race and I said, my platform is not a partisan platform. It's very pragmatic.
- [87:42]
Joy Reid
But do you want Donald Trump to endorse you?
- [87:44]
Steve Hilton
I've said I'd be very. I'd be honored to have his endorsement. I think he's got other things on his mind right now than the California governor's. Race. But my, no, my entire plan is non ideological. It's not, it's about, it's three dollar gas. Cut your electric bills in half, your first hundred grand tax free, a home you can afford to buy. These are things that are there for every Californian. And I have experience. Most of my career as I mentioned was in business. I did work for a while in the government in the uk. Senior adviser to the Prime Minister. He was a Conservative prime Minister but it was a coalition government and so I'm used to working across the aisle. I shared an office right next to the cabinet room with my opposite number from a different party. And so I think that the, the job is to make life better for everybody who lives in this state and that will be how I operate as governor.
- [88:32]
Joy Reid
What grade would you give Governor Gavin Newsom for his last two terms?
- [88:35]
Steve Hilton
F. The lowest possible. It's a total disaster.
- [88:39]
Joy Reid
For the last two terms he only can do two terms. But I'm just a nonpartisan, I'm not a partisan. Me, me. I'm just a lovely British gentleman who wants to give everyone lower prices and cheaper gas and all the good things. All of them, all of them, whether they are a right winger or lefty. Just, just a nonpartisan. I'm not. You've heard this before, right? I mean we've been here before. Pam. Remember when Donald Trump was just going to have no more wars and lower bright. He says grocery prices on day one. I'm a lower grocery. Cheaper grocery prices, affordability, cheaper gas, end the Ukraine war day one. Remember when right wingers make promises, you gotta keep a weather eye on them because this is also Mr. Steve Hilton, here's D6.
- [89:34]
Steve Hilton
If you look at the central question Californians are asking which is how is it possible that we pay the highest taxes in the country for the worst results? The homelessness, the schools are a disaster. We have the highest cost of living, the highest poverty rate, the highest unemployment rate and yet we pay with the worst roads in the country even though we have the highest gas tax. Well now we see the answer. Fraud and corruption on an epic scale. After 16 years of one party rule by corrupt Democrat range. So this is our second fraud report at Caldoge just a few weeks ago. This is $1 billion that was supposed to have been spent on installing solar panels on low income apartment buildings as part of their insane climate agenda. So it's supposed to be $100 million every year for 10 years starting in 2015. We looked at the books of the $1 billion total the amount that was actually spent on solar panels, 72 million 928 million. Nearly all of it was diverted to Democrat activist groups doing voter registration and all the rest of it, taxpayer money. This is how they finance their machine. That's what's been going on here.
- [90:58]
Joy Reid
Democrat. And there he is on Mark Levin, who's a far right wing Israeli firster, is very much into the war. So. So that's your nonpartisan Andrew Sullivan clone who says he's gonna be there for all Californians. Don't worry. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Joining me now is California Congressman Eric Swalwell, the aforementioned currently representing California's fighting 14th district, but also one of the 477 people running for governor.
- [91:32]
Eric Swalwell
Joy, I used to think everything sounded better with a British accent, right? Until I heard Steve Hilton's bullshit doesn't sound better.
- [91:43]
Joy Reid
Bullshit is bad in any accent. I don't care how you could do a cool Jamaican accent. If it's bullshit, it's gonna sound like bullshit. Are you ready to debate Junior? What is he, Junior Andrew Sullivan here for? For governor if you get to the final two?
- [91:55]
Eric Swalwell
Yes. And actually I'm going to debate him in two weeks on April 22nd. There's a debate that he is at. It has to be clear that if this guy is the governor, we have a western White House in California, that the health care cuts that we have seen and that Gavin Newsom is fighting to claw back will only be accelerated. People will pay more for health care that the immigrant community that's running through the fields and factories where they work. Only more of them will live in fear. And the troops that have come to our state and left when Governor Newsom sued the federal government, they'll be welcomed with open arms. And back in California, Californians, Joy, do not want the next governor to be a friend of Donald Trump. They want him to be a fighter.
- [92:44]
Joy Reid
I can only imagine what a state that's got 39% of the population is Latino. And ICE seems to think anyone who looks Latino or has an accent or is brown in any way is, Is a target and a target for violence, for kidnapping. A state like that would be a gold mine for Stephen Miller. If you had a right wing governor that was willing to let them run wild in California, I don't even know how that looks. They'd be stopping every other person and
- [93:11]
Eric Swalwell
they nearly already are. And my district folks don't. I think they look at me and I wouldn't blame them for not understanding that my district, 40% of the people I represent were, were born outside the United States. About a third of Asian, a third of the district is Asian American, another third is Hispanic, and then the other third is a mix. But my district is a diverse, primarily immigrant district. And I saw just a couple weeks ago how cruel ICE can be when a six year old boy named Joseph and his little brother and his mom were arrested and detained and then ultimately sent to Colombia. And these guys are so cruel that when the mom was screaming at the ICE agents that Joseph, who's deaf, needed his assistive listening devices, they didn't care. They didn't let him take the devices to Colombia. And so my staff collected the devices a couple days later and flew to Colombia to put the sound back into Joseph's ear. But that's who we're dealing with here. As far as you know, who is ICE and what could it be with a Republican governor.
- [94:22]
Joy Reid
So, so why is it, Let me put this up. New York Times did sort of a collection of polls. I mean, I'm not huge into the poll aggregator game, but I don't really do 538 and all that. They seem to have a lean, but you know, there's a lot of junk polls in it. But this is a pretty scary polling outlook in the New York Times, every single poll average has an average of Hilton up, you know, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 points. The only poll where he's not leading, you're, you're leading. You're the only other person that's not that, that shows up as leading any poll at all. Do you think that this, first of all, why is this happening? Why are Republicans leading in these polls? And secondly, do you think this, what I'm just showing you here is why the FBI and Cash Appetel are targeting you.
- [95:08]
Eric Swalwell
Well, what we've seen, Joy, is yes, this is why they're targeting me. A week before I got into the race and it was well known that I was going to be getting into the race, Bill Pulte referred me for the same mortgage nonsense that he has used against Adam Schiff, Tish Chains, Tish James and Lisa Cook. And then as we have led, we've been the consistent Democratic front runner in the polls, in the fundraising and endorsements. We expected that this would come and frankly, we expect there will be something new in the next couple weeks coming from the White House. But what you're seeing as far as why are two Republicans typically leading in the polls when you put that number together collectively, that is the Republican vote in California. And then you have, as you joked in the intro, you have a lot of other Democrats running. Most of them are in, like, the 1 to 2% range. But when you add it all together, it's prevented, you know, the top two or three performing Democrats from really being able to separate and solidify the top two position. Now, the President endorsing Steve Hilton, we think, probably takes that argument away. And there's no zero to little risk of a lockout. And it's also a risk for the President if there are two Democrats at the top of the ticket, because then the seats that they want to defend in the House that they need to keep their thin majority are almost all but guaranteed to be gone. But as I said, I have been the leading Democrat since I got into this race back in November. We expect more arrows from the White House. And for us, it just signals who the threat is to Donald Trump. He's trying to pick who the Republican is and who the Democrat isn't.
- [96:59]
Joy Reid
And can you just give us a sense of what else you. I mean, because I think voters, you know, California is funny. They're like, it's like New York where it's, it's a, it's a liberal state, but they have a tendency sometimes to, like, break bad. Right? Like, you know, New York will put a Republican governor in every so often in New York City will pick some of the worst Republicans ever. Rudy Giuliani, people like that. And California, not the worst, worst, but they picked, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger. He's a celebrity. They were like, we'll go with him. And California is not immune to electing a Republican governor. Are people understanding fully what it would mean to have a governor that's an ally of Donald Trump and all that that would mean? Do you think people are getting that message?
- [97:40]
Eric Swalwell
Yes. And voters showed up, if you remember, back in November to pass Prop 50. That's why it's so intolerable to allow a Western White House, as I've called it, because back in November, when Texas was doing its rig districting and taking five House seats away from Democrats within 90 days, Governor Newsom was able to lead Californians to the poll. And it passed with about 64% for California to match what Texas did. It's the largest turnout ever in a special election in California. And so it would be completely opposite to that to elect a Republican. And only under this screwy top two system could it happen. And so that's why my job, Joy, as I said, is to tell our story close in the next Couple of weeks, I've been outspent by another Democrat, 125 million to zero. But our first ads just went up and our communication effort just went up in the last two days. So my job is to tell the story separate and then go into the June to November general election really contrasting what Democratic values, fighting and protecting for our immigrant state mean compared to the cruelty of Trump's Western White House friend.
- [98:56]
Joy Reid
Steve, do you fear that? I mean, we've seen what the DOJ was willing to do under Pamela Jo Bondi, which was bad enough, but now Trump has yet another loyalist in as an interim Attorney general, and of course, Cash Patel, who they've been pretty publicly signaling they're coming after you. Do you. Are you concerned they may try to arrest you in order to stop you from being able to consolidate a lead or win that race?
- [99:24]
Eric Swalwell
My wife and I have had that conversation. We've talked to our neighbors about, you know, what that means for the kids. But one page that we are all on together is that it's not going to stop me. And I'm not the only one. Right. We've seen Adam Schiff, Tish James, Lisa Cook, others Stand up Lamonica McIver.
- [99:46]
Joy Reid
I mean, she's literally being indicted.
- [99:47]
Eric Swalwell
Yes. Your colleague and I have worked with her to support her legal defense effort. Also, the six senators and members of Congress who they tried to indict for telling the military, you have to follow the law. And so the good news story there is that no one has flinched. Everyone has stood strong, and we are stronger together rather than letting the president one off each of us by having us back down. And frankly, California, the largest state in the country, the most diverse state in the country, it needs a governor who approaches the job at least the next two year fearlessly, but also with optimism that this guy doesn't define us, that we get to write the new California story, not Donald Trump.
- [100:36]
Joy Reid
Yeah, Jason, I'm gonna go to D9 in detail, if you don't mind. California also has the largest number of military bases in the entire country. People don't think of it as like the big military state, but it is in terms of just the number of military bases that it hosts. And right now, we are at war in the Middle East. And as a member of Congress, do you have a sense of why we're at war with the Middle East?
- [101:02]
Eric Swalwell
No, I don't know what the justification is. I don't know what the plan is to end this conflict. I do know that Donald Trump has more plans for his ballroom in the East Wing than he does for the Middle East. That is clear. But I'm not voting to give them another penny. The best thing I can do for the troops is to not send them into this pointless, endless war that the president has taken us into. As we've lost over a dozen troops so far. Gas prices in California are soaring, almost $8 a gallon. Also, we don't have any plan as far as what comes next over in the region. So for all of those reasons, I will not support giving them another penny for this conflict.
- [101:49]
Joy Reid
Let's actually. I'm sorry. Jeez. I'm going to go in order. So Donald Trump, and you know, we don't care about the Easter egg roll, really, but this is da. Jason, It's a video that Donald Trump did his little Easter egg thing, which was weird and, you know, for many reasons, for all the obvious reasons. But we're going to go a little further. In the video, while he was walking around, he was holding a picture of this Arc de Trump that he wants to create. He was walking around with it, I guess, showing it to people. There it is. You're gonna see it in his hand. That's it. Congress has not authorized him to build anything on the National Mall. And he's been rebuked about now $400 million ballroom. Why is Congress not standing in the way of these things? You know, the East Wing was destroyed. There was really no reaction. He's now seeming to think he's going to build a giant structure on the National Mall. Is Congress going to stop him?
- [102:51]
Eric Swalwell
I'm sorry, Joy, who is Congress?
- [102:54]
Joy Reid
Good question. Does it exist? Is there a Congress? Sometimes I wonder.
- [102:59]
Eric Swalwell
Yeah, no, we're, we're on recess when, you know, they fail to pay TSA agents because they don't want to have ICE agents, you know, take off their masks or rely on a warrant. They've completely abdicated their responsibility and they've given over their voting cards to Donald Trump. And that's all the more reason that we have to keep these no Kings rallies style of activism. Up march all the way to the ballot box. But as you just pointed to, anywhere in D.C. alongside many federal buildings, you see these roof to ground posters that are hundreds of feet long and wide of Donald Trump's face. And this is what dictators do typically in their last acts. And we have crossed into that now with all these monuments to Trump. And I think most Americans would have loved if they saw, you know, a memo in his hand that said, lowering your costs. Maybe if you could just Fucking focus for once, you know, on lowering costs. He'd have higher than 33% approval.
- [104:12]
Joy Reid
And just let's show this for a minute. We're going to show you a map of the. We have a lot of military base in the Middle east just so people get in a sense of, just to look at it right? There are a lot of our troops that are in jeopardy every day and as I said, California disproportionately. Who contributes to the number of people that are in these military bases? I'm hearing reports, I was hearing reports over the weekend that lots of them in the UAE are being hit. Iran is targeting these military bases, not targeting civilian infrastructure the same way that Israel is doing, but our troops are genuinely at risk. And as I look at that map, I think about the fact that Donald Trump's family are benefiting from this war directly. Donald Trump Jr. Reading from my notes here, sits on the board of a company called Unusual Machines, which is a drones parts startup that got a $620 million loan from the Department of Defense. Eric and Don Jr. Are backing a company called Power US Power US a drone company targeting Pentagon sales and utilizing war tested Ukrainian technology. Eric Trump has invested in a company called X Extend, X Tend, which is an Israeli drone company, which is also a Department of Defense contractor. And one more, Don Jr. Is in a part is a partner in something called 1789, which is a venture capital firm that's backing defense tech startups. Donald Trump's personal family. Remember the whole thing about Hunter Biden and how Hunter Biden was benefiting from the President's presidency, from Biden's presidency. This family is literally benefiting from his switcheroo on no new wars. And again, you're right, there is no Congress. But don't this, don't this seem like something should be investigated?
- [105:56]
Eric Swalwell
And they think they're invincible. They're not. And Democrats have to telegraph from Hakeem Jeffries to Jamie Raskin to Robert Garcia, the people who are going to have the gavels and they're doing it, but we have to keep telegraphing it's all coming out. And so if you're doing a drug deal with these guys, you'll be before Congress. And, you know, they may try and save themselves with pardons and whatnot. They're not going to be able to save you from coming before Congress and explaining what your company did with these guys. And the more we do that, we may not stop the deals that have already been done, but it might be a deterrent if we Say it loud enough and convincingly enough, it may be a deterrent from the next drug deal that these guys try and do.
- [106:41]
Joy Reid
Let me really quickly play Pete hegseth. This is D10.
- [106:46]
Pete Hegseth
Our campaign that we've conducted, that Israel's conducted alongside us, was one for the history books, truly. And it's because we have a President United States, that when he sends his war fighters out to fight, he unties their hands to actually go out and close with and destroy the enemy as viciously as possible from moment one. And that's why we see ourselves as part of the this negotiation as well. We negotiate with bombs. You have a choice. As we loiter over the top of Tehran, as the president talked about, about your future, the president has made it clear that you will not have a nuclear weapon. The War Department agrees our job is to ensure that. And so we're keeping our hand on that throttle as long as as hard as is necessary to ensure the interests of the United States of America are achieved on that battlefield.
- [107:31]
Joy Reid
Defense magazine reports that six top defense contractors have agreed to quadruple production of what Trump has deemed exquisite class weaponry following a meeting at the White House. The ones you would expect. Northrop Grumman. All the rest bellying up to the bar for more money. Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, rtx, Honeywell. He's saying we negotiate with bombs. Two questions. Number one, what kind of fallout could there be? Let's say the Republic Democrats take over the House. What could you all do about putting a stop to that? The $1.5 trillion budget that is sending these companies stocks into overdrive. And number two, should that guy be impeached? Pete HEGSETH.
- [108:15]
Eric Swalwell
Yes. And to go back to the first question, you said they negotiate with bombs and guess who owns the bombs, Right. It's the Trump family. And also Joy, it wasn't in that clip, but they kept reiterating the president and Hegseth that quote, we own the skies, which is insane because we keep seeing pilots shot down. So we don't own the skies. In fact, you know, we've had a number of search and rescue missions because our pilots have been hit. And so they are just out right line to the American people. What we can do in the majority is just not to fund this war and make it clear we're not funding this war, that, you know, we're going to have the power of the purse and the subpoena power and the oversight power. We're not going to pay for it. And the American people are Going to learn a hell of a lot more about what's happening when those witnesses come before Congress.
- [109:11]
Joy Reid
Do you intend to vote for Hakeem Jeffries as leader? If you.
- [109:14]
Eric Swalwell
Well, I'm leaving Congress, Joy.
- [109:16]
Joy Reid
Oh, you're going to leave? Let's say, if you're still there. I'm just saying, if I'm still there. Yes, I.
- [109:19]
Eric Swalwell
Yes, I do.
- [109:20]
Joy Reid
You will vote for him. Do you think he's the right leader for. For this, for these times?
- [109:23]
Anthony Ashton
He.
- [109:23]
Eric Swalwell
And he's. Pelosi trained, too. And she, you know, I sat at the leadership table with Speaker Pelosi, and Hakeem was on that leadership team, and he saw, you know, how she was able to claw back a lot of what was taken, like, in the first two years, in her second two years, very strategically. And I see that opportunity on Medicaid funding that's been taken. There's a lot of red states and rural hospitals that are suffering and going into the majority, having the power of the purse, seeing what Nancy Pelosi did, I think he's going to be able to bring back a lot of dollars that are going to be needed, you know, to triage what the losses are that are coming because of the Medicaid cuts.
- [110:01]
Joy Reid
So to your point, you are leaving Congress who run for. For governor. Is that why you're leaving? Do you feel that Congress is no longer effective at governing the American people?
- [110:11]
Eric Swalwell
I was inspired by what I saw on the trail trying to pass Prop 50. I'd never planned to run for governor. I. I am the most senior Democrat after Bennie Thompson on the Homeland Security Committee. So, you know, there was a pathway to, you know, one day leading that committee. My wife has sent me every job listing in the private sector. After 20 years of, you know, being.
- [110:33]
Joy Reid
There's jobs in the private sector.
- [110:34]
Eric Swalwell
I know.
- [110:35]
Joy Reid
I don't think there are any.
- [110:36]
Eric Swalwell
Well, she's. Yeah, she works full time, so she's like, I would love for you to join me. And so being out there, though, for Prop 50 and talking to Californians who would say to me that the governor's termed out Governor Newsom, and they would ask who's going to be the fighter protector? And they would tell me they saw me and the governor as two of the most effective Californians doing that, I told my wife, I think they're asking if I'll run for governor. We'd never planned it, but to be a fighter protector during the next two years and bring optimism, as I said, to write a new California story for the next two. But I, I am excited. I am a little, yeah, of course I'll miss Congress because going into the majority and doing the work that Democrats are going to have to do and I believe we're also going to have the Senate is going to be so important. And I, I have to say in the Senate they should not confirm a Supreme Court justice if they are asked to. They should not even give the person a hearing period. And you will have to sell me on who any, on what any cabinet nominee is going to be qualified to even be confirmed. The best thing they can do is to stop the cruelty and stop the corruption and not to co sign on any of it.
- [111:45]
Joy Reid
Let me ask you a question from the chat. The chat wants to know, have you campaigned in Altadena or do you plan to?
- [111:50]
Eric Swalwell
It was the first place I went the morning after I announced on Jimmy Kimmel. And I've since been back and will continue to go back to rebuild that community and make sure it doesn't happen anywhere else.
- [112:03]
Joy Reid
And what would be give me your like top three things you would do as governor. You know my exit question. Give us, give me the three things that Governor Eric Swala would do. That's not being done now.
- [112:13]
Eric Swalwell
Fight and protect during the next two years. Second is build like crazy. Right now the average age of a first time home buyer In California is 40 years old. I want us to be a state where you can take your first job, have your first kid and buy your first home in the same decade and so really accelerate decision making and put more supply into the housing market. And then third, joy will be to really modernize the state. You know, we have a lot of aging infrastructure that costs us more for utilities and water. And I want to be a modernizing force but resilience as an independent state, I think we can have our own fund separate from the federal government, leverage the bank statement and the work diversity in our state to go around the world, raise money into that fund, have the state take a equity share into some of these California research technology companies so that when Californians say we're the fourth largest economy in the world, it actually means something because everyone does better because of it.
- [113:16]
Joy Reid
What about raining in Silicon Valley? A little bit. I mean they seem to have taken over the country. They seem to run it in many ways.
- [113:22]
Eric Swalwell
And what I've told them is that you have to help me solve this looming, you know, challenge of AI and low wages. And if you do that, I will root for your success if you lift up wages and benefits for working people. But I'M not going to allow corporate welfare where your employees can't even afford to rent nearby and they're on state assistance, which is often the case with many companies. And so we call it a corporate accountability tax, you know, to rein them in where that type of exploitive behavior is happening.
- [113:53]
Joy Reid
All right, I promise I'll let you go. I have two more questions. Question one, have you and the other Democrats had a conversation behind the scenes about maybe some people bowing out so that there can be fewer than 178 people on the Democratic side?
- [114:05]
Eric Swalwell
Joy, I ran for President in 2019. I qualified for the first debate. It didn't go as well as I hoped. I got four and a half minutes out of like two and a half hours. I'm looking over at, you know, Kamala, Bernie Biden, and I was at the end of the stage, and now, you know, I'm at the center of the stage and I'm looking down at the other side of the stage, and I'm like, okay, I've been down there before. And I know these folks have to make their own decision, as I did right after that debate. But my job, as I said, is to just separate and create, you know, the closing lane that is very much there for us as we go into the voting starts in 28 days.
- [114:43]
Joy Reid
Voting starts in 28 days. Last question to you. And I ask everyone this, so it is not you in particular. AIPAC will come come calling because if you are a front runner, they're going to see an opportunity to get more pro Israel folks in every office. Are you taking money from aipac or would you take their money?
- [115:00]
Eric Swalwell
We're not. We won't. They're not getting involved in the governor's race at all. And you know, what I'm focused on, as I said, is just being the CEO of lowering costs. And I'm not going in my remaining time in Congress. I am not paying or voting to fund a penny of this war. As I said, I am a hard no vote on any request to further fund this war.
- [115:25]
Joy Reid
Listen, I'm not in California, but that's good enough for me. Representative for now, Eric Swalwell, who would like to be governor. Swalwell, we wish you luck. Tell everybody.
- [115:34]
Eric Swalwell
Thanks, Joyce.
- [115:34]
Joy Reid
Support you. What's your website?
- [115:36]
Eric Swalwell
Ericswal.com or@eric Swalwell on social channels?
- [115:40]
Joy Reid
All right, all right, all right. Thank you very much. Take care. All right, y'. All, There it is. And we asked a question from the chat. We want to make sure the chat gets to get their Questions in. So thank you all for throwing those in. And he seems like a good choice to me. I'll be honest with you. I have looked at the field, and if I was in California, that's who I'd vote for. Because too many people. There are a lot of people. There are probably a lot of great candidates, but if they can't consolidate and a lot of people saying, kamala, I so wish she was running for governor. I really do. That would be my dream job for her. Even though she probably wouldn't want to do it because she's been vice president, United States, which is a huge, obviously second most powerful job in the country. But she would have walked away with. I don't even think that he would have jumped in. I don't think anyone would have jumped in. If she jumped in and she would have cleared the field. But that is not what happened. What happened is what we got. You got to vote for who's on the ticket. You got to vote for who's on the table, not for who you hope was on the table. All right, you guys, let's get to our moment of joy. This is a good one. Now. Jason and I are very space obsessed. We both love outer. I love space. I think outer space is so fascinating. I don't know that I would ever want to go into space, but if I could just get up there without the scary ride up, I would totally do it. And so I'm super excited, and I know a lot of you probably are too, about the Artemis 2 mission, which is going further into space than any spacecraft has ever gone before. It's like doing a big shoot around the dark side of the moon. Any human? Any human? Sorry, any human? Not any spacecraft. Human spacecraft have gone further, but any human has already gone. No humans have gone this far around the dark side of the moon. It's really exciting. All right, Jason, go ahead and play our. It's like a mashup of stuff about. About Artemis II. Here it is.
- [117:20]
Narrator or Space Mission Commentator
Moment of joy, Artemis 2. They've been woken up by one of their favorite songs or a special message recorded for the crew. And today they were woken up with a message recorded by astronaut Jim Lovell, the pilot of Apollo 8. It was recorded shortly before he passed away last year.
- [117:37]
Jim Lovell
Hello, Artemis 2, this is Apollo astronaut Jim Lovell. Welcome to my old neighborhood. When Frank Borman and Bill Anderson, Andrews and I orbited the moon on Apollo 8, we got humanity's first up close look at the moon and got a view of the home planet. That inspired and United people around the world. I'm proud to pass that torch on to you as you swing around the moon and lay the groundwork for missions to Mars. For the benefit of all. It's a historic day, and I know how busy you'll be, but don't forget to enjoy the view. So green Victor and Christina and Jeremy and all the great teams are boarding you. Good luck. God's made from all of us here
- [118:23]
Narrator or Space Mission Commentator
on the good Earth a beautiful image here of Earth in all its glory. Now, you might be used to seeing the crescent moon, but the astronauts captured this incredible image of the crescent moon.
- [118:37]
Joy Reid
Earth.
- [118:37]
Narrator or Space Mission Commentator
Quite incredible. And on day four, the Artemis 2 crew captured this shot of the far side of the moon, which NASA says marks the first time humans have seen the entire Oriental basin from the cabin of integrity here.
- [118:54]
Donald Trump
As we surpass the furthest distance humans have ever traveled from planet Earth, we do so in our honoring the extraordinary efforts and feats of our predecessors in human space exploration. We will continue our journey even further into space before Mother Earth succeeds in pulling us back to everything that we hold dear. But we, most importantly, choose this moment to challenge this generation and the next, to make sure this record is not lost.
- [119:29]
Interview Host
As you all know, there is so
- [119:30]
Joy Reid
much division at home right now.
- [119:32]
Interview Host
What is it that you're feeling?
- [119:34]
Joy Reid
What message do you want to send to the American people about what you're saying out that window?
- [119:39]
Astronaut or Crew Member
Well, the first thing I would say is, trust us. You look amazing. You look beautiful. And from up here, you also look like one thing. You know, Homo sapiens is all of us. No matter where you're from or, you know, what you look like, we're all one people. And so, you know, this mission, one of the things that's amazing about being around and just being an astronaut, you know, serving our countries at this time, is that we get to give ourselves a mission that we can hold onto to say, hey, look at what we did for the rest of our lives. You know, we call amazing things that humans do moonshots for a reason, because this brought us together and showed us what we can do when we put. Not just putting our differences aside, when we bring our differences together and use all the strengths to accomplish something great. And so this mission will give us one of those that we all can remember and hold on to for the rest of our days. And I hope people will tune in and give us a chance.
- [120:35]
Joy Reid
I love this so much. And look, there's a reed in it. So the commander's name, the first voice you heard after the Sky News. I picked the one from Sky News because it's Sky News. Get it? Sky News. So after the Sky News thing and that wonderful former astronaut who left a message for them before he passed away, that was lovely. But the commander that the first voice you heard from the Artemis to, his name is Reed Wiseman. The pilot, who's the brother who you saw, his name is Victor Glover. The mission specialists are Christina Koch of NASA and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency. So it's a DEI diverse crew representing all of humanity or at least lots of different kinds of people in the world and wonderful diversity and very, very, very proud of the US and our good friends in Canada. Something good. Moment of joy. We made it to space. And it's not freaking private company. It's NASA, not SpaceX or one of them other ones is NASA. So God bless NASA and God help that crew. God bless that crew. Sorry. And make sure that crew gets home safely. Love you guys. See you guys on Wednesday. Chink Uygur is going to be here. That's going to be big. That's going to be an interesting conversation on Wednesday. So we'll see you on Wednesday. Don't forget, send that to five people so we can get five of your friends to go ahead and subscribe on YouTube and also on Substack. Don't forget to like and subscribe on your way out. What'd you say there, Jason? All right, see you guys later. We're trying to get to 500, 000. Love you. Bye.
- [122:12]
Donald Trump
Getting back to the basics Grassroot level Let me dig a little deeper with the shovel Plenty can't tell the force from the trees that I'm hard to detect Like a black hole in a dog 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.