W. Kamau Bell
W. Kamau Bell is a Peabody Award winner, 4X Emmy Award winner, documentary filmmaker, stand-up comedian, Celebrity Jeopardy! champion, Official Ambassador of the band Fishbone, self-proclaimed #1 Bruce Lee Expert…
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Kamau opens his interview with Joy Reid by praising how well she’s done since moving on from corporate journalism, building out her own independent show, merchandise line, and even anti-Trump gear. Reid shares that she was actually let go from MSNBC on her day off, attributing the decision to friction over her coverage of Donald Trump and Israel-Palestine, which made it harder for the network to normalize a second Trump term. She explains that her pro-Palestine stance goes back to her parents’ experiences with colonialism and her father’s life in apartheid South Africa, emphasizing that supporting Palestinian rights and standing against antisemitism aren’t mutually exclusive.
Their conversation turns to how Black women are treated in media and politics, with Reid reflecting on Kamala Harris’s 2024 campaign loss to a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist as a particularly painful moment. While Reid wrestles with whether misogyny or racism played a bigger role in Harris’s defeat, Bell notes that Obama winning while Hillary Clinton lost highlights how gender can still outweigh race in presidential politics. Reid cautions against taking a free and fair election in 2028 for granted, pointing to Trump’s reluctance to back JD Vance and broader warning signs for democracy.
Reid also calls out mainstream political journalism for treating crucial issues like horse-race sports coverage and normalizing dangerous rhetoric. She contrasts today’s reporters with Woodward and Bernstein’s real-time Watergate reporting, pointing out that holding key revelations for book deals, as Bob Woodward did with Trump’s early COVID admissions, costs actual lives. She recalls realizing in February 2020 that COVID was airborne while her show was pushed to focus entirely on impeachment, calling it a major media failure.
Looking ahead to the midterms, Reid expects Republicans to challenge any losses in court and anticipates voter intimidation at polling places, but sees a real opening for Democrats as economic pressure and foreign policy missteps mount. Her advice to Democrats if they win: use power aggressively by pushing Medicare for All, ending foreign wars, and holding Trump allies accountable.
Reid opens up about her immigrant roots: her mother was from Guyana and her father from the Congo, identifying as both African American and a product of the broader diaspora, while navigating the nuances between those identities. She also addresses past controversies, including her decision to give a friend airtime to apologize after using an on-air slur against Hakeem Jeffries, defending her choice despite the blowback.
Closing on a personal note, Reid gives a nod to the American Cancer Society, honoring her mother, who passed away from metastatic breast cancer.
After, Kamau chats with Rep. Angie Nixon about her race for the Florida Senate, how she’s not afraid to stand up against Republicans intent on bringing our country back to the Jim Crow South, and why it’s imperative to go out and vote in the upcoming midterms.
Who’s With Me is produced by Rabbit Grin Productions. Music by Chris Dowd. Distributed by Pushkin Industries.
Hey everybody, it's me, W. Kamau Bell. Welcome to episode 24 of Who's With Me, my podcast brought to you by Ravagrin Productions and Pushkin Industries and me, Who Knows Best Productions. Uh, you can see I'm in a different location today. I'm in Gotham Production Studios in New York City. I had to come to New York City for none of your business. And, uh, Was lucky enough to be able to sit down and talk with Joy Reed, who is in the chair that's right over here. Joy Ann Reed, if you're official, but Joy Reed, she goes by Joy. We talked about that on the podcast. So we had a great conversation. And because this is a special midterm edition of the podcast, we have a second guest, which is Florida Senate candidate Angie Nixon. She was, of course, as you understand, running, trying to get things done, making things happen. But she took a pause from her very busy schedule yesterday. to talk to me, recording it at somewhere, doing something. I think she was making a commercial, but she just set her cell phone up and we talked for a little bit. So I want to give you that interview. It's not a full interview. Maybe she'll come back after she wins the Florida Senate race, but it's a great interview. So you got a two-for-episode in the Who Knows Best Midterm Spectacular Spectacular. So nice they named it twice. It's Joy Reid, the journalist, and Angie Nixon, the Senate candidate from Florida. So welcome. It's a lot. But, you know, it's America, so there's a lot going on. As always, this podcast is a spinoff of my Substack, also known as Who's With Me. So you can follow me on the Who's With Me Substack where you can stay in touch with me about everything that's going on. Also, you can join this podcast who's with me. And also today, it's officially the publishing day of my book. Actually, it was yesterday, but you know what I'm saying. When I'm taping this, it'll be yesterday. It's my book, my children's book, Rock, Paper, Scissors, Cheese, is available at your better bookstores right now. I would encourage you to preorder it. So you can go out and get it from your local bookstore, hopefully independent bookstore. But if you've got a local bookstore that has it, please pick it up or you can order it. I would suggest bookshop.org that supports independent bookstores. Yeah, so Rock, Paper, Scissors, She's is finally out. I'm so excited. It, again, stars my family and our dog and my, and I was going to say my family and my mom, but my mom is in my family. But anyway, yeah, so please get that book. But today I'm not going to waste a lot of time talking about other things. I don't have a big monologue because today is the midterm spectacular, spectacular brought to you by Who's With Me, the podcast. We had this great conversation with Joy Reid where we talk about the midterms, why it's important to vote in the midterms. Even during times it seemed to be leaning towards fascist in this country. But we also talk about her life and career. Talk about what it is to be a black woman on the Internet, which is a conversation I'm always want to talk to black women on the Internet about. And we also talk about taking L's, how to take L's effectively. Because Joy Reid, like all of us do, sometimes when you're out in the public sphere, you take an L. And how do you take an L and move on? And Joy Reid talks about that. A lot of Trump talk in this one. So if that's not your bag, maybe this isn't the episode for you. But it's the kind of Trump talk that's good because we reread him for filth. And also, yeah, there's actually a really– I don't know why I'm tipping the whole thing. It's a really long section. We talk about all the Trump racism throughout his life and career, his greatest racism hits and his greatest anti-democracy hits. It's good. And after that, we have a shorter conversation with Nancy Nixon, the Florida Senate candidate. And she's great. She's great. She's great. Support Angie Nixon in these last few days before the last day to vote, November 3rd. She's great. I was so happy to talk to her, even though, again, she was busy and on the run, so we got her as we got her. We had to find the right lighting, cell phone. There's a thing going on in the background. You might hear some noise, but it was still great to talk to her. All I want to talk to you about today is voting. Voting. I know sometimes voting is set up as like the highest level of citizen engagement, but as my friend Boots Riley told me one time on stage when we had a conversation, he said, it's always set up as like the most you can do is vote. Like that's the thing you can do to exercise your democracy and show that you're a citizen who cares. But Boots says it's actually the least you can do. If you look at voting, it's like, I don't know. What's the thing you do when you get up in the morning? It's like, brushing your teeth. Just do it because you're supposed to do it. And over the long haul, it helps if you brush your teeth, but don't look at it as like, I brushed my teeth. And just like brushing your teeth, just because you brush your teeth once, it doesn't mean you've done all you need to do for your teeth. Voting is the thing we do every few years, every couple of years as a way to sort of, it's like brushing our teeth for democracy. And you don't see the results right away, but if you do it over time and you encourage other people in your life to do it over time, everybody has healthier teeth and a healthier democracy. This metaphor has gotten away from me, but I'm leaving it where it is. You understand what I'm saying? Let's not approach voting as like the end all be all of democracy. It is just a thing we should do. And also local voting is super important. No matter where you are in the country, not only do you maybe have some big race for the Senate or for governor, if you're in Ohio or governor, if you're in California, but in California, we have an initiative proposition 40 and proposition vote 40. is a way to tax billionaires one time. It's a one-time only wealth tax for billionaires. And that's the thing that if we get that, that helps the state of California a lot. It actually goes straight to our healthcare system. So that's the thing that helps Californians a lot. And also in California, because it's confusing, there's also Proposition 41 and Proposition 42, I believe I have those right, that we need to vote no on each one of those because they're poison pill provisions. If you vote yes for Prop 40, but Prop 41 and 42 also pass, then Prop 40 is not as effective. It's California. It's California, Jake. It's California. Second time I make that joke in this episode. You'll hear it later. But anyway, so everywhere around the country you have your major election, but you probably have other things on the ballot that are actually going to affect your community even more profoundly than whatever that big election is. So I'm sure it is complicated. It's hard. The thing I would encourage you to do is Google your city, and voter ballot. You can Google Democratic voter guide, or you can Google progressive voter guide and your city's name or your zip code. You can Google working family partners voter guide or DSA voter guide. There are all these voter guides out there that will help you figure out how you want to vote on the things you may not be an expert in. I think sometimes people get overwhelmed by the other choices, but generally, I would say every A city that has voting has some sort of voter guide, and you can find one that matches your particular brand of electoral politics generally. And then, you know, you're allowed to just copy down the answers and take them into the voting booth. You don't have to hide that you're copying the answers down. It's a good time to copy the answers down. Saving democracy is a good time to copy the homework. So, yeah, so please. And also, again, as you're voting, just text your group chat. Text your family, say, Hey, are you voting today? Can you help with that? Can I help? Can I give you a ride? Can I send you an Uber or whatever you can do? Can I walk you there? Can I watch your kid while you go vote? Can I work a shift at your fast food restaurant while you go vote? Whatever you can do, support other people getting out to vote too. Again, that's the big stuff. Community building. That's the stuff that voting helps us do is to build community and do some community building, encourage people in your life to vote because this election, while it is not the presidential election, It is our first opportunity to tell Trump in an electoral way, no. It's our first time since his election to tell him, fuck you, I won't do what you tell me. That's not profanity. I'm quoting Rage Against the Machine. So this is a good time to tell him no. Don't pay attention to the polls. The polls say this. The polls say that. Don't think that you don't need to vote because it looks like the polls. Don't look at the polls. I think polls should be illegal, but that's all of the subject. Or at least illegal as far as letting us see the polls. We don't need to know the polls. Just go vote. Do the thing. It's the midterm spectacular, spectacular. Go vote. If you have any questions about whether you're registered, I'm sure you can Google yourself locally, but go to vote.org, which is a nonpartisan group, vote.org. You can find out if you're registered, if you need to register, if there's time to register. In California, you can do a provisional ballot on the day of the election and still register. But in other places, it's maybe too late. But anyway, go to vote.org to check your status to make sure that you can vote, to see what your local community needs you to bring. In California, we don't need to bring ID, but I know things are changing around the country because of fascism. And again, also, you go to aclu.org slash vote, and you can also see what the ACLU talks to you about voting. You can check your voter status there. You can support the ACLU. I said this was going to be a shorter one. But I just want to make sure, hey, everybody, it's the midterms, November 3rd, the last day to vote. Vote in the midterms. And as you're going to figure out your voting stuff, listen to this episode, watch this episode. First up, we have a great conversation with Joy Reid. I love this conversation. Joy Reid is known for the Joy Reid Show, which you can get on Substack, on YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. She was formerly an anchor at MSNBC, where she had several different shows. But then she got fired, as she points out. I didn't want to say fired. She got fired. But now she is fully independent, like that guy Don Lim we talked to recently. Joy Reid is independent. She's out here with the Joy Reid Show. Joy Reid is out here doing stuff. She's got a show that is regular. Check her out. And right now, let's go to that interview with Joy Reid. Hey, thanks for watching an episode of Who's With Me. If you're on YouTube, please like and subscribe, share, hit that hype button. I hear it makes all the difference. Please like, subscribe, share, hit the hype button. Thank you. So before we started, you were asking me about the W. I want to ask you about the Joy-Anne. Is it Joy-Anne?
10:06
Speaker 2
It's Joy-Anne because I'm Caribbean. So it's Joy-Anne if you're mad at me.
10:09
Speaker 1
So I call you Joy-Anne.
10:11
Speaker 2
You call me Joy.
10:12
Speaker 1
Okay, Joy. I hear people call you Joy, but I was going to be respectful.
10:14
Speaker 2
Yeah. I had to shorten it because so basically, you know, the one world, the one name people are very bullyish. They're bullies, right? So I was Joy-Anne. I'm always been Joy-Anne. I was born Joy-Anne Lomena. And so I was calling myself Joanne, but at the artist formerly known as MSNBC, Trey worked with me. You know, Trey only got one name. And he heard people mangling my name. They would call me Joanne, Joe, Joan. I would get called everything. Everything but Joanne. People just, for whatever reason, they don't see the Y and they would just say Joanne. It happened one too many times. And, you know, Trey pulled me aside and he said, make it easy on people. Just call yourself Joy. You need a brand. He's like, your brand name is Joy. Stop with the gang. Stop playing.
10:56
Speaker 1
That's funny because his name is Trey. That's not the easiest name either, but I guess because he doesn't have the last name.
11:00
Speaker 2
He doesn't have the last name. You don't have to remember anything but Trey. So I gave in to the other Afro man bullying. Afro people bully people.
11:07
Speaker 1
What is happening? People with Afro is known for our bullying. It's true. Angela Davis, big bully.
11:12
Speaker 2
When I tell you, if she tells me to do something, I'm going to do it.
11:15
Speaker 1
Certainly you should. That's right. So welcome to Who's With Me.
11:18
Speaker 2
Thank you.
11:19
Speaker 1
Thank you. We have met briefly at Sundance, I think, last year. That's right. But we've certainly been around each other for many years. And at one point in different news universes, MSNBC and CNN. Correct. Correct. Sort of Marvel and DC. We weren't allowed to, like, connect.
11:34
Speaker 2
I'm claiming DC because I don't care what anybody says. DC has the better characters. Marvel has the better movies.
11:40
Speaker 1
I didn't know we'd start like this.
11:41
Speaker 2
I'm sorry.
11:42
Speaker 1
Can we just.
11:44
Speaker 2
I'm not sorry.
11:45
Speaker 1
Why don't we talk about the diaspora and tethers and things? That's an easier conversation.
11:50
Speaker 2
Could be.
11:51
Speaker 1
So I'll respectfully stand down since it's our first time talking. You have that DC point, but it's quite painful. Anyway, I like to start a podcast giving people their flowers because these days there's a lot going on in this world and we don't always get our love and respect. So first of all, I just am so pleased to see you and this part of a group of journalists who were in the corporate journalism machine, doing well in the corporate journalism machine, and then being sort of like out of the corporate journalism machine and not missing a beat. You are out here. You still got the Joy Reid show. Yes. You still, you got merch. Look at this jacket. I got merch.
12:30
Speaker 2
Look, you can buy this merch. You can buy everything I'm wearing but the jeans.
12:33
Speaker 1
Yeah. Wait, the hat too.
12:35
Speaker 2
Well, the hat I'm not selling yet.
12:36
Speaker 3
Yet.
12:38
Speaker 1
You have like apparel. I have apparel. That's not merch, that's apparel. It's apparel.
12:41
Speaker 2
I mean, the reality is like the thing we, and I made apparel for all of my shows. I always make apparel that I would pay for myself. I was not charging MSNBC's bank account for it. I would make it, but you couldn't sell it, right? Because it was from a corporation. They had the copyright. So I would, we would give it away like at events. We'd always give them to the team. I always make at least a hundred of them because we would give them away to our crew. So if you, to this day, go to 30 Rock, where MSNBC used to be, they've left that building, there are crew people and directors and stuff that have my merch from all of my shows online. because I would always give the merch to the team just as a thank you. So I love making merch. It's one of my little hobbies.
13:19
Speaker 1
And you're selling shoes.
13:20
Speaker 2
We've got shoes. We've got sneakers. We've got hoodies. We've got, like, all the things. We've got T-shirts. We even have some things that might say F Donald Trump on them if you really want them.
13:30
Speaker 1
Again, not something you could have sold at MSNBC. No, not at all. So, yeah, like I said, you're out here. I would imagine that as someone who had been inside a corporation for a long time and had success there, there was maybe some fear or some, like, How do I go out there? Did that happen? Do you feel that way?
13:47
Speaker 2
Not at all. No, because the reality is, first of all, and you're so kind not to say that I got fired because I wholly got fired on my day off.
13:52
Speaker 1
Okay. So, I mean, I just always feel like it's always, you never want to, it's, they say fire. I, you know, I don't want to say, but yes.
13:58
Speaker 3
Yeah.
13:58
Speaker 2
I got fired on my day off. Like, you know, like Friday said, who gets fired on your day off?
14:01
Speaker 1
I do.
14:02
Speaker 3
Right.
14:02
Speaker 2
So I got fired. And it was one of those things where it was a shock in the moment, but when I thought about it, it wasn't a surprise. You know, it was a shock, but not necessarily surprised because I had had my struggles and my challenges with management over two subjects, Donald Trump and Israel-Palestine. And those struggles were real, right? And so when I thought about it, I said, yeah, yeah, they definitely didn't want my point of view there because they had to make a pivot to dealing with him in office again. And me being there made it harder to make that pivot to normalizing him in the way that NBC as a company needed to do, right, as a president. And also, you know, they didn't love my social media presence. And so there was a lot about me that made it harder to deal with him and the regime. So I kind of get it. And on the Israel thing, I mean, now it's very popular to be pro-Palestine, but up until, you know, 10 seconds ago, It was a firing offense.
15:00
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's certainly easier to be pro-Palestine now than it was. But I also feel like there's a weird bump that happened during the Macklemore-Ed Sheeran thing where some people felt like that's too far, like Macklemore's too far and sort of supporting Bob Kraft, supporting Bob Kraft, which is weird to support a billionaire. But anyway, the idea that like, I feel like a lot of the pro, you know, again, people who are not so pro-Palestine, people who I would say are like, I associate with politically on lots of issues, have a, have a thing about Israel. And the Macklemore thing allowed them to be like, you know, come out again.
15:34
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think so. And the Israel thing has always been weird. And, you know, I've always, since I was a young, very young person, been very pro-Palestine because I'm pro whoever is the victim of oppression, right? I tend to side with the victims. And I also, you know, have two parents that came from colonial, you know, colonized countries, colonized places. And so since I understand what colonialism looks like and what apartheid looks like, my father... even though he was from the Congo, spent most of his life in South Africa during apartheid. So I know what apartheid is and I definitely know what colonization is. So I'm going to side with the colonized. And so that's always been my impression. And it suddenly has become something that's quite common, both on the right and the left to believe. And I think the left was always there. The right is just getting there for a variety of reasons. I don't know what they are. And I doubt some of them and I'm a little suspicious of some of them. But I feel like there is a layer of, solid support for Israel in the media world that is very hard to extract. And similarly in the Democratic Party. I mean, you go for somebody like Joe Biden, who is this compassionate individual on everything but that. On that, he has no compassion. And so there's a thing in the Democratic Party. I think it's a Christian thing. It's a Christian fundamentalist thing. And it's also a pro. Look, if you are deeply pro the American experiment, I get how you're pro the Israel experiment because they both happen the same way. You genocide the indigenous people and take their land. Like that's like a thing we did in America. And I say we very loosely because the blacks didn't do it.
17:07
Speaker 1
The grand we, the American we, not the black we.
17:11
Speaker 3
Yeah.
17:12
Speaker 2
And so I get that it mirrors us. Like they are a little us and they treat their indigenous the way we treat ours. And they're based on a religion. There are people here who want America to be a ethno-nationalist Christian state. And there are Israelis that want that to be a Jewish nationalist ethno-state. So these two ethno-states obviously are friends. So I get it.
17:35
Speaker 1
And as always, I say in these moments, not always, but I'm just like, and it's also, just to be clear to anyone listening right now, it is possible to be pro-Palestine and anti-antisemitism. Just to be clear.
17:46
Speaker 2
A thousand percent.
17:47
Speaker 1
As somebody's starting to clip this up. Right.
17:49
Speaker 2
No, and the thing is because I believe in human rights. And so I believe Jewish people, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, people are unaligned, not religious. Every single human on earth, let's just be very clear, no matter what, their religion has a right to life. They have a right to liberty. They have a right to live in freedom without fear. And I believe that about everyone and everyone in that region. It's just that I don't believe that one person's right supersedes the others. And what we're being told and ordered to do is to make one set of people's rights more real and the others less real, right? But there are various people who live in that region. There are Christians who are also being persecuted and having their land taken. There are unaligned people. And there are Jewish people who, let's be clear, are very opposed to the political ideology of Zionism. I know a whole lot of Jewish people who are not for that either. So it is not about the religion. It's about whether or not you believe in colonialism or not. You either believe in it and you're for apartheid or you're not. And I think it's very– I think Ta-Nehisi Coates makes it the clearest. You're either– anti-colonialism and anti-partite or you're not.
18:57
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who knew we would start with this subject? Sorry. No, no, no, I'm sorry. I think this is the, you are well-versed on these subjects and I'm glad to, also I think it's important to say these things over and over again, those of us who are in these sort of thorny issues, whether they're thorny because they're supposed to be or not, that we are supporting all rights for all people and no one's rights superseding anybody else.
19:19
Speaker 3
100%.
19:19
Speaker 2
I think if you had an ideal situation you would have a world there in that region where everyone lived in equal, in full equality. Give me that. That would be an amazing world.
19:30
Speaker 1
That would be amazing for that region and amazing for the world.
19:33
Speaker 3
Yes.
19:33
Speaker 1
The other thing I want to give you your flowers for, and I think it's always important to do this, for being a Black woman out loud in public on the internet. Because that is not an easy thing that I have observed over the years.
19:44
Speaker 2
It is not. Because you have these layers. And I'm never sure whether it's the woman part that people attack you more for or the black part. But it's kind of equal opportunity.
19:52
Speaker 1
I think it's called misogynoir. Misogynoir, yeah.
19:54
Speaker 2
And people feel like they can say anything to you. And I'm sure they do that with you, too.
19:58
Speaker 1
Yeah, I just know that there's... Because it's not gendered in the same way.
20:01
Speaker 3
Right, right.
20:02
Speaker 1
So they will say... We'll get a lot of the same things, but then there's a gender thing that happens where it's like, they're not going to say that. They're not going to talk about my body that way. Right.
20:09
Speaker 2
And I think about it even in the politics of it.
20:11
Speaker 3
Like.
20:12
Speaker 2
When Kamala Harris ran, I don't know whether the sexism and misogyny was more egregious or the racism because they were sort of battling each other for dominance. But the way that she was denigrated, even her rise through politics, which was all based on being elected by millions, the largest state in the union, the hardest place to win statewide, 39 million people, the equivalent of Canada. And for her to get elected in the equivalent of Canada, meaning she became prime minister like four times, for them to say, oh, she slept her way to the top. And for black people to say it and to just degrade her accomplishments and these achievements that not one of those people could have done. Not one of them becoming a lawyer, an attorney, a Howard University graduate, first Howard University graduate to be vice president of the United States, first woman president. you know, everything, right? First woman DA, first woman attorney general, first woman black senator from California. You could go on and just have that washed away. So now sometimes I'm like, between that and Hillary, do like Americans hate women more than, but I just, I can't tell which it is.
21:19
Speaker 1
I mean, I think it's funny to have this discussion again. Like, I think the election of Barack Obama and the not election of Hillary proves that maybe man supersedes race. It kind of feels like But again, we're looking at Obama. He's black, but he's also mixed and light-skinned.
21:35
Speaker 3
Yeah.
21:37
Speaker 1
And I have mixed skin, so that dilutes. Right. Like, it's not the same. It wasn't like.
21:43
Speaker 2
It's like your kids could be president more than you.
21:45
Speaker 1
Yeah, it wasn't Sterling K. Brown running for president. Which, by the way, we could have a fine president. So Sterling, we're recruiting you. It's not a dark-skinned black man running for president.
21:56
Speaker 2
Not that Obama is not fine. I apologize. They're all fine. All are good-looking.
22:01
Speaker 1
I think he's gotten enough copy. Yeah, definitely best-looking president in our country. Definitely. History. Probably top 10 on the planet of world leaders. But please clip this and send it to Obama.
22:12
Speaker 2
And also say to Michelle, we respect your sovereignty.
22:17
Speaker 1
Forever first lady.
22:19
Speaker 2
I'm not hitting on President Obama, just to be clear.
22:23
Speaker 1
But back to there. Yeah, so I remember it sort of made sense that when Obama won and hit two terms that like, oh, the country's not ready for a woman. But then also the Hillary of it is like, She's not a random white lady. There's the Clinton part of it. So I think the math equation is still, we still need some high-level mathematicians to figure out what the equation is.
22:44
Speaker 2
Or like AOC to run and just run that experiment.
22:46
Speaker 1
Well, and I think we're about to see some experiments run because I think, first of all, okay, so when you start talking about Kamala, if you were in Kamala's corner right now, I saw a woman the other day wearing a Kamala 2028 shirt that clearly was not made by Kamala. It was clearly like, you know, it's Oakland, so we make our own t-shirts when we want to. What do you tell her about 2028?
23:07
Speaker 2
I mean, first of all, I feel like Black women, and I'm going to speak for all Black women now.
23:13
Speaker 1
Okay. Okay.
23:14
Speaker 2
Pardon me while I speak for at least 92% of Black women. That experience of the joy and the highs of Kamala's campaign, her 107-day campaign, and the punch in the face of the loss of And not just the loss of a campaign, but to that guy, to the guy who let a million people die during COVID. To a guy who.
23:34
Speaker 1
Shouldn't be allowed to run for president because he was twice impeached.
23:37
Speaker 2
He is a felon.
23:38
Speaker 1
Unfortunately, the impeachment I learned is a fake thing. Apparently, not real. Not real.
23:44
Speaker 2
I mean, the fact that he is a felon and she's a prosecutor, the fact that he is a sex pest.
23:50
Speaker 3
Yes.
23:51
Speaker 2
Alleged to be even worse than a pest.
23:53
Speaker 1
An adjudicated rapist. Right.
23:56
Speaker 2
He sexually abused E. Jean Carroll and a jury of his peers found that that happened. And she was a sex crimes prosecutor. That, you know, he's a liar and a failure in business. In every way a failure as president.
24:07
Speaker 1
And an open-faced grifter.
24:09
Speaker 2
An open-faced grifter. And to losing to that. And so I think for black women... I don't know how many Black women are ready for the trauma of reliving that. And I feel like that would be traumatic. And then I think the primary would be traumatic because she's not going to get an open door to it. There's going to be a massive primary in 2028.
24:28
Speaker 3
Yeah.
24:29
Speaker 1
Because it may be, in some ways it feels like getting Trump out of office is actually what that election is going to be about. Like making sure that he leaves. Leaves.
24:40
Speaker 2
But then the other piece is, We don't know we're going to have a free and fair election in 2028.
24:43
Speaker 1
We don't know if we're going to have a free and fair election when this airs. Exactly. On November 3rd.
24:49
Speaker 2
The thing is, there's a lot of supposition going into 2028 that's real kind of arrogant of us to assume we're going to have a country that's a democracy by 2028. So all the speculation to me is so premature because we don't know what's going to happen. We don't know what the conditions are going to be. Or even if we're going to be in a low-key civil war by then, we could have the military on our streets by then and martial law. So I can't even speculate about not just Kamala Harris, but anybody. It feels so ephemeral. And also just talking about it brings me back to that place where we were on that November night. And so it's like, I feel like it's too soon to go there. But I think she's a brilliant person. I think she made a tremendous, I mean, my biggest, my only critique, and I said this to her, it's nothing I haven't said to her chief of staff, is that the Gaza piece of it, Not just her, but the fact that she carried that burden of an awful Israel-Gaza policy from the Biden administration that was indefensible. It just is indefensible for what Biden, his policies on Gaza.
25:51
Speaker 1
For all of his, I'm a religious man, a man of faith. Indefensible. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
25:55
Speaker 2
And so the fact that she couldn't push away from that is still dogging her. She goes on the campaign trail.
26:01
Speaker 1
I've seen it. And, you know, and she's from the Bay Area. It's funny. During the... The Bay Area is very sensitive. During the... like the DNC when they ran her like sizzle reel. It was, they said, like, I think Morgan Freeman did the voice. He's like from the East Bay of California, which nobody out there really calls it the East Bay of California. But it was, they were, I talked about on stage. I was like somewhere in Kamala's camp, there was a discussion. Do we want to say she's from Berkeley or Oakland? It's a big deal. And they ended up saying she was from Berkeley. And it's, you know, out there you go back and forth. But really, people think she's from Oakland out there.
26:37
Speaker 2
Yeah.
26:37
Speaker 1
But it was like they had test marketed Oakland. It was like, it's better if she sounds like a socialist than a Black Panther. That's crazy. Yeah, no.
26:44
Speaker 2
That's crazy.
26:44
Speaker 3
Yeah.
26:44
Speaker 1
So just that whole thing, seeing it from the Bay Area perspective of like, you know, the Bay Area and specifically Oakland activists and Berkeley activists is the home of a lot of like Palestinian solidarity. Yeah. And AROC is out there, an organization. So it's like to see that they were on, they were standing on, sort of like you have to pay attention to this too. That was, it was a lot. It's a lot. Meanwhile, I have these kids, these black girls I'm raising who are like, yay, a black woman president. And you're just like, and then it's not, it's Trump. It's a lot. So I have some spontaneous flowers to give you because you just said something I think is very important. I really appreciate you now in this moment making it clear that you don't know that we're going to have a democracy today. in a few years or even in a couple of weeks, who knows? And I think so many people in the media get caught up in like, well, in 2028, we'll have an election or Trump's poll numbers are really low. It's like, you know, he's building a bunker, right? On the White House lawn. Like he's building, he's told us it's a bunker. He's loading it with weapons. So I don't like the inevitability of when media talks about the presidential election, who's in the front lead for JD Vance. It's like, J.D. Vance is probably somewhere going, I don't know that he's going to let me take over.
27:55
Speaker 2
He didn't endorse him. He recently had an opportunity to endorse him. I think this was within a week of today, and he didn't. I mean, the reality is I had to step out of mainstream media. I've been in mainstream media most of my life. I worked for Radio 1. I did radio, talked radio for a while.
28:10
Speaker 1
In Florida. In Florida. I learned that about you.
28:11
Speaker 2
I had News Talk 1080, WTPS. I was in small market radio and have done some other things. But the reality is the media writ large- approaches politics the way it approaches sports. And I think it comes from local news, traffic, weather together. You know, local news is local news, headlines about crime and sports and weather. And that's really what, and then everything is a filling in between. And that's not to diss local news. It's just what it is.
28:37
Speaker 3
Right.
28:37
Speaker 2
And so I think most people who cover politics in the media, it's like they worked on campaigns. I did, but not most people did. So they kind of cover it very similar to the way they look at sports.
28:47
Speaker 1
Who's up?
28:47
Speaker 2
Who's down? What are the poll numbers and who's going to run? And And it's all covered with such normality that I think there's a presumption in those C-suites that there will be a democracy, that America will go on. It's mostly white men that run it. So they presume this country will go on as it always has because it's always gone on the same way for them. But we who are black have had very wrenching changes in the way America has gone. So we understand it can go left, it can go right, it can go a whole different way and go wrong. And also I think those of us who come from an immigrant background are like even more immediate. Hey, it could go wrong like tomorrow and collapse. And so I don't approach America as an inevitability. I don't approach democracy as an inevitability. And I think it's a huge mistake for the media to kind of anesthetize the public by presuming things that they have no evidence for. They have no evidence we're going to be a democracy.
29:33
Speaker 1
I like that. I don't approach America as an inevitability. Is that a bar? Is that a new one? It's a bar. That's a good one. That's a good one.
29:40
Speaker 2
Might be a bar.
29:41
Speaker 1
Maybe on a Joy Reid sweatshirt.
29:43
Speaker 2
I should put it on some merch.
29:44
Speaker 1
I don't approach America as an inevitability, which I feel that way. I just didn't put it into those succinct words because I think that we also forget to the rest of the world, we are we may not even be a country yet. We're still like, we're not even, we're not old enough to, you're not old enough to decide if you're a country. It's like, it's like talking to a teenager. You're not an adult. Like, how are you talking about?
30:03
Speaker 2
I love hearing people from China talk about America. They're like, oh, you think you're going to come up against 5,000 year old Chinese empire?
30:10
Speaker 3
Or Iran.
30:10
Speaker 2
Iran is like, Bitch, we're the Persian Empire. Are you crazy? You think you can make a little war on us? You think we're not going to close the Strait of Hormuz permanently? We're the Persian Empire. So we're just a baby. We're 250 years, and we don't even know. There used to be one Dakota, and then there were two. There were two, you know? So it's like, if the Dakotas can split, you know?
30:34
Speaker 1
Yeah, you know, Mexico still feels like this country. Most of it is still, you know, that California part. I think that's ours, you know? I know you renamed it, but we have... We might get it back someday.
30:43
Speaker 2
But y'all, we light renamed it Colorado, California. You know, New Mexico. It's like, you kind of lightly renamed some shit.
30:50
Speaker 1
It was so funny when Schwarzenegger was running for governor, people would make fun of how he said California. And then people were like, that's actually closer to how it's pronounced. That's actually closer to the actual language. It is.
31:02
Speaker 3
Yeah.
31:03
Speaker 1
The other thing I want to give you flowers for, and this is the area that gets sort of like, I talked to Don about this, and he was like, well, I never see you really get in trouble. I was like, because I'm super sensitive and scared of people yelling at me. But you, there's been times in your career where controversies either come your way, either because they dug up some old things you had to address, or there was the thing you said where people were like, that's Islamophobic, and you were like, that's not Islamophobic, and you don't strike me as a person who wants to be regarded as Islamophobic. And then... Recently, I saw that right when I booked you, it was the middle of your friend, Rua.
31:37
Speaker 2
Lord have mercy.
31:39
Speaker 1
Yes.
31:40
Speaker 2
Ruligate.
31:41
Speaker 3
Yeah.
31:41
Speaker 1
Where she, I mean, it was, I saw the clip and I was like, I felt like as soon as she started talking, she was like, stop talking. Like in her head. In her mind.
31:48
Speaker 3
Yeah.
31:48
Speaker 1
Like, but she didn't. And I've been there before. You're like, what am I saying? Why am I saying this?
31:52
Speaker 2
Why is this coming out of my mouth?
31:53
Speaker 1
Yeah. Where she said, she used the word monkey to talk about, uh.
31:57
Speaker 2
Uh, And Aaron Boy to talk about Hakeem Jeffries.
32:01
Speaker 1
Hakeem Jeffries, which is just like, whatever you think about Hakeem Jeffries, that's not how we do it. I learned years ago, no Black person should really call anybody an Uncle Tom or anything. You can describe their behavior, but once you go there, you sort of lose. Is there a clearance.
32:16
Speaker 2
Exception to this? I just want to make sure that we understand the rules.
32:18
Speaker 1
I'm going to say this knowing that certain ports of the internet are going to be like, I describe myself, Black dude, went to went to predominantly private schools, have a Netflix special named Private School Negro. You can stream it now. It's old, but the jokes were about Trump being president, so it still works. Married to a white woman, raising black mixed race kids. I know I'm not, I can't be the spokesperson for blackness.
32:42
Speaker 2
Right, that's fair.
32:43
Speaker 1
In the same way, no, but yeah, but in the same way, I'll say this, that like, this is a good, that if you're a black man, married to a black woman.
32:51
Speaker 2
Like D.L.
32:52
Speaker 3
Hughley.
32:52
Speaker 1
Black, yeah, they're, Perfect. Absolutely perfect. That DL can get away with some things that I cannot get away with. And I accept that. And I get away with other things that maybe he can't get away with. But DL is a great example. Even though, let me be clear, not comparing myself to DL. We're just both black comedians in the world who have some political opinions. DL is great. So I know that if I call him the black guy who's married to a white woman, call somebody an Uncle Tom. There's going to be some.
33:21
Speaker 2
You won't catch that backlash.
33:22
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I can't. So I'm not saying other people can't. But I know that, like, that's not really my. No, that's fair.
33:29
Speaker 2
And look, as somebody that has.
33:30
Speaker 1
Yeah, but I will criticize Claire Thomas all day.
33:32
Speaker 2
All day long. No, I think that's fair. And I think for me, I kind of have a similar bent in that, you know, my parents are not from here.
33:39
Speaker 1
There we go.
33:39
Speaker 2
You know, my parents were from Congo and Guyana. So I'm a first generation American. I grew up as an African-American because. You know, the Caribbean people are like, oh, you think you're Guyanese. You're not Guyanese. You're from here. You're from Brooklyn. And so they keep you here.
33:51
Speaker 1
Right.
33:52
Speaker 2
And the Africans are like, yeah, you're really not African. So there's a distance a little bit from the foreign countries that I've never been to. And I was raised here, but I also I'm super sensitive. to the ways in which Caribbean American and African people sometimes relate to African Americans. So I always walk the fine line of thinking you've got to pay your due respect to African Americans. It just has to be done.
34:13
Speaker 1
But are you defining yourself as an African American?
34:15
Speaker 2
I define myself as an African American, but I live in all these worlds. I'm a pan-Africanist. So I actually don't believe in the– I believe we're all African people.
34:22
Speaker 1
The diaspora.
34:23
Speaker 2
I'm a diaspora person, but I know that there are some very unique experiences that African Americans have had. that they've lived through, the Caribbean Americans have had a different experience and the African people who've been colonized. We've all had different experiences with Europeans messing with us in different ways, but it's been different. And so I try to be sensitive to that and not be too much. I can speak for African-Americans really, right? I'm speaking from a point of view of being a part of the community, but also in some ways, like a guest in the community too. I feel like in some ways I'm both.
34:55
Speaker 1
Yeah, I'm glad you're, I mean, this is all sort of like, such a charge issue ring up. And again, I think when people hear these things, there's just nuance here that people don't always want to recognize. But I think it's the same way that like, I'm trying to be like, look, I know who I am and I know where I come from and I know who I'm with. And I get, I get what, I get how some black folks may be like, that's why you can't do X, Y, and Z. All right, fine. I won't do X, Y, and Z. Or maybe I'll do it, but I'm not going to talk about it. You know what I mean?
35:21
Speaker 2
Or you can do it because you have a right.
35:23
Speaker 1
But I also understand why you're sensitive to it. I'm not going to act like, no, no, I can do whatever I want. That doesn't get us anywhere.
35:30
Speaker 2
Doesn't get us anywhere. And I don't love the policing of blackness. It bothers me. But I also feel like I have to try to meet people where they are. And where people are coming from comes from somewhere. And I think when it comes to black folks, there's been so much pain in the experience of being in this world, particularly being in a world where we're 13 percent of the population and just hating on through every era.
35:50
Speaker 1
Yeah.
35:51
Speaker 2
And hating on in a way that it doesn't make sense.
35:53
Speaker 3
Right.
35:53
Speaker 1
And also promise things in every era that then promises that are reneged on.
35:57
Speaker 2
Correct. And so I totally hear what you're saying. But for me, as far as like living in that space and dealing with like controversy and everything like that. My whole thing is I just have to be self-grounded, right? You got to take the L's when you got to take them. And sometimes you just have to take them. And then the other times you can get the L's, right? And somebody like a Clarence Thomas, I always say that, first of all, I defend Uncle Tom. And I'm going to say this right now. I would defend the character of Uncle Tom in Uncle Tom's Cabin. Because he was actually a hero in that book.
36:23
Speaker 1
No, that's one of the things that's gotten twisted.
36:25
Speaker 2
It's gotten twisted. And I hate the way that we have been fooled into thinking. taking a hero from what would have been a hero in our narrative and turning him into a villain. What was he a villain for? Defending Black women. And so we've now gotten ourselves, tricked ourselves into hurling a slur at people that in some ways is denigrating the protection of Black women. Whereas a Clarence Thomas attacks Black people relentlessly, attacks our history, dare to say that the Reconstruction Amendments weren't even about Black people, that they were universal, that they were not about protecting the formerly enslaved. He doesn't even accede to his own history as somebody from Pinpoint, Georgia. He doesn't even embrace the Blackness on his very skin. You know, the difference between him and who he's married to and you who you're married to, I feel like he essentially... is embarrassed by who he is and wishes he looked like his wife. You are married to who you're married to, and you're still who you are with your big afro and still your blackness intact. And so I'm like, keep your blackness intact. That's all we ask. It's like, it's the minimum.
37:32
Speaker 3
Yeah.
37:33
Speaker 1
No, I just think, again, the internet has really sort of given voice to communities that really want to make sure that we understand that there are African Americans, which I'm in the who can trace our lineage back to enslavement. That's right. And then there's African-Americans like yourself who are connected to immigration.
37:53
Speaker 3
Right.
37:53
Speaker 1
And so, yes, those experiences.
37:54
Speaker 2
Well, and enslavement, because I got one half that had enslavement and one half that did not.
37:57
Speaker 1
So you're mixed.
37:59
Speaker 2
The fun thing is I did my 23andMe, and I will tell you, I am 100% unmixed African.
38:05
Speaker 1
Ooh, that put you ahead of me.
38:07
Speaker 2
Yes, sir.
38:08
Speaker 1
I did my, we did it for an ancestry thing. And I was 72% black. And I was like, and the average is 75. I'm like, man, so black people are right. I'm really not black enough. I'm down 3%.
38:20
Speaker 2
My husband, I think he was like in the 80s or something. And I was like, see that? You see how black I am versus you?
38:30
Speaker 1
So I just said, like I said, I like you said, sometimes you take the L, but also sometimes you give the L. But if you've got to take the L, you've got to take the L. And I think that's important to say that like, also, I have a lot of, here's the last flowers. I mean, we're still in the flower section. I have a lot of empathy for people like you who talk every day live on microphones for a living. Because it just means that like, at some point, just by the percentages, something's going to, that you're not going to have it all, that, you know, it's not all going to be fully worked out and it's going to come out and you're going to be like, you know, but your job is to be on there. And I don't think your average person understands how hard it is to talk on mic every day, live into microphones. Not edited into microphones. We're editing this. You're talking, especially now on the internet, live into microphones.
39:17
Speaker 2
Yeah. And I used to do the radio. I was doing five days a week of morning radio. And then I was doing, you know, I was at the Rio. I'm writing every day. Like, the thing about it is if you're doing a lot of content, you're going to have F-ups. You're going to have F-ups.
39:30
Speaker 3
Up.
39:30
Speaker 2
Like, that is just a reality that I think will happen and that you just have to accept that that's kind of what it is, kind of what it is. And it's just part of the process. But I do think it's also a privilege to have a microphone and be able to talk to anybody who gives a damn what you're saying. So there's a privilege to it, to be able to do it and have people actually care what you say. So I do feel like there's a responsibility to try to be careful.
39:51
Speaker 1
Yes.
39:51
Speaker 2
But there's just no I mean, like I accidentally dropped an F-bomb one time on MSNBC. I did not mean to because I was criticizing Joe Biden in the commercial breaks. And as you can see, I'm a yapper. And so I'm yapping and yapping and yapping. And in the commercial, I would either be singing, talking or chatting. And then I was chatting about something that he had been saying. And it was about. you know, the Middle East. And I said, damn it, trying to start another fucking war and didn't realize that they had opened my mic. So my agent called me immediately like, what are you doing?
40:21
Speaker 1
No. I mean, I feel like you're not really in this business until you drop an F-bomb live on TV.
40:27
Speaker 3
Yeah.
40:33
Speaker 1
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41:19
Speaker 2
And look, the thing with the someone claiming that that's something I said was Islam. It was actually crazy because I've been a big defender of the Palestinian people. And I think the way that I was phrasing something, I was talking about the fact that I think people outside. I'm trying to remember this instance would consider what would call this person.
41:36
Speaker 1
It was like it was about Kyle Rittenhouse. And you're saying the way that Trump is talking about Kyle Rittenhouse, you're comparing it to something that could happen.
41:43
Speaker 2
Right, exactly. And so CARE, the organization that reaches out to try to stop Islamophobia, said something. And then I had to come on and clarify. And the person who was on with me was actually a Muslim who had to come back on with me. We had to do a thing. And when you're in corporate media, you have to do a formal thing. You have to come and you have to correct and clean it up. And so that had to happen. The ruler thing, which was wild about the ruler thing, is that I caught hell. And I didn't even say it. And it wasn't on my show. And I caught hell because I put her on with Wajahat Ali, whose show it was. And I put them on because she wanted to apologize. So I put her on and let her apologize on my show. And I caught living hell like I had said it. And, like, I defended it. And I didn't defend it. I started it by saying this was a mess up. It was a screw up by somebody who's not an ally. She is an ally. She's a black Palestinian woman. She identifies as black. But that is not an excuse for what she said. And she recognized that. And then Angela Rye came on afterwards and really, you know, made it even more plain than I had.
42:49
Speaker 3
Yeah.
42:51
Speaker 2
She mowed the lawn on that one. And I was like, I get it. And I understood how people had feelings. They didn't want to see her. They didn't want to hear her at all. But she wanted to apologize. And I feel if somebody genuinely wants to apologize and that's what they want to do, it's why we have a platform. So let them do it. And I don't know why I caught hell for that. I still don't get it.
43:08
Speaker 1
Well, I think it goes back to what we said earlier, black woman on the Internet. And sometimes our people are hardest on us.
43:14
Speaker 2
I guess so. Yeah, because people really, they were real big mad about it. But I was like, nope. And first of all, she had been apologizing all day to me in text. And she was genuinely mortified by what she had said. And she felt strongly she wanted to apologize. So I gave her the platform to do it.
43:29
Speaker 1
Just on the subject of Ilhan Omar, I feel like one of the ways I see all these things I'm thinking about is like these are signs that we're in a fascist country.
43:36
Speaker 3
Yes.
43:37
Speaker 1
And the way in which the Trump administration is trying to strip her of her citizenship. it's like an old, like that's, that's it. That's fascism.
43:43
Speaker 2
Like one-on-one it's fascism one-on-one. And the thing about it is for me as a child of immigrants, this is one of the reasons that I really don't shout out my cousins and family members on my show anymore. I used to talk about them on social media, but I recognize I come from a family of immigrants and people need to understand that what they're doing is a demon is meant to send a message to every black person. That if you are a black immigrant, they can take away your citizenship, not because you did anything wrong, but because the president doesn't like you. And so your citizenship is dependent on the president liking you. So you better make him like you because they can strip you of your citizenship and take it. And if they could do it to Ilhan Omar, they could do it to me because my parents are immigrants. They could say, well, too bad. We don't think your deceased mother did her citizenship right. Therefore, since she wasn't a citizen, neither were you. You got to go. And then they could go to you, Mal Bell, and they could say, you know what? We don't like what you're saying. And we don't care that you trace your lineage back to enslavement. We've decided you're no longer a citizen. If you don't think they could do it to an African-American like you with all of your history, they could do it. And again, Trump is a German national whose people came here in the 1890s. And he thinks that he is more of a citizen than you.
45:00
Speaker 1
I mean, I think that's the thing I try to say. And I appreciate you saying this is like for one of the things that happens when black people try it, when certain black people want to really separate us from black immigrants, it's like, you know, all this shit rolls downhill to us. It doesn't stop rolling downhill and go, well, we don't want to be, you know, this is all just like test marketing for how do we, how do we control black people?
45:21
Speaker 2
Correct.
45:21
Speaker 1
Like all black people. Yeah. So, you know, none of this is, none of this seems like, I think some people are like, well, those immigrants do need to come to the country legally. And it's like, you know, all of this is just beta testing until they get to us.
45:32
Speaker 2
That's correct. Every time.
45:34
Speaker 1
And also, you know, other people know this is Native Americans. Indigenous people know that, like, they're coming. You know, this is our land. That's right. And they're coming for us.
45:41
Speaker 2
And ICE has already gone after Indigenous communities.
45:45
Speaker 1
On sovereign land.
45:46
Speaker 2
On the same trip where you and I met up when we were at last year when we were in Utah.
45:49
Speaker 1
Yeah.
45:50
Speaker 2
The guy who was driving us around was an Indigenous man who said that his community at that point had already— faced harassment from ICE. ICE coming into indigenous territory and questioning their citizenship.
46:02
Speaker 1
It would be like if ICE walked into Canada and started talking to people. You know what I'm saying? People don't... I don't think... That is their sovereign land. Correct. It is like another country that you're being allowed to go on there. That's right. And it would be like if ICE walked into Canada and started telling people what to do. Correct. That's how wild it is.
46:17
Speaker 3
It is.
46:17
Speaker 2
And the fact that they have the nerve, the gall, to go to these people whose land was stolen from them. But again... It takes us back to Israel because I promise you, you know, you go into the West Bank where people have 100-year-old deeds to their land and they've been there hundreds of years. They're going in there, a group of settlers landing from Chicago or from, you know, from Moscow are saying, this is our land.
46:40
Speaker 1
Get out.
46:41
Speaker 2
So this whole idea of settler colonialism is the basis for so many so-called civilizations. And the way that they civilize these places is to remove the non-Europeans. And when Europeans just decide you as a non-European are less of a human, therefore I get to have your land. I get to tell you what to do. I make the laws of you. I make the rules. It's no different whether you're doing it there or here. So we have to understand that we're living in an era of endless imperialism, endless recolonization. And the biggest fear that these people have is not that you and I will figure this out and talk about it on your podcast. It's the white people will figure it out. They're so afraid that if their own children and grandchildren figure it out, they'll put a stop to it. And so the reason that they're so exercised about DEI and Black history being taught in schools is not because we're figuring it out.
47:32
Speaker 4
We know.
47:33
Speaker 2
It's because the white kids are on TikTok going, wait a cotton-picking minute.
47:38
Speaker 1
Wait a, I never picked cotton-picking minute. No, I think that's true. I think it's true that there were, I mean, you know, I've said this for years that like, because it's still like, what is this? Yeah. If Martin Luther King Jr. was alive, he would be 97 years old.
47:52
Speaker 2
Yeah.
47:53
Speaker 1
That's not the oldest Black person in the history of mankind. So when I hear that and I think that, I think about the fact that that means that there are still white people walking this earth who hated his fucking guts.
48:04
Speaker 2
That's correct.
48:05
Speaker 1
And post the Civil Rights Movement, they were shamed into silence.
48:08
Speaker 3
Mm-hmm.
48:09
Speaker 1
And sort of like, I guess we can't just be out loud about that anymore. But they were still around. We thought their hearts had changed. Some of them did. But a lot of them were just like biding their time. And we thought he got a holiday. So that must mean that everything, even though Arizona was like, we don't want him to.
48:22
Speaker 2
Have a holiday.
48:24
Speaker 1
But then Trump sort of invited those people and their racist children who had been raised by them. to suddenly just come out from under the dead log.
48:35
Speaker 3
Yeah.
48:36
Speaker 2
And the thing is that people, you know, we lose kind of a sense of time. But, you know, King was killed in 68. The years between 68 and 1980 when Reagan is reelected, that's 12 years. So it's 12 years between King being killed, Reagan coming in, and when was the Heritage Foundation formed? Around that time, early 1980s. And who were two of the OG members of the Heritage Foundation when it was on college campuses and when it was young lawyers involved? That would be John Roberts and Samuel Alito, two of the OG members of the Heritage Foundation. So we're saying that 12 years after King was dead, people like John Roberts and Samuel Alito were saying, okay, that's enough blacks. You've gotten enough freedom. Now shut the fuck up. Be quiet again and go back to cleaning my shit.
49:21
Speaker 3
Right.
49:21
Speaker 2
Go back to being a maid and be quiet. You've gotten enough. You've gotten enough freedom.
49:26
Speaker 1
Shut up.
49:26
Speaker 2
That was literally 12 years later. They already started on the mission to undo slavery. this brief moment of civil rights. This civil rights movement was brief. It was as short as Reconstruction. And just like they said after 12 years of Reconstruction, enough. Put the whites back in charge. They did the same thing with the civil rights movement. They said, enough. The second Reconstruction has gone too far. Same with Obama. He comes in. Eight years later, they said, enough. Enough of this black president. We're going back to the way it was.
49:57
Speaker 1
Not only are we going back to the way it was, we're going to take the number one worst person. Like the guy, I mean, there's so many times when it's like, how did we not, we have not done a good job as an American society to shame people out of common life, out of public life when they have messed up. So Donald Trump, there's several times, first of all, 73, he gets the, just the Nixon administration has says, you're not renting houses to black people. You're putting a C on their forms. So that's the first time Donald Trump's first act in public life is being acknowledged as a racist by the federal government, by Nixon's, Department of Justice. Of all people. Yeah. Then we got the Exonerated Five, then known as the Central Park Five, that he took out full-page ads in newspapers saying we need to bring back the death penalty.
50:41
Speaker 2
For teenagers.
50:41
Speaker 1
Yeah, for teenagers who had no physical evidence connecting them to this crime. It did nothing. It did nothing. And then made a whole cottage industry out of Barack Obama needs to prove that he was born in Hawaii.
50:55
Speaker 2
Correct.
50:56
Speaker 1
Turned into a whole cottage industry.
50:57
Speaker 3
Yep.
50:58
Speaker 1
Three different times he should have said, And then we got January 6th. That's three different times, four different times where we should be like, you're not allowed to come outside anymore.
51:08
Speaker 2
And not even in between that, a million people died from the COVID pandemic because he lied to the American people because he was afraid he would lose his reelect if he told us it was airborne. But he told Bob Woodward it was airborne on tape. And Bob Woodward didn't tell us either. He should be shamed for that as well.
51:24
Speaker 1
Okay, so what is your opinion on journalists today? You just said no. Just like, no, my opinion is no. Journalists, I understand people like to write books. And I understand that you need juicy hot goss in the book to sell the book. And I understand. But there is certainly an industry of journalists who put out these books about like, look what I heard a year ago. that you all were talking about and you would have loved to have confirmation that maybe would have changed could have made maybe it was changing maybe it wouldn't but you certainly would have loved this confirmation uh and now i'm or look what i thought a year ago that i didn't tell you i thought a year ago but now i'm writing the book and i'm telling you i thought about it i think about and you know these people have a lot of clay bob woodward is like the best example of it but like you know jay tapper maggie haberman there's a lot of like sort of like here's what I really thought or here's what I really heard. My book's available for sale right now. Right, exactly.
52:19
Speaker 2
Can you imagine if Woodward and Bernstein had done that with Watergate? With Watergate, they did the opposite. They said, oh, my God, this man is a crook. He's committing crimes right now. Here's the evidence.
52:28
Speaker 1
We got to let the American public know right now so we can stop the crimes. Correct.
52:31
Speaker 2
And they did it right then and there. Can you imagine if they just said, you know what? Let's hold off. Let's let him play out.
52:36
Speaker 1
This is going to be a real juicy book.
52:38
Speaker 2
And they didn't. And it's like, what happened to this guy? And then he fast forward to Trump. And this is not what Watergate was bad. Watergate was cheating in an election. COVID killed a million people. This is life and death. And this man said to tape, it's airborne. Do you remember this? We were taking out like Lysol and spraying like our groceries and stuff or spraying our grocery bags.
53:01
Speaker 1
Yeah, I did it.
53:02
Speaker 2
We were doing it.
53:02
Speaker 1
I was the head grocery cleaner in my house.
53:04
Speaker 2
We were panicking.
53:06
Speaker 1
We didn't know. I remember Sanjay Gupta, you know, no shade or maybe the requisite amount of shade on CNN doing a segment. Where he showed you how to clean your groceries.
53:15
Speaker 2
How to clean your groceries. We were cleaning our groceries. We were spraying every door handle or doorknob handle because we didn't know if it was you touch it and you get it. We were walking around in our house in masks. We were so scared to go near our grandparents. We were staying away from our elders.
53:28
Speaker 1
We didn't know. We would see her. We would go outside at her courtyard at her apartment building and just sort of, you know, and she couldn't, I mean, just the, couldn't, you're afraid to hug her, you know.
53:36
Speaker 2
People dying alone, elderly people, their last person they touch is an iPad. with the person on the other end of the phone, people dying alone in their apartments. I know two people who died by themselves in their apartments all alone. And I mean, this reporter, this journalist, this great journalist knew. And in February, I think about what we were doing in February of 2020. We were all about impeachment on my show, on AM Joy at that time. It was just impeachment, impeachment, impeachment. We were focused. We were not. And I remember one of the senior, the people who was in charge of weekends was like, And they have Tom Nika. She was like, yo, there's this virus going around this COVID thing. And I was like, ma'am, if you tell me one more time about this COVID, we try to get this impeachment on. We were so focused on, on impeaching this fool. We were so focused on impeachment that we were just sort of not paying. And then it kind of hit in April.
54:31
Speaker 1
It sounded crazy. And I mean, like it didn't sound like we'd never experienced it before. And you know, we were every now and again, Oh, there's a mad cow disease or there's a Zika bird flu. Like there's, Oh yeah. But it never had, nothing like that ever.
54:44
Speaker 2
Happened because the government was not telling us how bad it was and then all of a sudden april may comes along and there are body bags piling up in brooklyn and then we're like holy shit but we we would have had a three or four month warning that we could have told we could have communicated to our audiences and at the time you know i'm humble brag i had the biggest weekend show at msnbc.
55:06
Speaker 1
No for sure you were you were you were one of those like if it's If it's on the weekend, you're trending on Twitter.
55:10
Speaker 2
We were trending every weekend. We had the biggest show on the network at the time and the weekends at the time. And it's like, we didn't know. We couldn't tell anyone. And so that failure alone should have made him ineligible to ever be president again. Remember, 9-11 was 2,300 people who died. It changed our whole country. This is a million people. And we just are like, let him have another shot. Give him another chance. Why? Just that alone. And then the fact, as you said, The Central Park Five thing was not just a mistake in judgment about five kids. It was an attempted lynching. His father, his father got arrested at a Klan rally.
55:46
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. Charles Blow talked about that.
55:49
Speaker 2
In 1927, he got arrested at a Klan rally, something we try to tell people when he was trying to run the first time. This man said, lynch these five young teenagers for the same thing that black men used to get lynched for, accusations of rape. This was a direct.
56:03
Speaker 1
Attempt at lynching. Accusations of rape with no hint of proof.
56:06
Speaker 2
Hint of proof that's why black men got lynched yep for decades yeah and now all of a sudden you want to lynch these five boys and he did that loud and proud in an expensive new york times full page ad and we're just like yeah fine give another chance give him the apprentice let him be.
56:22
Speaker 1
Like a goofy let him be like the america's favorite rich guy sort of charming rich guy.
56:27
Speaker 2
Yeah what are we doing He's firing Omarosa. It's cute. I never watched that show for the reason that I was a teenager in New York during Central Park Five. I remember him as basically the devil. And so you're electing this awful racist man. That was bad enough to do at once. But a second time?
56:44
Speaker 1
I mean, it's the proof that like, let's be clear. And I've always want to be clear about this. White supremacy is not real in the way that it's not a thing that is true that white people are supreme. But white supremacy is like a performance-enhancing drug that helps a guy like Donald Trump.
56:58
Speaker 2
Yeah, for sure.
57:00
Speaker 1
It supercharges his ability to not have things stick to him. Yeah. Because the system is set up to be like, you know, that was last year.
57:07
Speaker 2
Right.
57:08
Speaker 1
That was a crazy time.
57:10
Speaker 2
Can you imagine Obama having 23 sexual abuse accusations on him and being in the Epstein files more than Jesus is in the Bible?
57:20
Speaker 1
No, I mean, the answer is just no. The answer is just the answer is just I mean, it's like it's not even, you know, first of all, Michelle's not still there if that happens. That's fair.
57:29
Speaker 2
Well, neither is Melania, if we're being honest.
57:31
Speaker 1
No, Melania. In name only. I'm sure that is a contracted appearance. Incorrect. It's like when you, it's like, I got to show up to the supermarket opening. It is, I'm sure there's somewhere there's paperwork says when she has to show up. Right. Can't wait to see the new Christmas death decorations.
57:45
Speaker 2
Oh my God. The red, the red wedding Christmas is, might be one of the lowest moments in like the US holiday history. The red, it was like a blood red Christmas. What is happening?
57:55
Speaker 1
And also, I just want to be clear about the COVID thing. We're not saying all that stuff that we were doing. We were all just scared. Yes. And the thing we're saying is that we were not being given the truth by our leader.
58:06
Speaker 2
We weren't being given direction. And like he was downplaying it. Right. I mean, like there's a way that you can do leadership that's it's over that. I mean, I'm not a fan of George W.
58:14
Speaker 5
Bush at all.
58:15
Speaker 2
I'm not a fan at all. But during after 9-11, I will give him this one. We're giving flowers. I'll give him this one piece of credit. He said to the country, don't panic. And he performed Don't Panic, but with a level set of it's scared. Like it's not panic, right? But it wasn't like he was saying don't do anything, right? And I hate that the response was to go to war with Iraq, which had nothing to do with it. He got bullied into it by the neocons.
58:41
Speaker 1
And also just sort of. supercharged a whole new generation of Islamophobia.
58:45
Speaker 2
And created ICE. There was no ICE before then.
58:47
Speaker 1
That's right. It was Homeland Security. The Department of Homeland.
58:48
Speaker 2
Security didn't exist. All this bullshit. And so I think his response was stupid, like the Patriot Act and a lot of this stuff. But I'm just saying his actual performance as president, he tried to be reassuring in some way.
58:58
Speaker 1
If he had only been America's president the way that a greeter is at Walmart. Without the Cheney part of it. With no power. I still think there's a short documentary that ESPN did about him throwing out that first pitch. That may be the most impressive. After 9-11, during the World Series, he threw out the first pitch and it was right down the plate. He refused to wear a bulletproof vest. That might be the most presidential thing he ever did and the most impressive thing he ever did But unfortunately, he was doing a lot of other things.
59:31
Speaker 2
And reading My Pet Goat during, there was a lot about him. I mean, he was one of the worst presidents ever in history.
59:36
Speaker 1
I'm giving him that one. It's a flower petal. It's a petal.
59:39
Speaker 2
We give him that petal. But with Trump, his whole thing was, oh, my God, I got to get reelected. Just pretend this is just the flu and it isn't real. Just don't worry about it. You can just go ahead and go to church. Go ahead and do what you want.
59:50
Speaker 1
Maybe shoot Clorox up your butt. I think that takes care of it.
59:53
Speaker 2
Shine a light inside of your body to put bleach in your system. Don't worry about it. Just do all these crazy things. Take crazy horse drugs, whatever.
1:00:02
Speaker 1
It'll be fine.
1:00:03
Speaker 2
Just reelect me is.
1:00:04
Speaker 1
What he's saying. Just know that I need to be president again because I'm trying to stop going to jail.
1:00:09
Speaker 2
Because I also need money.
1:00:11
Speaker 1
I didn't grift enough this time. So I need another four years to grift. And he's really showing us how much more effective he is at grifting this time.
1:00:19
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's a machine. It's a well-oiled machine.
1:00:20
Speaker 1
It's a well-oiled machine. So we've talked a lot of doom and gloom about which I appreciate. It's so dark. It's dark, but as I appreciate, we need to be real. But the midterms are coming up. Yeah. Talk about what your thoughts are on the midterms.
1:00:33
Speaker 2
So I pray they're free and fair elections. I assume there will be lawsuits. The regime has already sued California. claiming they have 20,000 non-citizens on their voting rolls. It's 39 million people. If there were 20,000 on the voter rolls, it wouldn't make it in.
1:00:47
Speaker 1
They need to break it to you.
1:00:48
Speaker 2
But they're still claiming voter fraud in advance. I think that every loss by a Republican will be contested in court. I don't think that Mike Rogers will accept losing. I don't think that Ken Paxton will accept losing. I don't think any of them, if they lose, will accept it. I think that however these midterms go, if Republicans lose, we're going to be in court all the way through January. I don't think they'll accept it. I think they are trained now to not accept losing elections. They're trained to say election fraud. They're trained to try to confiscate the voter rolls. I think there will be likely, you know, armed people at the polls, unfortunately. I think it's going to be frightening. But I do think that between those gas prices, the lies about getting checks that Trump has lied and said he's going to send people checks that he never sent. The food prices, the energy prices, everything going up, the data centers, everything is... The war. The war.
1:01:37
Speaker 1
Oh, my God. The war in.
1:01:37
Speaker 2
Iran that's destroying the economy and also killing a lot of Iranians for no reason, destroying our bases in the Middle East. It's all bad for Republicans right now. All the signs say they're going to lose big, but they're not going to go down easy. And so I think you have to realize they are cornered. They are cornered in a corner. Trump is in a corner, and that's when they're the most dangerous. So fascism becomes the most dangerous when it's just about to lose... And I think they're set up to lose, so I think we need to keep our eyes open for danger. And I think if we get through this election and have a free and fair election, then it's going to be on the Democrats to actually do something with the power. The biggest complaint I have about Democrats is they don't know how to use power. They're very shameful about using power. They better use that power like he did, not to grift.
1:02:21
Speaker 1
That's what I say. I feel like Republicans, let's go back to George W. Bush and Reagan, they drive the country crazy. like they rented it without the insurance and they don't give a shit. Like they rented a car without it and they're like, I'm just.
1:02:34
Speaker 2
No matter.
1:02:34
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No matter. And Democrats always drive like they're afraid they're going to get a ticket. They're always driving below the speed limit.
1:02:42
Speaker 2
Listen.
1:02:43
Speaker 1
Yeah, they're always.
1:02:43
Speaker 2
They're like an elderly person in the speeding lane.
1:02:46
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, yeah. 10 and 2 in the speed... In the fast lane going 54. Beep, beep, beep. Yeah, yeah.
1:02:51
Speaker 2
They're just like little... It's like so embarrassing.
1:02:53
Speaker 3
Yeah.
1:02:53
Speaker 2
And it's like, I fear that if Democrats... Take the House and Senate and then don't make significant change. 2028, we get Hitler. We get straight up unabashed Hitler. So, I mean, because, you know, fascism is almost always followed by socialism or at least a bend toward a socialism. You know, you know, the extreme fascism of this moment is probably going to. it logically will breed a more, and I shouldn't say social, like social democracy. In order to fight fascism and stop it, you're going to need a heavy dose of social democracy, meaning we're going to need Medicare for all. We are the only modern country in the world where you can't go to the doctor without going bankrupt.
1:03:35
Speaker 1
Yeah, we look like clowns.
1:03:38
Speaker 2
We look stupid.
1:03:39
Speaker 1
What's that getting you?
1:03:40
Speaker 2
Nothing.
1:03:41
Speaker 1
In high insurance premiums.
1:03:42
Speaker 2
High insurance, a broken country where our roads look like crap. It looks like a third world country. Our roads are physically falling apart as a nation. Japan has fabulous super trains and it's clean. We're looking like an old, decrepit geyser as a country, even though we're young. And so we need a dramatic shift. And Democrats are going to be responsible for making that dramatic shift happen.
1:04:06
Speaker 1
And a dramatic shift of infrastructure and systems, not a dramatic shift of power. New logos.
1:04:13
Speaker 2
Not new logos and not a lot of talk. And we know we're going to have hearings. We appreciate that. But there needs to be a shift in policy.
1:04:19
Speaker 1
There needs to be accountability at some point.
1:04:22
Speaker 2
They have to stop these wars. They actually have to turn off the spigot on the Iran war. We have to shut that down. Americans, I'm sorry. I don't care how much you love Israel in your heart. You should donate to it. We are no.
1:04:33
Speaker 1
Longer going to give them. Let them open a GoFundMe.
1:04:36
Speaker 2
Open a GoFundMe. But we need the money here. We actually need the money back here. We're going to have to stop that. And I think you're going to have to have Democrats dramatically uptick the accountability. I know they cannot put him in prison. We do not have a Justice Department. The poor FBI came and found that poor lady from Today Show Mama. Yeah, they completely failed the Nolan Wells family. They're just failures. So we don't have an FBI. We don't have a Justice Department. We get it. But Democrats, figure out some way to hold these people accountable and stop the steal. Stop them from stealing our money.
1:05:06
Speaker 1
Yeah, stop the steal.
1:05:07
Speaker 2
Stop the steal. And stop it. Elon Musk doesn't need any more money. We've made him a trillionaire with our money. Our money is making Palantir rich.
1:05:14
Speaker 1
Socialism has made him a trillionaire. Correct.
1:05:15
Speaker 2
And so we're sick of Palantir getting our money. We're sick of the flock cameras getting our money. We're sick of Peter Thiel getting our money. We don't want none of these people. Take it all from these AI people. Let them innovate like entrepreneurs, like the rest of us. They shouldn't get any more tax, not another dime of tax money to these people. They're rich enough.
1:05:35
Speaker 1
So, but that's a long way to say vote. Please. In the midterms.
1:05:39
Speaker 2
We beg of you.
1:05:40
Speaker 3
Yeah.
1:05:41
Speaker 2
Because the thing to me that's the craziest that they've done, including to a lot of our people, is to convince us that the one thing we could do to own our government is not worth it. They've convinced us that it's not worth trying to be the boss of these people. Just let someone else do it. And if you're letting the worst people, the dumbest people, the cruelest people decide for you, we've got to get back the basic belief that we're in charge of the government. And that we, in order to be in charge, we need to hire them. Like, would you have a business and say, let somebody else figure out who's going to work for me? Would you do that? And then say, you know, and then if the person working for you isn't doing their job, say, you know what, I'm not even going to fire them. Let somebody else deal with it. No, you would fire the people who are not doing their job and you would hire better people. This election is our chance to fire the people not doing their job and hire better people.
1:06:30
Speaker 1
For sure. And as you said, you know, thinking about like Ken Paxton in Texas, Texas is and Greg Abbott have been perfecting voter suppression and voter fraud, you know, to, you know, putting the polling places, moving them around or putting one in a place where you need like 20 or something. So, and then you think about Angie Nixon in Florida, like Florida is a, I mean, I, I hope for her and I support her. And, but also it's Florida, Jake.
1:06:54
Speaker 4
But this might be, I mean, this is the one window of opportunity to get back Mississippi, Florida and, Kentucky Senate race, Charles Booker, who I just listened to the debate the other night.
1:07:09
Speaker 2
He did a great job. Texas, which would be game over for Republicans in 2028. So it's like if you really want to make it to the camera, if you really want to make a difference and ensure that they cannot turn us into a fascist hellhole, we need to win all them states. And they could. I mean, Kansas is on the table. Iowa is on the table. Alaska is on the table. It's all on the table.
1:07:28
Speaker 1
If people vote. Kansas being on the table is wild.
1:07:29
Speaker 5
Wild.
1:07:30
Speaker 1
Kansas is red, red, red, redder than It's one of those sneaky red states.
1:07:34
Speaker 2
It's Red Dead Redemption.
1:07:35
Speaker 1
You don't think about it. You don't think about Candace. Ohio, too.
1:07:37
Speaker 2
Ramaswamy is, like, literally mocking a woman for being sexually abused by her stepfather.
1:07:42
Speaker 1
I think he bet against himself on Kalshi. I think that's what's happening. This is a scam where he bet against himself winning, and he's like, I got to make sure I don't win. I got to make sure. Let me just do the worst, grossest thing I could do and get my— My opponent is a strange mom who clearly has issues to rely on her on camera.
1:08:00
Speaker 2
It is wild. It's like the worst testimonial ever. You pick the woman who apparently was a terrible mother who allowed her boyfriend to sexually abuse her child.
1:08:10
Speaker 1
Her boyfriend had already been accused once before of sexual assault.
1:08:13
Speaker 2
And have them live in a tent. That's the lady that's going to be your big closing argument?
1:08:18
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think, again, check his calci record. I think he's bet against himself.
1:08:21
Speaker 2
I feel like between that and saying Americans are not qualified for jobs, like, he shouldn't win.
1:08:25
Speaker 1
I mean, he's just, like, the most sort of, like, cartoon... evil billionaire like just it just thinks he's a man of the people even the even when he like does the pretend workouts oh my god i mean either workout or no workout right neither one makes you a better person no but don't do a pretend like i just i just finished 400 like chin-ups anyway.
1:08:45
Speaker 2
Anyway yeah between him and jd vance i fear for ohio.
1:08:48
Speaker 1
Like are they just turning out assholes they are there is certainly an issue there is certainly an issue yeah something's happening in we talk about Florida we don't know if we talk about Ohio and what's going on.
1:08:59
Speaker 2
I feel like if the right refuses to recognize trans people's new identity, I think we should not recognize John Donald Hamel's identity. I think he's just John Donald Hamel or whatever his name was on his birth certificate.
1:09:10
Speaker 1
I'm going by that. I don't care what he calls himself. Yeah, not James Douglas or whatever.
1:09:14
Speaker 2
Yeah, he's John Donald Hamel or something. That's his name.
1:09:17
Speaker 1
That's his name. if we're not going to recognize trans people, then you can't do all that gender affirming care with the, with the man scar or whatever they call it. And you got to take that beard off. We know you ain't got a chin. We know. Stop trying to man it up with the beard. If you don't want to recognize trans people, you gotta take that.
1:09:33
Speaker 2
Your little doughy face. Show your real doughy face.
1:09:35
Speaker 1
Look like the eight year old. You look, you are. Yeah. Uh, I ask everybody if there's a charity or cause they want people to support or know about. Is there anything you want to share?
1:09:45
Speaker 2
Oh my God, I love that. So, you know, my mother died of metastatic breast cancer. So whenever I'm asked this, I always say American Cancer Society, because I feel like it is crazy that in the year of our Lord, 2026, in the modern era, you know, men, women are still dying of cancer. So I, you know, and anything with breast cancer awareness, I'm always down with it. And, you know, we have got to, you know, well, one thing I will give, I'm going to give Joe Biden his flowers for The cancer moonshot, which, of course, has been canceled by the current regime. We've got to find an answer to this. Too many people are dying young. It should not happen. And so, you know, I pray that we can figure out a way. It needs money.
1:10:18
Speaker 1
That's a good one. I had my guest, Sarah Siner, was on an earlier episode, and she talked about her journey with breast cancer and breast cancer research funds.
1:10:26
Speaker 2
And it's wild because I am now the age my mother was when she died. So I'm like, it's a weird time, a weird.
1:10:32
Speaker 1
Like, weird time.
1:10:33
Speaker 2
Feeling to be like, oh, my God, this is what she was going through in life. Like, this is the life she.
1:10:39
Speaker 1
Was leading at this age. The age she was.
1:10:41
Speaker 3
Yeah.
1:10:42
Speaker 1
My last question, the podcast is called Who's With Me. Joy, are you with me?
1:10:46
Speaker 2
I'm with you, my brother.
1:10:47
Speaker 3
Okay, all right.
1:10:48
Speaker 2
But wait, only if you tell me where Kamau comes from. Where does the origin of this thing?
1:10:51
Speaker 1
Oh, that's right. We should start talking about that. Okay, so I will tell you that. So I was born in Stanford Hospital because my mom was in grad school there. It's a long story. She was in grad school, did her PhD in English literature, and she wanted a concentration in African-American literature, but they did not feel like that was a valid field of study at the time. This is 73. So she dropped out because she didn't want a lesser degree, a lesser PhD. So she's definitely got the qualifications to be a PhD, Stanford. Where's that PhD? I've asked for it several times. But my mom and dad met, they were living in East Palo Alto, which at the time, I that they were really fans of the Kenyan independence movement. So they were calling, they tried to rename East Palo Alto Little Nairobi. So babies were being born. My mom and dad had taken on African names, not legally, but like amongst their tribe. And from what they say, I was the first baby born into this tribe of black folks in Little Nairobi. And so Kamau is a Kenyan name, which means quiet warrior. Like the Mau Mau's is a warrior. So Kamau is quiet warrior or silent warrior. And Naming a kid Kamau in Kenya is like naming a kid like Michael here. It's a very common last name. It's because it's a member of the tribe. So when I got to do it in Kenya with Anthony Bourdain, Kenyans were all like, you clearly aren't Kenyan, so where'd you get this name from? And then I would tell them, okay, I got made an honorary Kenyan several times.
1:12:15
Speaker 2
First of all, I love this, and I'm so jealous you got to meet my idol in everything, Anthony Bourdain. Best TV show ever made, I will honor Kenyan. I will say, is Anthony Bourdain, No Reservations. There's never been a show better than that, even though you made a great show.
1:12:30
Speaker 1
No, no, no.
1:12:30
Speaker 2
And look, I make shows too, but I'm telling you, he was number one.
1:12:33
Speaker 1
He did a thing that only he could do. And I got to work with a lot of his people in the latter season of The United Shades when he worked that show.
1:12:39
Speaker 2
Yeah.
1:12:39
Speaker 1
And you could really see that crew really understood who he was and how to let him succeed. And yeah, no, for sure. There are things in my life, and I'm sure you have these things where it's like, on your worst day of getting called, whatever, dragged on the internet, you can be like, yeah, but.
1:12:52
Speaker 2
I've done some things and.
1:12:54
Speaker 1
Going to Kenya with board aid is like, you can say a lot of things about me, but you don't got that.
1:12:59
Speaker 2
You don't got that. Well, W come out bell. I am with you.
1:13:02
Speaker 1
Thank you. Hey, The Joy Reid interview is over, but we're not done yet. This is the superstar, spectacular, spectacular, midterm spectacular. I keep renaming it. So there's another interview coming because we need to pack in the democracy and the righteousness into this midterm spectacular. You can listen to this while you're at the polling place. Maybe there's a long line. You can listen to this episode or watch it while you're in line. So now we have a short interview with Angie Nixon, Senate Florida candidate, who has been working in Florida politics for a while now, but is really on the hunt for that Florida Senate seat. And as a black woman in Florida who's a Democrat, that is a lot to take on, but she is not scurred at all. She will clap back at you on social media if you say the wrong thing. It was great to talk to her. Again, she was busy, so this is not the normal situation set up of a podcast, but I wanted you to hear from Angie Nixon. So there's a lot of great candidates to support. You may not live in these places, but you can support these people. We have a governor's race in California. So we got Javier Becerra there. You got Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan. You got James Tallarico in Texas. You got Amy Acton in Ohio, who's running against Vivek Ramaswamy, who I think he's got a medical condition called being the worst Vivek Ramaswamy. So let's have empathy for him because he's been medically diagnosed with being the worst. So the great thing about this is because We're allowed to support candidates even in areas where not. If you got some extra funds, you can support one of these candidates. I would say Angie Nixon in Florida. We're talking to her today. Yeah, it's a great conversation once we settled into it. Please enjoy this conversation with Angie Nixon, Senate Florida candidate. What made you feel like the call to be a part of politics? Because as you know, it's an ugly business as you've seen even in your campaign. What made you decide to be in politics?
1:15:12
Speaker 3
I think it's important to know that I actually ran for city council back in 2008 because I was a single mom at the time. And I felt like the people weren't having conversations or highlighting some of the issues that the younger generation was going through. And so I remember my platform, like my motto was.
1:15:34
Speaker 5
Like, building bridges.
1:15:36
Speaker 3
And I did go in, but it really opened up a lot of doors for me. And I learned about community organizing and advocacy. And so when it, in terms of in 2020, The reason that I ran for office in 2020 was because there was a woman who was a Democrat and she was not actually working for the people. She actually said things like she thanks God for slavery. If it wasn't for slavery, she would be somewhere in Africa worshiping a tree. She would have said some things that could be taken to have been anti-Semitic and she was very homophobic and transphobic and I did not want that type of person representing me in my community. And so I tried to find a whole bunch of people to run against her, but she was like a two-term incumbent.
1:16:29
Speaker 5
And she had previously been on city council.
1:16:31
Speaker 3
And every time people ran against her, they lost and no one wanted to run against her. And I said, you know what, I'm going to run. And I did and I won.
1:16:39
Speaker 5
And the rest is history.
1:16:41
Speaker 3
I have, for some reason, I like to take out incumbents and so take on the establishment and take on just, you know, people who have nefarious interests things in their background.
1:16:56
Speaker 5
And so that's why I am here today.
1:16:58
Speaker 3
And I'm looking, I am excited to unseat this incumbent as well.
1:17:03
Speaker 1
I think it's interesting to know, cause I wasn't aware and I'm sorry, I didn't do my homework better that you lost in 2008. How do you come back from a loss? I think that's an important thing to tell people. Cause you know, a lot of, if a lot of people would run for office and lose and be like, well, I guess I'm not a politician, but how did you, how did you come back from that loss? What did you learn from it?
1:17:19
Speaker 3
What I learned from that loss is that you have to really be rooted in community and You have to go and talk to more people, build community and relationships with people.
1:17:29
Speaker 5
And so I pride.
1:17:30
Speaker 3
Myself on being an aggregator and bringing people together and building diverse coalitions all across the state now. And so I didn't have strong roots as much as I do now, right? That was because I was coming fresh out of college. And so now, like.
1:17:47
Speaker 5
I was able to.
1:17:50
Speaker 3
Put my roots in, not just in my hometown, Jacksonville, Florida, AKA Drewsville County, but I was actually to, you know, grow roots all across the state of Florida. And I was a union organizer, I'm a community organizer, and I work to really like build power within different communities.
1:18:10
Speaker 5
And so like that's why I've had one of the highest.
1:18:13
Speaker 3
Name IDs for a first time statewide candidate than anyone that just would decide to run for this seat, like even even former congressional members and folks like that who have ran for statewide office here in the state of Florida, their name ID wasn't as high as mine. And that's because, you know, people know me for the pink bullhorn.
1:18:36
Speaker 5
People know me.
1:18:37
Speaker 3
For shutting down house proceedings when they try to do illegal and unconstitutional things. And so I've been able to make a name for myself, but also highlight a lot of bad stuff that's happening.
1:18:50
Speaker 5
And so.
1:18:52
Speaker 5
Yeah, like, I learned that you have to be vocal.
1:18:57
Speaker 3
And, you know, I learned everything that Zora Neale Hurston stated.
1:19:02
Speaker 5
Like, if you are silent.
1:19:03
Speaker 3
About your pain, they will kill you and say you enjoyed it. And I refuse to allow them to think that I enjoyed what they're putting us through right now in this moment. So, I mean, that's what I learned. And that's how I've been able to win. And that's how we're going to win this election in November. Yep.
1:19:21
Speaker 1
I love that. You seem to embody a lot of Shirley Chisholm's unbossed, unbound, unbought.
1:19:27
Speaker 5
Oh, absolutely.
1:19:28
Speaker 3
We have that on the shirt, too. But no, you know who I really model myself and my work after? I would say Fannie Lou Hamer. And the reason that I do that, like I feel that way, is because she is someone who, she was a sharecropper. OK, and knowing that like my grandparents were sharecroppers in Georgia and I come from sharecropping and knowing that she spoke so plainly and she went up against the Democratic establishment, even though they were the ones who were supposed to have our backs at the time.
1:20:08
Speaker 5
And I feel like I'm doing something similar.
1:20:11
Speaker 3
In terms of that, as it relates to the corporate establishment.
1:20:15
Speaker 5
Democrats, you know, and I'm not going to like allow people to.
1:20:19
Speaker 3
Knock me off, you know, knock me down or whatever and.
1:20:23
Speaker 5
Knock me off what I'm talking about and how I'm engaging. And like she was unapologetic about who she is.
1:20:30
Speaker 3
And that is because like, why should we change ourselves when the majority of people are you know, operate and live the way that I live, right?
1:20:39
Speaker 5
And speak the way that I speak. And so, yeah, I am, like, I love Fannie Lou Hamer.
1:20:46
Speaker 3
She's all up in my bookstores, walls with her quotes and things like that.
1:20:51
Speaker 5
And so that's who I really, like, model.
1:20:54
Speaker 3
My work after, particularly around community organizing and power building.
1:20:59
Speaker 5
Absolutely.
1:20:59
Speaker 1
That is a great example to put out there. Certainly a leader who Is, you know, her name rings loudly in certain communities, but not loudly enough in all communities. So thank you.
1:21:10
Speaker 5
Exactly.
1:21:11
Speaker 1
Thank you.
1:21:12
Speaker 3
Yeah.
1:21:13
Speaker 1
My other question is who in your life sort of gave you the, you know, I don't know, sometimes there's somebody in your life who can, you know, not everybody grows up thinking they can be a politician. well, maybe every white man grows up thinking he'd be a politician, but certainly black folks, we don't always think we can aspire to those offices. Is there somebody in your life who felt like you poured into the idea that this is all for you, whatever level of office you want is all for you?
1:21:36
Speaker 5
You know, actually, no.
1:21:37
Speaker 3
My family was not plugged into politics like that, but I do remember my grandma talking about how she had to be hidden during a race riot in Jacksonville. And what I learned today, like, my grandmother passed away some years ago.
1:21:53
Speaker 5
She would be over 100 now.
1:21:56
Speaker 3
But what I learned today is that, like, during this campaign, actually, Ta-Nehisi Coates actually interviewed me and He reached back out. He was like, hey, was it this? Was it this event that your grandma had to be here in? And I looked at the date and I called my auntie and my auntie was like, you know, I don't want to say yes, but no, I think that is because that's the time she came here. And it was Axe Handle Saturday in Jacksonville.
1:22:25
Speaker 5
And I have, you know, I know Rodney Hurst, who was around.
1:22:30
Speaker 3
He's a civil rights leader and he was a former city council member in Jacksonville. And I recognize the stories that I heard, as well as the first Black sheriff of Jacksonville. He was there during Ask for Handle Saturday, too. And I was like, oh, that's amazing. I learned the history, but now realizing that my grandma was there as well.
1:22:54
Speaker 5
And I was like, whoa, it blew my mind. And so I would say I get my.
1:23:02
Speaker 3
I get my moxie from my grandmother because she always, and what's so funny is like, you know, she was mixed and she hated racism. Like she hated racism and she would stand up and call out like, you know, white people that were racist and that type of stuff.
1:23:22
Speaker 5
And so I just like, I.
1:23:24
Speaker 3
Get a lot of my spunk from her and, you know, my unapologetic attitude fierceness from her.
1:23:32
Speaker 5
And so I, uh, yeah.
1:23:33
Speaker 3
So, but she, she, I think that helps sway me into politics or whatever.
1:23:38
Speaker 2
And so, yeah.
1:23:39
Speaker 1
Yeah. I, I, I, I, one thing about me, uh, I should let you know, Ms. Nixon, I'm not afraid to appear ignorant. What is Axe Handle Sunday?
1:23:48
Speaker 3
Yeah.
1:23:49
Speaker 5
Axe Handle Saturday.
1:23:50
Speaker 1
Yeah.
1:23:52
Speaker 3
Axe Handle Saturday was a day when, um, some young kids were trying to integrate, uh, some lunch counters in downtown Jacksonville.
1:24:04
Speaker 5
Uh, I believe it was Montgomery ward.
1:24:07
Speaker 3
And there was some people that decided to take ax handles and go and like, start hitting them with it. And, um, and so that happened.
1:24:18
Speaker 1
And you might have a family connection to that. Yeah. Oh my goodness.
1:24:23
Speaker 3
Yeah.
1:24:24
Speaker 1
Uh, One thing I'll say about you, and please speak about this. I know it could be just how you are as well. You don't seem, and I'm going to use this term, scurred at all.
1:24:34
Speaker 3
I ain't never scared. Like Bone Crusher says, I ain't never scared. And that's because, like, I have nothing to lose but my shame. Like, I'm not scared about anything. Like, you know, I just have everything to gain. And so I refuse to just sit around idly by. And I have so much to gain for my kids. And I'm not going to allow them to live in a world like this for the rest of their lives without me fighting to make it better. And so, you know, I mean, what's the worst that can happen, right?
1:25:12
Speaker 5
And so I refuse. They're literally attempting to return us back to the worst chapters of our history. And so I'm not going back.
1:25:22
Speaker 3
In the words of Representative Yvonne Hanson, who I served within the Florida legislature, when they were trying to end, get.
1:25:29
Speaker 5
Rid of black congressional districts, she was like, I'm not going back. Like y'all are, y'all are.
1:25:34
Speaker 3
Trying to take us back to Jim Crow days and all the things that you said, we are not going back and I'm not going back.
1:25:42
Speaker 1
I hear that. I'm not going back. I hear that. Earlier, you talked about how your name, you had, high name recognition in Florida. So you, so that when you wanted to run for Senate, people sort of know your name already, but why do you think your name has got caught on so much around the entire country? Why do you think you've had such good, uh, you know, you've had such good, I think so much attention and so much good attention.
1:26:07
Speaker 3
Yeah. I would say because I have been willing to get in good trouble, necessary trouble, shout out to the late great, Congressman John Lewis and civil rights leader John Lewis.
1:26:19
Speaker 5
And that's what I've been doing.
1:26:21
Speaker 3
And so having gotten arrested by Ron DeSantis for a peaceful protest outside of his office to discuss those illegal and constitutional maps that he, he pushed, um, you know, also, um, disrupting the house.
1:26:39
Speaker 5
Floor with the pink bullhorn this year.
1:26:42
Speaker 3
Also knowing that I did it back in 2022 as well. Um, I am an organizer and I just get loud. And so in this moment, like what is happening is not okay.
1:26:54
Speaker 5
It is not okay.
1:26:55
Speaker 3
It should not be normalized. Um, They are literally breaking the law. The people who took an oath to protect and uphold the law are literally breaking it and getting richer off doing so. And I am going to get in good trouble, necessary trouble to disrupt that too. put things the way that they should be to let hardworking everyday people get to shape their communities and their economies.
1:27:27
Speaker 5
Which is how it should be. And so that is exactly what I'm going to do.
1:27:32
Speaker 1
That's beautiful. And, you know, there's a lot of good trouble to get it in your state of Florida, as you know. Again, I know it doesn't scare you, but when I first heard that you were running for Senate, I was like, good for her. And I thought Florida, I'm like, oh man, Florida, you know, Florida arrests people for accidentally voting in the wrong district. It is very different out there. I live in California. It's not that hardcore out here. We are not perfect. We are far from perfect. I'm not trying to do a California versus Florida off. Talk about the challenges that you face in Florida that maybe you wouldn't face somewhere else.
1:28:06
Speaker 5
Oh, my gosh.
1:28:07
Speaker 3
When it comes to Florida, I mean, they made it so harder for us to vote.
1:28:13
Speaker 5
They did a legal gerrymandering.
1:28:17
Speaker 3
And basically created four.
1:28:21
Speaker 5
Districts that would have been Democrat.
1:28:26
Speaker 3
They made it tougher so that they would now lean heavily Republican.
1:28:32
Speaker 5
And so, not heavily Republican, but Republican nonetheless.
1:28:35
Speaker 1
Republican enough that it's a Republican district instead of a Democratic district.
1:28:40
Speaker 5
Exactly.
1:28:40
Speaker 3
They created elective police so that they can terrorize people in their communities.
1:28:47
Speaker 5
And they did this intentionally.
1:28:49
Speaker 3
After over 1.4 million people regained their right to vote here automatically.
1:28:58
Speaker 5
After serving their time.
1:29:00
Speaker 3
And so they threw in just these different, um, processes before people can actually get automatically registered. And, um, So they also included the election police because they made it harder for non-profit groups to go register people to vote to the point where they create fines and fees. And so also, like, if you messed up, if someone who they were trying to get the people who were returning citizens to now, like, they think, oh, this bill.
1:29:34
Speaker 5
Passed, I can just go in and register to vote.
1:29:36
Speaker 3
No, you have to make sure you pay your fines and fees and restitution and all of that.
1:29:40
Speaker 5
And if you didn't, If you didn't and you signed up, guess what? Knock, knock, knock.
1:29:45
Speaker 3
The election police are coming at your door and they're going.
1:29:49
Speaker 5
To arrest you.
1:29:51
Speaker 3
And then you're going to go back to jail. And so it's just they did stuff like that. They now make it so that you have to register. You have to sign up for vote by mail each and every election cycle. Before it lasts a few election cycles. Just all kind of stuff. It's so much corruption, bro. Like, it's so much corruption. And that's why I'm running. I'm trying to stop that from happening. And I believe we're going to win.
1:30:19
Speaker 5
We're going to win.
1:30:20
Speaker 1
I mean, I just think that, I'm going to say when you win, because I believe in you, that your election will be the election that says the country is about to be headed in the correct direction.
1:30:31
Speaker 5
Yes.
1:30:33
Speaker 3
Yes, because it says, what it says is just you don't need big money. What it says is that you can motivate the people enough to do what they need to do. Yeah, and so, like, that's what I'm on. That's the type of time I'm on.
1:30:49
Speaker 1
All right. The thing that scares me about Florida is everything you said, that there is active voter suppression, you know, like, legislated voter suppression. And so I think what happens is that people just sort of, like, Maybe you don't even go to the polls just in case something might happen, you know? It sort of internalizes the voter suppression because they're like, it's Rhonda Sanders and his goons are out there. Who knows what happens? I'm going to stay home. How do you get people to get out of their seats and actually go?
1:31:17
Speaker 5
You make it fun.
1:31:18
Speaker 3
You let people know that we can be joyfully resistant in this.
1:31:22
Speaker 5
Moment and that.
1:31:24
Speaker 3
Yes, what is happening is very dire, but we have the opportunity to build this new vision for our country, and they should get excited about that.
1:31:31
Speaker 5
They should get excited about that. The power can now actually.
1:31:35
Speaker 3
Start moving into the hands of the people, and so that's what I'm doing. I'm leading with joy, I'm leading with love, and I'm letting them know that we're going to stomp out this corruption, but we are going to do it having fun.
1:31:47
Speaker 1
People like fun, and people like democracy, so if you put those two things together, it sounds like we might be on the right track. Yes, yes. So the other thing I want to talk to you about is you have a very naturally sort of like intersectional approach to politics, it seems. You don't mind speaking out against four groups that some people might say have nothing to do with your group as a black person in Florida. You know, LGBTQ +, Gazans. Where did that, have you always been that way or did that come to you at some point?
1:32:15
Speaker 5
I just don't like bullies. I don't like bullies.
1:32:19
Speaker 3
I grew up in a household with domestic violence and... that stuck with me to this day that I'm always like, I'm fight.
1:32:31
Speaker 5
To the point my husband is like, let me love you. Dang, let me do it.
1:32:37
Speaker 3
And I'm like, I'm good, I'm good. And so it's like, it comes from just seeing my mom, right? Being under attack, my mom being a survivor and not liking what she went through. And I don't want anyone to have to deal with bullies, whether or not it's in a relationship, whether or not it's the government, like, putting a crackdown on us, causing us to pay taxes in the form of tariffs, causing everything to go up, whether or not it's the government, like, defunding public education to make our children be routed into the school-to-prison pipeline, whether or not it's, like, bad law enforcement officers that are over-policing our communities and shooting people dead in the streets with no accountability or anything. And so it's like, I don't like bullies. And so I'm always going to run to a fight so that we can stop all bullies.
1:33:37
Speaker 5
I mean, that is what it is.
1:33:39
Speaker 1
Stop all bullies.
1:33:40
Speaker 5
Stop all bullies. That is what it is.
1:33:43
Speaker 1
I love the fact that you don't talk like, you don't talk like, I'm putting in scare quotes, talk like a politician. You talk like a woman from Florida. Exactly.
1:33:52
Speaker 3
I mean, that's the problem.
1:33:54
Speaker 5
We have people that are too cut.
1:33:56
Speaker 3
And dry and try to be so polished, and they're.
1:34:02
Speaker 5
Not in touch and in tune with the people.
1:34:05
Speaker 3
And so I'm in touch and in tune with the people, and we're going to make it do what it do.
1:34:10
Speaker 1
Do you sometimes with black leaders or black people who talk very intersectionally about things, there are a percentage of black folks who are like, we just need to we need to take care of ourselves before we start reaching out to other people. What do you say to people like that?
1:34:23
Speaker 3
I would say that another Fannie Lou Hamer quote is nobody's free until we all free. And so everybody's free. Nobody's free until everybody's free.
1:34:33
Speaker 5
And so. We can take care of ourselves, but.
1:34:36
Speaker 3
We also need to take care of others because we want others to jump in and step in when we're under attack.
1:34:43
Speaker 5
And so we need to be willing to do the same thing.
1:34:47
Speaker 1
Again, Fannie Lou Hamer knew what she was talking about. No breaking news there. Fannie Lou Hamer knows what she's talking about. So there's been a lot of talk about how the Democratic establishment has not been as supportive of you. As you would think of a candidate who is in a race in Florida, who's in a Senate race, and someone who's actually getting a lot of press attention leading the way. Do you need them? Do you want them? Do you want to say something to them now? Like, what are we doing?
1:35:13
Speaker 3
When you are running against authoritarianism and fascism, you need all hands on deck. And I am opening my arms to different people and organizations, which is one of the reasons I joined the DSA. I also joined the Working Family Party. I also became a lifelong member of the NAACP. It's all hands on deck.
1:35:33
Speaker 5
It's all hands on deck. This man is trying to take us out. Like he's literally taking many of us out, right?
1:35:38
Speaker 3
Yes. And so we need people to join in this fight.
1:35:43
Speaker 5
And that's why I do what I do.
1:35:45
Speaker 3
That's why I will always work to be an aggregator and a convener and push people to collectively work together.
1:35:53
Speaker 5
That's the only way we're going to win.
1:35:56
Speaker 1
I think that's true.
1:35:57
Speaker 5
But, but, but, to your point.
1:35:59
Speaker 1
Uh-oh, uh-oh. Sorry, did me interrupt. Yes.
1:36:02
Speaker 3
I am now working with the DNC and the DSEC.
1:36:08
Speaker 5
Can they do more? Yes, everyone can do more.
1:36:11
Speaker 1
They're doing more than nothing, which is how you get to more.
1:36:14
Speaker 5
Yes, they're doing more than what they were doing.
1:36:16
Speaker 1
You got to start with something and you can get to more. But if you start at zero, we can't get to more. We got to get to something.
1:36:23
Speaker 3
But what I would say is that we need to have real conversations about why people want Black women's labor and not their leadership. Bars. Bars.
1:36:38
Speaker 1
I love the bars. That's right. Bars. Those are bars. You're for sure. So I always ask people if there's an organization they want people to support or nonprofit they want people to support. I'm pretty sure I'm going to know what you're going to say, but what would you like people to do and support after watching this?
1:36:57
Speaker 4
You know.
1:36:58
Speaker 5
My campaign is a non-profit.
1:37:01
Speaker 1
You can say that. Don't get complicated.
1:37:04
Speaker 5
My campaign is a non-profit.
1:37:06
Speaker 3
They should go to AngieNixon.com to make a donation so that I can help change the trajectory of our country. Also follow us on social media, Angie4Florida.
1:37:17
Speaker 5
But yeah, let's go. We can win this thing.
1:37:22
Speaker 1
The podcast is called Who's With Me? I don't feel like I have to ask this, but are you with me? Can we be a team? Absolutely.
1:37:28
Speaker 5
Hell yeah. Are you with me?
1:37:30
Speaker 1
I am with you.
1:37:32
Speaker 3
Yes.
1:37:32
Speaker 5
Are you going to make some phone calls for me? Are you going to knock some doors?
1:37:35
Speaker 3
Are you going to tell people to send some money? Are you going to send some coins my way for my campaign?
1:37:39
Speaker 1
Let's make it happen.
1:37:39
Speaker 5
Are you with me?
1:37:41
Speaker 1
Yes, ma'am. I'm with you. Yes, I will send some coins. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, future senator. I appreciate your time today. I know you're busy. Thank you for sparing some time for us. We appreciate it. And good luck for the rest of your day. And I can't wait till you win.
1:37:54
Speaker 3
Let's go. Thank you so much. I look forward to you having me back when I'm Senator.
1:37:59
Speaker 1
Oh, if you want to come back when you're Senator, I'm happy to have you. Yes, yes, ma'am.
1:38:03
Speaker 5
Oh, absolutely.
1:38:05
Speaker 1
Thank you.
1:38:06
Speaker 5
Thank you.
1:38:10
Speaker 1
That was our super stuffed, spectacular, spectacular midterm extravaganza. I keep changing the name. Thank you for listening. Thank you to Joanne Reed for stopping by or Joy Reed. I go back and forth. Check out the Joy Reed show on all your platforms, Substack, YouTube, all the podcast platforms. Also, there's Angie Nixon who stopped by or I had her stop in the middle of her day to talk to us about her candidacy for the Senate Florida race. Support Angie Nixon. Go to AngieNixon.com. You can find out ways to support her whether it's financially or any other way. And then also Joy Reed mentioned the American Cancer Society. in the name of her dear mother who passed away from cancer. So yeah, support the American Cancer Society. And also, last thing, this book, it's out now. Rock, Paper, Scissors, Cheese. Rock, Paper, Scissors, Cheese is out now. Please get this book. It is a joy. You can get it for, it is a joy. It's not a joy read, but it's a joy. You can get it for yourself, for your kids, for kids in your life that you'll meet someday or maybe make someday. It's a beautiful, fun ride. And it's a little bit of fun frivolity in the midst of a time that doesn't feel very frivolous. So thank you for listening to Who's With Me. Thanks again to Joy Reed. Thanks again to Angie Nixon. You can get all the links in the show notes. Shout out to Gotham Production Studios here in New York City. Shout out to Rabogren Productions and Pushkin Industries. Shout out to Who Knows Best Productions. This guy right here. Shout out to Chris Dowd from the Legendary Fish Podcast. for doing the theme song to Who Knows Best. And as always, but especially this week, do something good for yourself, do something good for your community, do something good for the world, and that can all be wrapped up in one thing. Vote.
The Host
