Trump's War on Travel, Immigrants, Muslims and Iran | The Joy Reid Show LIVE!

Summary

---

Podcast Summary: "Trump's War on Travel, Immigrants, Muslims and Iran"

The Joy Reid Show LIVE! | March 26, 2026

---

Episode Overview

This episode of The Joy Reid Show dives deep into the impact of the Trump administration's policies and actions on immigration, travel, national security, civil liberties, and the current international conflict with Iran. Combining field reporting, expert guests, and live audience interaction, Joy-Ann Reid examines the militarization of U.S. spaces (like airports), growing surveillance society, civil rights, and the authoritarian direction of federal power—especially via ICE and the military. The show also analyzes the ramifications of these policies on communities of color, the 2026 elections, and U.S. democracy.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

---

I. ICE’s Expanded Presence: Human Stories & Policy Failures

The Human Impact of ICE Brutality ([05:12]–[07:35])

• Testimony Recounted: Joy Reid highlights the story of a 10th grader beaten by ICE agents at a McDonald's while on his way to school with his father. Despite being a U.S. citizen, he was profiled, choked, called slurs, and had his phone stolen by the agents, who then sold it.
  • “Those are the quality of people doctors mind stored in the airport, pal. Sway.” – Joy Reid [08:12]
• Policy Commentary: Ice agent abuses showcase both a breakdown of public trust and the failure of such agencies to meaningfully contribute to public safety (e.g., at airports).
• PR vs. Reality: ICE gives out water to travelers in some airports—framed as a superficial PR stunt that doesn’t change their core role in intimidation and violence.

Political Blame and Infrastructure ([09:15]–[10:15])

• Joy details how understaffing, underfunding, and pressure on TSA and air traffic controllers have led to chaos and danger at airports, connecting these outcomes directly to Trump-era policy and budget decisions, and Republican refusal to fund key agencies unless ICE funding is protected.

---

II. Surveillance, AI, and Civil Liberties

The Risks of Tech in Young Lives ([14:28]–[19:03])

• AI & Children: Sinead Bovell ("the educator for non-nerds") and Senator Ed Markey discuss how children’s increasing interaction with AI chatbots can lead to addiction, data harvesting, exposure to violence, and mental health crises.
  • “We need to put the safeguards in... especially for young people. And if we build the safeguards in, at least we will have tried to limit the amount of harm.” – Senator Ed Markey [16:11]
• Legislation: The “Youth AI Privacy Act” (YAP Act) is introduced, proposing design restrictions and privacy protections for minors interacting with AI.
• Surveillance Society: Kids are acculturated to constant surveillance via their phones, Ring doorbells, and new smart technologies. The state deploys these same tools via ICE and law enforcement.

---

III. ICE, Airports & The 2026 Elections

ICE as a Tool of Voter Intimidation ([23:28]–[27:37])

• Steve Bannon’s "Test Run": Commentators and activists warn about Bannon’s proposed use of ICE at polling locations to intimidate voters, especially minorities—practicing at airports to "perfect" Election Day operations.
  • “It should begin with a debate over abolishing ICE, and then we have to get ready to take it to the streets later this year...” – Senator Ed Markey [27:10]
• Senator Markey: Calls for the abolition of ICE and mobilization to prevent voter suppression and the normalization of militarized, intimidating law enforcement at the polls.

---

IV. Community Response and Solidarity

Impact on Workers & Organizing ([28:35]–[40:21])

• Nana Gyamphy (BAJI): ICE’s presence at airports hasn't eased travel but has instilled fear among workers (mainly people of color), passengers, and broader communities:
  • “Undocumented to them is non-white. Soon as we get that in our heads, we gonna understand better what's happening and what's gonna be happening at these polls come election day.” – Nana Gyamphy [33:06]
• Surveillance Tech as a Control Mechanism: ICE and similar agencies leverage AI and tech companies (e.g., Palantir) for total surveillance, pushing society closer to a police state.
• Call to Action: Rather than respond to intimidation with fear, BAJI urges Black immigrants and allies to “flex, not fear”—to organize, vote, and support each other at the polls.

---

V. Women of Color Voters & Intersectional Data ([43:26]–[56:49])

• Voice & Motivation: Guests from leading women of color organizations share polling data showing high motivation to vote—and a deep desire for politicians to address everyday economic and civil rights concerns.
• Barriers: AAPI, Latina, and Black women face underinvestment in outreach, lack of culturally competent advertising, and are frequently ignored or misrepresented in polling.
• Disinformation: Right-wing media, especially in Spanish, spread targeted disinformation.
  • “If they want us to be motivated and they want us to vote, if we want to get out of the situation that we're in right now, you have to speak to us.” – Christina Ball Owens [48:40]

---

VI. Gender, Project 2025 & Far-Right Authoritarianism ([52:07]–[54:49])

• Hostility to Women’s Progress: Clips of right-wing thinkers advocate restricting women’s access to education and jobs in STEM and law, celebrating a patriarchal ideal.
• Women’s Response: Anger and motivation are growing; women, especially women of color, are leveraging research and solidarity to ensure their real needs are centered.

---

VII. War, Militarization, & Authoritarian Power

Secretary of War “Crusader” Mentality ([60:31]–[66:41])

• War as Entertainment: Pete Hegseth, now Trump’s Secretary of Defense, openly celebrates breaking the old “rules of engagement” and committing war crimes (“kill, kill, kill at will”).
  • “He is giddy about the prospect of being able to kill as many people as they want.” – Joy Reid [61:09]
• Weaponizing the Pentagon: The Pentagon serves as "proof of concept" for remaking America into a white, male, Christian nationalist state, with ICE used as a domestic “hammer” and anti-democracy muscle ([71:04]).
• Unaccountable Wars: Trump is pursuing unending wars (Iran, Cuba, Colombia, etc.) without congressional authorization, war profiteers abound.

---

VIII. White Christian Nationalism, Anti-Muslim Rhetoric, & the Iran War ([90:47]–[115:05])

• Crusader Language: The current Secretary of Defense and others overtly conflate U.S. military action with Christian religious war, referencing the Crusades and demonizing Muslims.
  • “He is literally seeing this through this crusader lens where he’s equating, you know, us with God and the Iranians and Muslims as infidels and evil.” – Robbie Jones [92:55]
• Islamophobia for Political Gain: Right turns to Islamophobia to try rallying the base behind an unpopular war; organized social media campaigns target Muslim communities, especially the Somali diaspora in Minnesota.
• Community Pushback & Hope: Leaders and analysts cite Minnesota as a microcosm showing that cross-racial, cross-religious, and neighbor-to-neighbor solidarity can resist authoritarian advance.

---

IX. Supreme Court & Vote Suppression ([85:06]–[89:34])

• Absentee Voting & New Barriers: Republicans in court argue for stricter absentee ballot deadlines, risking disenfranchisement (especially among married women and military voters).
  • Joy points out the irony that stricter ID laws would primarily impact Republican-leaning married white women.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|---------|-------| | [06:26] | Joy Reid | “You told the officers that you were a US citizen. Is that correct?” | | [08:12] | Joy Reid | “The kind of people who would beat up a 10th grader and steal his phone... are who Trump sends to the airport.” | | [16:11] | Sen. Ed Markey | “We need to put the safeguards in... especially for young people.” | | [27:10] | Sen. Markey | “It should begin with a debate over abolishing ICE, and then we have to get ready to take it to the streets later this year...” | | [33:06] | Nana Gyamphy | “Undocumented to them is non-white. Soon as we get that in our heads, we gonna understand better what's happening.” | | [48:40] | Christina Ball Owens | “If they want us to be motivated... you have to speak to us, address our experiences, invest in our languages.” | | [54:49] | Dr. Regina Davis Moss | “The system isn't failing by accident for women. It's failing by design.” | | [61:09] | Joy Reid | “You have in Pete Hegseth somebody who seems absolutely giddy about the prospect of being able to kill as many people as they want.” | | [66:41] | Paul Rykoff | “They ask us how many people we killed. They never ask us how many we saved.” | | [92:55] | Robbie Jones | “He is literally seeing this through this crusader lens where he’s equating, you know, us with God and the Iranians and Muslims as infidels and evil.” | | [115:19] | Joy Reid | “Air war is not Christianity... don’t try to bring Jesus into this.” |

---

Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• [05:12] – The ICE brutality case discussion
• [14:28] – Risks for youth in the age of AI and the YAP Act
• [23:28] – Steve Bannon’s call for ICE as polling place enforcers
• [27:10] – Senator Markey’s push to abolish ICE
• [28:35] – Nana Gyamphy on fear, organizing, surveillance, and elections
• [43:26] – Data-driven discussion on women voters of color
• [52:07] – Far-right attacks and Project 2025’s misogyny
• [60:31] – Pete Hegseth’s celebration of war and disregard for rules of engagement
• [66:41] – Paul Rykoff on military, democracy & consequences of “forever war”
• [85:06] – Supreme Court arguments on absentee ballots and voter suppression
• [90:47] – The Christian nationalist turn in U.S. foreign policy & anti-Muslim rhetoric
• [108:14] – Lessons from Minnesota: community solidarity and hope

---

Summary & Final Takeaways

This episode of The Joy Reid Show delivers a comprehensive, intersectional critique of escalating authoritarianism, white Christian nationalism, and militarization under Trump. Through stories of ICE abuse, expert interviews, and frontline reporting, Joy and her guests expose the real-life impacts of these policies—especially on immigrants, women, people of color, children, and Muslims.

The future, as sketched by these conversations, depends on cross-community solidarity, legal and legislative resistance, organizing beyond fear, and a refusal to become numb to injustice and intimidation. The show ends with a celebration of Black and brown cultural solidarity—a reminder that resistance is both necessary and joyful.

---

Further Listening/Resources

• IntersectionsofOurLives.org – Data and research on women of color voters
• Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) – Studies on religion and politics
• Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI)
• Independent Americans Podcast (Paul Rykoff)

Quote to Remember:
“Joy is a form of resistance.” – Paul Rykoff [79:19]

---

Transcript

[Joy Reid]

This episode is brought to you by Nordstrom. Spring calls for a wardrobe refresh, and Nordstrom has the best styles of the season. From dresses and denim to standout tops and accessories, Find the trends and essentials that feel right for you. Discover new arrivals from brands you love, like Waif, Princess, Polly, Mango, Adidas and free people. Plus free shipping and returns and free styling appointments. Make everything so easy. Shop in [e-mail] or download the Nordstrom app. Okay, Okay. I am back on stage. Let me see if I hear myself. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo. Echo, Echo, Echo. Thank you all for hanging in there. Sometimes they're grandmas, I promise you. Sometimes I do feel like Starlink is messing with us. I feel like we're being messed with right from. From on high or really on low because they. Hey, guys, let me know. Let us know in the chat. Do you hear us? And do you hear a reverb? Reverb? Anybody hearing a reverb? We good? They say we good. Yes. Sounding good. Excellent, excellent, Excellent. Jason has defeated Starlink once again. The good guys have triumphed good times over evil. I have to now get all my

[Jason]

elements back in place, guys.

[Joy Reid]

So listen to Joy waffle for a little while while I get all our elements back in place. But thank you for standing by. Yes. Fabulous. All right, Jason, just let me know when you are ready to tee up. A1. But yeah, good, good. Let me just go back to doing our housekeeping. I'm going to start all over. I'm going to say welcome to the Joy reach. I'm going to re welcome everybody that is hanging in there and is stalwart on YouTube. We can see you and the lemonheads who are out there applauding us. We appreciate you guys. Sometimes you get these little gremlins. It's, you know, we're dealing with this an Internet cyber world, so we never know what's going to happen. I see you all on Substack. We're saying they can also hear. Some people are saying go ahead and adjust your elements. We appreciate that. Thank you very much to everybody, Edward, and everybody that is on Substack also all of you. Oh, my earring fell out. Look, it's all the gremlins, y'. All. I think this was because Nala groaned before the show started. That was a bad, lucky grown Nala. She's over there passed out, pretending to sleep on the floor. The dog is just like by my feet here chilling. But we've got a big show tonight. They said not today, Satan. Amen. Not today. Not Today, big up to everybody on Twitch who's sticking in there with us. Big up to everybody who is on LinkedIn and everybody everywhere you're listening. If you're listening on an audio podcast, you're probably like, what the hell? What the hell Beyonce is going on on Beyonce's Internet. If you're listening on an audio podcast, this is just live. Live podcast world, baby. Live podcast streaming world. This is the way it goes. Just to get that housekeeping done, we are going to be doing our Joy's House Insiders noon live on substack. And that is tomorrow at noon. Every Thursday at noon, we bring you an insider, usually a data person or a person that's experienced in campaign politics. And we, we, we, we jaw, we talk about all the insider scoop about the elections and about this incredibly crucial midterm year that's going to be tomorrow. It's going to be actually really, really great. So if you guys are a premium subscriber at subspack or you still have time to do it, if you want to be a part of that, that is going to be tomorrow at noon. And, and we're going to be talking about base motivation, Base motivation. And these Southern races that are coming up across the South. There are critical, particularly Senate races across the South. And we're going to talk about it tomorrow. That is going to be what we're going to be talking about tomorrow. Terrence Woodbury of Hit Strategies, who is a really fantastic data guy, will be our guest. So that's tomorrow. I also want to note that first Friday we're doing our members only chat. This is our, our monthly march Members only chat. That will be Friday directly after the show. So at 8pm if you are a member, stick around. If you're a premium member, that means a reader or a team TJRS member, stick around. And we're going to do a members only chat Friday. Whatever you want to talk about. It's an ask me anything. Talk about whatever you want. You want to talk about Gavin Newsom suddenly sounding like a Zionist. It's weird. He keeps going back and forth. It's hard to figure him out. We can talk about that. We can talk about whatever you want. So that's going to be Friday after the show. Last thing is Saturday. We're going through Thursday, Friday, Saturday. On Saturday is no Kings Day 3.0. No Kings 3 is Saturday. Same bat time, same bat channel, but different bats. Your favorite bats, as a matter of fact, you can see it right on your screen. Don Lemon, Jim Acosta, Joy Reid, all our friends, all our guests, our fabulous panels. The bigger and matter no Kings 3. You can watch it right here. Or if you are a Jim Acosta show viewer or Don Lemon viewer, you can watch it on all our channels simultaneously. That is 1pm to 4pm Eastern Standard Time on the Pacific. You have to do the math yourself. Well, as you see, since the graphic is up, that means that uploaded the elements. So whenever you're ready to get this show on the road. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's get a reminder to start off with of who is in your airports now.

[Paul Rykoff]

Arnaldo, I want to go. Go back to your testimony. You shared what happened to you. You're in the 10th grade, correct?

[Joy Reid]

Yes, sir.

[Paul Rykoff]

And you talked about your dad and you getting breakfast together at McDonald's, which was kind of something that you guys did. I relate to that. I'm an immigrant kid. My family and I went to McDonald's all the time. It was a place where we would go and we bonded as well. That's where mass agents stopped you. Is that correct?

[Joy Reid]

Yes, sir.

[Paul Rykoff]

Now, the government actually said falsely that your father rammed his van into one, that your father rammed his van into one of the officers vehicles. Your own video, of the incident, which you took heroically, by the way, shows that agents rammed your van four times. Is that correct?

[Jason]

Yes, sir.

[Paul Rykoff]

Now, they lied to cover up their own crimes and brutality. Now, did you know that they were law enforcement?

[Joy Reid]

No, sir. They never identify themselves.

[Paul Rykoff]

They never. They never identified themselves. Now, your dad isn't arrested, he's beaten, and you actually try to help him. And after the agents tackled you, one agent pressed his knee onto your back while another put you in a chokehold. Is that correct?

[Joy Reid]

Yes, sir.

[Paul Rykoff]

And I'm so, like, I'm disgusted, of course, that this has happened to you. Now, you told the officers that you were trying to go to school. Is that correct?

[Joy Reid]

Yes, sir.

[Paul Rykoff]

You told the officers that you were a US citizen. Is that correct?

[Joy Reid]

Yes, sir.

[Paul Rykoff]

And this is how they responded. I want to show you another picture here. And I know we've shared with you that we were going to show this. It is.

[Robbie Jones]

It's.

[Paul Rykoff]

And it's. It's concerning. They were so. They were so brutal that you needed medical attention. As you can see here, a nurse at the hospital where you were taken actually called 911 to report to the police through you had been choked and beaten. And you're repeatedly called slurs by the officers. Is that correct?

[Joy Reid]

Yes, sir.

[Paul Rykoff]

What are Some of the names that

[Joy Reid]

they called you illegal son of an alien, border hopper.

[Paul Rykoff]

They called you gay for crying as well. They called you a criminal. They called you a. Is that correct?

[Joy Reid]

Yes, sir.

[Paul Rykoff]

As I understand, while you are being assaulted, you were told the agents, you told them you had filmed this on their cell phone, is that right?

[Joy Reid]

Yes, sir.

[Paul Rykoff]

And that's when they took your phone away?

[Joy Reid]

Yes, sir.

[Paul Rykoff]

These agents didn't just take your phone, they sold it. They pawned it at a kiosk for $250 cash. Is that correct?

[Joy Reid]

Yes, sir.

[Paul Rykoff]

This is Donald Trump's America. He wants violence, terror, chaos. And ICE shouldn't get one more penny, One more penny from this Congress or from this budget.

[Joy Reid]

That's Robert Garcia questioning a 10th grader who was beaten up and abused by ICE while he was just trying to go to school, stop with his dad at McDonald's, got hemmed up, beaten up, put in the hospital, and then they stole his phone and pawned it. Let's just go ahead and show you. These are the people that Donald Trump believes are going to somehow make the lines shorter at the airport. Let's look at a 2. I want you to take a look at them. Those people. The kind of people who would beat up a 10th grader, steal his phone, put him in the hospital, and then pawn his cell phone, which is a crime. It's also called theft. Burglary. A cell phone generally costs more than $1,000. Burglary. They robbed him and beat him. Those are the quality of people doctors mine stored in the airport, pal. Sway. Somebody explained to me how them standing around the airport looming over unpaid TSA agents who, some of whom can't afford food, how them looming over those people is gonna make the line short of the airport, I don't know. They sure haven't helped so far. The lines are still long. Now I want you guys to listen to Senator Kennedy of the great state of Louisiana tell you whose fault it is that the TSA agents are not getting paid. Senator Cruz and I came up with a plan. We said, look, it's a two step process.

[Paul Rykoff]

The Democrats have offered to open up

[Joy Reid]

everything but ice, Ted. And I said, okay, let's accept their offer. And then at the same time, we would offer a bill for reconciliation where we don't need any Democratic votes to do whatever we wanted to do with ice. And that way we're out of the shutdown and DHS is back open. We submitted that. Senator Gruthune submitted that to President Trump, as is his right. He said no no deals with the Democrats. It would have worked. We could have had TSA paid by the end of the week, but the president said no deal. John Kennedy from the other Kennedy is not the good candidate. Telling you the truth, whose fault it is that the TSA agents whose job it is to make the line shorter by getting you through and getting you onto your flight, they're the. It's Trump's. It's Trump. Trump is. It's Trump's fault that they're not getting paid. I will also note that that crash at LaGuardia experts have now said that that happened a Air Canada jet crashing into what amounts of fire truck on the ground at 11:30 at night. Understaffing, overwork systems that aren't working because Donald Trump actually cut the budget and cut the staff whose job it is to get you safely from place to place in our airports. They did that. The Trump regime, Doge. They did that. They laid off a bunch of TSA people earlier. They stopped them from unionizing. They're overworking and overstressing the air traffic controllers. It's chaos in the airports. So if you voted for Trump, this is on you. You created the chaotic, insane, incompetent administration that can't run airports and thinks the way to make the lines shorter is to put the kind of people in the airport who would beat up a 10th grader and steal his phone. Okay, let's talk about one of our wonderful advertisers because we truly appreciate our advertisers. And look, the older I get, the more I find myself wanting to take better care of myself because you got it. You got one body that you know of and you want to be more intentional about the way that you live, the way you take care of yourself. Right? And so the old adage, you are what you eat rings. Very true for all of us in this modern day. And I'm always looking for like an on the go protein snack because, you know, I'm always trying to like keep the weight down. That satisfies me, but that also is going to keep me healthy, but that I also feel good about spending my money on, particularly in this moment. Which is why I love Mosh. And I know some of you all in the chat have told me that you love it too. Mosh, which you may have heard about from Oprah. The Oprah in her Oprah's Favorite Things was founded by Maria Shriver and her son Patrick Schwarzenegger of the Good Kennedys, with a simple mission to create a conversation about brain health through Food, education and research. Maria's father suffered from Alzheimer's and since then she and Patrick have dedicated themselves to finding ways to help other families who are dealing with this debilitating disease. So they came up with Mosh. And Mosh has joined forces with the world's top scientists and functional nutritionists to go beyond your average protein bar. Every mosh bar is made with ingredients that support brain health. Ingredients like ashwagandha and lion's mane and collagen and omega 3s, plus a game changing brain boosting ingredient that you will not find in any other bar. Mash is the first and only food brand which is boosted with something called Cognizant. Cognizant, which is a premium nootropic that supplies your brain with patented forms of citrocholine, which is an important thing to keep your brain functioning. Mosh bars also actually taste really good. They come in nine mouth watering flavors which I would show you right now, but the folks in this house ate them all. They've got chocolate chip cookie, hazelnut chocolate chip, peanut butter, chocolate chip. I'm even a peanut person, but that one is actually really quite good. But here's the best part to make you feel good, Mosh donates a portion of all proceeds from your order to fund gender based brain health research through the women's Alzheimer's movement. And the reason that they make it gender based is that 2/3 of all Alzheimer's patients happen to be women. And unlike the current regime, they actually care about science that actually helps women. Mach is working closely to close the gap between women and men's health research. And this is your opportunity to try it for yourself. If you want to give back to others and feel your body and your brain, Mosh bars are the perfect choice for you. If you want to try them, head to moshlife.com, m O S H-L-I-F E.com joy to save 20% off plus free shipping on the bestsellers trial pack or the new plant based trial pack that's for Jackie Reed and the vegans. That is 20% off plus free shipping on either the bestsellers trial pack or the plant based trial [e-mail] Joy. Thank you, Mosh, for sponsoring this episode. We truly, truly appreciate you. So I want you all to listen to a woman named Sinead Bovell. They call her the educator for non nerds. That's what Vogue magazine labeled her. She's a Canadian futurist, an entrepreneur and an advocate for technology, education and ethics. And she has some important warnings on the subject of AI.

[Nana Gyamphy]

Final thing that we're going to have to watch out for, and we saw this with social media after the fact, is the relationships kids are going to build with these systems. We are now giving kids access to an infinite, never ending opportunity to engage

[Joy Reid]

with an imaginary friend.

[Nana Gyamphy]

Something that is always on, can answer all of their questions. That is a recipe for a new type of addiction.

[Joy Reid]

And we have to really be looking out for this.

[Nana Gyamphy]

We kind of missed the boat on smartphones and now we're all trying to get them back out of the classrooms. We can see this line of sight directly with AI systems and chatbots. And this isn't, of course, all on educators. This has to come to, you know, tech companies, how we design these systems, age, gating them. But something to look out for is this kind of new addiction that might form between kids and chatbots and that is not going to end up well. And do our best to bring parents

[Joy Reid]

on board with that. So even if that's at parent teacher interviews, just casually saying, look out for the amount of time your kid spends

[Nana Gyamphy]

chatting with a chat bot, I noticed

[Paul Rykoff]

they were a little bit more disengaged in class.

[Nana Gyamphy]

That could be where. So this is another area that we have to apply foresight to, but we can see that line of sight happening quite clearly if we don't intervene.

[Joy Reid]

Joining me now to discuss this is Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts. He's introducing a new bill to, to address the risks that AI chatbots pose to minors, including encouraging suicidal ideation and physical violence, among other risks. The bill is called the Youth AI Privacy act and would put new requirements on AI chatbot design features and implement necessary privacy rights. Senator, it's good to see you. Thanks for being here.

[Senator Ed Markey]

Great to be with you.

[Joy Reid]

So talk about the need for this legislation and what would it do?

[Senator Ed Markey]

Well, yeah, you're right. My Youth AI Privacy act is the YAP Act. That's what kids are doing all day, you know, with their chat bots. It's just become a way of life in the country. And so we just have to get ahead of this. We have to anticipate that the companies are going to try their best to build in the most addictive features, to use it to target ads, to have no limit on the level of data that they can gather about the kid and then repurpose it back for unfortunately corporate purposes, but to the negative impact that the kid would then ultimately have to suffer. So we need to put the safeguards in. We need to Put the guardrails in. We already know where we are. Just hearing that speaker that you, that you had on right before me, that's why I passed the Child Online Privacy protection act in 1998. But that's for kids under the age of 13. And I was blocked by all of the big media companies from having it be a privacy bill of rights for all adults and all children, all teenagers as well. So at the dawn of the AI era, we need to right now recognize what the dangers are, and especially for young people. And if we build the safeguards in, at least we will have tried to limit the amount of harm that this could cause to the young people in our country.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah, I mean, we're seeing rises in bullying based on the use of AI. We're seeing people make pornographic images of people. I've heard about a story about a young person in a school that was humiliated using an AI based sort of, you know, raunchy video that was circulated. I mean, kids are being hounded in some cases to death.

[Senator Ed Markey]

Yeah. When I was a. When I was a kid, my mother, when the traveling salesman would ring the doorbell, my mother would just say, lift up the latch, the letter where the letters come in. Just tell them, your mother's not home. And then I would go back to my mother and I would just say, but you are home. And she would go, we're not home, Eddie. To that person. They're not getting in our living room. I have three small boys here and your father's not home. Well, that person can now get into the kitchen, get into the bedroom of young people in our country. And without safeguards, we're going to have a very dangerous world that is created for young people across our nation. And we have the warning. We know it's going to happen. We know it's part of the business model. And we can see the rise in the mental health crisis amongst teenagers and children in our country. We get a chance right now at the get go to build in the safeguards as this industry is taking off.

[Joy Reid]

So the other piece of this is that these AI companies have a lot of political power. Cause you're talking about can get in the doorbell. The ring doorbell is also surveilling you. Right. So we have. These young people are now being acculturated to constant surveillance. Their phone is surveilling them. It's listening to what they say to try to sell them things. The ring doorbell that is run by Amazon, you've got meta with smart glasses where people are being able to just walk down the street, and no one even knows that they're being surveilled by somebody with glasses on. You could go on and on and on. And then that same technology is also being used to track people. This is what ICE is using to try to track people. How do you fight an industry that if you wanna just isolate it to. Palantir now has a fat Pentagon contract. They helped fund Donald Trump's election, as did Elon Musk. Have these AI companies completely gotten beyond the ability of senators like yourself to even contain them?

[Senator Ed Markey]

Well, you know, Big Tech and Big Brother are now invading every corner of our lives. And Again, back in 1998, I was passing the law because I represented MIT, the MIT Media Lab. And in my discussions with them, they were saying that as we move from analog to digital, which was that first era, which then made the smartphone possible, we need to build in the safeguards, the privacy protections. But again, even in that early stage, the tech companies fought me back and I was able to protect kids under 13. But that's not enough today because these new technologies are so much more powerful. It's like the earlier generation, but on steroids in terms of their impact on kids. So I think increasingly it's the families who are out there who are the movement. They know that one in four teenage girls contemplated suicide just two years ago. They know that one in 18 age girls actually attempted suicide in our country. They know that one in five LGBTQ youth attempted suicide. And the Surgeon General, the cdc, has pointed that accusing finger at social media as one of the main culprits. And now with the chat box, it just gets even worse. So today out in California, Big Tech suffered a big loss in court. They were made accountable because they actually designed their technologies, I.e. meta YouTube, in order to addict kids. So there was a big victory in court today, but we need the biggest victory on the floor of the United States House and Senate. And that's why I'm going to keep pressing to make them accountable, to force all senators to be put on record as to whether or not they're willing to stand up to Big Tech because they are willing to undermine the childhood of every single kid in our nation just for their own profit. The same way Big Tobacco sought to addict kids.

[Joy Reid]

Well, not only that, but also undermine our civil liberties. I mean, you also, I think, authored an AI Civil Rights act that would prevent companies from using discriminatory based algorithms. I mean, you name it. What these AI companies are doing is bad poisoning communities by building those plants in impoverished neighborhoods. So I just will re. Ask again, do you have, how many co sponsors do you have? First of all, are Republicans willing to cross the I and rein in AI companies because they fund the president?

[Senator Ed Markey]

Well, on the AI Civil Rights act of 2026, which I introduced with Cory Booker, and it's endorsed by Maya Wiley. She's built the whole civil rights coalition around the country that is now endorsing this bill. We're up to eight or 10 senators right now, but it has to get bigger and bigger and bigger because all of the discrimination in the physical world is migrating over to AI right now. Housing, education, health care, all of it. It's all going to wind up with algorithms that are acting in discriminatory ways that are undermining the civil rights that we fought for the last 60 years to put on the books in the physical world. So I'm introducing it and fighting for it. And with Cory Booker, we're going to try to put all members of the Senate on record on that issue as well.

[Joy Reid]

Before I let you go, two quick things. I know you've been one of the people who's been very critical of the bending of the knee by big media companies, cbs, they've got a piece out right now really fluffing the Saudis and talking about the Dubai Crown Prince renaming housewife as Generation Shaper. I mean, just sucking up to the Saudis in a quite obvious way as they wanna keep that Saudi money coming to their company. So I want you to answer two questions. There's that. And then I want you guys, I want you to really quickly listen to Steve Bannon talking about what he would like ICE to do at the polls in addition to what they're doing at the airport. Want the mainstream media's head to blow up today. We can use what's happening with these. ICE helping out, helping out at the airports. We can use this as a test draw, as a test case to get to really perfect ICE's involvement in the 2026 midterm election. Sir? Yeah, I think we should have ICE agents at the polling places because if

[Senator Ed Markey]

you're an illegal alien, you can't vote, right?

[Joy Reid]

It's against the law. It's a federal crime for you to

[Senator Ed Markey]

vote in federal elections. And so if you're an American citizen,

[Joy Reid]

you should be happy that ICE is

[Jason]

there, because you're not going to have

[Senator Ed Markey]

illegal aliens canceling out your vote.

[Joy Reid]

That's Mike Davis, who was talked about for a while, Mayor's potentially being Attorney General. I believe that's the guy who said Mehdi Hassan should be deported or put in prison. Your thoughts on these two things. Paramount and the others sucking up to

[Senator Ed Markey]

Wallace Rice on that subject. But on the fcc, on the modern media, you know, the core of the 1934 Communications act is that the broadcasters have to act in the public interest. And what Brendan Carr, the chairman of the fcc, is saying right now, that the FCC is really now going to be the Federal Censorship Commission, that it's not the public interest, but the president's interest, that all networks have to operate to serve. And it's scary. It's Orwellian. It's really almost the complete takeover attempt, not successful thus far, but attempt by the Trump administration to intimidate the media into just being favorable in their coverage of the president and his administration. Pete Hegseth is mad. He doesn't like the photo. He doesn't like the pictures that photographers are taking him. He wants them banned from the Pentagon. So it's all, it's, it's, it's all kind of authoritarian, dictatorial, and we just have to fight it. And that's what we're doing. And just with this, this comment that I just heard about ice at the airports as good practice for what they could do in our elections in the last week of October and the first week of November this year. Yeah, they are absolutely practicing for that purpose. They are right now petrified that the buck a gallon increase in gasoline prices is ticking off people, that the dramatic increase in health care costs because of their repeal of the Affordable Care act is ticking off people, that the tariffs, which are just the sales tax, is raising the price on every good that people are buying in our country, ticking off people. And they know that the voters are coming with pitchforks for the Republicans in the House and Senate. And that's why we're debating the SAVE act right now, right above me on the Senate floor. Because it's really not the SAVE act, it's the Save Their Asses act because they know the voters are coming for them and they have to suppress the vote of minorities, of women of any constituency that they think we're going to come and just change who runs the House and Senate right now. So they need practice at the airports. And then they're going to come for the key cities in the key states later on this year. And we just have to get ready in order to ensure that we have the legal but also, I think public response to what they're about to put in place. And it should begin with a debate over abolishing ice. And then we have to get ready to take it to the streets later on this year if ICE does try to suppress the vote in the cities and towns across our country.

[Joy Reid]

I think you're getting amens from all of the folks in the chat center. Ed Markey, thank you very much. We really appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. Great to be here fighting. All right, thank you so much. All right, let's get some more video of ice. You heard that Abolish ice. Very few senators are willing to use the words abolish ice. Senator Ed Markey willing to use the words abolish ice. That is pretty significant. Let's get some more video of ICE supposedly making the line shorter in the airports. Jason, if you could tee up C1, because it looks ICE agents, what they're doing is milling around, but also harming people. Let's bring in our guest and we can keep that video rolling. Let's bring in Nana Gyamphy of the Black alliance for Just Immigration. Baji. Nana, as we look at these ICE agents milling around in the airport, what we've seen so far is that they haven't made the lines shorter, but they've made people quite nervous and uncomfortable. Your thoughts?

[Nana Gyamphy]

Yeah. They weren't meant to make the line shorter. Of course. What Senator Markey spoke of is part of the reason that they are doing this for that deployment. And we can talk about that in a minute. Joy, thank you so much for having me on. But they're not making the line shorter. When I see this, I see, like, NYPD in the subway, you know, just like 30 of them standing there. And then when they do pounce, they're pouncing on a poor unhoused person that happens to be in the. On the ground, in the hallways, or they're pouncing on someone who couldn't afford the fare. Right. Instead of doing what they claim they are there to do. And we know what they're doing.

[Joy Reid]

Sorry. You see them giving out water. This is a PR attempt. This is in Texas and Houston Airport. They're giving out water. Water. I'm sorry. That doesn't make a line shorter. And it looks like a PR campaign for ice.

[Nana Gyamphy]

It is a PR campaign for ice. And they're doing that in Texas, you know where? They're not doing that. They're not doing that in JFK and jfk. They're hiding from people because we're all so happy they're unmasked and we can finally take their pictures and match them up. Right. So they're doing something completely different depending on where they are, Texas is a much more comfortable place for them. And in their minds, but certainly, as we see these attacks that are happening, and they're one of them there.

[Joy Reid]

Sorry about that. You can see them about to escape, try to escape from newscam, from cameras. There they go. They're on the run. Go on. Please continue.

[Nana Gyamphy]

They on the run, baby. That's how we like to see them. But the reality is that the, you know, they are harmers. And we know that they. The regime knows that. They literally are putting them in as a threat. Joy, they're like, if you don't give us the capacity to continue to steal from you, continue to pay off our Epstein class friends who are in surveillance, who are in tech, who are in the private prison business that is taking complete advantage of the detention of folks. If you're not going to give us all of this money to make it happen and force us to talk about how we limit the harms, then we're going to unleash the harm. Right? And so any conversation that they're trying to have about this being the, you know, coming in to help and coming in to be helpful is completely revealed and exposed as a lie. But what we see happening, whether they're running from cameras and running from people with their cell phones are passing out waters, the lines are long. They don't know how to do TSA's job. The only job they know how to do is the job they're assigned to do, which is to terrorize people, to arrest people, to shoot people in the face, regardless of citizenship or migrant status. And, you know, concerned not just for us as passengers and people going through the airport, but also the people that work at the airport. Right. Because most of those people are black, brown, Asian. And what these folks have made clear in terms of the body snatchers, is that anybody can get it in terms of who they are targeting. And so it's. It's scary for us. But imagine being someone who is working there as a food worker, service worker, pushing someone in a wheelchair. And this is what you're seeing, right?

[Joy Reid]

And that. And let me. Let's. Jason, if you could just put up C2 and we'll. Let me just pull the sound down this. Because this is what we know ICE for, not for giving out water, which is absurd to pretend that they are people who hand out water, give a damn if people are thirsty. This is what they're known for. And we now have some more information about both of these two incidents. We know that this one took place as 39 year old woman was grabbed, body snatched, as you say, in Salt Lake City, she had a work permit and yet she was dragged out of the airport. In the case of San Francisco, we now know that TSA agents tipped off or some TSA officials tipped off ICE as to the presence of the woman who was taken in San Francisco. And so what we're seeing here is that they're doing their normal work, like that's what we know them for. And so can you say more about, you know, they've been known to go into restaurants, eat at the restaurant and then come back in and arrest the people in the kitchen. They've been known to stay at a hotel, come back in after checking out and arrest the person behind the counter. If you are a person pushing people in a wheelchair inside of an airport or you are a baggage handler in the airport and you see ice, shouldn't you be afraid that they're going to come right back and grab you at work?

[Nana Gyamphy]

Not only should you be afraid, Joy, folks are afraid. People are calling us at Baji all over the country because we're national, but we have folks on the ground in various states and people are calling us and saying, I'm afraid to go to work. I'm here at work and I'm afraid. These are people who are part of unions in many cases. These are people who have been working at the airport for many years. These are people who have the documentation because you must be documented in order to have those kinds of jobs. Even the person that TSA tipped off, people are describing that person as undocumented. You cannot get it past the TSA line. Undocumented, like this is common sense. All of us have to show something, right? That shows who we are. And so remember, these people think that people who are applying for asylum are undocumented, right? They're treating people with green cards as undocumented. They're treating people, as you said, with work permits and temporary protective status. So undocumented to them is non white. Soon as we get that in our heads, we gonna understand a little better what's happening and what's gonna be happening at these polls come election day. Undocumented to them, not belonging to them is being not a white person, being black, being brown, being Asian, being indigenous, being Native American. These are all folks that they have picked up, regardless of citizenship, regardless of documentation of citizenship or of migrant status, because their job is to terrorize and to become, frankly, the private militia of a regime that is hell bent on building this white fascist future where you and I are out of here.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah. I mean, can you talk a little bit about. We just had Senator Ed Markey on and he's trying to push through bills in the United States Senate that is Republican controlled about trying to rein in some of the ways that AI is infiltrating the spaces of children. But one of the conversations we're having is that AI and surveillance is now everywhere. Young people are being indoctrinated to get used to surveillance, from the ring camera to their phone to now these technologies that allow Palantir to track every single person. The ICE agents are using AI based technology to find any brown or black person that they want to snatch and remove from the country. And how are people that come to Baji dealing with the fact that we are in now a total surveillance society? So if ICE wants to get you, they don't even have to wait till you get to work. They can find you anywhere they want at any time.

[Nana Gyamphy]

People are really frightened and they're also organizing. Right? And so we know, for example, with companies such as Palantir, that actually wants us all and is moving for all of us to live in a surveillance state where every corner has a camera, where there are drones everywhere, where there's driver's license readers everywhere, and this is the existence that people are already living. This is not like some kind of movie with Will Smith, you know what I mean? This is what is actually happening. Your phone is tracking you. Your meta glasses are tracking you. Your watch is tracking you. As you pointed out, the ring cameras are tracking you. You know, I'm about to get us to abolish ELF on a Shelf, because this notion that you are being watched at all times is getting so normalized, even at the age of little kids, that, you know, for me, I'm not gonna say you, because I know you decades younger, but for me, in my generation, we really fought against anything that impinged on our privacy, particularly the privacy of looking right, of people watching us and seeing what we were doing. But it's so normalized now that particularly for generations after us and these youngest generations, it's become so normal and they're leaning into that. They know that it's normal for us and that we people are not gonna push back and think that it's ok. But as black migrants, many of us who have come to this country because we were being surveyed by our governments, because we know what a secret police is, because we know what it is to live in a situation in which the government is tracking you, I think, Joy, that we actually have a hypersensitivity to what that looks like and what that feels like. And I'm hoping we have some of the solutions to how we address this on mass levels as community.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah, well, thank you for making me young. I am Generation X. And yes, we were like, we were so unsupervised, we didn't even get home till the lights went out outside. We were just like, as long as it's light outside. We were free birds and no one was watching us, even our parents. Last question to you is on this question of the election because it's very clear. And Steve Bannon, though, you know, he was supposed to be in prison for defrauding MAGA by pretending to build a wall and pocketing the money. But now he's free to continue to try to intimidate people. He's made it very clear that the plan is to use ice at the polls for black immigrants. What is Baji telling folks to do when it comes to November?

[Nana Gyamphy]

So firstly, we're really encouraging people to move out, not out of fear, right? To move. It's a time to flex, not fear. We might make it a T shirt, you know what I mean? It's a time to flex, not fear. One out of every five black people in this country is a black migrant, either foreign born or someone like me that was born in this country. And so many of us speaking of Gen X, have now at this point, children who are also old enough to vote. And we have to continue to push that. We know that elections matter. We know elections are not everything. But as our baba Malcolm X teaches us, by any means necessary, right? And so that's on the dry erase board we've seen in real time at this point. Even the three year olds know at this point that elections matter and that if you have the capacity to influence elections and how they turn out by casting your vote, that you need to cast your vote and you need to do that in ways that align with building up our communities. And so we're telling our folks it's time to flex, not fear. They fear you. This is the actions of terrified, weak people and that we need to lean into our strengths, that we need to show up and we also need to be prepared to take care of each other, right? Not just organizationally, which is important, but you and I, Joy, when we go to the polls, we need to be looking at, we need to be helping our community members. We need to be standing in that strength that they can see and hold onto as well. We stood in line during the beginning of a pandemic that nobody understood at a time in 2020 when we also were fearful of being attacked by the mass mercenaries that at that time weren't putting masks on. Right? And we stood there even in the fear of that unknown that we knew was dangerous on both ends. And so we need to do the same thing now.

[Joy Reid]

Gang, gang at the polls, everybody. Don't go alone. Nana Gampy, it's always a pleasure. Thank you, my friend. I appreciate it. B A G I. That is where you can find it. And you can find Insta Bhaji is where you guys can find that on Insta Bhaji on Instagram. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

[Nana Gyamphy]

Thank you for having me.

[Joy Reid]

Very thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. This episode is also presented to you by Planned Parenthood Federation of America. And no matter where you live or how much money you make, you deserve to get the health care that you need. And you know that you do, and you need it when you need it. One in four people across the country, country has come to Planned Parenthood Health center for care. But in a politically motivated attempt to block patients from using their Medicaid insurance to get essential care at Planned Parenthood, the Trump regime has decided, along with their friends in Congress, they passed a law to defund Planned Parenthood. As many as 200 Planned Parenthood health centers could now close. Cancers are going to go undetected. STIs will go untreated, and patients will not get the birth control or abortion care that they need to plan their families and their futures. The Planned Parenthood is not backing down. They are still showing up for their patients, providing essential care and making sure everybody, everybody can get the life saving services they need. Alongside people like you and me, Planned Parenthood fights every day to build the future that we deserve. One where everyone can get the care they need, no matter who they are or where they live. If you want to support Planned Parenthood, who was my very first healthcare provider and a lot of us have used them, please go and to Planned Parenthood. Planned parenthood@planned parenthood.com defend so it's planned parenthood.org sorry, slash defend planned parenthood.org defend there it is on your screen. Better than what I can say. All right, let's very quickly get into our next segment. Democrats are having a very good season. Here's a Palm beach post cover showing a Democratic, a Democratic candidate winning a state House seat literally in the Mar A Lago district in Florida. And that is not all. Also in Florida A guy named Brian Nathan won a state House seat. So Democrats are continuing their record of flipping and flipping and flipping. But will that momentum be enough to push the momentum all the way to November? Joining me now are Lupe Rodriguez, executive director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice. Let me make sure everybody's there. Dr. Regina Davis Moss, President and CEO of In Our Own Voice National Black Women's Reproductive Justice Agenda and its Action Fund. And Christina Ball Owens, executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum napawf, where she leads the only national multi issue organization dedicated to building power for Asian American and Pacific Islander women, girls and gender. Expansive people. And they've got some data. You know, I love, I love some data. I love numbers. They've got some data for us on what and what will and will not motivate women voters in November. Thank you ladies for being here and thank you for your patience. We're running a tiny bit behind tonight, so thanks for waiting.

[Nana Gyamphy]

Thanks for having us.

[Joy Reid]

So let's just go in order. Lupe Rodriguez, tell us what it is that is in this data. We're going to put it up on screen. It may be hard for people to see it, but we're going to have you guys walk us through what your studies have found about what motivates particularly women voters of color.

[Nana Gyamphy]

Yeah. Thanks so much, Joy, for having us. This is incredibly timely. And you know, what we found is that the majority of the people that we surveyed, women of color across the country, are both very motivated to vote, but also weary of what the outcomes are when they vote. So they want to hear their candidates, their policy. Policymakers actually do the things that they need. There's a lot of concern in our poll about economic security, about being able to put food on the table to pay the rent, about health care access and about democracy. And so we are hoping to amplify this data, this research, so that policymakers listen and the candidates take note. They need to listen to our communities. They need to see action being taken in order to, to move to the polls and folks are motivated. Right. We're ready to go. We just need to hear policymakers speaking to us.

[Joy Reid]

Dr. Davis, Moss, you know, there has been a meme that black women are the opposite of that. They're saying, this is not our problem. We voted for Kamala and we're out of here. We're not paying attention. That has been a meme. I'm not sure how true it is, but does your data show a level of motivation that is higher or Lower than It was pre 2024.

[Nana Gyamphy]

Well, Joy, you know, so the data says that about 65% of black women are motivated to vote, but only 59% say they will. And I just want to say, like, that's not apathy. It's, it's a trust problem. You know, black women have been disrespected, we've been ignored, but we still show up even when the systems don't show up for us. So I don't think this is a turnout problem. You know, we are very clear on what is happening and that we need to show up. I think this is a responsiveness problem. And I think this question is not whether or not black women will show up, it's whether or not they're going to listen to us finally.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah. And Christina Owens, you know, it has been a rough, I would say five or six years for AAPI women between what Donald Trump did to try to blame, you know, China writ large and basically that spread to any Asian person because Americans aren't super discerning and anybody Asian American was catching hell during the pandemic. And then you go from that kind of racism to now and a lot of violence. You know, I was covering a lot of it at the Artist formerly known as MSNBC against Asian American women. But now you're having similar problems to Latinas when it comes to ICE and immigration enforcement, which is being heavily carried out in AAPI communities. How is that impacting the motivation of Asian American women?

[Nana Gyamphy]

Well, one thing I always have to point out is that AANHPI, that umbrella, encompasses people from 50 different countries and over 100 languages. So there's a real range of experiences that all of the AAPI community is having. AAPI hate started long before COVID There was a Peak during COVID 19. We see now that the stats are pretty high, though the press is not covering it. And we also see that a NHPI women and families are missing from the immigration discussion. And yes, the Latin community is suffering. Part of why we work in solidarity is because there's so many commonalities of what we see. But when we were seeing ICE presence in Minneapolis, for example, we knew that the Hmong community was terrified. They were being terrorized. There is ICE agents asking where do the Asians live? And so we are part of this, but we are often missing from the discussion. The data on our communities is really is very small and what was there has been disappeared by the government. So part of what we're trying to do at napoff is working coalition to do these Studies to do this research, do research on our own and make that information public so that we are seen as a community. You know, the model minority myth in 2026 is still something that plagues our community and makes it so that the policies that are affecting our daily lives do not center our voices. And that's a lot of the work that we are doing here and part of why we do work in coalition to show that there is unity between women of color, that we are stronger when we work together.

[Joy Reid]

I'm going to stay with you for just a moment and then go to Lupe Rodriguez because this was one of my core frustrations. Myself and one of our producers, we used to kvetch about this all the time that we can never find any data on AAPI communities at all. Like, there's almost no polling data. It's just very hard to find it. And you mentioned the, the inlay, the need for in language support when it comes to just advertising, let's say in the state of California. You know, there are so many communities, right? There is the, the Korean American community, there's the Chinese American community, there are South Asian communities. They've all got their own media, everybody's got their own targeting. Are, are, are politicians picking up on those subtleties and nuances in advertising to, and trying to motivate voters in the AAPI broad community, in your view, in short?

[Nana Gyamphy]

No, I don't think so. You know, one of the metrics, as someone that has done election work and voter outreach for most of my career, one of the metrics that's used is cost per vote, right? They want to know if it's worth it to reach out to a community, whether it costs too much money to talk to people. So for an example, senior white voters are a very, it is very cost effective to reach out to them. They often live together. There are senior centers. You'll always see an elected official or candidate at a senior center. But when you have to translate into several different languages, when you have to travel to different communities, when people are afraid to talk to you because they don't know what you know, they're worried about interfacing at this point with immigration. It's more expensive to reach out to us. Asian Americans are the largest growing population in the United States right now. We are worth talking to. Our data shows that 63% similar to what Regina was sharing, 63% are motivated, 58% are likely. And that gap is because of not hearing candidates talk to them and about barriers. So one thing I really want to drive home is you can't take us for granted anymore. And I'm speaking about all women of color now. You know, you have to candidates, if they want us to be motivated and they want us to vote, if we want to get out of the situation that we're in right now, you have to speak to us, you have to address our lived experiences, you have to center our voices and you have to make the time and financial investment to educate our communities.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah, And I would say the same thing, Lupe Rodriguez, because you know, I think people think of the Latino vote as one big lump of 65% Democratic voters. Then they get the surprise of Venezuelan voters and Cuban American voters who are not even all having the same experience with ICE or the same attitude toward that experience. Even if they are, how do you think that these candidates and parties have done in terms of dissecting the pieces of the Latino vote? Because I do. There's also a lot of misinformation and disinformation in. In language media. The right has been very proactive about disinforming people through right wing media. That's in Spanish.

[Nana Gyamphy]

Absolutely. That's a really big problem in our community. And you know, as Christina said, we are also incredibly concerned about the fact that there's a chronic underinvestment in conversations with Latina voters every election. In fact, last election for 47% of people in the Latina community noted that they hadn't been spoken to by any campaign. Right. And so I think that underinvestment allows for rampant mis and disinformation. You know, what we saw in this research that we put together with intersections of our lives. This collaboration is similar to what Regina and Christina said. 53% of Latina women are motivated to vote, but only 47% report Latin that they are likely to. And again, it goes back to this question of how are they being spoken to, are they being reached out to what kind of education is happening? And also ultimately, are the issues that concern them being addressed? As you said, we're not a monolith. But we did find across the board in our conversations with women of color from all of our race and ethnic backgrounds that the economic stability or instability, health care access and democracy are really important issues for all of us and they must be addressed.

[Joy Reid]

Let me get to one other issue and that is the rejectionism that is coming out of the Project 2025 crowd. I'm going to play this for you. Dr. Davis Massa. This is Scott Yenor. If you're not familiar with him, he's from the Heritage Foundation. He's actually got a senior position in education as appointed by the governor of Florida. So Floridians might be more sort of familiar with him, but here he is talking about what we should be doing when it comes to women and high tech. Careers must be recreate, must be made not to recruit women into engineering, but rather to recruit and demand more of men who become engineers. Ditto for med school and the law and every trade. If every Nobel Prize winner is a man, that's not a failure. It's kind of a cause for celebration. Why can't our celebration of male excellence in sports be translated into all facets of life? More successful men will mean more happy citizenry and a stronger nation. Such medicated, quarrelsome and meddlesome women gain their meaning through the seeming participation in the global project. They are agents of the new world, but not new life. Such women are now the backbone of every left wing cosmopolitan party in the western world, from the Greens in Germany to the Democratic party in America. And if our ideal woman is a childless media scold or a barren bureaucratic apparatchik, there is no question whether we can have a future. We can't. There is a question of whether we deserve one. Women have fewer options. Okay, I think we leave that. That, of course, was played by our friend Ali Belshi. That was on his show and that was Ally at the end. Well, as a meddlesome quarrel. Meddlesome, quarrelsome, metal, quarrelsome woman. Myself, not childless, but I used to have a cat. I do have a dog at this moment. But Dr. Boss, you know, he's, I think, speaking most directly to white women. Let's just be honest. There's a real anger, I think, among the far right that white women have gotten offside, that they are going to work, that they're not having kids. But the translation of that has directly run right into black women's success and opportunity. Black women have been what they substitute for dei. When they say dei, they mean eliminate all the black women. And that's what's happening now in every industry, in media, in media industries, in academia, et cetera. How is that attack landing with the women? Is it making women, per the research you guys have done, more motivated, more angry, willing to fight, or more demoralized?

[Nana Gyamphy]

No, I mean, first of all, it's ridiculous. And I would also say I'm happily wear the badge of a quarrelsome woman. But what we did actually he demonstrated so beautifully, is that the system isn't failing by accident for women. It's failing by design. It's doing exactly what they want it to do, which is to marginalize women. And to my white colleagues and sisters out there, I want to ask you, like, do you want your own power or do you want proximity to power? Because this is what it's going to boil down to. You are going to continue to be marginalized. And, you know, we're not asking for special treatment. We're asking for these systems to actually work. That's what our research has shown, that we. We have long known it. Right. We didn't need this research for us to know the truth. But we have this research because when you present it, it can no longer be ignored. And we're hearing from women all over the country, women of color, especially black women, because that's my constituency, that the gap between the policy and the real life that we're living is huge. And it is continuing to grow. It is not going in the direction that we needed to do go. And you're gonna. You're gonna hear our voices. We're not gonna go quietly because we take care of the families. You know, we are the backbone. I'm glad he recognized that. And if we're not taken care of, then America's not taken care of.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah. And I doubt anyone's going to be too eager to take care of him. He doesn't seem like a very pleasant fellow. Where can we get. Not me. Where can we get access to more of the data and research from this project that you guys are putting together? This report.

[Nana Gyamphy]

We have our website, intersections of our lives.org it's our collaborative website. We'll also have it on our respective organizational websites and can share and can certainly, you know, ensure that viewers can get a copy. It's also going to be on our social media, etc. And we're thrilled to be able to amplify these voices. If we don't do it, as Regina said, nobody else will. And that's why we're doing this.

[Joy Reid]

Amen. So thankful for what you all are doing. We will also share it on our substack. We'll make sure we put it in the. In the description of this program, too, so that everybody can get a chance to click and read. It's always good to read. And if there's data in it, you say less. I will jump in and read it anytime. Lupe Rodriguez, Dr. Regina Davis Moss, and Christina Baugh Owens. Thank you all so much.

[Nana Gyamphy]

Thank you.

[Joy Reid]

Stay quarrelsome, ladies. Stay quarrelsome in Middleton. Will do. Thank you very much. Welcome Everybody, hour two of the Joy Reid show, a reminder that while we have grown, we are. Where are we at now? I think we're at like Jason, like 433,000. Every time I do this, I'm prepared to say 430, but it's like now it's even more. It's 400. You want me to be exact? Yes, be exact. 433,503. Well, look at the three.

[Paul Rykoff]

You know what?

[Joy Reid]

I want to focus on those three people. I'm sorry. 553. 553. Okay. Well, we're going to focus on that. And we appreciate every single person that has joined our little team, TJRS Nation, our readers, we appreciate everybody so much. But even with that, it still is the case that more than half of the people who watch this program, who watch it whether streaming live or who wait and watch it later, are not subscribers. They are lurkers. And we don't want anyone to be a lurker. I want everyone to be true, true fam. So if you all would take just a moment to hit like and subscribe right now. If you're not a subscriber, you would so appreciate it. If you want to join and become a member, we'd appreciate that even more. More. I will note that we have created some amazing merch for no Kings Day. If you want to head over to shop.joann reid.com that is open. There's some really cute stuff. If you want to order it, you can get it in time. I think we have the quickest shipping is like two day shipping. But if you do and you do get any merch, we always appreciate your support. But please, you know, add us, you know, go ahead and tag us and post a little something on your social media so that we can like and give you, give you all some likes. We will give you all a subscribe back. We love to subscribe back to those who subscribe to us. I want to also note that we have yet another sponsor for this show and that is our friends at MSI Reproductive Choices, one of the most stalwart and earliest supporters of this program. Their 2025 impact report is out right now. And through innovation and a really disciplined approach to health care service delivery and accountability, they have reduced the cost for a year of contraception to just $5. $5. That means that every dollar that you give has even more impact. For just $30, you could change the lives of six women. You could help a girl stay in school, a mom space out her pregnancies a woman support her family. They specialize in reaching adolescents, women living in poverty and in places where there is literally no other option for family planning services. In 36 countries around the world, 94% of donations go right to program services, not to overhead. And they have good ratings from charity evaluators like Candid. They don't get any money from the US Government, of course. So to help them out, go to MSI United States.org that is M for modern, S for safe, I for informed MSI United States.org or simply text our last name Reid R e I d to 511511 text read to 511-511- Go to MSIUnitedStates.org to start changing lives. Or just text read to 511-511. It's easy. You can also learn more about them and see the impact report@msi United States.org text fees may apply if you use the text option. Thank you for listening. Now I want to also remind you all of why we around here around her, like they say in Florida, they say around her call Pete Hegseth the Secretary of of war crimes fight with stupid rules of engagement.

[Paul Rykoff]

We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the

[Robbie Jones]

enemies of our country.

[Paul Rykoff]

Those are the words of a potential

[Joy Reid]

war criminal right there.

[Paul Rykoff]

And that is not the advice and

[Joy Reid]

counsel and direction that any secretary of defense should be providing our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. It puts them actually in greater danger. The Secretary of Defense is a disgraced major that was kicked out of the D.C. national Guard. He has no qualifications whatsoever to be

[Paul Rykoff]

the Secretary of Defense other than his

[Joy Reid]

extreme loyalty to the President. Again, those are the words of a potential war criminal. The words of a potential war criminal our favor. Our friend retired major general that you know, is speaking for somebody who would, who would actually know better. And you have in Pete Hegseth somebody who seems absolutely giddy about the prospect of being able to kill as many people as they want. And I do believe that was Paul Eaton. That was Major General Paul Eaton who we had on the show the other day criticizing him as a war criminal. And it is interesting to watch how eagerly and aggressively this regime is killing, not just dropping a missile on a girls school in Iran and then saying oops, I guess it was us even admitting that it was probably us. Donald Trump bragging that we had friendly fire that took down one of our own ships. And also Pete Hague said eagerness and giddiness about killing people in the Caribbean this is a regime that is eager, almost giddy about committing war crimes, or at least what could be considered war crimes. And they don't seem to be worried about it. They don't seem to fear that having armed agents shoot people in the face in Minneapolis or shoot them and then call the woman who they kill a effing bee. They don't seem to be worried about the whole world seeing them do violence, whether it is domestic violence or violence at sea or violence in war. And petexs seems to be the most giddy about it, the most eager to do it, the most excited about getting rid of the old rules that used to at least attempt to rein in our troops overseas. You will recall that the US does not have a good history on this. The My Lai massacre was the final big and publicly known massacre in Vietnam. And once it was exposed, a bunch of members of the military were charged, but no one was convicted. But it shamed the military. And you'd think we learned our lesson, except we didn't, because we turned around a generation later and tortured people in Iraq, took people into Saddam's old gulags and tortured them, and also tortured people in Guantanamo Bay. And you'd think we would have learned our lesson and thought, well, we don't want to be that country again. And yet want y' all to listen to Pete Hegseth talk about the rules of engagement under the current President. That's E2.

[Paul Rykoff]

Well, thank you, Mr. President. You're spot on. Never in history has a modern military.

[Robbie Jones]

Iran had a modern military, a modern navy, a modern air force, modern air defenses, leadership, massive bunker. Never has a modern military been so rapidly and historically obliterated, defeated from day

[Paul Rykoff]

one with overwhelming firepower.

[Robbie Jones]

The air campaign that we've conducted that Israel's conducted alongside us was one for

[Paul Rykoff]

the history books, truly.

[Robbie Jones]

And it's because we have a president

[Paul Rykoff]

United States, that when he said sends

[Robbie Jones]

his war fighters out to fight, he

[Paul Rykoff]

unties their hands to actually go out and close with and destroy the enemy

[Robbie Jones]

as viciously as possible from moment one.

[Joy Reid]

Hmm. And he seems so excited about it, right? About being able to throw off the old rules of engagement that tried to have us not do any more My Lai massacres and not do what. What was done in Iraq. He seems excited that he's finally got a commander in chief that will let him kill, kill, kill at will. And I guess you can't really be surprised because, you know, the fish always rots from the head. Let's go ahead and hear the boss

[Robbie Jones]

on the operation no, we will go.

[Paul Rykoff]

You will go, and it will go

[Joy Reid]

for them to object.

[Senator Ed Markey]

I don't see any loss in going. No reason not to. You know, they'll always complain, oh, we should have gone. So we're going to definitely.

[Joy Reid]

I'd like to just tell you, let's go. We'll go.

[Paul Rykoff]

We're going to tell them what we're

[Joy Reid]

going to do, and I think they're

[Senator Ed Markey]

going to probably like it, except for the radical left lunatics.

[Joy Reid]

And Mr. President, if you are declaring war against these cartels and Congress is likely to approve of that process, why not just ask for a declaration of war? Well, I don't think we're going to

[Senator Ed Markey]

necessarily ask for a declaration of war. I think we're just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country.

[Joy Reid]

Okay. We're going to kill them. You know, they're going to be like, dead.

[Senator Ed Markey]

Okay.

[Joy Reid]

Joining me now is Paul Rykoff, independent National Security Veterans affairs and political analyst and host of the Independent Americans podcast, and an actual war fighter and a veteran. Paul, you know, it's interesting to me that when I talk to people who've been in the military, particularly people who've ever been deployed, the last thing you ever hear them talking about is killing. They actually tend to be the most pro peace people because they know what it's like. Right. And they don't tend to think it's glamorous to kill people generally. What do you think of how does it strike you when you hear, of course, Donald Trump was a sociopath, but also Pete Hegseth seemed to be really giddy about the idea of killing.

[Paul Rykoff]

Well, first off, it's been too long, Joy, and it's good to see you, especially in these trying times. I appreciate all you're doing to bring light to contrast some of this madness and heat. Look, I think you bring up a really important point. My friend said to me once, they always ask us how many people we killed. They never ask us how many we saved. And a lot of us pride ourselves on the people we saved, on the people we saved from being killed. We were able to protect. We were able to help. Only a very small minority of people join, especially the American modern military, to kill. It's really. It's a knuckle dragging backward, mouth breathing, worse kind of approach to modern warfare. It also doesn't really work. And I think that's what's really important to underscore. When I see Pete Hegseth, I ask everybody, you smell that? It doesn't smell like war. It smells like desperation. It smells like fealty. It feels like weakness. And what I see in Pete Hegseth is weakness. And the really frightening part is, so do our enemies. Our enemies see the weakness. They see the fealty. They see the lack of clarity. I mean, they see his emotional instability. Our Secretary of Defense needs to be a rock. And he is rattled more and more by the day. And I've also tried to underscore joy that he calls himself the Secretary of War. The Department of Defense is still what it's called, according to Congress. I think his title is actually Acting Secretary of Culture War. He is a culture warrior. He always has been, always will be. That's why he released a video just about a day ago about making the chaplain Corps great again and talking about Jesus and how he wants more religion in the military as we go into a region that has been divided by by religion for generations. So he is first and foremost always on a mission, as he views it from God, and then second on a mission from Trump to execute a culture war within the Pentagon. And now through the Pentagon, they first captured the Pentagon, you know, turned it into this machine that they want to repress women and make this agro steroid out version of what our military should be that is more white, that is less diverse, that is less welcoming, that is more political. And they captured it. They did it. They got the Pentagon started banning books and removing rights for women. And now this year, 2026 is about turning the Pentagon on the rest of the world, and it's been eight countries and counting. Iran is obviously the important focal point, but the bigger concern is Trump is now waging a forever war. He just keeps going. He's already said that he won't stop at Iran. Cuba could be next, Colombia could be next. Mexico could see strikes. He hit Ecuador. And nobody even saw that. And I think the most important story in the world is that Donald Trump can do anything he wants with the most powerful military the world has ever seen, and nothing is stopping him. He doesn't care about declarations of war, and I don't even think he cares about public opinion. He cares about his own legacy. He cares about conquest, and he cares about going as far and as fast as he can until he's out of time, until he dies, because he knows that Hegseth and JD Vance and the others aren't going to be able to pick it up for from here. But the damage that they're doing, not just to the world and to our alliances, but to the long term viability and integrity of the military is really, really damaging. They're driving the last institution that's popular with the American people into the ground. The American people don't trust the military anymore. They don't trust the National Guard anymore because we have Pete Hegseth at the top. And that is really dangerous, not just for this moment, but for decades to come.

[Joy Reid]

Well, say more about that, because, you know, and by the way, in Ecuador, they put out basically, a music video celebrating bombing, what they said was a stronghold for narco terrorists. It turns out, per the New York Times reporting, it was just a farm. So that was just a video of them blowing up someone's farm. But what are the consequences, in your view, of taking, as you said, the most trusted institution in the country? The opposite of the media, basically. Right. The most trusted institution meeting the military and putting them on the streets of Los Angeles and saying, now your job is to terrify brown people in Los Angeles and Chicago. Putting them in D.C. we saw them if you came in Union Station. They're just deployed, walking around with their long guns and taking them and turning their purpose to intimidation on the streets of the U.S. what is the consequence for the military itself?

[Paul Rykoff]

Well, it's even bigger than that. I mean, the consequence for our democracy and the very fabric of our country is imperiled and being ripped apart. I mean, the Pentagon is also the biggest budget in the federal government. $300 billion. It's the largest employer, over a million people. Culturally, it's so important in just the way people view not just war, but cemeteries and service and all the other kind of peripheral elements around the military. Even if you think about the GI Bill, you think about people who join for other reasons, like health care, because they want opportunity. It's such a vital part of our. Of our ethos that's supposed to be immune from all of this. And they were strategic. I think it's really important, Joy, that people respect their strategy, because they had a strategy to put Hegseth up first as the lead culture warrior, because they knew if they could get him through, everything else would be easy because he's so radical, he's so disqualified fight. He's so extreme. And that's what happened. They blew a hole through. And then RFK was easy. Tulsi Gabbard was easy. All these other people were easy. And they seized the Pentagon. And what I would warn people is what they're doing at the Pentagon. I mean, it's male, it's white, it's Christian, it's Pete Hegseth. Right. That's what they want to do with the rest of the country. The Pentagon is the proof of concept. Everything from removing the Pentagon press corps and putting them outside somewhere else and replacing them with Laura Loomer and the Mypillow guy. Right. To preaching about his form of religion. Right. When we have Muslim and Jewish and atheist people all across our military. And he said yesterday, bend your knee and pray before Jesus. These are all the red lines that nobody crossed before. And they are crossing through all of them because it's ultimately, in my view, about their quest for power. And the really scary part, Joy, is imagine how far they'd be if Hegseth and Kristi Noem and the others weren't screwing up all the time. They are on plan, even ahead of plan. And 2025 was Project America. And in many ways they succeeded. They conquered a lot of this country. 2026 is about the Western Hemisphere and it's going beyond the Western Hemisphere. Greenland, you know, he may revisit again. He's now talking about and telegraphing Columbia strikes in Mexico. Ecuador is important because a lot of folks don't even know that we had military operations in Ecuador. And that's what they want. They want it to be normalized and they want the troops in the streets to be normalized, too. They've now extended the national guard in D.C. i think, for another three years. They want that to become accepted and normalized. And importantly, as I think you focused on others, they use ice as a hammer for when the military won't do what they want.

[Joy Reid]

Yes, Right.

[Paul Rykoff]

And we now know these exercises around the airports are warm ups. For example, ID checking that they could do at the polls when they want to attack the election. And that's why I urge especially Democrats who have this idea sometimes, okay, we'll just wait until November. That's not a circuit breaker. He can invade six more countries between now and November. And we've got to ensure that we have a strategy to stop him and slow him down. So when they say he has no strategy for Iran, that might be true. But the Democrats especially have to offer their strategy to stop him from going beyond Iran, stop him from putting boots on the ground in Iran and to ultimately get us out of Iran. So we need that alternative strategy. Because you may not like their plan. Most of us don't. But they do have a plan.

[Joy Reid]

They do.

[Paul Rykoff]

They are fortunately ahead of schedule and gaining momentum because the Senate didn't even do a War Powers act until five days after the war started. So maybe they can Start now and get ahead of Cuba. Start now and get ahead of Colombia. And maybe they'll get the timing right in time to at least vote before he invades another country.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah. And the thing is, they have a plan because this time they have Project 2025. So they just have to paint by numbers at this point. They don't even have to think. And you know, the 82nd Airborne is now deploying and maybe deploying as of now, that was 5:00pm Eastern Standard Time. They were going to start heading out. And while they're doing that, every time they send a new deployment, at the same time, they also signal that they're doing negotiation for peace. But the Iranian government is saying, no, we're not negotiating with you. We're going to fight this until we're done hitting you back. But you're also seeing part of the plan is to enrich themselves. There was a. Jason, if you could put up E4. There was a mysterious set of trades that were done as Donald Trump announced the bombing raids into Iran. And it's a weird pattern that he announces some aggression and people trade against it. Then he announces some sort of negotiation and people trade against it. No one knows who these people are, but somebody is getting rich off of putting your colleagues, men and women in uniform at perilous risk.

[Paul Rykoff]

A lot of people are getting rich in a lot of different ways. They just asked for a $200 billion supplemental. And there is a whole new generation of war profiteers that are licking their chops and cashing their checks. And that includes potentially his own family. So we know the White House is open for business. The really scary part is so is the Pentagon and was our foreign policy. You know, it's important, I think, for people to understand. I'm coming to you today from a public school. If you can't tell from where I am, right. My kids, my kids are playing basketball right over there. So I dipped out. And I'm in a public school. I mean, there are 18 year olds, 17 year olds, if they get mom and dad's permission right now, 3,000 of them on their way, 82nd Airborne in their. In on their way to the Gulf. As a part of a war that the American public overwhelmingly is against, Republicans are overwhelmingly against. I mean, this is amazing. It's actually a point of unity where AOC and Nancy Mace agree. Right. Like we actually have. And I think there is a moment of opportunity in this crisis, Joy, which is that we might have more unity right now in America around opposition to the Iran war than we've had on anything else except for ice. And those two things are converging and giving people permission to speak out against Trump and create a new movement of opposition that will be focused, I think, especially if he decides to use the 82nd Airborne on Karag island, if he decides to use them to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. This is a scenario where we could lose hundreds, thousands of people. Right? Hopefully it won't happen. It might be easy and smooth like Venezuela, but it could go sideways and we could lose thousands, thousands of troops. And that is something the American public does not want, universally across partisan lines. Now, the question is, how do we stop him when he still doesn't care? We're going to need those unlikely alliances to do things like deny the funding. And I also challenge Democrats. I'm an independent. 45% of this country is independent. Democrats shut down the government over ice. They shut down the government over health care. You're not going to shut the government over thousands of people going into a war that nobody supports. Maybe you would feel differently if it was more of your kids. So I think we have to put that human cost front and center. And as you know, I will always remind people, you know, Barron Trump is of age. He's 19. His ass isn't going. He's playing Call of Duty in the White House while his dad sending kids from here in the Lower east side and other places off to war. So I think you got to put it on them and put it in front of them and don't let them get off the hook. But most importantly, understand that if you look around your community, even people you didn't agree with on any other issue, they probably agree with you on this. And that's a moment for us to unify as Americans against this.

[Joy Reid]

Let's just put up E5, Jason, as we exit here. This is the thing. You should always, always, always remember Trump's family, Netanyahu's family, because his sons ain't at risk either. His son Yair is chilling inside South Florida in a luxury apartment in Broward County. So he's not at risk either. It is your sons and daughters. They still let a few women fight in the military that are at risk, not theirs. Paul Rykoff, I'm gonna let you get back in there. I'm not going to be the cause of you missing an important a dunk. Or is it basketball? What are you missing?

[Paul Rykoff]

It's basketball.

[Joy Reid]

It's march. I can't let you miss that.

[Paul Rykoff]

There's all kinds of March Madness Right. There's March Madness in the Middle east, but there's a lot of March, and I'm in New York City where St. John's is in the Sweet 16.

[Nana Gyamphy]

Come on.

[Paul Rykoff]

The Knicks are playing well, and, you know, we got to have some joy. I'll tell you something joy that I'll end with. A great mentor told me joy is a form of resistance.

[Joy Reid]

Yes.

[Paul Rykoff]

And all joys, and including you, but especially basketball music, you know, those little things. You can't let the bastards get you down. You got to have that sports family, the things that bring you joy, because that's important to keep and to spread and to share, especially in moments like this. So I appreciate all that you do, and you giving me a voice, Joy, I appreciate.

[Joy Reid]

See, I really do miss you, Paul. We got to do this more often, man. Thank you so much. We got a St. John's man in our house, too. So we're going to go ahead and root for St. John's on today. Thank you so much. Paul, get back in there and watch the game. You're a good day.

[Paul Rykoff]

Thank you, Joy. Thank you, everybody.

[Joy Reid]

Take care. All right, that is Paul Rykoff, one of the good ones. He's one of the bestest, bestest ever. So we wanted to make sure that he got in there to see that, to see that game, because if he misses it, I don't want to be the cause that he missed the play. That was important. But I think he made such an incredible point. We have to hold on to our joy. We have to hold on to our hope. And speaking of holding on to our joy, we are not going to slow ourselves down and prevent ourselves from having any of the fun that we want to have. And we are not. We refuse to have to pay for it in the morning. We gonna have our security. We're gonna have our fun, and we are not going to feel horrible in the morning. And that is why the joy reacho is brought to you by celebrations. Don't start with the clinking of glasses. They start with zebiotics pre alcohol, a

[Nana Gyamphy]

probiotic you take before your first drink

[Joy Reid]

so you can enjoy the night and wake up ready. Zebiotics pre alcohol. The science behind your next great morning. I'm telling you right now, I literally, and everybody in the family will tell you, I not only am a very, very big fan of zbiotics, but I don't do nothing without it. I am not even having security until I have my antibiotics, baby, because I need to feel good in the morning. Y' all need me to Be here. I still got to talk about this madness for you guys. So listen, here is the reality. I am focused, very focused on these shifts to make a big difference in my life, right? I am trying to have my presence be full, my presence be effortless, my presence be real. And I need to be able to live in the moment, all right? Especially if I'm going to enjoy a few drinks. Listen, my simple trick, my little hack for staying balanced is I take my zbiotic. Everybody will tell you I don't, I don't leave home without it. That little shift actually does help you to feel good the next morning, right? So planning a balanced night out means that you think forward to what you're going to do and feel in the morning. Morning. And I rely on ZBiotics, pre alcohol to support that goal and keep my social life and my wellness goals aligned, right? So let's face it, when you hit that auntie age night out with drinks don't always do you, right? You don't always bounce back the way you used to. You know, we, we, we're getting seasoned, okay? Let's Gen Xers. We got to be real, okay? We got to keep it real. But I am not going to go without enjoying myself and having fun, especially in these moments when things are, are so crazy. So I have my zebiotic free alcohol drink. It is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists, which I do love science to tackle rough mornings after drinking. And so here's how it works. And I think I've explained this to you before, but let me explain it again. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in your gut. And it is the buildup of that byproduct, not dehydration, which our mom has always told us. That is what is to blame for those rough days after drinking. Pre alcohol goes in there and it produces an enzyme when you drink it to break this byproduct down. So if you just remember to make pre alcohol your first drink of the night, then you drink responsibly. You will have your best tomorrow. And this is what, how, this is how we roll. We were just in New York recently and we went out with the team. We have to post the fun team picture. We had a really great time. But before I left that apartment, listen, baby, I had my prebiotic, I had my zbiotics so that afterwards, the next morning, I was ready to do the Joy Reid show. All right? That is the way that I roll. And I'm not Gonna lie. I was a bit on the fence and skeptical of it before I tried it the first time. But over the new year holiday, this past year, the past New Year's, I tried it for the first time. And I am a fan. I am a fan. I am a fan. I am a fan. So if you wanna try it too, just head to zebiotics.com joy. Use the code joy at checkout and they will give you 15% off. All you do. Head to zebiotics.com and at checkout, just use the code JOY for 15% off. Trust me, and believe me, you need to roll this way, too. I'm just telling you, if you want to have security, you want to make sure you have your zbiotic too. All right? So can I just real quick show you all a funny video? This is, I want to show you guys, Stephen Miller. This is Stephen Miller in one of those, you know, those Cabinet meetings where he praised Trump literally for five straight minutes, like, without stopping. And then Trump was, like, challenging the other people in the room to praise him for even more than five. But he apparently didn't enjoy hearing anybody else talk, even Trump. Here, take a look. Missile capabilities were also growing so fast

[Senator Ed Markey]

that it would soon have become virtually

[Joy Reid]

impossible to stop them once they have a missile. What to have somebody didn't have their Z biotic, He looked like. Maybe that's how he really feels about Trump. Just weird, right? I also want to remind you all that the Save Republican Jobs act, that's what I'm calling the save. It's called the Save Republicans Jobs act, okay? It is still under consideration in the Senate, as you heard Ed Markey say. Which also reminds me that Texas Congressman Chip Roy, the guy who said that they need to bring back hanging, AKA lynching in Texas, who is now running for attorney General in Texas and facing a runoff because he didn't quite make it to a clear victory in that primary, and he's running against an even crazier maga. He admitted in some leaked video that it actually will be harder for women to vote if the Save Republican Job act passed. Take a look. It's obviously critically important.

[Senator Ed Markey]

The problem we have is we've got

[Paul Rykoff]

some folks out there that are trying to stir the pot on this, you

[Joy Reid]

know, allegation that it somehow is a

[Paul Rykoff]

barrier for married women to be able to vote because they've, you know, got

[Joy Reid]

to deal with getting IDs with name

[Senator Ed Markey]

changes and all those things.

[Paul Rykoff]

Although, frankly, I'm trying not to elevate

[Joy Reid]

the issue too much.

[Paul Rykoff]

My chief of staff had to go

[Joy Reid]

get a new ID in Virginia. Virginia's adopted the real ID system.

[Paul Rykoff]

So she had to go through a bunch of hoops. She's going to have to go back to the DMV twice because they want the paperwork for it. That's just part of the, the, the issue with how we try to set up the ability to identify people. But there's no barriers at all to

[Joy Reid]

married women being able to vote. His old chief of staff, the chief of staff to a United States Congressman, had trouble because she changed her name due to marriage and she had trouble just getting real id. And by the way, all the trouble that your little chief of staff went to Tiproy, that's still not enough for her to be able to vote under the Save America Act. If the Save America act passed, which is the Save Republican Jobs act, or say Republican Asses act, as Ed Markey would say, her real ID that she went to all that trouble to get it still wouldn't be good enough because that's not eligible under the Save America Act. She still wouldn't be able to vote. She'd have to go back and start over, dig out her birth certificate, dig out her marriage certificate and start over. So I'm sorry, how does that make it easier? And by the way, y' all go ahead and run that experiment because most married women vote Republican, married white women in particular, it is single white women vote Democratic and they didn't change their name. Their name is still exactly the same. The kind of women who actually change their name are white married women. And that's your base. So if you. Go ahead, Jason, you think that's the point. So you're going to disenfranchise Republican women because they are. The most Republican voters are married white women. If you don't let them vote, I guess 50% of your votes are going to stay home. Run that experiment, I double dare you. Because single white women, they vote with us, the majority of them. Good luck. Meanwhile, in the Supreme Court, they are considering whether to overturn the laws in more than a dozen states that allow absentee ballots that are postmarked before the election day but arrive after the election to count. Now, this, of course, is part of Republicans double tap strategy to, to steal the November election. I'm going to play a little bit of Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, questioning the Republican National Committee's lawyer on this case and bringing up an old election. We might remember, believe that absentee voting

[Nana Gyamphy]

by the military and overseas voters, the

[Joy Reid]

various Laws that federal laws under which states have proceeded with respect to those votes are illegal.

[Paul Rykoff]

Or.

[Joy Reid]

Or they're not saying what everybody has understood them to say that states can accept absentee ballots after the election, military and overseas ballots. I don't think any vote is unlawful. Let me try to address how I think you would reconcile UACAVA with the election day statutes. And to start, I think it's important to recognize that UACAVA is not limited to the federal general election. So UACABA applies to primary elections, to runoff elections and special elections, and federal general elections. The election day statutes only apply to the general federal election. So the way I would reconcile the two is to say that all the references in Yukaba to state deadlines are perfectly fine, not preempted at all, not displaced at all, not even anomalous with respect to the primaries, the runoffs, and special elections.

[Robbie Jones]

Then the court has a job to

[Joy Reid]

do in the federal general election as to say, like, kind of. Which is the specific, which is the general. I think the more logical way to do it would be to say that with the understanding in this court, if you decide in our favor that for the federal general election, the ballots have to be in by election day, I would say maybe we should have another president now. Because wasn't it in Florida that they were counting.

[Nana Gyamphy]

Counting military votes after receipt?

[Joy Reid]

So, with all due respect, that is the reddest of red herrings, because what happened in the 2000 election in Florida is that pursuant to a consent decree that was entered by a federal court because Florida was violating the principal provision

[Paul Rykoff]

of uacava, which says you have to

[Joy Reid]

give the ballot, absentee ballots, to the overseas voters 45 days in advance because Florida was violating that.

[Robbie Jones]

There had to be a consent decree

[Joy Reid]

to create a remedy that was not provided here.

[Nana Gyamphy]

What happened was that the judge made

[Joy Reid]

up the deadline, not the state. And uacava, just so you know, he keeps using the term. UACAVA is the Uniform and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act. It is a law that requires voters who live overseas or who are in the military to receive their absentee ballot at least 45 days before the election. But he's essentially saying 2000 don't count. And this is something the Supreme Court does all the time. They pretend the 2000 election, which was decided by the Supreme Court, where the election was decided by five people, five conservative members of the Supreme Court. They're like, well, they don't count. They don't care. You can't count these abstinence ballots. Okay, dude, whatever. You say moving on to the U. S. Israeli war on Iran, which Republicans in Congress are refusing to put an end to, as you heard Paul Rykoff discuss, but which is being now cast as a war for Jesus against anyone who ain't Jesus voting or Jesus worshiping by none other than the former blackout drunk TV weekend host turned secretary of war crimes. Eat hegseth and here he is.

[Robbie Jones]

Same to every American who wants peace through strength. May Almighty God continue to bless our

[Paul Rykoff]

troops in this fight.

[Robbie Jones]

And again to the American people, please pray for them every day on bended

[Joy Reid]

knee with your family, in your schools, in your churches, in the name of Jesus Christ. That is very unusual to say the least. To have a Secretary of Defense first of all praying at all from the pulpit or the dais of the Secretary of Defense, that is unusual. It is a clear violation of the separation of church and state and it is a definite insult to any troop, any soldier, marine sailor, etc. Who is not a Christian of his sect and probably offensive to many Christians themselves because this country is not a Christian version of Iran. We do not have a Christian nationalist government. At least we're not supposed to, but apparently they think we do. Joining me now for a bonus episode of Countering White Christian Nationalism is our friend Robbie Jones, who is the co founder and our favorite person from the Public Religion Research Institute, as well as Jelani Hussein, nationally recognized civil rights leader and the executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations. If you do not know, he is one of the three people who is leading the target boycott that's based in Minneapolis. Thank you both for being here. I wanna start with you, Robbie, my friend. Your thoughts on. We heard Paul Rykoff condemn the idea of the Secretary of defense. That's still his title. Using his Pentagon perch to call for people to pray to Jesus. But what do you make of it?

[Robbie Jones]

Well, it's. It's exceedingly dangerous. You know, as we've talked about before, he has written a book called American Crusade. So this is not something that he just dreamt up when he became Secretary of Defense. He has crusader tattoos on his body, including the words Deus vult, which is the crusader motto that historically reported that Christian crusaders were yelling as they were killing Muslims during the Crusades in the Middle Ages. So this is a kind of comic book version of history that he's living out now. And you know, you gave that clip. And I would say just today as we're talking, he gave another one of these prayers where he equates the United States as being on the side of God. And he equates Iran as being on the side of evil. And he, you know, he says, I'll just read like from his prayer for the. For the wicked flee when no one pursues but the righteous or as bold as a lion. We ask these things, protection for, for the troops with bold confidence in the mighty and powerful name of Jesus Christ, King over all kings. And amen. So again, this is from the seat of our government, from the man who has his fingers on the greatest arsenal right on the planet. And he is literally seeing this through this crusader lens where he's equating, you know, us with God and the Iranians and Muslims as infidels and, and evil. And this is straight up. You mentioned war crimes. I mean, this is exactly the kind of formula you get if you want, if you, if you cast something in frames of good and evil and we are on the side of good and God and, and whoever else is on the side of evil, it really does mean unlimited war. And it's hard to make any argument that you should be limited if you are literally the tool of God, you know, kind of giving righteous vengeance in the world. And that is literally what he's saying the United States government is doing right now.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah. And he's leaving out, of course, thou shalt not kill. I guess he doesn't really love that one. But Jaylon, he was saying, welcome to the show. And the thing that they're doing, they have been the Trump regime has not been able to get their base on board with this war. There's a huge schism on the right over this attack on Iran because many in the MAGA base see through what they're doing. And also just listen to Marco Rubio say that Israel said do this. So we did it. Israel was going to attack Iran anyway and sort of goaded us into it. And many in the MAGA base are not down with that. They're not down with having their children potentially go out and fight a war for Israel. So they've got a schism there. And so what they're doing in order to push back, in order to get the MAGA base on side is the same old playbook of attacking Muslims, of turning Muslims into the big bad enemy, and that we have to do it because we have to have a war against Islam. I'm going to put up a clip here. This is F5. It's just a couple of stills. There was a Muslim woman who was attacked in New York in the subway by somebody who attacked her inside the New York City subway. This attack was condemned both by the mayor of New York, Mayor Mamdani, and also by Kathy Hochul, the governor. And then they got attacked, particularly Mayor Mamdani. You should see the replies under that post that he posted on X Twitter of people just doing vicious, anti Muslim, vicious Islamophobic attacks. What do you make of the fact that having failed to convince their base that it's a good idea to go to war in Iran, the right is resorting to go right back to hating on Muslims?

[Jason]

Well, thank you, Joy, for having me and it's good to see you, Robert. I will just say that, you know, the Gaza genocide, I think, changed the landscape in such a profound way that we are now living in a post genocide awakening which to the the conservative movement in this country. The overwhelming majority of the young conservatives do not support this war. They don't support new wars. They were believing the idea that this president would not start new wars, it'd be the president of peace. And now they're having a hard time accepting the logic or the lies that are coming from the White House. The difference, I think, is that this is not a quiet group and they do have significant conservative talk shows like Tucker Carlson and others who are stepping up. Not only that, but also the latest, you know, senior officials resigning and declaring that there was no imminent threat. So this war is not popular. Yeah, joking. This is not. This war is not popular by any means. And so going back to the genocide, the end of the genocide, or not necessarily the tail end of the height of the genocide, what we did find, I think Dropside pulled a report that the Israeli Netanyahu government, I think, hired a public relations firm. And that firm specifically pointed out in order to win back this kind of Netanyahu regime rhetoric toward winning back the support for Israel or blind support for Israel, the one way to do that is to demonize Muslims. And so those talking points have been coming out and they've been using them across different platforms. We have seen it, specifically Minnesota targeting of Somali Americans. As part of that, we saw right at the end of November pretty much an organized social media campaign. These are not necessarily just the bots, but a very well organized campaign to demonize Muslims. And so we're seeing that today play out. And when they're testing the limit, you're seeing Representative Congressman Randy Fine pretty much put out a post, I think, saying something to the extent of we want more Islamophobia, pretty much egging on potentially even this attacker in New York. And Other attacks that have happened since. And so we are pretty much in a new era of Islamophobia, the one that has no checks and balances. And Mike Johnson has done absolutely nothing to even and hold these congressmen, you know, and now we've also created a new caucus that pretty much says, you know, the, The Constitution of the United States is. The Constitution of the United States. I mean, the. I think the Sharia caucus or whatever they're calling them, but Islamophobia is at a heightened level. And I think we're seeing also the continuous attack of Mayor Mamdani, but also Congresswoman Omar. And so there was a time where I think there would be a little bit more. More condemnation and response, but I think now they're just pretty much doing anything they want to do. The good thing, I think something hopeful is that the overwhelming majority of young conservatives are not buying it. Maybe not necessarily everything, but they're not buying. And I think when you now step into this incredible war that has destabilized the entire world economy, and now we're at the brink of. In a very different situation. We're coming to that moment right now where people are starting to wake up to this moment.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah, I mean, the thing is, Robbie, is that, you know, the challenge for the, the MAGA movement, the leaders of it, and they're. They're. They're schismatic too, right. They've got some that are very hyper pro Israel, very hyper Zionist, some that are very anti, you know, Zionism, et cetera. Is that the, the genocide split their movement because there was a revelation among a lot of even conservative young people that some of these Palestinians are Christian. This complicated the narrative. Not all Palestinians are even Muslim. In Bethlehem, they're mainly Christian. In Galilee, they're mainly Christian. And many in Gaza were Christian. Christian churches were being bombed. So this genocide was taking down Muslims and Christians together who were dying together. And that became a complication for people on the right. And then on top of it, just seeing it, you know, and seeing homes being looted and seeing children being killed, which we're now seeing again in another country that's got a lot of brown Christians, and that would be Lebanon. There are a lot of Christians. They're not just Muslim. But the thing is, I think for a lot of people on the, even on the right, even some on the left, this revolution that these brown people are, as have many, as many religious sort of disparities and differences as Americans.

[Robbie Jones]

Well, you know, I think we're kind of back to this comic book view of the world, you know, where, yeah, a nation is a religion, right. And we are one kind of religion and another nation is another kind of religion is part of this ridiculous, you know, really caricature kind of worldview. But it serves, as Jelani was saying, it serves a purpose.

[Paul Rykoff]

Right.

[Robbie Jones]

When you've got a war that's been offered no real justification from any geopolitical things, you said one of their own saying, yeah, no imminent threat here, which one of the primary reasons to go to war. And even in Catholic and Christian social teaching about war, that's a reason, it has to be an imminent threat to make it a morally justifiable war. And we don't. We don't have that. But. But this serves that. That purpose. And it's. It's kind of a distraction that if you can't provide this reason, any kind of real reasons for going, then you sort of just gin up this hatred of the other. And I will say this. I mean, the one thing that I think you're right about, the divisions that pointing out, there's. There's Christians in harm's way, but, boy, what a degenerate view of the world that the only way you can become concerned is if someone of your own faith is being killed unjustly. I mean, that in itself should be an indictment of where we are in this moment. This is a humanitarian crisis. It's not a Christian crisis or a Muslim crisis. This is a humanitarian moral crisis that we're being called to address here. And we have. I'm just reminded, you know, these people were coming up on the 250th anniversary of the country, and they love to cite the founders. I was thinking about this, but boy, you know, kind of go back and I'm thinking of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson here. You know, when. When Jewish Americans were asking Washington whether they had to be Christian to be real Americans, he had a resounding no. And he said, no, no. Our democracy gives to bigotry, no sanction, to persecution, no assistance. This is what he said to the synagogue there. And then, of course, Thomas Jefferson explicitly said that not just Jews and Gentiles, but he said Christians and the Muhammadan, Right, the Muslims. He explicitly cited Muslims and the Hindu and the infidel of every denomination are respected. Their views and. And freedoms are respected here in the country. And I'm hoping that is the better angels of our nature, you know, that we're all going to be able to call upon witness just blatantly, you know, racist and Islamophobic. Worldviews being. Being put before us.

[Joy Reid]

And.

[Robbie Jones]

And I will just say, Sujelani, I think you're exactly right, that even if you go back to 9 11, which is the last time we saw that in the wake of 9 11, this outpouring of Islamophobia, we at least had some Republican leaders, including President George W. Bush. Right. Saying, we are not at war with Islam. Right. This is a war against terrorism. We are not at war with Islam. President Bush appeared at an Islamic center to even make some of these statements to kind of calm this down and not say, this is not a holy war, it's not a crusade. You know, this is a conflict against violence and extremism.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah. He also changed the name of the original action from Operation Infinite Crusade.

[Robbie Jones]

That's right.

[Joy Reid]

When he was advised that that would be offensive to Muslims around the world. Sorry, Jelani, I didn't mean to.

[Jason]

No, no. I was just going to add, I think, you know, to that point in Minnesota, when Trump, President Trump declares Somali Americans garbage, it was only one Republican that actually spoke up. The rest of them would not even, you know, acknowledge how horrible that was. And so, absolutely, I think that's the reality, is that we're seeing this kind of unchecked hatred, especially at the high level. But it's. It's coming at a time, I think, where there's a lot more support and folks are starting to ask a lot of hard questions. And the idea that somehow you can just maybe allow legacy media to just pump information in where now blogs and podcasts like this and others are providing a better experience and better information, and now you can get information directly from the source, from the country where those things are happening. I think the one thing unique about this war and most Americans are not waking up to, is it is not the kind of war that we will see the consequences being from it felt maybe, maybe months from now, we're already feeling it and it's going to get worse a lot faster if that oil does not move and there's not a peace deal that happens in the next weeks or so. You know, we're going to see a significant amount of injury to the economy that would result in a significant impact where people already afraid. But I think the gas prices are going to be the least of our concern because gas is the first element for a lot of other things. Anything that moves needs gas. And so people need to wake up and realize. And I think this is where the Congress need to put our focus on. And then they're trying to squeeze the TSA officers to try to win back. The public is just tired. I think in Minnesota, we've seen after this ICE surge in Minnesota that the overwhelming majority of Minnesotans were completely against what ice was doing. And so the public need to start standing up. And. And I think a lot more Republicans need to speak up, and then Democrats need to take the moral high ground in this moment and to show some serious leadership in this moment.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah, I mean, oh, wait till the petrodollar is no longer the preferred way to trade oil. Whatever oil is left to move. As soon as the petrodollar is no longer the standard, our economy could collapse because that petrodollar is what's kept prices low since the 70s and that it's one of those little tricks that keep things cheap for Americans and make our economy function that people don't even pay any attention to unless they listen to the joy R. Because we talked about the petrodollar, people don't even see that one coming. Because if people are trading in yuan or they're trading in rubles or they're trading in Euros and not petrodollars, good luck, US Economy. To stay with you just for a moment, Jelani, because one of the things that I think has given people hope is Minneapolis's. You know, it's an overwhelmingly white city. I mean, it's not like there are lots of black people there, and there's a small immigrant community relative to other big cities of its size. And there is this Somali community that's maybe 60, 70,000 people. It's pretty small. But you saw an outpouring of support. It's the reason that there are two white Americans dead, because they were supporting, you know, Somalis who are being harassed on the streets by ICE and other people of color. What can. What is. What is. What have we learned from Minneapolis in this moment?

[Jason]

Well, you laid it out right. Minnesota is probably one of the widest states in the union. In the 90s, it's become a lot more diverse, especially the urban core a little bit. And it's because of immigrants. In the last, I think, 2020 census has showed that Minnesota continues to sustain its population through immigration, actually, from immigrants. But, you know, we are passive aggressive now, Norwegians and the Germans. But I think there's something unique about Minnesota that I think it's a telling sign of what's happening the rest of the country. And I also think it's. There's some sort of, you know, choosing of Minnesota. You know, I. As someone who's a person of Faith. I believe that God chose us twice after the murder of George Floyd in the middle of a pandemic to rise up and call for raycort racial reckoning and particular call for justice around police brutality and to unmask the history of legacy of systemic abuses that continue to exist today. And then once again, right at the heart of this administration that came for all of us. So it started out with this, you know, this targeting of Somali Americans, and it continued. And when they came to Minnesota, they already knew most SOMALI Americans were U.S. citizens. So they were frustrated that they couldn't deport all of us because we US Citizens. And so because of that, they just kept adding more. And then we had this blogger that came and, you know, was again, using these old stories, which we know of welfare fraud, among other things. And again, they doubled down, they increased more, and Minnesotans woke up. And, you know, I shared this with others as well, and I think Thomas Friedman just wrote about it. You know, I think there's. There is a big polarization in our nation. And I think for folks who are. Especially for myself, I'm a trained urban planner. That's my background originally. So, you know, we have lost a little bit of our kind of our nature of what a community looks like and people checking on neighbors, and we've kind of lost that a little bit and social media and others. And now with entertainment on our fingertips, there's just less community engagement. But what we saw in Minnesota was a breakout of that. For the first time, people were outside checking on their neighbors. I remember talking to a council member at a city, and both of us were. Did not know each other at the time of. And I was the one person who was driving around honking, and she told me it was because of my honk that she came out, but I never saw her. So this concept of a community really engaged because people were looking out for each other, teachers and other folks. And I think it started kind of a revolution of talking these issues a lot differently. I think the words that we chose was also important. It wasn't about immigration. It wasn't about the other people here. It was my neighbor. And I think using words and powerful like that cut through the red tape and then seeing constantly how ICE and their brutality against peaceful protesters and observers were just standing. They were so hostile to everybody. They didn't care who was there except their bloggers that they brought with them. And so I think we're. What we saw in Minnesota is what we could see in this country where people start to choose to get out of our Netflixing and actually start realizing their real issues and real impact to our communities. And I think we stand up and start speaking up for each other. The question now is this moment for Minnesota now twice is can it lead to something bigger? And I think that is the request and the ask is that we need to now for the first time actually address immigration in this country and fix it. And I do think we have a lot more how I would say moment of winning the rest of the country, not just those who have been on the front lines of this issue, but I think the rest of the country, I think the country is tired of dragging an entire population who are neighbors as undocumented and treating these people as subclass citizens when they are actually in south. You know the story of America, actually, if you look at it, especially in our modern day Fortune 500 companies, the hardest working usually is the first generation immigrants and the second generation immigrants are the most innovative. Most of the Fortune private companies have been created by second generation immigrants. So immigration is an important part of our economy or who we are. And I think Trump may have stumbled it on the right moment. The question is, can we now leverage this moment?

[Joy Reid]

Indeed. And last word to you on this, Robbie, because one of the things you're seeing to try to undo that coming from overseas, from Bibi Netanyahu is he talks a lot of Christian religion talk, he talks a lot of Bible talk about the Amalek and the Amalekites and all of that to try to get white Christians back on side when it comes to going to war with Iran and really going to war with all Arabs and Muslims in the neighborhood in which he and his people have chose to live, do you see that being effective or does this kind of unity that Jailani was talking about that we're starting to see somewhat come together and cohese. Is that enough to withstand it?

[Robbie Jones]

Yeah, well, I, I think that's more red meat for the base. You know, it is it. That's the, that's the goal. It's red meat for maga. And you know, let's not forget we've got a US Ambassador to Israel who refers to it as the Holy Land, as if you can read it straight out of the Bible into modern Jewish politics. But I would say with Jelani, I mean, one, I would say one thing I've seen is some hope that you saw in, in Minnesota. And Joy, as you know, my last book, I spent three chapters on Minnesota in the Hidden Roots of White Supremacy doing some work there and, you know, one things that I was seeing, I was there in the wake of George Floyd and the reaction to his. His. His murder at the hands of police and the kind of uprising for good, I think that that created in. Out of that tragedy there in Minnesota. And I think we're seeing what I would call maybe the wake up of a quieter version of. Of Christians who are white, like, white Christianity, that in many ways, you. You look at someone who's white and Christian in the news, and you kind of assume, oh, it's kind of a MAGA person. But I think there is starting to be clergy showing up on the front lines, even getting arrested. We're starting to see things that look like the civil rights movement when you had clergy putting their bodies on the line on the right side of history, bending the arc of history toward justice. We've seen that in Chicago, we've seen that in Minneapolis. We've seen other places around the country. So there's this kind of quieter or kind of a version of Christianity that has been quieter that I think is like, no, like this sort of brutality and violence is not the version of the faith that we practice. And it's not the version of Christianity that we want the public to know and I think are starting to step up and we're going to see, I think, more of that in the coming days.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah. Including Pope Leo, who we love ourselves, of Pope Leo, because he speaks truth to power and has said air war is not Christianity. And he keeps on trying to let Pete Hetseth know. He's like, don't try to bring Jesus into this.

[Robbie Jones]

And we've had two archbishops in the US Call out Hegseth and Trump and saying, this is not a just war. You haven't even come close to meeting the moral criteria for a war that anyone really concerned with Christian moral teaching would have to take seriously.

[Joy Reid]

Amen. Jelani Hussein, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. Hopefully you'll come back. And of course, we know you'll be back very soon. Robbie Jones, he's usually our third Wednesday of the month, but he decided to do one big bonus episode for us and come back. We try to monopolize as much of Robbie's time as we possibly can. Thank you, my friend. Thank you both. We appreciate you.

[Robbie Jones]

Thanks all.

[Joy Reid]

Thank you very much. And before we head on out of here, I mean, this is the hope that we have, right? Is that this idea to sort of create this sort of false panic over Sharia law. I mean, there are not enough Muslims that are other than African Americans, a third of whom are Muslim, to create Sharia law. And black American Muslims aren't creating Sharia law. Okay, no one's trying to create Sharia law. But trying to do that is just a way to try to get people to be in favor of a war that nobody wants. Other than Bibi Netanyahu, Donald Trump, Donald Trump's son in law, Jared Kushner. It seems like Prince bin Salman of Saudi Arabia and a handful of other people. The rest of us are like, absolutely, hell no. And don't try to bring Jesus into it. Do not forget that on Saturday is No Kings Day 3.0. I love this graphic. John, who is our incredible guy who does our. Who does these thumbnails? He did a fantastic job with this one. Don Lemon, Joy Reid, Jim Acosta coming back together. The super group coming back together to host from 1 to 4pm Your no kings, your best coverage. Don't even go anywhere else. Just come right to us to get your incredible coverage. All of your fades coming together. We're going to have Jolly good Ginger. All of the people that you love, you know, all of your friends are going to be there. This is where you should be. If you're not actually at a no Kings event, you need to be on the air with us. Just get right back on this channel. Or if you are a Jim Acosta subscriber or Don Lemon, Lemonhead, come on. Come on down. We're going to be simulcasting all together and I will now bring us to him. Oh, and also Thursday, tomorrow, noon is going to be our Joy's house insiders. That's going to be at noon. So do not forget that. And if you guys are getting merch, I would order that merch today. Should we do a discount for. For Birch if people want to know. Kings merch. Jason, what do you think? Should we do. Should we do a discount? Sean's gonna get you. Sean's gonna get. I do that. I go rogue sometimes, I think. Rogue. Let's do if people need to get no Kings merch, because hopefully you get it within two days. Let's do. Let's do 25% off. Hey, Sean, you got to get back to work now.

[Jason]

She's probably started out.

[Joy Reid]

She's going to be cussing you out. Sean's gonna cuss me out. But she, she can't come on stage and do it so no one will hear her. She'll. She'll cuss me out in silence. And. And if you just put in no Kings at checkout that's gonna be the discount code. It's gonna be no kings. We're gonna give y' all 25% off. If you want to get yourself to no kings gear, I would try to get it today so it can get to your house on time and so you can wear it and you can sport it, Sport it out there in these streets. Let's get to our moment of joy now. Our moment of joy is really fun. It is. And this is. It really does build on our last segment, which I think is really important. Our moment of joy is the cross racial, cross cultural solidarity that will actually save this country. And it is brought to you by a hilarious creator who has Launched the spades vs. Uno in the main vs. The spades Uno sort of national convention. They are negotiating terms and take a look. Here it is. But why don't you sing about shorties no more? There's still all these shorties in the world. I regret to inform you that those shorties are indeed aunties.

[Nana Gyamphy]

Now, shorties is of the late 2000 2000s.

[Jason]

The 2026 version would like to be

[Joy Reid]

referred to as baddies.

[Nana Gyamphy]

For more on shorties, I'm gonna have

[Joy Reid]

to refer you to Delegate T. Pain.

[Paul Rykoff]

Black people, I would like to request that you also bring back Marcus Buster. In return, we will bring back scallywag and rapscallion. Thank you for your time on this matter. Please be prompt in your response. That specific request is going to be

[Joy Reid]

left on up to the California blacks. California black here. I can confirm that. We will bring back Mark Ass Bus. Y' all can have that one. We can definitely bring that one back. The one I would like to pause it for your class though, is I would love if you brought back cruising bra. Bruising.

[Nana Gyamphy]

I love that one. It's like black people, like you going to get smacked. White people are like, you're cruising.

[Senator Ed Markey]

I have been informed by the black

[Paul Rykoff]

delegation that the word scallywag has been used by Project Pat and the song Chicken Head.

[Joy Reid]

Therefore, in order to bring back Mark

[Paul Rykoff]

Ass Busta, we're willing to also bring back numb nuts. And you're skating on thin ice.

[Senator Ed Markey]

However, we require that we get to

[Paul Rykoff]

put raisins in our potato salad once a year.

[Joy Reid]

We gotta negotiate that one, buddy. We gotta negotiate the raisins and potato salad, my friend. But I like where you're going. And scalawag is quality talk. It's quality verbiage. I definitely want some scalawag back. And you're cruising for a bruising. We're gonna go ahead and bring that back. That content is brought to you by George Brett Olson, who launched this national convening of all the delegations. He's also made requests of the Mexican delegation, the Latino delegation, which actually combined with the combined all of the different delegations that are Latino. He's reached out to the Asian delegation. He has requests of them as well. It is hysterical. Amazing. Everybody is adding on to it and stitching his content. George Brett Olson, you also saw in that mashup Justo comedian who is at Justo Dot comedian Finn W Esquire F I N W Esquire and Dad Life. Jason. Follow them all. Follow them all. And please go on George Brett Olson's Instagram and you can just, just. It's a wormhole, baby. You gonna go in a wormhole, y'. All. Thank you for watching. We will see you Friday right here. Same bad time, same bets channel on the Joy Reed show. Bye bye.

[Paul Rykoff]

Getting back to the basics.

[Joy Reid]

Grassroot level Let me dig a little deeper with the shovel Plenty can't tell

[Paul Rykoff]

the force from the trees that I'm hard to detect Like a black hole

[Joy Reid]

in the dark Injustice anywhere It's a threat to justice everywhere Let me make this clear I got a bone to pick and I'll never fear the threat of poverty they don't want to talk about it they rap the party so

[Paul Rykoff]

I'm a real talk about it for sure.

[Joy Reid]

This episode is brought to you by Nespresso Introducing Vertuo up, the latest in

[Nana Gyamphy]

a long line of innovation from Nespresso.

[Joy Reid]

It's innovation you can touch, sense and taste in every single cup.

[Nana Gyamphy]

With a three second start, you easy

[Joy Reid]

open lever and dedicated brew over ice button. It's even easier to enjoy your coffee your way. Sip for yourself. Shop Vertuo up [e-mail] it's tax season. And at Lifelock we know you're tired of numbers, but here's a big one

[Senator Ed Markey]

you need to hear.

[Nana Gyamphy]

Billions.

[Joy Reid]

That's the amount of money in refunds the IRS has flagged for possible identity fraud. Now here's another big number. 100 million. That's how many data points Lifelock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, we'll fix it. Guaranteed. One last big number. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast for the threats you can't control. Terms apply.