Summary
Interview with comedian Leslie Jones, the current host of ABC's "Supermarket Sweep", who has made her cable news commentary a favorite spectator sport.
Transcript
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: It's the end of a historic, turbulent, and, at times, frightening year, a year that gave us the rise of a pandemic and the end of the Trump presidency.
Now, for the next hour, sit back and relax. We're bringing you interviews with some of the smartest, most interesting, and entertaining people around.
In a moment, my conversation with the great Rachel Maddow on the American politician, who has rightfully been called Trump, before Trump, former Vice President Spiro Agnew.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: And Agnew was pushing all the same levers that Trump is pushing, but you're right. He did it in a way that was sort of erudite and erect and correct and articulate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Later, Morning Joe himself, Joe Scarborough, joins me on his new book about President Harry Truman.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC HOST: He came from Missouri. His parents were both pro-confederate. He had a racist background. And yet here is a guy, who, in 1948, election year when he knows it's going to hurt him politically, he moves to integrate the Armed Services.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Also, Author, Michael Eric Dyson takes on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL ERIC DYSON, AUTHOR: He is enacting some of the worst practices we have seen in the history of this nation, in regard to a senator blocking the coming to fruition of legislation that could relieve the hurt and suffering of black people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: And at the end of the hour, the amazing, Leslie Jones. Need I say more?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LESLIE JONES, COMEDIAN ACTRESS: I let them know that I was not going to do any interview first, but yours. That's right. Because I love Joy, because joy to the world, joy to the fishes in the deep, blue sea. I love Joy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: First up, though, my recent conversation with the great, Rachel Maddow.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
REID: Donald Trump's presidency has felt unprecedented in so many ways. But before there was a Donald Trump attacking the norms of our democracy, there was a Spiro Agnew.
SPIRO AGNEW, FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: The narrow and distorted picture of America often emerges from the televised news.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: If you want to discover the source of the division in our country, look no further than the fake news and the crooked media.
AGNEW: Liberalism, today, translates into a pusillanimous pussyfooting on the critical issue of law and order.
TRUMP: The words law and order are words that Democrats don't like to use. They don't think they are politically good.
AGNEW: The conduct of high individuals in the department of justice is unprofessional and malicious and outrageous.
TRUMP: Our Justice Department and our FBI have to start doing their job and doing it right and doing it now.
What's happening is a disgrace.
REID (voice over): In her new book, Bag Man, The Wild Crimes, Audacious Cover Up, and Spectacular Downfall of a Brazen Crook in the White House, which details the often-overlooked story of the bribery scheme then Vice President Spiro Agnew ran from inside the White House. Rachel Maddow writes that the playbook Agnew wrote to try to save himself has left its own long legacy for the elected official who prides himself on busting through political norms. It's a pretty straight forward set of plays. If saving yourself means undermining the institutions of democracy, the Department of Justice, and the free press, for starters, well, fire up the backhoe.
I am joined, now, by the host of the Rachel Maddow show, Author of the new book and the Pea Body nominated Podcast Bag Man, the great Rachel Maddow. Rachel, thank you so much for being here.
I have to start, before I even jump into the book, by asking you how is Susan?
MADDOW: Susan -- Thank you. First of all, thank you, thank you, thank you, for all of that. I have never seen the juxtaposition in tape there of Agnew and Trump. I have done it in print. I have never seen it laid out like that, in tape. It's fantastic. Their delivery is actually -- has such echoes. That was amazing.
But Susan is much better. She's dealing with the long tail of the symptoms from COVID, which I think a lot of people who have symptomatic COVID have to deal with, and that's sucks. But we are not scared in the way that we were and we are out of the woods, as they say. And so, boy, we -- you know, it took us a full week to eat through the gift package that you sent. But we buckled and we did it. And so, thank you. It was so sweet of you. Thank you.
REID: I can only be counted on is -- I can only be counted on for food and drink, like this is the thing that I do. I can do food and drink. So that is wonderful to hear. We are very happy to hear. That is the first and most important thing. So I had to get to that.
MADDOW: Thank you.
REID: But, yes, so -- and I have to give it to up Rachel, who's also named Rachel who produced this segment. So, you know our producers are everything. So, she found that incredible video, and the thing -- Rachel Witkin.
And so the thing that so amazing about these two, you write in your book and you say it all the time, history is here to help, history is also here to freak us out. Because as I am reading through this book, and dog-earing it and destroying it so no one else can ever get to read it, which is what I do to books, it's freaky. Spiro Agnew is basically a more articulate version of Donald Trump, attacking the press, the racism, the anti-Semitism, the saying, everybody loved me until I get into the White House and everybody hates me, the attacks, they're so symmetrical.
MADDOW: They're so -- and it's interesting to me because a lot of times, you hear very smart people talk about what Trump is trying to do to undermine democracy right now. And the way he plays very fast and loose with authoritarian trend lines and all the stuff he pushes at.
And a lot of smart people will say, well, yes, this is buffoonish and this is obviously going to fail and it's easy to laugh at Trump doing these things. But what about when the slicker version of Trump comes around, the more articulate version, less ham-fisted version of Trump comes around and tries to do these things?
And history is here to remind us that actually that already happened. Agnew was pushing all the same levers that Trump is pushing. But you're right, he did it in a way that was sort of erudite and erect and correct and articulate. And he still was seen as a crook and forced from office because of it.
So, it may -- it's sort of comforting to me because there isn't really anything new under the sun. But the lesson of how to deal with guys like that is not that they go away on their own or not that they can be some sort of, I don't know, neutralized by the passage of time. He was as malignant as Trump is. But there were good people in office who put country above party, who put duty above partisanship and they fixed it.
REID: Absolutely. And I think that is the story. You do write in the book and then you say in the podcast that, you know, it is the story of these -- you know, the guys who stayed straight ahead, stared straight ahead, and did their jobs that wind up fixing this. But we have to count on there being enough of those to save our democracy.
But let's talk about the actual scandal, itself, because it's a wild story. I mean, at one point, George Herbert Walker Bush shows up. This is like -- it is like a Netflix series, all in a book. But, I mean, the fact that you have this crook operating a bribery scheme that dated back to when he was Governor of Maryland, as state you -- people don't realize how corrupt Maryland politics is and has been but it was super corrupt, well, as I should say has been.
So he's operating as this sort of corrupt figure. He gets in. There's this bribery scandal. But talk about the fact that you have this happening kind of simultaneous with Watergate but they're not connected.
MADDOW: Exactly. And that is part of what I think was sort of forgotten in the history of Agnew, is that people -- if they remember him at all, they think that it must have been a Watergate-adjacent thing, right? There's are a lot of people who went to jail or got charged in Watergate-adjacent things. And it was Nixon with the cover-up, with all of the other people involved in the crime and his attorney general went to jail and all of these.
You know, you remember, that there was some -- you assume that it must have been that way for Agnew too. No, totally separate, original scandal, taking bags of cash as kickbacks for government contracts. And he started doing it as Baltimore county executive and he did it as Maryland governor. And he kept taking the bribes, literally, envelopes stuffed full of cash, while he was in the White House.
And so, that's what confronts Elliot Richardson, who is kind of one of the heroes of this story, one of Nixon's attorneys general, one who didn't go to prison, one who Nixon, in fact, fired for not doing his bidding. And Richardson is like, all right, I'm getting crazy phone calls every day from Nixon. Nixon, at one point in the story, is in the hospital with pneumonia. The Watergate stuff is gearing up and getting bad. And Nixon is going kind of nuts.
Richardson is clear that, like, Nixon's holding on by a thread, in terms of the presidency. Well, what happens if Nixon goes? Agnew goes into the Oval Office. And he knows that Agnew is taking cash bribes and as a vice president. It's a whole different kind of felon. And so that becomes this real -- this national security imperative, the idea that the country might collapse, if a president is forced out for being a crook, immediately elevating his vice president, who is then has to be forced out for being a crook. I mean, what -- what happens?
So, it -- it really put the fire, I think, under Richardson, in terms how to deal with it and that's one of the things where there isn't a parallel with Trump because there is no way to force him out of office in exchange for facing indictment but that's where they landed with Agnew.
REID: And, you know, the thing that is also fascinating. Is that you confront -- you know, this country confronted previously this question about whether or not you can indict a president. But there is also that sort of OLC memo issue about whether or not you can indict a vice president. And you have Agnew and Nixon both asserting that you cannot, right, that they are protected absolutely by the office from indictment.
Talk about how that connects us to where we are now because there has been a lot of this talk about whether Donald Trump, who is, also, as seen by a lot of people as corrupt, maybe criminally corrupt, could be indicted, particularly, let's say, on something like obstruction where he seems to have been dead to rights named in the Mueller report. Talk about how the Agnew scandal relates to that.
MADDOW: Yes. And I would also say you can also call him president individual one, right? He is already named by the federal prosecutors in the Michael Cohen hush money case.
REID: Yes.
MADDOW: The case in which Michael Cohen went to prison. He's named by prosecutors as having been the person who directed the commission of those felonies. So it's a live issue with Trump.
But think this is some of the stuff that made me want to write the book, in addition, to doing the podcast. Because we advance Mike Yarvitz tonight, advanced the reporting on this, even after the podcast and came to what I think is sort of an unsettling revelation about that.
Presidents including Donald Trump do have a get-out-of-jail-free card from the Justice Department, because there's this Office of Legal Counsel policy that a president can't be indicted. Where that comes from is the Agnew scandal. And specifically where it comes from is Nixon and Agnew hating each other and Nixon and Agnew having these separate scandals at the same time.
At one point, Agnew goes to the Democratic speaker of the House, and says, basically, I'd like you to impeach me. And the speaker of the House is like, uh, no, I don't want to do that. But he thought if he got impeached, that would keep him from getting indicted. They go to his -- his lawyers are arguing, no, no, he can't be indicted. He can only be impeached.
They go to the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department and say, will you settle this once and for all. And what the Office of Legal Counsel comes up with, they check with Nixon to find out the way Nixon wants it to come out, right? And what they come up with is that the vice president can be indicted and the president cannot.
And that was specifically because Nixon didn't want the impeachment machinery to start for Agnew, because he thought that would throw him out. But he didn't -- if Agnew was going to get indicted, he didn't want to get indicted, himself. That was Nixon just trying to save himself in the face of his gangster vice president getting thrown out of office.
That's -- it wasn't like some founding fathers on a tablet given to Moses sort of thing in the Constitution. The get-out-of-jail-free card that is keeping Donald Trump from getting indicted by Mueller and by SDNY derives from this ridiculous, craven fight between these two felons.
REID: It is amazing. This era has been so toxic. But like the '60s and '70s keep coming like, hold my beer. You think it's crazy now? We'll show you crazy. We're going to show it to you.
You are great, Rachel. What an incredible book. Congratulations on Bag Man. It is awesome. No one can borrow my copy because I have destroyed it with the yellow and things and dog-earing it. But, still, read it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
REID: Still ahead on our REIDOUT holiday special, more of my most interesting, enlightening and hilarious interviews of 2020. Joe Scarborough joins me next. Stay right there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REID: In his new book, Saving Freedom, Truman, the Cold War and The Fight for Western Civilization, Joe Scarborough details the way that the Truman doctrine has shape to the foreign policy and America's role in the world for the last seven decades. He notes that, in contrast, while Trump's America First theme initially struck a nerve with the voters, his ignorance of history and lack of diplomatic skill prevented his administration from making progress on any significant foreign policy issue over four years.
Back with me is Joe Scarborough, Host of MORNING JOE and Author of Saving Freedom, Truman, The Cold War and The Fight for Western Civilization, which I am in the midst of reading Joe and I am enjoying it a lot.
SCARBOROUGH: All right.
REID: You and I know maybe I actually I'm really intrigued by Harry Truman. I am a history buff anyway, but he is an interesting figure to me because he is this guy, he's this sort of racist senator from Missouri who writes his wife in his little note to her about N words and China men. And then, comes in and does more to actually advance the cause of racial equality for black Americans than FDR did, you know, taking the -- you know allowing black people to actually get into the military and the federal workforce. That actually ends up doing a lot and changing. How do you think he also changed our foreign policy?
SCARBOROUGH: Well, I want to talk about that first because it's fascinating to see how much he grew. He came from Missouri. His parents were both pro-confederate. He had a racist background. And yet, here is a guy who, in 1948, election year, when he knows it's going to hurt him politically, he moves to integrate the Armed Services. And sure enough, Strom Thurmond breaks out. They walk out at the convention at 48.
And so he's getting attacked by Wallace on the left, Henry Wallace on the left and Strom Thurmond on the right, and Dewey, the Republican. And he just -- frankly, he didn't give a damn. As Cory Gable (ph) might say, he thought it was the right thing to do given the service that black Americans gave during World War II and he thought it had to be done.
And it's another example of how Harry Truman grew in his life. This was a guy that was mocked and ridiculed when he came to Washington, D.C. He was called a rube by The New York Times. Time Magazine called them a mousey, little man from Missouri.
And yet, after he got elected president of the United -- or after he became president of the United States, after FDR's sudden death, he had to guide this country, not only through the end of World War II but also into a very turbulent peacetime when Americans and especially Republicans in the Senate were isolationists, they didn't want to be bothered by Europe. They didn't want to be bothered by the rest of the world. They had just gotten past defeating Hitler. And yet, Joe Stalin, Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union, actually posed a great risk to freedom, not only in Central Europe but Western Europe and across the world.
And Truman marshaled the resources and the support from Republicans and Democrats alike to actually stand up and contain the Soviet Union spread and to ensure freedom in Europe, and created, really, more than any other president over the past 75 years, created the world that we live in today.
REID: You know, and it's interesting because there's ambivalence about him too, right? There is the Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which, you know, one might argue was incredibly cruel to have done. And we, the only country, that's used nuclear weapons. But he also is somebody who did grow as president. Contrast that with the current guy because he's not growing.
SCARBOROUGH: Well, I mean, it's hard to contrast it with the current guy because Truman believed in plain speaking. He said the buck stopped here. He actually liked making difficult decisions and slept better at night after he did what he thought was the right thing to do. He didn't blame other people for his mistakes. He took responsibility.
And I believe, at the end, he changed the world for the better.
REID: He was an adult.
(LAUGHTER)
REID: Joe Scarborough, it's great...
SCARBOROUGH: He was an adult, yes.
(LAUGHTER)
REID: It helps.
Author of "Saving Freedom: Truman, the Cold War, and the Fight for Western Civilization."
You all pick it up.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
REID: Still ahead: Michael Eric Dyson says he has proof that America's real religion is whiteness.
We will be right back.
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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
REID: In the opening of his new book, Michael Eric Dyson writes directly to Elijah McClain, the 23 year-old black man who died last year in Colorado police custody -- quote -- "Dear Elijah, we are about to see if it is true that we are one, to see if your death and those of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Hadiya Pendleton, Sandra Bland, Clementa Pinckney, and untold others are viewed as worthy of the moral revulsion and, from there, the change of practice and belief that would prove a real reckoning is taking place."
Congress has not passed police reform, and not because the House hasn't tried. Such reforms have met untimely deaths in Grim Reaper Mitch McConnell's Senate.
And I'm joined now by Michael Eric Dyson, distinguished professor of African-American and diaspora studies at Vanderbilt University and the author of the "Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America."
Michael, my friend, it is good to see you.
We're going to talk about the book. But I want to very quickly ask you what you make of this attempt by Mitch McConnell to rebrand himself in part by touting police reform, having signed a police reform bill.
We know he blocked the one during President Obama's tenure, and that the House had passed a much more comprehensive one with choke hold bans and banning no-knock warrants and just getting rid of qualified immunity. They passed a weaker version in the Senate and shoved Tim Scott out front to be the face man for it.
Do you think there's a way that McConnell can launder his reputation based on that?
MICHAEL ERIC DYSON, AUTHOR, "LONG TIME COMING: RECKONING WITH RACE IN AMERICA": No, it's utterly ridiculous.
First of all, this is revisionist history before our very eyes. Usually, people wait a couple years, a few years, to try to tell the story again of what they did and did not do. And yet Mitch McConnell here is caught in the very vice grip of a kind of revisionist aesthetic that says, we're going to just paint everything like we did it all great back then, like we're doing it great right now.
He wasn't as great as he said back then, and he surely isn't as great as he thinks he is right now. And to stand in the way of making sure that a comprehensive piece of legislation passes, after one of the most rancorous and horrible summers that we've ever endured in the long trek toward transformation of race in the country, suggests that Mitch McConnell is not only tone-deaf, but he is colorblind in the worst sense of the fashion, in the worst sense of that word.
He refuses to acknowledge the persistence of the color in the culture. He refuses to acknowledge that black continues to be a thing that generates such deep and profound opposition that a policeman can put his knee on the neck of a prostrate black man laying on the pavement as his pallet, and asphyxiate him before our eyes.
Mitch McConnell is an -- in one sense, unwitting, but in another sense conscious accomplice in refusing racial progress in this nation. And now to paint himself, to portray him as somehow Martin Luther McConnell is deeply and profoundly problematic.
REID: And you -- your new book, you talk about reckoning with race in America.
And you know, I think about Mitch McConnell's centrality in the story of race just in the last 10 years...
DYSON: Right. REID: ... his blanket opposition and filibustering, using that good, old-fashioned Southern technique. This is a man originally from Alabama...
DYSON: Right.
REID: ... who used the filibuster prodigiously against President Obama, said you can't even put anybody on the federal court. You don't have the right. You're not a real president.
And then to try to tout his deputy becoming general attorney of Kentucky, and then for that black man to lie about the grand jury proceedings, so that he could let white offices off for killing Breonna Taylor, I feel McConnell is just as center to the sort of diminution of black life that we have seen over the last 10 years as Trump.
DYSON: There is no question about that, that, on the one hand -- you know, I talk about fast terror and slow terror. Fast terror is when bombs drop, when they lynch black people, and hurt us very explicitly by the police, who hurt and harm and kill us.
Slow terror is kicking kids out of school, denying them opportunity to be fed, both mentally and physically.
Mitch McConnell, in this sense -- if Donald Trump is a fast terrorist, is a racist, then Mitch McConnell is taking a slower train towards racial revulsion. He is enacting some of the worst practices we have seen in the history of this nation in regard to a senator blocking the coming to fruition of legislation that could relieve the hurt and suffering of black people.
And to proudly stand up and say that he wanted to make Obama a one-term president, this shows us that the real religion in America is whiteness. The real politics in McConnell's orbit are whiteness, the worship of whiteness, at the altar of whiteness, genuflecting before the god of whiteness.
And, therefore, Donald Trump is the product of a womb that has generated this disfigured person in terms of politics. But Mitch McConnell is part of that womb. Mitch McConnell gives life and breath to the very denunciation of blackness that Donald Trump has been so vehemently denounced for.
And, look, he then puts forward a black face representation, literally, in Daniel Cameron. So that there's a ventriloquism going on. Daniel Cameron's mouth is moving. Mitch McConnell's thoughts are coming through his tongue.
This is the worst Geppetto we've seen. And pulling those strings is one of the most -- was one of the worst white supremacist enactments that we've seen in the last 15 years in American politics.
REID: You know, and your -- you're writing about reckoning with race.
Talk to me about how we do that, when somebody like this guy can start off at the March on Washington at 20 years old and get all the way here, right, get all the way to the place where he's denying a black president's humanity and right to...
DYSON: Right.
REID: ... even occupy the office.
If he can fall that far -- I mean, this guy was against -- he was for having sanctions on South Africa. That's an actual, true thing. DYSON: Right.
REID: For him to have devolved into whatever this is that Mitch McConnell is now, blocking the John Lewis bill on voting rights from getting to the floor, blocking people from getting rent relief -- people are hungry. People are standing in food lines. People are suffering.
And he doesn't give a damn. If people can devolve that much, I don't know how we reckon with race in America. Do you have an answer for that in this book?
(LAUGHTER)
DYSON: Well, this is what is true.
First of all, he was mistakenly there. He happened to be there. He was accidentally there. He did not deliberately go to attend the march. He even admitted that he couldn't hear the words Martin Luther King Jr. uttered that day. And this many years later, he still cannot hear the resounding echo of an edifying, sonic appeal from a majestic trumpet of conscience like Martin Luther King Jr.
He still is tone-deaf. He still is incapable of listening to the calls and cries of black people, who say, what will be done in the Senate to at least acknowledge the centrality of race and the degree to which black people continue to be punished by legislation and practices on the street?
So, Mitch McConnell ain't never been there for real to begin with, and even now. Yes, how we reckon with it, because black folk know this ain't the first time we done seen this.
We have seen this from get-go. We have seen this from the very beginning, white people who pretend to be our friends and then stab us in the back. And what we understand is that Mitch McConnell is showing us that diversity by itself without equity, without justice means nothing.
Think about it. The police people who killed George Floyd, two white men, a black man, an Asian man, that's diversity, but diversity toward an unjust goal. That's diversity but without equity being embraced.
So, Mitch McConnell is articulating the noble ideals and words, but he is falling short on their follow-through.
But black people always been dealing with this from the very beginning. This ain't the first time (AUDIO GAP)
REID: Yes.
DYSON: ... standing up. We believe in the God who overcomes. We believe in people who transcend barriers. And we know that...
REID: Yes.
DYSON: ... blackness will survive even (AUDIO GAP)
REID: The book is "Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America," another must-read book from Michael Eric Dyson.
My friend, thank you very much. Really appreciate you being here tonight.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
REID: Don't go anywhere.
My interview with comedian Leslie Jones is up next. You do not want to miss it.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REID: The pandemic has upended all of our lives. The past 10 months have been a stream of unrelenting pain and agony, quite frankly.
Trump's abysmal performance in the face of the pandemic has only added insult to injury.
But rest assured, all is not lost. There are glimmers of hope and joy out there.
Take, for example, comedian Leslie Jones, formerly of "Saturday Night Live," and the current host of ABC's "Supermarket Sweep," who has made her cable news commentary a favorite spectator sport.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JONES: I came just so I could see you again, Katie. Fire is what I think when I see you, Katie.
He's a Trump impersonator. How disgustingly sad. Yo, this is why I want to know, Georgia, what part of Georgia is this?
Mitch McConnell crying is like the devil weeping over not being able to kill 50 more people.
Hey, you guys, is that Geraldo Rivera? Wait a minute. Geraldo Rivera is a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) Trumper?
You up here with a chart that you can't even read. He can't even read this chart.
This is exactly what we supposed to be doing. Just like he said, the government is supposed to look like what America looks like. Man, I'm loving it, Biden and Kamala!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(LAUGHTER)
REID: And Ms. Jones is putting her talents to good use.
She just wrapped up an Instagram Live event with Georgia Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff.
And Leslie Jones joins me now.
OK, Ms. Leslie Jones, I have to tell you, this thing is proof that God changes things, because I was like, please, can we just try to get -- book Leslie Jones?
Because your commentary about politics is my favorite thing in the entire world. I pretty much only want to listen to you talk about politics.
How did this begin? How did you start on this journey of commenting on everything that happens in politics on MSNBC?
JONES: OK, first of all, Joy, I let them know that I was not going to do any interview first but yours. That's right, because I love Joy.
(LAUGHTER)
REID: Oh.
JONES: Because joy to the world, joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea.
(LAUGHTER)
JONES: I love Joy.
(LAUGHTER)
JONES: It actually started one day...
REID: I love you, too.
Now, I have gotten a chance to see -- mm-hmm?
JONES: No, it started -- I saw you one day. I saw you. And I was like, oh, my God, and just started watching.
And I think, at the time, Steve was at the board, and I was like, who is this guy? He's absolutely thorough and awesome. Who is he? He looks concerned. I need him in my life.
And that's how it started.
(LAUGHTER)
REID: So, let me quickly play a little montage for our audience who has not heard some of your commentary about all those on MSNBC.
Here it is.
JONES: Oh, my God.
(LAUGHTER)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JONES: They are brother and sister, seriously, because they have both the sarcasticness and passive aggressiveness that we need when we're getting some (EXPLETIVE DELETED) off our chest.
This is Lawrence? Is this guy -- you all been talking about Lawrence? I like that guy. He's very common.
Brian -- Brian is petty. I love him.
I bow at the altar of the magnificence of the geometrical -- it's just -- and she's not even moving.
When Nicky put her glasses on, that means there's some (EXPLETIVE DELETED) that needs to be read.
I'm only here for -- for Nicky today.
Maybe he has like a whole bunch of these pants. I don't know. But he's my hero. He's my hero right now.
Joy -- Joy, do you see him, Joy? Joy, do you see that purple suit? Joy, do you know you're talking to Morris Day?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(LAUGHTER)
REID: Why was he Morris Day?
OK, I fell on the floor. I mean, literally I watched that about 400 times, because he really did put that purple suit on with -- he meant it.
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: ... not purple. It's blue. It's blue, Leslie, I promise.
(LAUGHTER)
REID: He really, truly -- he did it with authority.
But when you look at politics today, I have been -- I have had the blessing of seeing you do comedy live. And you are, obviously, hysterically funny.
But how do you find your ability to laugh at the way the things have gone over the last four years? How have you preserved that just for yourself?
JONES: Because I'm 53 years old, Joy. I've been -- I've been through a lot of presidencies, you know what I'm saying? You know, I was around with Reagan and I have been around a long time.
And I have a great sense of humor and you have to have a great sense of humor in life, because either you're going to cry all night or you're going to laugh. I'd rather laugh, you know?
REID: Yeah.
JONES: It's -- you know, my favorite thing to do is to do crowd work and the person that I'm talking about, make them laugh the most. I just -- I find joy in doing -- Joy, Joy -- I find joy in doing it. It's so fun. And it makes everybody happy.
And, look, Joy, people who didn't know each other before now know each other. Like all of these people that are coming, I don't know them.
REID: Yes.
JONES: Madeleine Albright, somebody told me, I was like, oh, I didn't know she was somebody. I was just talking to a duo walking on a jacket. You know what I'm saying?
Like, you know, James Carville, oh my God. I couldn't believe it. Like I love it. I love that they love it.
REID: You're making people love politics. So, I have to ask you. You were just in Georgia. You did an event for -- not in Georgia, but you were doing an event for Jon Ossoff.
I don't know if you got a chance to watch this debate that took place this past week. But let me play just a little bit of it for those who didn't see it.
Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JON OSSOFF (D), GEORGIA SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: Our senator has been absent, is absent. Doesn't think he needs to be here answering questions. Doesn't think he needs to be in Washington passing relief for the people.
RAPHAEL WARNOCK (D), GEORGIA SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: When you received the private briefing regarding the coronavirus pandemic, you dumped millions of dollars of stock in order to protect your own investments. And then weeks later, when there came an opportunity to give ordinary Georgians an extra $600 of relief, you said you saw no need and called it counterproductive.
Why do you think it's counterproductive to help ordinary Georgians in the middle of a pandemic?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: What do you make of this -- of this race, and what do you think the stakes are for the country?
JONES: Well, I think everybody needs to know that the people that are in Senate now that need their place taken are not taking care of this country. That's what we need to look at.
I mean, it's very obvious. We have people who have died. We have people who are unemployed. We have people who are hungry and losing their jobs and losing their businesses.
And these -- all these people pay taxes. We were looking for America to take care of us. That's the first thing.
REID: Yeah.
JONES: Second of all, what's at stake is our democracy. And, you know, how can you not look at these two candidates and not want them to represent your state?
I tell you, Jon Ossoff, what? What a man, what a man, what a man, what a majestic (ph) man.
(LAUGHTER)
JONES: Gosh. Gosh. That's what we want our Senate to look like. We want our Senate to look like that.
REID: Yeah.
And, let me ask you this, because, you know, I like to say, I've gotten to see you in clubs, in comedy clubs. And there are so many performers that are hurting right now who really depended on live performances, in nightclubs, on the places where you have done so much work to get to where you are today.
JONES: Uh-huh.
REID: Does it frustrate you and enrage you that it's so hard to get our representatives to just pass a bill that could help folks like that, the people who are suffering that way.
JONES: I'm -- you know what I'm more about that? I'm not as mad as them as I'm mad at us as the people for not making them do it. Do you understand what I'm saying?
REID: Yeah.
JONES: How are we divided right now? That makes no sense.
REID: Yeah.
JONES: How we made this pandemic a political thing, it makes me absolutely enraged. And it makes me go --
REID: Yes.
JONES: -- OK, is half our country is selfish? Are y'all selfish? Are you not really taking -- like are you really not taking this seriously? You have seen 300,000 people and just the sight of seeing bodies in a freezer truck, Joy.
How does that not break your --
REID: Yeah.
JONES: -- break whatever it is? Even if you don't believe it and I'm not going to wear a mask just because I don't want to be a part of the bad stuff that's going on. Come on, you guys.
REID: Yeah.
JONES: When are you going to start thinking about each other instead of our own agendas?
REID: Absolutely, amen to that.
OK, I have to ask you a question about "Supermarket Sweep". I would -- I'd be remiss if I did not ask.
JONES: Yeah.
REID: OK. So, you need to give some advice. Now, if -- I was, let's say, on "Supermarket Sweep", would it make more sense logically to go for the big mega pack of diapers or to go for the ham? Because I feel like go for the ham is the way people want to go. But which way should go?
JONES: Well, the hams -- I think the hams are priced at $65. And the diapers are priced at something like $47. So, it's always good to go for the meat first. The meat, meat.
REID: Yes.
JONES: And then, plus, we have a lot of items that are marked with the gold -- with the gold sticker so you know that it is over $100. So, it's always good --
REID: Yes.
JONES: -- to go for the meat, because they got $300 meat over there. They got $60 for all the steaks (ph) are $65. It's always good to go for the meat first.
I understand that diapers cost a lot but --
REID: I love you.
JONES: (INAUDIBLE)
REID: Amen. Leslie Jones, I love you and there is nothing you can do about it. I adore you. Thank you so much for being here.
(CROSSTALK)
REID: You made my year. I'm retiring now, though. I'm retiring now because you came on my show.
Before we take a quick break, take a look at some of our favorite moments from the first six months of THE REIDOUT.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Good evening, I'm Joy Reid, and welcome to THE REIDOUT.
My first guest is the man who will face Donald Trump in November, former Vice President Joe Biden.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Senator Kamala Harris of California.
Joining me now, Stacey Abrams. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.
Liza Garza and Patrisse Cullors, co-founders of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Breaking news tonight from the Department of Justice, streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin, where protests are continuing after another police shooting of a black man.
The most volatile, postelection transition period in modern, American history.
We have some breaking news that we have to report to you. Unfortunately, that news is that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, has died apparently.
A short time ago, Donald Trump left the White House and was flown to Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. It was described as a precautionary measure, after he tested positive for the coronavirus.
There are moments in this job when you realize that you're witnessing some of the great horrors of history. This is a president, who was just hospitalized for an intensely contagious disease. He is still highly contagious. Highly contagious.
He took off his mask. A highly infectious person, standing there, surrounded by many, other people.
I am joined by Ja'Ron Smith, former deputy assistant to the president in the Trump administration.
Do you accept and believe that Joe Biden is the president-elect of the United States?
JA'RON SMITH, FORMER DEPUTY TRUMP AIDE: Well, I think we should just let the -- the nation kind of run its course on the investigations and lawsuits.
REID: What -- what investigation, specifically?
SMITH: Well, I mean, there's a number of lawsuits that we filed that --
REID: Give me a specific one. Name -- name me one. Name me one that has not already been thrown out.
SMITH: I'm not going to get specific. I'm just saying, very generally, on the --
REID: But you're the one who said it. But hold on. You said that you think it should run its course in all the investigations. So, you ought to know what investigations you mean and what you are alleging happened.
SMITH: I -- I wasn't being specific. I was meaning that, generally.
REID: I am joined now by Cori Bush, the Democratic primary winner in Missouri's first district.
You are a working-class woman. Do you think that that's what's missing in Congress? So many of those people are millionaires and multimillionaires, so many of them are disconnected from the idea that $600 in your unemployment check could make all the difference in the world. That's something they can't relate to.
Do you think the fact that you can relate to those kinds of struggles, do you think that will make you a different kind of congresswoman? And in what way would you be different?
CORI BUSH (D-MO), CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: Yes, it will make me a different congressperson. For me, being someone who has lived out of my car. You know, let me tell you, that pain of the struggle that I've been through. I can still feel that pain right now. So, that pain is walking with me into the doors of -- into the doors of congress. And -- and that's what's going to feed me. That's what's going to fuel everything I do.
REID: I am joined now by Jacob Blake's father. I want to talk to you just a little bit about how Jacob is doing. How are his spirits? And what is his prognosis for recovery?
JACOB BLAKE, SR., JACOB BLAKE'S FATHER: He's heavily sedated. So, he's in and out of consciousness. And we just -- you know, he's hanging on, joy. And he's hanging on so tough that they can't write him off. He's a tough, young -- he's a tough guy.
REID: If he is paralyzed, shackling him makes no sense, right? He's not going anywhere.
BLAKE: Well, it made no sense, Joy, for the seven shots in his back. That made no sense.
REID: Right. And he's talking --
BLAKE: None of this makes sense to me.
REID: Kamala Harris has now made history as the first black woman to join a major-party ticket. Today, former Vice President Joe Biden has chosen Senator Harris to be his running mate.
For a lot of black women in America today, this is the ultimate affirmation. Never again will little black girls and brown girls and white girls and Asian girls ever think of the vice president of the United States and not see themselves.
Vote for all the people who were denied for centuries this basic right of citizenship, the enslaved and their descendants, who still had to fight for the vote 100 years after the 13th Amendment. Women who went to jail for demanding suffrage and only got it on the 19th out of 27 amendments to the Constitution.
Vote because our rights matter. Our lives matter. Our planet matters and because you matter.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: There is more to come on our REIDOUT holiday special. Don't go anywhere.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REID: 2020, what a year it has been. Despite the virus and the horrors that have come out of this White House, we managed to launch this very show from our home six months ago now. Now you see me here each night, but this show wouldn't come together without my wonderful staff and crew.
Executive producer Tina Urbanski.
Senior producers, Robert Zeliger, Lorena Ruiz, Pete Fall.
Line producer, Robert Lyon.
Segment producers, Tiffany Mullon, Valerie McCabe, Kai Ma, Will Rabbe, Jonathan Helman and Rachel Witkin.
Our booking producers, Bridget Mulcany, Kiir Knight.
Associate producers, Adam Garnett, Lauren Raposa, Henry "Hank" Butler.
Digital producer, Geet Jeswani.
Production assistant, Noa Halffe.
News associate, Esohe Osabuohien.
And 2020 interns, Samuel Cronin, Jacob Imber, and Jessica Torres.
Our directors are Sterling Brown, Darin Devivo.
Our technical production manager is Chris Wan.
Our technical directors, Bob Barton, Emily Groh, Leisel Kober, and Dane Wilson.
Our audio engineers, Rob Alexander and Daniel Demyanovich.
Stage managers, Louisa Abreu, Thomas Franco, and Jaclyn Palefsky.
Steadi cam operators, Kareem McKelvey, Daniel Swaratsingh, Matthew Zeidman.
Robotic cameras run by Katie Abline, Mark Schmidt, Michael Young.
Video and lighting, Rachel Finn and Douglas Youmans.
Graphics playback, Lindsey Hargrave, Rebecca Schumann, Deirdre Rogliano.
Our video playback, Mary K Makanjuola.
Our teleprompter is Marquise Hansford and Jesse Zingman.
And our editors, Evan Caligor, Caroline Garnes, Katie Hakucsa, Jim Jenkin, Kim Mayhorn, Annette Perretta, Nicholas Savino, Steve Thornton, Andrew Trattler. Our art directors, Markus Frei and Matt Nieroda.
Our graphics coordinator Alex Sweeney.
Our graphic artists Mia Arroni, Dan Brock, Antonio Franqueira, Teddy Hahn, and Art Mkrtchyan.
A special thanks to MSNBC president, Phil Griffin. And thank you to everyone involved in the making of THE REIDOUT. All hands, large and small.
And thanks to you at home for watching. Happy holidays to you and your family and let 2021 bring better days.
END
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