Watch What They Do: Ignoring Trump's SOTU | The Joy Reid Show LIVE!

Summary

Podcast Episode Summary

Podcast: The Joy Reid Show
Host: Joy-Ann Reid
Episode: Watch What They Do: Ignoring Trump's SOTU | The Joy Reid Show LIVE!
Date: February 26, 2026

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Overview

This episode dives into the fallout from Donald Trump’s latest State of the Union (SOTU) address, highlighting the unprecedented Democratic boycott, public and Congressional protest actions inside and outside the Capitol, and the creation of an alternative “People’s State of the Union.” The episode spotlights the intertwining of voter suppression, civil rights rollbacks, the abuses of the carceral and immigration states, and the connections between U.S. and Israeli authoritarian policies—deliberately silencing Trump’s voice throughout, instead amplifying those directly impacted by current political realities.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Context & History of the State of the Union

• Joy Reid begins with context on the constitutional origins of the SOTU, noting its evolving traditions and the significance of FDR’s “Four Freedoms” speech as a benchmark (FDR audio included) [04:34].
• Trump’s SOTU is described as “the longest State of the Union speech in history… All he did was lie… why bother to recount it?” (Joy Reid, [07:57]).

2. Historic Democratic Boycott & Congressional Protest

• More than half of House and Senate Democrats skipped Trump’s SOTU—“a record boycott in numbers not seen since the Nixon years” (Joy Reid, [08:36]).
  • Prominent absentees included Minority Whip Katherine Clark, Minority Caucus Vice Chair Ted Lieu, and many more.
  • A few Democrats attended and staged visible protests before walking out, e.g. Rep. Al Green with his sign “Black people aren’t apes” (ejected from the chamber) [10:51].
• Rep. Ilhan Omar chose to stay and confront Trump verbally to honor constituents killed by federal law enforcement ([13:04], Omar clip):

  “For me to just remind the American people that the president and his administration was responsible for killing two American citizens.”

3. Alternative “People’s State of the Union”

• As Democrats, activists, and resistance groups snubbed Trump’s SOTU, alternative events were held—both virtual and in-person—including one co-hosted by Joy Reid and Katie Phang on the Washington Mall.
  • Over 30 Democratic lawmakers shared constituent letters and brought impacted individuals to speak.
• Notable powerful testimonies:
  • Charlene Rochard (Epstein survivor, [17:34]):

    “What happened to us didn’t end when the abuse ended... Our children deserve a world where powerful people cannot harm others without consequence... Protecting children is not a partisan issue. It’s a human one.”

  • Yasemin Ansari & Sonia Almerez ([29:51]):
    Almerez described her partner’s suffering in ICE detention as a cancer patient, denied proper medical care:

    “She’s not a criminal... her suffering is preventable,” (Sonia Almerez, [31:59]).

  • Mohsen Madawi (wrongfully detained by ICE after his citizenship interview, [79:12]):

    “They detained me not for violating any law, but for speaking my truth… They thought they’d intimidate me. They were wrong.”

4. Analysis & Critique of Democratic Strategy

• Guests (Wajahat Ali, Elie Mystal) sharply criticized Democratic leaders for failing to confront fascism head-on:
  • Wajahat Ali:

    “Hakeem Jeffries decided that the best path forward is to play possum with fascism. You can’t play footsie with fascists because fascists come for everyone.” ([22:14])

  • Elie Mystal:

    “The party insists on treating Donald Trump as if he’s a regular president, yet expects us to treat him like he’s something else... If he is a dangerous fascist, then showing up for his dangerous fascist pep rally is a mistake.” ([25:41])

5. Supreme Court Attendance & Hypocrisy

• Joy and guests point out the irony of Supreme Court justices attending after Trump has viciously insulted them:
  • “Two days after Trump called Roberts a slime bag… John Roberts is sitting there taking it all.” (Elie Mystal, [27:50])

6. Voter Suppression and the “SAVE America Act”

• Segment zooms in on GOP voter suppression efforts, specifically through the “SAVE America Act”:
  • Restricts types of voter ID, requires proof of citizenship, mandates voter roll purges, increases risk and penalties for election officials—disproportionately impacting people of color, youth, elderly, and indigenous voters ([50:51]).
  • Maya Wiley:

    “This is why so many people have called it the Jim Crow Act... This is literally an end run around the Voting Rights Act.”

  • Mo Ivory, on Georgia:

    “Fulton County elections are secure and safe and always have been... All this is is voter suppression 2.0, Jim Crow 2.0—just scare people into not voting.” ([59:04])

7. Normalization of Cruelty under Trump

• Detailed discussion of how the Trump regime uses ICE, carceral power, and suppression, with references to the cover-up of Epstein/Trump connections ([36:31]); intersection with Israeli state violence and global ethno-nationalism ([81:59], Peter Beinart segment).
  • Wajahat Ali on Trump and Epstein files:

    “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to lose. But I'll go ahead and speculate: if, indeed, in her interviews she mentioned Donald Trump… you’d want to cover that up.” ([38:41])

8. Resistance, Civil Rights, and Building Solidarity

• The episode frequently returns to the necessity of mass collective action in the face of fascism and state repression, with repeated “mic drop” moments, e.g.:
  • “They can’t do it when we’re united... The only reason they’re trying to steal it is because we have [power].” (Maya Wiley, [60:58])
  • “You have the power of your vote. He can’t take it away from you. He can’t take your grandmama, your auntie, your baby mama—nobody’s.” (Mo Ivory, [62:07])

9. Calls for Action & Democratic Renewal

• With voter suppression detailed, listeners are urged to:
  • Register, check their status, help others overcome new requirements.
  • Participate in primaries (Texas, Mississippi) and resistance organizing ([118:38]).
• Joy hammers home that the ultimate fix is mass voter turnout, especially among those most targeted by suppression.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On boycotting Trump’s SOTU

• Joy Reid: “Donald Trump did give his State of the Union address last night, but really, honestly, who cares?” [07:55]

On protest options for lawmakers

• Joy Reid: “Three choices: show up and protest, walk out, or boycott and don’t go at all.” [13:37]

On Democratic inaction

• Elie Mystal: “The lack of solidarity in this party is disgusting. Their inability to stand for each other.” [24:46]

On immigrant detention

• Sonia Almerez: “Her suffering is preventable, yet ICE has denied her basic medical care.” [31:59]

On voter suppression

• Maya Wiley: “This is why so many people have called it the Jim Crow Act. This is just a way of... making it so hard for you to cast a ballot.” [52:40]
• Joy Reid: “The easiest way to steal an election is just don’t let people register or take them off the rolls. ...They’re trying to do what Brian Kemp did, but on an industrial scale.” [59:23]

On activist response

• Kelly Robinson (Human Rights Campaign):

  “Lesbian, gay, bi, trans and queer people... We've always been here and we're not going anywhere. This is our country too.” [69:40]

On the Trump cult

• Joy Reid’s “Dear MAGA Stan” monologue:

  “Trump will never love you. He doesn’t know you. He doesn’t care. And I don’t care what you say to me. ...If you use my name when you heckle me, it means you’re a fan.” [113:36]

• Elie Mystal: “They can yell all they want. ...Put your hands on my wife and you’ll find out what’s up.” [113:36]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• State of the Union context & FDR: [04:34]–[07:30]
• Democratic boycott & protest break-down: [08:36]–[13:37]
• Ilhan Omar on confronting Trump: [13:04]
• Alternative “People’s State of the Union” events: [15:30]–[29:50]
• Epstein survivor testimony (Charlene Rochard): [17:34]
• ICE detention testimony (Ansari/Almerez): [29:51]–[33:33]
• Analysis of Democratic strategy (Ali/Mystal): [22:14]–[25:41]
• Voter suppression/Jim Crow 2.0: [50:51]–[62:07]
• Mohsen Madawi testimony: [79:12]
• Peter Beinart: U.S./Israel authoritarian parallels: [80:54]
• Kelly Robinson barn-burner speech: [69:40]
• “MAGA Stan” monologue (Joy, Mystal): [103:27]–[113:36]

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Tone, Language, and Style

• The episode balances sardonic humor, personal storytelling, and searing critique.
• Resilience, resistance, and communal solidarity are constant themes.
• Direct, colloquial language and unapologetic confrontation of fascism, racism, and hypocrisy.
• Regular lighthearted moments—e.g., pro-frog resistance memes, “cussing Christian” jokes—to balance the gravity.

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Additional Memorable Moments

• Summer Lee’s announcement of impeachment articles against Pam Bondi for DOJ obstruction and Epstein files cover-up ([67:28]).
• Joy’s advice to MAGA trolls: “Don’t heckle a person who actually enjoys the heckling because I’ll drink your milkshake. ...Try Jesus, not me. Try Allah, not me.” [103:27]
• Call for community vigilance and early voting (esp. in Texas, Mississippi) [118:38].

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Conclusion

This episode of The Joy Reid Show spotlights how public refusal to normalize Trump’s presidency is growing inside Congress, activist spaces, and impacted communities. Through centering survivors, activists, lawmakers, and sharp critique, the episode both documents and models resistance—providing listeners with the context, motivation, and strategic clarity to oppose the current regime’s attacks on democracy and rights.

“They’re not even getting to the point where you can use the machines. They want to discourage you at the voter registration end... That’s what they’re doing.” – Joy Reid [62:19]

Transcript

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[Elie Mystal]

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[Mo Ivory]

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[Joy Reid]

Okay. Hey hey hey everybody. Happy Thursday junior and welcome to the Joy Reed Show. Big ups to the chats and Everybody watching on YouTube, on Substack, on Facebook, and of course our adorable little Twitchies on Twitch. We love you guys as well as everybody that's listening to the audio podcast on the platforms like Apple and Spotify, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Wherever you're listening, be sure to hit that like and subscribe button. Also hit share to help spread the word and help us with the algorithm. We appreciate it as always. Also, if you hit the little notification thingy on YouTube you will know whenever we go live and you want to have that happen. So let's do a little bit of housekeeping. This Friday is going to be our team TJRS members only chat for our YouTube and Substack premium subscribers. So if you are going to be watching the show on Friday, plan to stay on for after hours. The official cocktail is security so let me remind you of the ingredients. It's one part champagne, one part cognac, the good kind of cognac. Don't get that cheap stuff. Also a dram of Saint Germain liqueur and then either a maraschino cherry or a dash of grenadine color and voila. You can also go for a non alcohol option or whatever your fave is. If you're going to have the alcohol option, I would recommend doing the zbiotic first. I'm just saying it's like now part of my lifestyle. If you. It's not just because they're a sponsor. I'm serious. I really actually do use it. It's really important. But anyway, either whether you're going to do non alcohol or alcohol option, whatever your fave is, just come on in, we can talk whatever you guys want. We can talk Black History Month. We can talk about fighting the regime. We can talk whatever your little hearts desire. It's going to be you, me and the other TJRST members, so be sure to stay on after hours for that. Let me refresh my page over here so I can make sure that I can see the chat over here on this side I've got three screens going, you guys. I get a lot going on all at the same time.

[Elie Mystal]

I want to make sure you multitasking again.

[Joy Reid]

I am multitasking because I want to see the chat. I love seeing what everyone is saying and this is not letting me see it. So I'm going to go ahead and pretend like I can see everybody. But I love all of you even if I can't see everything you're saying. Also, a very exciting announcement, something I've been cooking up in the lab. I've been thinking about this a lot, doing a TJRS Insiders feature, a substack premium feature, which would be a weekly one hour live every Thursday offering some inside access and scubola on these upcoming elections. Doing like deep dives and digging into that behind the scenes polling strategy. The stuff for the real nerd. This is like so super nerd stuff. So stay tuned for that because that's going to be coming up next month. So that's going to be something in, in the premium world that we're going to be doing. If you really care about the minutia of this election stuff in the lead up to the midterms, you're going to want to get down with that. So we'll have more news on that coming. All right, let's get to the news of the day. Of course, we all know what happened on last night and I want to, I want to go back and I want to give you a little background on it. Right? So Article 2, Section 3 of the United States Constitution provides that the President of the United States shall from time to time give the Congress information as to the State of the Union and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient. Quote. Now, the Constitution doesn't specify what they exactly mean by from time to time, traditionally presidents have conveyed that message, the sort of once a year message as to the State of the Union to a joint session of Congress, meaning the House and the Senate gather together under one roof in person once a year. Now, up until 1934, the state of the Union message, which some presidents have actually called the annual message, was usually delivered in December rather than in January or February. In 2022, Joe Biden became the first president to deliver an in person State of the Union address in March, which he also did in 2024. And then Donald Trump did his annual address, which was not labeled a State of the Union. It was just called a joint address to Congress. He also did that last March, early March. George Washington, the first president, and John Adams gave their annual reports to Congress in person in New York City, which was the capital of the United States from 1785 to 1790. Thomas Jefferson, when he wasn't ravaging his enslaved property, he gave his annual message in writing. Either some historians say it was because he was not really a great public speaker or because he wanted to seem less like a king, depending on which historian you ask. It was one of those two reasons presidents followed Jefferson's lead and gave their annual address, which again, does not have to be in person. They gave it in writing up until 1913, when Woodrow Wilson brought back the in person address to a joint session of Congress. Fast forward to fdr. Since he began giving his State of the Union, they've almost always given that as a speech rather than a written report. Again, an actual speech is not required by the Constitution, just the report. And Franklin Roosevelt was also the first president to actually call his annual address the State of the Union, as the Constitution labels it. And specifically the first address in US History that was specifically labeled a State of the Union address that was also in person and before Congress was FDR's 1941 speech, which is better known as the Four Freedoms speech. The first is freedom of speech and expression everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way everywhere in the world. The free third is freedom from want, which translated into world terms means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear, which translated into world terms means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor anywhere in the world. This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women and its faith, freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose. To that high concept there can be no end save victory. Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1941 giving his state of the Union address moan better as the Freedom From Fear address. Freedom is the triumph of human rights everywhere. And by the way, FDR will be the only president whose voice you are going to hear tonight on the Joy Reid Show. Just saying though, Donald Trump did give his State of the Union address last night, but really, honestly, who cares? It was the longest State of the Union speech in history, topping the previous record holder, Donald Trump, who loves to hear himself lie. And all he did was lie. So I mean, honestly, why bother to recount it? Why bother to go through everything he said? Because all he did was lie and apparently sound like he was on Adderall and slur his words. Right now, per our headcount, about half of the House and Senate Democrats skipped that speech. And that was a record boycott in numbers not seen since the Nixon years. Even several members of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries senior leadership team stayed away, including Minority Whip Catherine Clark of Massachusetts. And here was her statement. Quote, rather than listen to Donald Trump lie to the American people, I will be hearing from the people of my district. By Axios count, 20 Senate Democrats and just under 110 House Democrats did sit through the speech. That's about half of each chamber's Democratic caucus. Democratic caucus Vice Chair Ted Lieu also boycotted telling Axios that the congressman, quote, didn't want to be part of the drama. One senior House Democrat who skipped the speech told Axios. And among those who did attend, some didn't stay very long. Representative Al Green, the famous cane shaker. Remember him from last year's address? Our favorite cane shaker from Texas, Representative Al Green. We actually made a whole T shirt and like a bag that you can buy in the store based on that. He's a liberated Democrat taking his cane. He didn't stay long either. Representative Green was ejected from the chamber after holding up a sign that read black people aren't apes. And we have a clip of him being ushered out of the chamber while Republicans clap. You can see his sign there that said black people aren't apes. And he's, you know, interacting with some other members. And while he's walking out and we put the sound down because we again didn't want to hear Donald Trump's voice because he was talking. Republicans started chanting usa, usa. Because, yeah, of course, let's play a little bit of what Representative Green told the media after he left. As you know, the president has depicted a former president and first lady as apes. The behavior has been declared racist by a good many people. But I don't think the president has really received the message that is unacceptable. He's seen, seems to think that he can do these dastardly things with impunity. Tonight, I Wanted him to have a person confront him and let him know that black people aren't apes, that black people are not going to tolerate this kind of behavior. I don't speak for everybody, but I speak for people of goodwill who understand that if you tolerate this kind of. Of behavior, you perpetuate it. I refuse to tolerate this level of hate that the president is, in fact, putting into policy. Okay, we can leave it there. Must take a stand. And the audio was a little bit low there. That was him saying that we must take a stand. We cannot tolerate this kind of behavior. Now, other representatives who walked out on their own, not, Were not being escorted out. Or Representative Bill Foster of Illinois, who left about 45 minutes into the speech. And Representatives Lauren Underwood of Illinois, who was on this show on Monday and said she would walk out if she heard lies, as well as Madeline Dean of Pennsylvania, who followed suit a short time after. Some who remained in the chamber made themselves heard, including Representative Ilhan Omar of Minneapolis, who explained her protest in which she yelled at Trump and accused him of getting Americans killed. Here's how she explained herself on Wolf Blitzer show.

[Elie Mystal]

He regrets it all about the interaction we played between you and President Trump just last night.

[Joy Reid]

I do not. And I think many people look at that moment when the president says it is our responsibility to protect Americans, and he does not acknowledge the fact that two Americans, two of my constituents, two of our neighbors were. Were killed. And it was important for. For me to just remind the American people that the president and his administration was responsible for killing two American citizens.

[Elie Mystal]

With hindsight, Congresswoman, do you think you would have been better off boycotting the speech like so many other Democratic lawmakers did, or did you do the right thing by actually showing up there?

[Joy Reid]

I. I brought four Minnesotans as guests for the Minnesota delegation. It was important for us to be there to bear witness, to hold the space for our constituents that have lived through an occupation from federal law enforcement, that have been terrorized, that have seen our neighbors been killed and, and traumatized in so many ways. And so, no, I think it was really important from my constituents to see me there. It was really important to my constituents to hear that I was reminding the president that Renee Good and Alex Preddy were killed under this administration. So two different sort of choices of what to do. Show up and protest like Representative Al Green and Ilhan Omar did, and a couple others, or walk out? Well, three choices. Hear what he was saying. Get up and walk out or boycott and don't go at all. Those were the three Options and there were several alternatives. If you wanted option number three alternative State of the Union events. One was the State of the People Power Tour which was online. Roland Martins Black Star Network also did an online alternative. And in person there were events at the National Press Club where Robbie, Rob Streamer and others were and then across the Capitol where Katie Fang and I co hosted the People's State of the Union on the Washington Mall which was co produced by Move on and Midas Touch. About 4 million people and counting have watched it. It was the largest live stream event of last night, larger than the live streams of most of the mainstream media channels. It was very cold, but we had a really nice crowd, big crowd of people. It was done with the support of more than a dozen resistance organizations, including Indivisible and Honestly. This event is where you heard the real State of this Union. As more than 30 House and Senate Democrats gathered, bringing with them either stories like letters from their constituents who'd been impacted by ICE or Medicaid cuts or the end of Obamacare subsidies or doge. There was one elder woman who was essentially losing her housing because of the cuts and losing, losing her health care because of the cut, sorry to Obamacare subsidies, et cetera. Or they actually would bring those constituents with them, like this senior woman, to speak out on their own against the Trump regime. One of the things they talked about was the ignoring of the Epstein victims and their warping of this country into an authoritarian state. I want you all to listen to Representative Robert Garcia referencing the Epstein victims, some of whom were actually brought by members to the State of the Union. They were sitting inside of the speech and here's Representative Garcia. The single most powerful moment tonight is

[Elie Mystal]

going to be when Donald Trump has to look up at the gallery of

[Joy Reid]

the US House and see the survivors

[Elie Mystal]

of Jeffrey Epstein looking straight back at

[Joy Reid]

him, demanding justice, demanding truth and demanding accountability. Needless to say, Donald Trump did not acknowledge those survivors. To our knowledge, he said nothing about them and did not acknowledge them in any way. But I want to play for you guys really quick two of the most searing testimonies that we heard at the People's State of the Union event. In case you missed it, these were of the most sort of high emotional points and really chilling moments for, for those of us who are there. The first of these is Epstein survivor Charlene Rochard. This is about three and a half minutes. Take a listen to Ms. Rochard.

[Charlene Rochard]

My name is Charlene Rochard and I stand before you not just as a survivor, but as a mother. A woman and a citizen who believes deeply in protecting the next generation. People often ask how I found the courage to speak publicly about something so painful. The truth is, I didn't find that courage alone. For years, I carried the weight of my experience in silence. And then a longtime friend, someone who remembered the vivid details of my past interactions with Jeffrey Epstein, encouraged me to reclaim my voice. When I finally stepped forward to tell my truth, I found myself surrounded by a sisterhood of survivors who lifted me up and reminded me that none of us walked this path alone. But I want to be honest about something that rarely gets said out loud. What happened to us didn't end when the abuse ended. Epstein's manipulation and coercive control changed the trajectory of many of our lives. Some of us went from thriving, working hard, building careers, feeling hopeful, to being unable to work at all. Some fell into depression. Some carried shame that was never ours to carry. For many of us, it has taken decades to overcome the impact of what happened, decades to heal, and decades to speak. And that is why I'm here tonight. I am speaking out because the next generation deserves better. Our children deserve a world where powerful people cannot harm others without consequence. They deserve a world where survivors are protected, not punished for telling the truth. They deserve a world where silence is not the price of safety. I also want to say something that often gets lost in the noise. I believe that most of humanity are good people. Compassion, love, and peace are not abstract ideals, but are lived values. I've seen them in the survivors who hold each other up. I've seen them in the advocates who refuse to look away. I've seen them in the people who quietly reach out and say, we believe you. Tonight, as we gather for the people State of the Union, we are reminded that protecting children is not a partisan issue. It's a human one. And it requires all of us, including every community, every family, every survivor, every ally to all states stand together in unity. My hope is simple, that by sharing my story, I help create a space for others to share theirs. And that together, we build a future where no child's life is derailed by someone else's abuse of power, and no survivor has to wait decades to be heard. Thank you for listening. Thank you for believing in survivors, and thank you for standing with us as we fight to protect the next generation.

[Joy Reid]

Joining me now is Elie Mastal justice, correspondent for the Nation, and Wajahat Ali, journalist, author and proprietor of the Left Hook on Substack and scourge of Democratic leaders everywhere. Thank you both for Being here. We're going to talk about that in a minute, Waj, But I do want to ask you both what you made of the, the choices that Democrats made to either attend and protest, skip altogether or walk out. And I will start with you, Wajahat Ali, because the gentleman who we interviewed, very most recently House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, had advised people to stay and not talk and not make noise. A lot of people defied him.

[Wajahat Ali]

Yeah. Hakeem Jeffries decided that the best path forward is to play possum with fascism. And I think we've learned is like, you can't play footsie with fascists because fascists come for everyone. Thank God that you and Katie and others decided to do what I recommended and also our friend Kurt Bardella recommended. Is that the State of the Union response. Abigail Spanberger, she was fine. Nothing really memorable, but she was fine. What they should have done, Joy, is you should have had Ro Khanna, Thomas Massey, perhaps some other Democrats do exactly what you just showed. Have the survivors of Epstein, you know, the rape cabal, and also have some ICE survivors come up and address the nation for 10 minutes. I thought that would have been the most devastating, most powerful response. But instead, Hakeem Jeffries said, don't do anything. And we found out that Greg Kassar and other progressives said, yeah, we tried that last year when we just sat there like morons and just showed our stupid ping pong paddles. Maybe we should do something. So first of all, shout out to Al Green, who understood the assignment two years in a row.

[Joy Reid]

He was the man, folks.

[Wajahat Ali]

70 plus years old with this cane sat there and yelled at Donald Trump last year when he said all the lies about Medicare, Social Security, what happened to Al Green? He was escorted out. Democrats joined Republicans in censuring Al Green. Joy, I always keep the receipts. This year Al Green's like, all right, I got my one moment. Let me use my moment. Black people aren't apes. And the anti cult cancel culture people got rid of him. Hakeem Jeffries sat there stone faced like a mummy. Ilhan Omer, Rashida Tlaib Elise spoke out. What I would have liked them to do, Joy, is if you're going to sit, I would have had them just do one slogan, hold up a sign, release the Epstein files. They didn't even do that, Joy. So that's my response.

[Joy Reid]

And you know, Ellie, I think, you know, it was a, it's a tough case. And I will tell you, both of you, and I can tell the audience of the Chat everyone that I did speak week with a couple members who I will not. I will hold their confidentiality. Who admitted that it was a huge missed opportunity and a mistake last year when everyone didn't walk out with Representative Green. When he walked out, you saw everybody kind of looking away, Ellie, as he was walking by with his cane in his hand, you know, and those who realized that was a mistake, they were with me at the People's State of the Union saying, this is where we need to be, not there. What do you make of it? Four Supreme Court justices, Ellie, did attend the. Of course, John Roberts, as usual, as well as Kavanaugh, of course, Amy Coney Barrett. And Kagan.

[Elie Mystal]

And Kagan.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah.

[Elie Mystal]

Yeah. Look, I, I don't. If Al Green had been shot, would the Democrats have just sat there like, what? The lack of solidarity in this party is disgusting. Their inability to just not even stand for us, to stand for each other. What did Al Green do wrong that required him to be escorted out of the building? He didn't disrupt anything. He held a sign that was parroting back the Republicans own language to them. And for that he gets kicked out of the building. And all the rest of the Democrats who showed up are just like, what can one do? Like, what is that with this party? I truly don't understand. The party insists on treating Donald Trump as if he's a regular president, yet expects us, the voters, to treat him like he's something else.

[Wajahat Ali]

Right?

[Elie Mystal]

The party treats Donald Trump like he's a Democratic president, but then turns around and tells us, the voters, that we should review him as a fascist. You cannot have it both ways. If he is a dangerous fascist, then showing up for his dangerous fascist pep rally is a mistake. If he is not a dangerous fascist and you can just go to his pep rally, then what are you doing telling the voters that he's anything else, that it doesn't, it doesn't connect. And one of the reasons why I think voters and the media do not treat him like the dangerous fascist that he is is because the Democrats refuse to. If the opposition party is not going to do it, why would Pari Weiss, right. Why would cbs, why would anybody else, if his own opposition is just going to sit there, as Wash said, like mummies, and let him do. And let him again, kick black people out of the building just. Just for standing up from themselves? Why would anybody expect anything less? So I think that was the huge mistake on the Democrats part in terms of the Supreme Court. It was interesting that any of them showed up. Right. Because Donald Trump is so very mad at them. I am joy old enough to remember when Barack Obama criticized the Citizens United decision and the Supreme Court basically had a nutty right. Sam Alito. Not true. Just like losing his mind in real time when Barack Obama said that John Roberts. People don't remember this. After the State of the Union where Obama criticized Citizens United, John Roberts found his ass to a microphone, which he usually doesn't do, but somehow he found his way to a microphone to say, it's very troubling when you go to the State of the Union and the President of the United States calls you out. It makes me think that maybe the Supreme Court shouldn't attend these anymore. John Roberts had a nutty over that this time, not two days after, after Roberts, after Trump called Roberts a slime bag, a sleaze ball and suggested that hit, you know, dissed him as a staff label and cre. Two days after that, John Roberts is sitting there taking it all right, Letting Trump just call him everything but the son of God. And he just sits there, doesn't say boo, doesn't find his way to a microphone to say boo. He just sits there and takes it. Boy, ain't that interesting, right? Boy, ain't it interesting that the angry white man can say whatever he wants and John Roberts doesn't say anything. But Barack Obama says one time, you know, that decision wasn't the best. And it's front page news. It's an attack on the Supreme Court. So their internal hypocrisy really struck me by showing up at all and showing up and then not saying anything about the attacks that were levied at them from the podium at the State of the Union.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah. And to go to the point of this not being normal and I just, to me, I think we have to throw out all belief in tradition at this point because as you all have both said so eloquently, Donald Trump is not a president. He's a wannabe dictator. And so why we're treating him like a normal president. This is why I'm not playing him tonight. He, his voice will be silenced. We're doing quiet Piggy night. Piggy gonna be quiet on this two hour show. Okay. Piggy can't talk, but I want to play somebody who we do want to hear from. This was one of honestly, the most emotional moments for all of us. There was very, there was barely a dry eye in the house. And the woman who you guys are going to hear from right now and is Arizona Representative Yasemin Ansari and her Constituent's name is Sonia Almares, whose partner, Adelia Yari Rodriguez Marquez, who is battling cancer and who has lived in the United States for 25 years and who had a green card for two full years, was detained by ICE agents last February. She's been in detention for almost a year simply for visiting Mexico and coming back. Listen to this. It's about three minutes. Take a listen.

[Mo Ivory]

Congresswoman Yasmin Ansari. I'm proud to represent Phoenix, Glendale and Guadalupe in the U.S. house of Representatives. And tonight it is my absolute honor to be standing here with Sonia Almerez. Sonia's loved one is Yadi. Yadi is a lawful permanent resident, a green card holder who was stripped of her legal status by Donald Trump's racist mass deportation agenda. For over a year, Yadi has been locked up at the Eloy Detention center in Arizona. Yadi has leukemia. When I visited her, she was too weak to stand. When I sat with her, I watched her vomit blood. And tonight, while Yadi suffers in detention, Donald Trump stands before Congress and lies to the American people. Donald Trump claims he is going after the worst of the worst, and that is a lie. Yachty has no criminal record. Meanwhile, this administration and the Republican enablers In Congress handed ICE a 75 billion dollar slush fund to terrorize our communities with no accountability. And let's be clear about who built this machine. Stephen Miller built. Stephen Miller, the most awful human being architected this cruel immigration agenda from the ground up. It is an agenda rooted in fear, rooted in hatred and the belief that some people simply do not belong. Mass agents, violent raids without transparency, communities living in fear. That is not public safety, that is authoritarianism. Now I want to turn it over to Sonia, who I've gotten to know through this horrific experience, to share your and Yadi's story.

[Joy Reid]

Thank you, Congresswoman Ansari. I'm honored to stand with you tonight to expose transrael's State of the Union. Yaddy is not a criminal. And for a year now, I have had to watch my help, my health, her healthy. I am so sorry. For a year now, I have had to watch her health deteriorate at the hands of ice. Gaddy has lost over £70. She's been coughing up blood for months on daily basis. Now. She's too weak to stand. She has been diagnosed with lymphedema and arthritis on top of her cancer and now relies on a walker just to move. Her suffering is preventable, yet ICE has denied the basic medical care. Yari Esuna companeira amorosa amiga Y miembro de la comunidad que merese dignidad umana. We demand her medical release immediately. Let us get her back to hell

[Lifelock Representative]

so she can continue to fight her immigration case.

[Mo Ivory]

Free, Yachty,

[Joy Reid]

free. Yeah, Ellie, how is that legal? She's. She's not a criminal. She's not been convicted of a crime. She's been effectively in a concentration camp for a year.

[Elie Mystal]

Yeah, none of it is legal, but everything is allowed because nobody will stop them. I mean, it's as simple as that. There's no there, there. There's no there. There's no constitutional reason for her to be held. There are tons of statutes and, and, and, and humanitarian exceptions that will allow somebody to get medical treatment if they need to. Certainly if, oh, I don't know, a rich white banker was in that situation, they'd be released in order to get medical treatment. So there are numerous humanitarian statutes, exceptions available to handle the situation. It's not happening because the people who are running this country are evil. There really are. There are two Americas right there. There's the America that can listen to that, that can look at that and just not care and just move on with their lives, move on with their tax cuts, move on with current. Concerning themselves only about the price of their own eggs. And there's the part of America that says that's wrong. We should do something about it. There's the part of America that. That feels empathy for that woman and wants. I think the word that really stuck out to me is the suffering is preventable.

[Joy Reid]

Yep.

[Elie Mystal]

And there is an America that wants to prevent suffering. And there's an America that revels in the suffering of other. There's. There's an America that is titillated by the suffering of others. And those Americans are the ones in charge right now. And that's why this happens.

[Joy Reid]

I mean, Waj, it seems to me that I think you both have made this point so, so, so beautifully. You can't normalize an administration that would put people with cancer in a concentration camp. Like, I don't know where to begin. You know, I mean, between that and the Epstein situation, you have foreign governments that are managing to lock people up for just being, you know, in community with Epstein, being friends with him. There's a guy named Peter Mendelsohn who is out of his gig in Britain. You know, they're. They're. They're locking people up who just had some sort of relationship with him in this country. Donald Trump apparently has been scrubbed from the records. I'm sorry. Three Interviews with an, with the FBI, with an alleged victim of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein has been scrubbed from the records, despite the FBI apparently interviewing this woman four times who claimed that Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein abused her when she was 14 years old. So in our country, Donald Trump is just walking around being president and there's a woman out there who claims that he sexually abused her when she was 14. And, and the FBI and the DOJ is covering it up.

[Wajahat Ali]

Well, what does it say about a country, Joy, that we just heard last night from a man who was held liable for sexually assaulting Eugene Carroll, was held liable for defaming her, incited a violent insurrection, pardoned the insurrectionist, was held liable for fraud, created a charity to defraud people, created a university to defraud people, and, and is a convicted criminal, a man who partied with the world's most notorious pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein called him his closest friend. We have all the photos, we have the evidence. We know. Now, according to that story that Roger Sullenberger, investigative journalist last week found, is that in the Epstein files, folks, the Department of Justice in the year 2025, just last year, did an internal 21 page slideshow discussing this victim, this credible witness that they interviewed four times. This woman claims that in the 80s, she was 13 to 15 years old, Donald Trump tried to force her to perform oral sex on his fragility, his pathetic member. She bit it, he punched her. And she then later, after Jeffrey Epstein was arrested in 2019, then approached a friend, tipped off and said, oh, I think my friend here is a victim. They interviewed her four times, folks, four times. They scrubbed three of the four summaries. They only released one. Furthermore, they haven't mentioned why they have scrubbed three of the four summapers. And I'll also put you, this is another data point, Joy. She was interviewed four times after her second interview. Three days after her second interview, you know who was found dead in a cell? Jeffrey Epstein. You know, a day after the FBI inputted her interview in the FBI database, a day after Jeffrey Epstein was found dead. So I'm just putting it out there. She's a credible witness. Just because she's credible doesn't mean what she's saying is true. But the FBI found her to be credible. Four times she was interviewed in 2021, the Epstein Estate settled with this victim. A settlement is not admission of guilt, but it is important to know that they settled with her. And furthermore, we still have no plausible explanation. Heard all the explanations from the DOJ and Trump Administration, none of it makes sense as to why, oh, why they have scrubbed three of these four summaries of their interview. Why, oh, why have you not released it? If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to lose. When we have a credible witness saying that Donald Trump and Epstein sexually assaulted this girl in the 80s, you interviewed her four times. You did an internal slideshow presentation of the DOJ. Where are the files? If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to lose. But I'll go ahead and say and speculate if, indeed in her interviews she mentioned Donald Trump. Well, Joy, wouldn't you want to cover that up?

[Joy Reid]

Yeah, if they're Donald Trump, I mean, and it appears that that is kind of what happened. And last night, Ellie, to these points, Representative SUMMER LEE. We won't play it because we, we don't have the time to really play the full clip, but she said she would like to impeach Pam Bondi. And when I put this together, she's going to introduce articles of impeachment to actually go ahead and impeach Pam Bondi. And I'm wondering if maybe Cash Patel ought to get it, too, because Cash Patel is in charge of the FBI. If those FBI interviews that wa just described, those still, still exist, he has them, maybe he should be impeached, too.

[Elie Mystal]

Maybe we should ask the US Hockey team, men's national hockey team, if they've got the files because they've been partying with Cash so much. Look, yeah, obviously impeaching, but I think impeaching Bambondi is the right way to go. She's not just terrible at her jobs. She's violated the law. The arrest of Don Lemon, the Lemon is a clear violation of the First Amendment. Like she, she should go. Impeachment is the way, unfortunately, you're not, you're not going to get Republicans involved on board. You're not even going to get Republicans on board for most of the crap that Donald Trump was talking about last night. I mean, most of the things he said in a normal country would require congressional approval, but in this country, he's just going to do it by executive fiat while Mike Johnson sits there and claps like a trained seal, but doesn't actually do his job. So the inability of Congress writ large to do their jobs, to do their constitutional responsibilities, in terms of curtailing the power of the criminal president, is one of the biggest stories of our era, is one of the causes of our error. Congress is not powerless. They are in a state of learned helplessness. Both the Republicans and the Democrats, they're in a state of learned helplessness that allows Trump to do so much of what we see him do Alien style

[Joy Reid]

and watch a hot Ali. I appreciate you both. Thank you for being here. We'll bring you back often. Maybe also be maybe kind of because it annoys the leadership.

[Wajahat Ali]

Well, I, I, I, you know what? They're never gonna talk to me again, Joy. So after that, so maybe as long as they keep talking to you, I'm happy they ain't talking to me ever again.

[Elie Mystal]

Nobody returns my calls. I don't even try anymore.

[Joy Reid]

The game, I think the team Jeffries,

[Wajahat Ali]

they printed out my photo and they just use it as a guard practice.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah. You know when you go to the store and there's like the people who stole and they won't let them back in the store. Your picture is, is definitely posted in the leader's office and you ain't getting near him. Never again, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever again.

[Wajahat Ali]

Joy, I asked real quick, I asked him why, you know, we, we reach out to elected officials. They've come on the left hook. They come on your show after that interview. They at least used to respond to me. They used to say, no, we're busy. Now it's just like, who you. Maybe Hassan? You're not Maidy Huss.

[Joy Reid]

It's called the watch effect, because I'll tell y', all, we ain't getting our calls returned either. But it's all good. We get once in a while, one of them will sneak on here and take the opportunity. We appreciate everyone who's brave enough to come on and answer the questions. That is kind of their job, you know, I mean, they're public servants. Yeah.

[Wajahat Ali]

And can I just say, Joy, I just want to say this is important for people. We didn't tag team on Hakeem Jeffries. Joy invited me. She said, I'm going to ask him about ice. We said, great. Joy gave him three layups. She did two follow ups. Then I did a follow up. I think I gave him a meatball on a plate. And I thought, Joy, he would say, this is why I'm not for abolish ice. Let me explain to you, but the disconnect with the Democratic Party and the base, what he said, he got angry. He got more angry at me, Joy, than he did at Donald Trump.

[Elie Mystal]

Wouldn't you want to see that type

[Wajahat Ali]

of anger of Hakeem Jeffries against Donald Trump last night that he showed me in my very legitimate question as to why he doesn't embrace abolish ICE and why he still takes money from aipac.

[Joy Reid]

That is what I think the base wants to see. I'll give Ellie one more comment because here, because I do have this question, because abolish ICE scares Democrats so badly and I'm not sure why. I did speak with, you know, one United States senator last night who actually is for abolishing ICE and, and is very lonely in that quest. Democrats are very scared of it. Do you understand why that might be, Ellie? Yeah.

[Elie Mystal]

Besides the Democrats natural ability to be scared of their own shadow, it's because Democrats believe that their way to victory is convincing fascist, racist Trump voters that the Democratic Party will give them almost everything that Trump gets them, just without some of the racial slurs, like that's, they think that's their path to victory. They don't think that their path to victory is motivating people who are already Democrats to come out and vote for them. And that, that is their fundamental disconnect. Abolishing ICE is what their base wants. The Democrats don't like their base. They'd rather have Trump's fringes.

[Wajahat Ali]

Right.

[Elie Mystal]

They want Trump's sloppy seconds as opposed to the good Democrats sitting at home. And that is why they fail. I mean, and it's, and this is not the first time. This is, this is a consistent problem with the Democratic party in my 47 years on this good earth. They consistently want what Trump, what the Republicans have instead of being happy with what they have at home. And that's why they lose.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah. Ellie Misal and Wajahad Ali, thank you all very much. I went a little over time with y' all because I just can't get enough of. You guys are great. Thank you very much. I appreciate you both. Thank you. And I just want to let you know just a couple of these headlines before we bring in our next guest. Cash Patel apparently used the luxury jets for the FBI so so much that the jets were not available to use when they were trying to solve the Brown University mass shooting. Because he had the jet. Much as he likes to vacation in Europe and fly private in the private jet, he used it for that as well. And the person I was mentioning earlier, Peter Mandelson, is a former British ambassador to the United States. Arrested, arrested of suspicion of misconduct in public office over his dealings with Jeffrey Epstein. There you go with that real quick. Before we bring in our guests, I want to note that the Joy Read show is not possible without our amazing sponsors. And this episode of the Joy Read show is brought to you by our friends at Helix. So our question how are you navigating this chilly cold season? You must be spending more time indoors because it's freezing, potentially in your bedroom. Staying comfortable inside of your Helix mattress one way to make your life better. For those of you who are who have a Helix, you already know that it is a huge key to getting better sleep. There's a good night's sleep. It sets you up for a great day. So if you've had sleep issues and I myself side sleeper, that numb arm in the morning, not fun sleep on your back, you get a leg cramp like it's a terrible thing. You've got to have a great mattress in order to solve these problems. To get to a better sleep, start by taking the Helix Sleep quiz. It matches you with the perfect mattress based on your personal preferences, your sleep needs, side sleeper, back sleeper, front sleeper, whatever it is. They also offer you free shipping and seamless delivery. Helix will deliver your new mattress right to your door with all the free shipping and get it right to you. There's a happy with Helix guarantee which says you will rest easy with seamless returns and exchanges. It means it's a risk free customer first experience design to ensure that you are super satisfied with your new mattress. It's 120 night sleep trial and limited lifetime warranty. It's brilliant. A study says has found that 82% of those who sleep on a Helix can get better sleep, increase their deep sleep cycle because they're sleeping on that Helix mattress. If you want to try it, go to helix sleep.com joy for 27% off site wide this offer is exclusive to our TJRS audience. So helix sleep.com/join 27% off site wide be sure to use our show name the Joy Reid show at checkout so they know that we sent you. All right, let's let's bring in our next guest. Join me now is Maya Wiley, President and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and human rights and Mo Ivory, the Fulton county commissioner representing District 4 and a candidate for chair of the Fulton County Commission. She appeared today before the Senate Rules Committee Spotlight Forum examining ongoing threats to election administration across this country. Thank you both for being here. And I want to start with you, Commissioner Ivory. What did you say and what were you asked?

[Maya Wiley]

Yeah.

[Mo Ivory]

Thank you so much, Joy. It was quite a day today. I went to the Senate Rules Committee on invitation from Chairman Padilla and to talk about what happened in Fulton county and the implications that it has for the rest of the country. So I was so happy to see of course my Hometown Senators John Ossoff and Senator Raphael Warnock were there and we had a chance to have great conversation. Also Senator Klobuchar, Senator Cantwell, Cortez, Masto, Durbin, Welch. A lot came through and really wanted to know about what that day was like on January 28th when the FBI raided Fulton county elections.

[Joy Reid]

So what was it like? Tell, tell us, what was it like?

[Mo Ivory]

Yeah, it was tense. I mean, I, it was started around 11 o' clock in the morning and I got a text from our county manager that there was FBI raid at the elections hub. And I instantly got in my car, I live about 30 minutes from the election hub. And I went down there and I was the first commissioner to be there to arrive. And it was very tense. There was not a lot of conversation. I would say there were probably about 40 FBI agents. There was not a lot of conversation like, you know, what are you doing? It was just like, stay away. And they made it clear that they were there for the 2020 ballots and the accompanying materials. So that's really what happened. The first. I think I told you before that the first warrant was legally, procedurally incorrect. They served it on the registrations and elections director instead of, instead of our clerk of Superior Court, who was the custodian of those documents. Once they got that right, you know, they went in and they just took 656 boxes on 24 pallets.

[Joy Reid]

And Maya Wiley, thank you for being here. And what are your concerns? You zoom out from a civil rights point of view, the, you know, sequestration of ballots with dubious explanation as to why, and also having the National Security advisor lurking in the, in the shadows during.

[Maya Wiley]

Well, I'm just going to quote Jack Smith, who was the special counsel that investigated Donald Trump and his campaign's efforts to steal the 2020 election. I mean, he called Georgia ground zero in their investigation. He talked about the substantial evidence that they had because they had Republicans, including the then Secretary of State, Raffsenberger, who said, look, it was all good. We're talking about an attempt to block black people in places where there are a lot of black people or Latinos, people of color, from having their votes count. And even more insidious, using it to drive a falsehood that says that some, somehow we, the citizens of this country who look like us, all of us who are on this, in this conversation, that somehow we are the people who should be feared by voters when we are those voters, because rather than earning our votes, they'd rather steal them.

[Joy Reid]

The other concern, I have to stay with you for a moment, Maya, is this Save America act, which the Republican kind of base, this very online part of their base has basically said is a must have in order to get any voter turnout at all. They're essentially threatening not to show up if this thing doesn't pass the House and Senate. It's at the Senate now. Did ask some senators about it last night. They seem pretty confident right now that they've stopped it for now. But I just want to put up on the screen for everybody who's really still not clear on it because a lot of people think it's just voter ID and that it may not be that big of a deal. This is B2, Jason, when you, when you can grab that. And for a lot of people they think, well, it's just voter id, right? So that it may not be so bad. But what it does is it restricts the kinds of voter ID that you can use and to kinds of voter ID that some people don't have, like a passport and things that people might not have. It also requires proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. And again, you know, probably more than 40% of Americans don't really have proof of citizenship. If people live on indigenous reservations, they may not have some of these documents either. It requires states to frequently purge their voter rolls, including to remove so called inactive voters. That can mean you just didn't vote in the last election or two and then you get purged and maybe don't know it. It requires every state, this one is pretty scary, to hand their voter rolls over to Chris D. She would get to see every state's voter rolls. It increases the harassment and intimidation potential of election officials by adding a private right of action, meaning any citizen can sue election officials whom they believe have registered a non, a non citizen to vote. And includes criminal penalties for election officials who accidentally register a non citizen to vote. So it's not just saying you have to have an idea to show up to vote, Maya. It's a hell of a lot more.

[Maya Wiley]

Yeah, well, this is why so many people have called it the Jim Crow Act. I mean, this is just a way of saying we're going to celebrate next weekend the crossing of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. We represent, represent John Lewis and so many other civil rights activists who literally were bludgeoned to prevent their demand for the right to have our citizen rights recognized, including the right to vote. The reason I'm making that connection is because it's not just history. We increased the ability of black people, of all people of Color to vote when they were lawfully allowed because we passed the Vote Voting Rights Act. This is literally an end run around it. This is a way of saying, we're going to make it so hard for you and we're really going to target people who we can easily target by just claiming somehow you haven't demonstrated your citizenship. Think about Kristi Noem right now. Think about this conversation we're having around ice. ICE is literally racially profiling. It's literally. I love the fact, Commissioner, that you really called out today, the fact that you are an Afro Latina, that you have a heritage that is diverse and one to be proud of. And yet the. The assumption that we are not citizens based on how we look, how we appear, when this is a diverse nation is also part of what the stealing of data, of looking at ways to claim that people who are not citizens. Citizens. Are voting are actually targeting people of color. But I also want us to say another thing. We should not allow this lie that somehow a voter ID is not a problem, to not be a big problem, because that's one of the things they're trying to drive in their narrative. But look, the reason we started getting voter ID laws was because Barack Obama won an election in 2008 with a diverse coalitional electorate that. That looked like America. And so suddenly we started hearing the claims that our elections could not be trusted and that people needed IDs to prove that they were citizens. This was a concerted strategy and effort. So we shouldn't allow them to normalize this voter ID demand when what it has done is made it significantly more difficult for people, particularly who are black, particularly who are Latino, particularly who are Asian American, Native American, but also for students who are young, for the elderly, for people who have disabilities, to actually cast a ballot even though they are lawfully required. And to tell us that we should not trust our state elections administration, which is exactly what we're here to talk about. Just how it needs to be nonpartisan and how they're trying to drive distrust to steal it.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah. And just for those in the audience who may, you know, doubt what Maya is saying, one of the things they don't allow are student IDs, right. So if you're a student in college, you would not be able to use your student ID to vote. Tribal ID would basically be disallowed because the ID that would be allowed would have to have an expiration date on it. Most tribal IDs don't have an expiration date. So think about this for a Moment. Indigenous people, the original people who own the country, who used to be 100% of the people here, who are now 1.7% because they killed them all those people would have trouble being able to vote. And I will note that Kristi Noem was not able to access the tribal lands in her own state when she was governor because she had so offended the tribal nations in her state that they said, you can't even walk on our land. But that lady would get to have the voter rolls, including in her home. Former state commissioner Ivory in the state of Georgia, because this is one of the places that they insisted that it was stolen because all these non citizens and these false people who put in absentee ballots voted in Fulton County. You live in Georgia. What do you make of the fact that it seems that there was a foreigner who did commit voter fraud in the state of Georgia and it is Elon Musk who appears to have his super PAC that he had and owned or at least was associated with and funded, sent in pre filled absentee ballots, lots of them. And now they've been sent a strongly worded letter and I think a fine. What do you make of that? Because that seems like voter fraud. Well, yeah.

[Mo Ivory]

I mean I think that when we talk about the idea of voter fraud and what has actually been proven to to have been photo for, there's like none in Georgia. The idea that there's all these illegal, illegals voting in Georgia has never been true. It's actually not even been true across the country. Today in the rules committee we talked about what that percentage is and it's like 01. That's so ma mathematically minute that it wouldn't even serve to try to fix that problem, which is what they're basing their entire save act on. So could it be true that Elon Musk was doing things with all of the technology that he has access to? Of course. That's probably where we should really be looking at the fraud. Right. But to say that they need this voter. It's not really a voter ID law as much as it's going to just prevent people from registering to vote at all. Right. Because they're going to believe they don't have the right documents for it. They're not even going to try to do it. This is all a part of the concerted effort to get a narrative going that just scares people into not wanting to go vote. All this is is voter suppression. You know, 2.0, Jim Crow, 2.0 scare people. What we found is first of all Fulton county elections are secure and safe and always have been, including in 2020 and 2024, which they never seem to want to know about. Right? No problems in 2024?

[Joy Reid]

Apparently not. It was all safe and secure and all worked perfectly fine magically in 2024.

[Mo Ivory]

And now all of a sudden, two years later, we're in a crisis again because we don't know how to do elections. You know, it's a bunch of bull. And what I know about. And this is what I told the rules committee today, and I sent a message straight to Donald Trump. You know, we in. We in Fulton county, we're used to this, right? We're used to the voter suppression tactics. Atlantans know that they are targeted. We know that when people in Fulton county show up to vote, we change the outcomes in Georgia. But we also know how to protect our votes.

[Maya Wiley]

Road.

[Mo Ivory]

And we are not going to allow this president to keep us down, to deter us, to make us feel like we can't fight back. We are strong. We are determined. And in Fulton county, the south got something to say. So we said it today, and we'll be at the polls, and that's where we'll see you when early voting starts on April 27th and then May 19th for our primary.

[Joy Reid]

Look at that. See, I love that. And, Maya, you know, I. I have said this before, and I will say it again. A lot of people think that the way that you prevent votes is that you, like, rig the machines, right? But that's like the more complicated way, because a lot of times the people. Machines aren't networked. There's a lot of people who are suspicious because it's a machine. But the easiest way to steal an election is just don't let people register or take them off the rolls. That is what Brian Kemp did. Brian Kemp was like, as soon as Stacey Jim's organization would register him, he would. Because he was the guy in charge, he would take him off the rolls. You think you're registered, you show up and you're not. If you do a thing where you say you are named Joan Smith and then you marry a man named Jones, and now you're Joan Jones. I don't believe that's your name because you weren't born Joan Jones. All you have to do is say, I'm taking your name off the rolls until you prove to me that your real name is Joan Jones, right, then that person is stopped before they even get a chance to play with the machine. Isn't that the. What they're trying to do? They're trying to do what Brian Kemp did, but on an industrial scale.

[Mo Ivory]

Listen, they're just trying to duplicate. I'm sorry, Maya. I'm gonna say that SB202 was done to do that right after 20. 2020, which was to take away the ability to give people water at the polls, right? To be able to give them snacks so that it would be harder for you to stand in line. Right? All these very simple tactics that make people go, oh, you know what? I don't know if I want to be out there for eight hours. All of these things are voter suppression tactics. And you don't have to rig machines like you said. You just have to do simple things that hurt people's lives, make them late to work, all of these things. And that's what they continue to do in Georgia. But we will not be deterred.

[Joy Reid]

Amen, Maya.

[Maya Wiley]

Amen. Look, you said it much better than I could. Commissioner Ivory, I just want to add a little fact here to remember Harmeet Dillon, who is the head of the Civil Rights Division that was gutted of its voting rights lawyers. We had former lawyers from Department of Justice literally writing a letter saying that they dropped, remember, on that same law that you just. That you just heard the commissioner talk about, they have substantial evidence of how it was discriminating against people. And this administration, this regime, which is what we really should call it, just dropped the lawsuit. Just dropped it. So they're actually hell bent on not utilizing the enforcement power they are supposed to use to protect our rights to vote. And instead, they are turning the guns of government against our own very citizens. And. And I just want to say that, Commissioner Ivory, that was a mic drop, because the point is they can't do it when we're united. And we just make sure our people are protected, know what their rights are and know their power because the only reason they're trying to steal it is because we have it.

[Mo Ivory]

That's right. And you have the power of your vote. He can't take it away from you. He can't take your grandmama, your auntie, your baby mama. Nobody's right. You get together, you go vote. That's how we fight him.

[Joy Reid]

Amen. Amen. Amen. We're going to definitely drop. What is the website, because I know you are running for commissioner. Commissioner Ivory. Tell me what it is.

[Mo Ivory]

Yeah, please follow me at the moivory on IG and go to moivory.com.

[Joy Reid]

absolutely. And of course, Maya Wiley. We know we're all going to. We're going to put the link down there to the. To. To your incredible civil rights organization, because we want to make sure that everybody follows a leadership conference on civil and human rights because they're in this fight. Fight to win it. Thank you both, ladies. We appreciate you both. Thank you. Thank you, Joy. Thank you very much. Well, see, there you go. Mike's just dropping, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And yes, and that is the way that they're trying to steal the election in November is to. They're not even getting to the point where you can use the machines. They want to discourage you at the voter registration end, where you think, wow, I got to come up with all this paperwork. I got to go get my birth certificate. Oh, my God, I'm married. I got to go find my marriage certificate, my birth certificate, my passport. I got to apply for a passport. It's $120. They could deny your passport because it's the Trump regime that determines if you get it. And they want you to just say, you know what? It's too much trouble. Let me just. Let me just skip it. That's what they're doing. This is their way of trying to discourage people because in their minds, they think the people who will give up more easily and get more discouraged are black, brown, Aapi, indigenous young people, students, the kind of people who tend to vote not Republican. Ding. That's what they're doing. So even if they didn't rig the machines, and a lot of people are starting to think they may have done, Elon Musk didn't even have to rig the machines if he sent in hundreds, Maybe if his organization was sending in pre filled absentee ballots. Who are those people who signed those attestations? What happened with those ballots? Why did they take those voter rolls from 2020? Those absent those ballots from 2020. What are they doing, though? It's a question. It's the stuff you have to ask. I want to big up our other sponsors because this show could not be possible without our amazing sponsors. This is one of my favorite ones because this is one that is actually delicious and we love a delicious sponsor. This show is brought to you by our friends at Mosh. Okay, fellow oldie Goldies and Jason saying, speak for yourself, and I say oldie Goldies. But the reality is, seriously, the older that I get, the more I myself am wanting to be more intentional about the way I live, the way I take care of my body, and yes, the way I eat. Because you know what they say, you are what you eat. So it's not a Bad idea to find yourself something to eat. Something to put a little snack in your tummy that gives you protein and other good stuff to make you feel great as well as something that tastes good. Enter Mosh bars. So Mosh, which you may have heard about on Oprah's Favorite Things, was founded by the great Maria Shriver and her son Patrick Schwarzenegger Arnold son 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 others who are dealing with this debilitating disease. Mosh joined forces with the world's top scientists and functional nutritionists to go beyond average protein bars. Each mash bar is made with ingredients that support brain health like ashwagandha and lion's mane and collagen and omega threes. Plus this game changing brain boosting ingredient that you will not find in any other snack bar. Mosh is the first and only food brand that contains cognizant. It's a premium nootropic that supplies the brain with a patented form of cytokine, cetacholine. Cetacholine. I don't, I normally can't pronounce this stuff. So Mosh bars actually taste great. They come in nine delicious flavors including three new plant based flavors. Jackie Reed Chocolate chip cookie, Hazelnut Chocolate chip cookie and Peanut chocolate chip. But here's the best way to make you feel good. Mosh will donate a portion of all proceeds from your order to fund gender based brain health research through the women's Alzheimer's movement. And why gender based? Because two thirds of all Alzheimer's patients happen to be women. So Masha is working closely to close the gap between women and men's health research. So even this is the best part of all. You can do all that stuff and also enjoy what you're eating, which never hurts. So if you want to find ways to give back to others and fuel your body and your brain. Mosh bars Perfect choice. And here's how you can do that. And try it. You can head to moshlife.com joy save 20% off plus free shipping on the best sellers Trial pack or the new plant based trial pack that is 20% off plus free shipping on either the Bestsellers Trial pack or the plant based Trial pack. You just go to mo s h l I f e.com moshlife.com/joy simple thank you very much for sponsoring this episode. Okay, we have played a lot of sound for you tonight. But I want you guys to listen to another powerful. Actually, before I get to that, Jason, since we have a little, tiny, tiny, tiny bit of time, would you mind going back and can we possibly play?

[Elie Mystal]

Okay, I just deleted him.

[Joy Reid]

Oh, you lead them.

[Elie Mystal]

Okay. Which ones?

[Joy Reid]

Oh, if we can play Summer Lee, because I love what she said, and I just think it would be great to hear her if potentially could. All right, this is Summer Lee saying she's going to impeach Bambondi.

[Lifelock Representative]

Corporations get more say in our democracy than the people we elect. Where the government would rather protect powerful people and the Epstein files and the women and the girls who were sexually abused. We live in a country where we have one reality for everyday people and another for the rich and the well connected and the well protected. We have to change that. We have to meet the moment with bold policies that level the playing field and deliver justice, no matter how much money you have to your name. That's why earlier today, I announced that I'll be introducing articles of impeachment against Pam Bondi. Trump's DOJ continues to obstruct justice and refusing to comply with our subpoena to release the full unredacted Epstein fouls. Bondi must be held accountable for that. And let's not forget it was Trump who said it first. Release the fouls. So we'll keep that call up no matter what. Because where I come from in Western Pennsylvania, we know what it means to be abandoned by politicians who make big promises and lie and deliver nothing. We know what it's like when the factories close, when the hospitals cut services, when the schools can't afford to teach, when the corporations are given permission to poison our water, our air, and our communities without consequences. And we know that no matter what language you speak, what zip code you live in, we all feel that pain. And we are all being said, squeezed by the same rigged system. So when Trump points the fingers at immigrants or trans kids or protesters or journalists understand what he's doing. He's trying to make sure we never point the finger where it belongs, at the billionaires and the corporations looting our economy, robbing our people, and buying our democracy right for address. But here is the truth.

[Joy Reid]

So Summer Lee did that. And by the way, that coat was bad. You can't see it in that close up. That was a bad coat, y'. All. That coat was amazing. And, Jason, if we could grab one more. This is B1. This is Kelly Robinson, who is the first queer woman to be president of the Human Rights Campaign. She Also gave a barn burner of a speech. If she ever decides to run for office, this should be her stump speech.

[Lifelock Representative]

Because I gotta remind this country that lesbian, gay, bi, trans and queer people, we've always been here and we're not going anywhere. This is our country, too. This is our country too. We have paid for it in funerals, in freedom songs, in court cases, in classroom battles. When I say this is our country, I'm saying it with my whole chest. And once again, we are here to defend what is ours. Because, my friends, these are not ordinary times. There's nothing ordinary about this president removing the pride flag from Stonewall. There's nothing ordinary about them cutting billions of dollars from HIV prevention and throwing it into building more ICE detention facilities. We need health care. We need food. We don't need mass incarceration. And there's certainly nothing ordinary about this government murdering United States citizens. Renee Good should still be alive. Alex Preddy should still be alive. Reuben Ray Martinez, Dr. Linda, Keith Porter Jr. And all the other people have died in ICE custody. Should still be alive. These right here are serious times that requires serious leadership. And if that leadership isn't going to come from the White House, it sure as hell going to come from people like us gathered like this to create change and fight for freedom and not give up on our country. Isn't that right? So I want to say this. I pray that one day my children will grow up in a world where they feel just as safe surrounded by the American flag as they do when they are surrounded, surrounded by pride flags. And the only way that that day will come is if we show out and vote this November.

[Joy Reid]

If we. Amen to that. Because if we don't. Country gone. I want to report from our wonderful producers in the background here just sent me this clip. The Trump administration considers forcing banks to verify customers citizenship. Well, how's that going to work? Because Donald Trump's got all his Saudi and Qatari friends banking in the United States. Are they now going to have to go through and kick Donald Trump's Saudi friends out of the banks here? You know how many people from foreign countries bank in the United States? You're going to limit banking in the United States to only US Citizens? Donald, are you that stupid? Do you want to end all investment in the United States? This on top of your 15% tariff for the entire planet? What is wrong with this person? This man is brain addled. You're going to now force banks to verify the citizenship of the people who bank in the bank? That doesn't even make sense. You can open up a bank account in the Caribbean if you're American. Should these Caribbean countries bar Americans for putting money in their banks? What is wrong with these people? But yes, the speeches last night were absolutely epic. We just showed you a small piece of it if you want to watch the entire thing. It. It is posted right here on the the Derby Turf Channel. It's also posted on Substack. People were so fired up. A little bit later, I'm going to play you my response to some of the trolls, because a couple of trolls showed up, but it was very minimal trolling. There was a few people who showed up trying to be trolls. But the reality is there is a lot of passion right now about ending this nightmare. People are passionate about putting a stop to this insanity that is happening in the country. They want things to change. They want a country that's reasonable, that makes sense. That's not crazy. That's not a villain throughout the world. That's not harming people. You know, like that is not too much to ask. I think that the American people deserve to have a country that is sane and that is not seen by the rest of the world as a threat and where everyone in the country feels welcomed. And I will tell you this, it is not just Trump. It's the reason we don't have to play him anymore. It's beyond Trump now. It's bigger than Trump now. There's a Best Western next door. It's above him now. There are millions of our fellow Americans who want this crap, who are fascists. We ran into some of them last night. Fascism is not just Hitler at the top, it's the fascists down below. And there are two layers of these Trumpers. There's the layer of them who just go along and vote Republican because they're Republicans, or they just go along and vote Republican because they think tax cuts are coming and they don't really care and they don't have that much passion. But then there's that other layer. There's the ones who are obsessed with Trump, who are obsessed with him, who think that he's their savior, who think that he's their religious savior, who go out there thinking that they've absolutely got to defend him at all costs, as if he's personally glorified and personally gratified when they do it, that when they come and yell at me, suddenly Donald Trump is going to notice them and Donald Trump is going to elevate them. Donald Trump doesn't even know who they are. And doesn't care what they say. When you're out there praising Trump and licking his boots with all your might, Donald Trump does not know you or care about you. You think that yelling at me from a stage somehow makes Trump love you? He's never going to love you, maga. He will never love you. He doesn't know who you are and doesn't care and is just going to raise your prices and slap tariffs on your stuff and he doesn't care about you. He's going to try to make you buy a $400 Trump watch. They don't care, but they think that Trump cares and that he loves them. And then this is their savior. He think they think he's like what people think of Jesus as their savior, that he somehow personally loves and cares for them and that they need to go out there and fight for him. These people. It was cold last night and you're telling me that you left your warm house to come out in the cold with a bunch of people you hate to yell at me and somehow you think that does what? Trump is going to see that and go, oh my God, Joe Schlebotnik loves me. Joe Schlebotnik cares about me. Let me elevate Joe Schlopotnik and give him cash Patel's job in his private plane. No belt. I don't know who you are, you fools. Most maga. I'm sorry. You're fools. You are fools. Fools. You're fools for love. Donald Trump is never going to love you, marry you, be your boyfriend. You can lick his boots all you want. All he's going to do is not even say thank you and walk back off, step in the mud again and come back and make you lick him again, you boot licking idiots. Let's do one more ad before we get to our next break. Because they're not just doing damage just in this country. These policies that are being pursued by this regime are actually harming the whole planet. And that is why it's so important to have organizations that are doing the work that we used to do with organizations like USAID and one of those organizations that's doing God's work on this earth, which is the kind of thing that we as the United States used to do, is a wonderful company called MSI Reproductive Choices. Now the folks over at MSI Reproductive Choices shared with me that the number one reason that their supporters donate to them is because they want women to have the choice to that comes with access to contraception. Now, if you agree that Women everywhere in the year of our Lord 2026 ought to be able to access modern, safe contraception to prevent pregnancies that they don't want, can't afford and aren't healthy enough to withstand. This is a nonprofit that really could use your help if you think adolescent girls should know how their bodies actually work and have access to contraception so they can stay in school and not become a statistic. Of the 4 million girls in sub Saharan Africa whose educations get cut off abruptly when they get pregnant, this is where to give. You will have huge impact for every dollar that you Give. For just $39, you can give six women contraception for a full year. That's 39 bucks for an entire year for six women to live their lives, finish their education, start a job, start a business, and then when they're ready to start a family, they're actually ready. So if you want to help them, you can go to MSI United States.org to make a donation. That's M for modern, S for safe, I for informed. You MSI United States.org or the easiest way to do it is just text read Reid, Jason, my surname to 511-511. So if you text read to 511-511 or go to MSI United States.org that is how you can help out. Now just remember, if you do the text option, text fees may apply. So I want to play you guys one more piece of sound which was another really, really, really powerful moment last night. And that is let me go here and make sure I'm telling you exactly what it is. I'm going to give you their exact name of this, of this person and his name is Mohsen Madawi. Mohsen Madawi. Now, he is a Columbia University student who was arrested and detained by masked ICE agents. You've heard this story before. Not just him, multiple people this has happened to. And he was detained after his naturalization interview in Vermont. He went to do it the right way and got detained at his naturalization interview. He was eventually released from detention while his case proceeds. But in releasing him, US District Judge, Judge Jeffrey Crawford said that Madawi's two week detention and this is a quote, demonstrated great harm to, to a person who has been charged with no crime. Here is Mohsin Madawi last night at the state, at the People's State of the Union.

[Lifelock Customer Service]

Now, about a year ago, the Trump's administration came after me during my citizenship interview not for violating any law, but for speaking my truth. The truth from a place of love, from a place of empathy, from a place of compassion. My truth that I don't want to see children in Palestine or Israel in America or anywhere else to suffer like I've suffered when I was a child. During my citizenship interview and after they asked me if I'm willing to take the Pledge of Allegiance to protect and defend this country and to protect the constitution of this country, they were the ones who betrayed it. They detained me and took me out of there handcuffed and threw me in prison. They thought that they will make an example of me and that they would intimidate me. And they were wrong.

[Joy Reid]

And they were wrong. People are not intimidated. People are standing up. People like Mohsen Madawi are brave and they are doing the things. Joining me now is my friend Peter Beinart. His latest book is Being Jewish after the Destruction of Gaza. Peter, it is so good to see you. I want to get your take on the idea last night of a State of the Union, but a people's version of versus the sort of traditional one that for me personally, no longer has meaning with Trump in office.

[Lifelock Customer Service]

Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things that Donald Trump has done is just he's exposed the fact that so many of the rituals and the norms that govern American politics, he's kind of exposed them as a fraud. He's exposed so many of the. And I think that when, if we emerge from this nightmare, there will be no, it won't be possible to go back to what was before because Trump has exposed that so many of the institutions that we actually thought were protectors of American liberal democracy are not. And we're actually seeing who the people are who are really willing to stand up to defend these things. And they're generally not people who are in close to positions of power and many of them are not in traditional institutions. And so I think it's to those people that we're going to have to look for different modes of reconstructing our liberal democracy on sounder foundations. And I think, you know, the State of the Union and a response kind of alternative is a kind of version of just many, many examples of that.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah. And you know, when I was listening to Mr. Madawi last night, I was thinking, and I've thought about this before and I'm interested in your take on it, Peter, that there's been a sort of Israelization of American society under Donald Trump. Right. Our society feels more like what I read about happens in Israel, that you can get detained for what you say for what you believe. Palestinians can't get detained for nothing. Children are detained, locked up in prison with no due process. Children in the west bank just for being in a place where a settler wants their land. Suddenly they throw a rock, they're locked away for years. We're doing that now here. And we're using the same kind of police tactics that the IDF not only uses, but that they train our police to use on us. So it's almost like our societies are merging other than the. And we both have criminal leaders. Donald Trump and Bibi Netanyahu both facing. Both faced criminal penalties for crimes and are both getting away with them.

[Lifelock Customer Service]

Yeah, I mean, I think it's broader than that. I mean, this seems to me there's a global rise in ethno nationalism, which I would define as the idea that countries are the property of one racial, religious, ethnic tribe and everybody else is a second class citizen, if they're a citizen at all.

[Wajahat Ali]

Right.

[Lifelock Customer Service]

They are guests. Every country has owners and guests and you can tell who are the owners and guests based on what color their skin is, what their last name is, what, what religion they are. Right. And so there are, you know, Donald Trump has learned from what Viktor Orban is doing in Hungary because Hungary has moved from a liberal democracy well down the road to being an ethno nationalist, authoritarian state. And yes, he also absolutely learns from Israel because Israel is also a country that is built on the idea of a hierarchy between the people who live within its borders. A very extreme hierarchy given that most of the Palestinians can't even become citizens of the country in which they live. And the Palestinians, who can, the minority, are second class citizens. So there's been long been a sense on the American right to look towards Israel and other countries that have these hierarchies under law in an effort to return America to being the country that it was for most of its history, which was a country with clear legal hierarchies between people of different genders, people of different sexual orientations, people of different people, different races and ethnicities.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah. And what's so interesting, and you know, interesting in a sort of gruesome way, is that in both countries there's also, you look at the, the most indigenous people because, you know, everybody, the whole earth is people who traveled and moved and everyone came from everywhere and everybody came from Africa. But if you just go by the last, let's say, thousand years, you know, in this country, this country, they're now saying that indigenous Americans nest, purse and, you know, sue people they have to prove their citizenship to vote, and their tribal ID is not good enough. They can be detained by ice. The idea that the settlers in America could detain the indigenous seems crazy. But you then go to Israel, and the settlers from Europe, their hierarchy is, even seems to me, over the Mizrahi Jews who were there already there. This European settlers are at the top, top, top. They run the country. The settlers from Europe and the US they're at the top. And the people who are indigenous, who've been there a thousand years, they have no rights. Yeah.

[Lifelock Customer Service]

I mean, in the United States, there is certainly an irony in the fact that people like J.D. vance love this Trump, this term. Heritage Americans. Right. You know, if there is certainly such a thing as a heritage American, the heritage Americans are. We don't see. We don't see them getting a lot of. A lot of honor in this administration. Yes. In Israel, what you have is a story in which you have indigenous Palestinians, then you have Jews from Europe. Right. Who for 2000 years were probably praying for return to the land of Israel. So there's a very, very deep connection to this land. But Zionism was also a European movement that had many of the strains of European imperialism that were common in Europe at the time, in the late 19th, early 20th century. And then to make things more complicated, in the late. In the late 40s and 1950s, you have a lot of Jews who are coming from Arab and Muslim countries who come to Israel who basically have a higher status than. Than Palestinians do, but generally a lower status than European Jews do. And so Israel, every country has its own version of these kind of hierarchies based on religion or ethnicity. The fundamental question is, do you want to deepen those hierarchies or do you want to fight against them based on and for. In pursuit of countries where everybody is treated equally under the law?

[Joy Reid]

What do you make of Bibi Netanyahu seemed really strong influence over Donald Trump. I mean, he has visited. We kind of calculated it last week. He has been to the White House every other month since last February. Almost like he's Trump's handler. Like, he's like, hey, let me remind you, I got the Epstein files or something. I don't know what he's got, but it's like he's there all the time. And he seems to now be very close to getting Trump to agree to go to war with Iran, which is a crazy idea just in and of itself. It's not a new one. George W. Bush was tempted to do it, too, but it seems we're getting closer and closer to BB5, finally getting his sort of like 30 year dream of getting an American president to do it.

[Lifelock Customer Service]

Yeah. And I think there is some irony in the fact that it's Trump because one of the things that Trump was supposedly known for was that didn't want to get into these wars. And I think that was actually part of his political success. I think what we've seen with Trump, though, and he's not the first president to have this experience is. But, but he's done it in his particularly more grotesque kind of, you know, ways. He's seen that the American military is his kind of toy, Right. And it can do remarkable things, Right. It can, it can be the greatest video game ever, Right. It can bring other regimes to their knees. Right. And so for him, who's obsessed with the idea of a certain kind of machismo and ego, right, the fact that he can scare the Iranians, that he can bomb the Iranians and he doesn't think they can do anything back to America, right. It's his version of what he's been doing his entire adult life, which is basically making weaker people knuckle under and making himself feel big and strong by doing that sooner or, you know, the American people don't want this, right? Because most Americans actually don't see the world that way. They know Iran is not a threat to the United States and they want America, they want America's leaders to focus on actually making things better for them sooner or later, and it may be this time, we don't know, it's going to catch up to Donald Trump and to all of us, not just in terms of all the money that's being spent, but that Iran, which has basically been trying to appease the United States and Israel is actually going to start fighting back. And when they start fighting back, actually we're going to find that the costs in Israel and also in the United States are quite significant.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah. Iran is not Iraq. This is a whole different ballgame. And if America, Americans thought the Iraq war was a disaster and a dumpster fire, oh, wait till you find out Iran is a real country. It's not a put together country that Europe made up like it's an actual thing that used to be an empire. Let's talk about it. Your book is about being Jewish with the destruction of Gaza. Gaza is so obliterated. I was watching video the other day of an iftar. And for those of you who are celebrating, happy iftar, to those of you who have finished your Ramadan fast, and you're enjoying Iftar now. And there was this long line of people who were celebrating amid the ruins of Gaza. And, you know, that is kind of where we are. There's nothing there. It's so gone. All the universities, most of the hospitals, most of the housing is just gone. And it seems to me that Donald Trump's other little project is to have him, and I guess Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, turn it into a real estate development. I'm not sure the American people, even maga, is down with that. But what do you make of sort of the brazenness of that combined with Bibi Netanyahu's coalition of settlers saying, well, oh, by the way, we're taking all of the west bank now. No more limits.

[Lifelock Customer Service]

Yeah. I mean, if you look at the history of Israel since 1948, Israel has really always wanted to have as much land as possible with as few Palestinians on it as possible. You know, and. And this may be a kind of woke term that you're not allowed to use anymore in the Trump administration, but if you look at settler colonialism, if you look at what happened in our own country in 19th century, that was pretty much the way we did it, too. Right. We wanted as much land as possible with as few Native Americans on it as possible. Right?

[Joy Reid]

Yes.

[Lifelock Customer Service]

So what you see in the west bank is that Israel is putting more and more and more pressure on Palestinians through violence by settlers, through violence by this, by the state, and also just by basically making it economically impossible for people to have a decent life. And so the message is, you know, you'd really be better off somewhere else in Gaza. You see it in any more extreme ways, you say, you know, 80% of the homes destroyed, 70% of the agriculture destroyed. And now what Israel's done, and I really don't think the US Media has done a good job in. In reporting this, but what Israel has done is basically cut Gaza in half. That's what's now called the yellow line. And actually, Palestinians in Gaza are now really confined to less than half of the Gaza Strip, which is one of the most overcrowded places on earth to begin with, and is completely destroyed, and there's no real rebuilding that's been allowed to happen. So what message are you saying sending to Palestinians in Gaza? The message you're sending is you will never be able to have a decent life here. You will never be able to have freedom here. Why don't you think about going somewhere else? That is, whatever Trump is saying in his own insane fantasy universe. When you look at what's happening on the ground, this is the message that's

[Joy Reid]

being sent and it's resonating in a very negative way, even when with his own base. Because what we're now finding out, and I think there's some combination of anti Semitism, if we're being honest, on the far right, and just this sort of desire to not have any involvement in new wars and just a distaste, I guess, for Bibi Netanyahu, of people saying, yeah, we don't want that, but it doesn't seem to matter. Trump seems completely immune to criticism of this, even from Tucker Carlson, who's like in the White House hanging out with him. This criticism means nothing to him. And can you figure out why?

[Lifelock Customer Service]

Well, you know, the Trump support is kind of a cult, right? So Donald Trump can say exactly the opposite of what he said yesterday, and then basically people kind of clap. But I think the next generation iteration of this movement is likely to be much more hostile to Israel. And I want Republicans to want to change US Policy towards Israel because US Policy towards Israel is immoral. It's immoral for us to be be giving Israel the weapons that are being used to kill all these people. The problem is the right doesn't have a universalistic language of human rights and international law. Right. The right is very identitarian. If they see a Muslim person, isis, committing a terrorist act, they don't say, this is because of the histories of imperialism and colonialism. They say, oh, it's because they're Muslim. So when they see Israel doing these terrible things, which it is doing, they don't say, oh, this is imperialism. This is part of a global structure. This is settler colonialism. Oftentimes we see with Nick Fuentes and to a lesser degree, people like Candace Owens and Carlson, but they've gone in this direction too. They say some version of, well, this is what the Jews are like. They don't share our Christian American morality. And that's where it becomes troubling. It's why progressive. It's so important that progressives enter into this conversation. And because to have a language that criticizes Israel which is explicitly not about Jews, it's about universal human rights that we want for everybody.

[Joy Reid]

And I constantly am having to reiterate that. I'm so glad you said it that way, because Zionism is not about the Jews. Zionism is a political ideology that was created by atheists. And the people who follow it most fervently are Christians. It is people Like Mike Hugaby, who is not Jewish, he's Christian. And the Christian nationalists are far more venal and vehement about Zionism than I, any Jewish person I know. You know, even people who are sort of mildly Zionist, they're not genocidal Zionists like Christian Zionists are. The Christian Zionists even say we want to be allied with Israel so that they will be wiped off the face of the earth if they don't accept Jesus. Like they're very clear.

[Lifelock Customer Service]

Right? I mean the, the, the moral struggles generally I think in, in, in history run within religious and ethnic groups. Right. So just like we had people, you know, Christians on, on the side of slavery and anti slavery civil rights and anti. We have Jews on the side of genocide and apartheid and many of the biggest protests in the United States against what Israel have doing have been led by Jews. So this is why a kind of an idea identity lens misses, fundamentally misses this question. Right. And it's important to say because what changing US policy is going to take is, is the same thing that the anti apartheid movement take, which is people from every different walk of life banding together on the basis of a notion of human freedom and human solidarity.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah, that's right. That's why the adl, the ADL could possibly label Jewish Voice for Peace as an anti Semitic group in their Jewish Voice for Peace. Let's talk about the Democrats for a minute. Jason. This is C2 if you got it. So there was this secret autopsy and first of all, I don't know why it had to be secret. They could have just asked me because I've been trying to tell the Democrats this since Joe Biden wouldn't come, wouldn't put nobody on my show from the State Department because I was trying to tell them that this was immoral and really the moral stain on his administration. So apparently there was a secret autopsy report on how former Vice President Kamala Harris lost the 2024 presidential election to Donald Trump. Because the they concede in this report that the Biden administration's support for Israel amid its continued genocide against Palestinians in Gaza played a large role in her losing void in losing votes. Someone had sources had to tell this to. I'm like sortas call me. You all have my number. Like what, what do you make of the Democrats now having to secretly sneak out the idea that maybe supporting genocide was a bad idea?

[Lifelock Customer Service]

Well, I mean I think that the problem to begin with was my sense and you probably have a better and better sense than me. I think the people in the upper Echelons of the Democratic Party on the political side and the foreign policy side had basically lobotomized themselves on, on this issue long ago for their own career reasons, because they knew that criticizing Israel was a very dangerous thing to do politically in Washington. They had shut this off inside them and they forgot that ordinary Americans who are not basically trying to get high level jobs in Washington's Democratic Party were looking at this and just at a basic human level saying, wait a second, my money is being used for this. No, I'm against it. Right. And they also had this, I think, incredibly powerful, patronizing view that kind of like the great unwashed out there in America, right? Really, all they care about is basically, you know, the cost of stuff. Of course they care about cost of the supermarket. But people are also moral beings, right? People have a moral instinct, right? And I think they didn't think that young people knew enough or care enough. They didn't think that black people knew enough or cared about. They would only say, okay, yeah, maybe the Muslims and the Arabs, because that's an ethnic, it's an ethnic thing. They were the only ones who care. As if people can't care about people who are not of their same religious or ethnic group. And it's horrifying that this idiot moral blindness contributed to the election of Donald Trump. The only silver lining I can take is that now that this is going to be known and is going to be clear, I think it's less likely that the next Democratic candidate is going to go down that path of president.

[Joy Reid]

I mean, I hope so. I mean, we saw Gavin Newsom, who, when he was first asked last year by a podcaster about aipac, he was like, interesting, interesting, interesting. And he was sort of like getting annoyed that he was being asked it. Now he's come out and said he doesn't want to take AIPAC money. Never took it, never will. People are sort of running from aipac, but you still have, in the leadership of the Democratic Party, you know, Wajahat Ali and, and I interviewed Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader. He would not say that he was going to, you know, even, even come out against apac, even though AIPAC is going after his moderate members. If they say one crossword about Israel, there's no desire among the current leadership, certainly not. What's the name in the Senate, The Senate minority, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. They are, they are standing by Bibi Netanyahu, come what may. Standing by aipac, come what may. Very hard for me to understand how they back out of that.

[Lifelock Customer Service]

Well, they may not always be the leaders of the Democratic Party. I mean, you know, the Democratic Party on Israel and actually increasingly the Republican Party too is a little bit like where the Republican Party was on the question of trade and immigration, you know, before Donald Trump, which is to say the elites like those things, but the base did not. Right. And Donald Trump saw that political opportunity and he leveraged it and he overthrew. And I think that is gonna, that is very. If, you know, if, if we have elections that are free enough to. I don't know what's going to happen if we have elections in the United States, but I think if we are able to have elections that are semi free, I think that's what we're going to start happening in the American party. And Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer are probably going to be the last people to get there. But it's, it's, I think it's coming in the Democratic Party and you can see it particularly when you look at opportunistic politicians. I'm not talking about people of principle like Bernie Sanders and Rashida Tlie. They've always been there. But we knew. I have a group of people that I would call opportunists for Palestine. Right. You know, and these are basically the kind of people who were, you know, people like, you know, Gavin Newsom, Seth Moulton, others, people who were taking Apex money up until the day before yesterday, but have now switched not because actually they realize it's bad politics.

[Wajahat Ali]

Right.

[Lifelock Customer Service]

And that's really a significant shift.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah. I think the same thing is going to happen with abolish ice. Honestly, I think there's a, you know, it happened with same sex marriage. Right. There was a point when even Barack Obama as a senator was very much against same sex marriage. But once he flipped because basically Joe Biden outed that he really was for it. It was like a flood. Right. And once one person prominently, everyone kind of runs in that direction. And I think abolished ICE is going to go in that direction. The whole base is against ice. The whole leadership are like, but we need it. That's going to change. And this issue of Israel, I find that it is AIPAC is so toxic. I can't imagine an APAC backed candidate getting the nomination for the Democratic Party. I just can't imagine it.

[Lifelock Customer Service]

No. And it's not just in the Democratic

[Joy Reid]

Party or the Republican Party.

[Wajahat Ali]

Yeah.

[Lifelock Customer Service]

Right. I mean, if you go to the country and if you listen to what people on the right are saying, right. And you know, they're, they, they don't speak in the same moral terms, unfortunately, often. But they say things like, Israel is at least Jewish Israelis have better health care than Americans.

[Joy Reid]

And he did.

[Lifelock Customer Service]

Why are you spending this money there? I mean, that is an issue with vast bipartisan appeal in the United States. Right. It's not just if the Democrats can pick up this issue. It's actually an issue with a lot of crossover appeal. And I, and I really, really hope they do, because as we were saying earlier, if the Democrats fail to do this, then it's going to leave the space open for the next iteration of maga, which may not only be anti Israel, but it may be anti Semitic as well.

[Joy Reid]

Peter Beinart, it is always great to talk with you. His book is Being Jewish after the destruction of Gaza. You'll be able to get it in the shop. It'[e-mail] I appreciate you, Peter. It's always so much fun talking with you. Thank you.

[Lifelock Customer Service]

And come back on so do I. Thank you so much for having me.

[Joy Reid]

Thank you very much. Well, there it is. And look, memo to Cory Booker and to all those others we assume we're trying to run. If you are down with aipac, I promise you, you will not be president because there's no way that you're going to be able to get to a majority in the Democratic primaries. And I think the same is true. I think Peter's right. I think the same is true on the Republican side. I personally cannot imagine a pro, a fervently pro Israel candidate getting to the finals in either party's races. You know, the Mike Huckabees of the world, that is the past that is in, you know, what is it? Mark Levine, the Mark Levin, the really far right MAGA radio guy. These people are from the past. That era is gone. Israel is so toxic right now because of their policies. Until they get a more liberal government, I don't see how standing with them, come what may, while the genocide is happening helps you at all. I really don't see how it happens at all. So we want to get to the trolling that happened at the race. Everybody has probably seen this clip. I'm going to go ahead and play it because it is kind of a funny clip, Jason. And then we're going to talk a little bit on the other side. So this was me and I apologize for the cussing. This was me responding to one of two incidents of trolling at last night's people. State of the Union all right, everybody, one note. We just want to do sort of one housekeeping note. Attention all MAGA trolls. And with apologies to the pastor who gave the invocation, your bullshit is not welcome here. And to paraphrase one of my favorite actors in the world, Robert De Niro, I'm gonna slightly paraphrase him. Fuck y'.

[Elie Mystal]

All.

[Joy Reid]

We're here to hear the truth and to hear from impacted people, not to see or hear from you. So go back and pay attention to your orange lying friend. So that happened after a person ran onto the stage. Now, the funniest thing about this story is I had actually gone to get hand warmers. Cause when I tell y', all, it was cold. And it wasn't like Barack Obama, Inauguration Day 2008 Cold. That was like, below zero. Bitter, insanely cold. It was. But it was cold enough where your. Could your feet get numb? So I was like, I gotta go and get myself some hand warmers. So I went over to the other little tent where the hand warmers were, and when I came back, I heard the sort of scuffling from the stage, and people were resetting. The person who was re. The lady was resetting. Right. Kate. Her name was also Katie. Katie from MoveOn was kind of resetting. And so I knew that this person had rushed the stage. I didn't see it myself, but I was like, you know what? If I'm going to get up on stage, let me try to address it, you know, because we're not going to be out here and be intimidated by a bunch of fools who left their warm homes to come stand out in the cold with us. If you don't like liberals and Democrats, why are you there? Like, I'm sorry. Yes. And I am a cussing Christian. I did let them know because it was a pastor there. But I'm like, I'm a cussing Christian, as is Bishop Barber, who has told me he'll cut, too. He's a custom Christian. Nothing wrong with it. I think Jesus was probably cussing when he turned over those tables. He probably said a few fancy words in Aramaic as he's, wow, those tables. And the other piece is that, you know, another. Well, another person that also came and then started sort of yelling at me and being like, you suck. And I'm like, first of all, you use my name, so you obviously know who I am. I don't know who you are. So one of us is a fan of the other one. The person who knows the person's name is the fan. The person who don't know the person's name. Are you anonymous to me? So if you came and you're heckling me, see the last thing you want to do. And this is a good sort of word to the wise. You can clip this and send this to your mega friends. I'm the wrong person to heckle. I actually enjoy it. If you heckle me, I'm going to heckle back. I actually enjoy the interaction because hecklers are never smart, they're never creative, they always say the same things and they're just not intelligent people. And so I just, one more time want to give this word to the wise. I said it earlier in the show, but I'm going to tell it one more time. And this is honestly, to you people in Maga, I don't, I don't have a tremendous amount of respect for you, but I'm still going to help you out. This is free advice. I'm going to give you a million dollars worth of game for free. Number one, don't heckle a person who actually enjoys the heckling because I'll drink your milkshake. I'll drink it up. If I didn't call for you, don't come for me. Try Jesus, not me. Try Allah, inshallah, not me. Don't try Ilhan Omar either, because she throw hands. But don't try me because I really will heckle you back. I have no problem with that. No problem with it whatsoever. And it doesn't bother me. You're not hurting my feelings by heckling me because again, if you use my name when you heckle me, it means you know who I am. Means you're a fan. You're a fan. You're a fan. You're a fan. 69. God, you're a 69 guy. I know what you are. You're. You're my fan. And there are different kinds of fans. As Eminem said back in his famous days with his famous song Stans, there's two kinds of fans. There is the positive fan that's cool, that really likes the work that you do, that appreciates the job that you do, that's in the chat, that's just a cool person that comes up to you in the airport, daps you up. That's a cool person that we, we love, we have that we mutually, you know, love one or we just. I love what you're doing. If you come up to me, you know my name, you say hi to me sometimes because I'm daffy, I'll think, oh, my God, I Met this person. I forgot their name. I genuinely has be like you. You never met that person. Or they'll say, you never met me. But that kind of a person I absolutely love because that's the kind of person who's just appreciating what I do. And it's like, we're cool with each other. We know each other. We're on a first name basis. You tell me your name, I tell you mine. That's a great kind of proactive fandom. I am fans of people like that. Last night, I went up to the congresswoman who does the hype. She's like, the hype woman. Oh, my God, I love her so much. And I had to take a picture with her. I was like, I'm taking a picture with you. Because she is like the greatest hype woman ever. Whenever her fellow colleagues are speaking, speaking all the day, she's like, oh, I heard that. I said, I. Yeah, you said that. And I love the way she does. I'm a fan of her. So I went up to her and I said, can I get a photo with you? There was a set of students who were there who were from, like, Model un. Incredible. I mean, I thought it was incredible, you know, and I loved talking with them. And I'm a fan of what they were doing. That's. That's a proactive man. Then there's the other thing, which is the stand type of thing. This is a negative kind of fandom. This is where you're obsessed with the person. This is the troll who's the first person in the comments, right? They. They hate you, but they're. They're literally the first commenter on anything you post. So. So, so they hate you, but they're following you so closely that everything you post, they see it immediately. I get them on. On Instagram sometimes where they will comment on what I say, and then I click on their profile and it turns out they're following me.

[Elie Mystal]

You know the funny thing about it also?

[Joy Reid]

Yeah.

[Elie Mystal]

As soon as you post something, they'll be the first one.

[Joy Reid]

That's what I'm saying. They're the first person.

[Elie Mystal]

Yeah, the first person. So they're hungry and thirsty as hell.

[Joy Reid]

Right? And so. So this is this. This is another kind of fandom. I have to find the sister's name because her name is Sydney Kamlogger Dove. Sydney Kumlager Dove. I apologize. In my mind, you know, I got a little. A perimenopause. A perimenopause. Messing my brain. Sometimes I went up to Sydney Kom Lager, Dove. Last night, I was like, I gotta take a picture with you. I gotta do it, you know, Lamonica MacGyver. I was like, oh, I gotta get a picture with Lamonica MacGyver. Right? There were people there who was like, I gotta take a picture. I am a fan of you. So that's proactive fandom. The Stanley, they're obsessed with you. Deep down, they. They. They're obsessed. They comment on everything you say, they troll at you, they call you the N word, but they're following you. So I'm like, if you think I'm an N word and you think I'm an idiot and a fool, you're following me, though. We had some last night that were waiting for us to leave. Waiting for me and Katie and Jason to leave. They were waiting. This man with his little camera were waiting for us to leave so that they could fight, follow me down the street and talk about my hair and why do I have to have blonde hair? And so it's like, you not only are obsessed with me as a person, you know my name, you know my hairstyles, and you think about me so obsessively that you waited for me to leave 20 minutes after an event in the ice, freezing cold, so that you could feel. Follow me down the street to yell at me on camera.

[Elie Mystal]

Well, actually, I was the one doing the yelling on camera, because I yelled at. I was like, yeah, they got a whole bunch of MFs last night.

[Joy Reid]

That's a stand, though. That person, I'mma tell you his name. His name is Ben Buram, I think his name is. But the bottom line is this person claims to be a Christian conservative. Or it's like, you're not a Christian, you're an apostate idiot, but you're a fan.

[Elie Mystal]

You literally stood out there for, like, 20 minutes, like, in a cold, waiting. You know, I'm hearing her in the

[Wajahat Ali]

background, like, yeah, that's Troy.

[Elie Mystal]

And I'm looking at this fool like, yeah, bro. All I'm telling you, dude, seriously, you touch her, I'm about to lay your ass on your back, and that's it. You know what I mean? You could talk all the shit you want, but the minute you get disrespectful and get in my wife's face, I'm done with you. And I give a damn if he was videotaped, but I cussed that fool out so bad last night.

[Joy Reid]

Fuck off. He was going to get hands because. Because again, this is the kind of person who you, first of all, you're, you're professing to love Trump because you're also, you're, you're also a fan of Trump. So you think your standom of me that you, I, it's like a, it's like a love triangle. You are so in love with Trump that you think about me 247 because you believe I, I just little old Joy, me, my little old self, Joy Reed show is standing in the way of you realizing the love you know will be unleashed from Trump to you. He's going to fall in love with you any minute. You're going to be, you're going to. Melania will be out of the way. You will be his first lady. You will be his best friend. He will take you into.

[Elie Mystal]

They are straight up for that fool.

[Joy Reid]

They're, they believe that straight up. They believe that something I'm saying or doing is standing in the way of the intimate relationship. They believe that any moment they're going to have with Donald Trump and they're so, they must defend him. They feel they're so in love, it's like a love triangle. They can't decide if they're more obsessed with me or him, but they know something I'm saying or doing. They must make me love him too. If they can convince me and break me down and, and get me to admit that Trump is amazing, somehow that will bring them closer to him. You are almost like, it's like you want to be in a multiple marriage with me and Trump. You're obsessed. And you know what I mean? It's a stand up. It's the difference between stamp, it's pathological, it's weird, it's freakish. Because here's the thing that they need to understand. And this is, I'll say to all of these, if you're a maga, Stan, I'm just telling you guys this. Trump will never love you. Trump will never love you. He doesn't give a damn about you. He will never know your name. You will die anonymous. You will. No one knows you. No one cares when you yell at me on camera. You're entertaining the five people who follow you on Twitter and four of them are bots.

[Elie Mystal]

Like I said, they can yell all they want. They can talk all that shit they want. Put your hands on my wife and you'll find out what's up.

[Joy Reid]

It's like miss Maddie J. Right? She said, if you mess with, if you mess with Herman, she got that knife. But in the reverse, you mess with Joy Jason. They Said he's a tar. You're gonna get the horns. The other way around. He throw hands. I'm just telling you to make it. Well, background is background. Anyway, just thought, throw that out there because you just have to understand that the love you feel for Trump and the obsession you have for me is wasted because Trump will never love you. He doesn't know you. He doesn't care. And last but not least, I don't care. I don't care what you say to me. Nothing you say bothers me. I don't. I don't go home and worry about you. I don't. I don't. I don't care. I don't. Although, except to make you entertainment for my. For my friends, I'll use you as entertainment, you know, for other people. But that's about it. Let's play our moment of joy. Our. Our moment of joy is also from last night. And this was a moment of joy that took place outside of the White House. And this one is very fun because it brings back one of our favorite memes, which is the fun fairy tale frogs. Who let the frogs out? Who let the frogs out? Who let the frogs out?

[Lifelock Representative]

Come on, frogs.

[Joy Reid]

Look at this. What we want from this is to show the absurdity of the fascist Trump regime by bringing peace, joy, happiness, and humor. Contrasting that with the violence of ICE agents on the streets of the United States of America who are masked, who are armed, who are. Are violent, who are scary. And this is. This is the absurd protest countering that, showing our humanity and our kindness. I love it. Our side is so much more fun. And look at the frogs going up in the group chats. We love the frogs. The frogs are our favorite characters in the resistance. By the way, there is going to be a third, no Kings Day that's coming up in March. I think it's March 23rd. I believe it is. The giraffe is also adorable. Yes, we love the giraffe, too. We've got some deport Melania folks inside of the chat, but yes, we love the frog. The frogs are back and the frogs have come to dc. We are pro frog on the Joy Reid show. We always appreciate their protests because the absurdity has to be pointed out. We are dealing with fascists, but luckily for us, they're stupid fascists. They're not very smart. So we'll be able to beat them easily because we are smarter than they are. We're more prepared than we are, then we are more prepared than they are, et cetera. I also want to Note everyone who voted for us in the NAACP Image Awards. We appreciate you. Thank you so much for all the votes. We did not win our category, but Don Lemon did. All the Lemon heads throw up your lemons in the chat. Congratulations to Don Lemon and the Don Lemon Show. Very well deserved for all he's been through this year at the hands of the regime. So we're very proud of Don for all the work he did and actually big up to everyone who was nominated in our category. Native Land Pod also nominated in our category. God bless them as well, our wonderful friends and everyone who was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Congratulations to all the nominees. To all the winners. We'll find out who the winners in the. The big categories, the motion picture categories and all that stuff. We will find that out, I believe, next weekend, next week, Friday. I just popped off for a minute, but yes, that is what we're doing. So we are excited about the N double ACP Image Awards. We appreciate Don Lemon.

[Elie Mystal]

My bad, y'.

[Wajahat Ali]

All.

[Elie Mystal]

I got a little bit excited. Yeah, my bad.

[Wajahat Ali]

Guys.

[Joy Reid]

We disappeared for a minute. We got you.

[Elie Mystal]

You back.

[Joy Reid]

It was a moment of magic. It was. It was a magical moment. But it's all good. It's all good. But, yes, that is it. That is all we got. And wait a minute. Oh, wait a minute. Oh, wait a minute. Okay, wait. We got some other notes here. I'm trying to get in the notes here, but I'm not going to read them right now. Lemon heads and readers, we unite and we roll together. A reminder that Friday after the show is our insiders chat. If you're a team TJRS member, you can participate in the chat. If you're a premium member at Substack, you can participate in the chat. And again, I want to reiterate if you're interested in the minutia of the political game, the polling, but all the sort of minutia about the races that are coming up. I will note early voting is still happening in Texas. If you're in Texas, you should be voting. I just looked at the latest polling. Jasmine Crockett is still polling ahead. She was polling ahead as of the 16th, but the 16th is also. The poll was from. I think the 12th through the 16th is the last poll that happened in Texas. But the 16th is the day that James Talarico did the Colbert show and he got like 2.5 million or 3 million fundraising. He got a huge bump after that. So that polling may not be relevant to today. We really don't know how it looks right now. But if you're in Texas, you still have an opportunity to vote in both the Republican and Democratic primaries because you're going to decide how Texas is going to go, what vibe we're going to have in terms of that race. Also, Scott column, don't forget, if you're in Mississippi, support him. That is our pick in the state of Mississippi. You're going to definitely want to be voting, I think early voting starts there. I think what next week, guys. So we got to figure out that, too. But we're going to, we're going to talk a lot more election stuff on Friday. And if you're interested in getting in the into the minutia of it, we're going to do this really special additional thing for our premium subscribers on Substack. That's going to happen. We're going to talk more about that on Friday as well. All right, everybody, thank you for tuning in. We appreciate you guys. We're going to send you off to the rest of your Wednesday evening with your thanks and with our love. And if you're a Stan, with our apologies, Donald Trump, you don't love you and he never will. I'm sorry, I don't know what else to tell you. If you're a stand for Trump or fan of Trump, he don't give a damn. Kids, bye.

[Elie Mystal]

Getting back to the basics, grassroots level,

[Joy Reid]

let me dig a little deeper with the shovel. Plenty can't tell them force from the trees that I'm hard to detect Like a black hole in a job Injustice anywhere, it's a threat to justice everywhere. Let me make this clear I got a bone to pick and I'll never

[Elie Mystal]

fear the threat of poverty they don't

[Joy Reid]

want to talk about it they rap the party. So I'm a real talk about it for show.