Summary
Right wing freaks out over Super Bowl halftime show. Halftime show part celebration, part protest. Eminem kneels during Super Bowl halftime show. Charlie Kirk says the NFL is now the league of sexual anarchy.
Transcript
ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: That does it for me. Thanks as always for spending time with us on THE BEAT.
THE REIDOUT with Joy Reid is up next.
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Good evening everyone. Happy Valentine`s Day/ Frederick Douglass day in this black history month. I`m Joy Reid coming to you live from Sunny California.
JASON JOHNSON, MSNBC HOST: And I`m Jason Johnson.
REID: So, Jason, we`ve got a lot of news to get to tonight, including a Dear John letter from a certain blue chip accountant from a certain orange person.
But let`s get started about last night when, I guess, California was ready for some football.
JOHNSON: No doubt. Another post-season game that came down to the final seconds, the Rams beating the Bengals after Matthew Stafford, and MVP Cooper Kupp connected late for a comeback win, all in front of a hometown crowd, which has only happened twice in super bowl history and this brand- new stadium in Inglewood.
REID: Well, let`s talk about that, because we know that rappers, they love to shout out Inglewood, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Tupac all did it.
You know, when I was just there and it feels like a west coast Harlem in some part, but, really, it`s a one-time black enclave that is more half black, half Latino these days and it`s a community in transition.
JOHNSON: A huge transition. We`re talking the Super Bowl spotlight, a new NFL franchise and a $5 billion stadium.
REID: That`s billion with a B. And speaking of spotlight Snoop and Dr. Dre were in the house for an epic Gen X, West Coast hip hop, very black half time show. Sorry Millennials, you can`t claim this one. And boy, that didn`t go over well with the right wingers.
JOHNSON: It sure didn`t, Joy.
REID: You know you had Conservative Activist Charlie Kirk tweeting, the NFL is now the league of sexual anarchy. This halftime show should not be allowed on television. Okay, what does that even mean?
And then you have Sean Spicer, short-lived White House and Dancing with the Stars infamy, asking, what was the message of the half time show?
JOHNSON: Did Sean Spicer even get to ask about messaging? I mean, come on.
REID: No, he doesn`t. But, once again, the biggest Super Bowl moment wasn`t even about a player or even about what was rapped about or sung, the big moment was Rapper Eminem kneeling in an apparent tribute to Colin Kaepernick. The NFL was quick to say it was aware that he would kneel and did not try to stop him despite reports saying the opposite.
But, okay, here is the thing and especially for folks with PTSD about a certain Janet Jackson incident, the NFL has always tried to sanitize blackness especially during the Super Bowl from the halftime performances to players taking a knee and it especially does not want to dabble in the culture wars right now and tick off its conservative fan base.
JOHNSON: Which explains why Kendrick Lamar`s line, and we hate the popo, was noticeably scrubbed last night.
REID: Don`t think we didn`t notice. All right let`s bring in our panel. Joining us now is Bomani Jones, ESPN Sport Journalist and Host of the Game Theory with Bomani Jones, coming soon on HBO, and Michael Harriot, Columnist for TheGrio and Author of the very timely book, Black AF History. Thank you all for being here on. Apparently, it`s call black center now.
JOHNSON: Black center. Yes, that`s the name I dubbed it, in honor of all of us.
REID: We had a little fun with our sort of massive on local news and ESPN, Bomani. So, hopefully, we did okay. But I want to get your impressions of everything that you saw last night. I was in Inglewood, I spent most of the day at Inglewood watching the Super Bowl watch party in the heart of Inglewood at the Miracle Theater and the blackness of the whole experience was actually really big for me. But it was very different in terms of what the NFL allowed to happen during that halftime show. I still think they were surprised by the moment by Eminem but what do you think?
BOMANI JONES, HOST, THE RIGHT TIME PODCAST: Sure, they were surprised by the moment but there is a fundamental what are you going to do about it element to that, right? What are they going to do? Send somebody out there to tackle him before he kneels? Like, what room did they have to do anything what`s he decided to do?
And the other thing you can`t forget is that`s a rich white man. You`re not about to tell a rich white man that he can`t do that. What are going to do, do hold up his check because Eminem is hurting for the money? In fact, the NFL, I don`t even know if they get paid this year. Many years, they have been known to often not pay people.
So, that was -- there was nothing they could do. He knew there was nothing they could do. He would do whatever he wanted in that moment. Kendrick Lamar, not quite as white, not nearly as rich as him and Dr. Dre, you got to screw up your line.
REID: Yes. All right, Jason, kick it off.
JOHNSON: Look, I got to be honest. Nobody noticed. I was in the room, I was around Bengals fans. When Eminem came out, and, by the way, he did not get the loudest cheers, it was actually Mary J Blige, most people didn`t notice that he was actually taking a knee.
So, I was necessarily moved by it one way or another. It`s that kind of performative change. If somebody had came out on stage and may be like Colin Kaepernick have been dressing as one of the dancers and came out, or somebody said, shout out to Brian Flores, then I would have thought that would be a bigger impact. But at this point, taking a knee is not nearly as provocative as it was five years ago.
REID: Well, Okay, let me let you the deal breaker on this, Michael Harriot, because I wore my arm with cat top (ph). Because, I will be honest with you, I was a very big tomboy as a kid. I was a fanatical football fun. But I have to admit, I fell out of love with NFL. I fell out of love with the game because it just became very clear that this was a sport with a lot of black people in it but not a black people with any power, no coaches, very few people allowed to get into the quarterback slot.
And the coach thing really -- it hurts by spirit and it`s very difficult for me to love the game. So, I think anything that these guys do is disruptive, I am for it.
[19:05:01]
They pay for that stage, Michael. Dr. Dre put the money up for that stage. They own that stage. They could have done what they wanted. Nobody was going to check them.
MICHAEL HARRIOT, COLUMNIST, THEGRIO: Yes. And the thing about it, though, is, well, I didn`t watch the halftime show or the Super Bowl, because like you, I just kind of don`t care. I`m not boycotting it, per se, I just stopped caring about the NFL. But one thing I will say, you know, having seen the clips or the screen shots all night is that I don`t know what Eminem kneeling means, right?
Like, Colin Kaepernick knelt because the NFL didn`t want him to kneel during the anthem. Like to Columbus kneeling and just to make it about kneeling and not the thing that the kneeling was about, like it`s meaningless to me, right? It`s like, you know, walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in the middle of the night while nobody is looking, right? It wasn`t about walking across the bridge, it was about the thing that he was trying to accomplish. And so like his successful they got applause for doing something that meant nothing.
And I think that`s kind of like the epitome of what the NFL has become, right? They scroll (ph) end racism in the end zone but they will kick black people out of the league for talking about or pointing at the problems that racism gives America, right? So I think he did it but it doesn`t mean anything. It`s too late now.
REID: You all are cold. You all are cold-blooded. I give him credit. So, I`m only one up here, I give him credit. You all are cold-blooded.
JONES: There is only so much credit. I agree, like it wasn`t going to change the world. But I guess what we say --
REID: No. It wasn`t going to change the world, yes.
JONES: Yes. But I guess we`re saying though in that circumstance, there is no demonstration that`s going to change the world, right? I don`t know what the player move would be for somebody to use that stage to do if we`re using this as the metric that isn`t actually doing anything or meaning anything.
REID: Yes. And you`re right. There was so much that the right was mad about, Jason. They were also mad about Snoop smoking weed, which --
JOHNSON: Which is legal.
REID: Which is legal and also he is Snoop.
JOHNSON: Yes, yes.
REID: What do you expect him to do? It`s legal in the state. They were mad about that. They were mad about something about the halftime show. The Charlie Kirk thing, I don`t understand. Maybe you understand better than I do. He was upset about the show but I`m really not sure why.
This one guy tweeted -- let me find this tweet about him. He basically said, nobody, and then he said basically get off my lawn, basically. He said, oh, there was nobody, not a living soul, this is Brooklyn dad, nobody, not a living soul, Charlie Kirk, get off my lawn, you sexual anarchist whipper snappers.
What was -- I don`t understand what he`s mad about. Was it the thighs of Mary J.? What was behind it?
JOHNSON: I think it was a size on that. Really, look, we remember Charlie Kirk, how he responded to the white (ph) video. I mean I think the moment that he saw Cardi B put her tongue out, I think Charlie Kirk just going to lost it. I think he was -- he didn`t know what to deal with himself. Maybe he was upset --
REID: The tingling feeling he didn`t understand them.
JOHNSON: Yes. Maybe he was made 50 Cent did that P90X thing and then had people dancing around him. I don`t really know. I think it`s interesting that conservatives wanted people like Ted Nugent there. Ted Nugent has verbally threatened Hilary Clinton. Ted Nugent has said all sorts of vulgar, sexual things before.
REID: And done vulgar, sexual thing with a child, with a young person.
JOHNSON: Yes. He`s been, yes, exactly.
REID: Allegedly.
JOHNSON: Allegedly. So, here is the thing, it`s fascinating to me that people want to turn this NFL game into a cultural touch point.
I will say you this, as somebody who continues to watch football, and I have my Rams gear on, it`s very painful, everybody knows I`m a Rams hater, you can find the small victories, right? For example, the Rams have probably the blackest coaching staff in the NFL. They got 21 coaches, ten of them are African-American. You have Max Stafford, who wrote about Black Lives Matter. You have Von Miller who`s talked about Black Lives Matter.
They are a team that if you want to watch and not feel so guilty, you can kind of root for it one way or another. And that`s something that I can understand people being happy about even if they`re discussing with the game.
REID: I was happy with Inglewood, just at Inglewood itself, given all the issues, like gentrification and everything else having to win. I was happy about that. I`m not a Ram`s fan, either.
Bomani, I want to talk to you about this Flores situation, because he`s adding more cities now, you know, in addition, more teams to this lawsuit. What do you think the outcome of this is going to be? Because you know, I heard people say everything, from he`ll never coach again, to maybe this makes some sort of systemic change to, it won`t have an effect, what do you think?
JONES: Well, I mean, typically, with these kinds of lawsuits is how close can you push this to discovery. Because once this get to the point with people have to sit down for depositions, that`s when the checkbook comes out and that`s when the decision becomes difficult about whether you`re going to ride this out on principle or you are going to bring all of this out when they offer you tens, maybe hundreds, who knows, how many millions of dollars in front of you. I think that he believes what he`s doing. I think he`s going to try to push it that far. And I would not be surprise if he carries it all.
But I got to ask you, while we`re here on this, and you mentioned Charlie Kirk and Ted Nugent, why we spend so much time talking about unimportant people with insincere intentions? Like the only people on that side of things that I really think had a problem with that halftime show, as you describe, are people who make money by saying they have a problem with it, like I live in a school in town of Texas with 1,500 people. I see what those people post about on Facebook and I`m here to tell you, they was knocking at Dre and Snoop in the parking lot. They love that stuff, right?
The people who were in the business of saying they don`t, whatever, they didn`t put them on the halftime show for a small number of people, it`s because, quietly, everybody loves the G funk.
[19:10:07]
This was a universal sort of thing.
And Charlie Kirk only comes up in my life when people who say they don`t agree with him talk about him in places where we give him more attention than he deserves. We have to stop.
REID: That is love and criticism and valid criticism, because my makeup artist was actually in the stadium and was surrounded by almost no black people, it was mainly white people. And they were jamming to it. They enjoyed it, like they were enjoying every second of it. So, nobody actually in the room was mad.
I want to get to also the bigger picture here with you, Michael, as well, because all of these, you know, whether it`s the NBA, NFL, et cetera, have all now become so much blanketed in this overall arguments that were happening about, whether we can`t even talk about race in schools, whether everything is critical race theory. One of my favorite tweets about last night was asking if the halftime show was critical race theory, which I thought was hilarious. But, I mean, we were having these conversations and sports has been caught up in it.
What does that mean, because sports has always been political? But I`m wondering what that means now, when people like you and people like me are walking away and not watching anymore, what does it mean now?
HARRIOT: Well, I think, you know, what it means is that, first of all, you can`t ignore the elephant in the room, is that you`re talking about companies that profit from black people`s labor and talent, right?
So, what we`re talking about when we talk about coaching is not like giving black coaches a chance, it is -- we`re talking about like elevating and promoting the black people who make your profit to a status where they get to -- they`re included in decision-making, right?
So I don`t even like to couch it as like we`re giving black coaches a job, black people are -- 70 percent of the NFL, and if you talk about 70 percent of any workforce and you`re promoting no one, right, it is intentional discrimination, that can`t be a logical answer, you know? And the fact that, you know, 33 percent of the cultures on rosters in the league are the relatives of coaches on rosters in the league, you know what I`m saying?
So, we can`t just talk about this in a silo. And when black people make up 70 percent of anything, we have to talk about race, right? Because black people talk about race because black people are marginalized. So, if you want to strip the race part out of the NFL or the NBA or out of America, in general, what you`re saying is you don`t want to talk about the humanity of the people who you consider countrymen. And I think that is the important part that we have to remember.
REID: To that point, let listen to President Biden, because he did his NFL interview and he made a lot of those same points. Here he is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: The whole idea that a league that is made up of so many athletes of color as well as so diverse that there is not enough African-Americans, qualified coaches to quote, to manage these NFL teams, it just seems to me it`s a standard that they want to live up to.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Bomani, your thoughts on that?
JONES: Well, I mean, I was at a conference in 2003 where all the economists got together and there was a presentation this when Johnny Cochran was thinking about suing the NFL. And they ran a correlation matrix on coaches.
And when there had only been five black coaches in the history of the NFL, they found that black was statistically, significantly correlated with success when there were only five. That`s crazy to do with the sample like that.
The reason it happened, though, was you had to be so good at being a coach, to be black to actually get a job, then, of course, you were going to be ultimately wind up being really good at it. What kills me about this or what`s hilarious to me about it with the NFL is, as Michael talks about those nepotism numbers, nobody has ever demonstrated that coaches` relatives are actually any better at the job than anybody else, right? Like you can make the argument that they have a familiarity with it and so they can get in a lot faster, like my parents are professors. When I was at graduate school, like there were things I understood just from having been around it. These dudes aren`t actually any better at it.
So, they`re not hiring people who are actually good at it and willfully trying not to from what it seems to be hire people that might make your team better. Because the biggest winners are hiring more black coaches will ultimately be the white people who give better coaches because they`ve opened up the pool of people that they deal with and they still don`t want it. But that`s the story of American racism. It is in spite of good sense and even in spite of your potential to profit.
REID: That is going to have to be the last word on this segment and it is a good one. Bomani Jones, Michael Harriot, Jason Johnson will be back in a little bit. Thank you all very much.
Up next on THE REIDOUT, breaking news in the Trump investigation, Trump`s accounting firm has cut ties with him retracted the financial statement it prepared for his company. Why they`ve got to be nervous at Mar-a-Lago tonight.
[19:15:01]
Plus, suburban women are fighting back against book banning in hostility towards the teaching of honest American history in our schools. The organizer of that effort is tonight`s REIDOUT democracy defender.
And the companies owned by tonight`s absolute worst are accused of being unfit for man or beast.
THE REIDOUT continues after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REID: In breaking news just hours ago, New York`s Attorney General Letitia James reveal in a court filing that Donald Trump`s accounting firm, Mazars USA, has officially fired their long-time client. As The New York Times reports, the accounting firm notified the Trump organization of its decision and disclosed that it could no longer stand between annual financial statements it prepared for Mr. Trump.
The letter instructed the Trump Organization to essentially retract the documents, known as statements of financial condition from 2011 through 2020. In other words, Trump`s own accountants can no longer attest that his financial statements are accurate.
[19:20:04]
And those statements are at the center of two investigations into whether Trump fraudulently inflated his assets to secure favorable loans. It`s a significant blow to Trump, who has long relied on Mazars` credibility to claim that his finances are beyond reproach.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They`re done by among the biggest and best law firms in the country. Same thing with the accounting firms. The accountants are a very, very large, powerful firm from the standpoint of respect, highly respected.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Joining me now, Tim O`Brien, senior columnist at Bloomberg opinion and Paul Butler, professor at Georgetown Law School and former federal prosecutor.
Thank you both for being here.
Tim, I`m going to start with you.
What is the significance? I mean, it isn`t a good thing to have your accountant quit you, but what does this mean, big picture, for Donald Trump and his company?
TIM O`BRIEN, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, BLOOMBERG OPINION: The immediate impact, Joy, is, Donald Trump had hundreds of billions of dollars he needs to refinance hanging over his business empire. And good luck refinancing your debt when the accountants just walked out the door.
That is going to give anybody else who has to -- would consider lending money to Donald Trump enormous pause. In fact, they may not even be able to do it because of this. So the practical implications of this is, his business is going to get radically squeezed because of it.
On a national security front, it presents the same issue it`s always presented. If Donald Trump is desperate for money to refinance struggling - - his struggling business, that makes him a mark for foreign lenders. And I think this has to be watched very carefully.
Jared Kushner is making the rounds right now in the Middle East to raise money for his own business ventures. And I think people have to really pay attention to who Donald Trump is going to go begging to for money as this progresses.
The other piece of it that I just find which is a head-scratcher is that suddenly, Mazars, because of Letitia James` filing, decided they could no longer vouch for these financial statements. These are the same financial statements that were in the center of the litigation I engaged with in -- with Donald Trump in.
He claimed -- he lied about it, but he claimed he gave me these documents when I was reporting. They turned up in my deposition. I looked through all of them for the first time during my deposition with Trump`s legal team. And Mazars at the time said, we cannot certify these under GAAP, generally accepted accounting practices.
That`s a sniff test accountants use to make sure something is kosher, that it corresponds with the profession`s standards for what should be reported publicly. Mazars knew in 2006 and 2007 that something wasn`t completely up to snuff.
I think the difference was, I was a journalist. Mazars now is looking at the fact that the New York state attorney general is raising the same questions, that they said that what came out in her court filings in January prompted them to withdraw.
What came out in her court filings was ample evidence that Donald Trump has been in -- and his children and the Trump Organization has been inflating the value of his assets and messing with the value of his assets, possibly misleading investors and bankers, possibly misleading tax authorities.
Mazars stares that in the face, and I think says, uh-oh, we have possible criminal or civil exposure here. And we have to do something about it. So now we`re going to walk.
REID: It`s interesting, because Mazars is the same company, Paul, that they went all the way to the Supreme Court, right? There was a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court about whether or not they would be willing to turn over his records. And this was to the New York district attorney.
They lost that case. The Supreme Court ruled that they cannot -- they cannot block those records from being released. Now, that didn`t have anything to do with the January 6 Committee. This was specifically for that. Congress is actually still fighting to see those returns.
Is that the case here, that Mazars perhaps realizes that, A, they may have legal liability themselves, that`s number one, and, number two, could they or their accountants to be called to testify against Trump if a case ever came to trial?
PAUL BUTLER, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: I think they almost certainly will be called to testify.
This is a big deal, Joy. The accounting firm that has represented for -- Trump for years has said, we`re quitting you and you need to alert your banks and insurers and everybody else that the statements we have issued about your finances for the past 10 years are unreliable.
The accounting firm says it can`t reveal why it`s dropping Trump and his business. But it also says it made this decision based on information it received from court documents filed by Letitia James and from its own investigation and its own internal and external sources.
[19:25:02]
Joy, when an accounting firm prepares these statements of financial condition, it doesn`t conduct an independent audit or investigation to see if the information that the client has provided is correct. So the accounting work is only as reliable as the client, which, in Trump`s case, makes you wonder why it took them so long to figure out that Trump is shaky with both money and the truth.
REID: You know, it`s interesting.
So, Trump, Tim, has been on like a fire sale, right? They`re selling -- the MAGA hats have gone from $44 to $104. They`re hawking everything. I mean, even Melania Trump is in on it. There`s some dubious sort of, it`s for charity, but the charities don`t seem to exist.
We just put up on screen a few of the things he`s selling. He did an arena tour with Bill O`Reilly. The tickets were between $170 and $500, signed coffee table books, stuffed stamped with the -- what looks like the official seal sort of the president.
It is like a fire sale. He seems to be really desperately trying to raise money. Even things that look like political fund-raisers really just go in his pocket. What does that say to you that he`s on this money hunt? Is it just the way he is? Or could this be a sign that he`s stocking up because he feels he might need a lot of cash anytime soon?
O`BRIEN: It`s both of those things, Joy. He -- this is just the way he is. Donald Trump has put his name on underwear, mattresses, steaks, water, magazines, you name it.
Anything that he can try to get cash from, he will do. If you have got a bag of cash, Donald Trump will talk to you. He also, I think, is under financial pressure. And he is going to have to sell a lot of MAGA hats to be able to pay down $400 million in short-term debt that`s coming due in the next few years that he needs to refinance, and perhaps well over a billion.
This stuff is really small change and is not going to get him there. I think this is him monetizing his political standing. It`s him taking advantage of our loose campaign finance laws, so he can line his pockets. This kind of stuff, though, isn`t going to solve the problems he has. He`s selling his hotel in Washington to deal with the kind of debt problems he has.
REID: Yes.
O`BRIEN: He`s moved from New York to Florida, I think, for a variety of reasons. Part of it`s financial.
And I think -- I think the fact that now that his accountants have decided to leave is yet another indication of what a mess he, his children and his company have on their hands financially.
REID: Yes.
I mean, and just to clarify, by selling his hotel, meaning selling the lease on the hotel he leases from us, from the United States, from the federal government, which is still...
O`BRIEN: From us, from the taxpayers.
REID: I can`t believe that`s legal. From the taxpayers. It`s hard to believe that`s even legal.
So, Paul, I guess the question that -- every time a story like this comes up, I know I annoy my producers with the question, and I don`t know if anybody that`s watching has the same question. There`s a bit of a, OK, so what? Because it does seem like this guy has nine lives, that he`s -- from just a layperson`s point of view, appears to break the law all the time when it comes to paying his -- not paying his taxes or levering the value of -- to insurance companies of his properties.
All of this reporting happens, all these disclosures happen, and then nothing happens. What could be shielding him from accountability? If any of us sitting here did a 10th of this stuff, I feel like we`d be in really big legal trouble, not in the future, but now.
BUTLER: Any of us would be in big legal trouble if Letitia James is on the case, as she is with Trump. She shut down his charitable organization. And now she`s looking at his businesses.
And Trump, of course, has been crying witch-hunt, and playing the race card, claiming that these investigations are due to black prosecutors, like the New York attorney general, James, and like the Manhattan DA, Bragg, who he claims are racist.
But now his own accountant has the same concerns about whether Trump and his company are on the up-and-up. It makes it look like those prosecutors are on the right track.
REID: All right, well, drip, drip, drip. We just keep getting more and more information. We will see where it goes.
Tim O`Brien, Paul Butler, thank you both very much.
And up next, celebrating another readout Democracy Defender. Katie Paris is organizing suburban women to counter the right`s rhetoric on everything from school mask mandates to diversity education.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:33:47]
REID: We are now 267 days away from the midterm elections.
And, today, in person voting began in Texas ahead of its first-in-the- nation primary just two weeks from tomorrow. So, please register and vote. As Democrats try to keep control of both chambers of Congress, Republicans have made it clear that their strategy across the country is to focus on the classroom culture wars.
They saw how Glenn Youngkin joined in on right-wing organizations` plan to use conservative parents dislike of Toni Morrison`s and other books by black authors to generate enough agitation among white suburban voters to eke out a win in Virginia last November.
And now Republicans are replicating his playbook in Wisconsin, where they`re trying to unseat Democratic Governor Tony Evers. We have all seen the videos of school board meetings looking more like a WWE ring, where -- with both verbal and physical threats of violence over mask mandates and school curriculums on race, racial history and sexuality, followed by attempts to ban books that teach those topics from school classrooms and from libraries.
But while the book banners may be loud, they are not the only ones making their voices heard, thanks to Democracy Defenders like Katie Paris, and her group Red, Wine & Blue. It`s a national network of multiracial suburban women, especially moms, who are mobilizing to counter those disruptive Astroturf groups.
[19:35:04]
Among its activities, running training sessions to help women learn strategies to fight back, while presenting a calm face and peaceful demeanor. In just a few years since the group`s founding, its network reaches more than 300,000 women.
And join me now is our REIDOUT Democracy Defender today, Katie Paris, founder of Red Wine and Blue.
You had me at wine. Thank you for being here.
Talk about the origin of this name.
KATIE PARIS, FOUNDER, RED WINE AND BLUE: You know, I started Red Wine and Blue following the 2018 elections, when the big story coming out of those elections was suburban women becoming more politically engaged.
And I live in Ohio. And it just didn`t happen here quite as much. And I wanted to know why. And so I started traveling around the state. And, much to my surprise -- and it was a good surprise -- I found women meeting in living rooms, usually with a glass or two of wine, getting together and saying, you know what, I`m feeling kind of alone in my community, but does anyone else feel like something`s really wrong here since the election of Donald Trump?
And they started working together, getting stuff done together, and even helping each other get elected to offices like city council and school board. And so I thought, these women are not your typical political activists. We need to amplify their voices. We need to connect them together.
Their networks are not politically polarized. They live in areas that have been more traditionally Republican and conservatives. But they`re turning away from that. And, wow, if we could bring them all together, that`s a lot of power.
REID: Let me show you just a little bit of a sample of kind of the way some of these school boards have begun to look.
And, again, I always like to emphasize to people this is not just coming up from the grassroots. These are Astroturf organizations that are putting a lot of money into organizing this. And these are small groups of people, but very disruptive.
Here`s a sample.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE AND FEMALES: No more masks! No more masks!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We should take our kids, and we should pull them out of school.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don`t touch me. Don`t (EXPLETIVE DELETED) touch me! Don`t (EXPLETIVE DELETED) touch me!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Freedom over tyranny!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don`t (EXPLETIVE DELETED) touch me!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, hey, hey. Whoa, whoa, guys. Come on. Come on. Hey, officers. Officers, please come to the room.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We know. We know who you are. We know who you are.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can leave freely, but we will find you. And we know who you are. And we know who you are.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: I mean, some of those are real threats.
I mean, what do you counsel women who are part of Red Wine and Blue to do if they find themselves in a situation like that?
PARIS: Yes.
So, as you can imagine, when women see images like that, and you say, so, hey, how about come down to the next school board meeting, that might not sound like something they immediately want to do, right?
REID: Right.
PARIS: So, we need to change -- we need to flip the script. We need to put this on terms where women can feel really proud and comfortable showing up together.
And that means that they`re going to show up differently. So we have created a community where women can come together, support each other, share best practices. What`s going to happen at these meetings? Where can we all meet beforehand? How early should we show up? Where can we find information about how many of us can show up at what time, so how many speakers do we need to have?
What should we be -- what should we expect to hear? Let`s make sure that, where they`re booing and shouting and pushing, we can stand together, maybe all wear the same color, have the masks on them that say keep schools open or some positive message.
And when we speak, let`s politely and cheerfully applaud each other, or, if they`re not allowing applause, let`s show some other form of positivity. And it`s that contrast that we`re going for, because there`s a lot of parents that are just kind of looking in on this on the sidelines going, what is even happening?
REID: Yes.
PARIS: And we want to present a contrast and show, it doesn`t have to be like that.
Those of us who are just mainstream moms, we want to set a good example for our kids. And we don`t want this FOX News right-wing think tank idea of what parents showing up at school boards are to set the narrative. We want you to...
(CROSSTALK)
REID: And this whole conversation -- and I`m glad you mentioned narrative, because the sort of narrative -- and the media is guilty of this, of saying suburban, right, which generally means white suburban moms. Let`s just be blunt.
PARIS: Yes.
REID: But I know, having grown up in the suburbs, a very black suburb in Denver, Colorado, that the suburbs are not all white, right? You have a lot of -- gentrification is pushing a lot of people who did live downtown into the suburbs.
The suburbs are getting increasingly -- you have a lot of people of color who are becoming affluent enough to buy into the suburbs. So, these suburbs are much more mixed race. And so the schools. Let me just put these numbers up.
Schools used to be in 2009 54 percent white, the children, I mean. They`re now 47 percent white. They are 15 percent black, slightly down. It`s the Latino student population that`s really the growing population.
How does your group and does your group deal with that? And how do you deal with the fact that the whole idea of a suburban mom is a lot different now than the way that the media tends to portray it?
[19:40:06]
PARIS: Well, the media can say what they will, but we are going to be here every day accurately representing ourselves.
And we hope that the way the media talks about it does eventually change, because the suburbs are diverse. And that`s really good news. I mean, that`s part of why most of us actually like living in the suburbs. We like living sort of nearby cities, where there`s a lot of culture. We like that not everybody is exactly the same. We`re not living in perfect houses with picket fences.
We are not suburban housewives from the 1950s, as Donald Trump referred to us. And so we are going to represent ourselves in a way that is consistent with our values and accurately represents who we are. It`s something we talk about a lot.
REID: Democracy Defender Katie Paris, thank you very much. Really appreciate you.
Red Wine and Blue, that`s one of the best names anybody`s come up with for a group too. So, thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Don`t go anywhere. Tonight`s "Absolute Worst" is up next, as we learn more about allegations of rampant and really, quite frankly, shockingly open racial discrimination at a high-tech California carmaker.
We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:45:15]
REID: There are an abundance of reasons to critique Tesla founder Elon Musk.
There`s his participation in the midlife crisis space race with all the other bored billionaires obsessed with escaping the planet as it burns. And while his company is leading the country in producing electric vehicles, he came out against Build Back Better, which would fund creating more charging stations and possibly the country`s best chance to save the planet because he`s worried about the deficit, this coming from a man who paid -- let me check notes -- oh, exactly zero in federal income taxes in 2018.
He also spoke out against government subsidies, despite his company receiving billions from them. His neurotechnology company is currently being accused of killing and causing extreme suffering in monkeys during brain experiments. Plus, he has a past of ugly union-busting at Tesla.
And, today, we`re learning a lot more about the treatment of his employees. The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing is suing Tesla, alleging in a statement that, after receiving hundreds of complaints from workers and a nearly three-year investigation, the department found evidence that Tesla operates a racially segregated workplace, where black workers are subjected to racial slurs and discriminated against in job assignments, discipline, pay and promotion.
The lawsuit details horrific treatment of black employees, citing complaints that workers refer to the areas where many black/or African- Americans worked as the "Porch Monkey Station" and the "Dark Side," as well as "The Slave Ship" or "The Plantation," "where defendants` production leads cracked the whip."
Workers have stated that Tesla production lead supervisors and managers constantly used the N-word and other racial slurs to refer to black workers.
And the state found that Tesla ignored, immediately dismissed or perfunctorily investigated and then dismissed workers` complaints, and that management retaliated against black workers for complaining. Tesla denies the allegation, saying the department has -- quote -- "no factual proof" and that "Tesla strongly opposes all forms of discrimination and harassment."
But this is far from the first time that Tesla has been accused of racism, with Elon Musk responding to a previous allegation in an extremely tone- deaf way in 2017, telling employees that anyone who makes an unintentional slur should apologize and the recipient should be thick-skinned and accept the apology. Right, just be thick-skinned and take the racism. Welcome to America as tech bro hell.
So, for all of the above, Elon Musk is tonight`s "Absolute Worst."
And up next: There is a lot more on this lawsuit and the many past allegations against Tesla.
We will speak to a lawyer who`s currently fighting a class-action suit against the company on behalf of 1,000 of its black workers.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:52:06]
REID: If you take the time to read the 39-page complaint filed on behalf of Tesla`s black employees, you would be horrified.
Tesla production associates and supervisors are accused of regularly calling employees the N-word. And when faced with complaints about the racist environment, some supervisors allegedly used their own racist language and retaliatory tactics.
Now, mind you, this is not the first time Elon Musk and his company have had to address these claims of rampant racism and discrimination in the workplace. Last August, the company paid a former employee, Melvin Berry, $1 million after an arbitrator found that Tesla turned a blind eye to the commonplace use of racist slurs and failed to stop the employee`s supervisors from calling him the N-word.
The arbitrator found Berry`s allegations more credible than Tesla`s denials. Arbitration is what companies like to use to keep things hush-hush and on friendlier terms. And then, in October, a federal jury in San Francisco awarded Owen Diaz, a black elevator operator, $137 million after they found his claims that a colleague repeatedly called him the N-word to be credible.
The environment has reportedly been so toxic for so long that a class- action lawsuit was filed back in 2017 against the company on behalf of 1,000 black workers.
And joining me now is Larry Organ, founder of the California Civil Rights Law Group. He`s a lawyer in all three cases that I just mentioned. And Jason Johnson is back with us.
I think, for a lot of people -- and thank you so much for being here, Mr. Organ -- it`s shocking to hear that this seems to be a extremely open environment of both racism and retaliation.
Walk us through what your clients were going through. And tell us what the specifics of the retaliation look like.
LARRY ORGAN, FOUNDER, CALIFORNIA CIVIL RIGHTS LAW GROUP: Sure.
So in terms of Owen Diaz and Melvin Berry, they heard the N-word from the get-go whenever they were walking around the factory. But Owen had it directed at him over 60 times by two of his supervisors. There was racist graffiti, including the N-word, swastikas, and other things, in the bathrooms that he saw as of the second day of his employment there.
He complained numerous times verbally and in writing. And Tesla took some perfunctory analysis, but they didn`t do full investigations. They just didn`t do the things that employers are supposed to do if you want to stop this.
And, most importantly, what really makes me mad is this statement about the thick skin by Elon Musk. If he had gone into that factory -- this is a guy who said, oh, I sleep on the factory floor. If he had gone in from day one and said, I heard there`s the N-word here, if you say the N-word, we`re going to fire you, and then Tesla follows up and fires them, it stops there.
[19:55:02]
But that hasn`t happened.
REID: Yes.
ORGAN: And that`s what`s so infuriating is that thousands of black workers have been called the N-word, subjected to all kinds of racist taunts and retaliation, as you pointed out, in the DFEH complaint. And nothing is done to stop it.
So, very, very disappointing.
REID: And, you know, Jason, there`s like a bit -- there`s a bit of this sort of tech bro culture thing that I think is happening here too.
JOHNSON: Yes.
REID: So just some of it, to go very quickly.
Tesla refused to attend mediation at one point, when DFEH wanted them to attend. They were like, no, we`re not going to do it. The same department found that black workers were being taunted, as we just heard, and then when they complained, they were said, well, they`re aggressive, they`re threatening, they would get in trouble.
They would be accused of coming in late and saying, oh, we`re going to use that to sort of deny you opportunity. I mean, literally, it seems that the culture inside of Tesla was, suck it up. And if you say anything, we`re going to retaliate against you.
JOHNSON: And here`s the other thing Joy.
It`s like Tesla -- Elon Musk has this image of himself. He`s like, I`m the real Tony Stark. No, he`s more Dr. Doom, right? She`s more vicious and mean and bullying, because here`s the thing. You hear about this with Tesla. Do you think somebody could get away with this at Ford?
REID: Absolutely not.
JOHNSON: Do you think I`m going to get away with this at Honda?
No, the people who are there know, I can act the fool in this particular environment. And when it goes up the ladder, nothing is going to happen to me.
Some of these complaints are ridiculous. I mean, for someone to have swastikas and KKK in a break room, and it takes months for it to be scrubbed down, allegedly, for someone to be called the N-word multiple times, so much that they can count, you don`t say I got called the N-word 60 times if you`re aren`t counting past 23 or 24.
REID: Right.
JOHNSON: So all of this really falls into his lap. And he has made it clear that, as much as he wants to presents himself as this cool guy, he is perfectly comfortable with a hostile work environment.
REID: And then now they`re moving to Texas, Mr. Organ, so talk about that, because I guess it could be seen by some as an attempt to escape accountability by getting out of the state of California, where he`s facing this pretty aggressive lawsuit, to what he might believes is a more permissive environment.
What are your thoughts on that?
ORGAN: Well, Owen`s case was brought under the Civil Rights Act of 1866. So he may run to Texas, but he can`t hide from the federal statute that found him guilty here.
So I think that jurors in Texas are not going to be sympathetic to Musk`s B.S. And, hopefully, they will stand up to any kind of racism there. But I do think that the timing is sort of ironic. Three days after Mr. Diaz got his $137 million verdict, he moves away to Texas.
REID: Yes.
ORGAN: Kind of chicken if you ask me, but...
REID: It could be.
Tesla`s response, by the way, to the class-action lawsuit back in 2017, attacking you, it said: "At Tesla, we would rather pay 10 times the settlement demand in legal fees and fight to the ends of the earth than give into extortion and allow this abuse of the legal system."
That was their response to you, Mr. Organ. Your thoughts?
ORGAN: Well, I`d rather be called an extortionist by Elon Musk for standing up for African-American workers than maybe anything else.
I would wear that as a badge of honor. So, bring it on, Elon.
REID: Yes.
ORGAN: No one here is scared of you. Me and my co-counsel, Bryan Schwartz, we`re all -- we`re fighting you in that class-action.
And my other -- my co-counsel in the Diaz trial, he filed another case against Elon. So, Bernard Alexander is his name. So, we`re not scared.
REID: Yes. Bring it, right?
ORGAN: And it`s kind of -- yes, I know. It`s a sad thing.
REID: Yes.
ORGAN: But I think, because he has so much money, and because Tesla is such a wealthy company, they think they -- they`re above the law.
And the one great thing about America is, the jury system, as our founders decided, is a check on power. And this is a check on Elon Musk.
REID: Yes. Indeed.
And, quickly, Jason, because we are in this culture where states like Florida are trying to do these anti-WOKE Act things, which would literally prohibit a company like Tesla from even trying to fix it.
JOHNSON: Yes.
REID: Because this idea is that the problem is people complaining about racism, not racism.
JOHNSON: Right, exactly.
I`m struck, Joy, honestly, by like, do you know how much the abuse has to be for a door person to get $137 million?
REID: Hello.
JOHNSON: Like, $137 million.
Like, what -- is this Calvin Candie, like, forcing black people to fight? Like, how gross an environment this is.
But it is something to be concerned about when you have these states that basically want to become safe havens for racism, right?
REID: Right.
JOHNSON: They`re going to say, oh, we`re attractive not just to business because of low taxes, but, also, we won`t tax you for bigotry. We won`t talk to you.
We haven`t even talked about the sexism issues that they have also had at Tesla. So, that is something that should be a concern. He should not be able to basically state-hop in order to engage in the kind of abuse, alleged abuse, that this company has been engaged in.
REID: Yes.
And, unfortunately, as you said, there are states that are trying to set themselves, AKA free state of Florida, and saying bring that here, we`re OK with that here.
JOHNSON: Yes.
REID: And that is sad, because there are people there who deserve to be treated better as well.
Larry Organ, Jason Johnson, thank you both very much.
That is tonight`s REIDOUT.
"ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts right now.