Summary
Banning books makes a comeback; State Representative Alexander says GOP using distraction tools instead of addressing important issues; Books banning fever heats up in red states; Tennessee school board bans Pulitzer prize-winning, Maus; Students are speaking out against book ban push. More than 70 bills filed in 27 states seeking to regulate hose teachers teach. Most books targeted for review discuss LGBT+ issues, sex education and race. Texas lawmaker list 800 books for review
Transcript
ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: The issues are serious but - get one thing right. A lot of the people pushing the staff, they are complete jokes.
Thanks for spending the time with us here. It`s been a busy week on THE BEAT. I wish everyone a happy and safe weekend. And I turn now to THE REIDOUT with Joy Reid. Hi, Joy.
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: How are you doing, Ari? Thank you for the laugh, always good to start that way at the top of the show. Thank you. Have a great weekend.
All right everyone, good evening. We begin THE REIDOUT tonight with an American classic, The Catcher and the Rye, by the famous literary recluse J.D. Salinger. The book was published in 1951 introducing us to the funny yet troubled Holden Caufield, a prep school kid and anti-hero who was disillusioned with society who has a thing against phonies in the adult world. Themes of angst and alienation are prominent in the book.
But at its core, it`s a story about a teenager`s dramatic in difficult struggle with having to grow up. The Capture and the Rye is also one of the most controversial novels in modern American history, a favorite target of the censorship crowd. The biggest reasons for the periodic (INAUDIBLE) are the books use of profanity and sexual references. It has also been disparaged as anti-white, anti-family values, immoral or even violent.
It was first banned in Oklahoma in 1960 and then several more times after that, reaching a fever pitch during the Reagan era when books became a target of the so-called moral majority, the Religious Rights National Movement at the time.
Here`s an NBC clip from 1981, the year President Reagan took office.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: New efforts to ban some books from libraries, a new campaign which began after last fall`s presidential election.
JUDITH KRUG, AMERICAN LIBRARIAN: Most of the pressures that we are experiencing are being brought to bear on libraries by individuals who represent themselves as being members of the moral majority or as fundamentalist ministers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do they want removed?
KRUG: Well, what they want removed is (INAUDIBLE), who is who and what of modern 20th century literature.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Coincidentally, book burning and banning happened to be staples of fascism and communism. The Nazis did it, Hitler imposing ridged censorship on newspaper and burning all literature he considered dangerous. The Soviets banned books too, along with the Chinese Communist Party in the Pol Pot regime and pretty much everyone else who was terrible. Cuba`s communist regime has banned books, newspapers, radio channels and heavily restricted access to the internet for its citizens. So, hey, Republicans, wonkiness is communism but book banning isn`t? Make it make sense.
It is literally another case of everything old is new again, because this exact tactic has hijacked present day American politics. Just like back in the `80s, the great parent revolt is bankrolled by conservative organizations and think tanks and shaped by political operatives, who are controlling the puppet strings so that you think this is just about regular moms and dads advocating for their kids. But strip off that veneer and it`s about so much more. It`s about getting up the Republican vote by riling up white voters.
But it`s also about distracting those voters because distraction and slieght of hand is basically what modern Republican politics is all about. I mean, it sure ain`t about governing, it`s about selling white grievance and rage, the same rage that produces attacks on Asian-Americans and Jewish people and on our Capitol, rather than fight inflation, let`s howl over critical race theory, and instead COVID relief, let`s demonize China and mask and vaccines. Rather than policy let`s give them anger, racialized anger to distract from the fact that people have hit the pandemic rock bottom, that they can`t afford a hospital visit or don`t have safe roads and clean drinking water or bridges that don`t fall under them, which was exactly the point that Democratic Florida State Representative Ramon Alexander made when one of these white discomfort bills was approved by a Republican-controlled committee this week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STATE REP. RAMON ALEXANDER (D-FL): People are struggling. They are living paycheck to paycheck. A lot of them don`t have a paycheck. And so instead of addressing systemic poverty, instead of addressing all of these issues that impact people`s quality of life, we are using these distraction tools.
I am an American, and my voice matters just as much as your voice. My opinion matters just as much as your opinion. My reality matters just as much as your opinion and you can`t handle the truth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Joining me now is the Florida state representative you just heard, Ramon Alexander, along with Joyce Vance, former U.S. attorney, and Kurt Bardella, Adviser to the DNC and DCCC. Thank you all for being here.
And, Representative Alexander, you know I sat and watched, it was like an eight-minute read where you read the rest of the people on the other side of the aisle and it was riveting.
[19:05:06]
It was shared a lot. I saw it first on social media because people were really transfixed by after Sherrilyn Ifill`s feed is where I first saw she was tweeted it.
There was point in which you said, a lot of you all on the other side are uncomfortable voting for this bill too but you still going to do it because you are afraid of a primary. Did any of your colleagues on the Republican side, after what you said and after that hearing, did they come up to you? Did they say anything to you? What was their reaction?
ALEXANDER: Absolutely, Joy. And thank you for having me. It`s been a reoccurring theme in the state of Florida. These culture wars have district distracted us from real issues that impact people every single day and that there is also a reoccurring theme with my Republican colleagues being frustrated with many of the agendas and the distraction tools pushed by Governor Ron DeSantis, auditioning to be the next president of the United States.
So, absolutely, I got several of my colleagues reaching out to me expressing their frustrations with the bill and many agendas that are being pushed by the Republican Party and by their leadership.
REID: And so then why don`t they get together, stand together and stand up to that leadership and stand up to Ron DeSantis?
ALEXANDER: Well, they`re afraid of the radical right that has hijacked the Republican Party, of its fake conservatism. If you start to talk about this radical culture wars that continue to manifest by Governor DeSantis and their entire agenda, when you look at the fact the last of four gubernatorial elections in the state of Florida have been decided by less than 1 percent of the vote. And so, they have a geographic problem and a demographic problem.
And so what they`re doing, they`re continuing to feed red meat to their base to try to hold on because when you look at the (INAUDIBLE) corridor, when you look at Orlando and Tampa, the shifts are significant. And what they`re doing is they are distracting from those everyday issues and they`re trying to hold on because things are getting closer and closer in the state of Florida.
REID: Joyce, let me bring you in, because you`re from the great state of Alabama and I know that you`ve talked about it on television before. You`ve lost a family member to the kind of rage and sort of anti-institutional rage that has, you know, just permeated our politics lately.
But, I mean, I personally -- at least may be on the granny on this panel but I`m old enough to remember that `80s era when, you know, this same kind of vibe about trying to ban books that this so-called moral majority was really pushing and that they said a lot of same things, well this is anti- white it`s, you know, there`s reversed discrimination, there`s -- white people are under attack. There was that same vibe, which Reagan, not coincidentally, used to his advantage in his campaign in 1980 when Mississippi was a swing state and he went down there and did what he did, you know, in the place where those three civil rights workers were murdered.
So, this is not new. Why do you suppose Republicans have gone back into that well?
JOYCE VANCE, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: It`s not new and I think you`re smart to point that out because the real problem here -- and Representative Alexander said it far more eloquently than I can say it. I was riveted by his eight minutes of his speech that was posted on social media. He says we are so much better than this. And my fear is that although I`d like to believe him, I`d like to be the optimist that we are not, and that some people perhaps in both parties but certainly with the example of this movement, education in the Republican Party, they`re willing to appeal to people`s worst instincts in order to lock up the vote.
And American democracy has to mean more than that and the language of this Florida bill, which tries to prohibit teachers from teaching and look, let`s not put too fine of a point on it. The terms of the bill are neutral but this bill is really about teaching slavery. We know that from some of the comments that some of the legislators have made and the notion that you could learn about slavery in a meaningful way without feeling uncomfortable, what kind of an education would that be?
Local papers in Florida reported that one of the bill`s sponsors indicated that teachers could talk about the three-fifths compromise, that 1800s rule that said that black people counted as three-fifths of a white person but teachers wouldn`t be able to opine that that rule had been morally wrong.
So, we see this coming together to promote the worst instincts in society in order to pander to voters and we should know that that`s wrong and we have to do better than this.
REID: There is wrong in there`s and what is permitted under the Constitution. And I`m so glad to have you here as a legal voice as well. How is this not coercion by the state against speech? How is any of this lawful under the First Amendment, Joyce?
VANCE: I would expect that bills like this and I think that there are now bills pending in more than 30 states.
[19:10:00]
They have different character but essentially they do the same sort of thing we saw, for instance, in Tennessee where a local school board decided to ban, Maus, a graphic novel about the Holocaust. This is really, as you point out, an epidemic.
I think we`ll see a lot of challenges. We`ll see civil rights groups, we`ll see parents. We`ll see perhaps even the federal government intervene to try to stand up for the First Amendment rights of children who are being educated.
The Florida bill also speaks to education in the workplace. And one suspects that that`s an effort to avoid the diversity trainings that help businesses build more inclusivity. So, I think we`ll see a separate level of legal challenges there. But legal challenges are slow.
REID: Yes, but I think they have to happen. And, Kurt, let me bring you in here. It`s not even 30, it`s 70. There are more than 70 bills, an announcement that Pan America has said. In just the first three weeks of 2022, more than 70 of these kind of anti-wokeness, you know anti-education, anti-history bills has been filed in 27 states seeking to regulate how and what educators are allowed to teach about race, history and sexuality in schools.
And if you go to -- in Texas, this attempt to target some 850 books that one Texas lawmaker has said it might make students, meaning white students, feel uneasy. There is a theme to them. 62.4 percent of these books pertain to the LGBTQ community, plus community. 14.1 percent can pertain to sex education, 8.3 percent pertain to race. There is a rhyme and a reason to this that is not different from the 1980s when I was in high school.
And to your thinking, as somebody who was a Republican and was on the strategic side and political side, do Republicans think that by doing this -- do they understand they`re not expanding the electorate by doing this, right? My question is, do they care that they`re taking their concentrated small electorate and enraging it in ways that become dangerous and drive people toward anti-social behavior, even violent behavior?
KURT BARDELLA, DCCC ADVISER: No, they don`t, Joy. And this is also a reason why the Republican Party is bending over backwards to try to limit who can participate in elections because they know that this way, this way ensures that their party will never grow. Their party will get smaller. You and I know when the playing field is equal, there is more of us than there are of them. Well, they know that, too. That`s why they`re doing this whole thing in the first place.
And the representative was 100 percent right when he pointed out in the amazing speech that they`re doing this because they don`t want to talk about why there is income inequality. They don`t want to talk about why the quality of life isn`t going up for a large amount of people yet, people continue to vote for them. They don`t want to have that conversation.
This is a magician, this is all the distraction, smoke and mirrors, so that people don`t realize that the reason why their standard of living isn`t going up, it because of Republican policies. When your taxes are too high and billionaires are getting tax breaks, that`s because of Republicans. When you don`t have clean air, clean water, it`s because Republicans gutted regulations. Republicans are scared to death of engaging in those substantive issues. It`s why the president the other week in his press conference very pointedly pointed out what are Republicans for?
And I`ll tell you, Joy, the media needs to step it up and do a lot better here. They need to understand what colors all of their rhetoric, what colors all of their opposition to overwhelmingly popular policies is race and not including that context in their coverage of things like infrastructure, Build Back Better, filibuster, Supreme Court, voting rights, not including that context is a disservice to millions of Americans.
REID: Yes, and money. We`re going to be digging a lot more in this show into the funding and the organizations, their funding these efforts, because this is not just grassroots.
Let me read for you Representative an op-ed that was written in the Dallas Morning News by some students, Sriya Tallapragada (ph), a high school freshman at Basking Ridge, New Jersey. She wrote, adults who want to ban school books don`t understand how we students read them. It seemed to me that the removal of The Catcher and the Rye, one of the books that is going to be removed, would do more to block the lessons learned by Holden than protect students from anything else. Literature, such as Mikki Kendal`s Hood Feminism and Ruby Bridge`s This Is Your Time, where staples of childhood as well as Key Influences On My Journey in Discovering My Voice In Potential For Social Good. These books were the ones that truly prepared me for the real world and challenges.
Have you heard from any students, Representative Alexander, and how they feel about the attempts to ban books?
ALEXANDRA: Well, Joy, there is been an outpouring from students throughout the state in regards to this issue at hand and the consistent radical culture wars being purported by the Republican Party. They want to be in an environment where they can critically think and make their own decisions and determine what is and what`s not.
And so I have hope for the next generation, where they`re focusing on issues and the quality of life, they`re focusing on being bold and courageous towards addressing the future issues of our state. And so, yes, there has been an outpouring and that momentum is going to pour right into the `22 elections.
[19:15:04]
And then we`re looking forward to speaking truth to power and making sure that our future is not hijacked by an ambition ,by Governor Ron DeSantis try to compete with the governor of Texas could be the heir parent to Donald Trump.
REID: Well, I want thank you for your voice, Representative Ramon Alexander. Thank you. You riveted the world with what you said and it was absolutely 100 percent true.
BARDELLA: You know, Joy, what was most amazing about -- I`m sorry, what was just most amazing about his entire speech was that multiple times in that, he was interrupted by the Republican chair of the committee trying to dictate and derail what he could say. And the grace he showed, that you showed Representative, it was -- I really don`t know how you did it.
REID: Yes. I agree, same here. I will co-sign that. Thank you all very much. Appreciate you.
Up next on THE REIDOUT, happy Friday, a new round of subpoenas are issued today as the January 6th select committee tries to get answers about the phony slates of trump electors. Committee Members Jamie Raskin joins me.
Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
W. KAMAU BELL, AMERICAN STAND-UP COMIC: In some sense, this is trying to save a part of his legacy with those of us who don`t want to look at it because it`s too painful to look at allegations of assault and rape but we have to look at all of it, in my opinion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: My conversation with W. Kamau Bell on his highly anticipated documentary series on the rise and fall of Bill Cosby.
And President Biden`s visits the latest example of America`s crumbling infrastructure while Republicans in Congress shamelessly taking credit for the infrastructure bill they voted against.
Plus, who won the week as THE REIDOUT continues. Don`t go anywhere.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:20:44]
REID: Today, the committee on January 6 subpoenaed 14 of the 84 fake electors who tried to falsify the results of the 2020 election in seven states, compelling them to provide documents and testimony in their ongoing investigation.
It`s already become apparent that many, if not all of these fake electors likely broke the law. And they reportedly did so at the behest of the Trump campaign, which helped them forge, sign and submit bogus election certificates, falsely claiming that Trump had won their states.
This has all the hallmarks of a conspiracy to commit election fraud. And that conspiracy would appear to implicate Trump`s closest associates.
Today, Chairman Bennie Thompson said -- quote -- "We believe the individuals we have subpoenaed today have information about how these so- called alternate electors met and who was behind that scheme."
Those 14 subpoenas include the two highest-ranking fake electors from each of the seven states, where they submitted bogus election certificates. And each subpoena letter points out that the existence of these purported alternate electoral votes was used as a justification to delay or block the certification of the election during the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021.
Axios is also reporting tonight that one of the fake electors, Wisconsin`s former GOP Chairman Andrew Hitt, plans to cooperate with the committee`s investigation. Separately, NBC News has confirmed late today that the committee has also subpoenaed Trump`s former White House spokesman Judd Deere.
Joining me now is Congressman Jamie Raskin from Maryland. He is a member of the Select Committee to Investigate January 6.
And thank you very much, Congressman Raskin.
Let`s up back again the name of the subpoena -- these subpoenaed fake electors. You subpoenaed 14. Your committee, the committee subpoenaed 14 of them, but there are many more. There are like 80 of them. Why just these 14?
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Well, these people were the ringleaders, if you will. They sort of organized the slates in some of the pivotal states.
Look, if you go into a polling place, and you represent yourself as a voter, and you`re not a voter in order to vote, that`s election fraud. And people go to jail for that. These people were representing themselves as electors in order to essentially overturn the whole popular vote total in a particular state.
And we know that was part of a sequence of actions that was undertaken in order to get Mike Pence to be able to say, as a pretext, oh, there are these competing Electoral College slates, I`m going to return the electors, thereby lowering Biden`s Electoral College vote total from 306 to below 270, kicking it into the House of Representatives for a contingent election, where we would be voting, not one member, one vote, but one state one vote.
And the GOP had a majority. They had 27 state delegations, although I think the at-large elector from Wyoming, Liz Cheney, would not have voted with them, but, still, they would have had 26. And, at that point, they were prepared to declare Donald Trump president. He would have seized the presidency under that plan.
And this was part of that sequence of fraud against the republic.
REID: So now, and that is a narrative that I think has become very, very clear, right, based on just what we saw -- seen happen and what we have learned from -- what we have heard from what`s coming from the committee.
And it seems to be that it`s -- the one question that remains is, did Trump know that was the plan? And, increasingly, I mean, people like Boris Epshteyn have been on air, on this air, was on with Ari Melber, admitting, yes, I knew that was the plan, right? John Eastman put a memo, put it on paper, said, yes, that`s the plan.
There were multiple memos, Jenna Ellis and others, that seemed to say, yes, this was the plan.
Let me play for you, just walk you through a little bit of what Trump seemed to understand. Let`s just go.
This is cut four, for my lovely team here, my director.
On January 5, Trump is tweeting: "The vice president has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors."
On January 6, he tweets: "All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the states, and we win."
January 6 at 2:27 p.m., and this is -- this is with the carnage having already -- it was ongoing -- "Mike Pence didn`t have the courage to do what he should have done."
That`s a threat when you have violent people attacking the Capitol.
"The Wall Street Journal" reports that, just before the Ellipse rally, Mike Pence told Donald Trump that he lacked the constitutional -- I mean, Mike Pence told Donald Trump that he lacked the constitutional authority to block certain electors from being counted.
[19:25:07]
And the president was furious. according to those who understand the conversation. He said: "I don`t want to be your friend," he told Pence. "I want you to be the vice president."
And my last thing I want to do for you is to play for you Trump actually on the Ellipse before the siege on the Capitol. This is on January 6.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And I hope Mike is going to do the right thing.
I hope so. I hope so, because, if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election.
We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated.
And, Mike Pence, I hope you`re going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country. And if you`re not, I`m going to be very disappointed in you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: It seems to me impossible for this investigation to proceed without subpoenaing that guy. Is he going to be subpoenaed?
RASKIN: Well, first of all, the public record, as you have just shown it with the tweets, with his statements, makes very clear what Donald Trump was up to.
The whole name of the game was to put coercive pressure on Pence to do the right thing, by which Trump meant step outside of his constitutional role and declare unilateral unconstitutional powers to reject Electoral College votes, essentially to declare himself a mini-dictator for the purposes of allowing Donald Trump to seize the presidency for the next four years.
So I`m not going to speak for the committee, Joy. I`m just one member of several. But I will tell you that, when I was the lead impeachment manager, I sent a letter directly to Donald Trump, telling him to come and testify, because he was putting facts into controversy, but not doing anything to back them up, and that, if he didn`t show up, that we would draw every negative, adverse inference against him for not showing up, which we have a right to do in a civil trial.
And this is a civil case as well. And if Donald Trump doesn`t show up, we`re going to resolve every adverse inference against him. But he owes us his testimony, like everybody else. There`s no position in our constitutional constellation called former president or ex-president that gives you any kind of immunity or exemption from following the law.
You`re just another citizen, and you have the obligation to render truthful, honest testimony to the sovereign when we come calling. And that`s the representatives of the people in Congress.
REID: I just want to note for our audience that, yesterday, we spoke with New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas, who said yes when I asked whether he believes that those who participated in the fake electors scheme potentially could have broken a law in terms of seditious conspiracy.
So we`re going to keep that -- I`m going to leave -- I`m going to table that for a moment, because I actually want to ask you about something else.
Apparently -- we talked in the previous segment about banned books. And I understand from my producers one of your books has been included in the banned books in one -- in one state or another? Can you please just illuminate us on that?
RASKIN: Yes. The...
REID: In Texas.
RASKIN: The GOP -- the GOP in Texas is trying to ban a book I wrote, ironically, called "We the Students." And it`s about all of the constitutional rights of students in public schools.
One of the books that`s in there -- one of the cases that`s in the book that they should read before they ban my book is called Board of Education vs. Pico, where the Supreme Court struck down the stripping of books from public school libraries because somebody disagreed with the viewpoint or the content of the book.
My book was sponsored by the Supreme Court Historical Society, "We the Students," and the Republicans want to ban it in Texas right now.
REID: No, of course, they do.
Very quickly. We`re out of time. But public hearings, March or April, do you know which? And...
RASKIN: More likely to be April. I hope it will be in April...
REID: OK.
RASKIN: ... and won`t push over into May.
I mean, we`re making great progress, except for the coterie of aides right around Donald Trump.
REID: Yes. Yes.
Congressman Jamie Raskin, thank you so much. Really appreciate your time. And hope your book -- people pick up your book. Pick up banned books. Thank you very much, sir.
And be sure to tune in Sunday, February 6, at 10:00 p.m. Eastern for the premiere of the new MSNBC documentary "Love & the Constitution," following Congressman Raskin as he battles to save democracy during the Trump administration. Very timely.
And still ahead on THE REIDOUT: I recently spoke with comedian and director W. Kamau Bell about his upcoming docuseries on Showtime, "We Need to Talk About Cosby."
And we will show you that interview next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:33:50]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do not edit this. A lot of people know, because you can`t do what he did unless you have other people supporting what you`re doing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And he`s just talking about how to draw women,.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Beautiful women. They were lined up outside of his dressing room.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What did you think was going on?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He looked at me and he said: "Fooled them again."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You don`t often learn that your hero is the worst sorts of villain.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is just a sad day in the history of black culture.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: From America`s dad to alleged sexual predator, Bill Cosby has been accused by 60 women of a variety of offenses including groping, sexual assault and rape, dating back as far as the 1960s, all of which he denies.
He was the first celebrity to be tried and convicted in the MeToo era. And after spending nearly three years in prison, he was released last year after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his 2018 sexual assault conviction, ruling that Cosby`s due process rights had been violated.
A new showtime docuseries "We Need to Talk About Cosby" chronicles the career of the man many of us grew up watching and the struggle those of us who grew up Cosby are happy confronting his once golden and now disgraced and disturbing legacy.
[19:35:04]
And joining me now is the director of the docuseries, comedian W. Kamau Bell.
It is great to see you. And thank you for doing this and being brave enough to do it.
I have to ask you, what has been the reaction just to the fact that you have done it -- people haven`t seen it yet -- but just to the fact that you did it?
W. KAMAU BELL, DIRECTOR, "WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT COSBY": I mean, there`s two buckets of reactions.
There was like, finally, we`re actually going to have this conversation, and some people saying, I feel like you specifically, Kamau, are the person to do it, and then other people who are like that I`m a black man tearing down another black man, and that there`s no reason to do this, and it is a hit piece, which it is not if you watch it. It`s not a hit piece.
REID: Yes.
I have to read this statement by Bill Cosby`s spokesperson, longtime spokesperson who says -- and did slam you, called you a P.R. hack, which you`re a comedian, not a P.R. hack.
But here we go. It says -- part of the statement says: "Mr. Cosby continues to be the target of numerous media that have far too many -- for far too many years distorted and omitted truths intentionally. Despite media`s repetitive reports of allegations against Mr. Cosby, none have ever been proven in any court of law."
So the problem with that, Kamau, is, they kind of were. I mean, the convictions were thrown out. But this man has been three years in prison because a jury -- a judge and jury looked at the case and found these -- some of these 60-odd allegations credible.
It -- what do you make of the constant denial?
BELL: I mean, that`s the way he has framed this from the beginning.
There has been sort of this talk of it being like -- some people have called it a -- quote, unquote -- "lynching" or that they`re coming to take a black man down. And while I understand that America`s history of racism and present of racism is often trying to take black men down, in this case, I believe this black man did what he`s been accused of.
And, also, let`s remember, in the deposition that was unsealed, he says, talking about Andrea Constand as she was passed out: "I entered the area between permission and rejection, and I`m not stopped."
And he`s talking about a drugged woman.
REID: You know, in that -- on that part -- and you`re a comedian, so -- and comedians have started to come out and say, look, in our world, in your world, in the world of comedy, people knew that Cosby was doing these things.
And there are people in your documentary who say, look, you can`t have done this if there weren`t people who knew that you were doing it and letting you get away with it. We`re talking about this is going all the way back to the `60s.
And I don`t know if you feel this way, but when I go back, and I think about some of the comedy that my mom -- we watched with my mom, right? I mean, we all found Bill Cosby to be hilarious. His stand-up routines, his routines that were played on TV were hilarious to us, but that you sneaked in there seemed to be Cosby hiding in plain sight, making jokes literally about drugging women, Spanish fly, that being one of his go-to jokes.
Do you think that, in some ways, Cosby was winking and nodding at what he was doing, and it was just that he was so culturally important to us that we were just ignoring it?
BELL: I mean, just to be clear, this is about Bill Cosby, but the doc makes it clear this is bigger than Bill Cosby.
Lots of powerful men have gotten away with sexual assault and rape of women and sort of haven`t been that closed about it, and we sort of had to really, like, say, what are we looking at? We have to pay attention here.
So I think that -- like, yes, I think Bill Cosby got away with it for so long that maybe he didn`t feel the need to hide it, you know?
REID: Yes.
You talk about it -- in the doc, in the first part, you talk about the fact he was sort of the un-Dick Gregory, right? Like, Dick Gregory was the first out of the box in the 1960s as a black man doing stand-up and getting national credit for it. And he kind of came behind him, but then was more successful commercially because he sort of stripped the race talk out.
But the things that he did and the things that he created, from "The Cosby Kids," which I grew up watching, which you grew up watching, to "The Cosby Show," that presented blackness and black family and black people in such a positive light, like, that was his legacy. That`s the thing he did that, in many ways, made it possible to elect a Barack Obama, right, because people could see black folk in a different way because of the way he did things.
What do you think, in the end, his legacy -- how does that balance, for you, wind up sort of sorting out? Because his importance to the culture, it`s hard to not acknowledge it. But this thing that he seems to have done to so many women, it`s just like hanging there like a dark cloud over him.
BELL: Well, for me, I think this doc is about reckoning with all of it. I think, sometimes, we try to turn it to a math equation: Was there more good than bad?
I think I`m just trying to look at all of it.
REID: Yes.
BELL: And I think there`s extended sections of the documentary that Cosby and his team would like, because we are talking about good things he did like, when he integrated black people into the stunt performers, because he refused to do a stunt on "I Spy."
He refused to let a white stunt performer do his stunt on "I Spy." He said he wanted a black stunt performer to do it.
REID: Yes.
BELL: And that changed history.
There`s lots of things like that we talk about, but you can`t separate the two. In some sense, this is trying to save a part of his legacy with those of us who don`t want to look at it because it`s too painful to think about all the allegations of assault and rape. But we have to look at all of it, in my opinion.
[19:40:00]
REID: And last question to you, Cosby also as a moral lecturer and a scold of black people, because that`s the other part of his legacy.
How ironic is it for you that this man, who did the -- what is it, the cornbread speech, where he`s like literally scolding us...
BELL: Pound cake, the Pound cake speech.
REID: ... telling us how to behave, turns out to be this?
Yes, the pound cake speech.
BELL: Yes, I mean, I think that`s what ultimately was a part of his downfall, is that a lot of people looked at him publicly scolding black people and said, how can you do that when there`s all these other stories out there? One of those people, of course, being the comedian Hannibal Buress,
But I think that was part of the -- being -- these stories starting to being exposed, because people just felt like it was such -- such -- so much hypocrisy that they couldn`t deal with. Jelani Cobb speaks to that.
I think this is a documentary where we`re still talking about Bill Cosby was our teacher, and we still need to learn from him to create a society that is safer, more nurturing, more healing, and more just for survivors of sexual assault and rape, because that`s how we can limit this from happening in the future.
REID: Well, those who said you were just the man to do this, they were right.
Thank you very much. W. -- the four part documentary series "We Need to Talk About Cosby" premieres Sunday at 10:00 p.m. Eastern on Showtime.
W. Kamau Bell, thank you for doing that. It was very brave of you and I think really, really important for the culture.
Appreciate you, man.
BELL: Thank you. Thank you, Joy.
REID: Well, "Who Won the Week?" is still ahead.
But, first, President Biden visits the site of today`s bridge collapse in Pennsylvania during a trip touting his new infrastructure plan, but guess who else is trying to take credit for that bill`s success, despite voting against it?
Oh, this is an easy one. You got this.
We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:45:45]
REID: Florida Senator Rick Scott was front and center earlier this week when it came time to announce funding that the state of Florida received from President Biden`s infrastructure bill.
The problem? Rick Scott voted against that bill, and he`s far from the only one to pull this tomfoolery. Many Republicans across the country are taking credit for the money going to their states, like Iowa Republican Congresswoman Ashley Hinson. She called the bill Washington gamesmanship and spending at its worst, but then turned around to praise the money that would modernize the locks and dams in her state.
And then there`s Louisiana`s David Duke without the baggage Steve Scalise. He said that the -- quote -- "spending spree" was bad for Louisiana, but then promoted flood mitigation measures paid for by the bill.
Why? Because infrastructure spending isn`t just politically popular. It`s critically necessary. That was made perfectly clear, crystal clear, today after a bridge collapsed in Pittsburgh, injuring 10 people. It`s one of Pennsylvania`s more than 3,000 bridges -- excuse me -- that are in poor shape and had been in that condition for 10 years.
President Biden toured the site today while, coincidentally, in the state to talk infrastructure. Republicans -- Republican Senator -- excuse me -- Pennsylvania`s Republican Senator Pat Toomey voted against the bill, calling it too expensive and excessive -- excuse me -- excessive.
This bridge collapse could have killed people.
(COUGHING)
REID: Excuse me while I cough.
I`m joined now by Charlie Sykes, editor at large of The Bulwark, and Michael Eric Dyson, distinguished professor of African-American studies at Vanderbilt University and author of "Entertaining Race: Performing Blackness in America."
And I promise it`s not COVID.
You know have sometimes you just get a cough, and it`s just a cough that makes absolutely no sense? That is what is happening right now. I`m just going to drink some water. Not showing the brand, because we`re not doing a commercial.
OK, I`m going to let you talk, Charlie Sykes.
What do you make of these Republicans who, ironically, suddenly love all that money that`s coming to their states, when they voted against the bill?
CHARLIE SYKES, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it`s almost the perfect chef`s kiss version of political hypocrisy.
Look, you had 19 Republicans that voted in favor of the bill. You have got a number of governors who endorsed the legislation for the reasons that you have laid out, and they can take credit for supporting the spending.
But the senators that voted against, the governors that opposed it, hell no, no way. And I think that this is one of the -- this should be a theme in the midterm elections, the contrast between fake and real. You want real, you vote for the legislation that fixes the bridges -- fake, the people who posture, send out the press releases, and then try to take credit for something that they did not contribute to.
But I`m really glad you put that number up on the board. The reality is, is that, as horrific as that picture of the bridge in Pennsylvania is, there are literally thousands of bridges just in that state that are in danger of falling down.
REID: Yes.
SYKES: This is a real issue. But, again, the fake politicians who are not actually interested in governing or fixing these problems, I think they need to be called out. I think it`s completely a legitimate shot.
REID: Well, I mean, Michael, they`re too busy, these Republicans, screaming about fake Critical Race Theory in schools and screaming about masks and vaccines.
But this is the opportunity cost of focusing on the politics of angry memes, rather than, like, the really popular politics of, like, filling potholes and getting bridges built.
MICHAEL ERIC DYSON, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY: Yes, they`re mad at Build Back Better, but, daggum, you could build that bridge better. You could build the infrastructure better, right?
And you are coughing because the dust flying off the hypocritical words of the Republicans is filling your lungs.
So, bless you for that, Joy.
(LAUGHTER)
DYSON: But, yes, it is ridiculous.
Chasing red herrings, looking at rabbits, as opposed to the real issue here, how do we deal with streets? How do we deal with roads? How do we deal with byways? How do we talk about environments and environmental racism and asbestos in schools and lead pipes? How do we talk about the water in Flint, Michigan?
Here are issues begging for relief. Politics, essentially defined, is about the distribution of critical resources in a time of crisis to vulnerable populations.
And shame on the Republicans. At least you used to depend on them for that. Daggum, they`re going to show up and talk about the local roads. They`re going to show up and talk about the local projects that they brought back money to support. Now they don`t want to do the real work involved.
[19:50:06]
And they want to pimp the Democrats and those who do things that are necessary to address the needs of ordinary citizens, and then ride in on their white horses galloping across their contradictions in ways that are just shameful.
REID: Well, let`s see if the Democrats actually do what Republicans would do and slam them in ads for being hypocrites.
Let me stay with you for just a second, Michael Eric Dyson.
I`m going to play a little clip for you, which you have probably seen before. Your name was called. So I got to let you respond.
DYSON: Oh, OK.
REID: Joe Rogan, take it away.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE ROGAN, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: What did Michael Eric Dyson call you...
JORDAN PETERSON, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: Prejudiced.
ROGAN: ... a mean, angry white man?
PETERSON: Mean. Mean, yes. I am white.
Actually, that`s a lie, too.
(LAUGHTER)
PETERSON: I`m kind of tan.
(CROSSTALK)
PETERSON: And he was brown, not black.
ROGAN: Well, isn`t that weird?
PETERSON: Yes, it`s really weird.
ROGAN: This whole -- the black and white thing is so strange, because the shades are so...
PETERSON: Tan and brown.
ROGAN: There`s such a spectrum of shades of people. Unless you`re talking to someone who is, like, 100 percent African from the darkest place, where they`re not wearing any clothes all day, and they have developed all that melanin to protect themselves from the sun, it`s -- even the term black is weird.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: So, as the daughter of an African from the Congo who used to show up at our house in designer clothes, and we were like, wow, you got some nice designer clothes, you should really be helping us out more as a father...
(LAUGHTER)
REID: ... I am offended just by that aspect of it.
DYSON: Yes.
REID: But your name was called. So I`m going to let you go ahead and talk.
DYSON: Well, here`s the thing.
First of all, he`s got a "Me Tarzan, You Jane," approach to Africa about the dense jungles, the Joseph Conrad "Heart of Darkness" operating there. Shame on Joe Rogan, who`s smarter than that.
So here you are trying to talk about race and you don`t know what you`re talking about. You could read Critical Race Theory, which would teach you that race is a social construct. It`s not a biological phenomenon. It`s not a phenotypical agenda or genotypical thing.
It`s not about inheritable -- inheritability in genes. It`s about the degree to which a society in which we live gives us, imbues us with a sense of what race means. That`s what it means by socially constructed. It doesn`t mean that these divisions are not real. But they are created by the needs, arbitrarily, of some people, in this case, white supremacists, to project onto the rest of the world their superiority, to beat their chests.
So, in this sense, talking about it doesn`t make sense to talk about black or white, you don`t even know what you`re talking about. You ain`t read no books. You haven`t studied racist the phenomenon in both America and the global situation.
And Jordan Peterson, bless his heart in Toronto over there, here you are trying to talk about trans identity as Satanic. We know you don`t know anything about race. But I would be glad to go on Joe Rogan`s podcast, but he ain`t going to have no real brother like me, because I will break it down for him and show him what the tom-tom is about when it beats on that drum.
REID: We...
(LAUGHTER)
REID: Let me go on to a topic we talked about earlier, Charlie Sykes.
So, there is this book banning theme that I remember from the `80s when they tried to go after certain books that the Moral Majority didn`t like. I feel like it is a presumption the part of Republicans that their base is so easily triggered by racial topics and by LGBTQ topics. They`re essentially saying, our base is bigoted, so we need to play into that.
I would be offended if that -- if I was one of their voters. Do -- what do you think?
SYKES: Well, first of all, on the Joe Rogan show, the only good part about that segment is, they weren`t talking about vaccines, but that`s the only good thing I can say about it.
REID: Thank God.
SYKES: But the book banning is an extraordinary sort of throwback.
It does feel like we`re back in the 1950s here. And it does reflect the sort of -- the contempt that just assumes that going after a couple of bad words in a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust is the way to really win support from the base.
REID: Yes.
SYKES: I`m really also struck by the snowflakery of all of this. The people who said, well, we don`t care about -- we shouldn`t care about feelings, apparently, they meant your feelings, but not their feelings, because they are very, very tender.
(LAUGHTER)
SYKES: And so to watch Republicans passing legislation in places like Texas saying, please do not say any words or teach us any facts that make us uncomfortable...
REID: Yes.
SYKES: ... and they think that other folks are snowflakes? It`s a blizzard down there.
REID: Yes, they -- I think they should all be in this position here, because I think they want us to all suckle them.
SYKES: Yes.
REID: They`re just like babies.
I want to note that Joe Madison, the great Joe Madison, after 74 days, ended his hunger strike for voting rights. And I want to just commend him for really putting it all on the line for democracy.
And I think that is a perfect segue into our next segment, because Charlie and Michael are going to stick around with us, and they`re going to play "Who Won the Week?."
But God bless Joe Madison.
So, stick around. "Who Won the Week?" is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:58:30]
REID: Well, I don`t know about you, but my weekend begins very, very soon.
But, first, you know we got to play, oh, yes, our favorite game, "Who Won the Week?"
Back with me, Charlie Sykes and Michael Eric Dyson
Charlie Sykes, tell us, we are dying to know, who won the week?
SYKES: OK, well, I`m going with Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who left more or less on his own terms, but at least did not give Mitch McConnell the chance to block another appointment.
But the reason he won the week was this speech that he gave in the White House, where he eloquently described what the American idea was, but reminded us that that idea was an experiment and said that it was up to future generations to preserve it. It was a great moment.
REID: Thank you, Stephen Breyer, for not pulling a Notorious RBG and sticking around. And you`re absolutely right. So good for him.
All right, Michael Eric Dyson, it is your turn. You are up to the plate. Who won the week?
DYSON: To that, I think it`s Stephen Breyer moving aside, but I think it`s the black women that he made room for.
Black women have been the backbone of this nation. They have been the test, the mettle, the morality, the conscience. Their intelligence has been high. Their spirituality has been profound. We have every range of both sight and every range of intelligence that you want.
Black women are the winners, because of their deep intelligence, their profound spirituality, and being finer than a shady lawyer`s contract written at midnight with disappearing ink. That`s what we do. Vanilla vitality to chocolate charm, we get the whole thing covered, mocha, magic, and caramel cuteness as well.
(LAUGHTER)
REID: All right, well, my who won the week, I got to get it in quick, Sofia Ongele, Olivia Julianna, the kids from Gen Z for Change, the young students in Florida who tried to speak at the abortion ban hearing. They`re from Students For a Democratic Society.
The young people, the youths, the TikTok kids won the week, because they are fighting the power and fighting for learning and books, because they`re smarter than the adults, who are trying to mess up education.
Charlie Sykes, Michael Eric Dyson, thank you both very much.
That is tonight`s REIDOUT, you all.
Now, all of you all won the week, because guess what? It`s time for you to watch "CHRIS HAYES." It starts now.